User:Rich Farmbrough/Talk Archive Mega 2

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October 2009 - September 2010 inclusive

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French communes

You've added the remaining infoboxes? Awesome, I've been trying to get somebody to do it for yonks. Well done! Can you update Wikipedia:WikiProject French communes/Status then? I knew you were working on the French communes, I didn't really look to see what it was you wer edoing, I assumed you were just cleaning up existing infboxes and links. Now that is good news. Himalayan 20:37, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I'll add an infobox settlement to those tomorrow perhaps as they aren't compatible. Would you support an update of the french communes infobox in a standard layout like the Italian comune box? Himalayan 20:41, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Are you absolutely positive you've added an infobox to all the others? Good grief your edit count is going to be gigantic... 1,000,000 + edits Himalayan 20:42, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

If you are technically minded, admittedly I am not in regards to computer coding, you may want to converse with User:Fritzpoll. I am pretty sure he could give you some lessons although you do run smackbot so you obviously have some level of knowledge in regards to coding bots and are far more likely to understand them than I would. If we could utilize your sheer power on here into something much quicker than even AWB into a much more effective and efficent bot for some of your bigger tasks and you can get the WP:BAG group behind you I am pretty certain you could achieve some quite astounding tasks on here. The biggest problem in regards to standardisation articles on settlements on here and getting some consistency was that the people running bots are not willing to run them for long periods and consistnetly like yourself . They would typically do one country and then go into hiding. What we need is a bot to run making things consistent through every country on here like you have been doing with AWB so far but to speed up the process and allow you to get things done faster and more efficiently. It is for instance going to take me months adding infoboxes to Romanian communes for instance, with a bot would probably take a few days max... Himalayan 20:57, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I do French reasonably well if there are articles pressing for translation, let me know. I know there are pages/projects etc for articles needing translation and I watch them, but often nobody gives much idea of how important they are. You can check e.g. Battles of Latrun, Trun, Orne, Léon Gard, to see that I have half an idea how to put into the English WP and try to follow the WP style guides (which change underfoot) as I do. I hope you will see from those that I don't just copy paste I reorganise and sort it out to suit an English speaking audience, but another set of eyes always helps.
I can do a bit of Latin too, which I did at Symphonia and again followed up cross reffing and deciding that the Latin was better placed at Timpani, before this was only in Latin and I am not saying my translation is brilliant only that at least now it is English not Latin, and is linked to for example the elm tree because that is what it says. I know that links in quotations are kinda frowned upon but sometimes that is all one can do (or make a huge circumlocution to repeat oneself).
This does not really belong on Rich's talk page, more really on Himalayan's, but I put it here first for visibility of all three of us. My very best wishes SimonTrew (talk) 07:00, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Nope, definately don't transfer infoboxes from Romanian wiki! Heavens no!! The best thing would be a bot to add infoboxes using the statistics website. As for the old translation project, Jen and I gave it an overhaul, most of the old pages are stale and inactive and should be deleted. Himalayan 11:32, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Broken pages

Thanks for the pointer — the thing is that, while they're too big now, they weren't too big when I created the subpages. People have expanded the templates to the point that they're too large now. I'll fix the problem. Nyttend (talk) 01:17, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

It's been around longer than these county template subpages: I've always split several states' lists into multiple subpages, because I encountered the too-many-templates problem when I first started creating these subpages. By the way — I archive my talk page at the end of every third month, so your comments aren't being deleted. Nyttend (talk) 01:23, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

pas de legumes reference section

The Pas de légumes article still has a problem with references, and I really cannot see what to do. Are you able to help at all? Thanks Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 10:13, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Done.

Rich Farmbrough, 13:29, 1 October 2009 (UTC).

thank you! Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 14:46, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Totally disputed

Why didn't you just redirect Template:Totally-disputed to Template:Disputed? I have done that now. If that was a mistake, please let me know. If you agree, you can add it to SmackBot. Debresser (talk) 10:14, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

It used to combine both POV and Disputed. Now I redirected it to Disputed only. Averything better than have a Tdeprecated on it. Do you perhaps want to restore the original template? Debresser (talk) 11:37, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
I never liked that template, combining two separate ideas in one. However i would be inclined to simply put {{Article issues|POV+{{{date|}}}|disputed={{{date|}}}}} if I were to go against consensus and flout TfD. Rich Farmbrough, 11:41, 1 October 2009 (UTC).
Agree with your dislike. Wait a second. Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2009_January_22 decided to delete it. Why don't you just do that? It is anyway not transcluded anywhere. Debresser (talk) 11:58, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Ok. We wait. How much more can we wait? It has been redirected, Tdeprecated, and in general kicked and beaten from January till now. I say it's time you delete it. Believe me, nobody will shed a tear. And if they do, send them to me. I'll find them some tissue. Debresser (talk) 12:45, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
See Wikipedia_talk:Templates_for_deletion#Totally_disputed. Debresser (talk) 13:02, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Category:Pages using deprecated templates

Please see Category:Pages using deprecated templates, to improve the explanatory text I have added as necessary, and to admire the result. Debresser (talk) 10:50, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Debresser (talk) 12:28, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
I've replied on Category_talk:Pages_using_deprecated_templates#Circumvent.3F. Debresser (talk) 13:36, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Anyway I added the {{Empty category}} template yesterday, and that should help keep prospective deletions at bay. Debresser (talk) 13:51, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

String manip functions

Totally agree with you there. There are conversations basically saying don't let the editors have too much power, I will find them if you want. So this is a deliberate decision not to let us be able to do that. I have tried by hook or crook to do a regulare expression or a contex-free grammar and it simply will not let you. Hence my struggle at [[Infobox: Hungarian settlement] etc. Full disclosure: I have been a profesional software engineer since I was twelve years old, I have half a clue how to do this stuff. If you look at User:SimonTrew/reverse you will see exactly the problem. That would, without being stopped, reverse any set of letters. In fact it is meant as a test that we can reverse names from Eastern name order. But it DOES NOT WORK because it says template loop detected, which is of course the entire point, to let the template call itself. SimonTrew (talk) 14:46, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

YYYY-MM-DD numerical date format in footnotes

Hi. FYI, as you have had interest in this in the recent past, there is now an RfC under way on this issue at Wikipedia:Mosnum/proposal_on_YYYY-MM-DD_numerical_dates.--Epeefleche (talk) 03:34, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

FYI, I tried to work some of your thinking in to a re-work of the proposal that appears below the comment of supporter # 21.--Epeefleche (talk) 07:45, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
i dunno if this is any use to you, but User:Mjroots told me the YY etc format was done for date linking. Now, I understand, it is deprecated. {{cite}} still recommends it. So one is between a rock and a hard place. SimonTrew (talk) 15:05, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
I know what you mean, but no one is going to be castigated for using the wrong date format. More a question of just getting on with it. Rich Farmbrough, 17:22, 1 October 2009 (UTC).
I've been so castigated! Rich--is it possible to have your bot change dates to dates where months are spelled our or abbreviated, and to change all dates in an article (it now only changes some, leading to lack of uniformity in formerly uniform format articles). Tx.--Epeefleche (talk) 22:28, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Articles for merging with no partner

Please don't check this category for a few days. I'm using it for detection of something else. So far it has been empty, BTW. I'll update you when I'm finished. Please let me know ASAP if there are complications and I should not have done this. Debresser (talk) 11:02, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I'll do that next time then. Thanks for the advise. I anyway check it on a daily basis. And I don't think there are many other editors who do this. Debresser (talk) 11:39, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Plan aborted and category empty. Debresser (talk) 02:36, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Queue

It says in Help:Job_queue#Typical values:

During a period of low loads, the job queue might be zero. At Wikimedia, the job queue is, in practice, almost never zero. In off-peak hours, it might be a few hundreds to a thousand. During a busy day, it might be a few million, but it can quickly fluctuate by 10% or more.[1] The job queue length is reported at Special:Statistics.

Yesterday night I checked the job queue every ten seconds for two minutes, and it jumped from 9 to 24 and 243 thousand, back and forth. Would you have an explanation for that? Debresser (talk) 12:41, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes it's probably broken! Each job is supposed to represent 500 page builds so 242000 means rebuilding every page in WP several times - even touching something like DMCA or Asbox should only invalidate 1 million pages => 2,000 jobs. I have been a little unhappy with the explanation of this statistic for a while. Rich Farmbrough, 13:37, 1 October 2009 (UTC).
But then I didn't read it properly. Template changes are 1 per job, HTML cache invalidations are 500 per job. So that level of activity might be reasonable. Rich Farmbrough, 13:40, 1 October 2009 (UTC).
I had read it the same way as you. Still, that explains only how there can be that many jobs. Not how they can fluctuate that fast. Debresser (talk) 13:43, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Repeating your experiment I suspect there are three job queues, and you get a random one - it defiantly seems tri-modal. What do you think? Rich Farmbrough, 13:44, 1 October 2009 (UTC).
Where/whom to ask? Debresser (talk) 13:48, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Village pump technical. Rich Farmbrough, 21:29, 1 October 2009 (UTC).
Thought so. Posted. Debresser (talk) 21:50, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
There is an answer there. Debresser (talk) 01:18, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
There are new nswers there and a discussion about wjther to remove it at all. Debresser (talk) 13:59, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

{reflist |refs=

I noticed here that SmackBot added {{reflist}} to a page that already had {{reflist |refs=}}. That caused all the references to appear as cite errors. I think I have seen SmackBot make the same edit to other pages.

Maybe SmackBot could be "taught" that {{reflist |refs=}} equals {{reflist}}. 75.69.0.58 (talk) 13:50, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I told it to ignore those pages, but I regenerated the rule-set for October... I think the WP:AWB developers may have fixed it now. Rich Farmbrough, 13:57, 1 October 2009 (UTC).
Hi Rich, on 14:03:52 in this edit SmackBot broke the new |refs= thingi again. Sebastian scha. (talk) 14:57, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Hm I upgraded AWB to no avail. I'll have to go back to skipping these articles. Rich Farmbrough, 23:14, 1 October 2009 (UTC).

Tdeprecated-inline

Should we deprecate Template:Tdeprecated-inline? Or even nominate it for deletion? It is not in use, and because it has none of the features of {{Tdeprecated}}, I don't think it has any use. Debresser (talk) 14:09, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Does that mean that e.g. the templates in Category:Deprecated citation templates should have been deprecated with {{Tdeprecated-inline}} rather than with {{Tdeprecated}} as they have been? Debresser (talk) 14:43, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
I have added the whole category part of {{Tdeprecated}} to {{Tdeprecated-inline}}. Do you think that was a good idea? Debresser (talk) 21:55, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Can't see why not. Rich Farmbrough, 23:17, 1 October 2009 (UTC).

Good. Does that answer pertain to the previous question in this section as well? Debresser (talk) 00:07, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Tdeprecated

{{#ifeq:{{ARTICLESPACE}}|Template
| {{#ifeq:{{PAGENAME}}|{{BASEPAGENAME}}<!--Don't categorise /doc pages -->
   |{{DMC|Templates deprecated|from|{{{date|}}}||Deprecated templates}}
  }}
| [[Category:Pages using deprecated templates]]
}}

With this code, transclusion of a deprecated template onto another template will result in the second template being categorised by DMC, not into Category:Pages using deprecated templates as should be. I checked this. To fix this, the code should be something like: 

{{#ifeq:{{ARTICLESPACE}}|Template
| {{#ifeq:{{PAGENAME}}|{{BASEPAGENAME}}<!--Don't categorise /doc pages -->
   |{{#ifeq:{{PAGENAME}}|{{{1}}}
      |{{DMC|Templates deprecated|from|{{{date|}}}||Deprecated templates}}
    }}
  }}
| [[Category:Pages using deprecated templates]]
}}

Where {{{1}}} is the same pagename entered by the editor. Will that work? What will happen if the editor didn't use a capital as the first letter of the template name? Debresser (talk) 14:34, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Use: 

{{#ifeq:{{ARTICLESPACE}}|Template
| {{#ifeq:{{PAGENAME}}|{{BASEPAGENAME}}<!--Don't categorise /doc pages -->
   |{{#ifeq:{{PAGENAME}}|{{#ucfirst:{{{1}}}}}<!-- only for the deprecated template itself -->
      |{{DMC|Templates deprecated|from|{{{date|}}}||Deprecated templates}}
    }}
  }}
| [[Category:Pages using deprecated templates]]
}}
Rich Farmbrough, 14:43, 1 October 2009 (UTC).

Thanks. I didn't know about that #ucthing, but I see the idea was basically correct. Will you make the edit? Debresser (talk) 14:47, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done. Thanks. Debresser (talk) 21:56, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Access dates

Agree with your <sigh> at Wikipedia:Mosnum/proposal on YYYY-MM-DD numerical dates#Comment. When I first started citing web pages (after I started citing books), I checked Template:Cite web/doc, where for |accessdate= it states "Full date when item was accessed, in the appropriate date format for the article", and I've been under the impression that this is a first-accessed date. However, at Template talk:Cite web#Discussion of second problem, Happy-melon tells me "Accessdates represent the most recent time when the link is known to have worked"; and nobody has shown me where to find a definitive guide one way or the other. Any ideas?

Re your statement "Shame most sites now hide the real creation date of their pages"; I usually do a "view source" and check the hidden code at to or bottom. Here I often find page creation date and author. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:13, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Templates merge

I created {{Tfm}}, {{Tfm2}}, {{Tfm-inline}}, {{Tfmnotice}} and documentation pages. And tested the whole thing. You are invited to have a look. I shall wait for your "Ok" before adding them to Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Header.

In connection with this, I would like to ask you to update {{Tfd}}. Nothing major, just capitals and the word "please". But that still would be nice, in order that all templates and docpages look alike. Here is the code. 

 {{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|Template
|{{Ombox
 |type=delete
 |image=none
 |text='''This [[Help:Template|template]] is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:Deletion policy|deletion policy]].'''<p>Please discuss this matter at '''[[Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#{{{2|Template:{{ucfirst:{{{1|{{PAGENAME}}}}}}}}}}|this template's entry]]''' at [[Wikipedia:Templates for deletion|templates for deletion]] to help reach a consensus.
----
''<small class="plainlinks" style="line-height:1.2em;">[[Wikipedia:Maintenance|Maintenance]] use only: Place {{tlx|Tfd}} or {{tlx|Tfd-inline}} on the template(s) nominated for deletion. Then [{{fullurl:Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/{{#time: Y F j}}|action=edit&editintro=Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/editnotice&section=1}} edit the Tfd log] to create the discussion entry.  E.g.:''

''{{subst:Tfd2|{{{1|{{PAGENAME}}}}}|text= Your reason(s) for nominating the template. ~~~~ }}''

''Please consider notifying the [{{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|action=history}} author(s)] by placing {{nowrap|{{tlx|Tfdnotice|{{PAGENAME}}|{{#ifeq:{{{page|{{PAGENAME}}}}}|{{PAGENAME}}||{{{page}}}}}|subst=yes}} ~~~~}} on their talk page(s).</small>''
}}<includeonly>[[Category:Wikipedia templates for deletion|{{PAGENAME}}]]</includeonly>
|<div class="boilerplate metadata plainlinks" id="tfd" style="background-color: transparent; padding: 0; font-size:xx-small; color:#000000; text-align: center; border-bottom:1px solid #AAAAAA;">‹ The [[Help:Template|template]] below {{#if:{{{1|}}}|(''[[Template:{{ucfirst:{{{1}}}}}|{{{1}}}]]'')|}} is being considered for deletion. See [[Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#{{{2|Template:{{ucfirst:{{{1|{{PAGENAME}}}}}}}}}}|templates for deletion]] to help reach a consensus. ›</div>
}}<noinclude>
{{Pp-template}}
{{Documentation}}
<!-- Add cats and interwikis to the /doc subpage, please, not here! -->
</noinclude>

Debresser (talk) 20:09, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

And another question. What category should these templates sort into: Category:Templates for deletion, Category:Items to be merged, or Category:Templates to be merged? Debresser (talk) 22:21, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Items I reckon it's small enough. Rich Farmbrough, 01:19, 2 October 2009 (UTC).
It's some 320 pages. Is that small enough? Debresser (talk) 01:58, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Can Template:Tfd1-merge be deleted? It looks as though it was made to assist in substitution of {{Tfd}}. Which is not practised (any more?). Debresser (talk) 00:13, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Stick a speedy tag on it. Rich Farmbrough, 00:55, 2 October 2009 (UTC).
Ok, I made something up and recommended it for speedy. Did you notice the other 2 requests in this section? Debresser (talk) 01:21, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

It is late

And I know, the later it gets the harder it is to get answers from you. So if you could just answer my smal question in #Tdeprecated-inline and the bigger ones over here in this section. Now add to that my idea for a solution in #Merge templates and namespace, which I proposed to be tested oin Template_talk:Merge#Problem_when_using_with_templates. Debresser (talk) 02:56, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

See you tomorrow night after Sukkoth. Debresser (talk) 14:21, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

New page in your user space

You probably won't have seen this: User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Talk Archive Index Martin451 (talk) 10:05, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 01:31, 4 October 2009 (UTC).

Algerian stub sorting

Did you finish this after? Himalayan 15:04, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

OK thanks. Don't worry about Romania, this site has the 2002 census details. It is a task for a bot operator like Kotbot to do later.

I do, howveer, have a request with Colombian infoboxes. Can you go through the Category:Municipalities of Colombia subcats and ensure that the map is inserted into the infobox See Florencia, Caquetá. A basic edit like this. You'll find that all you have to do is add the actual image name, the infoboxes already have the caption ready. I think I only did the first one or two provinces manually starting with A.. Himalayan 18:35, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Kippenburger

Hi Rich, I understand you created the archive on Sir Howard Kippenberger, I'm his biological Grand Nephew and I was wondering first what it was that drove you to make this archive and second where you got the information? It would be a wonderful thing if I could learn more about my illustrious Grand Uncle and I'd like to give you my thanks for doing the work you have done thus far.

Allan Trainer --Radio-commander (talk) 05:07, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 17:51, 2 October 2009 (UTC).

French Commune

It would be great if you could comment here. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 00:05, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Bot question

Quick question. There are certain phrases (such as "passed away") that Wikipedia suggest should not be used (in lieu of, in that case, "died".) I that a fix that a bot could make? Of course it would have to have the intelligence or oversight not to change the phrase if it is within quotes. Thoughts? Many thanks.--Epeefleche (talk) 04:21, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Redirects

Please have alook at User_talk:Debresser#New_dated_categories. So far I only checked 1-3. Debresser (talk) 01:44, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I finished updating everything. Please delete the redrects I listed on my talpage. Debresser (talk) 03:00, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I solved my problem by removing Special:Prefixindex/Template:In-universe/ and replacing it by an ordinary list. That also removed the /doc /sandbox and /testcases. :) Debresser (talk) 04:54, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Not that I wold be unhappy if somebody were to boldly delete the redirects in Special:Prefixindex/Template:In-universe/ and a good deal of the others... Debresser (talk) 06:10, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Romania

Exactly. The person who created most of the Romanian commune articles did so by copying the statistics from crappy Romanian wiki which seems to relish getting things wrong. The current population figures are all false and unreferenced. This is why I began going through them adding infoboxes, references and correct population data. Hopefully Kotbot can do it. Himalayan 10:49, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Any chance you could use Magnus's upload bot or whatever the TUSC account is to upload the district maps of Riga from Latvian wiki? Himalayan 14:26, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

John E. Hamm

... some of the changes recently have left me way behind...however, here is a link that may answer a question you left me. Could you fix some part of this as it relates to Dr. Hamm's article ? Perhaps a template link at the bottom ? United States Ambassador to Chile

John5Russell3Finley (talk) 11:27, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Merge templates and namespace

One of the problems of the three merge templates is that they automatically add the namespace to thename of any article to be merged. This is done in {{Pagelist}}. Because of that feature, an editor who adds the namespace himself, ends up with a redlink. See Template_talk:Merge#Problem_when_using_with_templates. How could {{Pagelist}} be updated so to avoid this. It would be good if {{PAGENAME}} would behave like a template: {{PAGENAME|Template:X1}} = X1. Debresser (talk) 11:55, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

{{FULLFULLPAGENAME}} is on the other side of the scales of what I am looking for. Debresser (talk) 12:38, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
I've checked the other templates from its documentation page, and even had a look at Category:Wikipedia metatemplates, but I found nothing that does what I am looking for. Would you be willing to write up such a template. I had a look at it, but am afraid that that is still above my abilities. Debresser (talk) 13:40, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
I think I was looking for {{PAGENAME:Template:X1}}, which renders X1. Debresser (talk) 02:45, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Now {{Pagelist}} could be rewritten from 
-->{{#if:{{{3|}}}|{{#if:{{{4|}}}|,| and}} {{{delim|}}}[[:{{{nspace|{{NAMESPACE}}}}}:{{{3}}}|{{{3}}}]]{{{edelim|{{{delim|}}}}}}<!--
to 
-->{{#if:{{{3|}}}|{{#if:{{{4|}}}|,| and}} {{{delim|}}}[[:{{{nspace|{{NAMESPACE}}}}}:{{PAGENAME:{{{3}}}}}|{{{3}}}]]{{{edelim|{{{delim|}}}}}}<!--
. And so forth from 1 to 20. And that would spare the abovementioned editor a redlink. Debresser (talk) 02:51, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

See Template talk:Pagelist that I tested it and it worked. Debresser (talk) 06:32, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done. I am so proud. Debresser (talk) 17:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Date formats

Hi Rich, if you're interested, can you change the formats for other Snow Patrol articles too? No problem if you cant though. Thanks for doing it on Up to Now, I had no idea the comma wasnt required, and I checked WP:DATE to make sure. Suede67 (talk) 12:48, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. But what those articles actually need is the british date format, eg - 1 January 2009. I did not know this before and added lots of dates in other format - December 31, 2008. Can AWB do this quickly? I got AWB permission myself and have been trying to figure out how its done. Suede67 (talk) 01:29, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
Respect!!! And I was thinking of doing it all manually sometime. Suede67 (talk) 04:06, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
Just noticed that though the other tour articles you took care of, this one still remains, Taking Back the Cities Tour. Can you get to it? Thanks. Suede67 (talk) 19:48, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! Suede67 (talk) 20:10, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Tfd

In connection with the new Tfm templates and the update of the old Tfd templates, I would like to ask you to update {{Tfd}}. Nothing major, just capitals and the word "please". But that still would be nice, in order that all templates and documentation pages look consistent. Here is the code. 

 {{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|Template
|{{Ombox
 |type=delete
 |image=none
 |text='''This [[Help:Template|template]] is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:Deletion policy|deletion policy]].'''<p>Please discuss this matter at '''[[Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#{{{2|Template:{{ucfirst:{{{1|{{PAGENAME}}}}}}}}}}|this template's entry]]''' at [[Wikipedia:Templates for deletion|templates for deletion]] to help reach a consensus.
----
''<small class="plainlinks" style="line-height:1.2em;">[[Wikipedia:Maintenance|Maintenance]] use only: Place {{tlx|Tfd}} or {{tlx|Tfd-inline}} on the template(s) nominated for deletion. Then [{{fullurl:Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/{{#time: Y F j}}|action=edit&editintro=Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/editnotice&section=1}} edit the Tfd log] to create the discussion entry.  E.g.:''

''{{subst:Tfd2|{{{1|{{PAGENAME}}}}}|text= Your reason(s) for nominating the template. ~~~~ }}''

''Please consider notifying the [{{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|action=history}} author(s)] by placing {{nowrap|{{tlx|Tfdnotice|{{PAGENAME}}|{{#ifeq:{{{page|{{PAGENAME}}}}}|{{PAGENAME}}||{{{page}}}}}|subst=yes}} ~~~~}} on their talk page(s).</small>''
}}<includeonly>[[Category:Wikipedia templates for deletion|{{PAGENAME}}]]</includeonly>
|<div class="boilerplate metadata plainlinks" id="tfd" style="background-color: transparent; padding: 0; font-size:xx-small; color:#000000; text-align: center; border-bottom:1px solid #AAAAAA;">‹ The [[Help:Template|template]] below {{#if:{{{1|}}}|(''[[Template:{{ucfirst:{{{1}}}}}|{{{1}}}]]'')|}} is being considered for deletion. See [[Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#{{{2|Template:{{ucfirst:{{{1|{{PAGENAME}}}}}}}}}}|templates for deletion]] to help reach a consensus. ›</div>
}}<noinclude>
{{Pp-template}}
{{Documentation}}
<!-- Add cats and interwikis to the /doc subpage, please, not here! -->
</noinclude>

Debresser (talk) 20:09, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I aksed what category these templates should sort into, and you said "Items, I reckon it's small enough". It's some 320 pages. Is that small enough? I have also asked input on Wikipedia_talk:Templates_for_deletion#Category, but nobody ever writes me anything there. Debresser (talk) 05:01, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes I would say 320 is reasnably small, will fit in 2 pages. Rich Farmbrough, 22:56, 4 October 2009 (UTC).

Date format

I see in the discussion you seem to oppose the motion to eliminate YYYY-MM-DD. Yet, you are using a script that removes them - and even changing to the European style on US-based articles. See this --JimWae (talk) 18:39, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I only supported them in access-dates, and maybe some tables. Even there linking is deprecated. A little research is swinging my opinion on using numeric dates at all, basically that humans cannot be trusted to enter them correctly. Rich Farmbrough, 18:56, 4 October 2009 (UTC).

I see now there were other date format problems in that article, but you changed both text and accessdates to DD MMMM YYYY in a US article. Some people have been removing YYYY-MM-DD despite the vote being in progress & opposition being almost 2 to 1. I think doing so is very premature. I do not wish to see all usage of YYYY-MM-DD virtually banned. Btw, it is not established YYYY-MM-DD is ISO. I myself prefer YYYY-MMM-DD (which gives JAN, FEB, MAR, APR, MAY,...) and set my computers to use that, since (especially in Canada) ##/##/YYYY is completely ambiguous - and I do not like to widen fields (and reduce what else can fit on the screen) with needlessly long monthnames in tables & such --JimWae (talk) 19:25, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Deleteme now

A tag has been placed on Deleteme now requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an article with no content whatsoever, or whose contents consist only of external links, a "See also" section, book references, category tags, template tags, interwiki links, a rephrasing of the title, or an attempt to contact the subject of the article. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content. You may wish to consider using a Wizard to help you create articles - see the Article Wizard.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. -- BigDom 18:44, 4 October 2009 (UTC) {{hangon}}

Italic title?

What, assuming that you know, is the policy on the use of the italic title? I saw it for the first time this evening on The New York Times article, but do not see it on any other newspaper article that I have looked for. In theory, this could be used on any article which is a title, including books, magazines, albums, yet I have never seen it used before. Was its use in error? I am very curious about this, and hope you can clear it up. Cheers! ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 22:20, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

It seems ripe for misuse. I do not know how one would justify its use for certain kinds of titles but not for others. I think consistency in titling is something for which we should strive. ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 22:24, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Books prefers an italic title. However, this being a newspaper and not a book, neither Wikipedia:WikiProject Media nor Wikipedia:WikiProject Journalism offer any guide. Perhaps, in the absence of such guidance, the editor concerned took his example from WP book practice? --Redrose64 (talk) 23:40, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually there is guidance on this. [1] says "Formatting, such as italics or bolding, is technically achievable in page titles, but is used only in special cases. An example of such an exception is to produce italics for taxonomic names of genera and species." and further down that the only currently agreed use is for flora and fauna. Rich Farmbrough, 05:27, 5 October 2009 (UTC).

That would indicate that the italics should be removed from The New York Times article. ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 13:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
NYT was taken care of by another editor. ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 14:27, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Funny

Sometimes it's just funny how you come walzing in over everybody's heads. Like in Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:FR-in-universe. Thanks for that one BTW. Now perhaps you'll copy that {{Tfd}} also? BTW, I have written the Tfd guys to their talkpages, and they are waking up. We'll probably rename it to Wikipedia:Templates for discussion, and we'll have both Tfd and Tfm sort there. Category:Items to be merged will be let for anything that doesn't have its own deletion discussion. That seems more of a symmetry to me as well. Debresser (talk) 23:40, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Is this edit ok? Debresser (talk) 00:28, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the {{Tfd}}. I just now noticed that all my template merge template were missing a parameter for the template to be merged with. So I spend some time adding that and updating the documentation pages. Debresser (talk) 02:50, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

Is it intentional that your bot is making edits like this? It capitalised the first letter in the two templates (which appears to have no visual change) and added 1 line of whitespace above the stub templates. Are so minor of edits really necessary? I could understand if these were all being done while dates were added to maintenance templates, but that is not the case here.--Rockfang (talk) 00:37, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean "...there are a bunch of categories that need nudging.."? I don't understand.--Rockfang (talk) 01:23, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Question

Is there any eason it should use substitution in the line "Please consider notifying the author(s) by placing {{subst:Tfmnotice|Tfm}} ~~~~ on their talk page(s)." in {{Tfm}}? Debresser (talk) 02:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, since it contains a heading and you would find yourself editing the template otherwise. Rich Farmbrough, 05:23, 5 October 2009 (UTC).
Oops. Debresser (talk) 08:54, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Took me a good few hours to fix that, and to update the documentation pages. I also reworked a few more Tfd templates (including difficult ones with really messed up documentation pages). I'd like to think I've got everything the way it should be by now. Debresser (talk) 14:24, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Continuation of discussion you participated in

I got to the root of the problem and suggest a change to the talkback template at Template_talk:Talkback#Proposal. Debresser (talk) 10:52, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done Debresser (talk) 14:19, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

re Negro

Hi Rich Farmbrough - I had a quick query about an AWB-assisted edit at Negro (this edit). I'm not sure whether this was your intention, but that edit seems to have changed "[[02-24-04]]" to "4 zzz24zzz 2" in one of the references. I'm afraid I'm not well up on the current consensus on date formatting, but I thought I'd bring it to your attention anyway. --☇Kateshortforbob talk☄ 13:50, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. Sorted. Rich Farmbrough, 13:56, 5 October 2009 (UTC).

Need protected edit now

Could you please do this edit to a template I am using now? Debresser (talk) 13:56, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

New dated categories

I have two updates for you on my talkpage. Debresser (talk) 15:38, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot (talk · contribs)'s edits

Why has SmackBot removed division of periods in the big figures in this edit while MOS states that big figures must be divided into period (international system)? Thank you in advance, Srinivas 13:52, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry, I hadn't seen the article. I just saw the edit and asked. Sorry for troubling you. Srinivas 16:58, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Delete

I have rename Category:Duplicate Articles to Category:Duplicate articles. Would you delete the old one? Debresser (talk) 17:41, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Boy, have we grown soft. Debresser (talk) 18:32, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
I always find the message "You are re-creating a deleted category" having a serious cold-shower effect. Debresser (talk) 18:37, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Why does Category:Wikipedia non-empty soft redirected categories list Category:AIDS as having 1 file, while in truth it is empty? Debresser (talk) 21:42, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Same thing with Category:Swaminarayan 10F, but empty and Category:Fictional creatures 1F, but empty.
Perhaps some issue with {{PAGESINCATEGORY}}. Getting hung on files. Debresser (talk) 23:26, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

0x001

Is that the way DEFAULTSORT should work: 0*001 instead of 1? See I Royal Bavarian Corps. Debresser (talk) 17:44, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Soft redirects

I look strictly from the technical side of things. Nothing undecided in this case. The mammal case is harder. Debresser (talk) 22:47, 5 October 2009 (UTC) And I don't know where to ask. Debresser (talk) 23:04, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Category:Royal Netherlands Navy mine warfare vessels was itself a subcat of Category:Mine warfare vessels of the Netherlands. And it has the unusual name in that the country should be at the end. So I removed the redirect and speedied the cat. Debresser (talk) 23:35, 5 October 2009 (UTC) Not to mention that Category:Mine warfare vessels of the Netherlands had no content of itself. Took me some time to figure that one out. Category:Mine warfare vessels of Canada helped a lot. Debresser (talk) 23:53, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Do you want me to be bold in connection with these mammals? Debresser (talk) 23:27, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Done. Is working fine. I also changed Category:Primate articles needing photos to Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of primates. The accepted structure is Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of .... Want to delete the empty cats? I have speedied them. Debresser (talk) 00:19, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Category:Systems Biology ahould be either a hard or a soft redirect, but not both. How did that happen? I removed the hard redirect, as I understand that cats should be only soft redirects. Debresser (talk) 22:51, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
    • The bot that handles category redirects leaves those cases alone, on the premise that the hard-redirect is not doing any harm as long as the {{category redirect}} template is also present. Removing it doesn't do any harm, either, though. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:10, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
I dropped a note to User_talk:MSGJ#Problem. Debresser (talk) 00:06, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
He replied. From his reply I understand that with a long term view it is better to not change the {{WikiProject China}} code. I propose turning the soft redirect into a hard one for the time being. See also Template_talk:WikiProject_China#Category_change. Debresser (talk) 11:16, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
A hard redirect doesn't work. Didn't know that. Do you have any other ideas? Debresser (talk) 11:29, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 Done. Didn't know about {{Related category}}. Thanks.Debresser (talk) 11:39, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, Category:Wikipedia_non-empty_soft_redirected_categories is down from 24 to 4, of which 3 are because of that file bug. Debresser (talk) 00:25, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I got rid of them by adding the categories to File:GreenJoe.png and then removing them. That forced a recount. Now only 1 category left. Debresser (talk) 09:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 5 October 2009

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 05:23, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Amazing work, you work fast!! Himalayan 10:20, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Why are you still creating empty articles

I do know your good faith and good work here. I am still suggesting it is not a good idea to create hundreds of thousands of essentially empty articles. I perfectly understand if you disagree but can we take this for consensus before SmackBot makes a million more

I edited, added, a few of the French communes. I know they would probably go not notable. But until people can read them in English I say let them stand. But to create hundreds of thousands of essentially blank articles does no good to a reader or an editor as far as I can see. Perhaps I am confused as to your motive. But it does no good to me. And I am trying my best as I know you are.

Best wishes. SimonTrew (talk) 15:33, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

You asked me to give you an example, I don't know if this is a good or bad one. Trun, Orne was botted not before I edited it but after SmackBot came in. I have no worries if it is fixing up details. But a non-bot had to write that first, however brief.

It is a French commune. I know you are very busy and I thank you for it. I know the article is brief but it at least has some content not entirely empty, UűI am not sure what more info you want to point you in the right direction (by my lights) I am not sure what you are missing here. Cos I know you are a good editor and said so, but I just think empty articles are unhelpful. Iwill try to find what I mean by an empty article but better savew this now before I lose it. Best wishes SimonTrew (talk) 17:35, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

OK I think I found one that you may see my point. Tura, Hungary Sod's law my partner will add some content to it tonight but it is all in the categories etc etc etc but has nothing to say. SimonTrew (talk) 17:42, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be great if the bots could take the hard work out of just making the scaffolding, I will totally support you in that. I dunno if it is worse or better to scaffold up and have no bricks behind it. I think that definitely is worthy of discussion, but not sure where best to do it (and we should carry these with us when we do.) Somewhere on the translation space or something I would imagine, but cannot think of an obvious place to put it. I hang out sometimes in WP:CONVERT as in translating articles one must do the conversions, and User:Jimp will say where best to take it. He is a great editor as are you and he will suggest somewhere best to take it, cos it does not belong there as such, but it is to do with conversion. WP:MOSNUM is just a big edit war and I am fed up with it. Jimp tries to make it better not masturbate over style guides.

Please excuse my typos once it is properly dark I can see the keyboard but at dusk the sun is straight in my eyes and I miss the keys sometimes.

My best wishes as always SimonTrew (talk) 17:59, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Category redirects

I see that this template edit adds a link to Category:Wikipedia soft redirected categories; did you notice that we already have Category:Wikipedia category redirects that has (or should have) exactly the same contents? --R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:08, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I say remove Category:Wikipedia category redirects in favor of the more correct name. Debresser (talk) 16:58, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Please stop

Can you please stop with moving articles as per WP:DASH as your moves are incorrect, and you will need to move them all back.

  • Australia–Singapore relations is correct
  • Australia – Singapore relations is incorrect
  • Australia – New Zealand relations is correct
  • Australia–New Zealand relations is incorrect

Many of the articles which you have moved were at their correct namespaces, and you should be moving them back to conform with the endash policy (pain in the arse it is to understand I know). Any probs, contact me, cheers --Russavia Dialogue 16:34, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes np. Correct title, not correct namespaces. Rich Farmbrough, 17:06, 6 October 2009 (UTC).
Sorry, yeah correct title. I think there was a recent CfD where the closing admin also did a heap of changes such as above, and I was thinking you may have seen the result of that discussion and acted on that? Anyway, it's all so confusing sometimes. Cheers, --Russavia Dialogue 17:09, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
A whole bunch started out where I was putting them, but have been round the houses. Really this was a preliminary to making sure that the correct redirects were in place. Of course the first one I hit was a Greco- which takes a hyphen. There are also a bunch of German– which should be Germany– .Rich Farmbrough, 17:12, 6 October 2009 (UTC).
As a quick side note to this discussion, after your move of Afghanistan–Tajikistan relations, the talk page seems to have not been moved with it. I'm a little unsure how to do this myself (or what in general is going on with the whole dash thing), but hopefully you can fix it. Thanks! Otebig (talk) 17:42, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Gah! Yes I can fix it. (Restoring the status quo ante.) There have been some SQL errors on page moves recently. Ho hum. Rich Farmbrough, 17:45, 6 October 2009 (UTC).

Luckily I was able to get the message typed out quickly enough before you managed to do a heap of moves unnecessarily. FYI, here's the CfD I mentioned; all but 4 of the cat moves was in fact incorrect. --Russavia Dialogue 20:28, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I deduced the alphabetisation of the country pairs had occurred. And I was in a discussion aout category redirects arising from this. But it's hard to pick up the whole story - although I should have known better from year-ranges vs. date ranges, I think another discussion about article renaming gave me the wrong idea. Rich Farmbrough, 20:33, 6 October 2009 (UTC).

Bands

Hi Rich. I started a thread here that I'd like to get some feedback on if you have the time .. thanks. — Ched :  ?  20:51, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

A New Smack Bot Feature?

Hey Rich

You may have seen my bot request for User:Brunobot, who was supposed to fix templates that end in breaks. However, i had the idea that I could give the regex find/replace to you so SmackBot could fix the templates while it fixed other problems. That way a bot would only have to visit the page once. Tell me if you are interested. Tim1357 (talk) 23:05, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Whitelines and whitespaces

  • What I had to go through to get the right amount of whitelines. In the end the solution was to add a break in the right place. Just that to find the right place... Debresser (talk) 18:54, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Did you notice that if I write {{tlx| Merge | OtherArticle }}, there are spaces before but not after the parameters?
{{Merge|OtherArticle}} See?
Perhaps a flaw in {{Tlx}}. I shall have a look. Debresser (talk) 18:54, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
I played a little on Template:Tl/sandbox, but to no avail. Do you know what needs to be done? Debresser (talk) 19:40, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
The strange thing is that it cuts of the whitespaces only after the parameter, but not before. I know about the non-breaking-space, of course. Is their nothing to be done to solve this elegantly? Debresser (talk) 19:46, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Unlinking template

Is there a template that "unlinks"? Enter "[[Whatever]]", exit "Whatever"? Debresser (talk) 19:55, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

That could be usefull as a safety measure in templates that take unlinked pages only, like {{tl|merge|[[User_talk:Debresser]]}}, rendering

{{merge}}. Debresser (talk) 22:23, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Although I have noticed that in general the idea here on Wikipedia is: let people break the rules and then fix it on a case to case basis. Not: let's build in a few safety measures, just in case people will break the rules. Debresser (talk) 22:45, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. The break is a problem, of course. I have updated the documentation pages of {{Str left}}, {{Str right}}, {{Str rightc}} and {{Trunc}}. And of {{Unlink}}, of course. Debresser (talk) 23:37, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps using {{Trunc}} instead of {{Str left}} will make a difference? Worth a try? Or perhaps it has to do with the rough behaviour of {{Str right}} in certain cases, as explained on that template's documentation. Debresser (talk) 23:40, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
I know what happens. Try {{Unlink|[[123:456]]}} and {{Unlink|[[123;456]]}} and you'll understand. Debresser (talk) 23:51, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
I spelled it out in the documentation of Template:Unlink. Even if I understand only the "what" and ot the "why". Debresser (talk) 00:10, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
The problem of {{Unlink}} is of course that it will chop off any 2 characters at the beginning and end of the string, not just link brackets. I'm working on sth now. I'll keep you posted. Debresser (talk) 00:10, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
Why doesn't Template:Unlink/sandbox do the job? It tests whether the leftmost and rightmost characters are brackets, and only then executes the unlink. Or at least, that is what it was supposed to do. Debresser (talk) 00:27, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
It renders {{#ifeq: [[ | [[ | Einstein |}}, which should have the desired result. Debresser (talk) 00:31, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps that has to do with the warning on mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions#.23ifeq:, "Warning: Content inside parser tags (such as <nowiki>) is hashed before the parser functions are evaluated, resulting in errors:"? Debresser (talk) 00:42, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

You'd better see what I did with {{Unlink}}! Debresser (talk) 01:03, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I just wanted to ask you why that happens. :) Debresser (talk) 01:19, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
I mean {{Unlink|[[Einstein]]|1}} rendering Einstein ...? Debresser (talk) 01:21, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
Oh. because you changed {{Unlink}}. Debresser (talk) 01:23, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok. Congratulations. That was a nice job. I moved the functionality of removing any given number of characters from the start and end of a string to {{Chop head and tail}}. You may want to move it somewhere more appropriate. :)) BTW, that one also might need soe update, along the lines of {{Unlink}}. Debresser (talk) 01:42, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Amalthea has pointed in Template:Chop head and tail/doc to a limitation that is true also for Template:Unlink, and I have added it to the documentation. It might be, actually I'd say it is likely to be, connected with the limitation we already new about. Debresser (talk) 10:30, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

AWB cat removal: good removal, wrong edit summary message

Hi Rich. Just saw that you had, through AWB, removed an [[Category:Articles lacking sources (Erik9bot)|Erik9bot]] cat on the article Base course. In short, I think it was correct to remove the cat, as that article now has an Unref tag, and Erik9bot normally identifies articles with no refs AND no unref tag. However, I don't think the msg left in the comment was correct; that comment was: "(Remove unref category as article appears to have one or more refs. using AWB)" The article still has no references; so it is correct to remove the Eric9bot cat, but not to say that "the article appears to have one or more refs." You might want to look into this. Cheers. N2e (talk) 20:16, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Rich for modifying the bot msg. I've seen it leave a msg on another article now and the new msg is more correct. N2e (talk) 12:38, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Mistake

Was this comment really meant for me? Debresser (talk) 23:58, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Cully

Any better? Himalayan 09:18, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. The concerning thing is that we have 2,740 articles about Swiss municipalities, most are similar one liners. Add to that the French communes, Italian comunes, Spanish, German and Austrian municipalities of similar lacking quality compared to the foreign version and it kind of puts you off as the task is such so huge as there must be over 50,000 stubs in this "communal" group! Someday maybe we will be able to click any article in any nav template at random and it will be beyond a stub!! Himalayan 10:09, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Any chance you could use Magnus's tools to upload these free Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 panorama images of Chexbres here? Just the ones by the same user Styeb. If you could do that I'll upload the ones from German wiki. Himalayan 10:54, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Rich Farmbrough. You have new messages at Tim1357's talk page.
Message added 10:56, 8 October 2009 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

I wasnt sure if you watched for my response or anything, but then i saw that you wanted me to reply here, but alas it was archived Tim1357 (talk) 10:56, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Amritsar population count

Aye, Amritsar population count looks kinda funny after correction, a bug in AWB or a typo perhaps?

|population_total = 1194,740

Cheers, --Rayshade (talk) 10:52, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks there were three of these, all fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 14:16, 9 October 2009 (UTC).

Removing {{tl:Unref}}

You've probably dealt with this thought before, but it's not in your FAQ and I don't have the strength to browse your archive, so here 'tis:

You recently removed {{unref}} from Elm Bank. That was good, as there is a single reference to the National Register of Historic Places data base so {{unref}} doesn't apply. (And, I should add, it was I who incorrectly left the {{unref}} in place after adding the NRIS reference -- I didn't realize it applied only to cases where there are NO references.)

The article is still badly deficient of references, however; the National Register database is never enough information for an article. In the case where there's only one reference in an article, might it be better to swap out {{unref}} for {{refimprove}}? Sure, that will be wrong in some cases, as one reference can be all that's needed, but I'll bet it's right more than it's wrong.

And BTW, thanks for doing a grunt task. . . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 16:42, 8 October 2009 (UTC) (I'd prefer to have any reply here, but feel free to use my Talk page as your header suggests you might.)

Actually it's the category here I'm removing. Approximately 140,000 articles had this hidden category added by the now banned Erik9Bot against my judgement. About 1% how have a reference, so I am removing them from the category. The rest we will need to decide about. Rich Farmbrough, 17:53, 8 October 2009 (UTC).
Ahhh. Sorry for my confusion. I suppose the same issue applies to the category -- Elm Bank may have one reference, but it's still inadequately referenced, but I suspect there are deeper issues here. Thanks, . . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 23:27, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Request

Please post on my talk Can you explain this edit? I am confused about the DEFAULTSORT and why you think it shouldn't be in an unreferenced category. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:42, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Small request

I nominated all templates in Category:Items to be merged with Tfm. There are still 8 templates there, because they are editprotected. And one Template:Mergeto/testcases. Would you please do the editprotected request at Template:Infobox Television episode and 7 null-edits, to give me the satisfaction of seeing that category without templates? Debresser (talk) 00:13, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Hm, I think it still needs a merge template on it. Tfm doesn't seem to understand "from" and "to", just "with".?
It doesn't. Actually there is no guideline about whther it needs to be used on both tempates or not. Personally, I think that depends. If the templates are more or less equal in scope, perhaps yes. In this specific case, where the receiving template is the dominant one, I think the Tfm on the template that will be merged into the other one is enough. Debresser (talk) 01:31, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
Oh, and thanks a lot. I appreciate that. Debresser (talk) 01:33, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
Why isn't anybody cleaning up the talkpages in Category:Items to be merged? I saw one user talkpage with a template to merge it. I don't know why, but that is admin work. And then part of the talkpages is copies of articles, like User:Cerejota/chinese-apartheid. I'm not even talking about the Wikipedia pages, which are a real nightmare. Nobody is ever going to sort them out seriously. Debresser (talk) 01:36, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Calendar edits

Please stop adding {{unreferenced}} to various calendar articles like February 2007 in Canada. Every section clearly has a news source cited at the end of every story. While it seems you were simply changing the edits from one editor to another style using a template, the original edit that declared the article was not sourced was incorrect. Please only make edits that are consistent with accurate information. For example a few years ago this happened with a bot, where a vandal had been making such edits and the bot was substantiating them. In this case, the bot made the error and then it is up to the editors to make the corrections and not simply laboriously changing the errors introduced by the bot. Thanks, Mkdwtalk 15:29, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi? How was Shabbes?

And after we've taken care of the niceties, did you notice this edit? Perhaps redirect Template:Soft redirect to Template:Category redirect? Or am I missing something? Debresser (talk) 17:09, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

You are making a puzzling mass edit

You are making another puzzling mass edit. It is not being done consistently; this may be deliberate, I do not know.

I do not understand (a) why you do this at all, and (b) why you make default sort different for Phaeton and Imogen. Are you making an error?--Toddy1 (talk) 14:59, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Partially I need to revisit a bunch of articles. Rich Farmbrough, 15:01, 11 October 2009 (UTC).
Self-evidently Imogen is correct. Nonetheless the Phaeton edit should cause no problems. Rich Farmbrough, 15:02, 11 October 2009 (UTC).

Help

I don't know how to attain my goal at Template_talk:Album_cover_fur#Request_for_detection. Can you please help? Debresser (talk) 21:52, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Me no understand. What did you do at {{Infobox French commune}} that is related to this question. And what is working? Files with empty |other+information= ddo not get added to Category:Other information (as far as I know). Debresser (talk) 02:58, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
I see. In this case the parameters are all capitals (in all 30 or so related templates), apart from this one. That is Bad.
Is there a solution to detect articles that have the parameter but empty? Debresser (talk) 03:16, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
I tested that {{Ifempty}} in my userspace. It does not do the job, because it adds the category both if the parameter is empty and if it is absent. Unless I got something wrong. I need something that will alert if it is present but empty. Debresser (talk) 22:26, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
It had 11,000 entries when I used {{#if:{{{other_information}}}|[[Category:Other information]]}} without a pipe. then I added the pipe and made it sort into Category:Other information2. Without the pipe it added all files using the templates with the detection, with the pipe only those with non-empty |other_information= parameters. Debresser (talk) 23:06, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
That was pretty futile, if you take into consideration that there are 40+ templates in Category:Non-free use rationale templates, most of which are like this one. Which is why I prefer the opposite solution. Debresser (talk) 00:13, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
I did not mean to belittle your efforts. But I do think a more basic approach may be needed. Like making parameters all capitals/non-capitals, or making them non-capitalisation sensitive. Debresser (talk) 00:33, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I can't say I am happy with your edits to {{Album cover fur}} and its documentation. They are going the precise opposite direction of my efforts. Debresser (talk) 00:37, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Hardware abstraction

Your edit [2] indicates that the article has a ref or a tag. It has no ref, and the tag is a merge tag. Can you explain your logic for not including unref tag when there is a merge tag? thanks Widefox (talk) 22:20, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Look more closely. I remove the category not the unref tag. Rich Farmbrough, 22:37, 11 October 2009 (UTC).
ooops, you are right. I'm still confused though - why removed the unref cat? and for my ignorance, explain the DEFAULTSORT, which both of us have not restored from your original edit. Widefox (talk) 22:46, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
mmm, very interesting. Thanks, Widefox (talk) 23:14, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.49.55.137 (talk) 12:52, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Revisions

Hello,

I'm a newcomer to Wikipedia, but I'm an aspiring editor. I'm in a master's program right now, and I'm tracking revisions on Wikipedia articles and analyzing them for my thesis. I was just looking at your revisions to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and one of them confused me. What exactly is a default sort key? I'd appreciate it if you would explain it to me. Also, do you have any tips on understanding the revisions in Wikipedia? I'm comparing versions and noting the changes in red, but sometimes I can't tell what they mean or find them in the body of the article.

Thank you. Editor Lara (talk) 23:50, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all the advice! It's very helpful. Quick question: do all the words in the default sort key have to be capitalized? I noticed you changed it from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Editor Lara (talk) 19:10, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot adding redundant {{reflist}} Again/Still?

My last message indicated that the bot was adding {{reflist}} to pages that did not need it. You responded that you would skip those articles. But SmackBot is still doing it, see here, here and here. Thanks. 75.69.0.58 (talk) 04:10, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I have upgraded AWB on SB's machine, the regression has been fixed. That should sort it now. Rich Farmbrough, 00:21, 13 October 2009 (UTC).

Category:Wikipedia non-empty soft redirected categories

May I understand that all entries in this category should be fixed by a bot, and that I should not have to do anything (now that we took care of the templates that automatically sort wrongly)? Debresser (talk) 15:43, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I can't seem to find the discussion you are referring to there. Also, could you tell me if you want me to fix them in the mean time. Debresser (talk) 15:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
The problem with Han Dynasty seems to be that Template:Infobox Former Country has a line {{#if:{{{year_end|}}}|{{{category|[[Category:{{{year_end}}} disestablishments|{{{common_name}}}, {{{year_end}}}]]}}}}}. Since the user defined 220 AD (and he had to because only 220 would be ambiguous), so that is what the category will say. This of course gives rise to various possibilities like AD, CE. The only solution I see is to do it the other way around. Category:220 disestablishments is ambiguous, so use either 220 AD or CE (I prefer the last, but consensus is that both are acceptable, unless we would make a rule for practical purposes that in categorisation it must be which ever one of them). The easiest way out of this is to allow all, without soft redirects, which is what I am going to do for the mean time. Any other ideas? Debresser (talk) 16:22, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Yes I fixed the template and the articles that use it. Transcluding content categories is a bad thing anyway. Rich Farmbrough, 20:58, 12 October 2009 (UTC).
I see. And how did you solve the problem of the ambiguity in "220"? That unless specified otherwise it is always CE? May I now redirect Category:226 AD disestablishments and other categories like it? Softly, of course. :) Debresser (talk) 23:01, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
The template no longer generates these categories. They are in the pages instead. Template generated (content) categories are bad news. (Well some of the same problems apply to WikiProject cats too.) Rich Farmbrough, 23:24, 12 October 2009 (UTC).
That I understood. But that doesn't shed any light on my questions. Debresser (talk) 23:31, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
More generally, has this subject been discussed somewhere? Whether the format should be 220, or 220 AD or 220 CE, or whatever we like. Debresser (talk) 23:51, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The answer is Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(dates_and_numbers)#Articles_on_years.2C_articles_on_numbers.2C_article_names_containing_non-date_numbers. A clear guideline to use numbers for CE and BC for BCE. So I am going to have with what to keep myself busy tomorrow, checking whether this is being maintained throughout. Debresser (talk) 00:02, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I have added an analogous sentence to Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(categories)#Time_periods for categories. Debresser (talk) 00:12, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
BTW, I really think we should not make soft redirects for this type of category. Because they are not alternative names, they are names that are against guidelines. And also because there could be thousands of them, if we were to start with that. So having seven of them is ridiculous, and I nominated them for {{db-g6}}. Debresser (talk) 01:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Dutch infobox translations

A couple weeks ago SmackBot was busy doing translations like this one which are progress but unfortunately not quite correct. In particular:

  • lon_deg should translate to longd not lond
  • lon_min should translate to longm not lonm
  • lon_sec should translate to longs not lons
  • foto should translate to image_skyline not image

In addition, to make the geocoordinates work, the following parms need to be added:

  • latNS=N
  • longEW=E

I started to fix the affected articles by hand, but it's proving to be a slow and tedious process. I request that you send SmackBot on another pass over these articles to resolve these issues. --Stepheng3 (talk) 19:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for helping. I think the problem with the way images are handled is that the Afbeelding: namespace needs to be translated into English. --Stepheng3 (talk) 19:27, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
I did a spot check, and it looks like the bot run was successful. Thanks! --Stepheng3 (talk) 23:46, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

bot edits

I've been looking at revision histories, and I noticed some revisions have robot in the edit summary, but they are not marked with a b. Does this mean that the editor is human or a robot (or a combination of the two, LOL). Editor Lara (talk) 19:33, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Adding reflist, changing unreferenced

In this edit, SmackBot (1) added {{reflist}} even though there are no references, and (2) changed {{unreferenced}} → {{refimprove}}. As far as I can see, both edits are wrong. — Miym (talk) 22:27, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes it should not have changed the tag. I suspect that is a side-effect of putting Reflist there. However putting the {{Reflist}} in should be harmless - especially as someone should add some references any day now. Rich Farmbrough, 22:40, 12 October 2009 (UTC).

Advise

If we have now 

| Low_resolution=<!--
-->{{#if:{{{Low_resolution|}}}|{{{Low_resolution}}}.  |Text.}}

Will 

| Low_resolution=<!--
-->{{#if:{{{Low_resolution|{{{Low resolution|}}}}}}|{{{Low_resolution|{{{Low resolution|}}}}}}.  |Text.}}

work?

The obvious goal is to circumvent the hyphen in the future without changing old instances of the template. Debresser (talk) 23:53, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes that is fine. Rich Farmbrough, 00:05, 13 October 2009 (UTC).
Thank you! Debresser (talk) 00:11, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Tfd

I cleaned out all the transclusions of {{Tfd}}. Have a look what I found in Template:Jazz/version 1. Now all that is left in transclusions is templates that are currently under discussion, and a bunch of userpages and usertalkpages. Debresser (talk) 02:38, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

What I meant is the date of that Tfd template: December 2004 !

Could you get a bot at removing the Tfd templates from the 600+ userpages and usertalkpages?

I did it myself with AWB. I have 5 editprotected pages left. Could you please remove the line {{Tfd|Smile}} from User_talk:SlimVirgin/Archive_29#Smiles, User_talk:Dcoetzee/Archive_2007_2_21, User_talk:Sir_Nicholas_de_Mimsy-Porpington/Archive/Archive04, User_talk:Lostintherush/Archive_1, and change {{Tfd|Wr &c.}} to {{Tl|Wr &c.}} on User_talk:Trauma16? Debresser (talk) 19:17, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
Should all be done. Why did it need doing? Rich Farmbrough, 01:21, 13 October 2009 (UTC).
I cleaned up over a thousand of old substitutions of templates that were substituted with the Tfd template. These five were the last ones, "needed" to be able to say that the job was done. That the Tfd template was completely out of place there, I needn't tell you. Thank you again for your help. Debresser (talk) 01:33, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Ah, cool just a tidying exercise then. Not sure even I would have bothered with that. Rich Farmbrough, 01:45, 13 October 2009 (UTC).
The reason is I posted to have Template:Tfd lowered in protection at Wikipedia:Requests_for_page_protection#Template:Tfd_.28edit.7Ctalk.7Chistory.7Clinks.7Cwatch.7Clogs.29. So I needed to know how much it is really being used. That was 53 as of yesterday (after I had noinclude tags on all cases, and still including these five). BTW, the request was declined, but I added a commentary and asked the declining editor to revisit. Debresser (talk) 01:49, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Makes sense,. But I wouldn;t worry about temporarily vandalising some user talk archives if prot was lowered. The trouble with tfd is that it is an unknown quantity. If, for example, someone tfd's unreferenced without noincludes, tfd would be on 140-300,000 pages. Rich Farmbrough, 01:53, 13 October 2009 (UTC).
The problem with the request at WP:RFPP is that there was no reason given for lowering the protection level. As I have said several times, I am more than happy to lower the protection level if you give a reason. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 01:56, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
I take the contrary view - a reason is needed to maintain the level. And the reason I give above seems enough. Rich Farmbrough, 01:59, 13 October 2009 (UTC).
Eh. The reason is the low usage, around 50. But your argument is correct (even though Tfd shows only as a small line in such a case). But nobody else but you and me thinks of that. Debresser (talk) 02:01, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Yes, you are correct that the default level for most all templates should be unprotected. In this particular case, I would be happy to lower the protection level at almost any point in time if someone has a reasonable edit request. Thanks. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 02:04, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 12 October 2009

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 04:19, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Simplification

I saw your edit to Wikipedia:List of monthly maintenance categories with templates. I am very happy with that. I checked and all |cat-date= or |cat-date1= parameters use "fom", without exeption. May I suggest building that into {{DatedAI}} and remove all the "from"'s from {{Article issues}}. Something like Category:{{{cat-date}}} from {{checkdate|{{{date}}}}}. If worst would come to worst it would be trivial to make a wordaround. In the mean time I would like to see this as a significant step in the right direction. Debresser (talk) 11:05, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

i understand (je comprendre) that you are maintaining the éeventing european champ." page ?

if you are please check 1995

because

Lucy Thompson/Welton Romance (IRL)DIDN'T take part the event was won by Mary Elizabeth King (née Thomson)

bonne journée

un utilisateur français de Wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.249.104.8 (talk) 11:37, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

How did you do that???

I.e. what tools did you use to calculate this? I know how to do it in principle, but it is so many edits and copy pasting that it would take hours, so I'm sure you have a smarter way? Can AWB help with this? --Stefan talk 03:50, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 19:38, 11 October 2009 (UTC). Rich Farmbrough, 19:38, 11 October 2009 (UTC).
Thanks, that was what I though. --Stefan talk 13:16, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Tibet map

Hi, I greatly need a locator map pin for Tibet. I've got one here. I was wondering if you knew how to enter the correct digits usong goole earth like Template:Location map China Yunnan province. At present the digits are for Yunnan. Any idea how we can get it to work? Himalayan 14:32, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Please at least respond... If you can't do something please say so! Himalayan 17:20, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Template:Location map. All it needs is the correct coordinates inserted into the box to control the pin..I believe you can find them on google earth apparently to north-south-east-west points of the Tibeta Autonomous Region... Himalayan 17:27, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that the map is a projection, and will have some skew no matter what you set for the coordinate limits. In particular, it will be the worst at the corners. So, it's a very bad idea to use the corner points to compute the map's limits. Better would be to use the midpoint of each edge. The two points that I used were 30°11′50″N 81°02′04″E / 30.197206°N 81.034478°E / 30.197206; 81.034478 and 27°19′38″N 88°55′17″E / 27.327338°N 88.921275°E / 27.327338; 88.921275, which are nearly the exact border intersections according to google maps. These were the two points for which it was very easy to identify pixel locations. It's important to pick two points which are far enough apart to get some level of accuracy (i.e., reduce subtractive cancellation), but still close to the places where you will be placing pushpins. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 18:28, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Ah well, revert to yours if you like. Of course if both maps render latitude and longitude as equi-sopaced vertical and horizontal lines, according to the same projection, then picking corners will be perfectly sound. Otherwise some kind of interpolation will be needed. In which case, if that is supplied by the template then it does need to know the actual bottom left and top right, for example, not the bottom the left the top and the right. Also it should allow for precession of the equinoxes, magnetic dip and, where possible cheese dip. Rich Farmbrough, 18:37, 13 October 2009 (UTC).
Your choice of coordinates was as good (or bad) as what I had. There is no way to get it completely right, have a look at here for test cases. You can make it exact for any two points, but it will always be off for other points. As far as I can tell, it's unsolvable, unless you use a different (or smaller) map. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 18:49, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes the projection of the map is off, so until we get a better quality accurate one this is the best we can do at present... We'll see how my Sichuan map goes. If it works out I may require your assistance, both of you for finding out the coordinates for the other province locator maps.. Himalayan 20:53, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Articles needing cleanup

Are you moving all templates, and thus the whole categories inevitably, or only part? Debresser (talk) 17:10, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

All - all are doen I think, but any holdouts wil become evident after 24 hours. See the two progress boxes on the category page. Rich Farmbrough, 17:16, 13 October 2009 (UTC).
BTW, it is precisely this type of "renaming" categories that I was refering to above that will allow for all dated maintenance categories to have names like the undated ones, which will also simplify {{Article issues}} and {{DatedAI}}. Debresser (talk) 17:14, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Exactly. This is the last set that make Article issues regular. Rich Farmbrough, 17:16, 13 October 2009 (UTC).
Did you throw out a few? I remember Wikify had diverging names also. Debresser (talk) 17:43, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Hm last but one then.. until you point out another I've missed. Rich Farmbrough, 17:48, 13 October 2009 (UTC).
I'll be more than happy to do so. I've been waiting for this a long time. Debresser (talk) 17:53, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
No other ones. Debresser (talk) 18:18, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Substitution

What is that detection doing? Since when are these templates subst'ed? Oh, I see, you are fishing out the future substitutions into a category of "to be replaced by unsubstituted templates", right? Debresser (talk) 17:50, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's been running on "Citation needed" for a while now. I just found these articles with the stub templates substuted. ....

<small? commenteed out

Rich Farmbrough, 17:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC).
Incidentally SmackBot has been "un-substing" these templates using the delimiting comments for years. Except when it is ignoring comments. The two outstanding problems are
  1. You loose any parameters - not a big deal with most cleanup templates
  2. If another AWB gen-fixer comes along all the categories are pulled out and taken to the end.
Rich Farmbrough, 18:02, 13 October 2009 (UTC).
I know that problem. Have fixed them myself upon occasion. What I don't understand is what {{#if:{{NAMESPACE||etc}} is doing. Are you adding only article mainspace (and article takspace?) ? Debresser (talk) 18:04, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
No it is a kludge. there is a feature request for templates that refuse to subst...
What is supposed to happen is that a substed template should, at that instant, behave exactly like a non-substed one. That markup "breaks" the other markup, when it is subst-ed it is mended and so you get different behaviour. I spent a long time trying to persuade templates to quine themselves when substed. I don't believe it is possible with the current software. Rich Farmbrough, 18:10, 13 October 2009 (UTC).
I saw it. It is just a way to get the template to report substitution. The namespace is not essential here in and of itself. Another question. What is the text "Note, the items at τ are templates that use the syntax to invoke this category" doing on that category page? Why would the templates show up themselves? Debresser (talk) 18:14, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
I used up my questions for today? Debresser (talk) 19:04, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
And two for tomorrow. That was referring to an older version of the cliché. Rich Farmbrough, 20:09, 13 October 2009 (UTC).
But still... Debresser (talk) 20:35, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Sorry to take all the fun part, but I fixed the only two pages in Category:Pages with incorrectly substituted templates. Debresser (talk) 13:09, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Something went wrong

Something went wrong on Category:Userspace drafts created via the Article Wizard from October 2009. Debresser (talk) 23:33, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, universe repaired. Rich Farmbrough, 01:14, 14 October 2009 (UTC).
Finding other people's mistakes is my hobby. So thank you for making them so abundantly! :))) Debresser (talk) 01:28, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Template:Userspace draft

Not sure what's happening, but Category:Misplaced userspace drafts now has userspace pages in it! Can you check/fix {{Userspace draft}}? (Incidentally {{userspace draft2}} only exists as a helper template because I couldn't get it to work as one template, but it would probably be better merged.) cheers, Rd232 talk 10:34, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done You mean "existed. Rich merged it already, as you requested. And the problem was one of those superfluous pipes Rich is so famous for. :) Or not extending DMC till the end, which comes down to the same and is the more elegant solution. Debresser (talk) 11:55, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
It was a missing pipe. Rich Farmbrough, 11:59, 14 October 2009 (UTC).
Oh no it wasn't. :) Debresser (talk) 12:03, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3AUserspace_draft&action=historysubmit&diff=319789085&oldid=319786987 Rich Farmbrough, 12:05, 14 October 2009 (UTC).
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Userspace_draft&diff=next&oldid=319790801 Debresser (talk) 12:18, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
Which also had a mistake, but fixed now. The less elegant solution would have been to remove that pipe of yours. :) Debresser (talk) 12:20, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
You were right and I was wrong. Restored your version. Debresser (talk) 12:22, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Well anyway, thanks! Rd232 talk 13:00, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

FYI

You updated Template:Str_rightc/doc about the 100 characters. Part of the explanations were formulated incorrectly (not by you) and I changed them. A Great Rule is to keep it simple. People trying to be overly precise often end up saying things that are not completely true. Which was the case here. Then I updated Template:Str_right/doc (without the "c") along the same lines, because your changes have affected it in the same way. Debresser (talk) 13:42, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I was concerned that pushing the length up to 100 might break something if there were pages near a limit. But it seems fine so far. Roll on proper string functions! Rich Farmbrough, 13:44, 14 October 2009 (UTC).

Reflist on files??

Why is SmackBot adding {{Reflist}} to files? See e.g. this edit. Debresser (talk) 07:27, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I was going to ask the same thing! It did the same thing to this file. Bidgee (talk) 08:07, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
I was faced with about a thousand pages stuck in the "invalid date" category for two or three weeks. I gave them reflists. Rich Farmbrough, 13:35, 13 October 2009 (UTC).
I noticed them there. And I noticed them disappearing. Did you consider null-editing them? Debresser (talk) 17:09, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Not by hand. And AWB has got "smarter" - it won't null-edit in bot mode. it's not like I didn't have 500+ Russian localities with their slightly odd infobox, and the bunch of new cats at the same time. When SB has thousands of articles it can't fix progress on improving the algorithm grinds to a halt. Rich Farmbrough, 17:27, 13 October 2009 (UTC).
That is really stupid. Have you written them about this? Debresser (talk) 17:46, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Natch. Rich Farmbrough, 18:48, 14 October 2009 (UTC).

Help again

Calling {{Coord}}:

At the moment I have {{Coord|{{{lat_deg|}}}|{{{lat_min|}}}|{{{lat_sec|}}}|N|{{{lon_deg|}}}|{{{lon_min|}}}|{{{lon_sec|}}}|E}}

This renders a parser error when the calling template doesn't define one or more of these variables.

{{Coord|{{{lat_deg|0}}}|{{{lat_min|0}}}|{{{lat_sec|0}}}|N|{{{lon_deg|0}}}|{{{lon_min|0}}}|{{{lon_sec|0}}}|E}} doesn't cause an error, but potentially leaves me with a buntch of zero's that I do not want to see.

{{Coord|{{{lat_deg|}}}|{{#if:{{{lat_min|}}}|{{{lat_min|}}}}}|{{#if:{{{lat_sec|}}}|{{{lat_sec|}}}}}|N|{{{lon_deg|0}}}|{{#if:{{{lon_min|}}}|{{{lon_min|}}}}}|{{#if:{{{lon_sec|}}}|{{{lon_sec|}}}}}|E}} doesn't do the job, but carries the kernel of a solution in the understanding that I must call a variable only when it is defined. The problem remains though, because of the "|" separator, which causes the template to again expect something. Can it be substituted by a code of &#nnn; format? Debresser (talk) 01:27, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

&# 124; The 6th site I checked had it. Now let's try it out. Debresser (talk) 01:29, 14 October 2009 (UTC) {{!}}

{{Coord|{{{lat_deg|}}}{{#if:{{{lat_min|}}}||{{{lat_min|}}}}}{{#if:{{{lat_sec|}}}||{{{lat_sec|}}}}}|N|{{{lon_deg|0}}}{{#if:{{{lon_min|}}}||{{{lon_min|}}}}}{{#if:{{{lon_sec|}}}||{{{lon_sec|}}}}}|E}} is not working. The pipes just get copied onto the screen after losing their functionality. Debresser (talk) 01:34, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

{{Coord|{{{lat_deg|}}}{{#if:{{{lat_min|}}}|{{!}}{{{lat_min|}}}}}{{#if:{{{lat_sec|}}}|{{!}}{{{lat_sec|}}}}}|N|{{{lon_deg|0}}}{{#if:{{{lon_min|}}}|{{!}}{{{lon_min|}}}}}{{#if:{{{lon_sec|}}}|{{!}}{{{lon_sec|}}}}}|E}} also didn't work. Debresser (talk) 01:40, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

What is it you did in the beginning of this edit? A mistake, no? Debresser (talk) 01:45, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

No problem with using numbered parameters, but first I need to get the idea of a separator through to it. :) Debresser (talk) 01:47, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

To get back to this issue. Your solution works, but has the abovementioned minus that it may potentially result in a lot of zeros. Do I understand correctly that we are at the end of our arsenal of tricks and I shall just have to live with this? Debresser (talk) 12:26, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I think the zeros are relevant. The user page in question is a very old (3 years) sandbox so that doesn't matter. The actual use of coord tempalte is either degrees, degrees and minutes or degrees minutes and seconds. The presumption (not actually valid in the far north and south)) is that northing and westing are accurate to approximately the same amount

. Therefore if soemthing, like the Grenwich observatory, is at 0 00 00 we should display the zeros - they show we are being accurate. Arguably you could wrap coord thus: {if {lats|lons|} | {coord|1|2|3|E|5|6|7|S} {if {latm|lonm|} | {coord|1|2|E|5|6|S} {if {latd|lond|} | {coord|1|E|5|S} |} } }. Rich Farmbrough, 12:43, 14 October 2009 (UTC).

I moved with this to my sandbox and testcases, and I came to the conclusion that the problem is actually in {{Coord}}. If we want to call it a problem. The thing is that it doesn't take undefined parameters. Meaning that something like {{Coord|34||N|55||E}} will return an error (two actually). Perhaps it will be easy to change that? Debresser (talk) 12:50, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I have posted this issue at Template_talk:Coord#Undefined_parameters. Debresser (talk) 12:56, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Update

A solution was found [[ther, and implemented. See User:Debresser/Sandbox on how to call {{Coord}}, and see the testcases, that it works marvelous. Debresser (talk) 13:40, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Minor request

After the move of Wikipedia:Templates for deletion to Wikipedia:Templates for discussion, of which Iwas the instigator, and which I used for another few small improvements on the general chaos after such a thing, would you perhaps null-edit four editprotected pages left in Category:Wikipedia templates for deletion? I'd appreciate it. Debresser (talk) 16:31, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Just Template:Infobox Television episode left. Debresser (talk) 17:05, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
Thank you Debresser (talk) 17:29, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Sock puppet

After I was approached on my talkpage I answered that all is well. But is that so in fact? Erik9bot 9 is operated by User:Erik9 who is blocked as a sock puppet of the also blocked User:John254. Do you think it is safe to keep an unsupervised bot tagging 140,000+ articles into Category:Articles lacking sources (Erik9bot)? Debresser (talk) 16:57, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

The bot is blocked. The category remains, of course. –xenotalk 17:00, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
But shrinks. Rich Farmbrough, 17:04, 14 October 2009 (UTC).
You are replacing it by other tags as needed? Debresser (talk) 17:05, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
I removed it form some 1500 articles and replaced it with unref in a bunch more. Need a BRFA now to do the bulk. Rich Farmbrough, 17:09, 14 October 2009 (UTC).
See Wikipedia:CiterSquad. Rich Farmbrough, 17:09, 14 October 2009 (UTC).
Thanks. Had a look. Debresser (talk) 17:30, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

New template

You won't believe what I found: Template:TVS-cleanup. Debresser (talk) 17:07, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I propose Tfd and the category afterwards speedy. Debresser (talk) 17:09, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
I'll propose it for deletion anyway. thanks for cleaning up the category. Debresser (talk) 17:34, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Forgot

You forgot the all-inclusive category when you made this edit. Or did you? Debresser (talk) 14:13, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

No, it's auto-generated. Rich Farmbrough, 16:36, 14 October 2009 (UTC).
How? By what? Debresser (talk) 17:06, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
DMCA sticks "All" in front of the first parameter, after lower-casing it. Rich [[User talk:Rich Farmb

rough|Farmbrough]], 18:28, 14 October 2009 (UTC).

I looked there and missed it. Will look again. Sorry. BTW, do you have a progress template that can monitor whatis the progress of migrating the Wikify categories? I use them to help you clean up the last bits. Debresser (talk) 18:30, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

So why don't I see an all-inclusve category in the progress templates on Category:Articles needing cleanup? 18:31, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done Debresser (talk) 18:47, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

And why isn't there an old Wikify progress template? Debresser (talk) 18:42, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Answer to both: that is the old wikify progress template. Rich Farmbrough, 18:49, 14 October 2009 (UTC).
So where is the new one on Template:Articles needing cleanup progress? Debresser (talk) 19:00, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
I have looked again at {{DMCA}} and {{DMC}} and I don;t see any all-inclusive category. Debresser (talk) 19:02, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
Yes you are right. The perils of noon-standardization. And if you look at the code for the "new wikify box", the benefits. Rich Farmbrough, 19:12, 14 October 2009 (UTC).
Thanks for replying, I know you must be busy. But I don't understand a thing of what you are trying to explain to me. Sorry. Debresser (talk) 19:18, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
There is no all-inclusive category generated. If there was always one in existence I would have coded to generate it, if there never was one it would be fine too. "Sometimes" breaks stuff. Now I'm undecided about adding it in - since it's only used by one bot to generate a page of suggestions that is mostly transcluded onto the user talk pages of people who haven't edited for years. And I've given him the coding to do away with the requirement. And it will probably fail with the new category anyway. But I've added it. the sceond part - look at the coding in the category heading - a few keystrokes got me the new box. Rich Farmbrough, 19:25, 14 October 2009 (UTC).
Thank you for explaining. Another time, over a beer (I'll have tea, or wodka), you'll tell me what noon-standarisation is (unless it is one of your famous typos for non-standarisation, which I have begun to suspect). As you noticed probably, I added an all-inclusive category to Template:Articles needing cleanup progress myself. And I could have done the same for wikify, or even make one, just that I was confused because of the missing all-inclusive category. Good you added it. Better do away with all of them at once (at a later or not that much later time). Debresser (talk) 19:34, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
Standarisation? :p Rich Farmbrough, 19:38, 14 October 2009 (UTC).

BTW, it is a shame you didn't call it "Pages needing cleanup". Not only because that is the name of the all-inclusive category, but mainly because {{Cleanup}} is using DMC (without the "A") and not only articles get added, so "pages" is what it really should have been. Debresser (talk) 19:36, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Another one

Template:Create-list

In use on a few pages. Probably keep it, but modernise it. I'll do that. Debresser (talk) 19:53, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done Debresser (talk) 21:45, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Done

You may want to delete all old cleanup categories, progress boxes and whatever else. Debresser (talk) 20:16, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done Debresser (talk) 21:45, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Clean --- up

Will you make up your mind if it is "cleanup", "clean-up", or "clean up". BTW, I think your rename to "monthly clean up category" was a mistake in English (even though I am only a continental). Debresser (talk) 21:44, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Urgent question

We now have 

{{{Resolution|{{{Low_resolution}}}}}}

. Will both 

{{{Resolution|{{{Low_resolution|{{{Low resolution|}}}}}}}}}

and 

{{{Resolution|{{{Low_resolution|{{{Low resolution}}}}}}}}}

(without the final pipe) work? Debresser (talk) 22:51, 14 October 2009 (UTC) If none of them are defined the second one will render as 

{{{Low resolution}}}

Rich Farmbrough, 22:55, 14 October 2009 (UTC).

I know, which is what I want. But no difference in functionality? Debresser (talk) 22:57, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

No other difference. Empty and not empty are a big difference. Rich Farmbrough, 22:59, 14 October 2009 (UTC).

Ongoing dispute from Admin decision

Hello, as you know User:Roux was given a week long block for disruptive conduct. This has not pleased some of Roux's friends who contacted the other user involved User:The Transhumanist and demanded apologies etc from him on Roux's behalf. As things went on one of Roux's friend's- User:Verbal has, seemingly taken to following Transhumanist around the project reverting his edits. Possibly justifiably in some cases yet it seems to be a little odd to me that he only suddenly took an interest in the articles Transhumanist edited after the dispute broke out. Examples of the conduct can be found by viewing first, Transhumanist's contributions and then the history pages of his top recently edited articles [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]. I can't help but feel this is totally against the ethos of Wikipedia- what can be done? Gavin (talk) 00:56, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Code of bots

Are the code of bots feely available? Specificly, is there a place to see the code of SmackBot? Debresser (talk) 01:50, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Some are, including the code for AWB. SmackBot's code isn't, for a number of reasons including that no-one has asked for it. The main part of its task is actually built into AWB which will now date the key maint tags as a general fix. Smackbot's main set of reg-exes are regenerated every time a new template is added. You can see some of its code for smaller tasks at WP:AWB. As far as I know these have never been used by anyone, the ISBN one is no longer compatible eith current versions of AWB. Rich Farmbrough, 02:00, 15 October 2009 (UTC).
Because you told me once the code used in turning headers from == xxx == into ==XXX== is used in 14 places. I am a patient man, and would find them all. Debresser (talk) 02:16, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia/Cascade protected templates

Did you mean to put this at Wikipedia:Cascade protected templates? It's currently in article space. (Or Wikipedia:Cascade-protected templates, even, if that is more correct.) • Anakin (talk) 02:20, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks.Rich Farmbrough, 02:30, 15 October 2009 (UTC).

Reflist

I just now noticeed you ended a run of references fixing with SmackBot, so I walked in to fix the remaining articles. I found two or three articles where SmackBot had added {{Reflist}}, even though there was a <references/> tag. There is no need to do that. Debresser (talk) 02:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Fixed.Rich Farmbrough, 02:33, 15 October 2009 (UTC).
You are fast. Debresser (talk) 02:45, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

Karel van Wolferen article has been edited with references. Would it be alright to remove the tag that states there are no references in the article? (Would go ahead and do it myself, but want to notify you first). Thanks.Rayjameson (talk) 03:19, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

This edit

I am confused by this. Is the left box or the right box the accurate numbers. BrianY (talk) 03:53, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Your AWB edits

Hello. You've just added category:Living people to Bert Millard and George Liddell, both born in the 19th century, both where the article states they're dead... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:06, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks I got George, but you beat me to Bert. Rich Farmbrough, 11:12, 15 October 2009 (UTC).

Template:Woredas of the Amhara Region

Hi, can you use AWB to apply this template to all the woredas articles linked in it? Cheers. Himalayan 12:19, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes I can do this, but not the Flikr request. Rich Farmbrough, 13:45, 15 October 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot potentially hiding vandalism

Hi, I just wanted to alert you of a case where SmackBot appeared to hide a large deletion of text from an article. An anonymous user deleted a large amount of text in the Don Mattrick article (diff), but because this deletion included the {{reflist}} section, SmackBot subsequently added just that section back (diff). If I had not decided to look at the history of the article, this deletion could have been potentially missed. I realize this is a hard thing to address, but is there anything that can be done? —Umofomia (talk) 14:07, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Not a great deal that isn't already done. If you look at the history be suspicious of large changes in size. The edit buy the anon will show on watchlists (SmackBot's in general won't) and recent changes. And there are bits that will revert page blanking or (I think) removals of large amounts of content. There is also a system that blocks IPs from removing more than a certain amount of text. Rich Farmbrough, 14:28, 15 October 2009 (UTC).
Probably not. If you are lucky, the vandalism was so extensive that even SmackBot's fixes couldn't hide it. I see that often. It is just something that we have to be alert for. BTW, it is not as though the page cried out "vandalism" before the edit of SmackBot. If I would have come in, I would have done the same thing as the bot. Only those who know the article, or those with a very suspicious mind, would guess there was something wrong. Debresser (talk) 14:37, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
Perhpas deleting reflist or references should be something the antivandalism bots specifically check for? I've lost track of who actually runs them these days though. Naively, it would seem like there are few legitimate reasons for these to be removed without comment. David Underdown (talk) 14:47, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
I was looking at edit filters to catch that. There are legitimate reasons but { {reflist going is a little suspicious. Also thinking about the ratio of text removed as well as the sheer size. Trouble is edit filters are a bit of a resource drain. Rich Farmbrough, 14:53, 15 October 2009 (UTC).

Notification

As of the last 24 hours Wikipedia:Templates for deletion has moved to Wikipedia:Templates for discussion. Debresser (talk) 04:34, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Stupid bureaucrats! See Wikipedia:Ani#Templates_for_Deletion_is_now_Templates_for_Discussion. Debresser (talk) 00:43, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Template:R to list entry

Hey Rich, you are the last one to edit Template:R to list entry, so I'm writing to ask why it doesn't have a [[Category:Redirects to list entries]] inside the <includeonly>? Note that the category does not display on redirects such as Aikidoka. -- ToET 07:32, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The template was also in the category, top sorted supposedly, although this is more subtle than the authors expected. If you go to "my preferences" you set it to display hidden categories. Not sure why this is hidden though, sure it is not a content category, but redirects are, arguably, not content pages. Rich Farmbrough, 13:11, 15 October 2009 (UTC).
As far as I am aware, none of the other redirect templates hide their categories -- the closest examples would be {{R to section}} and {{R to anchor}} with sample uses ACoRP and LiveMove. I'd boldly take care of it myself were the page not protected, and I'm happy to bring it up in a different forum if you don't care to do it. -- ToET 14:32, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
Oh, I see that you had already made the change when you wrote the comment above. Thank you. -- ToET 23:41, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot - R to other namespace

Just fyi here things didn't go quite right. 66.57.4.150 (talk) 17:30, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Hm well XQBOT should have propagated the ":". But it's all fixed up now. Rich Farmbrough, 18:54, 15 October 2009 (UTC).

Re: Cascading protection

Oh, cool. I'll probably keep the user page up just as an extra precaution, but it's good to have a central page for this. Hersfold (t/a/c) 23:08, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Rich, I too got your message. I have responded over at Wikipedia talk:Cascade-protected items#Cascading protection.
--David Göthberg (talk) 04:54, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Subst code

Would it be easier to add the code to {{mbox}} and insert a parameter, rather than duplicating code all over the namespace? OrangeDog (talk • edits) 17:09, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes much easier, but it wouldn't work. Assuming you are talking of the "incorrectly substituted template" cliché? The whole point of that is it only comes into effect when it is substituted rather than transcluded. Rich Farmbrough, 17:21, 16 October 2009 (UTC).
Hmm... I shall trust your infinitely greater experience. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 18:39, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot (Lifetime)

A minor point. I was a bit confused by the Expand lifetime template: consider using subst;l instead.. It should actually be subst:l as in {{subst:l|1901|1983|Bloggs, Fred}}. --Big_iron (talk) 11:11, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, of course it should - typo. Fixed. And there was me thinking no one was reading the edit summaries. Rich Farmbrough, 13:02, 17 October 2009 (UTC).

DEFAULTSORT capitalisation

Hi. Do the first letters of sort key terms always need to be capitalised? I'm asking in order to make sense of your edit here. Cheers. --Dominic Hardstaff (talk) 13:53, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes pretty much. The only de facto exception is for sorting scientific names of organisms into their families. I am working on a page to explain this in mind-numbing detail. Rich Farmbrough, 13:57, 16 October 2009 (UTC).
If they need to be capitalized, this should really be taken care of in the mediawiki software, instead of by adding a template to every wikipage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:44, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Yes, see bug 164 for example. It's not a template though, and it isn't always needed, only on about half the pages, and it is already there on a third of them, and is needed for other reasons on many of the rest. For example most names sort "Lastname, Firstname", many titles sort "Hobbit, The", accents and diacritics are removed, Roman numerals and ordinals are converted to Arabic (John XXX => John 30) and so forth. I am working on a page to explain this in mind-numbing detail. Rich Farmbrough, 14:58, 16 October 2009 (UTC).
You're making hundreds of edits that are achieving nothing. [10] [11] :-( • Anakin (talk) 16:30, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
I, too, can't see any purpose in applying a new scheme to the DEFAULTSORT tag in thousands of articles; it won't make any visible difference in the sorting for any of the articles that I've looked at. Also, this discussion could have been entirely avoided if the obvious place for guidance in this matter, WP:SORTKEY, would provide a reasoning. As far as I can see, there isn't. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:34, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
There was, it was removed. And it's not a new scheme in the sense that around a million articles use it. I am working on a page to explain this in mind-numbing detail. Rich Farmbrough, 12:58, 17 October 2009 (UTC).
1) Do you have an example where this scheme changed the sort order in a category? 2) While the mind-numbing details will be welcome, the most likely place editors will consult is still WP:SORTKEY; with no guidance there, how do you envisage future adherence to this scheme, or prevent well-meaning editors reverting to a more intuitive scheme? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:52, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Delete

Feel free to delete Wikipedia:List of monthly maintenance categories. Debresser (talk) 17:14, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I do. But I also think it is historically interesting. Rich Farmbrough, 02:53, 18 October 2009 (UTC).

Congratulations

Congratulations on the simplification of {{Article issues}} and {{DatedAI}}! Debresser (talk) 17:53, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Rich Farmbrough, 02:11, 18 October 2009 (UTC).

Bots

How do you make a bot automatic because I want to create a bot to help wikipedia. Thanks! RuneScape Adventure Sign! 19:18, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 02:52, 18 October 2009 (UTC).

Dates

Why are you changing the dates on all the royalty articles? What's wrong with the American format? --Bookworm857158367 (talk) 01:54, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

A large percentage of them were a heady mixture of date formats, linked and/or unlinked. DMY seemed the best way to go since it was the preponderance, was used in territories in question. The main purpose of the exercise was initially to clean-up the 60 odd redirects to the infobox, but the dates were obviously in need of some work too. Rich Farmbrough, 02:52, 18 October 2009 (UTC).

Wikify

Some ignorant admin has made an edit to Template:Wikify that you will probably want to undo. Debresser (talk) 05:47, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Smackbot moved See also section in between footnotes and references

Here, SmackBot moved the See also section in between the Footnotes and the References, which is something I think you will probably agree is not right (irrespective of what the MOS has to say about it). You may want to tweak your bot code a wee bit. Hesperian 11:18, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Card Games

Thanks for your cleaning and general fixes on all card games. Please, do go on ! Krenakarore (talk) 18:14, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Port Askaig

Thanks for picking up the dodgy-looking 'rumour' about Port Askaig whisky. It didn't come from me and I share your scepticism. I'll watch it to see if anyone produces a source, but if they don't I'll edit it out. Dhmellor (talk) 08:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

hey bre —Preceding unsigned comment added by Musicmaker2013 (talk • contribs) 16:47, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Request

I have been a bit busy these last days, and have not taken care of Category:Pages with missing references list. Could you please let SB do a run first?

And might I ask you to consider adding a comment to Template_talk:Citation#Full_stop_at_the_end_of_the_template_2. Debresser (talk) 21:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

RfD nomination of Unrefsect

I have nominated Unrefsect (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) for discussion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 01:17, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 19 October 2009

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 03:32, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Redirects

Is it necessary to run all over the encyclopedia removing 1 character from hundreds of pages and cluttering histories and recent changes lists? Among other things you've modified someone's 3½-year-old monobook.js, old user talk page comments, this change which doesn't fit with the edit summary at all, and other templates and such that haven't been modified in years. "Deprecated" doesn't mean "doesn't work". • Anakin (talk) 06:01, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot - incorrect use of em-dashes

See this edit, where SmackBot changed the correct "xn--bcher-kva" to the incorrect "xn—bcher-kva". The bot should leave the sequence "xn--" alone, since this is the prefix for the ASCII equivalents of non-ASCII domain labels, and is highly unlikely to be used in any other context. --Zundark (talk) 10:33, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

hey wats up? explain? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Musicmaker2013 (talk • contribs) 18:07, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Regex Help

Hey Rich, I was wondering if you could help me with some Regex. I want to:

put tag {{dead link header}} at the beginning of each section that contains the template: {{dead link}}. I know there is some sort of lookforward buisness that needs to happen, I just don't understand well enough to write it. Tim1357 (talk) 21:41, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes I can wrangle reg-exes but there is stuff that could be done better than the way I do it. Here is the sort of thing I would write - the look-forward would be more efficient to write.

(\n==+[^\n=]+==+ *\n)((?:[^=\n][^\n]*\n)*)([^=\n][^\n]{{[ _]*[Dd]ead[ _]+link[ _]*[\|}\n])

replace with

$1{{dead link header}}\n$2$3


Singleline of course. Rich Farmbrough, 22:14, 20 October 2009 (UTC).

Wow thank you. Now I need someone with a bot account to implement it. Maybe it is worthy of becoming a General Fix on AWB so SmackBot can do them. What do you think? Tim1357 (talk) 00:28, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I could add it to SB's normal run if there is consensus. Rich Farmbrough, 00:30, 21 October 2009 (UTC).

Need your opinion on some photographs

Hi. Can you provide you opinion on this matter? Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 01:55, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

Just notifying you of a bad edit. Dismas|(talk) 08:10, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Maps in infoboxes

Hi. Can you offer your thought on the template talk page of having a pointless map in a navigation templates such as Template:Postalhistorybycountry. It bloats an already oversized navigation templates and really has no purpose. If people are so dumb that they don't know where Asia is they can look... Dang it. Himalayan 10:31, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Template:cite IETF

Could you have a look over {{cite IETF}} and see if I've missed anything obvious? I'd like to have a few more people look it over before it really starts getting used in articles. It went together pretty fast but I had been planning to create a proper citation template for these documents for quite awhile. --Tothwolf (talk) 15:46, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot and {{cite album-notes}}

Please see this edit to "All My Loving". SmackBot changed "|pages=pp. 32-33" to "|pages=32-33". I know that is the proper thing to do for most of the templates in the "cite" family, but unfortunately, "cite album-notes" has a non-standard page parameter handling: it does not support "page=" and it does not include the "p." or "pp." prefix: editors must use "pages=" and supply the appropriate prefix manually.

I have considered changing "cite album-notes" to conform (see talk page), but I stopped when I realized that there were 1500+ references to it and changing the way the template works would break a great many of those. I knew one solution to that was to have a bot fix the existing uses, but I am not a bot writer and I did not know that SmackBot was already configured to fix the "pages=" parameter. (Does it do "page=", too?) That may mean that many of the calls to the "cite album-notes" templates are broken now (no prefix in parameter) and thus changing the template would actually do more good than harm.

I am very interested to know what you think should be done. My guess is that it may be less work to fix "cite album-notes" than to change SmackBot to handle an exception, and the former brings us closer to the ideal state. — John Cardinal (talk) 13:59, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes this is a slight oddity. I created {{Page numbers}} to deal with this , it can be inserted as a wrapper in whatever cite templates might find it beneficial. Rich Farmbrough, 14:16, 21 October 2009 (UTC).
What about changing "cite album-notes"? If I change it, will SmackBot eventually fix some or all of the entries? Do you think it has removed the prefixes already? Is there an easy way to check other than manually going through the "what links here" results?
Sorry about all the questions, but for some reason this little problem is gnawing at me and I'd like to fix it. — John Cardinal (talk) 15:01, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
I need your help or advice again. I saw you changed {{Cite album-notes}}. At that time, I was working on a sandbox page and test cases. My version added a "page=" parameter as well as using {{Page numbers}} for the "pages=" parameter. I updated the template after you did, and it seems to work when used from articles. It also produces the expected results when used from the Expand templates page. However, the examples on the doc page and the test cases on the [[testcases page don't work properly: when "pages=2-3" is specified, the doc page and test cases show "p." and not "pp." I can't figure out why; I've purged the pages, refreshed my browser cache, etc. Why would the template work when used from an article, but not from a doc page or testcases page? The troublesome pages are evidently falling through to the {{Page numbers}} template or they would not have a leading "p." Do you see anything wrong on either page? — John Cardinal (talk) 17:44, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
Update: I found the issue. The problem is not related to the doc page or testcases page. If I use a plain dash ("pages=2-7") or if I use an HTML entity ("pags=2–7"), the {{cite album-notes}} template works properly. If I key an n-dash character ("pages=2–7"), the template doesn't work as expected. I added a test to the {{Page numbers}} page that shows that using the n-dash entity works but using the character doesn't. I was loathe to change the template... — John Cardinal (talk) 18:18, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
Ah, good detective work. Rich Farmbrough, 18:33, 21 October 2009 (UTC).
Should be OK now. Rich Farmbrough, 19:18, 21 October 2009 (UTC).
Great! Thanks. — John Cardinal (talk) 19:33, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Elisabeth of Valois

Hello!

  1. The accent is not present in the title of the article, therefore it shouldn't be present in the infobox. It should be somewhere in the lead sentence, but the infobox should be consistent with the title of the article.
  2. You haven't really corrected anything; you just changed it from 3 October 3 1568 to 3 3 October 1598.
  3. Corrected. Surtsicna (talk) 17:48, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Soft redirects

Here you have another template that automatically adds a category. Your edit to Template:Infobox Former Country was undone, claiming that it left articles without categories. Debresser (talk) 17:51, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

What's the trouble here? I saw it is used on 1773 articles. Likely most of them have 1 or 2 categories (for established and disestablished). How many did you fix? Debresser (talk) 11:43, 22 October 2009 (UTC) Debresser (talk) 11:40, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps you'd like to do this through discussion? Like at Template_talk:Infobox_Former_Country#Start_and_end_years. Debresser (talk) 11:47, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Breaking templates

SmackBot keeps adding a date parameter to Template:BASEPAGENAME, which breaks it. Specifically, see these edits: [12][13] -Rrius (talk) 22:11, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

OK that won't break it in future. But fixing the code is a little more tricky. Rich Farmbrough, 22:26, 21 October 2009 (UTC).

Template:BASEPAGENAME

Hi - I noticed this and I think I understand the point of the template (to prevent broken magic word usage)... however I was just wondering if it was used anywhere and noticed that people might end up getting there by using when following an example link like {{tl|BASEPAGENAME}} - as it is used in [14]. I am just wondering if you think either of the following would be useful: 1) a soft redirect from the template you've created to the WP:Magic words page and/or 2) protection of the page to prevent the kids from messing around. Clearly this isn't a big problem, and it may not even require a solution - just trying to preempt any issues that may come up. Thanks.  7  23:13, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot at Hindi Wiki

Hi Rich,

Its been a while that SmackBot has operated on the Hindi Wiki. Can you please invoke the Smackbot again. Thanks Gunjan (talk) 12:16, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Russian map captions

HI. Can you use AWB to add a caption to the infoboxes like this for the federal sub categories of Category:Cities and towns in Russia. I've done Adygea, but probably best done with AWB. How are you, I haven't heard from you in ages. Himalayan 09:50, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Category suppression on maintenance templates

Hi Rich. The current method of suppressing categories on some of our maintenance templates by specifying a blank |category= seems rather unintuitive and also conflicts with the method used on some other templates, which require |category=no. I wonder if you might comment on a discussion on my talk page. Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:47, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

All category

Another all-inclusive category here. Count your blessings. Debresser (talk) 14:21, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Sundays

Hi, Rich! Something the matter with SmackBot? Also, might you be Roman Catholic like me? Its last entry was on Saturday for the Catholic Church (as you already know, of couese)! Please have your robot to not place date maintenance tags on Paul McCartney's discography page, if you could. Thanks! Best, --Discographer (talk) 00:28, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I doubt that Roman-Catholic part. But he is definitely getting married. Nothing like Rich to be off for that long. :) Debresser (talk) 01:20, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

It is getting a lot of net-work time outs which don't help. But the original idea was to run at least once a month! Things have changed a bit since then. Rich Farmbrough, 15:52, 27 October 2009 (UTC).

Template talk:Infobox musical artist debate

I've tentatively mentioned your name as a possible 'closing admin' for the debate here. Hope that's OK! We want to find someone neutral to end what has been a difficult discussion and I saw that you'd done some work on this box. Reg. --Kleinzach 02:32, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Your bot

You bot is giving different pages from the same website the same name: [15]. This is the second time it has done this. Can you ask it to stop? Thanks, Mitsube (talk) 22:28, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I have logged a bug for this I will check back and see if a fix is available. Otherwise I will work-around, please stop the bot if it happens again. Rich Farmbrough, 15:14, 27 October 2009 (UTC).

The Wikipedia Signpost: 26 October 2009

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Little Richard Article

Thank you for your recent "date maintenance tags and general fixes" on the Little Richard article. I have been doing a lot of recent on the subject and have been working to make the article more informative and accurate. At the same time, it needs to be encyclopedic, so please feel free to relay feedback / input asI go along. I am fairly new to Wiki and can use the support that you can offer.--Smoovedogg (talk) 06:08, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I recently inserted a Ray Charles quote in the influence section with I think the appropriate citation info (please correct if I'm wrong) I pulled the quote out a day or so ago, as one editor wanted one the Bo Diddley quote in there or the Ray Charles one but not both (I think it looks okay with both, as they validate each other especially coming from those two music giants)) The quote farm that had been in there was edited out long ago. Your feedback is appreciated. Also, do you think it should be Penniman (the artists formal last name) or Little Richard mentioned through the article when referring to him, or sometimes one or the other? I am uncertain.--Smoovedogg (talk) 06:36, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Everything alright? You've been, well strangely quiet for you the last few days.... Himalayan 10:35, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

2009 flu pandemic

You added a globalize tag to a section of this article before. I moved it and that started a whole debate as I felt the entire article needs to be globalized, not just a section. Could you comment here Talk:2009_flu_pandemic#Worldwide_view as you've expressed an opinion on this before.--Crossmr (talk) 15:36, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

The Statesman's Yearbook

SmackBot moved a cleanup tag to the references section of this article. I moved it back. I am fairly sure these should be at the top? Thanks. Maidonian (talk) 13:01, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

We once had a discussion about this here. Is it still a general AWB fix? Debresser (talk) 10:00, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
The tag needs to be visible to the reader on first opening the page so that they know immediately the sources are not clear. If it is lower down it might not be seen. Maidonian (talk) 10:25, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Request

Could you please do another run of SB on Category:Pages with missing references list? Debresser (talk) 22:48, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Question

About User:Rich Farmbrough/temp52 (Citation templates : following character frequency).

When it says that the following characteris an "A", does that mean without spaces and without enters?

Can you make lists of these articles also? Debresser (talk) 11:49, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

What is the difference between => 5 and => 7409? The latter I would guess to be the enter, and the first a tab. Debresser (talk) 11:50, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I've been following the discussion on the meta template talk page, so I'll jump in here ;)
Unless I'm mistaken, 7409 would be a single whitespace character ' ' ( ).
--Tothwolf (talk) 12:05, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Rich, do you have anything to say about the other questions here? Debresser (talk) 23:39, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
The figures ignore one newline, but do not ignore spaces. And the first is indeed a tab. Rich Farmbrough, 20:50, 27 October 2009 (UTC).
I see. And can you also make lists? Debresser (talk) 21:41, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
To some extent, it is fro a database dump so inherently outdated. However it would be easy enough to run on all the transclusions. Rich Farmbrough, 22:32, 28 October 2009 (UTC).

Discussion at Template_talk:Citation#Full_stop_at_the_end_of_the_template_2 is at a dead point. Can you shake it up? Or do you have a better idea? Debresser (talk) 22:39, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Homelessness in the United States article et al. and anon editor

Hello Rich. Might I ask you to look into this matter also? Ben (User:SchuminWeb and User talk:SchuminWeb#Homelessness_in_the_United_States) has kindly looked at it too. Confer Homelessness in the United States article, etc. and User_talk:76.126.50.198. It's situationally unmanageable as it stands and a huge unnecessary diversion from real work to do in WP. Bests. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 03:00, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Settlement

I see you edited this so thought you might go to the article Kisber and put the photo in proper place in the box. Regret I can't as I inserted some text and saved it before trying to fix the photo location which I did not save. thanx. Handicapper (talk) 14:41, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot and {{Otheruses4}}

I noticed that User:SmackBot standardizes {{Otheruses4}} templates to upper-case already, do you think it would make sense to convert them to {{About}} templates while we're at it now that the template was moved? It was moved because {{about}} is easier to remember than {{otheruses4}} with its arbitrary number. Cheers, — sligocki (talk) 18:36, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot has a small list of templates it does that for, easy enough to add About. Rich Farmbrough, 22:30, 28 October 2009 (UTC).

Template:Infobox Hungarian settlement

Hi Rich,

It appears the problem with ksh_code has not been resolved fully, and we are with our horses midstream.

I see from many stub articles that they are using ksh_code to define the KSH code whereas ksh_code_2008 is the correct name for the fields. I also see that they link to the KSH page in the population_footnotes field.

I remember there was some discussion of changing the field name and add another that describes the date of the data. I am reasonably happy to do this, however, it has not been done and so the articles using ksh_code instead of ksh_code_2008 are not automatically generating a reference to the data, which was the intention.

I suggest you and I collaborate to fix this:

  • SmackBot could run over the articles using {{Infobox Hungarian settlement}} and replace any instances of ksh_code_2008 with ksh_code. It should also remove the population footnotes (perhaps if they match a suitable regex) but retain the year, renaming it. e.g. for Csólyospálos it should change [http://portal.ksh.hu/pls/portal/cp.hnt_telep?NN=12025 Csólyospálos] at the [[Hungarian Central Statistical Office]] (Hungarian). 1 January 2008; to be |ksh_data_as_of=1 January 2008.
  • I will modify the template as best I can to generate a more specific reference title. The KSH code field does now link to the correct KSH page, but the name of the reference is generic, as I could not work out how to stuff things using kinda "late binding" into the reference, but have been told how to do this now. But even if not, at worse the KSH code field does link there.

This need only be a one-off run for SmackBot. It's a pity that in the confusion/arguments of before, it seems that a decision was taken to use a field that did not exist in preference to one that did. But I think all that can be done now is to repair having left it in the air, and I hope you can maybe use SmackBot to help automate that repair. If so, I will change the template at an appropriate time to the new names. I think it would be unwise to introduce the new fields as a synonym, but I imagine that only the few articles (i.e. mine and a few others' articles with real content) would actually be broken by this change, and more (i.e. the 250-odd articles that are almost empty except for scaffolding) would be fixed by it. I should appreciate your views. Best wishes Si Trew (talk) 20:42, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Monthly categories

When I saw that Category:Articles with invalid date parameter in template has 77 pages, I decided it is time to create November's categories. Done. Debresser (talk) 18:27, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Then I null-edited a little, and now it is 46 pages.
Which reminds me. Could you please do me a favor and null-edit the three pages in Category:Wikipedia pages with incorrect protection templates. One of them has been there for over a week now. Debresser (talk) 19:20, 31 October 2009 (UTC)


Geobox

I see you deprecated {{Geobox River}} and {{Geobox Mountain Range}}. Can they simply be substitued by {{Geobox}}, or do I need to change any parameters? Debresser (talk) 17:51, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

If that matters for the answer... on userpages. See Category:Pages using deprecated templates Debresser (talk) 18:12, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Fixed all except one. Since the deprecated templates are at Tfd, that will stop being a problem soon enough. Debresser (talk) 00:09, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

New template

Template:Tone-inline. I had to work on it a little, but now it is presentable. Debresser (talk) 19:20, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks added. Rich Farmbrough, 19:56, 1 November 2009 (UTC).

Your unreferenced tags

Just so you know, on the articles where you've been replacing the Erik9bot category with an unreferenced tag, the date you're entering is November 2006 and not 2009. --Sable232 (talk) 19:26, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. To avoid swamping the current monthly category I'm using the creation date of the articles. Rich Farmbrough, 19:56, 1 November 2009 (UTC).
Ah, that makes sense. --Sable232 (talk) 20:32, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Re: Template

Not sure I understand what you mean. There is a template for that site, but the documentation says it has to be subst'ed, but it won't subst inside ref tags so I was just copy/pasting the whole thing. --Sable232 (talk) 20:32, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a ton. That works great. --Sable232 (talk) 22:04, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot - The City of London Migraine Clinic

Hi Rich,

I wrote the article for The City of London Migraine Clinic as a volunteer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_of_London_Migraine_Clinic). The SmackBot has put up a notification saying "This article may not meet the general notability guideline. Please help to establish notability by adding reliable, secondary sources about the topic. If notability cannot be established, the article is likely to be merged or deleted."

I don't feel it needs further referencing. Could you help me out by telling me what you feel is missing because I would like to remove the notification as soon as possible. I am also always interested in hearing an experience wiki persons opinion as this is the first article I have written.

Thank you very much, Simon Ssim24 (talk) 17:25, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Curious

Did you mean to create this category like this: Category:PAGES WITH INCORRECT FORMATTING TEMPLATES USE? JPG-GR (talk) 04:26, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes its for cases where {{Str left}} overflows and stuff like that. Rich Farmbrough, 04:53, 3 November 2009 (UTC).

The Wikipedia Signpost: 2 November 2009

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SmackBot bug

FYI, SmackBot replaces content like {{fact|October 2009}} with {{Citation needed|October 2009|date=November 2009}}

24.60.190.107 (talk) 12:27, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that is valid and harmless, if not ideal, behaviour. Replacing "fact" with "Citation needed" is desired, and picking up the un-assigned date while valid in most cases can't be assumed to be correct. Rich Farmbrough, 22:07, 3 November 2009 (UTC).

Unreferenced template

Regarding this edit, [16], you added an unreferenced template with a date of January 2007, the first edit of the article.

According to Template:Unreferenced: "The date parameter, which is recommended, is used to indicate when the template was added to a page." Currently these dates should be November 2009. Aspects (talk) 19:19, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Same comment re 2002_NCAA_Women's_Division_I_Basketball_Tournament. (Yes, it does need references, and I'll try to add some.)--SPhilbrickT 19:35, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes thanks these are some I am migrating from Erik9Bot's category and I don;t want to swamp the November 2009 category with many thousands of entries. Rich Farmbrough, 19:46, 3 November 2009 (UTC).
So you are knowingly putting in the wrong date? I notice that you are using AWB to make these edits with what looks like about ten edits a minute. According to AWB, if you are going to be making this many edits, you should be using a bot to do it. Also it says you should not be using this for anything controversial. Two editors bringing up that it is the wrong date seems to me to be controversial. Aspects (talk) 19:52, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
Personally, I think it probably is better to use the earlier date rather than the current month. If others dislike that, perhaps an alternative might be to use the date when Erik9Bot added the category to the article? --Tothwolf (talk) 20:42, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
That would be better than November 2009 but it would still bunch them all in July, August and September this year. Rich Farmbrough, 20:52, 3 November 2009 (UTC).
I hadn't realized he had categorized them that quickly. Sounds like the current solution is for the best then. --Tothwolf (talk) 23:13, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes you are quite right and for the bulk of the edits I will be using a bot. As far as the intent of the date parameter since I added it to the template, and my bot maintains it, I have a pretty good idea how it works - the ideal would be to place the date it became unreferenced, but it is not usually worth spending effort finding these dates, also it would mean monthly categories being constantly deleted and undeleted - the important thing is to get the articles into the workflow - where a more accurate date has been available en-masse it has been used. I would be interested in hearing how using the creation date of the article creates problems, if it does. Rich Farmbrough, 20:52, 3 November 2009 (UTC).

Would it be possible for you to put something in the edit summary to explain that the choice of January 2007 is intentional...to save editors like me the trouble of coming here? Stevage 14:27, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Certainly. Rich Farmbrough, 16:36, 4 November 2009 (UTC).

((ns0)) and ((main other))

Hi Rich. I just stumbled on {{ns0}} which is a template you made. I would like to redirect {{ns0}} to {{main other}}. This is why:

  • Having several templates that do the exact same thing might be confusing.
  • {{ns0}} and {{main other}} are parameter compatible so nothing will break.
  • {{main other}} has the additional "demospace" parameter, which is very useful.
  • {{main other}} is part of a series of namespace-detection templates that work the same way and has similar naming.
  • Not much of a reason, but anyway: {{main other}} is the older and more widely used one.

--David Göthberg (talk) 13:39, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes there is no reason not to - except that ns0 doesn't have any demo-space cleverness, and didn't even have a parameter 2 until I succumbed. And the reason for that was to maximise simplicity. Rich Farmbrough, 16:35, 4 November 2009 (UTC).
Thanks, I have now redirected {{ns0}} to {{main other}}, and deleted the /doc page of {{ns0}}. As always I felt a bit bad when "deleting" someone else's work. After all, your code was very compact and efficient. (Unfortunately the "demospace" functionality causes fairly complex code in {{main other}}.)
And haha yeah, I noticed that your template had evolved towards {{main other}} over time.
--David Göthberg (talk) 18:58, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Hungarian settlement

Hi Rich,

You never got back to me on this so I basically am "relisting".

I think SmackBot or something else converted about 250 appropriate articles to use Template:Infobox Hungarian settlement (great, thanks!), but unfortunately it was using ksh_code instead of ksh_code_2008 as the field name for the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH) code. I see now e.g. at Magyarcsanád and Taksony that you have changed using AWB to use the correct fields, and I presume that you have done so for all articles?

Nevertheless (and I appreciate that this is really better discussed at the template talk page, and don't mind if you want to move the discussion there) it is probably my turn to fix the template to replace ksh_code_2008 with ksh_code, and add a ksh_date field (it could just be date if you think that better). I can certainly do this, but would require another run at AWB to fix them all back again. In the alternate I can support both forms, but this is rather a faff since things like the reference, the area and the population is switched on whether the code is present, so would lead to quite a lot of duplication.

On a side note, other information such as the postal area etc. is also readily available from KSH, and could be dated as such. I note from another conversation that there was some mention of the date field on "unsourced fields", and wonder if we should just blanket supply it as a footnote. However, I also note that the blank_ fields in Template:Infobox settlement, while documented, are not actually supported.

Your advice would be appreciated, then I will get on and do it.

Si Trew (talk) 07:33, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes I have to go back and review what the situation is there. Rich Farmbrough, 07:37, 5 November 2009 (UTC).


I'm a liar, at Magyarcsanád it is still using ksh_code, not ksh_code_2008. I agree with your sentiment that the date should be moved out of the field name (to ksh_code).
May I propose that I do that in the template, keeping the existing behavior for ksh_code_2008, so nothing breaks (under WP:OWNFEET) add ksh_year for the year of publication, then we can AWB or whatever the articles to migrate to the new field, then remove the old after. That way, nothing breaks along the way.
Some backround information that may help you: As far as I know the KSH census data is always published nominally on 1 January, regardless of the actual date of collection, and perhaps we should lose that entirely? As you may have guessed, the reason I put the date in the code when making the template was that every article we did happened to be 2008. Some, now, we find are 2009. In Hungary, censuses for small areas are conducted every ten years but like each tenth of the country does them each of those ten years. The KSH codes are, according to the missus, very very stable.
When we translate info for a stub (usually as we are translating somewhere else we check the links and if it is a fairly short article we translate that also along the way, move pics to commons, etc), we do check the KSH and the figures on HU:WP are often out of date. Since our role is basically translation not checking facts etc (that can come after) it is a bind to know then whether to change them, and HU:WP has it so that every edit has to be reviewed by someone else, an admirable policy in some ways but also means that small fixes can take ages to get visible, or are outright rejected by a reviewer on a high horse. I think their basic view is that it is better to aim for a smaller but perfect WP instead of a larger but imperfect one.
My very best wishes and I do appreciate your hard work. Si Trew (talk) 08:33, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Surely you don't entirely disagree with me?

A clever fellow such as you must find yourself leaning at least slightly in my favor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.100.86.2 (talk) 08:05, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Such a post should be added to one of the Wikipedia pages. :)
I found the comment, researched, and moved the articles so the follow a standard style. I hope that is all ok. I could, of course, say THIS ARTICLE IS SHIT. I don't believe it, many people have worked hard at them. Said on user talk and article talk. Si Trew (talk) 18:46, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Admin

Is there something as being an admin with limited possibilities? There is so many good things an editor can't do without being an admin. Like editing protected pages, or deleting pages (to help out in Cfd), etc.

On that other site I wrote you about, I started working just a few days ago as admin and bureaucrat. Not a big deal to be able to delete a page or set user group rights. Today they also made me webmaster, so now I started working with MediaWiki files like LocalSettings.php. I made a few changes already, but I'll read the MediaWiki manual, and then I'll know more about it. Debresser (talk) 15:58, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

That went fine. Debresser (talk) 20:22, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
Hello, Rich Farmbrough. You have new messages at Debresser's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Si Trew (talk) 19:08, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

You will "gnominate" me...? :))) Debresser (talk) 20:21, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps give it a try? Just let me know beforehand, please, if you do. Debresser (talk) 20:57, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

re Refs on Fort Hood

I have never seen another article use this style of reference formatting, it seems quite odd and awkward. Also, could you please use edit summaries? Thanks, Cirt (talk) 23:06, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Please try to attempt in constructive discussion on the article's talk page instead of engaging in edit warring with no edit summaries. Cirt (talk) 23:10, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
As you appear to be ignoring this, and ignoring consensus on the talk page against your edits, please see WP:ANI. Cheers, Cirt (talk) 23:13, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
I struck out my comment at ANI, as you now appear to be acknowledging talk page discussion. But in the future please engage in discussion on the talk page instead of edit warring, and please use edit summaries. Thanks, Cirt (talk) 23:21, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

ITN for Fort Hood shooting

Current events globe On 6 November 2009, In the news was updated with a news item that involved the article Fort Hood shooting, which you created. If you know of another interesting news item involving a recently created or updated article, then please suggest it on the candidates page.

--Dumelow (talk) 01:52, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Fort Hood shooting

Hi, I just wanted to say "nice work" on the article, especially with the high number of edits being made, which, I think, has resulted in more than one edit conflict between the two of us! Anyway, it's good to see a neutral, well referenced, structured article taking form. I think you deserve this:

The Current Events Barnstar
For your hard work creating and maintaining Fort Hood shooting HJMitchell You rang? 04:50, 6 November 2009 (UTC)


Regards, HJMitchell You rang? 04:50, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

That's nice, thank you! I created it because I was Huggling and I saw the one line added to Fort Hood. Rich Farmbrough, 04:55, 6 November 2009 (UTC).
You're welcome. It obviously deserved more than a single line but Fort Hood probably isn't the place. I'm sure I'll see you around! HJMitchell You rang? 18:10, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Fort Hood Shooting

Alleged until proven guilty. Casualties implies dead, whereas victims cover dead and wounded. Neuromancer (talk) 08:59, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Victims implies a value judgement. It is a POV word we should avoid. Casualties does not mean dead. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/casualty Hasan is an alleged murderer, but not really an alleged gunman - no one is disputing that he was the gunman. He will not be tried for being a gunman, he will be tried most likely for murder. Rich Farmbrough, 09:06, 7 November 2009 (UTC).

Oh and you mean "duplicated" not "duplicitous" - the latter means deceiving. Rich Farmbrough, 09:08, 7 November 2009 (UTC).
No, I know what duplicitous means, but it's late, and I was trying to be humorous. Apparently I failed. Neuromancer (talk) 09:18, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
Webster's defines victime as: one that is injured, destroyed, or sacrificed under any of various conditions <a victim of cancer> <a victim of the auto crash> <a murder victim>
casualties is defined as: serious or fatal accident
wiktionary is user editable, and not considered a RS. Neuromancer (talk) 09:18, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not using it as an RS. I would be if I was citing it in the article but I'm not.

  • None of Webster's definitions of "casualty" are exclusively applied to fatalities. (Webster's New World College Dictionary)
  • A victim has to be a victim of something - usually an agent with real, imputed or anthropomorphised intent to cause them to be "injured, destroyed, or sacrificed". So by using the phrase we impute intent. Secondly we don't describe (nor should we) Hasan as a "victim" of the police officer that shot him, although his injury was prima face a sacrifice to save the lives of others. Rich Farmbrough, 09:47, 7 November 2009 (UTC).
  • Nor do we refer to Hasan as a casualty. The alleged shooter definitely had to have an intent behind pointing a loaded firearm at a human, and pulling the trigger, then doing the same to 33 more people. Ipso Facto, the shooter had the real intent to cause them to be injured, or destroyed, thereby "victimizing" them. Some of those victims became casualties of the shooting. To categorize the injured as "casualties" is confusing to say the least. Neuromancer (talk) 10:15, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Weird 'date links'

On my travels, I found this oddball example of how some people link dates. For example, note the string "Vicki Gunvalson (born [[March]] [[27]], [[1962]]), at age 47" Due to the scope of the current operation, we will need to go and delink the lone months at some stage later or anyway, so could I ask you perhaps to look at a possible solution to incorporate into one of your bots? Ohconfucius ¡digame! 13:24, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Already doing it, month and days of the week. Rich Farmbrough, 14:06, 7 November 2009 (UTC).

References on the Hood shooting article

Hi, a discussion here concerns changes to the reflist format [17] & here [18]. If you need a hand fixing give me a shout. Leaky Caldron 17:24, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi. Well done on getting the refs. sorted. I noted a couple remaining - CNNs I think, but I'll leave it with you. I have seen that style used for quite some time and it certainly makes editing easier when text is not clutered up with citation details. I hope you didn't mind me getting involved - I was around on Thursday and chimed in at the time so I was shocked at the changes. Obviously the editor who changed them is not aware of this method - its just a shame he wasted his time. He is still arguing on my talk page that it is "unapproved". If you have any better guideline than the one I provided in my discussion with him it would be helpful - to set the record straight! regards, Leaky Caldron 09:50, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Dates again

I have a few lines of code in my monobook (from a script by Lightmouse) which I use to automatically insert an edit summary: 'function edit_summary()' or somesuch. To save me typing {{use dmy dates}} or {{use mdy dates}} each time, and so as not to annoy people by having the template at the top, I would like to build that into the relevant function to write it as the very last line of the file because it's usually part of the same edit. Could you suggest the code needed, please? Ohconfucius ¡digame! 14:18, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

  • Also, I have this on my 'to do' list. Perhaps I could interest you in this task of making the dates uniform and WP:MOSNUM compliant, which needs quite a lot of mechanised work. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 15:10, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
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AWB: Opening an XML dump across a n./w where I have full rights

Still happening in 4.9+? Can you reproduce it on demand? -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:35, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Category

Is SmackBot adding dates to Category:Userspace drafts created via the Article Wizard, which is populated by {{Userspace draft}}? Debresser (talk) 14:21, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Hm no, I have just added the template but I will need to remember to include userspace in runs Rich Farmbrough, 23:33, 6 November 2009 (UTC).
The draft wizard dates them itself it seems. Rich Farmbrough, 23:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC).
Did you have Category:Unreviewed new articles? That is the mainspace counterpart of the other category, both used in {{Userspace draft}}. Although Category:Unreviewed new articles may be added directly or through {{New unreviewed article}} as well, but that is not done. I recently made a very nice change to the template. Debresser (talk) 16:32, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
The draft wizard has the dated subcategory itself, but you see it doesn't always work out. Debresser (talk) 16:48, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
I fixed all 18 articles that were in Category:Unreviewed new articles. Debresser (talk) 17:13, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Category:Unreviewed new articles and its subcategories moved to Category:Unreviewed new articles created via the Article Wizard. Debresser (talk) 01:04, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

You did something nice with Category:Unreviewed new articles. Do you plan to do the same with Category:Userspace drafts created via the Article Wizard? Debresser (talk) 13:11, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
Don't get upset at Category:Articles with invalid date parameter in template. See Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Source for the explanation. Debresser (talk) 19:00, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Something to take your mind off your usual toil

You may find a slight amusement at Template:Time of day in words. Best wishes Si Trew (talk) 01:26, 9 November 2009 (UTC) ({{Time of day in words|01|26}}, Proper British Time)

Chuckle... Rich Farmbrough, 01:29, 9 November 2009 (UTC).

Date on Unreferenced template

Greetings, Rich Farmbrough. I noticed that in some articles you have replaced the category "articles lacking sources" with an Unreferenced template. Fine, but, I believe the Unreferenced template should not be backdated. If you put the current date on the template, other editors will then see how long the article has been tagged. Take a look at Template:Unreferenced#Usage, where it says, "The date parameter is used to indicate when the template was added to a page." (If you reply here I will see what you say.) — Mudwater (Talk) 01:36, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, except it's not "articles lacking sources" - it's Articles lacking sources (Erik9Bot) which is about 100,000 strong and not dated. Essentially the Erik9Bot articles would swamp the November 2009 section. If there were just a few hundred I would simply stick them in there. I added a footnote to the{{Unreferenced}} page. Rich Farmbrough, 01:59, 9 November 2009 (UTC).
I see what you mean, but I think it's confusing to backdate the Unreferenced template. Other editors will get the impression that an article has been tagged for a long time -- more than three years in this example -- when it's only been tagged for a short time. If the tagging is partly based on the actions of a bot, and results in many articles being tagged for the current month, I don't see that as a problem. — Mudwater (Talk) 02:10, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes I understand. When we set up most of the dated categories we did go back to previous database dumps to get the dating as accurate as possible, we would date that way now if it were effective use of resource. Rich Farmbrough, 02:15, 9 November 2009 (UTC).
It's not a question of the date being "accurate", it's a question of what the date means. The general usage on this and many other tags on Wikipedia is that it shows when the tag was added. Maybe the Unreferenced template should be enhanced to have an additional parameter showing how long the article has been unreferenced, but that's not how most editors are going to interpret the current tag. — Mudwater (Talk) 02:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Dating the tags when they were added (or when the date was added) has always been a compromise. It was one I was aware of when I created the parameter and categories. I am also aware , because I deal with them on a daily basis, that articles move from category to category, and all sorts of strange things go on. It doesn't matter that some articles are "late" - even if it weren't a waste of human time to date the tag at all, people would make so many errors digging back (I get probably a couple hundred misdated tags a day as it is) that adding the current date or better still no date at all is the preferred option for human editors. The important thing is that the articles get references. But having said that I am reluctant to re-create old dated categories (though it happens often enough due to article reversion). Rich Farmbrough, 03:04, 9 November 2009 (UTC).

Recreate old dated categories? I think my last post has muddied the waters, so let me restate my message. By common usage of the Wikpedia tagging system, and as stated in the documentation for the Unreferenced tag, the date in a tag indicates when a tag was added to an article. Backdating the tags should not be done, because (1) it will give most editors the erroneous impression that the article has been tagged for much longer than it actually has been -- in the example cited above, three years instead of two hours -- and (2) there is not a significant advantage to backdating the tags. I'm going to copy this discussion section Template talk:Unreferenced so please feel free to reply there. — Mudwater (Talk) 04:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
This was also discussed previously, see #Unreferenced template in Rich's talk page archive. --Tothwolf (talk) 05:00, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Rich, perhaps a couple parameters could make this usage more clear? Maybe something like |backdated=yes and |auto=yes to show it was added by a bot (auto) and placed in an older category (backdated) to prevent swamping the current category with 100,000+ articles. --Tothwolf (talk) 05:00, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes I had certainly considered a "bot=yes" field - "auto" is better - and backdated is a good idea in principle but not sure the purpose it would serve that the edit summary doesn't. Rich Farmbrough, 12:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC).
I'm thinking a parameter such as backdated would help editors who aren't looking at the edit summaries. Many editors look only at the template code and date in the article and won't check to see when the template was applied to the article. I'm a little concerned myself as there are many editors who initiate AfDs for articles going strictly by the date passed to {{Unreferenced}}. For example: "Article unsourced for X years ... etc". --Tothwolf (talk) 16:39, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Well it would still be true Esperantujo - unsourced for 8 years. And putting them in the appropriate categorises mean that the oldest can be prioritised. Rich Farmbrough, 18:34, 9 November 2009 (UTC).
...but not tagged as such for 8 years, which I think is the crux of the issue. Using the older maintenance categories makes sense to me, but there should be something explicit such as a parameter that shows other editors that the maintenance template was intentionally backdated when it was added to the article. --Tothwolf (talk) 00:56, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Defaultsort on species articles

Hi Rich. Just saw this edit and have been pondering the usefulness of DEFAULTSORT on species articles. Would like your input and perhaps a lengthier discussion on the guideline itself in the proper place. If it isn't explicit already, I'd like to suggest an exception for the defaultsort usage guidelines for taxa articles.

  1. I see very little use for defaultsorts on articles that will only ever been listed next to each other in categories anyway (e.g. Nymphaea lotus var. termalis will only ever be categorized next to Nymphaea lotus, so the capitalization of the second word in the defaultsort seems unnecessary).
  2. Unless uniformly applied, the defaultsort with capitalized species, variety, and subspecies epithets tend to make categories alphabetize incorrectly (e.g. Category:Nymphaeaceae, where Nymphaea lotus var. termalis now sorts between Nymphaea alba and Nymphaea caerulea, the former having a capitalized defaultsort and the latter omitting defaultsort).
  3. The easiest solution to point 2 is the removal of defaultsorts from taxa articles titled at the taxon name.
  4. The defaultsort is likely to be forgotten if the page is moved (either to a common name or an updated taxon name).
  5. It's often counterintuitive to new editors who see capitalized species epithets in the edit window; they may even try to "correct" it, not knowing the guidelines.

So, any thoughts? If I wanted to bring this to a wider audience for discussion, where might I turn. Wikipedia talk:Categorization? Cheers, Rkitko (talk) 23:00, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

As is often the case, at least some of the taxanomic folk have decided that what most of us consider a bug - case-sensitive sorting - is in fact a feature, and are using case to distinguish between different levels in biologic taxa via sort order (as the underlying scientific nomenclature does in the naming). Sadly, there are signs that the underlying bug bug 164 may actually be fixed next year, which will almost certainly make case-insensitive sorting the default, with no indication that case-sensitivity will even be possible. Studerby (talk) 01:28, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes, see my reply to Rkitko on his talk page. The distinction is between the three main levels of sorting: pagename, defaultsort and piped sort. The case-sensitive sort only makes sense in the piped sort. This is what I was implementing across the taxa when someone decided to object to using the normal rules for defaultsort, despite the fact that it doesn't affect the genus categories. Rich Farmbrough, 01:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC).

The Wikipedia Signpost: 9 November 2009

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 01:58, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Fictional endangered and extinct species

Please refrain from introducing inappropriate pages, such as Category:Fictional endangered and extinct species, to Wikipedia. Doing so is not in accordance with our policies. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. ♪ daTheisen(talk) 09:06, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

  • Oh blah, why did this have to be you? Massive guilt on my part now for tagging, after watching you try to fight hard to babysit the Fort Hood shootings article when it was new. Anyway, I looked at the project this is related to, but even this I thought this was a big stretch, especially from an encyclopedic perspective. There's probably a different name you could use that didn't sound so... hyperbolic? ♪ daTheisen(talk) 09:10, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Proposal

Please have a look at this diff. What do you say? And if you think this is a good idea, would you consider merging Category:Articles for merging with no partner with Category:Merge templates that are incorrectly applied? And BTW, do you have a better name for that category, perhaps? Debresser (talk) 16:13, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Rich? Debresser (talk) 15:27, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Major Nidal Malik Hasan

The redirect over at Major Nidal Malik Hasan is still pointing to the parent article. Could you get it fixed up?   — C M B J   00:24, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Done. Sadly those redirects were on my mind when I got up this morning. Rich Farmbrough, 01:07, 11 November 2009 (UTC).

Brockton murders

AFAIK, this is yet another "blast of news at event, blast of news at trial (which hasn't occurred), and then nothing" sort of article. NOTNEWS says that events like this need to be historically notable, and I don't believe a single home invasion is anything more than news, considering that all the information is culled from a whopping four sources. There will undoubtedly be more, but the content will be the same. Does NOTNEWs tend to hold up on AfD? MSJapan (talk) 06:50, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

NOT does carry some weight, unfortunately. I would recommend notability as the grounds for AfD, if any. Rich Farmbrough, 07:31, 11 November 2009 (UTC).

Bad robot, why do you hate indentation?

Smackbot made changes and left this message "Add references section and/or general fixes".

Why is Smackbot stripping indentation? Does not sound like a general fix to me. The indentation was put there deliberately. Indentation not only helps readability of the page source and it makes it easy for me to navigate using only the keyboard arrow and control keys.

Given that the bot needs to be programmed with a list of tasks I would appreciate if the status message could be a bit more clear about which of those tasks have been performed, and more specifically say what was done rather than "general fixes". Surely each time it goes through a condition the an additional note could be concatenated onto the summary string. It seems very odd that the summary says "And/or" when it is clearly "AND", it is a very definitive thing, when would be it be OR?

Please reply here, I've added this page to my watchlist -- Horkana (talk) 01:08, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Which article? Rich Farmbrough, 01:09, 10 November 2009 (UTC).
An episode of How I Met Your Mother. Here's the Diff. I was under the impression that if I used the same indentation consistently for all headings that would be enough to stop bots from reverting it.
Ah OK. Not really indentation, but I see what you mean. When an article is without a references section, and needs one there is a lot of analysis to work out where it goes, it is made easier if the formatting of headers is consistent. As to your other points SmackBot does that task using WP:AWB which allows a custom edit summary up to a point, but there is little value in cluttering edit history with every thing in the diff, indeed that is what diff is for. And there is a limit to the length of the edit summary. Rich Farmbrough, 01:06, 11 November 2009 (UTC).
No easy way to put References section as the section one space above External links?
I suppose I'm thankful you don't further obfuscate the summary with abbreviations but I'd encourage you to make more use of the space available in the summary.
I'll have to take a look at WP:AWB. I spot of lot of mistake when I put in decent indentation and clearly read what what is happening. Spacing and pretty printing are seriously underrated. -- Horkana (talk) 01:25, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
Suppose there is no "external links"? In that case it goes below "See also" if there is no "see also" after "footnotes" and so on through a fair number of conditions, the mid teens if I remember correctly. Many people see "==" the same as <"{[('¿«»?')]}">. Rich Farmbrough, 01:32, 11 November 2009 (UTC).
If there is no "External links" section it goes after the last section? -- Horkana (talk) 15:41, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
Before "Further reading".
I see your point. Now though it seems inappropriate to even create a page without including a References section. Thanks for discussing. Please be generous with the indentation, human readable means easier for humans to read (obviously) and hopefully check to avoid errors. -- Horkana (talk) 16:33, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot - ZNovember?

Hello Rich,

SmackBot is formatting the date for the {{issue}} tag as "ZNovember" as seen here. I think that's not a good thing? 204.153.84.10 (talk) 23:38, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not just {{issue}} tags. As you can see here, different tags are affected and dates are not only being added, but also replaced. —RobinHood70 (talk • contribs) 23:44, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, working on it. Rich Farmbrough, 00:04, 12 November 2009 (UTC).
Fixed. Thanks again. Rich Farmbrough, 00:13, 12 November 2009 (UTC).

User:Full-date unlinking bot‎;

The bot has stalled for three solid days now. I'm dropping you this note because some of us feel that reinforcements are indeed necessary. Please can you see what you can do? Thanks. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 12:29, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

This edit was just a test to see if your bot and/or script worked right; you wouldn't try to clean up stuff in User: space on a production basis, right? --Jc3s5h (talk) 21:23, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Not a test, I did that with preview, more documentation. Rich Farmbrough, 21:25, 12 November 2009 (UTC).

Clean-up changes

Rich, please help me understand some of the clean-up changes you are making. Firstly why are you deleting the spaces between the section heading codes (== etc) and the words when the Editor's guidelines, Cheatsheet and the Level 2 editing button all clearly show spaces separating the words from the code. Secondly, what is the logic for removing the links to dates? --Bermicourt (talk) 20:10, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I noted a similar problem when the bot edited Diagnosis of Asperger syndrome. The change it installed not only unlinked dates (which is fine); it also removed some blank lines after section headers, changed capitalization of macros, and inserted an unnecessary DEFAULTSORT (with the wrong capitalization?); all this makes it harder to see what happened when comparing revisions, and makes the edit appear to be more serious than it really was. I would have preferred a more minimal edit, something like this one, which is what resulted after I cleaned up after the bot. Of course this is a relatively minor annoyance, but it'll add up when applied to lots of pages. Eubulides (talk) 21:28, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
I've had similar issues with spacing but FYI the unlinking of dates is some kind of style policy, I assume it's official and written down somewhere or another. Unfortunately linked dates can be automatically converted and displayed using whatever local format the user prefers so I'm surprised by whoever came up with this style policy of unlinking dates which leads us back into the mess of different date formats displayed in ways no one is happy with, I'm just not surprised by Smackbot following what does seem to be a policy. -- Horkana (talk) 05:31, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Actually that is exactly the problem. For some time linking full dates was the thing to do, because it formatted dates according to user preferences (and despite the fact that it created WP:overlinking}. However it was pointed out that while this was great for (some) registered users, mainly editors, others were seeing a mish-mash of date formats in a given article. Therefore after much discussion (literally years and megabytes) date formatting of that type was deprecated inWP:MOSNUM about a year ago. Rich Farmbrough, 06:04, 13 November 2009 (UTC).
I'm not objecting to the date unlinking at all. I'm objecting to all the other stuff (removing blank lines for no reason, inserting an unnecessary and wrongly-capitalized DEFAULTSORT, changing capitalization of macros, etc.). Surely that other stuff isn't necessary. Eubulides (talk) 07:52, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

FYI

Per your delinking[19] at Sumate, Venezuela uses dmy, not mdy. I'll ask Ohconfucious to fix that one up, since I've seen him do one before. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:14, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Red Star

Red Star

Congratulations, Rich Farmbrough! It's my pleasure to award you November 14, 2009's Red Star for being hard working, kind to others, and for being an excellent user in general. A record of this award will always be kept at User:Meaghan/Shining Stars. Enjoy! Meaghan guess who :) 00:15, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

You could also receive the next higher up award, the Orange Star!

Date changes

Dates - can you use that AWB tool to change the dates in the GA list from 1994-02-25 to 25 February 1994 (my preference) or February 25, 1994 since those are easier to read - and prior to this date stuff the default was that dates ISO formatted were automatically converted to one of these formats unless the user had something different specified in their preferences. Thanks --Trödel 03:15, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I suppose so. Rich Farmbrough, 06:39, 14 November 2009 (UTC).

Merge template

Is there a better way to fix the merge template in Push–pull workout? Debresser (talk) 17:00, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I saw your fix. I suppose that means there isn't. Debresser (talk) 13:49, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot: reordering list-defined references

Here is a bit strange edit: [20]. The good thing is that the bot reordered <ref name="foo"/> elements in the text so that a group of footnotes is in numerical order, I like it, thanks. However, for some reason the bot also changed the order of <ref name="foo">...</ref> elements inside a {{reflist}}. First, I'm not sure if this is necessary at all – it does not change how the page is rendered. Second, I did not see any logic in the order that is produced by the bot: it does not seem to be alphabetical, numerical or anything. Third, the source code contained comments that were related to particular references, and those were misplaced by the bot. — Miym (talk) 12:44, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 15:21, 15 November 2009 (UTC).

Orange Star

Orange Star

Congratulations, Rich Farmbrough! Within the past three days, you received the Red Star for being hard working, kind to others, and for being an excellent user in general. You've now been chosen to receive the next higher up award, the Orange Star. A record of this award will always be kept at User:Meaghan/Shining Stars. Enjoy! Meaghan guess who :) 14:09, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

You could also receive the next higher up award, the Yellow Star!

OOh Orange! Tasty! Is this progessing up the rainbow or the main sequence? Thanks! Rich Farmbrough, 14:20, 15 November 2009 (UTC).

Not a problem! You deserve this award for all your hard work over the years. It's progressing up the main sequence. Cheers, --Meaghan guess who :) 14:44, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Nepal VDCs

Hi Rich. I don't know if you are still up for doing tasks using AWB but I could sure use your help correcting the settlement naming in infoboxes of the Village Development Committee's of Nepal. You see the articles either don't have any banners or they are wrongly labelled as towns or villages rather than Village Development Committee like Chobhar, Nepal. Would you be so kind as to standardise them all? Also many of them wrongly say so and so is a town. Definately wrong. Most of them except for the capital of the district are rural Village Development COmmittee's or municipalities not towns as such... Himalayan 22:29, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Rich, great work, but you may wish to adjust the code to avoid [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Julio-Claudian_dynasty&diff=prev&o ldid=325832924 this]. Thanks. Tony (talk) 00:30, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Rich but the point is Maidan, Nepal is not a small town. It is officially a Village Development Committee or at least a village anyway... Himalayan 11:55, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Messy? Try looking at Indian villages..... Himalayan 17:32, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Adding Source Parameter

Rich, This is my first time using Wikipidia and I am making a page for Vincent Ostrom for a class assignment. In response to my request to move the page (make it active), you said that I need to "add a source parameter using AWB." I'm not sure what this means, but in looking at the AWB instructions, it looks like one needs to have made 500+ Wiki edits before one can register to use AWB. I'm just starting. What should I do? Is this preventing the Ostrom page from becoming active? Advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.-Rachel Feeney User:R.G.Feeney —Preceding undated comment added 19:50, 15 November 2009 (UTC).

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 06:21, 16 November 2009 (UTC).

Wikipedian of the Day

Congratulations, Rich Farmbrough! For your kindness to others, your hard work around the wiki, and for being a great user, you have been awarded the "Wikipedian of the Day" award for today, 16, November 2009! Keep up the great work!--Coldplay Expért Let's talk 00:24, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Note: You could also recieve the "Wikipedian of the Week award for this week!


You seem to be getting all the awards lately :)--Coldplay Expért Let's talk 00:24, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I shall clear a space on the mantle. Rich Farmbrough, 06:53, 16 November 2009 (UTC).

A possibly erroneous edit?

Recently, you made this edit. Among the other changes you made, you changed the format of the accessdate parameter of the cite web template. Please don't do this. If you check the version of the page before your edit, you'll notice none of the access/retrieved on dates were linked. In fact, the template documentation suggests the date format that was used as an option. I've reverted your edit. You may want to check and see how many other articles (if any) you've done this on.--Rockfang (talk) 09:04, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I noticed you are still doing it. Could you respond here when you get a moment? Thank you.--Rockfang (talk) 09:42, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes at the moment I am dealing with the handful of very early dates. I am cautious about changing date formats, and used to be a champion of ISO style for certain fields, until a number of users convinced me that they actually were unable to read them until the format was explained to them. For that reason, in a relatively small subset of ISO type using articles where it seems unlikely to be contentious I have used spelled out dates instead of ISO type dates. If you are saying that it is contentious on the accessdate field in those articles, I can easily leave that parameter format unchanged, as indeed I am doing with the cast majority of dates anyway. Rich Farmbrough, 10:27, 16 November 2009 (UTC).
Thank you for responding. My request/suggestion is this: inside {{Cite web}} if the |accessdate= field has something like [[1900-12-12]], then just remove the brackets (if possible) and leave the format the same.--Rockfang (talk) 10:45, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

1 zzz08zzz 2009 ...

... modern date style are quite unreadable enough without WP inventing its own months. See this diff at Bury. Regards, Mr Stephen (talk) 12:32, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

OH bother. Thakns. Rich Farmbrough, 12:33, 16 November 2009 (UTC).

defaultsort

Hi Rich. Sorry it's taken me a few days to get back to you. I just reverted all of your defaultsort additions to the Drosera articles (WP:BRD). Since this point has at least two editors concerned about it (myself and Hesperian), I'd appreciate it if you might stop adding it to taxa articles while we discuss it. I would like to have this discussion with a wider audience so that we can get a feeling for consensus on this issue. I took a look at the Abies suggestion and it still irks me that this seems unnecessary for the reasons I stated earlier. And think of it less as an exception and more of a guideline on the proper usage - a sort of "use only when needed" guideline, not "use everywhere even when unnecessary" guide. That's my perspective. Appreciate your additional thoughts. Rkitko (talk) 15:49, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Rich, have you had any time to review this? I saw this edit and noticed you have not yet turned off the defaultsort capitalization effort. There doesn't seem to be any guideline or policy that supports this, though there may have been at one time at WP:CAT - it's since been removed as it was disputed, correct? What you're trying to correct seems to be a mediawiki problem to fix. Anyway, I'd appreciate it if you would cease adding the disputed capitalization style to defaultsorts in your AWB edits. Cheers, Rkitko (talk) 03:50, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Help Required

I need ur help. if you do not know the the solution then please tell me whome to ask. There is a problem with my wikipedia account User:Brainlara73. i get logged in, it logged in, and suddenly when i open my wachlist or any other page of wikipiedia, it is logged off automatically. I think it has been hacked or any other problem. Please Help me out.

Regards. Talha

--121.52.145.185 (talk) 09:26, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 15:21, 15 November 2009 (UTC).
cookies are enabled. Problem is still there, it gets logout instantaneously. Is there any way to change password through my email as i can not to view My preferences due to this problem. --121.52.145.185 (talk) 19:14, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Date delink only once

The User:Full-date unlinking bot is specified to only process articles once, in order to prevent edit-warring between editors who actually understand the articles, and bots which do not. Since your recent series of edits seems to accomplish similar goals to the Full-date unlinking bot, do you promise that you will not process an article that has already been processed by that bot? Do you further promise to coordinate with the bot so the bot will not process any article that you have processed? Jc3s5h (talk) 20:14, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I think that will be unlikely to be a problem. Regardless there may need to be a maintenance phase, and the FDU task is only part of one of many clean-up operations. Rich Farmbrough, 12:36, 17 November 2009 (UTC).
This can be done, from my side at least. Rich Farmbrough, 15:19, 17 November 2009 (UTC).

Request

Hey Rich, I have seen you around similar articles and was wondering if you could take a look at Al Qaeda#American operations (may be re-titled Al Qaeda#Fort Hood Shooting) for WP:SYNTH issues. One user feels that since al-Awlaki is linked to al Qaeda, and Nidal Hasan is linked to Awlaki, then Hasan must be working for al Qaeda. I feel this constitutes a serious WP:BLP issue. Thanks for the help. Grsz11 01:58, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Unlinking bot making heavy weather of it

User_talk:Harej#Bot speed. Tony (talk) 11:22, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

ISO delinking

Recently, you (with AWB) appear to have started making automated edit like this one[21] with the summary "delinking ISO style dates using AWB". This edit in question does not appear to delink anything; but instead it has changed a large number of YYYY-mm-dd dates inside {{cite}}s to long-hand format. Template:Cite/doc clearly states "Note: Since "the date" is a single parameter in the code, the ISO 8601 date format (YYYY-MM-DD) should be used"; the subject is therefore misleading and the edit non-productive. —Sladen (talk) 14:00, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

That of course is wrong, the documentation you were looking at is for an old version of the template. It was probably wrong then as well. Rich Farmbrough, 19:28, 16 November 2009 (UTC).
(You may have missed this on my talk page Rich Farmbrough, 19:54, 16 November 2009 (UTC). )

Please leave date format alone when unlinking

I saw a similar change to Thiomersal, in which a few dates were delinked but a bunch of dates were converted from the article's YYYY-MM-DD style to some other style. There is no consensus to change YYYY-MM-DD date format to other date formats, and AWB should not be going through articles changing date formats like that. Is there any way that the damage already done can be undone? Eubulides (talk) 17:33, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I've put a list of 1,052 recent edits that (judging from their edit summary) probably involve this undesirable date reformatting into my sandbox. Can you please take a look at it? Eubulides (talk) 17:51, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Eubulides; the fall-out is wider than just that exact summary; these edits[22] do[23] the[24] same[25] under the opaque summary "Fix error using AWB". —Sladen (talk) 18:06, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
I noticed this edit which changed "date = [[2002-08-06]]" to "date = 6 August 2002 ". Please explain the full logic by which this change was made, including any limits on the input range of dates for which the change will be made, and how the format "6 August 2002" was chosen rather than "August 6, 2002". --Jc3s5h (talk) 18:57, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
There are no ISO style dates on en.WP ns0 outside the range 1700-9999. The page in question already had a date in that format so there's little difficulty there. Rich Farmbrough, 19:13, 16 November 2009 (UTC).
Yes but it isn't wikilinked. Rich Farmbrough, 17:00, 17 November 2009 (UTC).
Why (full logic) was the formatting of dates lying in the year range 1700–9999 changed? —Sladen (talk) 19:33, 16 November 2009
Full logic is to get the maximum value from the edits. Per the above discussion I am leaving parameters in ISO style. Rich Farmbrough, 19:57, 16 November 2009 (UTC).
Hi Rich, Please could you clarify your response? Why was the formatting changed? --Northernhenge (talk) 22:38, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
The syntactic sugar of the date linking means that it can be safely dealt with in ways that would be difficult later- since we don't have ISO style dates in text and they are contentious in other places that is what I was trying to do. Rich Farmbrough, 17:19, 17 November 2009 (UTC).
I've raised this issue as an AWB bug report. Semiautomated tools should not be used to install formatting changes like these without consensus. Eubulides (talk) 19:44, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. It's not AWB, though. Rich Farmbrough, 19:53, 16 November 2009 (UTC).
Ah, thanks, and sorry about the confusion. AWB is a complete mystery to me. I'll go report the bug as a false alarm, if you haven't done it already. Eubulides (talk) 20:03, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
I do not understand what "en.WP ns0" means. I question the claim "There are no ISO style dates on en.WP ns0 outside the range 1700-9999", I have seen such dates, although I can't say if the are in en.WP ns0 since I don't know what that is. --Jc3s5h (talk) 20:04, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
English Wikipedia name-space zero (article space). Rich Farmbrough, 20:05, 16 November 2009 (UTC).
Well I haven't checked for dates after 9999 to be fair. Rich Farmbrough, 20:06, 16 November 2009 (UTC).
YYYY-MM-DD dates are exceedingly rare outside that range in English Wikipedia, but they do exist. For example, the ISO 8601 article uses the date "1582-10-15". Admittedly this is a special case (which I found by searching for "1582-10-15" using Google) but there's no technical objection to dates before 1700 in YYY-MM-DD format. The objections to that format are stylistic (not technical), and understandably so as it often appears out of place when discussing older topics. Eubulides (talk) 20:22, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Mr. Farmbrough edited such a date himself today (see line 81). When I saw the edit, I supposed he relied upon his personal experience enjoying bonfires to realize that despite the requirements of ISO 8601, the date was actually in the Julian calendar and should not be converted. But in view of his claim that no such dates exist, I must suppose he was letting his program run wild with no regard to falsehoods it might produce. --Jc3s5h (talk) 20:32, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
You might suppose what you wish. Alternatively you could look further up in the article and see that the date is given in the first sentence of the article. Rich Farmbrough, 20:38, 16 November 2009 (UTC).
I do not question that "1605-11-05" was, by happenstance, equivalent to 5 November 1605 in that context. My concern is that since, as far as I know, Greece was the last country to convert from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, and that was in 1923, any YYYY-MM-DD formatted date in or before 1923 must be manually inspected to determine what calendar it is in, before converting it to any other format. Since Mr. Farmbrough stated, after allowing 1605-11-05 to be converted by his software, that there were no such dates in the English Wikipedia article namespace, I conclude that Mr. Farmbrough did not carefully inspect the date before allowing the conversion, else he would have remembered it. --Jc3s5h (talk) 21:12, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
It so happens that I do remember it. The injunction to "Remember remember the fifth of November" ensured that. You will also have seen that I asked for a citation in Stoke Golding as there was no internal support for the date. Nonetheless I think you are living in a fantasy land if you believe that editors are smart enough to take a Julian date, convert it to the proleptic Georgian calender and enter it wiki-linked ISO format, and at the same time stupid enough not to realise that it will display as a normal format date and hence needs a qualifier. Rich Farmbrough, 21:54, 16 November 2009 (UTC).
Since you did not manually inspect such dates, you would not have seen any qualification that might have been present. However, I see that you have wisely given up the practice of reformatting dates in the YYYY-MM-FF format. I sincerely hope you will never resume that practice. --Jc3s5h (talk) 22:01, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
OK read between the lines. "I asked for a citation in Stoke Golding as there was no internal support for the date." You are supposed to realise from that that I did manually inspect the date. Rich Farmbrough, 22:03, 16 November 2009 (UTC).

There have been partial or complete reverts of what Rich has done where ISO format is at issue. Not all ISO date formats were changed by Rich: some were simply unlinked, as described in the specs. Often, Sladen or Eubulides have simply reverted Rich, without making the dates uniform. In some cases, after the reverts, the reference section is a messy mixture of date formats: don't people care? I don't think these reversions are quite justified.

That's not really a worry Tony, I have always seen the unlinking as just a part of a longer process and I was trying to get some more value out of about 1/2 % of the edits. We can do this later but it will be harder - and it will be later. But it doesn't break the main process. Rich Farmbrough, 17:00, 17 November 2009 (UTC).

However, I must say that the bot was always conceived as performing a narrow, uncontroversial task. I trust that this task has not been widened. I don't know why all of these complaints are occurring now, but did not occur during bot testing. Tony (talk) 03:01, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

  • None of the changes Rich made seem to have had anything to do with erroneous conversion of Julian to Gregorian dates (or vice versa) - most are articles about modern-day subjects - so I don't really appreciate this red herring; nor do I appreciate what seems like a heavy dose of sarcasm coming from some quarters. I have already left a note on talk pages of Eubulides and Sladen respectively about their edits. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 03:29, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Ohconfucius: I haven't seen any messages regarding sarcasm on my User talk page... —Sladen (talk) 16:36, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
As you will have already seen from my message, I stated above that I wanted to comment about your editing. There was never intended to be any comment to you about any sarcasm on your part, if any. I apologise for the misunderstanding. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:23, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
  • To answer your question, Tony, the complaints are about actions which Rich has performed with AWB, not the date-delinking bot. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 03:44, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
  • The large volume of changes gives the impression of a fully automatic process. Any hint of a flaw in the logic of an automated process should be pointed out before it causes a large amount of damage. Just because I had not seen the kind of damage I was concerned about was no reason not to point out what seemed like a logic flaw. Later, Mr. Farnbrough informed me that he had manually reviewed the edit I used as an example. I am unable to imagine how he is able to effectively manually review the large volume of edits, but perhaps he has some process that defies my limited imagination. --Jc3s5h (talk) 04:25, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Tony: It would have been wasteful to directly revert the overarching edits completely, as that would have lost other (good quality) changes that were in the same edit but not documented in the AWB summary. It should be clear from the widely varying [and very-specific] summary lines of the ~27 reactive edits[26] that I made, that these were done manually—even then I'm sure they weren't perfect and straight revert followed by a freshly-fixed AWB run would likely have been safer and more reliable. —Sladen (talk) 16:50, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Rich, the bot was always intended to fulfil a narrow task. That is why it gained overwhelming community consensus. Unless these issues can be resolved soon, I suggest that the removal of triple-unit links proceed without the complication. Then we can debate how the other stuff might be done. If the task is narrow, the speed can be something like what was suggested by BAG, with minimal glitches. Tony (talk) 02:46, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

date= parsing

In the edit[27] the script does not appear to be actively parsing for date=; it managed to managle date[[2008-03-29]] to date29 March 2008—ideally the script could do with tighter parsing rules. —Sladen (talk) 15:54, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes it could correct that error, right now the motivation to add features is not high as there is always someone to object to anything. Rich Farmbrough, 17:45, 16 November 2009 (UTC).
If something is out-of-spec, it would be preferable for AWB to leave it alone to avoid making things worse. —Sladen (talk) 18:08, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

How is it making things worse? There appear to be about 500 missing "=" signs. Easy enough to fix them up. Rich Farmbrough, 18:11, 16 November 2009 (UTC).

If you're keen on helping to fix things up; could you please assist with reverting (or writing a rule to revert) the unintended date changes noted above before embarking on new projects. It would be useful to have an idea of between which times (UTC) the broken YYYY-mm-dd rule was likely to have been active, which summary edits have been used with this rule active, and to confirm that the broken rule has either been fixed, or permanently disabled. —Sladen (talk) 18:56, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

The process should have a hyper-rigid definition of what is and is not a date, and anything that does not meet the definition of a date should not be processed. Among the criteria for being a date should be white space, equals sign, minus sign, hyphen, or some kind of dash to the left, and white space, colon, some type of dash, or terminal punctuation to the right. I suppose within a citation template, the vertical pipe could also be to the left or right. --Jc3s5h (talk) 19:01, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

And you think I have processed non-dates? Rich Farmbrough, 19:03, 16 November 2009 (UTC).
Is the date being defined by its key, or by it's index? If a citation date is one that starts date *= *(.+)[|}], accessdate *= *, ... then yes dates were mis-identified. If the rule was only looking at the value ([0-9]{4}-[0-9]{1,2}-[0-9]{1,2})) and relying on that, then no. Personally I would be happier if the context were carefully included in any rule.
Could another tool reliably parse the output generated? No—some formerly good dates ended up with zzz in them and some lost mark-up (which although undesirable) was clearly separating the datum from the previous word. —Sladen (talk) 19:28, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
OK the zzz syntax was a temporary artifact caused by excluding a class of dates. It took moments to fix. In the case where there was a missing = the question is deeper but not really difficult. As far as the wiki is concerned both the before and after situations were semantic nulls. Some hypothetical tool might be able to parse one version, the other version, neither or both - in addition to or instead of any combination the valid parameter syntax. In particular the tool I am using can parse either and moreover converts from either to a valid en.wp:template:typical valid version and took less time to create then explaining this. So while there is something interesting in what you say it doesn't greatly matter, what we do when we find a problem is fix it and move on. We should doubtless produce a bulwark against recurrence however that is a council of perfection at the moment. Rich Farmbrough, 19:40, 16 November 2009 (UTC).
  • Why is there this nit-picking? I don't see anything broken. That is an input error totally unrelated to a date or its linking. There's no real reason why the bot and Rich's script should pick up and correct those. In fact, it makes it more complicated to program for. It's not reasonable to have to write the script foreseeing and expect to know when to insert an 'equal' sign and when not to. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 15:22, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
The medical oath is "do no harm" (eg. do not make things worse)—and I would hope that the same applies here. See User:Full-date unlinking bot#Criteria for delinking "The bot will solve simple grammatical errors that the autoformatter will no longer be able to correct (due to de-linking).". —Sladen (talk) 15:45, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Maybe I'm just thick - still don't get. The autoformatter never did fix missing 'equals' signs, nor palliate their absence. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 16:01, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes but it was an easy fix, some 500 articles have been corrected as a result. And it draws attention to the fact that the syntactic sugar of the date linking measn that it can be safely dealt with in ways that would be difficult later- since we don't have ISO style dates in text and they are contentious in other places that is what I was trying to do. Rich Farmbrough, 16:45, 17 November 2009 (UTC).

The Wikipedia Signpost: 16 November 2009

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 16:16, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Lhoka Prefecture

Hi. Somebody keeps disrupting this article by moving it from the correct Shannan Prefecture to Lhoka. Can you move it back and put some kind of protection against moving it or whatever? It is officially the Shannan Prefecture and we have maps, categories and inline text to this effect not to mention books I possess from neutral sources. That area has been called Shannan for centuries! Can you move it back? Cheers. Himalayan 19:09, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, now, from what I gather it is the "official" PRC new name for the prefecture, despite it being called Shannan for over 1000 years, I had thought initially it was vandalism. Sad really that such a deep rooted name can change just like that. However as Lhoka will not be recognisable to many I've redirected to a double name title which seems the sensible thing to do. Himalayan 20:22, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah well we have had Cleveland, and South Kesteven, East Rother and so on, all no doubt with some root in the past. Rich Farmbrough, 12:11, 18 November 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot

Would you please recover the article that was deleted by adding the infobox. Thank you. (Salmon1 (talk) 14:14, 18 November 2009 (UTC))

The article name is Irving Kriesberg. Thank you fvery much. !Salmon1 (talk) 14:19, 18 November 2009 (UTC))

I cannot thank you enough for your help. I will try my best not to repeat my error. Very best regards, (Salmon1 (talk) 14:24, 18 November 2009 (UTC))

ok

hello Rich Farmbrough, thanks for remark, i do it next time. Trabelsiismail (talk) 15:07, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

(Delink dates (WP:MOSUNLINKDATES) using AWB)

Do you have a module for this? --John (talk) 04:44, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I can upload the XML later today. Rich Farmbrough, 08:45, 15 November 2009 (UTC).
Hi there, if you would, could you modify your script to not redo the section headers in edits like this? I find them easier to find and read in an edit window when they are spaced. Regards, —Ed (talk • contribs) 08:06, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Sure, no problem. Rich Farmbrough, 08:07, 15 November 2009 (UTC).
Thanks dude. :-) All the best, —Ed (talk • contribs) 18:53, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
It may be of interest that, when MiszaBot scans a talk page for archiving, it *adds* spaces to the headers which don't already have them. I don't know which style is more standard for the headers, or whether articles and talk pages are expected to have the same style. On my talk page, 'new section' (i.e. the '+' button) creates a header with spaces. EdJohnston (talk) 05:29, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes I was aware Mizabot does that. De-facto standard is no spaces by almost 3-1
   * Spaces in header 3,571,002.
   * No spaces in header 9,967,810.
Rich Farmbrough, 18:06, 17 November 2009 (UTC).

<-- I came to post on the same topic, so piling on. I've created pretty much 90% of the pages in Category:India women Test cricketers and Category:India women ODI cricketers, about 70% overlap between the two. When I created them I assumed that linking dates was a necessity as that's how I'd seen it elsewhere. Could you run your module on both these cats, or let me know how I could do it using AWB? Thanks. -SpacemanSpiff 04:11, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Settings are here

[28] Use with caution and at your own risk. Rich Farmbrough, 07:44, 16 November 2009 (UTC).

Thanks, but I think I'm going to wait a bit to do this, I'm still not too familiar with altering settings on AWB. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff 15:19, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

New unlinking code

I see the wonderful new AWB code you just wrote, and was wondering if...

you wouldn't mind seeking approval for a second bot to supplement the efforts of Full-date unlinking bot, perhaps using that code? It would be nice to have a bot that runs at the approved speed, doesn't pause for its 8-hour constitutional, doesn't work to rule. ;-) Ohconfucius ¡digame! 10:43, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes I have thought of doing this but BRFA is a little tedious sometimes. It took FDUB months. And I am waiting on an approval as it is. I dare say I'll file one in due course. Rich Farmbrough, 11:09, 16 November 2009 (UTC).
Especially as WP:NODEADLINE seems to apply. Rich Farmbrough, 11:11, 16 November 2009 (UTC).
Maybe, but it's frustrating to see all the hiccups that FDUB seems to be experiencing I get the feeling you could do the job a hundred times better. Being infinitely simpler than agreeing on a roadmap for universal suffrage in Hong Kong, it would be nice to see the job done before the latter's promised arrival in 2017. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 13:02, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Especially as we still have to deal with a host of other date formatting issues. Rich Farmbrough, 13:05, 16 November 2009 (UTC).
There seem to be some small problems. At least, in year articles,
should not be unlinked. I fixed the ones I caught in future years, but I don't know how many past year articles you've mangled unlinked against clear consensus. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:26, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for letting me know. Rich Farmbrough, 02:27, 19 November 2009 (UTC).

Thanks for improving articles

I appreciate your using the bot to tidy up references and formatting and stuff. I wanted to say that I research and write quickly, sometimes copying and pasting whatever date format I come across in my sources, and find it takes too much time to manually switch from 6/04/2007 to the proper format of 2007-06-04. But I trust your bot does this quickly, effortlessly, right? So it's a big time savings for me if I can work quickly.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:08, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Please do not allow N/N/YYYY dates to creep into Wikipedia article content or articles; if both of the 'N's are less than thirteen, it's impossible at that point to identify which is the month and which is the day—which is why WP:MOSDATE is really quite clear on this and states; "Do not use date formats such as 03/04/2005, as they are ambiguous" ...None of the decreed date formats allow this ambiguity. In the case of "6/04/2007" it is impossible for a bot it identify what it might need changing to. Remember that Wikipedia is about quality, not quantity and it's worth taking the time to decode it to whichever of 6 March, 4 June, 2007-04-06 or 2007-06-04 was intended. —Sladen (talk) 04:03, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I'll try to switch the slashed dates; but it takes time and slows me down considerably; it's easier to pull off the date in whatever format it is in with copying & pasting; but if I see both number are less than 13 in the slash format, then I'll switch it. Is this a reasonable compromise?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 04:16, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Btw, if the date is 06/04/2007, it's June 4th not April 6th; a bot might not tell you this, but I will. It is the convention in these dates among American English language newspapers to have the month appear first. The bot should be programmed to assume the first number is the month in those situations (when two front numbers < 13 and four digit number in third place then best guess is month is first number, date the second). In Europe, rarely is the slash format used. If you don't believe me, if you look at all the date formats when there are three numbers, delimited by slashes, and the last number has four digits -- in those situations I bet almost all of the first numbers are the month.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 04:16, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
No. In Europe (and the rest of the unAmerican world) a date with slashes is dd/mm/YYYY. (Just like time is written HH:MM:SS not HH:SS:MM). —Sladen (talk) 04:22, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
The use of slashes is pervasive in Europe when a date is to be represented by numbers, and it is as Sladen says. Furthermore, bot conversion issues, if we are to go down that route (and I'm not suggesting that we do), will have to consider include urls, where the use of slashes is extensive. So I urge User:Tomwsulcer not to be expedient with his slash-delimited dates, which are certainly ambiguous. If you can't be bothered to perform such a simple manipulation with the url/source open in front of you, another editor will be forced to open the link to resolve that ambiguity. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 04:53, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I stand corrected. Didn't know about Europe. As an American, I presumed that such places only existed in myths.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 17:10, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
OK the thing to do here is use javascript: I have a tag to switch from mm/dd/yyyy and another for dd/mm/yyyy. Rich Farmbrough, 08:08, 18 November 2009 (UTC).
Is this javascript something I can use with my Ubuntu Linux computer and Firefox? If there's some code which is easy for me to use (and which makes less work for people cleaning up after my atrocious formatting) please let me know; I used to be good at computer programming but today sometimes I'm categorized as one of the "blinking VCR types", although I don't know what this means (I think it's a compliment, right?)--Tomwsulcer (talk) 17:10, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

But I was wondering that perhaps you might know something that always is a nuisance for me, and might give me advice? When I finish putting together a new article, how do I find the proper categories? It seems I have to wade through tons of screens. The Wikimedia Commons has this great tool called "Common Sense"; do you know if WP has something similar? So, I could type in things like "doctor researcher medicine person manhattan" and it would find the categories for me?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:08, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

For articles where I have worked on content I have simply guessed and dug through the category tree - and I do now use WP:HotCat. For other articles I am afraid I generally delegate this task to category experts by adding a {{Uncat}} tag - the uncategorized backlog is generally the shortest at a few weeks tops. Rich Farmbrough, 08:08, 18 November 2009 (UTC).
Thanks! I'll try both! I put them into my help-file code. --Tomwsulcer (talk) 17:10, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Date formats again being changed willy-nilly

Following up on #Please leave date format alone when unlinking above: this morning's big batch of date changes again changed the date formats of articles while unlinking them, for no good reason. For example, this edit to Neurotypical changed "Retrieved on 2007-11-24" to "Retrieved on 24 November 2007" even though the established style in references in that article was to use YYYY-MM-DD format. You indicated earlier that you had fixed your regular expressions to not do that, but apparently it's still doing that.

While you're fixing this, can you please let us know exactly which regular expressions you're using? That might help to avoid future problems like this. Thanks. Eubulides (talk) 19:08, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

No if you read the summary it says that it is unlinking named parameters adn converting others to words. Rich Farmbrough, 19:11, 18 November 2009 (UTC).
Rich: alot of people have complained—the path of least confrontation might be to stop automated date conversions and stick to the core topic of delinking. Please. Pretty please. —Sladen (talk) 19:21, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
It's knee jerk reaction. Neurotypical was uniformly ISO free before this edit for example. But of course you are right, let us slow everything to a snail's pace, avoid contentious areas, and take the path of least resistance. Rich Farmbrough, 20:58, 18 November 2009 (UTC).
First, that diff's edit summary did not accurately summarize the edit. The edit did not change any "named parameters". More important, the edit changed date formats for no reason. Many editors prefer the YYYY-MM-DD format, and it's inappropriate to install mass changes to some other format. It's irrelevant whether Neurotypical had no dates in older versions; what's relevant for this process is what the article looks like now. Please take more care to not change date formats like this; this repeated format-changing without consensus is worrisome. Also, please publish the regular expressions used to perform these changes, so that we can all help to prevent this sort of problem in the future. Eubulides (talk) 21:59, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Some of us think the YYYY-MM-DD format is an abomination, of course. I have yet to see a real world style guide that recommends it (YMMV). Mr Stephen (talk) 23:09, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
It only arrived by the back-door of auto-formatting. It was the only way to enter the date in one field and have it auto-formatted. Rich Farmbrough, 23:32, 18 November 2009 (UTC).
No. YYYY-mm-dd dates are used because they are concise, unambiguous, syntactically definite, sortable, sane (most-significant digit first), intentionally agnostic and language independent. —Sladen (talk) 23:42, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Just a thought, at least in sortable tables, perhaps {{dts}} would help? --Tothwolf (talk) 23:49, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Rich is quite correct. Mr Stephen (talk) 23:51, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I would once again refer Sladen to the comments I left on his talk page. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:27, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
For a quarter of the World's population YYYY-mm-dd is their normal preferred date format.[note 1] —Sladen (talk) 23:26, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
[29] No leading 0's used. Rich Farmbrough, 23:53, 18 November 2009 (UTC).
Oh and its not YYYY-mm-dd it's either YY-mm-dd or a more complex formulation 2009年2月18日 for example - and it is likely the majority actually write something completely different. since there are a number of scripts in China with their own numeral systems and in some cases more than one numeral system. Rich Farmbrough, 00:05, 19 November 2009 (UTC).
I would recommend a visit over guessing at straws; if nothing else, the passport stamps should provide a lasting reference point. —Sladen (talk) 00:12, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
You can post me the tickets whenever you like. Rich Farmbrough, 00:25, 19 November 2009 (UTC).
I fear that the Standardization Administration of the People's Republic of China may disagree[30]. —Sladen (talk) 00:04, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
They disagree with themselves as they use YYY年MM月DD日, YYYY年MM月DD日 and MM-DD on their real home page - although the first one is probably a software error. But we al know that standards organisations consume their own dog food. Nonetheless the heading of the "Standardization Law of China" has two other date formats in it:
Agency responsible:
Issue date: 1988.12.29
Implementation date: 1989.04.01
(Adopted at the Fifth Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Seventh National People's Congress on December 29,1998)
So really that is all kinda fun but not terribly relevant.
Rich Farmbrough, 00:21, 19 November 2009 (UTC).
I doubt that is true. I think that a very large proportion format their dates as either "18 November 2009" or "November 18 2009", plus or minus a comma. Mr Stephen (talk) 23:51, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Well as Sladen says, path of least resistance applies, so there's no need to publish anything. But the eternal picking at edit summaries doesn't help - nor does using terms like "willy nilly" and "mangle". And if the previous versions are irrelevant how come you changed it from majority DMY to majority ISO style? Well never mind, we can sort this stuff out later, it will be harder, and it will be later. Rich Farmbrough, 22:10, 18 November 2009 (UTC).
The previous comment does not make it whether that this semiautomated date reformatting will stop. Will it? Eubulides (talk) 23:26, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
It has already stopped. Rich Farmbrough, 01:26, 19 November 2009 (UTC).

I tend to agree with Rich on the knee jerk reaction thing. That was my reaction upon seeing the dreaded "AWB" edit summary on fully 1/3 of the pages on my watchlist, but ultimately there's nothing wrong with it. Seems like the arguments here are just... arguments. I mean, really: Who cares what China likes? They have their own Wikipedia (and can't even access half of that one anyway). That's really scraping the bottom of the argument barrel. At worst, the changes are quite harmless. I'd say overall, they're pretty helpful. Kafziel Complaint Department 00:19, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

  • Well said, Kafziel, it's a red herring. It's what WP wants for itself which is important. Apparently "alot of people have complained", but the only evidence appears to be on this talk page, and the numbers can be counted on one hand, with several digits to spare. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:34, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
  1. ^ Population of the People's Republic of China.

WOTD

Congratulations, Rich Farmbrough! For your kindness to others, your hard work around the wiki, and for being a great user, you have been awarded the "Wikipedian of the Day" award for today, November 19th, 2009! Keep up the great work!
Note: You could also recieve the "Wikipedian of the Week award for this week!

Décémbér21st2012Fréak  |  Talk 01:24, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, most kind! Rich Farmbrough, 01:25, 19 November 2009 (UTC).

Congratulations! Debresser (talk) 15:09, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Cholsey railway station

With this edit you have inserted commas into two dates that ought not have them, being day month year. I shall remove them again. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:49, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, it is a nice station, except when it is raining. While I have not been there for some years, I would not want to litter it with surplus commas. Rich Farmbrough, 11:51, 19 November 2009 (UTC).
P.S. I am checking my alst few thousand edits for more of the same. Rich Farmbrough, 12:04, 19 November 2009 (UTC).

Bot status

Hi, can you use a user with bot status when making massive automatic changes? That would ease for those watching the pages you have been doing those changes. Thank you.--Nutriveg (talk) 13:29, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

See what I can do. Rich Farmbrough, 13:30, 19 November 2009 (UTC).

date work

Good work, but please check the MOS for the format for 'dd month yyyy' dates such as '17 November 2009'. I believe that commas are not allowed; they are only used in the 'month dd, yyyy' format, such as November 17, 2009. I am saying nothing about which format is preferred; I am only discussing the comma. Hmains (talk) 04:25, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

That is correct, the question of whether to remove the comma is not trivial "... the troops moral fell to an all time low by 19 November, 2009, however, saw a new turn of events...." Rich Farmbrough, 08:09, 18 November 2009 (UTC).

But I certainly should not be adding commas. Rich Farmbrough, 08:50, 18 November 2009 (UTC).
you are/were doing so Hmains (talk) 04:52, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes, thanks, fixed the problem (code fork), working on the symptom. Rich Farmbrough, 07:39, 20 November 2009 (UTC).

FYI

Since you partook in the first nomination, and I do not regularly see you on WP:CFD, I'd like to inform you of this nomination. Thank you, Debresser (talk) 15:08, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I think this time there is a real chance. Debresser (talk) 13:33, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Double listas

Hi, on various pages including Talk:Gerard Crole, Talk:Thomas H. Swope and Talk:Michelle Michaels you added an extra listas parameter instead of filling in the existing blank one. I know that you're busy unlinking dates these days, but I figured I'd point this out for when you return to listas work. Of course, these edits were two months ago, so you may have already fixed your AWB settings.... MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 18:02, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I believe that is resolved, but I will bear it in mind. Rich Farmbrough, 19:14, 19 November 2009 (UTC).

Need your expertise

Hi Rich, another editor is considering asking for an upgrade on the article for "Echoes", the song from Pink Floyd. However, there's a huge white patch that I've seen a hundred times on Wikipedia, where the text vs. the infobox leaves a big blank spot. Could you have a look at it, and either fix it, give me a name of another editor who could do this, or ask me to bug off if I'm wrong to consider the layout of the piece? It would of course, be gratefully appreciated, as I am computer illiterate for the most part. --Leahtwosaints (talk) 22:20, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

You can use {{TOC left}} - I have put it in, but the TOC is quite short (a POWr TOC one might say) so the layout might be too busy like that. I tend to only use that with very long thin TOCs, 30 lines of years for example. Rich Farmbrough, 22:26, 19 November 2009 (UTC).

Help

What is wrong with the url and title in the example here? Debresser (talk) 12:30, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Clarify

Could you help clarify the "piping" issue in Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_November_19#Categories_for_discussion, please. Debresser (talk) 13:32, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Section heading style

I'm puzzled... User:SmackBot makes edits like this, removing the spaces from eg == References == to make ==References==; yet User:MondalorBot does precisely the opposite. Which style should I follow for new section headers that I add to articles? --Redrose64 (talk) 13:39, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Whichever you like. On the whole SmackBot leaves these alone, certainly for it's main task of dating maintenance tags. The substantial majority of headers in articles have no extra spaces, presumably in analogy to other delimiters like () {} <> but if you use the new-section tab you will get spaces, so I would conclude editors in general prefer without - though I have heard both points of view. Rich Farmbrough, 14:05, 20 November 2009 (UTC).
I left Mondalor a note. Rich Farmbrough, 14:22, 20 November 2009 (UTC).

Quick question regarding...

Hi Rich Farmbrough. I'm Nonamer98, and I'm relatively new to wikipedia. I know the basics, but there are a few things that still puzzle me.

In the edit summary, how do you make it so that it says something like "Reverted/undid edit identified as vandalism by..." (I emphasized the important part)

Is there a format or something that I can't find? I know what vandalism looks like, and I only revert clear cases of vandalism.

You're input is greatly appreciated. Nonamer98 (talk) 03:05, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

It depends, you could type it in the edit summary box, or past it there, but I expect you are seeing use of a tool like WP:Huggle. Rich Farmbrough, 08:42, 19 November 2009 (UTC).
You might be right. Here's an example I found on my watchlist:

Reverted 1 edit by 24.186.95.71 identified as vandalism to last revision by Rich Farmbrough.

I want to make it so that it says the bold part. Any input? Thanks! Nonamer98 (talk) 17:46, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Stubs

You recently accidentally deleted some links to stub using AWB (I have restored them). No doubt AWB mistakes these for something connected with stub-articles. This is not the first time this has happened (I believe). Is there some mechanism for protecting content from AWB? --catslash (talk) 22:33, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I made a change to the article. You can use {{Nobots}} (qv) in a similar circumstance, but it should only be a stop gap. If possible I will file a bug report tomorrow. Rich Farmbrough, 23:40, 20 November 2009 (UTC).

Congratulations!

Wow! Congratulations on passing the 500,000 mark! Heh, I thought it was a big deal when I hit 50,000 edits about ten days ago; now, that seems so tiny compared to your half a million. Anyways, keep up the good work, and I'll be seeing you, as always, popping up all over my Watchlist. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 09:40, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Brazil

Hello, Rich! Good morning! Or at least, I hope it's morning where you live! Anyway, the article Brazil is blocked due to a dispute over a content. I would like to know if you would be interested in giving your opinion to end it once and for all. In case you do not know much about the subject, I could explain it better to you. This is the link. All help is needed. Thank your very much and kind regards, --Lecen (talk) 11:35, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I am answering you in here, hope you don't mind. Because in the Brazilian census, the mixed-blood population is all grouped in the "Pardo" category. Brazilian experts divide this category into several subcategories: the Caboclos (descendants of whites and Indians), Mulattoes (those of whites and blacks), cafuzos (those of balcks and Indians), Ainocôs (those of whites and Japanese) and Juçaras (those of white, black and Indian). Their geographic distribution across the country is not equal. For example, in the Amazon rainforest (also known as the Northern region of Brazil) where very, very few African slaves were sent to, the Mulatto and black population is a rarity, while the Caboclo is the predominant one. In the Southeast (Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, etc...), due to the coffe farms and gold mines where many African slaves were brought to work, from the 17th to the middle of the 19th century, there is a large population of Mulattoes. This is not what I am talking, but what experts on that field say. The other editor claimed that 85% of the population in the Amazon rainforest is black. He got a newspaper article whose author simply added Pardo to black category from the official census and said that both combined were a black population. Yes, it's an obvious mistake from the author of the article, but that's his problem. So, this is it: the dispute is between sources based on Brazilian academic experts and a source based on a newsparer's article. --Lecen (talk) 12:07, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree 100% with you. Are you going to "pick" a side on that one or do you prefer to stay away? The article is blocked and the matter must be resolved sooner or later.
But sharing with you my personal opinion, it does not make any sense to say that a Brazilian is black because it has 10% of black genes. Because all Brazilians (including blacks) have at least 40% white genes. So, everyone is white now? Anyway, that was a newsparer article written by an unknown and non-specialized author. It shouldn't be taken as a source when all Brazilian experts do not agree with it. --Lecen (talk) 12:32, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

List of centenarians

Hey Rich,

Thanks for taking the time out to fix the commas in the dates, but this this date is contained in the title of reference, and is therefore a direct quote, so shouldn't it be left out? Cheers, CP 15:28, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes indeed. Rich Farmbrough, 15:31, 21 November 2009 (UTC).

More work for you!!!

Hi, Rich! You probably aren't going to be as excited as the title of this post suggests, but I do indeed have work for you, if you have time and are willing to help. Basically, the gist is that I have upgraded {{Infobox Russian district}} to be more like {{Infobox Russian inhabited locality}}, which means that the newly upgraded template also contains the "date=" parameter used internally to date uncited fields. Could you, please, add it to your bot workload the same way you did for the inhabited localities? Thanks much!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 22:45, November 2, 2009 (UTC)

The date param did not add correctly here. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 22:04, November 3, 2009 (UTC)
Done.

Alexey Steele

Hello, Rich, I added a feature article from the LA TIMES concerning painter, Alexey Steele, and although I do not imagine myself to be as smart as a computer programmer like yourself, I think that confers notability on the man, since there are very few artists in the USA who ever manage to get a single word written about themselves in the LA Times, let alone an entire two page feature article. But I leave it to your judgment and discretion to determine if the tag should be removed or not. Cheers.

Big Media Articles (talk) 02:19, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Rich, I also forgot to mention that I added a reference about Steele receiving the Artemis Award in Athens, Greece not too long ago, an award received by only 14 individuals including a Nobel Prize winner, an Emmy winner, etc. It seems to confer international notability upon Steele, since I doubt there are many USA-based painters who have received any such acclaim from outside America. Let me know your thoughts. Cheers.

Big Media Articles (talk) 02:48, 22 November 2009 (UTC) Answered on user's talk page.} Rich Farmbrough, 09:23, 22 November 2009 (UTC).

hello, Rich, thanks for sending me the notes. Based upon Steele's history section, I thought you placed the notability tag on his listing but if not, then my error, and sorry about that. Based upon your comments, I will remove the tag, since you do not seem to object.
As for Dr. Devra Davis, she did, in fact, belong to the group awarded the Nobel Prize in 2007, as per the following paragraph, taken from a news service:
"She also served as a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- the group awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007."
It is not unusual for members of a Nobel Prize Winning Group of individuals to be credited on a personal basis...for example, Doctors Without Borders won a Nobel Prize in 1999 and the key members of the group (at that time) are often credited individually with having won the Nobel.
Anyway, thanks for such an expeditious response to my queries. Cheers.

Big Media Articles (talk) 09:49, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Her work on AR3/WG3 should be noted in her article, not the Noble though, since that was the 2001 report - and lead author sounds impressive - the chapters she was a lead author of had 15 and 10 lead authors (less "contributing" authors). Also her work on the short term benefits of reducing fossil fuel consumption
  • Davis, D., 1997: The Hidden Benefits of Climate Policy: Reducing Fossil Fuel use Saves Lives Now. Environmental Health, Notes 1-6.
  • Davis, D.L., A. Krupnick, and G. Thurston, 2000: The Ancillary Health Benefits and Costs of GHG Mitigation: Scope, Scale, and Credibility. Expert Workshop on Assessing the Ancillary Benefits and Costs of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Policies, March 27-29, Washington, DC.
Rich Farmbrough, 11:50, 22 November 2009 (UTC).
Rich, it looks like you are 100% correct. I salute you for sleuthing the issue and getting to the heart of the matter, VERY impressive! Well, I still am inclined to believe Steele is notable in his own right, not simply by process of association, IMHO. Cheers.

Big Media Articles (talk) 20:07, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Request

Hi, Rich. Could you run SmackBot on references errors, please? Debresser (talk) 10:57, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

The last entry in the log is of 18 November. Debresser (talk) 11:59, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Date format damage

As politely as I can ask, in the sweetest of cute fluffy cutesy baby rabbit voices, please could you curtail the use of unvetted high-speed automated rules to attack YYYY-mm-dd dates. Eg. this edit[31] has modified an article that exclusively used YYYY-mm-dd dates in its references[32] section and now introduced multiple formats... (MOS:NUM#Format consistency). —Sladen (talk) 21:37, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

This edit[33] introduces European dates into the references section where all but one full dates was in YYYY-mm-dd and the one exception was in US-format. —Sladen (talk) 23:05, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
This edit[34] delinks and unilaterally converts YYYY-mm-dd dates, but then fails to delink the US-format dates in the same sentence. —Sladen (talk) 23:21, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
This edit[35] converts YYYY-mm-dd inside a named date parameter, despite the summary line suggesting that is not the case. —Sladen (talk) 23:21, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
This edit[36] also converts a YYYY-mm-dd date, despite the references section using exclusively YYYY-mm-dd dates. —Sladen (talk) 23:21, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
This edit[37] unilaterally converts a date where the references section uses exclusively' YYYY-mm-dd dates. —Sladen (talk) 23:41, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
These consecutive edits[38][39] convert YYYY-mm-dd dates in tables that consistently and exclusively use YYYY-mm-dd dates for brevity, making a mess of the tables. —Sladen (talk) 23:41, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
These consecutive edits[40][41] converts a YYYY-mm-dd date in a references section that exclusively uses YYYY-mm-dd dates. —Sladen (talk) 23:41, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
Actually not, it turns out. the first one had another dmy date in the ref section, the second didn't change the ref. Rich Farmbrough, 11:27, 23 November 2009 (UTC).
This edit[42] converts YYYY-mm-dd dates to European dates, despite every date in the article being in YYYY-mm-dd, except one, which was in US-date format... —Sladen (talk) 23:41, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
This edit[43] converts YYYY-mm-dd to European, despite the majority of the references, and the rest of the article using US-format dates. —Sladen (talk) 23:41, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
  • I see Rich has reverted them all. In the meantime, I have delinked all the dates, and have aligned them in the correct format, as appropriate for the article. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 07:00, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Thanks, I actually reverted most of them, some Sladen had sorted a couple I fixed up. Rich Farmbrough, 11:02, 23 November 2009 (UTC).
  • As a general point, the above twelve highlights were from a consecutive range of 25 edits that happened to be on Special:Contributions at the time I looked. If the same ~50% failure rate has indeed been extrapolated across all of the recent AWB date edits, then there will have been an immense amount of inconsistency introduced. —Sladen (talk) 16:12, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh-N-Oh!

This diff has picked up 0-6-0 as a date instead of a railway engine type. Regards, Mr Stephen (talk) 22:40, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh dear, I know they are railway configurations and thought I had dealt with that. As well as football line-ups and a few other things, well I'll checkem out. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 22:48, 22 November 2009 (UTC).
OK I picked up another one, and a couple (so far) of articles that needed linking, and put hat notes about 4-2-4 and 4-4-2 (which I'm pretty sure I disambiguated a couple years back). So a worthwhile exercise. Rich Farmbrough, 11:04, 23 November 2009 (UTC).

US format date cleanup

This edit changes[44] "August 15th 2007" to "August 15 2007", rather than "August 15, 2007" (MOS:DATE). —Sladen (talk) 23:01, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Hm well it should be "August 15th, 2007" but that is certainly worth looking out for in general. I'm working through the other items too. Rich Farmbrough, 00:18, 23 November 2009 (UTC).
No. It should be "15 August 2007" or "August 15, 2007". And this edit[45] (made eight minutes ago) should not have had a comma added. —Sladen (talk) 00:38, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
As in the fact that it was an ordinal did not mean that the comma wasn't required. Rich Farmbrough, 00:43, 23 November 2009 (UTC).
Eh? WP:MOSDATE allows precisely three full date formats; your edit took a full date in one of those formats and changed it into none-of them. As did this edit[46] and this one[47] (both since the above). —Sladen (talk) 00:57, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
"August 15th 2007" isn't one of the three allowed. The other two are revised already. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 00:59, 23 November 2009 (UTC).
Ta—my apologies for the statement "your edit took a full date in one of those formats", which was incorrect and thank you for having fixed it (and the other two noted). —Sladen (talk) 01:03, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Dates for preferences

Hi. In the course of other edits, I have delinked your purposeful date-linking here. Sorry, but I don't see how MOS:UNLINKDATES (and the bit about autoformatting) doesn't apply here. Persuade me otherwise if you wish. Cheers Bjenks (talk) 05:03, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

You are quite right to unlink them. If you read the history you will see I was self reverting. This was as a response to the above:

These consecutive edits[48][49] converts a YYYY-mm-dd date in a references section that exclusively uses YYYY-mm-dd dates. —Sladen (talk) 23:41, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for re-unlinking. Rich Farmbrough, 11:23, 23 November 2009 (UTC).

Your correct edits

Hi your edits were very good but have been reverted on topic Islam and Sikhism Thanks 5705noreply (talk) 05:06, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank for letting me know, a bot will pick that up later. Rich Farmbrough, 11:30, 23 November 2009 (UTC).

The article 1787

Sorry, I had to revert your edit to get at some vandalism. Thought I'd let you know in case you wanted to re-do it. —Aladdin Sane (talk) 19:20, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh thanks, you could have just deleted the vandalism though. No need to un-do, un-do in a simple case like that. Rich Farmbrough, 19:24, 23 November 2009 (UTC).

Template

Since I noticed that Category:Articles with invalid date parameter in template has been populated by them same articles for a few days, I decided to fix them. And walked into Template:Failed verification that does not yet have the substitution detection. Debresser (talk) 21:50, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Dates, dates, again, again

Rich, pardon WP:STALK, but please strongly consider whether it's really possible for a human to accurately edit and review at seven articles per minute:

  1. This edit[50] converts a YYYY-mm-dd where the references section exclusively used YYYY-mm-dd.
  2. This edit[51] rewrites + breaks three URLs by inserting random spaces.
  3. This edit[52] hides an in-line link, despite WP:OVERLINK/WP:EGG ("avoid linking ... the names of major geographic features and locations"), and then inserts three instances of "January2002" [sic].
    Look at the next edit. Rich Farmbrough, 02:08, 24 November 2009 (UTC).
    Ta for the date fix. Can I reiterate WP:OVERLINK—we're trying to get rid of useless links, not add more! "Ohio" does need adding as a separate link (especially when the previous sentence has the abomination "U.S. state of Ohio"). Same applies to Wisconsin, Oregon. Michigan, Scotland... —Sladen (talk) 02:53, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
  4. This edit[53] converts a YYYY-mm-dd in a named parameter; which previously the summaries rules were claiming to avoid.
    Yes because I was first asked not to chage acessdates then ref date= then... so I threw that out if the window as a rule. In this infobox this is a better format.

—Sladen (talk) 22:53, 23 November 2009 (UTC) (All from the top of Special:Contributions).

  1. "references section exclusively used" - There's only one ref with one date - no need to overegg the pudding ;-)
  2. Agreed the script needs to avoid this sort of false positive
  3. Agreed, this is one of those potentially ambiguous date formats probably best left for humans to resolve.
  4. This is not a "parameter" in that no calculation or interpretation depends on it. Space is not an issue, so I see no particular reason for this to be in 8601.
Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:54, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

The SmackBot bot seems to have placed an {{advert}} tag on the article on Evan Kohlmann. I am surprised at this, thinking that either this would be a tag that only a real human being should apply, because it requires real human judgment -- or alternatively, if we can trust a bot's heuristics to apply it, the edit summary should link to the rules the bot used.

Is the bot still applying this tag? Geo Swan (talk) 02:54, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

The important phrase here is "(One intermediate revision not shown)". Rich Farmbrough, 09:42, 24 November 2009 (UTC).

The Wikipedia Signpost: 23 November 2009

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 13:14, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar

The Original Barnstar
For being the first person to reach the 500,000 edit mark, I award you this Barnstar for your efforts. Thanks for being a leader among all Wikipedians. Chris (talk) 13:43, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Chris, much appreciated. Rich Farmbrough, 13:45, 24 November 2009 (UTC).

AWB

How can I change ==Header== to == Header == using AWB? Debresser (talk) 15:19, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Rich, do you have time to explain this to me. I just found out that I can use AWB on Innerpedia as well, but don't know how. Debresser (talk) 12:56, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Hello, Rich Farmbrough. You have new messages at Debresser's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

There still remains something to fix. Sorry, but the regex article is still a bit hard for me, so if you could please help. Debresser (talk) 22:40, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

List of artists who have covered Bob Dylan songs

I noticed you have changed the format on the headings and subheadings for the article. In my opinion I think it's less easy to read as a result. Is it possible for it to be changed back or has it been discussed somewhere that the new format is better than the previous one? If the page is to be kept in the current format should pages such as List of artists who have covered Van Morrison and the Beatles songs be changed as well to show consistency? Thanks Kitchen roll (talk) 21:59, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 22:02, 24 November 2009 (UTC).
Thanks Kitchen roll (talk) 22:09, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

AWB rules

Could you please check/tweak some AWB rules: this edit[54] (a) breaks an image link; (b) replaces hyphen with &nbsp; instead of endash; (c) inserts the seventh month as September, not July (d) and linkifies a d-m-YYYY date. Same here[55], breaking a doi= link. Thanks, —Sladen (talk) 16:03, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't be a problem now. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 16:21, 24 November 2009 (UTC).

This edit[56], appears to have made the article's table a mess of inconsistency. —Sladen (talk) 23:14, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand how your AWB script works: of two identically formatted (ie linked, ISO) dates in one article, it only converts and delinks one... Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:34, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

It's avoiding accessed on , retrieved on and archived on. Rich Farmbrough, 03:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC).
  • Then it could still result in inconsistencies within reference sections, violating WP:MOSNUM. If the 'date' parameter is converted whilst leaving 'accessdate' untouched, there will be at least two different date formats in the refs section. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 03:35, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Well people argue(d) that acessdate= should be left as ISO even if the date is words, then other people argued that date= should be left as ISO too... basically I was only looking at about 1% of the dated articles and reduced that further to about 1/3 of 1%. Rich Farmbrough, 03:40, 25 November 2009 (UTC).
Congratulations due—this is the first I've seen "Rich Farmbrough" appear in my Watchlist, reviewed the last dozen AWB steamroller edits and not found major carnage. —Sladen (talk) 03:55, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Please fix the AWB rules to check if the NNNN exists in the article title before removing the "'"[57]. —Sladen (talk) 16:54, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
A number can be a name. A person or object with a name can possess something. Therefore a number followed by apostrophe-s is potentially valid. Since you do not read articles carefully enough after editing them to decide whether the added "s" indicates a time period or possession, you should not make such changes. --Jc3s5h (talk) 17:40, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Eg. B movies (Transition in the 1950s)#Mutating genres: "such as rape in 1950's Outrage (released by RKO) and 1953's self-explanatory The Bigamist". —Sladen (talk) 18:58, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Please try[58] to leave the comment <!--- See [[Wikipedia:Footnotes]] on how to create references using <ref></ref> tags which will then appear here automatically --> intact. —Sladen (talk) 02:38, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Have a break

Have a wikibreak. The articles on my watchlist invariably you have done more harm than good. I know you are a good editor. Take a break. Si Trew (talk) 16:54, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Or if not, just shut up. Your edits are generally destructive. You love the plaudits but never respond to anyone who has genuine, real criticisms of your editing habits. Sheesh, your bot works OK most of the time, and you AWB to fix some other stuff. Other editors actually make stuff are annoyed (at least one, guess who) when your bot or yourself under AWB "corrects" something that was perfectly correct under WP.MOS and so forth, let alone being referenced and for facts, wikified and stuff.
It is quite easy to just fuck up other editors' contributions. Harder to fix them. You still after three attempts to ask you to discuss about Hungarian templates have not even bothered to respond. I go WP:ANI I know I will lose but you are a nuisance if you do not listen to humble editors who are actually making content. There is a place for doing it, SmackBot does it well, but you don't even bother to look at the articles before AWB. There may have been a lot of consideration into how to put it, before you "correct" it. With translated articles especially, it is very hard to translate and you trample all over it.
Totally fed up with your editing style. But I do truly believe you are a good faith editor, even though you could not deign to my last three requests to sort out the Hungarian templates. I would have done the work, just needed you to give direction. You could not be bothered. So you like to have a big edit count, I think, and don't care about the content.

Wishes, Si Trew (talk) 17:05, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

You?

Is it you who has fixed almost half of the articles in Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters? Debresser (talk) 19:13, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

No I did few, but I want SmackBot to do it. BRFA has bee waiting a couple weeks seems like. I think Rjw was working on it. Rich Farmbrough, 19:16, 25 November 2009 (UTC).

Happy Thanksgiving!

 December21st2012Freak Happy Thanksgiving! has given you a Turkey! Turkeys promate WikiLove and hopefully this has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a turkey, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy Thanksgiving!

Spread the goodness of turkey by adding {{subst:User:December21st2012Freak/Thanksgiving Turkey}} to their talk page with a friendly message. 

December21st2012Freak  Happy Thanksgiving! 16:35, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Date out of Nihongo template

Could you stop putting dates out of Nihongo template? I don't think that's the convention. -- Taku (talk) 18:23, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Another Barnstar

The Minor Barnstar
Thanks.I see you all over the place, quietly fixing articles. Your name constantly appears on my Watch list. Graham Colm Talk 10:51, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Bot-related opinion

I think your opinion would we welcomed at WP:VPT#Toolserver IP editing logged-out again. Oh, and well done for the awesome milestone achievement. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 12:30, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Unwelcome template

Template:Formatfootnotes Debresser (talk) 21:21, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmm - doesn't that depend when it is used? For example see footnote 1. Rich Farmbrough, 21:34, 25 November 2009 (UTC).
What do you mean? Debresser (talk) 21:59, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
If editors will start adding a template to articles with or without references error, that is going to be a capital mess. Debresser (talk) 22:00, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Mr. Farmbrough's suggested usage is what I intended it for, there are lots of articles cited like that, which would be better served with ref tagged references. --(ƒî)» 22:36, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
You mean for cases where a footnote is not defined as such? If so, perhaps make a new error category for that. We have a few already, for various types, but all are sorted into by MediaWiki. Making a new category, to go with the new template, would seem reasonable to me. Manually or with a maintenance template adding the category does not. Debresser (talk) 22:40, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Why didn't I do that in the first place? --(ƒî)» 22:45, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Rich, may I draw your attention to this edit of mine? Debresser (talk) 23:07, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure. Rich Farmbrough, 23:41, 25 November 2009 (UTC).
I have a feeling this template is going to be popular. It might make sense to turn it into a dated template with monthly categories from the beginning. Debresser (talk) 23:19, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for all your work here. I try when I make a template to give reasonable error messages, rather than it just say nothing or whatever, which is very hard to debug. This is a great advance, at least to see and know something is wrong, rather than it just swallow erroneous input. You will see at my testcases (e.g. Template:Hungarian settlement rank name/testcases or Template:Ordinal to word/0 to 19 I don't just test the cases that work, I test the cases that do not work. I hope this gives editors using them, which are few I admit, an idea of when they are sending it broken input. I am a software engineer after all. Si Trew (talk) 07:47, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm a liar cos there are no testcases for the rank name. I am going to fix the doc, too, now that Mayar Téleüles Infobox has gone. I will try to do this at the others in that cat, but could do with a second set of eyes in case I miss any. Si Trew (talk) 07:50, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for this fix. Thought I went back and added the reflist template, but obviously not! Cheers Nouse4aname (talk) 16:06, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Welcome. Rich Farmbrough, 16:07, 27 November 2009 (UTC).

List of cities, towns and villages in Hungary

Hi Rich,

I have conglomerated this from List of Towns and Cities in Hungary A-M and List of Towns and Cities N-Z. Since it it is a list I can't see the point of having it split. Now I need your help.

The population figures - ignore that they are not quite matching the articles themselves, for now - are pushed together with the postal code. Which makes Bácsalmás have a population of 7,1611,6430, which of course is nonsense. I have gone through "A" and split them with align=right, but you may be able to do better with a bot I think. They are in separate table fields, just not aligned properly. And of course under WP:MOSNUM the spaces should be replaced by commas. Could you do this with a bot? It is fairly simple really but you are the bot expert not me.

I dunno whether to link the county names cos it could well be WP:OVERLINK. If you want to, subst {{Hungarian county link}}.

I should appreciate your advice. Letter A is now OK except if I made silly mistake, but the rest still needs doing. Si Trew (talk) 09:16, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Rich, much appreciated. Si Trew (talk) 01:08, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

900 (number)

I don't think removing your edit removing DEAULTSORT has anything to do with MOSUNLINKDATES. I'm not saying the edit is inappropriate, just that it's trivial. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:16, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 10:56, 29 November 2009 (UTC).

Template:Infobox Hungarian settlement

Please don't forget this. I did ask you politely about the way to fix this up (with a bot assist and some template changes), twice. The second time you did not reply (as far as I can tell). I don't mind doing the template fixup but need your consensus first, if we need to run SmackBot over it. Si Trew (talk) 11:17, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes I know, I will try to remind myself about this and see what to do. Rich Farmbrough, 11:30, 18 November 2009 (UTC).

need to re-read/ Rich Farmbrough, 08:40, 21 November 2009 (UTC).

OK the problem here is simply as you identified that we can't use parameters inside a ref. May relate to an existing Bugzilla bug. That aside I have tweaked the template and some documentation, it is not perfect because we are assuming 1 January 2008, but we have to hope that the above bug is fixed in the next couple of years then we can use <population as of> in the ref. Rich Farmbrough, 19:20, 25 November 2009 (UTC).
But we have a good reference already. Why do we want to get rid of it? Rich Farmbrough, 19:40, 25 November 2009 (UTC).
But the parameters are wrong. Get it? I put in a couple of parameters, you disliked the name of it, I attempted to discuss but your bot went and changed them all anyway as a fait accompli. So then I asked whether to change the template, three times, no reply. So I think you just think it is just job done and move on to your next project to destroy. Stay and fix this with me please, I asked you three times with no reply at all, and all we have to do is agree on the names in the template then run the bot to fix what you have broken. And you have broken it, regardless of what you say. The template automaticaééy reffed and you broke that. Can we please sort it out because I am losing my good faith in you, I think you just get a good project in your head and forget the mess behind you. Si Trew (talk) 20:28, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
To get to details: Let's have ksh_code (not ksh_code_2008), fron other advice these seem very very stable. From before the Communist era. I am working on maps on these too, and they are very stable. Let's add a date field ksh_date and we then stick them together when necessary. Then we link area and population to the automatically provided ref. And I wrote KSH (Hungarian Central Statistical Office) and did all the links and know that is quite stable, as much as e.g. INSEE or whatever. So is that OK? But I need your bot then to run over and fix the articles it broke. Si Trew (talk) 20:35, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes I agree with ksh_date. We already have population_as_of. But as you found out in October and I found out today you can't use parameters in refs. So it makes more sense to use the refs that have been generated already. We can even drive the bot off the parameters by creating a tracking category "Hungarion infoxes with ksh code but no footnote". Rich Farmbrough, 20:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC).
[59] currently has both footnotes. which is better? the one with the link or the one without? Rich Farmbrough, 21:37, 25 November 2009 (UTC).
There is a trick to get you to do elaboration in refsm i.e. swindle the parser. Someone put it on my talk, I will put it here if you think it useful (or you can check ny talk) Si Trew (talk) 22:15, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, "{{tag}} doesn't do it, that is just "<lt;"... Rich Farmbrough, 23:34, 25 November 2009 (UTC).

(oudent) You're right, I hadn't read it really, and it is just saying use {{tl}}. I thought there was something more curious, though, a little trick that would get round the parser and do that kind of trick, like one does with {{{!}} and so on. But this isn't it.

It's not good form to edit content on user talk pages. You just can't help yourself can you. Si Trew (talk) 07:27, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

OK so i am trying to get to the nub of the gist here and Csomád as you pointed out is a great exannple. From the KSH code it generates the link to the KSH inline, in the infobox. There is then a reference to the KSH generally. Then one to the KSH with the name of the place and it links to it with the KSH code.
The first and second are my doing, the third is yours (or your bot's). As I see it, the third is far nicer, but requires a bot to do it cos one cannot do it by constructing the reference using #PAGENAME and {{ksh_code}} etc. to pull it together. So, to propose:
  • Add ksh_code_2008 as a synonym for ksh_code. Add ksh_date
  • Run bot to replace ksh_code_2008 with ksh_code in existing articles
  • When done, remove ksh_code_2008
  • Then try to sort out the mess with multiple references. I did attempt to use a footnote for this, but footnote_blank in {{Infobox settlement}} does not work. Or if it does it must have a bizarre set of rules which are not documented. Which means, it does not work.

I will do the first bit now, as nothing gets broken. I was hoping to avoid the duplicatio, but so be it, nothing then gets broken by doing so. YOu might end up with three references in Csomád, who knows (and that is on the list for our translating it from HU:WP. So far we are only down to the end of A.)

Best wishes Si Trew (talk) 07:40, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Now you've broken it. It is t his that frustrates me. I try and try and try to get a consensus how to do it, and still you go ahead and break it. Because I wanted to keep ksh code 2008 until your bot cleared t hem up. But you took it out and broke it. SHeesh, I could have broken it myself, that would not be difficult, the whole point was not to break existing articles. See WP:OWNFEET, please. Si Trew (talk) 08:01, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
I edited Abony to use the new fields. It is broken, it complains there is no cite ref. It is broken. Si Trew (talk) 08:11, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
  • The behaviour is documented (could be better). When you add ksh_code you need to add the population_footnotes.
  • I may be wrong Simon but I think the only broken articles were Ráckeve and Abony. Both fixed.
  • There were 6 articles using ksh_code_2008 - all fixed. 5 needed a population_footnotes field. Some of these you had removed the footnote.
  • All articles that have a ksh_code have a population_footnotes field. Most of these you had removed the footnote.
  • We don't need ksh_date, we have population_as_of.
  • Currently every article has a "}}" at the beginning. fixed
  • There is a limit to the number of hours I am willing to spend trying to "trick" the parser into doing stuff it should do anyway. I have probably spent dozens of hours on that, sometimes I have succeeded, sometimes not.
    • If you get auto ref generation working, great, let me know how.
    • Meanwhile either:
      • cut and paste the population footnotes field.
      • if you add ksh_code to a significant number of articles I can run AWB to add the footnotes (I set it up and there were only a handful (well 2 + 5) of articles that needed it)
      • or you could make a subst template
    • It is possible it might make sense to replace the static part of the url with a literal template {{Ksh url}} (should be KSH url really). That way if they change the structure of their site we just have to make one change.
Rich Farmbrough, 09:25, 26 November 2009 (UTC).
Incidentally the broken items should have showed up at Category:Hungarian settlements with KSH code lacking footnote. Rich Farmbrough, 10:42, 26 November 2009 (UTC).
OK that all sounds good. I know I am a bastard engineer who just wants it right. Of course I could have fixed Abony but wanted to leave it as an example of how it could go wrong. Can you say, we are now definitely all on ksh_code not ksh_code_2008? The ksh_date I am not sure about. population_as-of totally understand, but also the area figures come from there too. I would suggest that keep as ksh_date and just feed it to population_as_of, do you agree? The population density, given area and poulation, is computed with {{pop_density}} in {{Infobox settlement}} which is somewhat annoying as one cannot then just put in free text, e.g. to knock down the precision or whatever. I think that it should be a free form text field, what do you think?
Thanks for all your work here and thanks for putting up with a grumpy bastard (i.e. meself.) I am glad we got it fixed. Now I can use it with confidence in many other Hungarian geo articles I have to edit. Si Trew (talk) 11:04, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes all articles are on ksh_code. ksh_date/population_as_of - well either are a bit kludgy - but we could I suppose feed ksh_date as an alternative "population_as_of = {population_as_of|{ksh_date|}}" (with all the extra {}) - then if there were an <area_as_of> in the future we could do the same. The other question is whether we should make sure people can add sources other than KSH, I guess as it stands they can but inelegantly. Rich Farmbrough, 12:26, 26 November 2009 (UTC).
BTW, for the record, Abony is the best tst case because it uses the template and has most of the fields, and, er, happens to be the first in the list alphabetically. Coincidence? Test Acsa and Sulyap to make sure, I think that uses {{Magyar település infobox}}
Nothing uses {{Magyar település infobox}}. Acsa is fine, Sulyap, maybe has a diacritic? Rich Farmbrough, 12:45, 26 November 2009 (UTC).
My typo there, it is Sülysap. It should have redirect without the diacritic, but I missed the S. It is the missus' home town so we did that one first (and improved the Hungarian, it is odd with the HU:WP, they seem to like removing information instead of adding it.) So it is basically, from your stance, a random article.
I dunno why you say nothing uses {{Magyar település infobox}}. Did you change them to use {{Infobox Hungarian settlement}}? I checked "what links here" and it does seem nothing links to it. I dunno know whether it is better to delete it, now that Hungarian Infobox settlement works pretty well, or to leave it be, as it does no harm. What do you think? If you proposed it for deletion I would be neutral, but I can see a good argument for it being deleted. Frankly only Monkap and I actually do the translations of these articles and we can get along quite fine with the English version. Should we delete it? Si Trew (talk) 17:52, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes we translated them all months ago. We can delete it, (easy enough to undelete) if we aren't bringing any more articles/infoboxes over using automation. Rich Farmbrough, 21:22, 26 November 2009 (UTC).
OK let's delete it, if you PROD it I will support as author and say it is no longer needed. It is a bizarre way to learn a language, I know what a mayor is (polgarmeister) and a county (megye) but not how to say yes or no.
I could speedy it but would likely be declined, better for you to PROD it I think. Si Trew (talk) 06:27, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
I speedied it as an unused template. Rich Farmbrough, 10:08, 27 November 2009 (UTC).
OK, slightly surprised it was accepted at SPEEDY, but one less thing to worry about. Thanks for all your work here. Thanks Rich, it is very much appreciated. Si Trew (talk) 07:42, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
I see you added infoboxes at Mezőberény. Thanks for that. It's referenced from László Németh, which we are currently translating, but it's hard going at that article. Thanks once again, your help in improving these articles I truly appreciate. Si Trew (talk) 16:38, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot and obsolete parameters

Since you are dealing with films can you also remove obsolete parameters from Infobox film? Check Category:Film articles using deprecated parameters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:29, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes sure. Rich Farmbrough, 16:42, 29 November 2009 (UTC).

Removing stub tags

Bots should not remove stub tags from articles that have been manually assessed as stubs. I, personally, assessed Virtual Pool franchise as a stub, because it is missing probably at least 50% of the information it needs. Smackbot had no business making up it's "mind" that I'm wrong. If it is just going on article length or some rubric like that, it needs to stop. At very, very least it should never countermand WikiProject tag assessments on the article's talk page (as long as one still says "Stub", it's still a stub, unless a) only one such project tag says so, and b) that tag has |auto=yes). I would also suggest strongly that it never remove stub tags when there is more than one stub tag, since it is fairly likely that this represents the human-mind judgement of 2 or more editors. At any rate, "stubness" is principally a factor of logical article depth and completion, not length in bytes or characters. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:18, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

"A stub is an article containing only a few sentences of text" - and stub-class assessment is a separate matter. This article is certainly not a stub in my opinion. It needs a expand tag not a stub. Rich Farmbrough, 22:35, 29 November 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot

At this edit, SmackBot deleted an image, leaving the summary "Standard headings &/or gen fixes. using AWB". It happened nearly two years ago, and it seems no one has noticed until now. Can you explain the edit, please? Moonraker2 (talk) 22:20, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

This is my mistake, and it was the next edit. Moonraker2 (talk) 22:23, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

About the edit filter

Yesterday, I accidentally tripped filter 263 (Serafin - talk page abuse) and my autoconfirmed status had been revoked. I was trying to warn an IP about vandalism on an article on a profane word when the filter "recognize" that I abused the talk page (because of the profane word, when it is actually referring to the article). Fortunately, it's a false positive and I believe the filter has been fixed by User:Zzuuzz. See here. Will I ever trip the filter again and have my autoconfirmed status revoked if I warn a vandal regarding the article on a profane word on his talk page now, since the abuse filter is already fixed?  Merlion  444  10:08, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 15:21, 30 November 2009 (UTC).

[60] R.F. 2015-10-22Z23:02

Date Maintenance Tags and General Fixes

Hey there, What does "Date Maintenance Tags and General Fixes" mean? I read it in the edit summary on Karl Rove. Is this automated? If so, it's really cool. How did you invent it? Any way to get an automaton to do all the editing on controversial topics? Would save a lot of green house gases from being expelled into the atmosphere. LOL. Malke 2010 (talk) 15:17, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 15:21, 30 November 2009 (UTC).
Wow, that is very cool. I've always wondered about the "citation needed" thing. So when you put up "citation needed" it gets dated and then how does the system notify editors that they need to kick into gear and get a real source up on the article?Malke 2010 (talk) 15:24, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Amazing, the size of it all. Truly defines the term "work in progress." Well, now that I'm aware of this sort of thing, I will be very diligent in seeing to it that any articles I work on are properly cited. I'm also amazed by the "dead links" tool. Brilliant, whoever figured that out.Malke 2010 (talk) 15:32, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

accessdate= improvement

This edit[61]; rules for improvement... —Sladen (talk) 15:30, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

you've got it. Debresser (talk) 16:17, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Pages with citation templates etc.

Although I agree with the move, there are 20 templates that sorted into Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters, and you changed only {{Cite web}} to Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters. The others are found on User:Debresser/My_work_on_Wikipedia#Accessdate. So it is either change all, or change none. Debresser (talk) 15:37, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks saved me visiting your talk page to ask. Rich Farmbrough, 15:48, 30 November 2009 (UTC).
My pleasure. I made all the new monthly maintenance categories (apart from 3 that had been created already today). I am very anxious about the Cfd templates. I'd hate there should be complaints now that we've finally got those categories renamed. See above Debresser (talk) 16:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Will you do talkpages, userpages and wikipedia pages as well? I'll of course fix anything you leave, but I do think your AWB does it 10 times quicker than I do. Debresser (talk) 22:36, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Bot status (again)

You still didn't get a user with bot status to perform those massive automatic edits so I'm unable to automatically differentiate these irrelevant bot edits in my watchlist.--Nutriveg (talk) 18:22, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Cite journal

Hi, this edit has broken linking of short-notes to references (including Harvard referencing) for {{cite journal}}. The field is documented as |ref=, which is how it's used in hundreds of articles; but the template no longer recognises that - it's now looking for |Ref=. Parameter names are case-sensitive, and it appears to be normal to use lower-case parameter names unless there is a good reason not to; I can't find a policy doc, but see User:Slambo's comments here. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:56, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes there are guidelines. Mea culpa. Rich Farmbrough, 19:00, 30 November 2009 (UTC).

Spanish municipalities

Perhaps you'd be interested in copying infoboxes from Spanish wikipedia. They are in big need of sorting out and are very inconsistent. Even the ones were currently have are a mess with paramaters and dividers in the wrong place and just yuck. See User talk:Plastikspork. We have a wrapper template Template:Infobox Spanish municipality. I believe you can copy most of the infobox and it will wprk we now just need to find a way to transfer both maps and them to display like Nerha for instance. If you could discuss it with Plastikspork we can find out whats best and then if you are interested paerhaps you could do the prelimary interwiki copying and then Plastikspork at a later date can convert to infobox settlement. Either way it needs some discussion first to ensure it is done as efficiently as possible and to save possible time later.... Himalayan 21:23, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, we should coordinate the effort if you, Rich, want to help. I have a PerlWikipedia script that can transfer infoboxes from the Spanish language wikipedia, to the English language wikipedia, and perform various automated edits (ala AWB). I ended up using PerlWikipedia since it wasn't clear to me how to do this with AWB. I am planning to have a look at it later today. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 21:47, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

The lists can be found in the categories of Category:Municipalities of Spain,,, Using Plastik's script it should work.... I'd say the vast majority are in need of replacement or are missing or have out of date data or have a grye infobox and needs replacing etc so it would probably best to do most of them and overide the current infoboxes (which even if they have an infobox settlement it is infobox city or a mess in terms of order...) . This will also ensure standardisation later. I think the top 10 spanish cities are OK though.... Himalayan 22:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


At last

Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_November_19#Categories_for_discussion

Now you should probably delete the January category,since that is premature. I'd leave the December one in place. Are all involved templates updated? Debresser (talk) 21:54, 29 November 2009 (UTC) Will you take care of {{Cfr}}, {{Cfm}}, {{Cfd}}, {{Cfr-speedy}}, {{Cfc nomination}}, {{Cfm nomination}}, {{Cfl nomination}}. These should be all, but the Cfx_nomination ones are used by templates that perhaps may be simplified now. I'm not sure. Debresser (talk) 22:14, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I tried my hand at it on {{Cfr-speedy}}. Please check it as well. Debresser (talk) 22:29, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Just a reminder, don't change the beginning and end remarks, because that will break bots. Debresser (talk) 22:31, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I did the Cfx_nomination ones as well, but I think there is still much superfluous code there. BTW, I didn't use DMC in any of them, because these templates use substitution. Is there a workaround? Debresser (talk) 22:40, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Can you do it now, because the new month is beginning. Debresser (talk) 15:38, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

The talk pages etc. need the same fixing of deprecated parameters as articles.
Although there is no compelling reason to use DMC, it is what we do in all other dated maintenance templates: either {{Fix}} or {{DMC}}. It would look nicer on Wikipedia:List of monthly maintenance categories with templates as well... Debresser (talk) 22:47, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
I used DMC in {{Cfr-speedy}}. It took me a few tries to get it right. If you'll agree to do the other templates, good. BTW, could you check for redundant things in the Cfx_nomination templates also, please? Debresser (talk) 01:07, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
I also added {{DMC}} to {{Cfc nomination}}, {{Cfm nomination}}, {{Cfl nomination}}, and changed the templates {{Cfc1}}, {{Cfm1}}, {{Cfl1}} that use them appropriately. That was quite a job. I also removed all redundant messages. Could you have a look whether the three sets (2 Cfc, 2 Cfm, and 2 Cfl templates) can not be combined into three single templates? Debresser (talk) 02:02, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 30 November 2009

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 14:02, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

autoformatting templates

I thought you might be interested to know there are several thousand articles which use date-autoformatting templates. As there is consensus against autoformatting, I have started removing those templates whilst aligning the date formats. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 15:14, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Change to Infobox film

Hey Rich, I think your latest edit to {{Infobox film}} broke something. The poster images are not defaulting to 200px anymore. - kollision (talk) 15:44, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Ty fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 15:50, 29 November 2009 (UTC).

Hi, I'm just wondering why the change to spaced paramaters has been made? PC78 (talk) 15:26, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2009–10 New Mexico Lobos basketball team

I have nominated for deletion an article you edited. You are welcome to comment in the discussion. LadyofShalott 21:24, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Hessilhead

I have tried too hard and messed up the references. Any chance of you reverting it? -I may cause further 'damage.' I will then sensibly add one new reference and some info!! Thanks for the assistance. Rosser Gruffydd 21:30, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Perfect. Thanks for your help. Rosser Gruffydd 21:57, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikify stats

Hi there. Thanks for the infrastructure work on Project Wikify. One thing I've noticed is the summing of articles requiring wikification has some inconsistencies. For example, the the total given on the main page today at 22:22 UTC was 19905, where-as on the month-specific pages, such as for December 2007,the total was 19943. Then adding up the monthly numbers (shown on the Decemeber and other monthly pages), the total was 20721. This might just be an aretfact of the timing of scripts, but in case there might be an error within scripts (or elsewhere), I thought I'd raise it. Cheers! Heds (talk) 22:32, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

  • mae culpa - I double checked my calcs before posting, but it would seem I repreated an error in my check, which seems to have been double counting a particular month somehow. Sorry to have troubled you. All the best, Heds (talk) 02:24, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorting question

Just a thought, but wouldn't it be easier for sorting for DS or pipes to only have the first letter of the first word capitalized?

- J Greb (talk) 22:38, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

All caps may not be a problem, though it would result in a DS on every page. IIUC, that's something we don't want.
As for all lower... aside from the same issue as all caps, it would also look a little funky on the category pages since people expect the capital header. There may also be an issue with the ToC templates - the most commonly used ones only look for caps.
Beyond that, we've already got an MoS-like bar on 1) non-Latin characters in the DS and 2) double caps in last names. It isn't much of a stretch to propose "For the ease of sorting, please limit capital letters to just the initial letter of the sort argument."
True... very true. It may just be a case of having the two methods co-existing. - J Greb (talk) 23:22, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

User:Jimmy Slade

Hi Rich,

I saw that you went through and removed NYC-transport-stub from a number of New York City Subway station articles. Thank you. However, Jimmy Slade is still reverting! User:Me Three has asked him to stop re-adding the template to articles that are not stubs. I have asked him, begged him, etc. I don't have enough diffs for evidence to open an RFC on him. His Wikipedia:Disruptive editing and attempted ownership of articles is getting really old. What can we do? Acps110 (talk) 00:04, 2 December 2009 (UTC)


interactions Magazine

I noticed that SmackBot "corrected" the title capitalization of Interactions (magazine) in September of 2008. However, the magazine title is properly all in lowercase (weird, I know). I don't want to correct it back if the bot is just going to reverse it again. Can you help? Netmouse (talk) 00:27, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

It changed "External Links" to "External links" back in 2008. But there is policy/guidelines on these weird caps for tradenames. Rich Farmbrough, 00:34, 2 December 2009 (UTC).

Date ranges and AWB

Hi, please be careful when using AWB to delink date ranges on music-related pages, as some of those are album titles and shouldn't be delinked (i.e. [62], [63], [64], [65], [66], [67], [68], [69], [70]). I have filed an AWB bug here. Thanks. Mushroom (Talk) 02:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 02:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC).

17th to Seventeenth/MoS?

Hi. I see you are changing 17th to Seventeenth [71]. Can you give me the MoS basis for this? On the face of it, this goes against normal editing rules. Thanks. --Kleinzach 02:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

It just looked ugly. Rich Farmbrough, 02:23, 2 December 2009 (UTC).
Please see WP:CENTURY — and please consider reverting. Thanks. --Kleinzach 02:34, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Another thing. Can you tell me whether you are using AWB to change the format of the centuries (from digits to letters) on other articles? --Kleinzach 08:57, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
No I'm not. Rich Farmbrough, 13:24, 2 December 2009 (UTC).
OK. Thanks for clarifying that. --Kleinzach 13:36, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

1962–1966

See this edit. The changed text is not a date, it's the name of an album and should remain linked. — John Cardinal (talk) 03:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 03:13, 2 December 2009 (UTC).

df=y

Thanks for the copyedit to the infobox for László Németh for {{birth date}} and {{death date and age}} to put them into British date format (if I can use that term). I must admit that has been annoying me for some while because of course that is the format used in the article, but there were always bigger fish to fry. I suppose I should check the other articles where I've made infoboxes, too, but at the moment I am trying to spend some time sorting out Hungarian maps. Si Trew (talk) 22:14, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

date unlinking bot

There is a bot User:Full-date unlinking bot going around unlinking dates. I think it will unlink the type of dates you are unlinking. If that is right, then you could let the bot get to it and save some work. Bubba73 (the argument clinic), 00:00, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes thanks, I am working with it. It's not doing the articles beginning with numbers though. Rich Farmbrough, 00:02, 3 December 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot questions

This is just a question, not a complaint: Why does SmackBot capitalize the un-capitalized first character of a template's name (for example, change {{redirect|Yosemite]]}} to {{Redirect|Yosemite})?[72] What does this accomplish?

Also, a fairly common human error (of mine, at least) in inserting dated template tags is filling in the date without the date= label (for example, entering {{Citation needed|December 2009}} instead of {{Citation needed|date=December 2009}}. When SmackBot fixes this type of error, it adds the full date parameter with the label to the template tag, but leaves the unlabeled date as well, as in this example: {{Unreferenced section|November 2009|date=November 2009}}. Would it be feasible for SmackBot to delete the orphaned, unlabeled date parameter when it makes this fix? —Finell 03:13, 3 December 2009 (UTC) (To preserve the continuity of the conversation, I will watch for your reply here on your Talk page.)

The capitalisation is really a perfective thing, the same way we do [[Category:People... SmackBot doesn't capitalise all template names though, when it's doing its normal dating run, for fear of upsetting people...
As to the unnamed date parameters, I used to do that (in fact most of the templates started off with an un-named date parameter and we did a big conversion) but occasionally people use it like this " seventeen tons {{cn|tons/tonnes}}" so it could feasible be used " in November 2009 {{cn|November 2009}} the lemmings jumped...". However I may look at this again in the future. Rich Farmbrough, 03:25, 3 December 2009 (UTC).
That was quick! Thanks. —Finell 03:28, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Some edit

Is this edit as stupid an idea as I think it is? I just happen to have this template watchlisted. It is protected, so I can't do anything. Debresser (talk) 21:40, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello, Rich Farmbrough. You have new messages at Rjanag's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

April joke

When you made this edit, did you notice that all sources date from the first of the month? See when they were first introduced. I propose undoing your fix, delete all added "day=01" and perhaps the "month=abbr." also, and then refix the article. And then do the same wth User:Maha Yahia/Amino acid. What do you say? Debresser (talk) 23:24, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters is now empty, apart from one page which I don't seem to be able to fix. Since you renamed the category, this page can now be deleted. Debresser (talk) 01:03, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
In Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters I fixed portals, talkpages, and wikipedia pages. Except those few that couldn't be fixed because they discuss the subject of these parameters. There are still some 850 articles and userpages left. Debresser (talk) 02:34, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
Does the fact that they are different mean that you won't be able to fix them with AWB? If so, I didn't understand that the first time. Debresser (talk) 02:53, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Intended?

[73] --John (talk) 02:49, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 02:57, 4 December 2009 (UTC).
Thank you. I needed the laugh. JimCubb (talk) 05:49, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
I have inserted the correct value for {{DEFAULTSORT}}. The |listas= on the talk page was untouched. This is the main reason for having an explicit sort value on an article. There are too many editors with bots and AWB who muck up the sort value and leave no indication that such a change has been made. JimCubb (talk) 06:00, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

New template

Template:Says who. Debresser (talk) 13:04, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Ty. Rich Farmbrough, 15:03, 4 December 2009 (UTC).

AWB with comments

FYI, this edit moved a disputed category outside of a comment. There was also another edit where you fixed a 'date2 => date', but didn't fix a 'month2' and 'year2', but I can't find a diff. It was clearly a malformed case. In any event, thanks for all the hard work! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 17:15, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm working on the month2/year2 now as people have used them in so many ways. Rich Farmbrough, 17:17, 4 December 2009 (UTC).

Location linking guideline

I believe that there is a Wiki guideline that indicates that location links of the form [[City, State]] are preferred over [[City, State|City]], [State]] but I cannot find it. For example, Chicago, Illinois (one link) is preferred over Chicago, Illinois (two links). Or maybe it's the other way around. Any idea where I can find the guideline? Thanks. Truthanado (talk) 01:33, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick and informative reply. I will have to change the way I have been copyediting. Thanks. Truthanado (talk) 01:42, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Smackbot XXII

Reference your latest application, would you care to integrate and apply to uncap the bot speed but subject it to Maxlag? Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:37, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Your recent edit of Haruhi Suzumiya

You may want to check the diff of your edits with AWB. With this edit you left two "date" parameters in the Cite video template. Please use the Talkback template on my talk page if you reply. -- allen四names 06:47, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes thanks I did know, there were a bunch of these that I knew I was creating, I had a follow up run to clear them up. Rich Farmbrough, 06:53, 5 December 2009 (UTC).
You're welcome. -- allen四names 06:57, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

"tidy cite"?

Not understanding if it was intentional, but this edit created an unnecessary redlink in the reference citation. Somehow, this isn't fitting within my definition of "tidy". —Aladdin Sane (talk) 08:37, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Partly because the cite template is broken. But I saw that error, and would have gone back to it. Rich Farmbrough, 09:34, 5 December 2009 (UTC).

Cite video date and year parameters

Rich, have you got a response to my comments about date and year parameters at Template talk:Cite video#Date parameters? I think we might need to retain |year= so |ref=harv will work. — John Cardinal (talk) 15:06, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Did the 700 pages in Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters become around 4500 because of {{Cite video}}? Because if so, then perhaps we should have cleaned the old ones first. Debresser (talk) 16:27, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes well category lag seems to be working overtime. Most of the old articles are actually fixed, just the ones with parameter 1 should remain, but there seems to be a slow influx of those articles. 90%+ of the video articles are also fixed, but are still in the category. Rich Farmbrough, 22:24, 5 December 2009 (UTC).
OK I found the bug... should start emptying now. Rich Farmbrough, 22:43, 5 December 2009 (UTC).
I noticed. Thanks. There's a reasonable 935 now. Today and tomorrow are festive days for me, see 19 Kislev, but I'll try to give them my attention as well, ASAP. Debresser (talk) 09:57, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
I did some null edits... speeds things up. A lot have {{{1}}}, I have fixed about a dozen, Rich Farmbrough, 11:31, 6 December 2009 (UTC).

White Brazilians

Could you please take a look at this?...

[74] Ninguém (talk) 03:55, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Bayonetta AWB edit

Please check your AWB usage: this edit to Bayonetta recognized part of a page title (which uses a pipe character) as a parameter, even though I put "nowiki" tags around that part to prevent such an error. I've undone the edit. --an odd name 05:10, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Thansk for that. Rich Farmbrough, 05:13, 6 December 2009 (UTC).

AWB Qs

I saw the edit tht YOU made to Reinforced Concrete Box using AWB [removal of category]... How do you do tht? -_Rsrikanth05 (talk) 12:14, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so who do I go about doing that? --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 12:20, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
Okay thanks then. I still haven't made much edits using AWB, mostly basic fixes.. ==Rsrikanth05 (talk) 12:28, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Murder of Meredith Kercher

The discussion on this page is getting out of control, with editor's refactoring other's comments, or removing them entirely. I have no involvement with the page, and only took notice when I saw this inflammatory edit summary on recent changes: "Anti-American bias: I don’t have to clarify anything to you when I have already done so. Got a problem? Leave it at my talk page." That summary accompanied the removal of an entire discussion. Claims of bias are being thrown back and forth, and it is difficult to sort out the facts from the accusations. I think someone needs to step in and tell everybody to calm down a bit. ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 15:45, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Smackbot blocked

I'm not sure if anyone informed you but SmackBot was blocked in accordance with Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#SmackBot_changing_referencing_style.2C_again_.28dearchived.29. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:56, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks I noticed. Rich Farmbrough, 20:50, 6 December 2009 (UTC).

Edit to Luna Park Sydney

In the edit summary for this edit to Luna Park Sydney, you noted that you removed "conclusion about heritage OR". However, no content related to the park's heritage listings has been removed or altered. Could you elaborate: did you want to remove such content and (a) forgot to or (b) decided that the referencing was appropriate (or at least borderline but needs firming up) and forgot to remove the message? Thanks -- saberwyn 23:22, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

No harm. Thanks for the prompt reply. -- saberwyn 01:54, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar!

The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
I hereby award this barnstar to Rich Farmbrough for his massive contribution to the project, including frequently appearing on my watchlist with high quality "minor" edits. FeydHuxtable (talk) 11:00, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Stub tags

Please stop stripping stub tags from articles that are still classified as stubs by one or more projects, as you did at Billiard table. That article is very much still a stub, since it has no information at all on the history of billiard rooms, or anything at all really other than minimal room dimensions, and only one source. Whether something is a stub or not is principally a matter of depth of (reliable) coverage, not length of verbiage. The article essentially provides one "fact" (room size), regardless how much wording it took to do that, and is missing a boatload of needed material. I don't frequently disagree with your gnoming decisions, but rapidfire AWBers with lots of pre-determined scripts, as well as bots, removing stub tags is something I find myself reverting more and more frequently. Please check the talk pages before doing this, unless it's really, really clear that the article isn't a stub (e.g. because it looks something like George Balabushka or Eight-ball not Joe Balsis or Seven-ball). :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:07, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I guess you mean Billiard room. Rich Farmbrough, 21:47, 4 December 2009 (UTC).
Yep; had both open at same time. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:35, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Nascarfans (talk) 23:39, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Huh? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:35, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: Review

First off thank for you taking time to notice. :-) Yes I know what you saying. Actually I'm the one that was citing both the Box Office and The-Numbers. But someone had this to say: "Wait, can we PLEASE clear up the box office totals? Before the edit, we had the movies having over 5.4 million. Now all of a sudden, they have a total of 4.9 million. Thats a huge difference! Personally, I think we should use ONE reference to get all of our information so the total will be consistant."

My response was that I used whatever site has the most posted is the most accurate. It seems that The-Numbers have the most accurate Foreign totals, while the Domestic are pretty much the same with Box Office Mojo. Also, most of BOM's foreign totals end with "000,000", and that really doesn't seem accurate at all. Anyways I made the decision to just use one source so it wouldn't cause any confusion in the future, and I also don't know the consensus via the Film Project. I probably should ask?

I personal believe it should be called Foreign or International (as both of those sites have it), so it's one short and to-the-point word, rather than 2 or 3 words, which the table cells doesn't appreciate. ;-)

My understanding is that we usually don't post the DVD sales (at least not under the box office table). I have wondered where that bit of info could go, because it should be posted somehow. --Mike Allen talk · contribs 18:07, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

  • Well about the refs and stuff, I was just going by what other articles, like GA/FA have. If I "make up" up something (in regards of how something is done), it usually gets reverted so I tend to just go by what other articles have.
"The word "foreign" is US-centric"
Well most of the films are US films and domestic meaning "US and Canada" so it's only logical to have Foreign as in other countries, IMO. I think some tables had "Outside U.S." and I changed it, because Foreign basically means the same thing. The-Numbers usually posts the production budget AND source of where they got it from.
Just so you know I opened up a discussion here, you're welcomed to join in. --Mike Allen talk · contribs 21:23, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

New Moon (2009 film) and Eclipse (2010 film)

Both these two articles were recently submitted for a name change. I did agree with this name change in February, however, now I am a strong opposing factor in why the name should ramian New Moon and Eclipse with the signifigant other name in the first line of the articles.
WP:NCCN and WP:PRECISION both state the title should be "terms most commonly used", "A good article title is brief and to the point", "Prefer titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles", "An article can only have one name; however significant alternative names for the topic should be mentioned in the article, usually in the first sentence or paragraph". "And despite earlier reports that the movie would be known as The Twilight Saga's New Moon, the title will remain New Moon according to the movie's rep. They just have Twilight Saga in the artwork to identify it for anyone less devoted than your average fanggirl."Source.
Also see WP:PRECISION. I quote from there: "Articles' titles usually merely indicate the name of the topic. When additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article from other uses of the topic name, over-precision should be avoided. Be precise but only as precise as is needed. For example, it would be inappropriate to name an article "United States Apollo program (1961–1975)" over Apollo program or "Nirvana (Aberdeen, Washington rock band)" over Nirvana (band). Remember that concise titles are generally preferred."
However, I personally do not think we have had enough input and would like input from people who might not like these movies, or just edit them to help wikipedia out. The pages are: Talk:New Moon (2009 film)#Requested move and Talk:Eclipse (2010 film)#Requested move. Any help/input would greatly be apriciated.ChaosMaster16 (talk) 22:06, 7 December 2009 (UTC)ChaosMaster16

CURRENTMONTHNUMBER

You have flagged a bunch of pages as "Unreferenced|date=December 2009" unfortunately there is no template called "CURRENTMONTHNUMBER" so the flags are breaking. Please type in the month. eg. December 2009 or 2010-01 etc. Awg1010 (talk) 06:33, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks...

...for your help with Cocker Spaniel and Catch Dog.

Very welcome Rich Farmbrough, 08:18, 9 December 2009 (UTC).

AWB question

I noticed you went through articles I watchlist and delink dates. As a AWB user myself, how do I pull that off? User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 04:37, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I made those settings available. Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Settings Rich Farmbrough, 04:39, 8 December 2009 (UTC).
Cool, but how do I add it into AWB? User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 04:52, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

See also User:Ohconfucius#Incorrectly_formatted_dates. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 19:35, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 7 December 2009

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 05:58, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Afghanistan–Pakistan

Can you explain on the talk page why you moved this article in October? Thanks.Prezbo (talk) 06:53, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Date Delinking & Regex

I noticed your recent, massive delinkings and my first reaction was jealousy. I was waiting for the six month ban to expire, as it would have in six days, but I suppose the current interpretation is that when the bot went through it opened it up for human controlled editing too. That's fine by me.

I've joined the bandwagon. I glanced at the regexes (configs) you posted, and your list of strange things you've encountered is insightful. I need to do a little more work myself on setting up some baseline configs, but once I do, I wondered if you might take a look at what I cook up.

Today I whipped up this: \[\[([0-3]?[0-9]) *(January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December)\]\] *\[\[([1-9][0-9]{2,})\]\] as the find, and $1 $2 $3 as the replace. I have a similar one for abbreviations.

In any case, I'd be appreciative of any exchange of info, and if you know of a central place where this is being loosely coordinated I'd appreciate that too. Thanks. Shadowjams (talk) 07:28, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi Shadow, there is a debate about co-ordination. I argue that it is not essential since of the 60,000 WP:FDUB edits I checked there were effectively only 2 reverts, and they have been changed again with no complaint. However I did "coordinate" by doing the 0-9 range which FDUB will not do.

Effectively you can co-ordinate with FDUB by not editing pages with the ranges it has completed (jan 1- feb 14 and dec 10-31), but it cannot currently, and is not currently required to, coordinate with you.

It is important I think that you catch effectively all the full dates on a page, so you should pick up the three main formats. Make sure you include an optional "." in your abbreviations. Sprinkling the regex with " *" is a good idea, although it is probably about .1% of articles that have these types of dates.

\[\[ *0?([1-3]?\d) *(January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December) *\]\] *\[\[ *([1-9]\d{2,}) *\]\]

for example picks up strangely spaced links and suppresses leading "0"s

\[\[ *0?([1-3]?\d)(st|rd|nd|st) *(January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December) *\]\] *\[\[ *([1-9]\d{2,}) *\]\]

also gets links like 1st September 1999, finally

\[\[ *0?([1-3]?\d)(st|rd|nd|st)[ _]*(January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December) *\]\][, ]*\[\[ *([1-9]\d{2,}) *\]\]

catches legal underscores between the parts in the first link.

For a test page copy User:Full-date unlinking bot/Test environment to your userspace. It tests for false negatives, I.E you should get everything on this page (and some more). It does not test for false negatives - for example two half dates split by a sentence end, or things that look like dates but aren't. I did find one Octember I think, the context made it clear what it actually was. Rich Farmbrough, 07:58, 9 December 2009 (UTC).

Oh and more than 4 digits in the year is very rare, more so than 2 digit years I would say. Rich Farmbrough, 08:01, 9 December 2009 (UTC).
  • As this is likely to be a manual effort, there is every reason to incorporate code to remove links to date fragments such as January 1 or 1961, of which there are plenty and untouched by the bots. Most of these date fragment links would fail the 'germane test' as far as the subject is concerned. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 10:53, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

User talk:Mccready

This request is to you so I'm not sure if it's right but would you have any problem if I reblocked to disable talk page use? He's gone far past the point of being productive and I really know I shouldn't be responding to him but it's just aggravating. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:29, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I really need to let go. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 12:11, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Deprecated parameters

All pages left in Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters are user(-talk) namespace, apart from 2 Wikipedia and 5 talk pages that should probably stay the way they are. Could you run the same fixes you did on articles on them as well, please? Debresser (talk) 23:00, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately I already did, pretty much. The difference in the ratio was mainly pretty manual. Rich Farmbrough, 00:19, 10 December 2009 (UTC).
Sounds familiar. Sigh.

And you also did Category:Pages with missing references list already, and I'll have to fix all 212 article by hand? Debresser (talk) 00:37, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, almost all fixes are {{Cite video}}. Perhaps you forgot to do that for userpages? Debresser (talk) 00:43, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Happy Rich Farmbrough's Day!

User:Rich Farmbrough has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian,
and therefore, I've officially declared today as Rich Farmbrough's day!
For being such a beautiful person and great Wikipedian,
enjoy being the Star of the day, dear Rich Farmbrough!

Peace,
Rlevse
00:15, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

A record of your Day will always be kept here.

For a userbox you can add to your userbox page, see User:Rlevse/Today/Happy Me Day! and my own userpage for a sample of how to use it. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:15, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Who could not have a smile brought to their face by that? Rich Farmbrough, 00:17, 10 December 2009 (UTC).

AWB

Teh WP sevrer. 373

Please stop delinking dates in articles, if that's the only change that you're making. You're slowing down the server with that extreme amount of edits, and it's not necessary, unless you want to make other fixes in the pages as well. --Coffee // have a cup // ark // 09:17, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

AWB uses the maxlag parameter, therefore it is incapable of slowing down the servers in that sense. Rich Farmbrough, 10:00, 10 December 2009 (UTC).
Haha damn, someone out nerded me again. I wasn't necessarily talking about lagging the servers in that respect. But more of clogging up the Recent Changes log. Cheers, --Coffee // have a cup // ark // 10:14, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Fair point. Rich Farmbrough, 10:17, 10 December 2009 (UTC).


Big Thanks

Thanks for fixing the reference link in Douglass High School Kingsport. I wasn't sure how to do it, and the directions were confusing.Csneed (talk) 14:23, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

A Cfd I think you should know about

Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_December_9#Category:Articles_lacking_sources_.28Erik9bot.29 Debresser (talk) 18:29, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

How do I?

Hi. How do I get a wikisignpost on my user page pl? Wireless Fidelity Class One (talk 05:33, 11 December 2009 (UTC) Thanks. Got it. Wireless Fidelity Class One (talk 05:49, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

New template

Template:Primary source claim Debresser (talk) 09:22, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Battle of Pákozd

You removed a stub template from the article, naughty bot, when the talk page had assessed it as being stub class. The fact that we are expanding the article does not change that assessment, so I am wondering under what criteria you did so. I could understand if a human assessor did so, but a bot should not. Naughty bot. Stick to your date fixing malarkey.

And stop changing the cases of template transclusions. They may be written that way for good reason, i.e. to give semantic information to editors. That {{Croatia-hist-stub}} is capital, but {{convert}} is not, is no mistake. 

Si Trew (talk) 09:48, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot & Refs

Why does SmackBot change the order of references (for example in a recent edit to Hekla)? Whilst in general I doubt this will matter I could imagine that someone might write a paragraph based on several sources and might want to cite the main source first and then the less important ones after. JMiall₰ 13:42, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I am going to block the bot again. This is the second time since you agreed to disable these features; what's going on? — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:53, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Script quibbles.

Two comments.

  • Recent: Don't know if you have a whitelist for this, but for section titles there are lots of words that could plausibly be correctly capitalized. See this diff for one example, "List of Representatives" is correct, just as "List of senators" would be wrong.
  • Old: This is a problem as old as the hills, but as a reminder, please don't change the date style of an article. Sadly I don't have the diff (it was awhile back), and it's not overly important anyway, but it was some member of the European royalty that had all its dates American style, and you changed it to European style. Again, not a big deal, but annoying nevertheless.

Thanks. SnowFire (talk) 21:41, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there is a whitelist, actually it is more subtle than that, but no, capitalising "represntatives" there does not conform to MoS. It does not back-inherit a capitalisation from House of Representatives. Rich Farmbrough, 21:59, 11 December 2009 (UTC).
Well, that's not the reason, but I'm pretty sure it is capitalized. At the very least our United States House of Representatives seems to have it right; the title is (U.S.) Representative, capitalized, but when referred to generically ("California has 52 representatives") it's not. Checking a few actual House member webpages confirms that they capitalize it as well. So I'd say "List of Representatives" is correct when referring to specific people holding that title. SnowFire (talk) 01:07, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

There are a number of articles of British subjects which have been incorrectly maintained with the American date format, and there seems to be no reason why such an article should not be changed to dmy date formats. As most European nations also use dmy format, the same argument applies. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 03:42, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

DASHBot

Hey there, remember that bot request from a while ago about a bot moving pages that contain hyphens? Well i filed a BRFA and i'd appreciate you're input. here is the link Tim1357 (talk) 06:09, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Stub v. stub class

Rich, thanks for that. I can only bow to your better knowledge about the definition, at least the one that is writ in stone. The basic problem is this: Different projects assess articles differently, and of course Battle of Pákozd, I think this was the one it did, may be assessed as stub class from the POV of military history, start class from the point of view of WikiProject Hungary, and not even on the radar from the POV of WikiProject Croatia. All of which is good and fine by me.

The point is then, under what criteria does SmackBot remove the stub template (and IIRC it was SmackBot who did it, not you, [here]. I could understand if you with human intervention had done so (and if you just accidentally did but were signed in as SmackBot I could understand that slip), but if SB is doing so I should like to know under what criteria it does so. What regex does it use to find a stub template, and how does it decide it is no longer a stub? Length, references, what? Even though articles in this series (except one) have been completely translated now from the Hungarian, to my mind they are still stubs. Others may disagree which is why there are project assessments for them on the talk page. Certainly I doubt SB checks the talk pages for projects' assessment, since that would probably be one regex too far.

I suspect that in fact it was you who took it out, not SmackBot, and accidentally you were signed in as SmackBot. As it happens I reversed the intervention because I had already got on to Military History project to ask how to go about reassessment of all this series of articles now they have been translated. I still suspect they will stay at stub class by their assessment, which is not of course to say they are still stubs, and as you say there is no clear definition of what a stub is, so it comes down to editorial judgment. i.e. not a bot's judgment. I don't see that SB can make that judgment, it needs a human editor to make it.

SB generally does a pretty good job and I thank you for it, but surprising behaviour like this should be documented I think. Indeed, generally SB should be documented. If it is, I should be glad if you would let me have the link.

Sincere best wishes, I know I am always griping but I just try to make it better, as I know you do. It's funny, I've been linking up these articles and every place I have been to now uses {{Infobox Hungarian settlement}}, thanks for doing that. We do fix them up as we pass over them for making sure the figures etc are correct, but even having that much is a great advance. I think it was wrong to remove {{Magyar télepüles infobox}}, because it did a lot more fixup and basically meant you could just slap it in from HU:WP without change, but that argument is in the past.

Si Trew (talk) 06:22, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for yours. It is not so much the documentation of AWB itself I was after, but the specific rules (or an overview thereof) that SmackBot uses. They sound sensible, i.e. length, links etc, but I am sure you understand that when an editor specifically marks something as being a stub (in fact, marked it as three stubs, one each for Austria, Hungary and Croatia) it is surprising when a bot comes and removes them. I know you did not directly mean this, but I am not over worried about it, I just put them back. But if it was habitually removing them, I would start to worry, since I think it should be a human editor's decision not a bot's, that is my main point.
As for the Hungarian settlement template (Hungarian version), yeah I might recreate it, but I think pretty pointless now since you and another (I forget whom) made a stentorian effort of converting all the Hungary geo articles to Infobox Hungarian settlement. I never really thanked you enough for that, and while I was grumbly at the time, I see in retrospect it was the right way to go. By the way, I think you introduced an error a few days ago that meant the website and another field did not appear. I can't put my finger on it but it was somewhere around here, on 25 November. It may have been an error I introduced after, myself, but I don't think so, I just noticed it when I made my own changes. I fixed it, no worries. Si Trew (talk) 07:29, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Style-seets and IPs

Rich, would you mind taking a look at Talk:Soviet aircraft carrier Varyag#Style, and at this user's contributions. Perhaps I'm on the wrong track here, but I really don't want to be lectured to by an IP with minimum edits on WP, as I don't think he understand how WP works. If I'm wrong about the "style sheets" stuff, can you explain why? Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 09:37, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Please add your contribution here. Thanks! --91.55.204.136 (talk) 11:37, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

{{inuse}} tag

Does you respect the {{inuse}} tag? I've never come a cropper because of it, but if it were easy it would seem to make sense for you not to make any changes to an article if it is marked inuse. As far as I have seen, this template does tend to be used for its intended purpose i.e. to warn other editors that lots of changes are likely to be made very soon, so their own edits may well conflict. I haven't seen this tag abused at all, no doubt your owner Rich Farmbrough has, but on the whole I think it would make sence for you to hold off while inuse. I'll check that template now for "what links here" to see if there are gross cases of abuse.

{{underconstruction}} I think should not get the same special treatment.

Best wishes as always

S.

Yeah, as of writing Category:Pages actively undergoing a major edit, which {{inuse}} puts articles into, has 17 members. So it seems it is not abused much. I'll check them in case one has been left by someone nodding, but on the whole I think it is safe to say inuse is not abused. Si Trew (talk) 05:12, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
I have seen {{Inuse}} left on pages, but obviously removed it, and I suspect everyone else does the same. AWB advises in manual mode to skip inuse pages, (This page has the "Inuse" tag, consider skipping it). Smackbot's main run has the checkbox "page is in use" ticked. I suspect the others do but I'm not gonna check them all right now. Actually SmackBot currently skips all pages, as putting a set of footnote superscripts in numerical order is a blockable offence. Rich Farmbrough, 05:26, 12 December 2009 (UTC).
Well I changed a couple to {{under construction}} as they have been edited reasonably recently but are not inuse by the criteria on its doc page. I don't understand the relevance about footnotes, cos inuse is usually used at the top of the article, or section. I also don't understand what you mean about putting footnotes in numerical order being a blockable offence – I persobnally try, with multiple references, to have them run in numerical order, i.e. quote at first use. I doubt you mean that is blockable, so what do you mean?
Best wishes Si Trew (talk) 05:34, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough#SmackBot_.26_Refs Rich Farmbrough, 05:54, 12 December 2009 (UTC).
Way to go, Rich. Tell me at my talk page "your battle is now the only article using {{inuse}}". Don't give me a clue which battle, would you: Yes it is a slip but are you being deliberately unhelpful because it sounds like it. And because you reply on other users' pages, not your own, nobody else can follow the conversation.
Do you do it on purpose? Are you deliberately on a wind-up? Today I put documentation into {{tlx|ksh ref]] which I didn't make, but whoever did could not be bothered to document it. I also categorised it. I put See Also for {{ksh 2008}} and {{Infobox Hungarian settlement}}, and crosslinked the others from there. I edited the two articles (Telekes and Sülysáp) that used KSH2008 so that they don't, and put them to Infobox Hungarian settlement. This afternoon Moo and I stuck in a good proportion of one of the battles, which is why it was legitimately marked as inuse. I also tidied up or created the doc at {{inuse}}, {{underconstruction}}, and {{newpage}}. I've also moved work to commons, asked at PNT for a German translation I am not too happy about, and am putting together a new map in SVG format. In short, I have not been idle.
I was just about to ask for speedy deletion of KSH2008 under A7 ot G6 when I read your message. There was good reason it was marked as inuse, because it was inuse. I think I changed it to underconstruction, but if I slipped, I will correct that.
Please tell me you are not deliberately winding me up. Si Trew (talk) 20:25, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

No it is perfectly fine that that article was in-use. I was just pointing out that when I reviewed the use of in-use, the only good use was that one. The others were all labelled in-use when we looked yesterday adn only one had been edited since. Maybe we could make inuse smarter, so that a few hours after editing it replaces itself with under construction and after a few days deletes itself altogether. No maybe not.... Rich Farmbrough, 20:31, 12 December 2009 (UTC).

Phew, thanks for that. I think I may still have inuse on one of them by mistake, cos we won't translate it for a few more hours yet, it will be at Káplona if anywhere so I will check to be sure.
User:Monkap told me earlier that a lot of the coats of arms for places are now coming into commons and it looks like they are being uploaded en masse, e.g. at Abony and Nagykáta. Some articles I already used image_shield, which both {{Infobox settlement}} and {{Infobox Hungarian settlement}} support. Some redlinks that I had put in are now blue links, grabbing the file from commons. The field in Hungarian WP is címer, in English it is image_shield. The uploader seems to have his wits about him, the form of the filename is "HUN placename COA.jpg". These were marked as not PD before, but on Commons they are marked very specifically with the laws saying they are public domain if they are Hungarian govt. properrty. I think this might be a nice job for your bot, it would be good to get these in if we could. I am not quite sure how far it has got now, as it happens I edited a Hungarian place starting with Z, but by sod's law it didn't have that stuff in it anyway.
Very best wishes, you did scare me, I wondered if it was just saying oh I have fixed the others and yours is the only left, but you know how things can sound sometimes. I'm relieved it was not. Si Trew (talk) 01:42, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

footnote ordering

In this edit the order of two footnotes were transposed. While this puts them in numeric sequence, it puts them in the wrong order to support the information in the paragraph. So why make the edit? -- PBS (talk) 08:14, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 17:45, 12 December 2009 (UTC).

Request on hold

Could you consider popping over here to respond to the request. Cheers, NJA (t/c) 11:05, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 17:45, 12 December 2009 (UTC).

Help with dermatology-related content

I am looking for more help at the dermatology task force, particularly with our new Bolognia push 2009!? Perhaps you would you be able to help us? I could send you the login information for the Bolognia push if you are interested? ---kilbad (talk) 14:24, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 17:45, 12 December 2009 (UTC).
Ok, I e-mailed you the login information. You can also find more information on how we are using that source at WP:DERM:MA. Thanks again for your help. ---kilbad (talk) 00:05, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Opinion requested

What do you think Rich? WT:Blocking IP addresses#Updates required? OrangeDog (τ • ε) 20:11, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Well the three hour block caused no reported problems. We need to determine clear the way to having these permanently soft-blocked. We should also check that the Cluebot address needs protection. Having said that these addresses are sensitive to hardblocks. Rich Farmbrough, 20:16, 12 December 2009 (UTC).
And having them permanently soft blocked would safeguard against that. Rich Farmbrough, 20:18, 12 December 2009 (UTC).

Revision history of Maureen Cleave - FACTUAL ERROR, NO SOURCES FOR ANYTHING

I write on behalf of the subject of this entry and am struggling to make contact with anybody at Wikipedia but have neither the expertise nor time to read the endless geeky pages on how to do so. It seems obvious that the people who run Wikipedia do not want to be reached. So please don't take this personally - you simply happen to be the topmost name in the history file for the entry on Maureen Cleave.

Ever since this entry was created in 2006, as far as I can see, the opening paragraph has contained a fundamental inaccuracy which makes all the rest questionable. No source has been given for ANY of the info presented in this item either then or now. In the meantime a fake MySpace page has been created citing a version of the Wikipedia entry which includes a defamatory statement which is the subject of a complaint to MySpace.

Why don't you delete this entry, rather than publishing pure hearsay, which at some stage will leave Wikipedia open to the UK libel laws, if not already? I cannot understand how to trawl the entire history of this item, so appeal to your better judgment. Thanks. 12 Dec 2009. "217.155.200.241 (talk) 21:06, 12 December 2009 (UTC)"

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 21:20, 12 December 2009 (UTC).

Potential falsehoods by SmackBot

(copied from User talk:SmackBot/archive3) One of the tasks of SmackBot is to introduce {{start date}} and {{end date}} into infoboxes where they do not currently exist. These emit microformats, which are required to be in the ISO 8601 format and Gregorian calendar. How does the bot insure that the input dates are Gregorian dates in order to prevent falsely claiming the output dates are Gregorian, when in fact they might be in some other calendar? --Jc3s5h (talk) 22:13, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

A related task is introducing the {{birth date}} template into infoboxes. A falsehood was generated here where the microformat falsely proclaims that Alexander III of Scotland was born 4 September 1241 in the Gregorian calendar. I will correct this error momentarily. I would like to know how I can be sure SmackBot will not revisit the article and reintroduce the error. --Jc3s5h (talk) 23:19, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

(Reply copied from Editing User talk:Jc3s5h)

There is no way to ensure that the dates are Gregorian. However ISO 8601 does not apply to non-Gregorian dates. Rich Farmbrough, 23:51, 12 December 2009 (UTC).

First, the {{Birth date}} and related templates claim to use the ISO 8601 format, so while Wikipedia in general is not governed by that spec, {{Birth date}} et al. are.
Second, if a bot can't figure out how to do something right, it should do nothing. I suggest the bot not process any date before 1 March 1923, the date Greece changed from Julian to Gregorian. While a few other countries adopted the Gregorian calendar later, I strongly suspect they changed from a non-Western calendar. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:46, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Really you are going at this the wrong way around. If the wrong or unqualified date is given on n articles, is is no good to simply supress the emissions of hcard data on m articles. The solution is to correct the content, not hammer the presentation. Rich Farmbrough, 00:55, 13 December 2009 (UTC).
You fail to see that the rules for writing a date in the typical American or Engish formats, such as "Alexander III of Scotland was born 4 September 1241" are different from the rules for writing a date within {{Birth date}} because, by convention, the reader is responsible for figuring out the calendar used for dates in typical American or English formats from context, while {{Birth date}} is specified to always use the Gregorian calendar. When the bot changes from typical format to the template, it potentially tells a lie. --Jc3s5h (talk) 01:45, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
I am willing to do what I can to improve the article and correct articles that already have incorrect templates. See Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Help with custom module. --Jc3s5h (talk) 16:02, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

List of United States Presidents by military rank

The WP:AWB did a horrible job on the article when it attempted to remove links in headings on List of United States Presidents by military rank seen in the diff. Has been reverted, looks like this one needs to be done manually. — MrDolomite • Talk 06:59, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes I would say you are right. Rich Farmbrough, 07:01, 13 December 2009 (UTC).

Englebert

hi Richard, i have an editing questioned on the page for Engelbert, 8th Duke of Arenberg , an so called editor, yopie is going around round pages on Wikipedia removing links without due process of discussion, in most cases he has not written or contributed to the articles in question but seems to be policing the links on these pages can he do this, and is this right, and i have not contributed my myself concerning these links or articles they have been put there by the contributors in question, please would you reply to this as i find it quite amazing that certain editors seem to have the powers to overwrite anyone a bit of a dictatorship rather than a democracy, regards henry mcdowall. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.128.17 (talk) 14:16, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no "due process", comment left on User talk:Yopie's page, because of questions on what they are being replaced by. Rich Farmbrough, 22:42, 14 December 2009 (UTC).

Unreferenced BLP bot

Hey there I wanted your input on a bot that you requested (and i scripted) see discussion here Tim1357 (talk) 17:57, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Category:Articles lacking sources (Erik9bot) followup

Rich, following up to comments here, it was said that you were working on the category to reduce the amount. Out of curiosity, how in particular are you doing that? (It's kind of hard to see someone editing articles OUT of a category). Are you just having a bot follow Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Erik9bot_9 criteria? Wouldn't it be better to wait until the CFD is finished (I know I'm going to lose on the deletion question)? I've started a discussion at Category_talk:Articles_lacking_sources#Bot-created_category since that clearly is the best place to get the people most familiar on it. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:39, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 22:43, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
Thanks. Just curious really and wanted to make sure it doesn't just continue ambiguously. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:37, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Language and computer challenged plus..

(This might sound silly, and of minor importance, but I'll give it a try)...

  1. In edting biographical articles with a substantial number of other language Wikipedias listed on the side panel, many of us don't know what some of those language names are! When they see "Cesky", "Dansk", and in particular, language names in characters that aren't in the English alphabet, it isn't obvious what language it is. After editing for awhile now, I myself don't know what they all mean. I'd assume clicking on it would tell me, but you know, that's not the purpose of that. I think the ramifications are significant when looking perhaps to either cross-edit linguistically, (My first language is Brazilian Portuguese) OR to find the right editor to assist you. An example might be Japanese characters (what kind, for example?).. OK --- my point is, is it possible technologically speaking, to list the names of other language Wikipedias as they are, but perhaps set it up so that by passing a mouse over the name, we can see the language name on that famous left hand panel in English? It IS the English Wikipedia. Or maybe I'm wasting your time with this, but it would spare a lot of looking around and a lot of messages asking what's what. Like, "Bom Dia, en el Wikipedia se llama "Cesky"... era uma problema.." Do you see what I mean? Can anything be changed easily?
  2. I noticed a bot running which I'm pretty sure is yours (?) in the history of some of the articles, de-wikilinking dates of birth. Should I take this to mean all dates of birth at the introduction of each biographical article should not have wikilinks around them? Sad that I have to ask this, since nobody taught me how to edit here, and I see this in nearly every article's biography of musicians, which is the area where I work. However, if it's not WP policy to put those links around dates of birth outside the infoboxes, then I'll begin removing them. Sorry to leave all this here; I'm just a computer-challenged Wikignome with little editor contact and lots of questions. Thanks.--Leahtwosaints (talk) 10:12, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 23:30, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
Thanks for clearing that up. For myself, I upload a lot of photos, and am often curious as to how other articles in different languages have come about photographs that are difficult to find, and after checking out a few, want to communicate with other editors about what I've found, and often don't know what language (usually the Slavic or Asian ones) to tell them the photo might be, or whatnot. This only applies to those uploaded only to a Wikipedia, not to Wikimedia Commons, obviously, but yeah, I think the mouse over thing would be nice.--Leahtwosaints (talk) 10:02, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Log of references runs

Could you explain this edit? When SmackBot is blocked, it is inappropriate for you to be running its tasks under your main account. The solution is to fix the bot. Please do not run any additional SmackBot tasks under your main account. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:27, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

He is manually helping me keeping an error category clean. No controversial edits should be involved. Why throw out the child with the badwater? Debresser (talk) 13:33, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
Those edits were not the ones for the error category; they were for edits such as [75] with edit summary "Add references section and/or general fixes. using Project:AWB", which correspond to the same bot task as SmackBot edits such as [76]. The issue is that the bot is blocked because it is broken, and the code needs to be fixed rather than just being run as-is on a different account. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:41, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes the error category can be found by doing a "what links here" from the log page. Rich Farmbrough, 14:46, 14 December 2009 (UTC).

The bot is not broken in respect of ordering references. There is no one that has actually said the bot reordering a reference was wrong, although a number have raised it all have either been satisfied once they knew it was not arbitrary or at worst said "someone might conceivably ... ". The other issue may have had more merit, but that is now resolved. Interestingly one of the reasons that issue was claimed to be important is that it stopped reference numbers from being strictly increasing - apparently this would cause academics to be unable to read the articles. This is a minor fix, like closing [] or {}, and is pretty uncontentious. Rich Farmbrough, 15:03, 14 December 2009 (UTC).

Nothing has changed since last time: the bot should not be changing references to named references nor rearranging references. However, the bot has now been blocked two times since you originally agreed to fix it [77], based on complaints from two different users [78], [79]. After the first block, you said the problem was an "old version" running [80]. In the spirit of trust but verify, since the problem has occurred again, would you add a "version" to the edit summary the bot uses, so that it is clear whether the latest version is being used? Compare Special:Contributions/WP 1.0 bot.
Also, as I pointed out before, I do not believe that SmackBot has an approval to remove stub tags from articles. That feature also needs to be disabled in the bot.
Let me know when these things are accomplished, and I will unblock the bot ASAP. In the meantime, it would not be appropriate to run any of the bot's regular tasks on your main account. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:18, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
As I say technically it is not authorised to correct mismatched brackets. Why make life difficult? Rich Farmbrough, 15:21, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
I agree: your bot does many unauthorized things. For things such as unmatched brackets, I don't worry about it. But for the references, I do. The simplest solution, and the easiest one with respect to the bot policy, would be to simply disable all unapproved tasks. But I am not worried about unmatched braces and I have not complained about them. There are solid reasons why a bot should not be changing and rearranging references, and why a bot should not be removing stub tags automatically. This is very different than the situation with unmatched braces. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:25, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Please note: if you do not stop the current AWB "add references section" run within 10 minutes, I will block this account from editing as well. I have already pointed out that running SmackBot jobs on this account, in order to avoid resolving the block of SmackBot, is inappropriate. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:27, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Adding a references section is not what was considered problematic with SmackBot. That was naming references. Which was also unreasonable, if you ask me, but that is another matter. I fail to see the problem with adding a references section to articles that don't have one, practically as well as principally. Debresser (talk) 18:15, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. However, once the bot is blocked, it needs to be fixed before the tasks are resumed. In this case, it would be very simple for Rich F. to fix the bot, by simply commenting out the problematic features. I do not understand his reluctance to do so, but I am ready to unblock ASAP once things are fixed, so the bot can get back to work. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:23, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

On a different SmackBot issue, I notice that Rich has not agreed to fix SmackBot so that it no longer marks up plain dates within infoboxes with the {{birth date}} family of templates. These templates require Gregorian dates, and the bot is incapable of deciding if the input date is or is not in the Gregorian calendar. I give notice that I will regard any further such changes as a knowingly reckless error, and will take whatever measures the Wikipedia community allows to stop SmackBot if this ever happens again.

A fix I would consider acceptable would be to not mark up any date with the {{birth date}} family of templates if the year is greater less than 1923 (the year Greece switched from Julian to Gregorian). --Jc3s5h (talk) 18:40, 14 December 2009 (UTC) revised 20:02 UT.

He means, of course, less than. Rich Farmbrough, 19:15, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
Now this is a case in point. This same user objected to moving stuff from xxxx-xx-xx to spelled out words on the basis that we did not know that the xxxx-xx-xx date was necessarily Georgian/Julian and is now saying that the uncertainty is acceptable in spelled out text , but not in xxxx-xx-xx format. This suggests the user is looking for problems. In the same way CBM is saying that editorial freedom is being taken away by re-arranging a set of simultaneous cites, yet with many hundreds of such re-arrangements not one has proved to be a problem. Yes it is possible that one day someone will have a convincing case where out-of-order superscripts are desirable. And it is possible that soemeone will have a case where http://http:// is actually wanted. But SB has left the latter almost certain error in an article to avoid changing the former also almost certain error. So far this affects a relatively small number of articles, partly because I put myself out and did separate runs for articles with and without refs, and partly because the grooming effect of AWB means that maybe 90% of those articles needed no fixes and a goodly percentage of the remainder only minor fixes.
Why make WP worse for the sake of being right? Rich Farmbrough, 19:28, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
I have explained the reasoning behind not rearranging references and not removing stub tags. Please see my post dated 15:18, 14 December 2009 for a concise statement of my concerns. If you let me know when the bot is fixed, I will unblock it ASAP. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:51, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
I am unhappy with your attitude that bots should be used in situations where their edits may be wrong. If it ever comes to my attention that SmackBot has wrapped a Julian date with a member of the {{Birth date}} templates, (or has wrapped a Julian date with a member of the  (0009-11) family of templates and failed to provide both kinds of dates within the template) you will be hearing from me in a wider forum. --Jc3s5h (talk) 20:07, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
Humans are used in the same way only more widely. I think you need to on the one hand qualify the use of the phrase "may be", and look at the context, and on the other understand a little more about the word "wrong". I have previously given the hypothetical example of of a bot that reverted 10 edits a day of which 9 were correct, and one was actionable libel. In this case the bot would be right to be wrong, even in the majority of cases. Conversely a bot that "corrected" the spelling of "flouride" and changed the person's name would be wrong to be right, even though that was only one mis-spelling created for 999 corrected. The entropy is such that the mis-spelling the persons name removes an amount of information exceeding the correction. Even if it were not so, the very real risk exists that the process will be run again this time correcting maybe 3 mispellings and creating one (assuming the correction of the correction has taken place) - the raw ratio less favourable, the information theoretic one becoming disastrous. Moreover the repeated change would fuel botophobia. That dispenses withthe philospohy.
In the case of the microformats the approach needs to be a little more wide ranging:
  1. The methodology needs to be investigated to evaluate the possibility of building the microformat into the base templates rather than wrapper templates. This is one of the key reasons I have been holding off on this task.
  2. We need to publish a specification of the microformat we are using that specifically states what information is being presented and what the caveats are. For example we use co-ordinates from the American Government's database. We know these are inaccurate, and because of the conversion of units can present an impression of accuracy. Therefore they are "falsehoods". We are also an open source project, therefore there is no guarantee that any information is correct (even if we weren't there wouldn't be). We do not need to bind ourselves to hCard if we choose not to.
  3. The nature of the emitted data and the filtering of the data should be properly engineered and specified, to the extent that it is important.
  4. If necessary a task force should be set up to check every date on wikipedia and make sure it is clear what calender it is in.
Apropos of ordering references. The problem is that there is no problem. A few people have commented that there could potentially be a problem. In hundreds, probably thousands, of re-arrangements to correct numerical order there have been a handful of enquiries, and three people have pointed out that it is conceivable that just possibly one day, it might happen in the fullness of time, given the right circumstances that this change might be a problem. For this I am supposed to either leave articles broken, in that and many other ways, go and bother the developers to remove a perfectly good fix, or familiarise myself with the code, acquire a C# compiler and maintain a fork of the source that behaves differently, gives different stack dumps/traces etc....
What I have done in the past when there has been a real rather than imagined problem is simply turn off GFs and log a bug, or run GF's and scan for the problem if it is amenable. Neither solution is perfect, for a number of reasons, but I certainly don't think that logging a bug for a perfectly fine piece of code would go down very well.
Rich Farmbrough, 20:49, 14 December 2009 (UTC).

Yes it is possible that one day someone will have a convincing case where out-of-order superscripts are desirable.

The reason what you call 'out-of-order superscripts' are sometimes desirable is that the first citation is the main/best source for the information, whilst the other citations are supplementary or provide other alternative/contradictory sources. Unfortunately your bot destroys the information provided by this ordering.--Toddy1 (talk) 20:56, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes I clearly understand that. I could challenge whether it's a good way to provide information, even more strongly whether, say 2 articles using such a convention (and also happening to use a repeated ref) in a sea of a few thousand where the numbers are essentially random, in an ocean of over a million articles where they are monotone increasing, is a good method of signalling. However I would prefer to actually find a circumstance where there is a problem, then we can look for a solution. Rich Farmbrough, 21:07, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
Your summary of what ought to be looked into with respect to birth and death dates is reasonable, with the understanding that the microformats currently in use are published by external organizations and it is not within the power of Wikipedia editors do redefine them. An item you didn't explicitly mention is that widespread changes by bots can lead people to incorrectly believe something is right just because the bot made it pervasive. One important item is not mentioned. There should be an evaluation of whether providing the microformats actually adds any noticeable value to Wikipedia, or at least that there is a good prospect that it will become valuable within the next several years. Indeed, if we don't know what people are usually using them for, we can't evaluate how accurate they need to be. I take no position on the value added by microformats in the context of birth and death dates. --Jc3s5h (talk) 21:55, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no need to "log a bug." Simply change the code that you actually run, just as you would change any other piece of general software to fit a specific need. As someone who runs several bots, I can't accept the argument that it is too hard for a bot operator to edit the source code of their own bot. On the other hand, since the bot is approved to do specific tasks, while GFs are just an add-on, if you would prefer to turn off GFs instead of recompiling, that's up to you. But just commenting out these particular features seems like a better choice to me. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:15, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

In continuation of where I left this conversation, and in reply to CBM. I was under the impression that this bot runs its tasks separately. That is, it will not make a certain type of fix when it is busy with another type of fix. Rich, is this so? If so, why shouldn't Rich be allowed to use the bot, or at least his personal account, for doing any non-controversal fixes? Surely we can rely on him to refrain from doing controversial tasks till he fixed those parts of the code, if consensus wills that. Debresser (talk) 22:50, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes you are right in a sense. That is each edit is done with the purpose of making a specific change, and 99.9% of them will make that change. However it has been customary to have general fixes turned on, and since some of SmackBot's tasks have been retrofitted as core AWB fixes (for example dating the main form of the top 8 or so maintenance templates) it can well be doing stuff that would come under other tasks. The fix that CBM is complaining about is a general fix however. Rich Farmbrough, 23:41, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
You have cut directly to the heart of the problem. The bot does not do things separately. If it ran each task individually without doing anything but the task itself, this entire issue would not exist. However, as things are the bot sometimes edits articles with an edit summary for a particular task even when that task is not applicable to the article edited. I understand why this is, and I don't care about it as long as the extra tasks are uncontroversial. But, for example, here is a diff that is supposed to be for removing capitals from section headers, but which also includes reference rewriting (not reordering, but actually replacing a reference with a named reference). — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:04, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

The whole point of GFs is to get the maximum value from the edits. Debresser is right in the sense that the bot makes an edit with a purpose in mind and will not in general perform its other tasks, however it does, and pretty much always has performed GFs, which, due to the fact that AWB and SmackBot have grown up together , includes a lot of SB's functionality, for example dating Cite needed tags. This is a good thing since it cuts the number of edits, server load, network traffic, database size etc. However the pull between multifunction edits and many small edits has been obvious since day 1, SB's approach is clearly laid out on it's user page "Note, when Smackbot is using AWB, some of the general fixes options will usually be turned on, to get the most value from the edits. Hence most edit summaries say "and/or general fixes". Again usually, the motivating change will be made or none at all." Rich Farmbrough, 23:37, 14 December 2009 (UTC).

So are you admitting that your bot does a mix of things that are approved and things are that not approved together? Second, are you willing to separate the tasks? The last bot operator I remember who played the "I cannot separate things so let me keeping doing what I can because it's so valuable" didn't work so well. I think the best thing to do is have SmackBot do everything but the conduct that's being disputed. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:46, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Actually I have started a conversation on getting a split of approved and non-approved GF's at WP:AWB. I simply don't think that maintaining my own version of AWB is the way to go, even if I had the C# experience and the desire and time. It also happens that I find the particular change in question a strange sticking point. Anyway with a little luck that is behind us now. Rich Farmbrough, 03:53, 15 December 2009 (UTC).

Actions have been thoroughly reviewed

Yes, Tedder again. You closed the ANI discussion with Actions have been thoroughly reviewed. This is incorrect: Tedder's protect has been thoroughly reviewed; no admin has commented on the propiety of breaking 3RR or or revert-before-protect. This is merely a note to you to indicate that I disagree with the wording of your close; I don't expect any action from you William M. Connolley (talk) 09:13, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Welcomes

Hi Rich. Hope you've been well. Question. I recently ran into an editor who thought is quite rude that a vandal had been warned a number of times, and yet nobody had been kind enough to welcome him. If there is indeed anything to that view (I'm unsure), why don't we simply have a bot welcome everyone? It seems a waste of time for editors to do it. And if its a necessary step to get some editors to agree that blocks, etc. are appropriate, it seems like perfect bot work. Thoughts? And happy holidays.--Epeefleche (talk) 02:43, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Michael Rosenzweig (composer)

I have nominated Michael Rosenzweig (composer) for deletion. I would be grateful if you could let the community know your opinion about this. Cheers--Karljoos (talk) 15:37, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

DMC - repeated request

Now that the new dating system of the various categories for discussion templates has been working fine for over a week, perhaps you would now agree to make the switch to DMC?

I have the templates ready for copy&paste on Template:Cfx/sandbox. I made a few very minor changes, as you can see in great detail in the history. (I mention it to you, so there should be no surprises). Debresser (talk) 16:53, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, after doing some further work, I'd like to ask you to delete Template:Consider listifying and the related redirect page Template:Consider Listifying, that is an unneeded, unused an never finished copy of Template:Listify. Debresser (talk) 17:51, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. Debresser (talk) 18:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
I made {{Cfc}} and {{Cfl}} and documentation, based on Cfr. You can find them in Template:Cfx/sandbox as well, and I tested them on Category:Jewish Americans to great satisfaction. Debresser (talk) 18:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
I want to replace {{Cfc1}}, {{Cfl1}}, and {{Cfm1}} with {{Cfc}}, {{Cfl}} and {{Cfm}}. What do you say? Debresser (talk) 18:50, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
That was a piece of cake: just replacing them in one template. Can you delete them, and their documentation and {{Cfc nomination}}, {{Cfl nomination}}, and {{Cfm nomination}} (and their capitalised redirects) that are used only by them? Why they were created in such a two-step way and not like I just did along the lines of Cfr, is one thing that completely eludes me. Anyway, they are not in use, nor have they ever been, see the WP:CFD instructions for nomination. Debresser (talk) 20:23, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Is that a yes, a no, a later, or a I want to have a look a them a few days before I do such a thing? Debresser (talk) 00:38, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I haven't really been able to give it my attention yet. Rich Farmbrough, 08:30, 10 December 2009 (UTC).
bump. Rich Farmbrough, 20:20, 12 December 2009 (UTC).
I hope the bumps don't hurt. Debresser (talk) 13:27, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
Still too busy for it? Debresser (talk) 20:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
As you know I had 104,000 other things to do... Rich Farmbrough, 02:49, 17 December 2009 (UTC).
I know. But still, that is going to take a lot more time, while here you can make a difference and do a major clean up in ten minutes. Debresser (talk) 12:14, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 14 December 2009

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 16:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

There's a minor problem with the edits SmackBot is making to the Time travel article--twice on Dec. 16 2009 it changed the following citation:

cite journal | last = Uribe | first = Augusto | title = The First Time Machine: Enrique Gaspar's Anacronópete | journal = The New York Review of Science Fiction | volume = Vol. 11, No. 10 | issue = 130 | page = 12 |date=June 1999

To:

cite journal | last = Uribe | first = Augusto | title = The First Time Machine: Enrique Gaspar's Anacronópete | journal = The New York Review of Science Fiction | volume = 11| issue = 10 | issue = 130 | page = 12 |date=June 1999

In case it's not easy to spot, it changed "| volume = Vol. 11, No. 10 | issue = 130 |" to "| volume = 11| issue = 10 | issue = 130 |". But this is actually incorrect, the New York Review of Science Fiction has a separate "Number" and "Issue", they are not synonymous--see for example http://www.nyrsf.com/2009/04/issue-249-may-2009.html. Can you tweak SmackBot's program so it doesn't assume they are synonymous and automatically replace the first with the second? Thanks... Hypnosifl (talk) 17:45, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

FYI: Wikipedia:BON#SmackBot removal of stub templates. –xenotalk 21:06, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Editing of HTML comments, part II.

Brought this up before (my comment, your reply), but the bot seems to be back to taking commented-out categories and adding them for real; see this edit . Not a big deal in this case as this should probably just have been deleted ("House of Mendoza" is a subcategory of "Spanish noble houses" = Grandeza de España, which is a holdover from the Spanish version of the article), but figured I'd mention it. SnowFire (talk) 20:25, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Will endeavour to make it stay fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 00:58, 17 December 2009 (UTC).

Picture for meigs field post

I have a photo to add to the meigs field listing and am not sure how to contribute it...

Here is link: [81]

I took this photo from a medical helicopter on April 6, 2003... I remember the closing... it was really ridiculous. Zargnut (talk) 23:49, 16 December 2009 (UTC)zargnut

SmackBot - getting sort keys wrong?

Hi, What's the point in Smackbot assigning a default sort key if it isn't going to get it right? See Richard Moore (actor), where the article title was given as the sort key - despite the clues that it had two biographical categories, and that "Moore, Richard" had been set as the sort key within one of those categories? PamD (talk) 08:57, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot - stub/Stub

Hi, I spend a lot of time stub-sorting, and it saves a couple of keystrokes if the generic tag is input as {{stub}} rather than {{Stub}} (ie I can use the existing lowercase "s" rather than having to delete the capital "S" first). I see that Smackbot uses the capital letter - any chance it could change to lower case? PamD (talk) 09:01, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Message from user:Cheong Kok Chun

If you had tag the word Orphan in the article: Vision Four, then please see the message written in Talk:Vision Four. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheong Kok Chun (talk • contribs) 09:04, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters

I fixed 15 userpages in Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters. All of them had deprecated parameters inside the {{Cite video}} template as their only problem. It would make sense to try that on the remaining ones, if your bot is up to that. Debresser (talk) 11:26, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Please check Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters. There are two pages by User:Geo Swan, that I do not feel I'd like to fix. Perhaps you are up to it. Debresser (talk) 22:43, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

One sorted, the other lots of fixes, but seems resistant. Rich Farmbrough, 23:02, 17 December 2009 (UTC).
Gottit! Rich Farmbrough, 23:08, 17 December 2009 (UTC).

Some fix needed

This edit combined with the lack of Category:Pages with incorrectly substituted templates leads me to the conclusion that there is something wrong on {{Current}}. Debresser (talk) 23:22, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Reply from user:Cheong Kok Chun at 11:56 PM (Kuala Lumpur)

Actually I dont know about the information and the manager of Vision Four because I did not create this page called: Vision Four. Please contact the user at User talk:Tyh27 because he is the creator of the page called: Vision Four. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheong Kok Chun (talk • contribs) 03:59, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Ping

Rich, I emailed you. Tony (talk) 12:27, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Links other than in articles

I have noticed there are links to dates from various quarters of WP which may or may not have been considered for delinking as follows, for example:

Would you look into these, please? Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:58, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Just a somewhat related point ... I think there are some dates, such as baseball year dates, that are not automatically delinked. But that may well be in accord with the view of the individual relevant wikiproject, such as the baseball wikiproject in that case. It's I think a somewhat mild disconnect with the overall wikipedia policy, and I'm not sure that they need be consistent, but it is something I thought I might raise for your thoughts.--Epeefleche (talk) 17:50, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
Do you have an example? do you mean the {{by}} template? Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:47, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
I presume so, it has been mentioned in passing that the the albums project, I think it is, had a guideline to use "1966 (see 1966 in film)" where appropriate... or was it films? Regardless that alwasy stuck me as a good way to go, it discourages blind linking (how often is the "by" link useful - incidentally I moved "BY" to "Baptist Youth" a few days back. On a more generic note it has been said many times that projects do not trump general guidelines. Clearly if they did you would get jurisdiction conflicts. It is ok I think to provide specialist exceptions "We italicise scientific titles, becasue that's how it is done" or "we use 'mya' instead of BC" or "we use IUPC spelling for chemicals, not UK or US." What is not ok is what some have tired to do , make OWNed projects a bastion of some idiosyncratic style (over and above ENGVAR type choices that are simply due to the early contributors). Rich Farmbrough, 02:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC).
Tx. To answer Oh's question, it's the case in perhaps most baseball player articles. See, for example, Babe Ruth, Albert Pujols, Joe Mauer, and Jimmy Rollins.--Epeefleche (talk) 08:47, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Used as a reference

Sorry, this is OT to this thread: Rich, I quoted you as a reference in this discussion. I'm just trying to be polite; it seems polite to mention it when you quote others. —Aladdin Sane (talk) 08:11, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Editorial tags should go in the Talk page

One of the most elementary Wikipedia style rules is that any comments (questions, requests, suggestions etc.) *about* an article should go in its talk page, not in the article itself. Phrases such as "This explanation is incomplete" or "He was born in 1950 (someone please check this)", or "He was born in ????" in an article page should be deleted on sight and, and any relevant discussion should be carried out in the talk page.
So could someone please explain why editorial templates like {{Unreferenced}} or {{Merge-to}} are being inserted in *articles*, rather than their talk pages? What makes those editorial requests so important that it is OK to deface the articles with them?
As if that damage was not enough, those tags are being inserted before the leading paragraph (which is then not "leading" anymore!), waste from four to six lines of screen space to deliver a half-line message, and are ridiculously flashy (as if they were the most important thing that the reader should know about the topic).
Finally, some of those tags are being inserted by robots, which is quite unfair. For each mouse click by the tagger, some regular editor will have to spend a minute or two, at least, to remove the tag — even if the tag is unwarranted. Why should the tagger's opinion about the article be worth a hundred times more than that of a regular editor?
Please!... --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 21:28, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Er, sorry, I may be barking up the wrong tree. I may have misunderstood what Smackbot is doing. (I just had a hundred of my articles edited by it in a row, I am still checking what happened...) --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 21:39, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
As an editor, I totally agree with your opinion, and think it should be taken to a level different than Farmbrough's Talk page (needs wider discussion). The bot edits look "true by policy, but depressing" to me. I think you're right; the tags belong on the Talk page for editors, not in or on articles. —Aladdin Sane (talk) 01:40, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
The tag is only replacing a hidden category and the tag on stub pages is itself currently hidden. Another alternative is to speedy these unreferenced stub pages, while I was vexed when someone did that a few months ago, and managed to restore and improve some of them, the new stubs that are being created seem to be referenced, whereas some of the older ones aren't, and it seems they will be replaced if deleted. So while the idea doesn't appeal to me I don't rule it out totally. Rich Farmbrough, 10:03, 18 December 2009 (UTC).
I dont object to the {{unreferenced}} tag per se, the problem is its placement. That supposed "rule" contradicts the earier and very logical rule about use of the talk page. Moreover, I just saw that, in a straw poll on where the tag should be placed, there were 9 votes for "top of article", 10 for "bottom of article", and 13 for "talk page". And that, of course, is among the 30 or so editors who took part on the discussion of that template, and who therefore are far from being an unbiased sample of all editors.
It seems that a considerable fraction of the articles will end up with that annoying template. That includes many perfectly good and fully verifiable articles that were created before 2006 (when the <ref> machinery did not exist). Do you expect that the 10,000 regular editors of Wikipedia will immediately stop whatever they are doing and rush to put references into those articles? Does anyone believe that adding references to a perfectly fine article is more important than fixing wrong formulas or bad syntax, adding essential contents, or create missing articles? (Many of the authors of those old articles have already left, perhaps put off by the creeping Vogonization of Wikipedia.) Face it, the *normal* state of a Wikipedia article is, and will ever be, "unreferenced" or "insufficiently referenced". (So in fact it may be more efficient to tag only "fully and properly referenced" articles 8-).
Actually, several of the articles that were tagged as "unreferenced" by SmackBot *do* cite sources, they just don't use <ref>...</ref>. But go try deleting the tag on those articles!... So please reconsider: either move those tags to the talk page, or make them invisible (like the "unreferenced stub" tag). All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 12:41, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

No not immediately but within some reasonable period of time. And I would say the the fraction eligible for an unreferenced template is falling, I took maybe 7000 articles out of the unreferenced categories in the last month or so. We have over 1 million articles that use "<ref>" and a whole bunch (presumably nearly 2 million) that use other forms of referencing. If the community wants to move the tags to the talk page, they can - start a (modestly perennial) VP discussion - as I did on (unsuccessfully) getting rid of Orphan tags; some information is kept there systematically, like "needs infobox" and "needs photo" for biography articles. Alternatively find a suitable reference book and cites for a big bunch of articles! Rich Farmbrough, 09:00, 19 December 2009 (UTC).

&nbsp; -> {{convert}}?

Here's a final one for now, something I've been meaning to ask for a while: When it comes across a quantity separated from its unit by a space, SmackBot often replaces the space with &nbsp;. Eg "3 km" -> "3&nbsp;km". Would it not be better to use {{convert}} instead? Eg "3 km" -> "{{Convert|3|km|mi}}". -Arb. (talk) 02:04, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 17:47, 18 December 2009 (UTC).

Breakage of Template:Article issues/doc/Fulltext

I believe the most recent edit you made to Template:DatedAI broke Template:Article issues/doc/Fulltext, because it stops the former template working in the Template namespace.—greenrd (talk) 14:50, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

 Fixed Rich Farmbrough, 17:47, 18 December 2009 (UTC).

fyi

XLinkBot‎ adds a welcome when adding a warning, if the page is completely blank.--Epeefleche (talk) 23:24, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Defaultsort keys

I've noticed a lot of AWB edits from you in which a musical group's name gets a "second word, first word" sortkey applied to it as if it were a person's name — do you have an automated function running that you're sometimes forgetting to turn off when you're doing other batch jobs? Just wondering... Bearcat (talk) 03:09, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 03:27, 19 December 2009 (UTC).
Ah, okay, fair enough... Bearcat (talk) 03:29, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
FWIW, though, one alternative might be for the template to add a "group" flag for articles that are discussing groups of people (bands, companies, etc.) instead of individuals, and then AWB could switch off the function if that flag is present. Food for thought, anyway. Bearcat (talk) 03:33, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

{{NoCoins}}

{{NoCoins}}

Useful. Rich Farmbrough, 11:07, 19 December 2009 (UTC).

Editing other people's signatures

You may want to fix something.--Rockfang (talk) 13:01, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Hm looks like a stray mouseclick. Very odd though. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 13:19, 19 December 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot

Look at this; the HTML comment makes it self-explanatory. I suggest that the bot only process the |pages=, leaving |page= alone, as books using chapter-and-page numbering differ in whether to use hyphens or dashes.

Good idea. Rich Farmbrough, 12:40, 19 December 2009 (UTC).
Good, but &sly; is the entity for the soft hyphen (used to syllabify words and only visible if at the end of a line). The "normal" hyphen has no named entity, and the numerical entity is &#45; ― A. di M. — 2nd Great Wikipedia Dramaout 13:58, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes I knew that except the invisible bit. Oh well learn something every day. I was worried that a numeric entity would be unicodified. Maybe {{-}} would have been better. Rich Farmbrough, 22:16, 19 December 2009 (UTC).

Template:Unreferenced stub

Hey Rich, can you fix Template:Unreferenced stub so that it doesn't float the box to the left making the text wrap around it? As can be seen at Kinglassie when the auto= parameter was removed. -- Ϫ 02:51, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

OK should be done. The idea was to make ths stub less obtusive... Rich Farmbrough, 13:33, 20 December 2009 (UTC).

Date format when unlinking

I see that you have recently de-linked several dates (e.g. on Scrapheap Challenge). Could you please take care when de-linking, to change the date format to one suitable for the variant of English used in the article. For example, Scrapheap Challenge is a UK show, so should say 12 April 1998, instead of April 12, 1998. Bluap (talk) 15:55, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot's use of {{Unreferenced stub}}

When removing the outdated Erik9bot category, SmackBot sometimes adds {{Unreferenced stub}} yet for some reason the expected message box seems not to be displayed. Is this deliberate? For examples see Frome Sports Club or Soesdyke-Linden Highway. -Arb. (talk) 01:12, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes there was some objection to "tags overwhelming stubs". For this reason the auto parameter hides the tag. There is no reason that this behaviour can't be changed in future. Rich Farmbrough, 01:42, 18 December 2009 (UTC).
Fair enough. Seems odd not to have the text box though as that is what is most "useful" to the casual reader, or so one would have thought. -Arb. (talk) 01:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
No, no, PLEASE keep it that way! "Odd" (to say the least) is having editorial messages like the {{Unreferenced}} tag being visible to readers. If you could fix that too... All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 12:16, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
From a pre-Wikipedia perspective, odd is allowing unreferenced, incomplete, badly translated, POV pushing, mis-spelled and poorly laid out articles to be part of the encyclopedia. Rich Farmbrough, 17:49, 18 December 2009 (UTC).
Well, I don't see how sticking an {{Unreferenced}} tag at the top of such an article will solve those problems. If the criterion for tagging is the mere presence of <ref>s or a References section, then pov-pushers will easily evade it; and, conversely, the mere lack of references does not mean that the contents is unverifiable, unverified, or wrong. Most articles created before 2006 lack references simply because they were neither required nor supported; yet many of those articles were based on reliable sources,or are otherwise OK. Do you expect that, by threatening to delete those articles, you will get their authors to rush back and add references to them? Many have probably left Wikipedia; many of those who are still around do not keep those articles in their watch lists anymore; and many will rather work on new content than comply with bureaucratic requests. Given the current ratio of editors to articles, and the number of articles that have got editorial tags (including {{-stub}}, {{Cleanup}}, etc.), the only consequence of sticking those tags will be to deface the article — essentially forever.
You may have seen statistics of wikipedia's growth. They show that the pool of editors, which had been doubling every 11 months or so until 2005, has since been steadily decaying. That probably means that essentially no new editors have joined Wikipedia's pool since 2006, and old editors are leaving. The main reason for this change probably lies elsewhere, but suspected accomplices include the creeping bureaucratization of Wikipedia, the cluttering of article sources by templates, and the general hostily shown towards newbies — including the aggessive deletion of "non-notable" articles, and the threatening disdain implied by tags like {{Unreferenced}}.
Anyway, for the last four years Wikipedia has been in a downwards course. It will not get out of that trend as long as people just keep doing what they have been doing since then, without a better justification than "it is policy". All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 21:48, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I am familiar with people taking a real or perceived problem and blaming all or part of it on something they don't like. I am not "threatening" to delete articles, just surprised that a manually created plant stub I came across is less well referenced than the several hundred sister articles in the same genus created en-bloc. To explain why I think that deleting these articles might be effective consider that if, by some mischance, we were to loose all the U president articles, they would undoubtedly be recreated in a couple of days, and most likely to an excellent standard. Similarly the "pre-2006" stubs of which you speak, are, while still stubs, probably (i.e. on average) of more interesting/notable/important topics than the ones created in Decmeber 2009. Therefore they would be likely to be re-created, properly referenced. Let me make it clear I am not proposing that we do that, simply pointing out that it is not a ridiculous idea. Rich Farmbrough, 23:55, 18 December 2009 (UTC).

Rich, sorry but I cannot agree with this analysis. Many of the articles in question (mine and other people's) took *a lot* of work to create (*including* looking up references), and were only created because *one* editor choose to do it. Some stub-size articles that I created took me many hours to find the necessary sources. If all "unsourced" material was to be deleted, it would be years before someone would have the intiative to restore it; and that may never happen. Not because those articles are worthless or unimportant, but simply because the number of *important* articles and sections that are still missing is completely out of proportion to the number of active editors — and these are shrinking, not growing. (By my estimate, there are about 10,000 editors who make at least 2-3 edits a day on the average. Creation of a medium-size, medium-quality article requires hundreds of edits. Routine maintenance of a hundred articles probably requires another 10 edits per day. Can you tell me how many articles have got the "unreferenced" tag already?::All of them. Rich Farmbrough, 04:53, 21 December 2009 (UTC).
) So deleting unsourced material just because it is unsourced is, more often than not, throwing away the hard and valuable work of other editors.
That's what the tagging and sourceing is supposed to do, save material from being destroyed. Rich Farmbrough, 04:53, 21 December 2009 (UTC).
Hm, sounds like: "that is why ransom notes are a good thing, they save hostages from being killed" 8-) --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 05:41, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
And even if the articles were recreated right away, the original work would still have been wasted.
Sigh, how can I make you see that article tagging does not contribute anything to Wikipedia, it only defaces the articles and pisses off other editors? Imagine a janitor who, instead of cleaning, goes around the building spray-painting "THIS ROOM LOOKS DIRTY" on the walls --- even in rooms that are actually quite clean --- and abuses anyone who tries to erase the signs. How could that possibly be considered "good work"? What is the difference between that janitor and a robot-assisted article tagger?
Please reconsider, and stop this tagging madness. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 04:28, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Love the janitor analogy. —Aladdin Sane (talk) 04:46, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a work in progress. Incomplete articles were fine when no-one took it seriously. Now it is one of the top 10 sites - and do you believe that more of what is documented on my User page under "things that stayed too long" doesn't exist? Do you thing that the problems with the Adbot articles are unique? What you are talking about is more like "Unsafe floor" signs being removed. Certainly, wikify, uncat, stub, expand, copyedit could be made hidden, but these are not the problem tags. The problem tags are COI , unref, NPOV, BLP unref, copyvio and stuff like that. Rich Farmbrough, 04:53, 21 December 2009 (UTC).
And anyway - why are you complaining to me? I just hid 45,000+ tags! That is what this section is about. Rich Farmbrough, 04:55, 21 December 2009 (UTC).
Rich, sorry again for barking up the wrong tree. Many thanks for hiding the stub tags and for your attempt to get rid of the "orphan" tags. (If you cound't, why should I even try?...) I hope that you will reconsider the "unref" too. Meanwhile, I guess that I am really burned-out and need another long break from Wikipeda. So long, and all the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 05:41, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

fyi on date formatting...

You are the expert on date formatting... and you did your date reformatting thing on Abdelaziz Kareem Salim al-Noofayee. Recently another quality control volunteer did further date reformatting on that article. I asked them about the conversion of dates from yyyy-mm-dd format to dd Month yyyy format -- within {{cite}} templates. I thought I would let you know, in case their work wasn't in line with the date standards.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 15:14, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I have no problems with this type of change, and the format seems appropriate (US military). There will always be dissenters of course. Rich Farmbrough, 21:47, 20 December 2009 (UTC).

Could smackbot?

I just looked at your FAQ. Could your smackbot be authorized to change every instance of a URL a site has stopped using to the URL the site now uses?

Originally the DoD made available one hundred .pdf files under http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/Reading_Room/Detainee_Related/ Then, for a period of time those files were available under that directory and http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/

But, for some time now, only the second directory, http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/, works.

There are over 2,000 places where URLs start with the first directory. Could smackbot correct all those URLs?

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 15:14, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes I have it ready to go , but I need a BRFA. Rich Farmbrough, 02:34, 21 December 2009 (UTC).
Thanks! Geo Swan (talk) 03:05, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

HMNZS Waima: Fate

HUllo Rich, yr pages re this trawler/minesweeper are helping me resolve a small mystery I have had since about 1960.I found this at ...."..In May 1946 Waiho and Waima were sold to Red Funnel Trawlers Pty. Ltd in Sydney. The ship was renamed by her new owners Matong ON 178379. Waiho was delived to Sydney in September by the Marine Department steamer Matai arriving 12 September.." Navy Museum. My own involvment was when my father "souvenired" the brass engine room plate in about 1960, as the ship waited for scrapping (?) in Sydney Harbor. He still has that plaque, and I hope to be able to Fwd it to the museum soon. Thanks for your help in tracing the ship ! Feroshki (talk) 02:48, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Jamaica

Hi! Wow you must have covered every topic imaginable now! Can you use AWB to remove a - from the coordinates display title of the villages in Jamaica statred by Kyle 1278. You see it works in the map display but adding a - and a W into the standard coordinate display make it an east! So they are currently displayed in south India! Can you quickly remove the - sign from the bottom coordinate display. Also he has wrongly added documentation which says AU, but it is Jamaica not Australia. Can you fix them like thisThanks. Dr. Blofeld White cat 11:57, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Hehe. Thanks. Happy Christmas! Dr. Blofeld White cat 13:43, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I was wondering if you knew why www.mapsofworld.com is on our spam filter? Is it because it is a commercial site? Because that site contains a lot of useful information and even if not acceptable as a reference for some topics it is useful for further reading in external links. How do I go about requesting it to be cleared? I mean hell if fallingrain is not even on the spam filter I fail to understand why this site is.. This OK I found MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist to bitch about it!! Dr. Blofeld White cat 11:45, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Problem delinking date ranges

I noticed a problem with your date delinking in the yearly Masters Tournament series of articles, e.g. 1981 Masters Tournament. The comma in the date is getting incorrectly dropped when delinking (see this edit [82] for example). I've fixed all the Masters articles (by deleting the year which is redundant anyway) but thought you should be aware of the problem. - Tewapack (talk) 17:32, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Default sort tags

Hi, Rich. While fixing the default sort tags, I have identified two different sources of misclassification. There's Smackbot (via AWB as you say) and there's also User:DefaultsortBot. That bot is adding default sort tags to articles that lack them if they have a "listas" parameter in the WPBiography template on the talk page. If the "listas" parameter is wrong then DefaultsortBot gets it wrong. Smackbot changed many articles around Dec 11th. I have fixed many of them regarding band articles. Why widespread do you think this problem with the default sort tag is? Does it extend outside the band articles? One thing that might be able to prevent recurrence in the future is for Smackbot (or AWK) to check its default sort tag against the "listas" parameter. If what it wants to use matches the "listas" parameter then the edit can be assumed safe but if there's a discrepancy, then something is wrong. I am going to be away from Wikipedia mostly during the Christmas holiday so I'm afraid I won't be able to help much more for a while to fix more of the tags. Cheers, 00:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there is an assumption that everything up to now is OK. There are bots (and users) that copy in both directions, and that do work on either of the two parameters. For example ListasBot, DefaultsortBot, Yobot. Some transformations are more or less safe, for example getting rid of diacritics, on WpBio articles reversing John Xxxx (though this could be a band). Trouble is ListasBot last ran in Sept, DefaultsortBot in June. Also somehting is needed to flag discrepencies and fix those that are obvious. Rich Farmbrough, 00:38, 22 December 2009 (UTC).

Regarding Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Dermatology task force/Required pages

I was starting to go through the above list, but am noticing some type of issue with links that have punctuation. For example Beau’s lines, even though there is a Beau's lines article. Perhaps there is an automatic way to fix this? Thanks again for your help! ---kilbad (talk) 02:50, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes sort of. Rich Farmbrough, 06:02, 22 December 2009 (UTC).

Something shiny

The Working Man's Barnstar
I award you this Barnstar because every time I look at my watchlist you have unlinked dates to at least four more of the pages that I patrol, Happy Holidays J04n(talk page) 15:12, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Thank you! Rich Farmbrough, 15:15, 22 December 2009 (UTC).

Mistake?

I have no idea how AWB works (and don't particularly want to know), but I hope that it is possible to avoid mistakes like this (the one in the recording section) in the future. (And I normally wouldn't bring it up, but my watchlist usually contains a lot of "Rich Farmbrough (talk | contribs) (Delink dates (WP:MOSUNLINKDATES) using Project:AWB" and I'd rather not have to go through and check all of them each time.) Thanks. Santa Claus of the Future (talk) 15:29, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 16:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC).

Amp'd Mobile

I've just used Twinkle to remove some advert sounding material by an IP address ([83]). For some reason Twinkle said in the edit summary that I had reverted your edits. I haven't and I want to make it clear that that was a mistake on Twinkle's part. I would like to apologise on Twinkle's behalf. Not sure if I can remove your name from the edit summary... any ideas? ~~ Dr Dec (Talk) ~~ 16:01, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

No problems, it's just an edit summary. Rich Farmbrough, 16:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC).
No it's cool. It says "Reverted TO edit 35.... by Rich... " Rich Farmbrough, 16:06, 22 December 2009 (UTC).

Request

I'd like to work on an article that was deleted, and rewrite or improve it. Could you put it on User:Debresser/Sauscony Lahaylia Valdoria Skolia please? Suppose you can guess what the title was. Debresser (talk) 12:06, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Debresser (talk) 04:43, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Review Question

Hi Rich - I see that you did a quick review of a page I created (Destiny Solutions). As this page has been up for a while and no one has taken down the This is a new unreviewed article marker. Could you take a full review of the page and take this marker down?

Thanks!Hollyroad (talk) 17:44, 22 December 2009 (UTC)Hollyroad

Done.

Rich Farmbrough, 19:02, 22 December 2009 (UTC).

The Wikipedia Signpost: 21 December 2009

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 03:33, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Happy Holidays from Phantomsteve!

File:Christmas collage.PNG
Happy holidays to you, Rich Farmbrough - hope you have an enjoyable, relaxing time
-- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 18:53, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Cfd templates

I see my post about the Cfd templates was archived. I hope it is not forgotten though. Debresser (talk) 22:33, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

The archiving works on sig dates. Hence the bumping. Rich Farmbrough, 22:34, 20 December 2009 (UTC).
I came to the same conclusion by deduction. Thanks. Debresser (talk) 22:36, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
Just the occassional reminder. Actually, the more time passes, the clearer it becomes that the changes I made are working well. Debresser (talk) 11:48, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Please leave capitalization of template names alone

I left the following message on User talk:SmackBot:

This date-delinking edit by SmackBot to Generation Rescue changed "{{reflist}}" to "{{Reflist}}" (capitalizing the template name) for no reason. Please leave it lower case; that's the standard style for that template. Thanks. (This is just one example of many.) Eubulides (talk) 19:47, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Shortly thereafter SmackBot deleted the message without comment. Is this normal for SmackBot? If so, then I suggest modifying its talk page to tell other editors about this behavior.

The talk page does explain that comments get archived (quickly otherwise it becomes a discussion page). In this case I went off to do some research, then took some much needed sleep. Rich Farmbrough, 05:23, 23 December 2009 (UTC).

More important, can you please fix SmackBot so that it doesn't change the capitalization of templates? It should just leave capitalization alone; there's no reason to change it. Thanks. Eubulides (talk) 01:49, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

  • why does it matter? It's hidden away and visible only in edit mode. The template would work just fine whether it's capitalised or not. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:31, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Ohconfucius: Capitalization matters to us that have a preference. As far as I know most template programmers around here prefer lower case. Bots and tools should not be used to enforce a style for which there isn't consensus. As far as I know there is no guideline telling if templates should use upper or lower case. So the bot should respect what the human editors have put there.
I regularly see the same thing in the /doc files of templates that I have created: A user with some tool like AWB comes along and "cleans up" the page, but all he does is changing capitalization and changing whitespace in headings etc. Which means that user is using a tool to enforce his personal preference, on texts which he didn't contribute to. That's very rude towards those who spent a lot of work on coding and documenting the template.
--David Göthberg (talk) 04:13, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. Now I have to wonder: Do I have to WP:AGF of a bot? —Aladdin Sane (talk) 04:34, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Pooh, what a load of old cobblers! Whether or not {{Reflist}} is in capitals is hardly a style matter. The whole of WP enforces capitalisation of the first letter of each and every article. Just go to the template concerned, and you will see "Template:Reflist" right at the top. Quite what effect the capitalisation of 'Reflist' in any given article has on programming is really beyond me. It's not that we're unappreciative of the work you guys do programming templates, but it just strikes me you're trying to pin the blame on the wrong person. Seeing what is being argued about here is fundamentally an AWB matter, I suggest that if you have an issue about the "enforced capitalisation" of "{{Reflist}}" allegedly against consensus, you should take it up at WT:AWB. While you're at it, if you have too much time on your hands, why don't you busy yourselves changing the editing toolbox, because clicking on the relevant button also inserts "{{Reflist}}" at the cursor. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 05:34, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Did you mean to indent your post as a reply to mine? It appears irrelevant to what I wrote.
Setting aside the style issue, my point is that the change makes no practical difference. But someone seeing a bot perform the replacement might mistake it for a meaningful correction and edit pages for no reason other than to implement it (thereby wasting time/effort and increasing system overhead). —David Levy 06:15, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Sorry. It was a response to the ongoing discussion above, not to you specifically. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 06:20, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
It matters because users who see bots perform such edits might assume that the capitalization replacement is beneficial, prompting some to waste resources by performing edits purely to make this pointless change. —David Levy 04:33, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

OK I changed the date delinking to leave {{Reflist}} alone. We can talk about the use of case to aid readability another day. Rich Farmbrough, 04:40, 23 December 2009 (UTC).

Eubulides is pushing his idea of what the standard is. He has done so at another occasion as well, in a very pushy way. Note that SmackBot was mentioned in that discussion. I propose to ignore him and his POV pushing, or actively fight them. Debresser (talk) 04:45, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Debresser: Yes, Eubulides is a very disturbing POV pusher. I had my share of fights with him about other issues. He almost made me leave Wikipedia and he made me decrease the amount of time I spend on Wikipedia. But in this case he is right.
Debresser: In this case it seems you are the POV pusher. You edited the doc of a template I made, only to change all template names to upper case. And that was for a template you had not contributed to at all. That's rude and the same thing as changing a text between British and US English, without contributing to the text at all. And I see in the discussion you linked to that you are apparently doing the same thing in other places.
--David Göthberg (talk) 05:37, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Most citation templates, and {{Reflist}}, and their documentation pages I have worked on, and am working with them daily as a wikignome. Apart from the fact that in most cases there was mix of upper- and lowercase usage anyways. So he was inforcing his standard no less than I was mine. But saying that it was rude of me to edit Wikipedia, that is pretty rude yourself. Debresser (talk) 23:19, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I think it is a capital mistake to consider any user's attempt to improve the encyclopedia as "rude". And changing the text to (for example) British English is good on The Shadows, even if you have made no other edits there. Rich Farmbrough, 05:47, 23 December 2009 (UTC).
  • Yes, I am aware that Eubulides has a low-level running feud with Rich. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 05:40, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I think he is protective of certain pages. I would say over-protective, doubtless he would disagree. <shrug> Rich Farmbrough, 05:57, 23 December 2009 (UTC).
Rich: Changing capitalization of template names to upper case is not improving the Encyclopaedia, it is just pushing a style. And there actually is a technical reason why we use lower case in template names:
As you might now parameter names and parameter values are case sensitive in template programming. So most of us stick to using all lower case parameter names and values. Like for instance {{my temp|image=no}}. Also the template names are case sensitive in all but the first character. If you change the docs to say {{My temp|image=no}} then you confuse the users and they tend to do mistakes like {{My Temp|Image=No}}. So experience has taught us it is better to stick to all lower case everywhere when working with templates.
--David Göthberg (talk) 06:11, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree with parameter names being normal case, one reason that template names benefit from sentence case is that {{{{advice is then obviously a parameter and {{{{Advice is then obviously a template. Rich Farmbrough, 06:20, 23 December 2009 (UTC).
Incidentally I have changed a shed load of major use templates from title case, camel case, unusual abbreviations and space free to sentence case, and more recently I noticed a number of other productive editors (fugeddabout it spring to mind) have made the similar changes. Rich Farmbrough, 06:24, 23 December 2009 (UTC).
In my experience, the vast majority of "contributions" to WP appear to be very minor changes. There's plenty of scope for those who want to complain about others making pointless edits. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 06:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot is still capitalizing template names gratuitiously

"OK I changed the date delinking to leave {{Reflist}} alone". Thanks, but it's still doing it now. See this recent edit to United Cigar Stores, done within the past half-hour. Could you please look again and test that your fix actually works? Also, can you please make sure that other template names are not also being capitalized? I assume the problem is not limited to {{reflist}}. Thanks. Eubulides (talk) 20:02, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Mm, should have only affected a small percentage of edits. Sorted. Rich Farmbrough, 20:36, 23 December 2009 (UTC).
Thanks for fixing it. By the way, I looked at the previous subthread and want to say that I do not want to give the impression that I have a "low-level running feud" with you. I don't add comments to this page every time I see SmackBot doing something right! (That would overload you.) My reports of SmackBot's missteps should not be interpreted as meaning anything resembling a feud, any more than the bug reports I might file with (say) Microsoft or IBM mean that I am "feuding" with Microsoft and IBM. The work that you do is a valuable improvement to Wikipedia, it's appreciated, and I hope this is clear to all. Eubulides (talk) 21:50, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Links other than in articles (bump)

Sorry about this, but one of my previous posts appears to have gotten sidetracked and has now been archived. I'd like to revive it:

I have noticed there are links to dates from various quarters of WP which may or may not have been considered for delinking as follows, for example:

Would you look into these, please? Ohconfucius ¡digame! 14:21, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I found a lot of links, but only a (relative) few appear to be full dates. Some of these need a little manual intervention, I have had them cued up for a while. Rich Farmbrough, 20:03, 23 December 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot + delinking dates

This FR is probably about SmarkBot: [84]. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:43, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!


December21st2012Freak Happy Holidays! is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

December21st2012Freak Happy Holidays! 00:27, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Date delinking

Hi Rich. Thanks for all the great work you do. I see that you've got SmackBot running all out doing date delinking, but the user page still shows the date delinking proposal (SmackBot XXII) in a "Requested" status. Does that status need to be updated?

Also, could you publish the source code of the AWB module that you are using? I see that the SmackBot does a few things that FDUB doesn't do, such as month abbreviation expansion. I'd be interested in seeing the logic behind the scenes. Thanks. -- Tom N (tcncv) talk/contrib 05:16, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 05:34, 24 December 2009 (UTC).
Thanks for the response. I'm actually interested in the meat of the bot operations - the C# or VB.NET code (if you are using Make Module) or other script (external processing). -- Tom N (tcncv) talk/contrib 06:37, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

RfD nomination of J. R. R. Tolkien's

I have nominated J. R. R. Tolkien's (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) for discussion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. — The Man in Question (in question) 05:53, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot - incorrect edit summary

With this edit SmackBot changed the capitalisation of a template call {{anchor}} → {{Anchor}} but left the edit summary "Delink dates (WP:MOSUNLINKDATES) using Project:AWB".

I've not looked through the bot's full contributions, but all the other edits that it has made to articles on my watchlist with the same edit summary have actually been date unlinking. Thryduulf (talk) 10:54, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I tightened the filters, it was doubtless picking up a Whyte Classification as an alias for a date. Rich Farmbrough, 10:58, 24 December 2009 (UTC).

WP:MOSUNLINKDATES vs. WP:RY

Hi Rich. In this edit you enforced WP:MOSUNLINKDATES in an article dealing with a recent year, but this is in disagreement with the guidelines, WP:RY, for such articles. Not sure which one takes precedence, but I guess it's the latter. Favonian (talk) 12:37, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

PS: Happy holidays!
Thanks! I have put the birth years back - even though they are of uncertain usage. I have left the days of death unlinked for the moment. I was generally avoiding years, but there are so many of them! Rich Farmbrough, 13:43, 24 December 2009 (UTC).

Fix broken references errors

I'd like to draw your collective (User:Rich Farmbrough and User:AnomieBOT) attention to the last three edits on 2006 Iditarod. I think this type of mistake can be easily avoided by AWB aided tools, and bots can easily fix them. Thank you for your efforts. Debresser (talk) 12:34, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

This looks like an AWB bug, I will have to investigate. Rich Farmbrough, 13:31, 24 December 2009 (UTC).

Another type of fix that a bot or other tools can easily fix is this trivial one. Debresser (talk) 12:40, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmm no I don't think so. [1][1]
  1. ^ a b A reference called http something
I don't understand why not? Debresser (talk) 16:17, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Use the source Luke... where you will see your example used as a valid ref name. Rich Farmbrough, 17:05, 24 December 2009 (UTC).
I did that the first time. I just happen to be even stupider than you think. Debresser (talk) 18:52, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Rich Farmbrough, 13:33, 24 December 2009 (UTC).

And yet another easy type in this edit. Debresser (talk) 12:44, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes I can have a stab at that one. Did you notice I took a calculated risk and now close refs that start less than 140 characters from the end of a section? Rich Farmbrough, 13:35, 24 December 2009 (UTC).
No, didn't notice. Nor do I understand. Debresser (talk) 16:17, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
OK so a ref is missing the closing tag. We would put the closing tag on but we have no way to know where it goes, or even that it is missing without a great deal of work. I noticed however that it is often at the end of a section . Therefore if I see an opening ref and no closing one, near the end of a section, I take the trailing text into the ref. Rich Farmbrough, 17:05, 24 December 2009 (UTC).
If that is less than 140 characters, is that what you meant? I see. A risk indeed. Not sure if the risk is worth it, frankly. Debresser (talk) 18:52, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Fallingrain

Happy Christmas Rich!! I may have a job lined up at MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist. I've made a proposal to blacklist the fallingrain website which you've seen in countless Indian and Pakistani articles as a reference when there is ample proof that the site is unreliable and contains false population and often altitude data. One editor is conerned it would take 150 hours to remove the links to that site from 9,000 odd articles but I'm pretty sure it could be done in less that ten times that duration. I see it as a much needed cleanup task, I know that when I see fallingrain used as a reference I automatically think "unreliable" because I had so much experience of it being grossly inaccurate. The geo coordinates are about the only thing reliable... Dr. Blofeld White cat 14:53, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Those come from the USGS database I have a copy of that. But removing the refs would be trivial - how about the data. Rich Farmbrough, 17:01, 24 December 2009 (UTC).

Good question. I know its used to reference population and more commonly altitude. I wonder if there would be a way to find falling rain in references first and fix that and then remove the loose external links in the other articles afterwards? Dr. Blofeld White cat 18:54, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Rich Farmbrough. You have new messages at WP:BOTREQ.
Message added 03:10, 25 December 2009 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Replied... Tim1357 (talk) 03:10, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Smackbot problem - commas

I noticed a problem with a recent Smackbot edit [85]. It left in a misplaced comma in a date - "[[dd mmm]], yyyy" to "dd mmm, yyyy" instead of dd mmm yyyy. - Tewapack (talk) 05:45, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the comma showed before and it shows after. I'm not sure if it safe to remove it as it can be correct. "... he finally recovered from the illness on 12 April, 2007 had been a bad year. " however if the year is followed with a fullstop it seems safe. Rich Farmbrough, 05:54, 25 December 2009 (UTC).

Feedback

If you have a moment, could I get your input regarding acronyms in the list of cutaneous conditions? Thanks again for all your help! ---kilbad (talk) 20:40, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Done.

Rich Farmbrough, 09:37, 28 December 2009 (UTC).

Smackbot edits

Please stop removing the date links from the calendars of saints pages (Current Roman Rite Calendar, Tridentine Calendar, General Roman Calendar of 1954, General Roman Calendar of 1962). The MOS specifically allows date links for these kinds of calendar-related pages, and as the date pages themselves have a listing of other saints as well as other observances, someone browsing the calendar might very well be interested to see what else is celebrated that day, so they have a purpose. PaulGS (talk) 21:29, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

OK I have taken steps.... There are so many feast says, that it might make more sense to have separate pages (my recollection is that there are 17 Saint Richards) - but that's another discussion. Rich Farmbrough, 21:39, 27 December 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot

[edit conflict] I was just about to note the same thing [that Arthur mentioned]. Dates are inherently relevant to other dates, and should be linked in date-related articles (just as much as people's names should be linked in bio articles). I've now reverted the bot twice on a couple date-related pages... Cosmic Latte (talk) 10:43, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Date links

I keep finding many radio stations' & television stations' pages dates delinked and I think this is wrong. Here is why: places are allowed to remain linked and yet dates aren't. When answering "Who, What, Where, When, Why & How", the Where is allowed to remain linked but the When isn't. This is wrong because the When is just as important as the Where. Nor am I saying that I think the places should be delinked as well. Finally, all of this happened without a lot of us knowing it was being talked about and I think some Wikipedia-wide notice should have been given. Thank you for your efforts in wanting to clean up Wikipedia though.Stereorock (talk) 12:50, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

While I agree with you, I'll note that, to the extent that the bot is de-linking dates in general, it's legitimately reinforcing part of the WP manual of style, whereas such reinforcement would be ridiculously tedious to do manually. Nobody can change that guideline single-handedly, and the best place to bring it up might be Wikipedia talk:Linking. My problem is that the bot has been de-linking dates in date-related articles, wherein dates are germane for obvious reasons, while the MoS indicates that particularly germane dates should be linked. Cosmic Latte (talk) 14:43, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Well as I say it is pretty much done, we can have a conversation about rectangular Februaries. The point is not that then date be germane, but that the page linked to be germane. I hope all dates in our articles are germane, although there are certain classes that are not: nonetheless linking to them is not helpful, just as lo9nging to "dog" from a discussion of Churchill's depression is not helpful, although the "black dog" is a central theme. Rich Farmbrough, 14:59, 28 December 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot

Hi,

I'm trying to help clean up the articles on WGBH -- I'm an employee and can verify most (maybe all) of the information that's in question in the articles. However, when I made a few edits, they were all reverted to previous versions, even minor grammatical corrections. Can you help me correct/verify items in the following articles? It seems like someone would want my assistance, since the Wikipedia article on WGBH-TV says at the top that it needs a lot of cleanup.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WGBH-TV http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WGBH_(FM)

Also, WGBH does a significant amount of educational outreach and materials, online and print. How should that info be included?

Thanks in advance. Daisykin (talk) 14:57, 28 December 2009 (UTC) Daisykin

Certainly, I will look at it now. Rich Farmbrough, 14:59, 28 December 2009 (UTC).

Andrew Stahl

please take a look at this article: Andrew Stahl, which one of your bots recently edited. (that is not the issue.) i am not certain, but it may be a total fiction. it has such fascinating facts as that he graduated from college before he was born.originally, he was listed as being on the team roster of the washington capitals, but that has disappeared.(that's how i came to see this.) in any event, neither he, nor the two alleged 'teammates' are now or have ever been associated with the washington capitals. the names of these individuals have appeared in recent vandalism of the caps article. there is an external link to imdb, but the individual there under that name is certainly not the guy this article describes. as i said, i can't decide what if anything in this is other than vandalism. it does seem to have a fairly extensive history. ????!!!! thanks. Toyokuni3 (talk) 15:30, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Someone, I think, changed the DoB and birth place and added the Capitals stuff. the rest looks OK at first glance. Be good to ahve a better source than IMDB, which is crowdsourcedl. Rich Farmbrough, 16:00, 28 December 2009 (UTC).
Yes it was an IP on the 15th. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/96.234.154.95 - familiar? Rich Farmbrough, 16:08, 28 December 2009 (UTC).

Little but important things...

Rich, WP:ENGVAR exists for a reason. Please be more careful so I don't have to do this over and over again. I really don't care whether the dates are linked or not, but if you must unlink them, please make sure to stick to just that task; don't switch the date format for no reason at all at the same time. Thank you.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:34, December 28, 2009 (UTC)

So why not switch the format instead of relinking them? Rich Farmbrough, 15:48, 28 December 2009 (UTC).
Because it's quicker to revert the whole thing (like I said, I don't care whether the dates are linked or not)... or so I thought until I had to do it three times. Thanks for the fix though. Happy New Year.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:33, December 28, 2009 (UTC)

Englebert

hi Richard, i have an editing questioned on the page for Engelbert, 8th Duke of Arenberg , an so called editor, yopie is going around round pages on Wikipedia removing links without due process of discussion, in most cases he has not written or contributed to the articles in question but seems to be policing the links on these pages can he do this, and is this right, and i have not contributed my myself concerning these links or articles they have been put there by the contributors in question, please would you reply to this as i find it quite amazing that certain editors seem to have the powers to overwrite anyone a bit of a dictatorship rather than a democracy, regards henry mcdowall. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.128.17 (talk) 14:17, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

FAQ

Please feel free to read my FAQ. R.F.

Full ArQuive

Alternatively browse my Talk Archive Index. R.F.


Suggestion

Hi, Rick. Do you think it would be possible to format date automatically by using {{date}} template, while de-linking dates by bot? Beagel (talk) 05:50, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but it would also be possible to simply format the date in a desired format. Rich Farmbrough, 09:35, 28 December 2009 (UTC).
Thank you for your response. Yes, it is always possible to do this manually. However, I understand that the issue of formatting dates is still controversial and there is no consensus about doing this. Therefore, please consider may question just as an idea, which was a little bit premature. Beagel (talk) 16:53, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Delinking dates in year articles

A recent edit to 1610s in England was:

  • 18:26, 24 December 2009 SmackBot (talk | contribs) m (15,983 bytes) (Delink dates (WP:MOSUNLINKDATES) using Project:AWB) (undo)
why unlink the dates here, and not in 1610?
(I don't actually care about date linking, just curious about anomolies) --Brunnian (talk) 17:04, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the speedy reply - but articles like 1610s in England appear indistinguishable from the year articles to me. So shouldn't they be treated the same?--Brunnian (talk) 17:12, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Accessdate removed: [86]. AWB error? -- Jeandré (talk), 2009-12-29t12:25z

well spotted! Look a few lines down and you will see another identical accessdate though. Rich Farmbrough, 12:52, 29 December 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot

حبيبتى يوليا.. العالم كله يعر فانى احبك. العالم كله يعرف قدرنا وانسانيتنا وقدراتنا ومحبتنا وصدقنا.. كيف نخشى ان نكون هكذا . ولماذا يعطلنا المجرمين بتلك السخافات المدمرة للحياة لماذا لم يحتمو باشياء نافعة للحياه.. هذا هو الفارق بيننا وبينهم هم كازبون ونحن نيتنا يصدقها العمل هم يريدون الدمار ونحن نحب العمال . هم يتأمرون على البشر ونحن نحب الخير للجميع بالحق هم يريدون اخذ ما ليس  من حقهم ونحن نطالب بشرعية حقوقنا ومالى   وحياتى وقلبى ليس لعبة الابالسة ليس لهؤلاء الحمقى الذين لم تصل عقولهم الى جزء من تفكيرنا لانهم محدودين فى الفكر بجرائمهم ونحن ورائنا اشياء كثيرة نافعة.. نحن نعرف غايتنا وهم لا يعرفون ان نهايتهم بتشبثهم فيما يجرموه نحن نعرف طريق الحياة وهم سلكو طريق الهلاك. نحن نريد الامان للشعوب وهم يريدون الخوف والغدر لهم نحن نريد المشاعر الحقيقية للانسانية وهم يشوشون ويخيلون ويعزبون ويضلون لانهم شياطين  الارض اعداء البشر. نحن لا نهاب فى الحق لومة لائم وهم يخشون قول الحقيقة لانها الحياة التى لا يريدونها للعالم .. انهم يريدون طمس كل شىء وتزوير كل شىء والنهب على حسابات كل شىء انهم يقتلون الحياة  ويقتلون انفسهم دون ان يشعرو لانهم اعتادو هذا الدمار والكزب  من اجل ما يسرقوه لانهم اعتادو على ان يكونو وجوه باقنعة وليس على حقيقة الذات بما هم مكلفون به من مسؤلية. انهم مجموعة فيروسات لعينة ولابد من ايقاذهم ووقف جرائمهم .  ونحن يجب ان نفتخر بما نصدى له وما نقوم به لاننا صادقين فى الحياة ونحب الخير وسننهتظر ماذا سيكون الغد بازن الله فيما اشير اليه وندعوهم بعدم اللعب بالموت لانهم اصبحو مكشوفين امام اعين العالم وانى منتظر بدء  اتخاذ اجراءات السفر لاكون ببلدى اكرانيا ومعى ماطلبته من ثرواتى حتى نقوم بدورنا فى الحياة دون ازى الشياطين وفى حال غير ذلك فلا يلومون الا انفسهم. حسين امين  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.239.9.190 (talk) 18:18, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot EchoStar edit indicates trouble

As mentioned on User talk:SmackBot, this edit apparently by SmackBot destroyed date information in a table in the EchoStar article. I'm concerned SmackBot could have done damage to other articles as well! Could you check into it? Thanks! (sdsds - talk) 22:47, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 09:41, 29 December 2009 (UTC).

User B. Fairbairn

Hi, need your help. I registered to Wikipedia having witnessed the user B. Fairbairn constant removal of Time references in many pages. I have Spielberg page on my watchlist as the user appears to be on a mission to edit out Time. On a sidenote, he makes agitating comments purely to stir...example, 10 June 2009, on the United States page on Broadway theatre, text below the image stated "host to many popular shows"... and he added "and some unpopular ones".. and in his reason for edit stated.."Being a realist here".

Having only been an observer on Wikipedia, i was prompted to register having seen this users work. Thanks for you assitance. XRyanPerryX (talk) 07:40, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Work

If you are looking for what to do, there are a few Cfd templates that are waiting for your attention. Debresser (talk) 16:14, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

So far there is less than 700 articles there. I can't believe that is all. I fixed all non-mainspace entries. Debresser (talk) 20:24, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I picked up a whole bunch when we did the last run. But it will probably grow. Rich Farmbrough, 05:51, 25 December 2009 (UTC).
It did. Over 7,600 now. Don't forget the other namespaces, talk and user. And the Cfd templates. Really overdue. Debresser (talk) 16:22, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Well project is iover time for picing up ieces. Rich Farmbrough, 16:16, 28 December 2009 (UTC).
Were you drunk when you wrote this? Or did you stay up late for a midnight mass? Debresser (talk) 15:38, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Version numbers that look like dates

Hi, I reverted this edit of yours; I think you might have mistaken a software package version (shown with dashes instead of dots in filenames, etc) as a date. Cheers, --Kjoonlee 14:01, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

thanks for that. Rich Farmbrough, 21:32, 29 December 2009 (UTC).

January 0

In January 0, Smackbot mutilates one date [[March 0]] --> [[March ]] while still linking it (March 0 is up for deletion, on which I have no opinion, but it is a related nonstandard date) and delinks a See also entry for another nonstandard date, February 30, which is a standard article. Ephemeris is another article which lists January 0 and March 0 in See also. I'm not sure of the relevance for March 0 in Ephemeris, but January 0 is definitely relevant. — Joe Kress (talk) 19:40, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes this is (was) a bug. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 22:30, 29 December 2009 (UTC).

Are you calling both changes bugs, that is, "March 0" to March " as well as unlinking a date in See also, where every entry must be linked?

Yes, but bugs of different natures. I am done with that particular piece of software nonetheless there may be useful things that can be done. Rich Farmbrough, 14:45, 30 December 2009 (UTC).

Blocking SmackBot - stub tags

I am blocking SmackBot again, as it is removing stub tags without authorization. E.g. [87]. Please disable this feature, and I will unblock. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:40, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Reformatting references

As I scanned the recent contribs, I found more instances where SmackBot has reformatted references. Before I unblock, I want a way to tell for certain that this feature has been disabled, for example a revision number in the edit summary. There is no reason that this should still be happening after so many blocks, and I would like this to be the last one. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:58, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you will find that these articles all used named refs. Rich Farmbrough, 10:37, 30 December 2009 (UTC).
There's no way for your bot to tell that the use of named refs was intentional. If someone adds a named ref to an article that didn't have them before, and nobody else corrects it immediately, that doesn't mean it is OK to convert all the other refs to named refs without thought.
Moreover, in [96], the bot not only replaced some un-named refs with named refs, it also changed the name of some refs that already had names. The bot has no idea why human editors might have used a different name for some of the references.
Like I said, because this has been such a chronic issue, I am looking for a way to tell with certainty that this feature has been disabled before I unblock the bot, so that we can move on to other things. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:02, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
Oh my word. Rich Farmbrough, 13:03, 30 December 2009 (UTC).

HTML comment bug

The SmackBot parser doesn't seem to recognize HTML comments: [97]. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:59, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 28 December 2009

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 02:56, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

the bot is changing the valid |date={{Date|2009-12-23|mdy}} to the invalid |date=December 2009|mdy}} in this diff.  —Chris Capoccia T⁄C 04:56, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

That is a little odd, thanks for telling me. Rich Farmbrough, 13:30, 30 December 2009 (UTC).

Wine

Oh geeze, I almost got worked up over the wine article. I saw someone reverted your edits and I though to myself "I know Rich would never vandalize, what the hell is up with the reverting." I was about to go off on whoever it was when I saw you reverted yourself. False alarm.--v/r - TP 13:28, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

<Smile.> Have a great New Year. Rich Farmbrough, 13:30, 30 December 2009 (UTC). 13:30, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

William Waterhouse

Do I have to understand the latest history of William Waterhouse? Looks strange! Please answer here, I will check. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:43, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

No you can ignore it... it should be unchanged, for now. I will return and make the correct change later. Rich Farmbrough, 13:46, 30 December 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot

يوليا .. شاهدت على البروفيل الخاص بكى بعض المقططفات الثقافية وطبعا انا اعرف جيدا تلك المحاورات وايضا اعرف جيدا انكى يعجبك الثقافة الاصيلة للشعوب المختلفة. ونحن معا فى ذلك وارى من خلال مشاهدتى بعض الاشياء الدالة على انها لم تكن جائت بالصدفة ولا يهمنا ذلك فهذه مواقع عامة ونحن من نختار فيها ما يعجبنا. ولكن يجب عليهم عدم التدخل فى شئوننا الخاصة وايضا يجب عليهم خروجى من دائرة تلصصهم التى نعرف جيدا اهدافها واذا كنت اخشى عليكى من اى شىء ليس معناه انى اخيفك من شىء لانى اعرفك قوة تفكيرك فى التعامل واعرف انكى رائدة فى ذلك وانا الان فى اليوتيب الصينى وقلبى ينبض معك متمنيا لقياكى فى اقرب وقت ممكن لاننا لنا اهدافنا فى الحياة ويجب ان نبدائها كما نرى. وعلى جميع المسئوليين ان يثبتو للعالم حقيقة هويتهم واهدافهم بما يفعلوه لاننا من الممكن ان نواجه كل متسلط بما يرتكبه ونحدد المسؤلية على من يرتكبون الجرائم ونستطيع ان نجعلهم فى وضع بمستوى تفكيرهم كما شاهدو فى بعض المشاهد المختلفة من الثقافات وايضا نستطيع ان نكون اكثر قوة فى التاثر الذى يخشونه وعليهم ان ينسحبو من حياتنا ويكونو غير معطلين لنا وعليهم ان يكفو عن ارهاب العقول حتى لا تاتى الرياح بما لا يشتهون وعليهم ان يعرفو ان عملية الرصد لاستهداف البشر فاشلة لانهم فى عقلى هم المرصودون رغم تشويشهم وازاهم . وعليهم ايضا ان يعرفو ان عواقب الاستهتار بتلك الجرائم مدمرة كما يدمرون فى الحياة. وان لم يستيقظو فالايام المقبلة ستثبت من المدركون ومن السكرانين فى غيابات جرمهم. والى ان نلتقى لكى منى قبلة حب خالصة من اى اسائة لكيدهم . لانهم يخشون من هوانا النقى المشروع واهدافنا الطموحة بالعدالة التى يفتقدوها وبحقائق الحياة الجميلة التى يريدون تقبيحها بافعالهم وغيهم.. ونحن نثق فى نجاح نهجنا لانه القيمة الحقيقية فى الحياة التى ستصبح لها طعم ولون ومعنى غصب عن انفسهم الشريرة. ومن راحتيا الى اكرانيا العظمى قبلة حب ايضا ولكل مثقافينا وقادتنا وابنائنا واطفالنا والى كل كأئن حى فى الحياة التى يريدو تدميرها. احبك وفى شوق للقائنا الطيب . المعطر بما تحبه الشعوب والطموح بما يتمناه الشباب والكبار حتى تامن الشعوب مكر وخطر المجرميين الكونيين. وحتى تعرف البشرية طريق امنها. حسين امين. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.239.9.190 (talk) 19:59, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Hm. Rich Farmbrough, 21:19, 28 December 2009 (UTC).
I translated this using Google translate, but the result was garbled (Google often translates Western European languages well). — Joe Kress (talk) 00:16, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
It is a communique signed by a Hussein Amin (IP is from Egypt) and addressed to someone named Yulia. Here are some of the more intelligible fragments from online translators:

"Yulia: ... they should not interfere in our private... which we know is a good target... and if you are afraid of anything does not mean that I should avoid something I know is proper... force your mind to deal with it... we are together in that, I think... these are public sites... and all officials at the... that... to the world the truth of their identity and their objectives... because we could face... define the responsibility of those who commit crimes, and we can make them in the level of planning... also, we can be more powerful in emotion, that they fear they have to... our lives... and they have to... thinking about terrorism... the monitoring process to target human beings, because they failed in my opinion... They should also have consequences for their destructive lifestyle... the next days will prove... because of their guilt.... Because they fear being enslaved... clean the project... our ambitious objectives, which include justice and the realities of a truly beautiful life, though they want their wicked deeds and transgressions. We trust in the success of our approach, because it will bring true value to life with taste and colour and meaning, though they choose evil for themselves.... to Ukraine... love... to all our leaders and sons and children... including young people and adults so safe... and the risk of deception... human safety.... - Hussein Amin."

This could be totally inocuous, but if I were you, I would ask an actual Arabic speaking person to translate this right away. Qwertyunicode (talk) 01:33, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

His talk page is easier to understand when translated using Google. He is at a conference in Ukraine, and he very much admires the Ukrainian prime minister, Yulia Timoshenko. So that is who Yulia is.--Toddy1 (talk) 02:36, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

...at which point, whatever smattering of Arabic I had acquired deserted me, except for one particular phrase, which I am sure related to the requirements for sealing a head gasket on a MK II Ford Cortina... Rich Farmbrough, 20:34, 30 December 2009 (UTC).

If you have the time...

Hey Rich. I know you often generously generate lists for users who request them. I was hoping that you could make me a list of all articles that link to a [[Wikipedia:Books or [[Wikipedia talk:Books. This might be better suited for an SQL query, I don't know. Tell me if it is too much. Some regex: 

\[\[[\s_]*?Wikipedia([\s_]*?talk|)[\s_]*?\:[\s_]*?Books

Thats python regex and Im not too good. I dunno if that helps. Tim1357 (talk) 01:32, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, if you have any idea, as I know your good with regex: How do I match the contents of a template ({{Foo}} for example) even if they have templates inside it. Example:

{{Foo | parameter 1 = bar | parameter 2 = {{template}} | parameter 3 = lolipop }} Thanks! Tim1357 (talk) 02:31, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

there is probably a a better way of doing this but I use something like {{(Foo *\|([^}]|{{[^}]*}})*)}}. This allows on level of nested templates, it is easily extended to n, but it does slow AWB down in certain cases, you may find python handles it better. Certainly where I was using it intensively I have planned to write a perl parser instead. Rich Farmbrough, 11:12, 31 December 2009 (UTC).

AfD nomination of Langley Flying School

An article that you have been involved in editing, Langley Flying School, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Langley Flying School. Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Ahunt (talk) 02:13, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

Would you consider ordering SmackBot to exclude the date pages (January 1, January 2, etc.) and the year pages (2009, 2008, etc.) from its WP:MOSUNLINKDATES edits? These are pages about dates and links to other date pages are relevant to the article's content. Thanks. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 02:19, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Much as I dislike links to dates, this is correct, see Wikipedia:Linking#Chronological_items. Debresser (talk) 06:42, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
It is done with that. Rich Farmbrough, 09:11, 31 December 2009 (UTC).
It hasn't touched any of those four pages. But thanks for the note. Rich Farmbrough, 09:15, 31 December 2009 (UTC).
And in fairness they are not about the date, they are about stuff that happened in that year, or on that date. Unlike, say, Tuesday which is about Tuesday. Rich Farmbrough, 11:37, 31 December 2009 (UTC).
Just for clarification, it has touched August 20, March 7, January 5 so I figured it would ultimately hit them all. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 11:54, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot substituting wrong template

The bot is apparently turning {{lede}} (lead too short) into its opposite: [98]--Father Goose (talk) 10:24, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. They were confused with LEDE - I have made the two templates mean the same. Rich Farmbrough, 11:26, 31 December 2009 (UTC).

Capitalisation of article titles

You recently moved the article Ngaio Railway Station to Ngaio railway station presumably for compliance with WP:CAPS. This article, along with all other articles on New Zealand railway stations, is within the scope of the WikiProject NZR. This project has a manual of style which provides the following guidelines on naming such articles:

Article titles should be "Place-Name Railway Station", as in Wellington Railway Station. An exception is the Britomart Transport Centre.

Please desist from renaming any articles in this scope in this way until such a change can be discussed by the project. With hundreds of articles named in this fashion and within the scope of this project such a change would be a significant undertaking. – Matthew25187 (talk) 11:45, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Renaming a few hundred articles should be easy enough. But it's not something I am in a hurry to do. Rich Farmbrough, 11:47, 31 December 2009 (UTC).

Cfd templates

I have speedied (i.e. nominated for speedy deletion) 12 pages in connection with Cfd templatesas I announced in User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough/Archive/2009Dec#DMC_-_repeated_request. If that gets done, I'll speedy Template:Cfx/sandbox as well. Debresser (talk) 00:05, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

 Done Debresser (talk) 11:58, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Could you copy {{Cfd}}, {{Cfr}}, {{Cfm}} from Template:Cfx/sandbox (and then delete the sandbox)? That's all that is left. Debresser (talk) 12:04, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. Debresser (talk) 20:05, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Now have a look at the updated Wikipedia:List of monthly maintenance categories with templates. Isn't that beauty? Debresser (talk) 20:15, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Next step is deletion of all all-inclusive categories, and then we can simplify a lot of the templates, including the general {{Fix}} (merge |cat= and |cat-date=). Debresser (talk) 20:41, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

JamshidAwal

Hi there I believe you have disputed the neutrality my article about hon.Ali Mirzad. I agree with your findings and did the necessary edits . please remove your Dispute Stamp at your earliest convenience. thank you --JamshidAwal (talk) 08:17, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you want someone else here: [99]. Rich Farmbrough, 16:54, 31 December 2009 (UTC).

Why do you run bot tasks with your main account?

I've seen you do this on a very regular basis: running very large-scale tasks (often cosmetic changes that shouldn't done with AWB) on a bot-scale from your main account. You should not be doing automated edits from this account as you are circumventing proper procedures for approval for bot tasks. –xenotalk 16:31, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I do a lot of stuff manually that should be automated because the BRFA process is glacial. Rich Farmbrough, 16:33, 31 December 2009 (UTC).
Oh and because of botophobes. Rich Farmbrough, 16:34, 31 December 2009 (UTC).
Neither of the above is an appropriate justification to bypass the procedures that are in place. I don't really think running a task just to deprecate a parameter is necessary. If it's deprecated, the wikicode calling it is null. Your change is thus just a waste of an edit.
And you say "manually" but I somewhat doubt that - have you really been sitting in front of your PC for the last three hours clicking save for each edit? –xenotalk 16:36, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Sigh. Except that people copy the cliché to other articles. And we want to keep the category virtually empty, for maintenance reasons. And the wikicode was passing the parameter to another template which was ignoring it, basically code cruft. Rich Farmbrough, 16:42, 31 December 2009 (UTC).

So request a bot approval to run the task. You're flooding recent changes running without a flag. See also: WP:AWB#Rules of use. –xenotalk 16:42, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Inefficient editing

Making three edits to change {{date|XXXX-YY-ZZ}} to a hard-coded date seems particularly inefficient. If there is approval for this task, surely someone could write a smarter bot to do it in a single edit. –xenotalk 16:55, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

It would work in a single pass if mediwiki wasn't broken. Rich Farmbrough, 16:57, 31 December 2009 (UTC).
Or you wrote a custom bot in py to do it. I think an advanced find&replace matrix in AWB could also do it. Either way, Why not file at WP:BOTREQ if you don't have the inclination or know-how to do it efficiently? –xenotalk 16:59, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Using find and replace is a waste of human resource. I did that with lifetime, and it was needlessly complex, this is a significantly more convoluted template, and relies on the behaviour of PHP functions. The best way to imitate a software function is to use it. Rich Farmbrough, 17:04, 31 December 2009 (UTC).
A custom py or perl script could do this very easily. Why not ask User:Anomie to write one? –xenotalk 17:08, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot still moving some maint. tags down into sections

I hate to pile on here, but once again (I'm not actually sure it ever stopped), SmackBot is imposing a preference as to where certain tags go (top of article vs. within a section) -- such as the {{inline}}, which it moves into the references section, rather than leaving at the top [100]. Again, this is a matter of preference.

I know "it's AWB's fault" and not yours, but I think you need to fix it anyway. If you can't, then we need to start a centralized discussion to determine the fate of SmackBot. As was once suggested, it might be time to make AWB's general fixes into a bot of its own, so that all its various tasks that get added constantly can be subject to BAG approval.

Thank you. Equazcion (talk) 16:57, 31 Dec 2009 (UTC)

Yes, indeed, really needs someone to steer this through. Rich Farmbrough, 16:59, 31 December 2009 (UTC).
If we're in agreement about the general fixes becoming a standalone bot, I'll begin a discussion about it soon. I'm not sure where yet, but I'll post a link here once I figure it out. Equazcion (talk) 17:04, 31 Dec 2009 (UTC)
I started a discussion on the AWB talk page I thnk, but I sisn;t have time to follow up. Also mentioned it on a recent BRFA. And of course we are talking about a "vritual bot" here? Rich Farmbrough, 17:09, 31 December 2009 (UTC).
I'm starting something at village pump technical. It's not up yet but should be soon, once I can get the wording right. I seem to recall we've tried doing this at AWB's talk page but it barely received any attention. I don't know what you mean about a virtual bot. Equazcion (talk) 17:21, 31 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Sounds like an excellent idea. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 17:26, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
In that the BAG approval would be for all AWB based bots provided they were doing an approved task at the same time, rather than for some User:AWBGenFixesBot. Rich Farmbrough, 17:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC).
Either-or. I don't see why we need more than one bot performing the general fixes (I'm also not entirely opposed to it). User:AWBGenFixesBot might be the simplest way to go in my mind though. I'll present both options in my proposal. Equazcion (talk) 17:31, 31 Dec 2009 (UTC)
GF's have been turned down as a a task before. They should be a background task that just happens when the bot edits the page for any reason. Rich Farmbrough, 17:50, 31 December 2009 (UTC).
When was the last time it was turned down? I included both options anyway. Equazcion (talk) 17:58, 31 Dec 2009 (UTC)
There's actually a RFBA open right now that until it was modified sought to just run general fixes: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MWOAPBot. –xenotalk 17:59, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Need help

I see some articles for the third consequetive day in Category:Articles with invalid date parameter in template. What happened? Do you need some help? It would be nice to start a new month with an empty category. Debresser (talk) 17:33, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh blocked by CBM again. Rich Farmbrough, 17:48, 31 December 2009 (UTC). 17:48, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Ok, I'll try my best. Perhaps you now have time to do three paste&copy jobs, see #Cfd templates. Debresser (talk) 18:01, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

well I can do them manaully, as long as they are VERY SLOW - or xeno gets annoyed. Sigh, being invisible was good. Rich Farmbrough, 18:10, 31 December 2009 (UTC).

You can go as fast as maxlag permits from an approved bot account... It's not about being annoyed - it's about the difficulties that arise in enforcing the bot policy and AWB rules of use when administrators ignore them. –xenotalk 18:13, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Except that you were complaining about recent changes. Rich Farmbrough, 18:16, 31 December 2009 (UTC).

Also I have to tweak it and do some manually because there is pollution form the date template. Rich Farmbrough, 18:19, 31 December 2009 (UTC).

Which ceases to be a problem when you run from a flagged bot - which are hidden from RCP by default. –xenotalk 18:19, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Can still be done from a flagged bot account. I'm not trying to be an ass - and I respect the work you put in as I do similar thankless jobs - but we have rules for a reason. –xenotalk 18:20, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
That error category is done, anyway. Debresser (talk) 19:23, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Well done, I did a few, but I could see you were busy with it, I was distracted reading Talk:Arthur Rubin. Rich Farmbrough, 19:25, 31 December 2009 (UTC).
And kicking off a little job at Wikia.... Rich Farmbrough, 19:26, 31 December 2009 (UTC). 19:26, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
I did notice you there... Debresser (talk) 20:07, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Hope you get SmackBot unblocked soon. I hate fixing Category:Pages with missing references list, when there are so many articles there. The thing is that sometimes these are new articles, and then you have to fix the whole references structure. Debresser (talk) 20:09, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes I will, and I did want to edit Spinor field.... Rich Farmbrough, 20:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC).
Why? Like bosons? :) Debresser (talk) 20:34, 31 December 2009 (UTC)


Stephen Day the musician page

Hello

I am wondering if you can help us with the Stephen Day musician page that keeps getting replaced by the Stephen Day politician page. How do we categorize the two as different so that one doesn't replace the other?Shmi222 (talk) 18:25, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

well you don;t cut and paste move Stephen Day (musician) over Stephen Day for s start. Rich Farmbrough, 22:43, 29 December 2009 (UTC).
I saw this on your talk page, so I created Stephen Day (disambiguation).--Toddy1 (talk) 07:15, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Your input is requested

Please see Category_talk:Pages_containing_cite_templates_with_deprecated_parameters#Add_access-date_too. Debresser (talk) 13:52, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Test templates

I don't understand what kind of template is populating Category:TestTemplates. Could you please explain that to me? Debresser (talk) 23:55, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Should be Category:User page notices about inappropriate edits maybe. Rich Farmbrough, 13:29, 2 January 2010 (UTC).

Suggestion

What I did was submit a fairly open-ended BRFA. See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Xenobot 6, for example. 

Function Overview: Find and replace jobs

Edit period(s): Occasionally (when consensus exists for a job)

Then, when a user presents me with a find & replace job that has consensus, I can run it under this task without having to make a new BRFA. That's what I would suggest you do. –xenotalk 18:26, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Looks sound. Rich Farmbrough, 19:02, 31 December 2009 (UTC).
I also think this is a good idea. There's some apparent beefing about something you do, but in general your edits are useful, appropriate to a bot, and backed by consensus through MOS or something. You also generally communicate with members of the community when they have problems with your edits. All this spells: sure, bot okay and flag. Some BAG members don't like lots of edits that show up in logs that are not substantive changes to the article. Other editors, myself in this batch, don't like untidiness in articles. Cleaning up, standardizing is worthwhile, and it should be done by bots according to MOS, imo. Have a little patience (don't mention glass houses in response, it will be ignored). --IP69.226.103.13 | Talk about me. 21:04, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

You're brilliant

Really. Deceptively simple, yet fabulous. :) Now that I'm catching up a bit from the Christmas backlog, I just wanted to let you know how much I have appreciated your help with that. Sometimes looking for assistance on Wikipedia can get a wee bit frustrating. Thank you for taking my question seriously and helping me out. I am grateful. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:09, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, you make me blush, you are most welcome. Rich Farmbrough, 22:31, 1 January 2010 (UTC).

Please help about that pharagraph

"However, the evidence for this once popular view is slim. It is more likely that the name refers to the place of his birth, ‘Ebrā, where the old road east of Malatya towards Kharput (modern Elazığ) and Amid (modern Diyarbakır) crossed the Euphrates.[2]" (BAR EBROYO)

Could you please give me some knowlegde about that paragraph. Everybody says that he is from malatya but according to that pharagraph he is from Elazığ. It is very important for us. Please tell me where did you read that and how can we learn more about that subject. Regards...

[email protected] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.233.108.125 (talk) 11:40, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Date conversions

I've been away from WP for a while. What's happening with User:Pigsonthewing/to-do#Date conversions, please? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:52, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Thankyou

I'd like the thankyou for your impressive edits you made in 2009. Wherever I look you've made some contribution towards formatting, consistency and cosmetics all over the encyclopedia. even if the subject is not to your fascination. Keep up the good work in 2010 and haope you have a happy new year. Best regards. Dr. Blofeld White cat 19:47, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

+1 --MZMcBride (talk) 20:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Same here. And less opposition... Debresser (talk) 20:15, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
A cup o java for your fine edits. Coffee // have a cup // ark // 23:00, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Ohconfucius congratulates Rich for his approach to hard problems without the sticky solution ;-) Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:35, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
+1 Rjwilmsi 00:00, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's much appreciated all. Nice start to the new year. Rich Farmbrough, 02:54, 1 January 2010 (UTC).

Template:Cleanup-remainder

You're absolutely right; in the deletion discussion, the template's purpose was completely missed. I hope that we can determine which articles the template was removed from. —David Levy 14:25, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Even though because of the changes you made to the template I now understand its purpose, I still think that it should remain merge with {{Cleanup}}. If it is used for articles with lists, just use {{Cleanup-list}}. Debresser (talk) 18:10, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

FYI

Please see Template_talk:Cite_book#date.2C_year.2C_or_either.3F, where a discussion is starting, which is closely related to the idea you mentioned of deprecating |month= and |year=. There seem to be repercursions to that. Debresser (talk) 18:04, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Kissle

Hi Rich. I went through the recent changes looking for an admin online, and you're it. I was wondering if you could add me to the list of users who may use the application Kissle. Tim Song is on vacation and can't at the moment, and asked that any requests be forwarded to another admin. Thanks, ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 00:56, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I will, thanks for your assistance. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 01:53, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Dates

Hi, Rich Farmbrough

I noticed that you often removed {{date}} from articles, which formats dates according to Manual of Style and per user Preferences. I'm curious to know why. Is there something wrong with it? Fleet Command (talk) 12:39, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Well there's some confusion about what this template does:
  • Formats dates - Yes - if they are parseable by the PHP time function
  • according to MoS - Maybe - depends what parameters it is given and where it is used
  • and according to user preferences - No - It does not do this and it would be a bad thing if it did.
So in articles the template is redundant or misleading - for example (using less curlies for speed) {date|12 July 2009} is the same as "12 July 2009" and the same as {date|12 July 2009|dmy}. However {date|12 July 2009|mdy} would be rendered as "July 12, 2009" which is what I am replacing it with.
Rich Farmbrough, 12:46, 1 January 2010 (UTC).
Oh the template has another use to give today's date, this is good coding, but not a great interface. Rich Farmbrough, 12:48, 1 January 2010 (UTC).
I see. So, why MDY? Is DMY rejected by manual of style? And by the way, do you know anything about {{#dateformat}}? Oh, and I saw in several instances you've added mf=yes to {{start date and age}} in infoboxes but the template has no such parameter. What is that? Fleet Command (talk) 13:11, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
The date format used in any given article is determined predominantly by the nationality of its subject, and by usage issues. It's not that dmy is no good, but probably that it was inappropriate for the article in question - you did not give an example. As for {{#dateformat}}, it is used only in a small handful of articles (if any), and was a recent attempt at autoformatting by certain programmers, despite the fact that its use (and autoformatting) does not appear to have consensus backing. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 13:25, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
I asked because until now I used DMY or yyyy-mm-dd throughout all Wikipedia, both enclosed in {{date}}. I had previously read in Help pages that {{date}} formats dates per user preferences. Must have been a mistake which is corrected soon after I read it; unfortunate me! Once or twice, I run stumbled upon Rich edits wherein he had undid {{date}} and added mf parameters to infoboxes. When I did, I cursed buggy automated scripts under my breath and undid his edits. But then, I encounter edits that could have not been automated. So I asked. Now, it is clarified.
As for the subject, I mostly edit computer-related articles, mostly internationally-famous topics. (E.g. Microsoft Office, Paint.NET, Pixel aspect ratio, Cryptography, Microsoft Security Essentials, etc.) The subject is the whole world. So, according to Calendar date#List of the world locations by date format in use, I should use DMY, shouldn't I? Fleet Command (talk) 18:07, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah I wasn't clear:

  • {date|12 July 2009|mdy} I replace with "July 12, 2009"
  • {date|12 July 2009|dmy} I replace with "12 July 2009"

In other words I am not changing the appearance of the date.

And I assume you convert {{Date|12 July 2009}} into 12 July 2009, right?

The #formatdate function? See Wikipedia:Magic_words#formatting "there is considerable opposition to use of this function"

mf=y - this makes it clear that the choice of format is explicitly made not merely the default. I added df to "Birth date" and "death date and age" some years ago, maybe a better solution could have been found, but that propagated to the various templates of that ilk. Rich Farmbrough, 13:33, 1 January 2010 (UTC).

I checked {{Birth date}} and {{Death date}} source codes. Yes, they had a df parameter specified in them. But {{Start date and age}} has not mf parameters in its source code.
Anyways thanks, Rich. Fleet Command (talk) 18:07, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
You are welcome; to clarify the clarification "mf=y" is a message to editors not to the system. Rich Farmbrough, 20:06, 1 January 2010 (UTC).

Could you please explain me your substitutions of the date template? I've looked at Template:Date and I have found no problem at all. - Esteban Zissou (talk) 13:47, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

In a nutshell the template has no useful function on an article page (except to display the current date and there are better ways to do that). Rich Farmbrough, 13:51, 2 January 2010 (UTC).
Fair enough, keep an eye out for where it might not be appropriate to put in a hard-coded date. For example, this edit where '{{date||dmy}}' was in use to show the current date. Agreed with the second point, perhaps there is a better way (what is it?), but changing it from the current date to hard-coded can be easy to miss for quite some time. Cander0000 (talk) 01:12, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes that is true, conversely [101] or [102]...
And even an alias such as {Today's date} (for example) would be good. But better not to call a fairly complex template for a fairly lightweight job. How about {{Today (dmy)}} {{Today (mdy)}}? Rich Farmbrough, 01:20, 3 January 2010 (UTC).
Exactly, because of bad practice, it's going to be case by case. {{Today (dmy)}} is a much better choice when a dynamic date is needed. For that matter, it would be clearer to use {{date|{{Today}}|dmy}}, to achieve a particular formatting of the current date, rather than assuming leaving the first parameter blank would return the current date.Cander0000 (talk) 18:51, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Petter Adolf Karsten

Hi Rich, some weeks ago you added the exact dates of his birth and death to the English Wikipedia. To you have a source for it? By the way at the time Karsten lived, Finnland was part of the Russian Empire, do you know if the dates are referring to the Julian or Gregorian Calendar?? --Hagen Graebner (talk) 15:59, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

No I don't think I did. Rich Farmbrough, 18:12, 3 January 2010 (UTC).
You are right, it was done by an IP - question has to be left open....Sorry, --Hagen Graebner (talk) 19:03, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Celan, Heidegger, Master from Germany

I wrote you a message only to realize you weren't the appropriate individual. Terribly sorry about that!

91.39.4.135 (talk) 20:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

91.39.4.135 (talk) 20:09, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Multiply copies of a file

Hello Rich, thanks for your time. I searched for Mir-Hossein Mousavi's signature and actually found four same signatures in two formats: one in jpg and other three in svg format. It seems like the uploader has uploaded three of those in English Wikipedia and one in Commons. Since Wikipedia:IUP#Format clearly states that public domain images including signatures in svg formats are preferred, I believe the one in Commons should be kept and the other three should be deleted per Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Files#F8. The files mentioned above are:

JuventiniFan (talk) 12:40, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

OK I got rid of one under f1 speedy criteria, I'll look at the others in a sec. You can tag them with {{Db-f8}} of course. Rich Farmbrough, 15:56, 5 January 2010 (UTC).

Vandal

Somebody vandalise Sporting Clube da Praia_ please block him his ip adress is 188.2.111.58 !!!! thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.189.219.231 (talk) 15:08, 5 January 2010 (UTC) or protect page from vandalisam please —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.189.219.231 (talk) 15:23, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Question

Is there a template to turn all capitalised letter to uncapitalised? Something like {{Whatever|input=ABcdEF}} -> abcdef? Debresser (talk) 13:23, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I made one once...
It still exists? Debresser (talk) 15:51, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
You can use {{lc:ABcdEF}} .. abcdef Rich Farmbrough, 17:08, 5 January 2010 (UTC).
Thank you. Debresser (talk) 21:35, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Cascade-protected items

I believe I've figured out how to have an editable lead. See WT:CASC. You are receiving this message due to the banner at the top of the talk page. If you don't want such messages, remove yourself from the banner. Thanks, Thinboy00 @234, i.e. 04:36, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd like your input.

Hey rich Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/FrescoBot 2 SmackBot came up in that BRFA, and I was wondering if you could answer some of our questions.  — [Unsigned comment added by Tim1357 (talk • contribs).]

Rich Farmbrough, 03:53, 7 January 2010 (UTC).

What have I started, wish I had bot help for this task

I have noticed (particularly in the article Where the Wild Things Are) that some editors are formatting citations in slightly odd ways. They are using the author parameter and writing "Farmbrough, Rich" rather than "Rich Farmbrough" or writing | first = Rich | last = Farmbrough and using the available parameters. Maybe this is more complicated than it seems but perhaps you would consider checking the author field and if it contains a comma then split it into first and last parameters? Thanks for your consideration. -- Horkana (talk) 16:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

The problem is poeple may put "author = Smith, Jones" ... Rich Farmbrough, 18:08, 5 January 2010 (UTC).
You mean coauthors? I suppose that would be difficult to check, having them in separate fields though might be still be an improvement, even if it is still wrong in another way. I'll have to write my own bot someday, it would probably save time a lot of time in the long run. Thanks anyhow. -- Horkana (talk) 21:57, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm not saying it can't or shouldn't be done. Simply trying to identify what the problems might be. Another might be Far East names, where the family name comes first. This might be a good reason to deprecate "first" and "last" - the main point of them is to allow Harvard refs to be generated automatically. Rich Farmbrough, 09:29, 7 January 2010 (UTC).

Year error

Rich can you use AWB to fix the year errors I made like this. The communes I've added population data to date....From now on they should be correct... Dr. Blofeld White cat 19:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

In hand. Rich Farmbrough, 18:54, 6 January 2010 (UTC).

Remember?

Remember telling me that ArbCom is "horrendous"? Well, I am on it. See Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Chabad_movement_editors. Not that I think that I should be there, or even this case in general. Nor am I worried too much as to its outcome. Anyway. Debresser (talk) 00:10, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

How is SmackBot? Running? I haven't seen any fixes connected with references so far this year. Debresser (talk) 08:38, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Or with |dateformat= and |access-date=, for that matter. Debresser (talk) 18:34, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Need a new BRFA for that. Rich Farmbrough, 18:47, 6 January 2010 (UTC).
Anything I can do to help? BTW, if there are more parameters, then we should do all of them together. I personally feel this is enough. Debresser (talk) 19:44, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Wait a sec. you mean a new whatever for the reffixes also? Debresser (talk) 19:54, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
No the refs are fine. I killed the last BRFA because we had essentially finished the process manually while it languished. Rich Farmbrough, 20:11, 6 January 2010 (UTC).
  • Where did |access-date= come from?
  • I saw a lot of times that the date was of format (month day year), not {month day, year). I don't know why. Can that be a mistake made when fixing?
  • I am finishing all non-main namespace pages soon.
  • Are you going to file a new BRFA?

Debresser (talk) 15:50, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Falling rain

Are you still up for removing falling rain links from wikipedia. Perhaps semi automated we can remove any bad referenced figures. Perhaps the way to do it would be to remove the external links first using AWB and then sort those which are referenced to falling rain afterwards. Its just we need to remove all of the links to that site before delisting.. Dr. Blofeld White cat 15:10, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

External links may be worth removing, then we can consider referncing the other information elsewhere. Rich Farmbrough, 17:50, 6 January 2010 (UTC).

The Wikipedia Signpost: 1 January 2010

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 23:50, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Possible move

Would you mind looking at two comments I posted at the medicine project at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Move_requested. Would you be willing to share your opinion/move that page? ---kilbad (talk) 04:44, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Bangladesh International School, English Section, Riyadh

Hi, can you please put the citations in the article Bangladesh International School, English Section, Riyadh properly. I ve provided some references but I dont know how to do the cite thing properly. Thanks in advance. Aceleo (talk • contribs) 13:10, 07 January 2010 (UTC)

Fact v. Citation Needed?

Hi, Rich - I see that you changed some Fact tags that I had added to Citation Needed tags in the Dolphin Encounters‎ article. Both of these display as "Citation Needed" in the article, so I wondered if the Citation Needed tag is the preferable choice? It's just that I can remember how to spell Fact but sometimes screw up with citation. :) Thanks. Bob98133 (talk) 15:48, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot adding 'date=' to Article issues tag

This change (particularly, changing 'article=yes' to to 'article=January 2010' and adding a free-floating date parameter) seems to be contrary to the specifications for the {{Article issues}} template. Cnilep (talk) 23:05, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot goes for simplicity. The template has a date parameter which supports the "expert" parameter. SB sets this regardless. Possibly this would have been removed by AWB general fixes where unneeded, but those are disabled as there are objections (to the principles, not to the actual edits). The section and article parameters again can take any value. I have updated the documentation to reflect this. Rich Farmbrough, 23:44, 8 January 2010 (UTC).


Unreferenced BLPs

Hello Rich Farmbrough! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 9 of the articles that you created are tagged as Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons. The biographies of living persons policy requires that all personal or potentially controversial information be sourced. In addition, to ensure verifiability, all biographies should be based on reliable sources. if you were to bring these articles up to standards, it would greatly help us with the current 944 article backlog. Once the articles are adequately referenced, please remove the {{unreferencedBLP}} tag. Here is the list:

  1. Henry Fambrough - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
  2. Charles Fambrough - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
  3. Christopher Curwen - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
  4. Colin McColl - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
  5. Martin Furnival Jones - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
  6. Patrick Walker - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
  7. Kemal Monteno - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
  8. Greg Cook (comics) - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
  9. May (singer) - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Thanks!--DASHBot (talk) 23:43, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Service awards proposal

Master Editor Hello, Rich Farmbrough/Talk Archive Mega 2! I noticed you display a service award, and would like to invite you to join the discussion over a proposed revamping of the awards.

If you have any opinions on the proposal, please participate in the discussion. Thanks! — the Man in Question (in question) 01:10, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Saw

Project Logo Hello, Rich Farmbrough/Talk Archive Mega 2 and thank you for your contributions on articles related to the Saw film series. I'd like to invite you to become a part of Wikipedia: WikiProject Saw, a WikiProject aiming to improve coverage of Saw and related articles on Wikipedia.

If you would like to help out and participate, please visit the project page for more information. Thanks! GroundZ3R0 002 02:19, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks!

Rich, this is in appreciation for your magnificent work on cleaning up the date mess with scripts/bots. It's a fine achievement. Thank you. Tony (talk) 11:30, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

  • Certainly beginning to see the resemblance of this to English Wikipedia. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 13:47, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot dating issues

I noticed a couple issues in today's bot edits. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:06, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

  • This edit [103] changed the date parameter of a {{cite journal}} template.
  • This edit [104] [105] added a date to a stub template.
  • This edit [106] left behind '}}}'.
  • I do not know why this edit [107] changed November 2009 to January 2010.
  • This edit [108] put two date= parameters on the same tag.
  • This edit [109] made the infobox inconsistent with itself, changing Feb. but not Oct.
  • This edit [110] removed the day from the date in a {{cite news}} call.
I am going to stop the bot on its talk page, but not block it. The errors in cite templates are a serious problem. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:31, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry about that; the diff is [111]. I didn't think it was serious enough to stop the bot, but it made me scratch my head. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:38, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your contribution !!!

Thanks for helping me out with my article Bangladesh International School, English Section, Riyadh. Aceleo (talk • contribs) 21:21, 09 January 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

This relatively old edit caused a citation error, is that fixed? Sole Soul (talk) 22:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Re Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Dermatology_task_force/Required_pages

I have slowly crawling the above list and creating redirects. Often times, there are articles already present but redlinks due to difference in British verses American English. As a result, in addition to creating redirects when possible, I have added a footnote discussing these differences in spelling (see List_of_cutaneous_conditions#cite_note-ex03-16). I am estimating that within the next month we can bluelink the entire list. ---kilbad (talk) 22:11, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I am done with the list. I am going to archive it if you are ok with that? ---kilbad (talk) 01:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Category:Film articles using deprecated parameters

Could SmackBot run a it more in there? I think it was you that gave me a code that I can remove deprecated parameters (in fact delete lines having specific strings using Regex) but it was somewhere lost for ever. Could you write me something similar? -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:24, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

{{use dmy dates}}

There is a new discussion going on at Template talk:Dmy‎, and I though you might have some views on the subject. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:40, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Alexander Schukoff

You should wait for others to write an article about subjects in which you are personally involved, as you did at Alexander Schukoff. This applies to articles about you, your achievements, your band, your business, your publications, your website, your relatives, and any other possible conflict of interest.

Creating an article about yourself is strongly discouraged. If you create such an article, it might be listed on articles for deletion. Deletion is not certain, but many feel strongly that you should not start articles about yourself. This is because independent creation encourages independent validation of both significance and verifiability. All edits to articles must conform to Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, and Wikipedia:Verifiability.

If you are not "notable" under Wikipedia guidelines, creating an article about yourself may violate the policy that Wikipedia is not a personal webspace provider and would thus qualify for speedy deletion. If your achievements, etc., are verifiable and genuinely notable, and thus suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia, someone else will probably create an article about you sooner or later. (See Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles.) Thank you. --bender235 (talk) 13:27, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association

An editor has nominated Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association, an article which you have created or worked on, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to address the nominator's concerns but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate. Thank you. - Eastmain (talk) 02:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Your valued feedback is needed

Hello, Rich Farmbrough. You have new messages at FleetCommand's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
Archive Rich Farmbrough, 23:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC).

Smackbot unlinking words in headings

The bot did this with the "New Yorkistan" heading here. I don't know if this is a good idea. I know links in headings are supposed to be avoided but it seems better to have one than to have no link in the article at all.Prezbo (talk) 08:56, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Per WP:MOSHEAD "Section names should not normally contain links, especially ones that link only part of the heading; they will cause accessibility problems.". You can add something like "Main article" or "See also" under the header. It's much better than having a link in the header. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:33, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Like I said above, I know there shouldn't be links in the header, but when when there's no other link in the article--which was the case with the article I linked to--it seems better than nothing.Prezbo (talk) 09:37, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
This feature was recently added in AWB. Maybe you could start a discussion in Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser. I think the feature is useful for manual edits but maybe you have a point for bot edits where non of main nor seealso is added. Let's hear what the other think as well. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:19, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, would you mind explaining the connection between this bot and AWB? I don't have a problem with people doing this manually.Prezbo (talk) 10:32, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
SmackBot uses WP:AWB. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:44, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
  1. To some extent this is moot as I have been forced to turn of GFs.
  2. An advantage to having an automated method of doing this sort of stuff is that humans tend to "let it slide". Just food for thought.
Rich Farmbrough, 19:42, 11 January 2010 (UTC).

Smackbot: a suggestion

Hi,

Just a suggestion. Smackbot recently edited Nilpotent operator to update a "Category:Articles lacking sources (Erik9bot)" tag to an "Unreferenced" tag. However, the date it gave was December 2009 (when it edited the page), not July 2009 (when the old category tag was put in). Perhaps it would be helpful if the code was updated so that it inserts a date that reflects the original tagging, not the replacement tagging. I changed it manually in this case. :-)

Tcnuk (talk) 11:19, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I backdated many that I changed manually, but there was too much drama over the dating of the bulk to do anything intelligent with them, so they went in the December category. They have all been done now. Rich Farmbrough, 19:39, 11 January 2010 (UTC).

G.W. Peck

You recently tagged the G. W. Peck article as a "biography". But G. W. Peck is a "fictional mathematician". See Talk:G. W. Peck Jwesley78 14:23, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks: Rich Farmbrough, 19:36, 11 January 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot regex went wrong

This went wrong. Unfortunatly I noticed this after I transfered a bunch of images to Commons. Could you please apply the fix to the images in commons:Category:Files_moved_from_en.wikipedia_to_Commons_requiring_review_as_of_11_January_2010 too? multichill (talk) 22:43, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

MItr is an article not a advertisement

I have fulfilled whatever said by wikipedia people, first they were emphasizing on its reliable source, to fulfill their demand some good reliable sources has been included but still they are considering for deletion
Its a information that this platform is providing, why it is different from others and Its like a new experience for software engineers they can get something out of it. Its not a advertisement. Please look it into it once more. it has gone through many phases its size has been reduces from its normal to half. It is having capability that it is supporting other plaforms which were found rare in earlier platforms.Company's name has been included once (wherever necessary). so i don't think its a advertisement. Thankyou--Nandssiib (talk) 07:11, 12 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nandssiib (talk • contribs) 07:09, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 11 January 2010

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More date issues

Diffs from today's run. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:17, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

  • Here, the bot changes a date from July 2009 to January 2010 [112]. The date parameter is included twice there; that's because SmackBot added a duplicate back in July [113].
  • Similar issue at Calgary [114]
  • Removed a comma from a date in a reference, but left a comma in a different part of the same reference (footnote #194) [115].

Smackbot's edit summaries

Rich,

Smackbot's edit summaries end in "build 391:,". It seems a little peculiar. Is that intended behaviour? - Richard Cavell (talk) 05:59, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Ask USer:CBM. Rich Farmbrough, 06:06, 13 January 2010 (UTC).

Your user talk page title

Another thing: The title of this page is "Use Rich Farmbrough" on my machine (Firefox 3.5.7 on OS X). This is because of a DISPLAYTITLE template in the source. Is that what you intended? - Richard Cavell (talk) 06:02, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

yes. Rich Farmbrough, 06:36, 13 January 2010 (UTC).

Reply

I assume that you had something to do with the Article Issues posted on the Cube News 1 page. I replied in the talk quite a while ago, but nothing has happened. Hence, I am writing to whoever might be able to do something. dmelliott 14:44, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Orphan tagger in AWB

As of rev 6013 AWB counts the number of incoming links to the article and its redirects excluding the number of redirects i.e. tagging is 99% safe. Only problem the number of incoming dab links but this was the big issue. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:32, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Excellent work, sadly SmackBot is not allowed to use the tagger. Rich Farmbrough, 06:07, 13 January 2010 (UTC).

Here you are: http://toolserver.org/~awb/snapshots/AutoWikiBrowser5001_rev6037.zip -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of 1hourflex

An article that you have been involved in editing, 1hourflex, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1hourflex. Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Dbratland (talk) 00:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)


Comment at Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2009_August_17#Template:Birth_event_age

Sorry for digging up an old discussion but what do you mean This provides the flexibility that {{BirthDeathAge}} was supposed to, and it works. How is this template broken or in flexible? Gnevin (talk) 00:50, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Service award update

 Hello, Rich Farmbrough! The requirements for the service awards have been updated, and you may no longer be eligible for the award you currently display. Don't worry! Since you have already earned your award, you are free to keep displaying it. However, you may also wish to update to the current system.

Sorry for any inconvenience. — the Man in Question (in question) 10:16, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

homosexual v. gay

Just wanted to call to your attention the preferred use of "gay and lesbian" over "homosexual". This is in regard to your changes to the Madeline Davis entry. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS:IDENTITY#IdentitySee and http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/gays-anatomy/200810/the-terms-homosexual-and-the-n-word. Thanks--Aichikawa (talk) 19:21, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea which part of the MoS you are talking about, or which change toi the article. Please add talk page comments at the end of talk pages, and use diffs. Rich Farmbrough, 08:25, 15 January 2010 (UTC).

FYI re auto=yes

FYI "auto=yes" is not a notation that a banner was added automatically, [116] it should only be used when automatically assessing as "stub" because the article page had a stub template. This came up here. Cheers, –xenotalk 13:31, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, noted.Rich Farmbrough, 08:25, 15 January 2010 (UTC).

Sandbox

Hi. I was looking at File:Pepper's.jpg and I noticed that you are currently using it in your user-space at User:Rich Farmbrough/temp62. Unfortunately as the file is a non-free image it shouldn't really be used in user-space. There also appear to be a number of other non-free files used on the page. Would you mind removing them from your sandbox, or at least commenting them out until you are finished? Regards. Road Wizard (talk) 01:42, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I deleted the page, however I don't think that copies of main-space pages should be an issue. The reasons are obvious. Rich Farmbrough, 19:31, 16 January 2010 (UTC).
Thanks for removing the problem, however I don't think there are any obvious reasons. The image was loaded under a fair-use claim and there was no fair use rationale for use in your user-space. Therefore it was in breach of Wikipedia policy and guidelines and possibly in breach of US copyright law.
If it was just a temporary page used for a few hours before reinsertion into the main article then it would probably not be a problem; any breach would be corrected long before it became a legal problem. However if I recall the history of the deleted page correctly it had been a month since the last edit, suggesting a more permanent breach.
If you think an exemption should be made for sandbox copies of articles you may wish to suggest an amendment to the existing policies and guidelines. Regards. Road Wizard (talk) 19:52, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
OK, mirrors of WP or mirrors WP pages, or WP history are considered legal - many versions of the same actual page. The only difference is that the page is labelled "USer:" that is not going to be a legal issue. As to the policy, legality is the prime reason for it, bright-line demarcation maybe the reason for simply saying "user space" - I do think an exception should be made but I don't want to suggest an amendment. Rich Farmbrough, 03:13, 17 January 2010 (UTC).

Thanks anyway

Gnevin (talk) 19:07, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

California County Route S1

It appears you put a </references> tag on the page County Route S1 (California). This action has been reverted, for this template does not exist. Pzoxicuvybtnrm 03:33, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Kuru, Nigeria

Nigerian towns need a huge cleanup..... Removing falling rain rmeoving spam etc. Nigeria "is like the Pakistan of Africa on wikipedia". Dr. Blofeld White cat 20:30, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh silent one, can you add svg maps like this to the amphoe of Chiang Mai Province. You just need to switch png with svg.... Dr. Blofeld White cat 16:44, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

New proposal

Rich Hi :) If you find time, do comment on the new proposal I've suggested here. Thanks ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ ―Œ ♣Łεâvε Ξ мεşşâgε♣ 04:32, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 18 January 2010

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Dates in non-article space

I posted at Bot Requests, but the request/discussion seemed to be bogged down with some esoteric and rather surreal discussion. Anyway, can I enlist your help with the work to be done in delinking these?

As an aside, I notice that some portal space is posted by bots, which automatically post linked dates. I tried removing the links on a couple of occasions, but the bot restored them in the next edit as if it was programmed to link dates. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 17:41, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Regarding dermatology-related content

My main focus continues to be the Bolognia push; however, if you can generate any other lists of required derm stubs/redirects, I would be willing to work on them as well? ---kilbad (talk) 18:44, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Infobox Hungarian settlement

Resolved

I noticed you did some work on Template:Infobox Hungarian settlement. I did some work on it and the documentation page, related with references. I checked that it is working well. I think I found an elegant solution.

In addition I found a problem with this template, see Template_talk:Infobox_Hungarian_settlement#Coat of arms. Perhaps you can easily solve it. Debresser (talk) 00:06, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

An edit by Plastikspork made it a little better, but I think the best idea would be to somehow not have the link to the files at all, if they don't exist. Debresser (talk) 03:19, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
Ha! I was thinking the same thing. See my subsequent edit. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 03:21, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
Nice fix. Thanks. Debresser (talk) 14:45, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

I have checked with the Scout Association, PRC on the Woodbadge issue. Seems like it is confirmed that the Woodbadge Training Scheme indeed was released by the WOSM APR approved by Abdullah Rasheed the WOSM APR Rigional Director. There was communication email between the association & the Regional office. Feel free to advice if you need anything. Thanks.

Regards, Tsa-prc

Archive Rich Farmbrough, 21:38, 20 January 2010 (UTC).

Nomination for deletion of Template:Museum key

Template:Museum key has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 21:16, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot you did a great thing!

I am glad that the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_for_Children has been fixed and all that could be taken with offense were removed. I had attempted to edit the article and became upset and offended by some of it's previous errors and phrasing of which I personally found unnecessary and offensive to me. Thus I left the article as it was, due to personal offense taken. Thanks so much for that much needed help. --Ladybrainbypass (talk) 14:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC)--Ladybrainbypass (talk) 14:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Fix and substitution detection

I noticed you didn't answer detection of incorrect substitution to maintenance templates that use {{Fix}} like {{Dead link}}, {{Dubious}}, or {{Citation broken}}. Is that on purpose?

What happened with Category:Articles with invalid date parameter in template? Did the bureaucracy get to you? I also didn't do any wikignoming these past week-and-a-half because of that ArbCom case I'm involved with. It is really unsetteling to be falsely accused, not to mention unappreciated. Debresser (talk) 14:00, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

BTW, since all maintenance templates use either {{DMCA}} or {{Fix}}, I wondered if it wouldn't be easier to build the detection into just these two templates? Or is that impossible? Debresser (talk) 14:01, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Question

It is found in the article [117] under Representation:

"Levis Fine Art represents a number of Elaine de Kooning's heirs and has an comprehensive collection of her lifetime works."

In my opinion 'Representation' belongs to a gallery guide but not to Wikipedia. What do you think? (Salmon1 (talk) 19:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC))

Lovers Electric

Hi Rich, sorry to trouble you. There's a band, Lovers Electric, whose photo I'm uploading now to Commons. I looked at the article history to see whose toes I'll be stepping on this time if I decide (as usual) to be bold, and fix any wording, wikification lapses or missing things, and saw that whomever the username is they call themselves Lovers Electric, which makes me assume it's either the band or their publicist. I very much remember the headaches with Josh Klinghoffer's publicity people last time he was to embark on tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I don't feel qualified to put the template that someone closely related to the band may be making edits for this page. Would you take a look? Also, I had a very nice email from a D.J. called "Redbeard" who has a global radio interview program called In the Studio with Redbeard. For some reason, after some chatting back and forth, he took a look at their page. I'm not sure what format it should take, and he wanted to update some now erroneous facts, but found he was blocked from "all but text at the bottom of the page". The next email revealed the entire recording studio's ISP was banned. I advised him to register, and to let people know he was the subject of the article, and promised I'd tell an Admin. here so they know he's just trying to keep it up to date and nothing promotional or whatnot. (He did a kickass interview with Pete Townshend about The Who's Tommy anniversary.. but that's beside the point.) Will it be OK for Redbeard to edit just to keep up to date if I keep an eye out for Peacock stuff? Will you handle the questionable Lovers Electric thing? Thanks.--Leahtwosaints (talk) 23:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Response to a response

Did you not edit Madeline Davis, changing some words from homosexual to gay? That's what my comment to you (now erased) was about.--Aichikawa (talk) 17:54, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

No I don't think so. Rich Farmbrough, 10:17, 24 January 2010 (UTC).

Moving pages

When you move page which have talk archives (as you did here), you should check for bot templates on the talk page and ensure they still work.--Oneiros (talk) 19:40, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Uh... well I see what happened. And I will look out for this. But really the syntax needs to be re-locatable, for there is no guarantee that a page with an archive template has any archives, for example. Rich Farmbrough, 10:14, 24 January 2010 (UTC).

Ping

Rich, I've emailed you. Tony (talk) 05:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Pong. Answering. Rich Farmbrough, 16:27, 24 January 2010 (UTC).

User:Blocking administrator

Please register the account. :P (It's showing up at Ownerless pages in the user space (configuration).) --MZMcBride (talk) 17:43, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Sadly it won't let me as it has the word "admin" in it. Rich Farmbrough, 10:12, 24 January 2010 (UTC).
If you went to Special:UserLogin while logged in to your admin account, you'd have had some additional rights. For example, admins automatically override titleblacklist entries, and have the option to override spoofing checks. I had checked MediaWiki:Titleblacklist and found no entry, but I missed to check the global one, meta:Title blacklist, so I just created it myself. Anyway, it's created. Amalthea 14:05, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
OK thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 16:20, 24 January 2010 (UTC).

Fix and substitution detection

I noticed you didn't answer detection of incorrect substitution to maintenance templates that use {{Fix}} like {{Dead link}}, {{Dubious}}, or {{Citation broken}}. Is that on purpose?

I haven't been on much so I haven;t really thought about the first point. but it should be easy enough to treat them the same as the Ambox tempaltes

BTW, since all maintenance templates use either {{DMCA}} or {{Fix}}, I wondered if it wouldn't be easier to build the detection into just these two templates? Or is that impossible?

The acttual tempaltes need to have the code in, so that it gets substed. There may be a slight eleganceavailabe.

What happened with Category:Articles with invalid date parameter in template? Did the bureaucracy get to you?

Not as such. I took a big first run,once the problems were resolved and those are the first dealt with. Then the run staled a few times.

I also didn't do any wikignoming these past week-and-a-half because of that ArbCom case I'm involved with. It is really unsettling to be falsely accused, not to mention unappreciated. Debresser (talk)

Arbcom is a problem as well as a solution. Rich Farmbrough, 20:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC).

Surrey Marshe

Regarding this edit, what difference does it make which order the references are in? I'm just curious if there's some fine point of the guidelines that I've missed. Thanks, Dismas|(talk) 06:28, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

It's just numerical order. Rich Farmbrough, 06:34, 25 January 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Ne shume komente e diskutime te personave qe kane pasur pozicione te larta ne hierarkine shteterore,kan folur e flasin ende se Z.Sali Berisha kane qene e eshte nje agjent potencial i U.D.B se serbe. E vertete...?????? S'me besohet kurre. As qe mund te imagjinohet...!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.106.2.94 (talk) 19:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)


in re 2007 South Asian floods: sorry, somehow must've missed something there. --G-41614 (talk) 10:23, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Sara Roy

Hello. I'm not sure why, but SmackBot keeps mucking up the formatting of Sara Roy. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 20:48, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 25 January 2010

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 04:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Considering a few new categories

I am considering adding a few more dermatology-related categories. I have posted a thread at: Talk:List_of_cutaneous_conditions#Additional_sections_.7C_categories. Could I get your feedback regarding this issue? ---kilbad (talk) 01:53, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

New template

A template that we didn't have yet is Template:Examples. Debresser (talk) 21:30, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of List of basic geography topics

An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is List of basic geography topics. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also Wikipedia:Notability and "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of basic geography topics. Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:05, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

what are you doing whith your user name on revision history kilcummin when you are making no comments. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.254.146.140 (talk) 14:48, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Deleting DAB pages?

Rich, under what circumstances, and by what method, are DAB pages deleted? The question is not academic, or a matter of curiosity, rather, I believe the Blue Valentine (disambiguation) page is in need of deletion. One link, as you can see is red, which may or may not have an article in the near future. Either way, a dablink at the top of each article would be sufficient. A DAB page with two links is unnecessary. I was simply planning on reverting the page move, but decided against it. I would like your advice here. Thanks. ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 16:03, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

The user converted the article with its history into a dab - that's not on no matter what. And you are right, WP:2DAB means no disambig page is necessary. Once there is an article on the film, add a hat to Blue Valentine. –xenotalk 16:07, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, keeping history stright is important. Obviously as 2DAB says the dab page these dabs are harmless, and like redirects should not be deleted if they just aren't useful - but that's not an issue hrere. Rich Farmbrough, 05:24, 29 January 2010 (UTC).

Problem with edit

I reported what I thought was an AWB bug on the appropriate page, and was told it was due to an edit of yours rather than AWB:

Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs#AWB appears_to_have_replaced_.22.7B.7Bdate.7C.7Cdmy.7D.7D.22 with the current (fixed) date

Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 16:42, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, thanks, that is I hope complete, and I am aware now that longevity pages need avoiding. Rich Farmbrough, 19:37, 28 January 2010 (UTC).

Help Nominate me?

Hey can you help promote me to an Beaurucat? (OMGstrings (talk) 02:09, 29 January 2010 (UTC))

Hi Rich

Hi Rich. The last time I proposed a policy change, your comments were valuable. Thanks for that. If you find time, do drop in again at the village pump here to give your views on a new category of established users I've proposed. Thanks ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ ―Œ ♣Łεâvε Ξ мεşşâgε♣ 13:37, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Template:City-region

What do you think about the template, and this proposal? Ohconfucius ¡digame! 05:28, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you

Richard, Thank you for helping with the Adriano Espaillat article.

69.203.119.66 (talk) 06:12, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

re AWB Unicode bug

Re your AWB Unicode bug it seems like a rare error, we can convert to spaces if found, or do nothing. Which do you think? Thanks Rjwilmsi 14:36, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Rich Farmbrough. You have new messages at SimonTrew's talk page.
Message added 17:47, 30 January 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

I left a reply to you at my talk page, to try to keep things in one place. I will copy to BON if you want, but presumably you came here specifically to talk it with me not at BON. All I say here is that I have no problem with SB or you, just a very specific problem. I am sorry it was stopped.

I have been away from WP for a while IRL so I am sorry if my delay in replying seems like ignorance. I will do everything I can to help you get genfixes sorted out, which I have no prioblem with SB doing. I know you and SB do great work here, and it is kinda minor this, a rather side issue, I didn't want and didn't ask for it to stop genfixes. I never stopped this bot at all during this debate, or asked for it to be. I will do everything I can to say so to admin or whatever who stopped it for that, I haven't read up why, but this specifically is NOT genfixes and it should have genfixes I think, which everyone knows and loves so well. So I defintely support you to get genfixes back. Si Trew (talk) 17:47, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot & unnamed parameters

When SmackBot is fixing dates on templates, it would be nice if it could check if the unnamed parameter is a valid date, and if so use it instead of adding a new one: [118] [119] [120]. Thanks! --Pascal666 08:28, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Can you help sanity to prevail?

Hello Rich. We interacted last year when I sought your help to remove a file that was redundant. The relevant segment is still on my talkpage. That particular problem was my own making, and you kindly assisted in correction of it.

The current problem is not originally my own making, but in the process of trying to correct the matter and have some semblance of sanity prevail again, I have contributed to it. The way I see it, the problems are readily fixable. It's just that I don't have the administrative ability to take a couple of the steps.

The problem is this: The article, Captain R.T. Claridge, which I created on 29 October 2009, and which has continued uncontroversially to date, was erroneously renamed by another editor. In the process of that renaming, a redirect page was created.

I took care of the erroneous article renaming, or so I thought. However, what I didn't realise, was that in the original (erroneous) renaming, a space was inserted between the R and the T of Captain R.T. Claridge. This meant, of course, that all of the links originally created to the Captain R.T. Claridge article 'needed' a redirect page, because links are format-sensitive, including for the presence of spaces between letters.

At first I thought little of this, thinking perhaps the redirect did serve a real function, as opposed to an illusory function created by its own existence. But I was wrong. A few very simple experiments with the Wikipedia search function, for say, C. D. Baker, or Captain E.G. Beaumont. The search brings up the same article (or in the case of Baker, the same disambiguation page), regardless of whether or not you use a space between the initials, for both names. So you take the space away from C. D., and the search works. Add a space to E.G., and it works.

What this means is that there is no need for a redirect page merely on the basis of a space between the initials. The initial redirect page took the links with no spaces to the article with the spaces. From the initial redirect page, a 'check of what links here' naturally listed all of the articles and archives that previously linked for the Captain R.T. Claridge article. This seemed to give the impression that the redirect page needed to exist to solve a real problem, rather than an illusory one.

When I realised all this, after much stuffing around I might add (because I refuse to let an idiotic situation prevail), I realised the only solution that makes sense.

  1. The Captain R. T. Claridge article needs to be renamed to remove the space between the R and T. That is, Captain R.T. Claridge. This will automatically make the existing links that previously worked, work again. Very simple. I'd go so far as to say extremely simple, conceptually.
  2. The redirect page needs to be deleted, as it serves no real function, and appears to be hindering any attempt to implement the above solution.

I can't imagine many things more conceptually simple than the above solution. Since I don't have deletion authority, I initially tried to simply rename the Captain R. T. Claridge article to Captain R.T. Claridge (without spaces). But a red error message said Captain R.T. Claridge already existed. On the off-chance this was a byproduct of the name with spaces causing the problem, I renamed to R. T. Claridge, then tried going from there to Captain R.T. Claridge (without spaces). I got the same error message, saying the article exists. However, it allowed me to move the article to Captain R. T. Claridge (with spaces). This tells me that the article itself is not the problem. It must be the existence of something else named Captain R.T. Claridge (with no spaces). As far as I can tell, this brings me back to the redirect page. So I tried a couple of moves to see if renaming there made a difference. All I did was create a couple more redirect pages, as far as I can tell. I have now flagged all of the redirect pages for speedy deletion.

I really am only seeking one outcome, and one outcome alone. To get the Captain R. T. Claridge article back to its original name (Captain R.T. Claridge, without spaces) so the links which worked up until yesterday, all work again. I can't think of many things more conceptually simple. But I can't believe the Alice-in-Wonderland surreality that has transpired. But that doesn't mean I, or anyone else, has to settle for it. I seek your assistance if possible, as you seem to have a good track record of recognising simple, no-nonsense solutions, and implementing them, which is really all that is needed. Wotnow (talk) 07:59, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Update: The issue has been resolved courtesy of ϢereSpielChequers, including some helpful feedback from WereSpielChequers and  Glenfarclas ', and I am satisfied that all is well. Regards Wotnow (talk) 06:28, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
Excellent, I would, of course, have been glad to help. Rich Farmbrough, 10:49, 31 January 2010 (UTC).
Cheers. one of the problems I have is that I've been around long enough, and had enough experiences of dealing with a range of human behaviour, both at the individual, social-systemic level, to spot oddities long before I know what to make of them. Specifically, I have a very good antenna for spotting potential trouble-makers, or at least behaviour that inexorably leads to trouble. But obviously I'm not always going to be right. This can create conundrums. On the one hand, one risks over-reacting to an innocuous phenomenon. On the other hand, one knows from sheer experience and research, the end result of some patterns of behaviour. So one has to weigh up the risk of being right against the risk of over-reacting. This of course is the ever-present false positive vs false negative phenomenon, with the relative risk in either direction depending entirely on what the phenomenon is. In relation to the issue above, I was intrigued to find an earlier history of similar concerns by others. And from the comments ("again?") that itself was not the first time. Regards Wotnow (talk) 00:15, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

RADIO ROW

Based on that picture, are they saying that that store is still there and open to this day? Bob.--76.224.113.196 (talk) 17:20, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

ping and pong

Richard, my attention has been drawn to your response that you've replied to my email. But I've not received it. Can you check the address? Tony (talk) 22:14, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

pui and puf

Hi Rich, Can recurring task 4 be modified to include {{pui}} and {{Puf}} ? Here are 2 examples that should have had dates placed by the "tagger" [121] [122]. Thanks. --After Midnight 0001 16:58, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 1 February 2010

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Yo!

Hey Dude, Have you had a chance to consider my emailed request for advice? Ohconfucius ¡digame! 15:06, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Ecuador

Hi. I need your assistance. Can you rename all of those sub cats (Except Bolivar) in Category:Provinces of Ecuador which have an unneccessary .,Ecuador on the end to the simple naming. So instead of Category:Manabí Province, Ecuador it would become simply Category:Manabí Province. I and Ser Amantio have tackled a few already but all of the empty categories afterwards which have ,Ecuador on the end need deleting like Category:Azuay Province, Ecuador etc as that has alreayd been done. Once thats done, can you go through the province articles e.g Azuay Province and correct the canton links in the articles from (canton) to Canton. Admittedly I am uncertain as to whether or not they should be capitalized. In fact I think they should probably be ... (canton). If you agree, then leave those links and move all the articles to (canton) instead but be sure to correct the existing links and names in the articles and also the navigation template.

What naming looks right to you Nabón Canton or Nabón (canton). Peronsally I am thinking it would be best to move them to the latter one. Any thoughts?

Also the current naming for the Cantons of Costa Rica is capitalised and for Venezuelan municpalities is .... Municipality too. I think the naming would be better (municipality) for Venezuela too like the Mexican ones... I think Province and District is capitals looks right but not for canton and municipality, any thoughts on this too? ‡ Himalayan ‡ ΨMonastery 19:45, 2 February 2010 (UTC) ‡ Himalayan ‡ ΨMonastery 19:10, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Is everything OK? ‡ Himalayan ‡ ΨMonastery 11:50, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes I agree (canton)... Rich Farmbrough, 18:01, 3 February 2010 (UTC).

Is it possible you could sort it out when you have time then? Its just its a lingering problem now as only some of them are done and we have some empty categories and inconsistency lying about.. ‡ Himalayan ‡ ΨMonastery 10:55, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot & date stamps

Is SmackBot maintaining all these cases on regular basis? I need this information for handling a FR on AWB. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 14:59, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

OK all except {{Histinfo}} {{Blpdispute}} and {{Hoax}}. Rich Farmbrough, 18:09, 3 February 2010 (UTC).

Another potential use for SmackBot

Most people who create articles via the Article Wizard leave the example.com link intact. Smackbot should remove those, and remove the external links section altogether if no other external links were inserted either by the creator or or a subsequent editor. -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 18:18, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Nicky Hilton

Hi, you might want to look at this page, appears to have some errors at the bottom of the page after you added the sources. Larry Dunn (talk) 19:18, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for merging of Template:Unreferenced stub

Template:Unreferenced stub has been nominated for merging with Template:Unreferenced. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Fram (talk) 10:15, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot replacing char refs w/ matrices, etc.

I'm puzzled at SmackBot's replacing of spaceless & # 0145 ; through & # 0148 ; with numbered boxes. Neither form is popular for reading and I think the former form is usually correctly interpreted by browsers. It looks like the edit page lets us click to insert curved quotation marks, but that's usually too cumbersome; I compose offline and paste in and don't want to have to click for each character.

I'm planning to restore the former form in the article that SmackBot edited and which I originally wrote. I don't know if I want to block bots since I may create an article but I don't own it, given WP's premise.

Also, I tend to use singular section titles like Reference and External link if there's only one reference or external link under the section title.

Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:26, 2 February 2010 (UTC) (Then I corrected 1 stupid error of my very own (and added this). Nick Levinson (talk) 04:45, 2 February 2010 (UTC))

The numbered boxes are simply your browser's way of representing those characters. Just because they are changed from &#0145; to the actual character, it doesn't mean you need to change how you write, either on or offline, it is simply perfective maintenance. However if your browser can't display &#0145; &#0146; &#0147; &#0148; then it may be better not to use them.
As far as plurals in headings go that is established MoS, the plural is used just the same as we would have "contents" in a book even if there was only one chapter.
Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 11:39, 5 February 2010 (UTC).
Thanks. My browser does display the curved quotation marks from elsewhere in WP but also displays the numbered boxes, so I'm technologically puzzled, but I found that the WP MoS prefers straight anyway, so I'm generally typing straight, which should solve that. As to the pluralization, I can accept that; I don't know of a single-chapter book, and I assume the chapter title in that case would become a book's subtitle instead, and, at any rate, it's a table of contents, not a table of chapters, giving semantic flexibility. Nick Levinson (talk) 22:36, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:DERM:CAT#Categorization_of_dermatology_disease_article_redirects

Rich, I know you have helped to word the above guideline, and wanted to know if you would consider adding some additional text discussing the use of relevant redirect templates, which are found at: Wikipedia:Template messages/Redirect pages (for an example, see [123]). I don't like to be the only one editing derm guideline pages. Regardless, thank you for your help in the past! ---kilbad (talk) 23:19, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I added some text. What do you think? ---kilbad (talk) 23:32, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

picture(s) for Gordon Onslow Ford page

(This is my first time posting to one of these talk pages, so bear with me if I screw up.) I'm writing, Rich, about the Gordon Onslow Ford page that you edited. As a big fan of Onslow Ford, I'd like to see that his page has an image of at least one of his paintings, as do most of the other artist pages. But as a clueless newbie in Wiki-land, I don't know how to add such a pic or what the relevant rules might be. Would you be interested in adding it yourself? Or guiding me in the process? I can scan an appropriate pic or two with good resolution, etc.

Fiona-webster (talk) 00:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:MOSNUM compliance issue of Template:Start date and age

Hi, Rich

There is an issue which you (and perhaps your bots) need to be aware of: For the sake of consistency of dates in software infoboxes, especially consistency between dates generated by {{Start date}} and {{Start date and age}} as well as dates generated by two {{Start date and age}}, I decided to rewrite the {{Start Date and Age}}.

In case you already don't know: The current Start date and age template outputs date through {{#dateformat:}} parser, making it look different to users depending on user preferences. In addition, the output of {{start date and age|2009|08|01}} ( = "August 1, 2009; 14 years ago (2009-08-01)") is not consistent with {{start date and age|2009|8|1}} ( = "August 1, 2009; 14 years ago (2009-08-01)"). Finally, another user in the template's discussion page has requested codes that causes the template to emit hCalendar microformat.

The new {{Start date and age}}, which is nearly finished (Template:Start date and age/sandbox), has a new df=yes parameter which makes it print dates in DMY format suitable for software articles. Perhaps you need to reconfigure your bots or we need to reach a different consensus. In any case, your feedback will of high value to me. So, please let me know what you think.

Fleet Command (talk) 11:36, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

By the way, you might like to check out Start date and age/testcases.
Fleet Command (talk) 11:39, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Quisque custodiet custodes

Dear Rich,

Should you like to discuss the point I raised, [email protected]. It has been going three months now. Have you ever considered being a politician, because the line I put in the opening sentence you never answered: WAS IT YOU OR SMACKBOT.

I know you are a good editor but when you have a bot you have responsibilities

S.

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 17:56, 04 February 2010 (UTC).

The Temptations template

Hi, Rich! As I know you're both an admin and an expert on templates, I'm hoping might you fix a template issue for me. If you click on The Temptations discography and scroll on down to the bottom of the screen, where the template is, click on "v", you'll notice that this "view" is not for this template. The same goes with its talk page. Possibly, might you fix this, please? Thanks! Best, --Discographer (talk) 08:54, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I knew you'd come through. The Temptations is correct, that's how it should be, the way you did it; and at the same time, Temptations should not even be! These are one of those groups like The Beatlles and The Supremes where The is actually part of the group name, though I suppose you already now that. Thanks my friend! Best, --Discographer (talk) 20:03, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Fixed. Should these templates be merged? Rich Farmbrough, 21:20, 8 February 2010 (UTC).
Well, the template that reads just Temptations doesn't really have any use,as the real template, The Temptations, is correctly finished. Personally, I don't know where Temptations template came from, but it's not really needed. If you merge them, I'll just use the cursor and take that info out so all that's left is The Temptations template proper. Thanks! Best, --Discographer (talk) 22:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 8 February 2010

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Since you show up on my watchlist

a dozen times a day I thought I'd return the favor. Or something. I recently created a category called Category: Hal Blaine Strikes Again and have been posting it on articles about the records that Hal Blaine played on. The title of the category refers to a rubber stamp that Blaine used to stamp his charts with. I realize that neither the category nor its name is mainstream, but, does everything need to be? Anyway, the category is up for deletion and I'm hoping that editors who at least are knowledgeable and care about this sort of thing will vote [[124]]. Vote any way that you wish, but do check it out. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 03:21, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced stub

FYI Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2010 February 5#Template:Unreferenced stub -- PBS (talk) 03:54, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

namen marega anti —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.225.75.7 (talk) 04:39, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

Re: Greg Abbott citation needed, Van Orden v. Perry section

Hi there! I noticed you were the one who put the original citation needed in that little section in Greg Abbott's Wikipedia entry about the Van Orden v. Perry case. In that case, thanks ever so for doing that! The original wording gave completely the wrong impression about the gifting of those Ten Commandments monuments and I pointed to a source that told the actual story of what occurred, after changing the wording in the article. If you hadn't called out the article's need for a citation on this, it might've escaped my attention to look more into the story of how the monument in question was donated. So thanks! Arcana07 (talk) 06:10, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Questions

  • I remember you once made a template to know the number of pages in a category. Could you remind me what it is called? Debresser (talk) 09:42, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I found "PAGESINCATEGORY". It is a magic word, rather than a template, if I understand correctly. Debresser (talk) 10:22, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:List of monthly maintenance categories given month that I used it successfully. I think this is useful. If the number of pages in a category of this month is 0, then we won't create the corresponding category next month. If the number of pages in a category of the next month is not 0, then the articles have to be edited. You may want to improve the layout. Debresser (talk) 10:48, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable.

Probably some fix to Template:Progress line 3, but I don't know how. Debresser (talk) 10:28, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
BTW, I created 2 new progress boxes for categories that didn't have them yet. No reason not to, right? Debresser (talk) 10:48, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I looked at this... can't remember what happened. More progress boxes are good.

Hm. Not sure. It does no harm, maybe mark as historical.

If it were an abandoned page yes, but since it is replaced by something better, I propose deletion. Debresser (talk) 17:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Turned it to {{historical}} for the mean time. Debresser (talk) 11:12, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Let me go and look again. Rich Farmbrough, 16:02, 8 February 2010 (UTC).

Looked ok.. Rich Farmbrough, 17:58, 11 February 2010 (UTC).
Then perhaps you could make the edit to {{BLP sources}}? Debresser (talk) 11:12, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

Rich - I have made further edits to the entry for Penny Templeton to remove any questionable POV language. It appears that you marked this entry as advertising. Please remove that edit from the page. Thanks. JediMaraJade (talk) 02:20, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I wanted you to know

that the list that you generated is the basis for this article, or list. List of recordings of songs Hal Blaine has played on Thanks. eek aka Carptrash (talk) 17:42, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Great. Rich Farmbrough, 14:45, 13 February 2010 (UTC).

Request

Could you please weigh in at Template_talk:Lead_too_short#Template_family_names_should_be_consistent, or just do the moves if you agree. Debresser (talk) 11:05, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I see you went straight against the two proposals at Template_talk:Lead_too_short#Template_family_names_should_be_consistent. And you also ignored that we have two related templates that use the word "Intro", as you can see on the documentation of the template itself. Please have another look at that talk page. Debresser (talk) 17:28, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Ecuador

I've just had somebody ranting on at me because of those categories (interestingly it was Debresser above). If you couldn't do it why couldn't you say something like "I'm busy" or "I don't want to". That would have been fine and I could have done it myself. Thanks for all your help to date anyway, I won't ask again. ‡ Himalayan ‡ ΨMonastery 23:24, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

No really "ranting" though. The problem was two-fold. 1. Changes to categories should really be discussed on WP:CFD. The more so when you want to rework a whole set of categories. 2. The {{HowtoreqphotoinEcuador}} template uses the categories including the addition ", Ecuador". Debresser (talk) 01:42, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes , perhaps it should be discussed at CFD. Personally I think a category should only have a , Ecuador on the end if there is a province of the same name in another country. We typically go for minimalism with categorization. Imagine somebody is searching the simple province name category would be easier... ‡ Himalayan ‡ ΨMonastery 01:47, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you, completely. But that leaves the problem with the template unsolved. Actually, the solution is to remove |Ecuador from that template, but that might have other repercussions. Debresser (talk) 02:22, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.152.25.99 (talk) 22:54, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 15 February 2010

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Immanuel Lutheran Church (Hodgkins, Illinois) 17 February 2010

I am relatively new to Wikipedia and would like to get rid of the orphan tag. What is the proper way to do that? I introduced links to/from the article, do you have to remove the tag? Sorry for my ignorance. jdkscoop 19:38, 17 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Josephdklotz (talk • contribs)

Journal dabs

Could you run this one again? You will probably need to update User:Rich_Farmbrough/temp23, since we've created a lot of journal entries in the last few months. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 21:02, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Ping

you have email.

ty. Rich Farmbrough, 07:44, 20 February 2010 (UTC).

Can you do your magic?

I am looking to get the list of sections that make up Rook's Textbook of Dermatology (see [125]). Restated, if you look at the link I provided to the google book version, if you use the "content" link located on the top middle of the page, I am looking for that type of listing, only complete. I ask for this, because I would like to use the outline of Rook's as a guide for the cutaneous conditions article, which is currently a real mess. Can you help me with this? ---kilbad (talk) 02:51, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I can see no way to get this data, unfortunately. Rich Farmbrough, 06:39, 20 February 2010 (UTC).
UPDATE: So I actually found the content outline to Rook's Textbook of dermatology (see [126]) and have used/modified it to start a working outline for the cutaneous conditions article at Talk:Cutaneous_conditions#Working_outline. I intentionally tried to create an outline that does not mirror the list of cutaneous conditions structure because I think providing a different way to organize the information could be helpful. With that being said, how does the outline look to you. What changes do you think should be made, etc. Thanks again for your feedback! ---kilbad (talk) 21:11, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Listify refs tool?

Hi Rich, I see your edit here and was wondering if this was done manually or (as I suspect) with a tool. If tool or script, mind sharing, since this is my favoured ref format? — Huntster (t @ c) 03:19, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It is done with a script. I intend to botify the script, but I will look at u/l ing it when I have done some more work on it. Rich Farmbrough, 06:41, 20 February 2010 (UTC).

news

Template:Worcs Mar2010

Ty Rich Farmbrough, 07:45, 23 February 2010 (UTC).

What's the point?

Please do not interpret my question as negative, in any way. I'm just, well, fascinated by what I'm seeing. First of all, you completely deserve any accolades for your copious contributions to this project, and you also deserve whatever privacy you wish, as well. But how can this provide you with any "privacy"? (Is that even the aim?) It just seems to me that, if the person in the #1 place removes his or her name, that it just increases the interest in that person.

Anyway, I know you don't owe me an answer as to why you have done this. I was just curious. HuskyHuskie (talk) 06:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 07:45, 23 February 2010 (UTC).
Thanks for the answer. I don't know what that person's problem was. Who gives a rat's behind if that was what motivated you? If it's good work for the encyclopedia, it's all good. Happy editing! HuskyHuskie (talk) 07:56, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 22 February 2010

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Citation Needed

Hi Rich, Sorry this was added to the SmackBot page before I saw the comment on historical matters.

If I read things correctly you have entered [citation needed] against the statement 'Friction stir welding was introduced by The Welding Institute' on the page for The Welding Institute. But the term 'Friction Stir Welding' is a link to the Wiki page on that process where it states that The Welding Institute invented the process and holds several patents on it. I thought this was sufficient citation, is there anything more to be done?

Thanks Davemckeown 16:06, 24 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Davemckeown (talk • contribs)

SmackBot

Thank you smackbot for the good things you do.Adam in MO Talk 08:00, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Opportunity

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_discussions#Have_all_XfD_be_substituted_and_link_to_the_actual_page_of_discussion. I am sure you have something to say about this. Debresser (talk) 10:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Repeated call of attention to problem

Please see Category:Wikipedia maintenance categories with missing months that as soon as there is 1 article tagged with a non-existing month, all monthly categories show up there. Surely that can be fixed. Debresser (talk) 12:22, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not seeing that. Rich Farmbrough, 11:19, 26 February 2010 (UTC).
OK I found it, it was something Pascal put in progress line 3. I took it out, but I still need to re-read the rest of that change when I'm less tired. Rich Farmbrough, 11:34, 26 February 2010 (UTC).
Ok, rest well. There are still two pages in Category:Wikipedia maintenance categories with missing months that weren't there before, and I have no idea why. Debresser (talk) 12:52, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Problem

I saw Category:Articles with invalid date parameter in template with over 100 pages. I did all non-main article namespace ones. Are you having problems, and should I make an effort to help out? Debresser (talk) 13:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Done. Except for the protected Whaling in Japan. Which needs "Feb." -> "February". Debresser (talk) 22:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes it got held up for some reason then I had a bunch to do - several thousand - of course runs that long usually stall a few times, plus comments left on the talk page stopping it. Once the run is complete, a new run will attack the invalid date category again - it is the first category tackled. Rich Farmbrough, 11:36, 26 February 2010 (UTC).

Scam of readers via wikipedia content

Please read and help Free Wikipedia articles are on sale as printed books for 50 dollars each in Amazon.com with no prior warning Kasaalan (talk) 14:03, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Bot conversions to {{Start date}}

Are you intending to do any more of these date conversions, which you kindly started some time ago, but which seem to have stalled? Please let me know if not, and I'll ask elsewhere. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 19:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Mississippi Goddam

Exactly what kind of references would be suitable for the removal of the tag on Mississippi Goddam? I just found out about that song for the first time, and the only one I can think of is a YouTube link, or perhaps some article from All-Music Guide if there is one(I'll try to find out if they have an article specifically on that song, although I can't imagine any reason for them not to. ----DanTD (talk) 23:36, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

Hi Rich, Can you remove all the {{Unreferenced|date=December 2009}} tags from, presumably, hundreds of pages in the "years in architecture" series? These pages are similar to lists on Wikipedia, and as such don't follow the same strict guidelines as articles. In addition, references for the facts in these pages are to be found within the articles themselves, and the duplication of the references would be impractical.

Example page: 1971 in architecture. Let me know if this works for you. Thanks, Dogears (talk) 04:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot re WP:MOSUNLINKDATES on dab pages

I think SmackBot shouldn't remove date links that are the only links in a line on disambiguation pages. [127] I'll undo it. If I'm mistaken or it's controversial, let me know. -Galatee (talk) 15:45, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot - Nice!

Just wanted to say how much I appreciated the work of SmackBot as it passed through. I kept it rather busy last night... :-o -- Haruth (talk) 01:04, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

I can't be entirely sure, but I think there may be a problem when SmackBot encounters the 'cite comic' template. If the date= field is only populated with a year, it converts the field name to year= . This results in the date being displayed as ({{{date}}}). Whilst many comics may be weekly or monthly publications, there are occasions when a comic is a one off and or the precise date or month of publication is unknown; hence the entry of a year only.

The most recent example of this I have noted is after SmackBot ran against the article Dalek variants on 19 February 2010. Regards, Donlock 18:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

IUPAC Article

I am working on the IUPAC article for a school project for Duquesne University. I appreciate the fixing some typos and fixing my wiki markup, but smackbot also added a tag for secondary sources. I have used the IUPAC website for most of the sources, but some of the ones that are hosted on that domain are actually publications.

I am doing my best to keep the article neutral and include any sources I can, but I can't seem to find a lot of sources that smackbot will find as being secondary. Could you give me some examples, or check my sources to see if they would even qualify as primary sources? Salamakajakawaka (talk) 13:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 1 March 2010

Ileana

I've just done a few tweaks on Princess Ileana's page.

I have her 1937 and 1938 Christmas cards sent to my mother, which I have scanned. They show her and her children and husband, and I feel they should be on her Page. But I don't know the copyright situation... I GUESS they are "public domain" by now ? I'm a WikiNovice... —Preceding unsigned comment added by RobinClay (talk • contribs) 20:21, 3 March 2010 (UTC) RobinClay (talk) 20:37, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

SmackBot doesn't seem to be able to deal with the article issues template. I noticed this by its edit to Berserk (manga) on February 23. It changed "section=y" to "section=February 2010" and added "|date=February 2010" to the end of the template. This did not change the outward appearance of the article. AndrewTJ31 (talk) 01:33, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

Thanks for your help on the Willis Seaver Adams page. My students are about to go on vacation; hopefully, they will work a little on it then. We'll also invest more time with the page at the end of March.

Thanks again--Bill —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wscrowsnest (talk • contribs) 05:30, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Infobox Hungarian settlement puts in image_shield of standard form HUN_PlaceName_COA.jpg, so I use this new form

Hey Rich,

I have taken a bit of a wikibreak but am back now (I am sure you are glad). Please let me assure you that my complaints etc against you are not in anyway personal, just vigorous. But today I have a slight bit of good news for you.

With {{tlx|Infobox Hungarian settlement}] it now pulls in the image shield by default, although that can be overridden. Thanks to Debresser and another for getting that to work. So we get a little better.

I kinda disagree with it because er you specialise classes to make them simpler for editors to use. Of course Infobox Settlement does everything, but it means it is incredibly long. That makes it slower, too. In other places there is {{Infobox writer}} then {{Infobox musician}} etc, which are based on an underlying template, but simplify its use and tweak it to what is appropriate. H. Info. does the same, and Infobox settlement is way too complex for a normal editor. And mostly just plain wrong.

Thanks for fixing the problems with the population field.

Si Trew (talk) 08:44, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Ping

I've emailed you, Rich. Tony (talk) 11:22, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Wings Discography

Hi Rich. Is there a way you can "move" this article to Wings discography as the D should be lower-cased? Their use to be an article by that name, briefly, which was redirected to Paul McCartney discography. Thanks! Best, --Discographer (talk) 01:31, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Rich! Best, --Discographer (talk) 21:54, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
P.S. Rich, oh, could you also move its talk page, too, please? Thanks! Best, --Discographer (talk) 22:06, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 8 March 2010

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Merge discussion for Media planner

An article that you have been involved in editing, Media planner, has been proposed for a merge with another article. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Avicennasis @ 09:49, 11 March 2010 (UTC) Avicennasis @ 09:49, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Help importing ICD codes from another site

Could you help me with my request here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Would_you_help_me_create_four_disease_stubs.3F? I think importing all those ICD codes could function as another required articles list that I could work through. ---kilbad (talk) 06:09, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot no longer fixing dates

SmackBot recently edited both these articles but fixed the dates in neither: Nikolai Bukharin Pravda. --Pascal666 20:09, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Bot Trial Approved

Hey Rich, I approved Smackbot XXV for trial. Good luck! Tim1357 (talk) 11:10, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Old policy page

This may seem out of the blue, but what was the reasoning behind this? I ask because of this Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Policy in development--Jac16888Talk 04:22, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Rajagopal (professor)

This article has been linked to various articles of Wikipedia including brand architecture, sales management, account management, shopping malls, consumer behaviour, agricultural marketing, rural Marketing, EGADE, Institute of Rural Management and many more whch are more than ten articles of academic nature. Hence, the article on Rajagoapl (professor) is not Orphan. It would be highly appreciated if the tag of orphan article is removed from this article. Regards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Edo198 (talk • contribs) 05:26, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

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Re

Thank you again so much for putting the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Dermatology_task_force/ILDS-ICD page together. It is providing some great redirects that will really improve the project! ---kilbad (talk) 02:37, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Bot question

Hi Rich, Recently the article that had been titled Baptist has been moved to Baptists. I have changed the link on all of the templates and major pages. Is it possible to have a bot change any links currently pointing to Baptist to link instead to Baptists, ideally keeping whatever visible text is there and only piping the link? Thanks! Novaseminary (talk) 14:19, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank for your reply. I proposed it over at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks#Baptist--.3EBaptists. Unless you think it should be done (and you know much, much more about this sort of thing than I), I'll leave it alone. Thanks! Novaseminary (talk) 18:39, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Nature photonics

I did a page move by mistake - (an error in judgement). I tried to revert the move, but it has the same title that I did the move under. I was trying to change "Nature Photonics" to "nature photonics" (all small letters). It is the way that the title is published. Anyway, the move produced "Nature photonics" - no help. First, that is not what I intended. Second, all the other Nature journal articles begin with capitals in both words, so this article is no longer consistent with these.

For example: Nature · Nature Biotechnology · Nature Cell Biology · Nature Chemical Biology · Nature Genetics Nature Nanotechnology · Nature Photonics · Nature Physics · Nature Chemistry etc., etc (There are many such articles. There is a template on the bottom of this article that lists them.)

If you have time - is there anyway to fix this? Just so you know I queried another administrator (Materialscientist) but this person will be unavailable for a couple more hours. Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 03:06, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Looks like that's been done. Rich Farmbrough, 08:10, 20 March 2010 (UTC).

Bot conversions to {{Start date}}

Are you intending to do any more of these date conversions, which you kindly started some time ago, but which seem to have stalled? Please let me know if not, and I'll ask elsewhere. {This is the third time I've asked this here, recently; I don;t meant to harass, but you appear to have an over-eager archiving bot). Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:46, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi Andy, been meaning to get back to you on this, not been very active on-wiki recently.
I was thinking about the advances made with date handling and I'm wondering if the articles is the place for the templates to go now.
Since there are templates that deal with loosely formatted dates, these can just handle a date parameter passed from the infobox, rather than invading every article using the infobox.
Is there any reason this can't be done? Rich Farmbrough, 21:28, 20 March 2010 (UTC).
I don't believe that would be robust, nor versatile, enough. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:03, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

Dear Smackbot,

my name is Cathrin Pokrant. I work for Swissôtel Le Plaza Basel and have contributed to the wikipedia page Swissôtel Le Plaza Basel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss%C3%B4tel_Le_Plaza_Basel). Unfortunately there are two comments on the page that indicate that our language might be too advertising. Could you please review our page again and tell me what I can change in order to get rid of the comments?

I appreciate your help and look forward to hearing from you. You can also contact me per e-mail [email protected]

Kind regards, Cathrin Pokrant —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cat84 (talk • contribs) 13:19, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

what happened here?

It looks like this edit removed the millions separator from the population_total field. I will revert that part of it. --Stepheng3 (talk) 01:20, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

That'd be right if it were an {{Infobox settlement}}. However, {{Infobox Indian Jurisdiction}} doesn't provide the commas for you.--Stepheng3 (talk) 02:51, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Perils of forks.. sigh. Rich Farmbrough, 16:12, 22 March 2010 (UTC).
Sympathy. Best regards, --Stepheng3 (talk) 20:46, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Second References section left in List of North American cities by year of foundation

The mistaken edit that the SmackBot program made was this one. I corrected the problem by hand here. 67.86.75.96 (talk) 03:05, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

This is odd, I suspect AWB added the latter list of it's own accord, not being quite as smart in this particular domain. Rich Farmbrough, 15:54, 24 March 2010 (UTC).

Ping

please check your email.

Archive. Rich Farmbrough, 15:03, 25 March 2010 (UTC).

edits to Nieuwe Meer

The page looked worse after this SmackBot edit than it did when you last edited it. I have attempted to correct the problems by hand. 67.86.75.96 (talk) 03:23, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

The problem here was adding standard information when some but not al; was already there. Specific clean-up of these pages happened by and large so that most but not all the maps were integrated. Rich Farmbrough, 15:57, 24 March 2010 (UTC).
Having browsed through articles that start with the letter "A" in Category:Cities, towns and villages in North Holland it seems that the use of {{Dutch town locator maps}} is to blame for stuffing too many images into articles that also have Infobox settlement templates. The following articles currently exhibit display problems:
My suspicion is that any article that uses {{Dutch town locator maps}} may need to be checked. Since the fix is often to get rid of the "Dutch town locator maps" template and to place images into the settlement infobox the {{Dutch town locator maps}} may become orphaned. 67.86.75.96 (talk) 00:20, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot edits to Sloten (Amsterdam)

The article looked vandalised after this edit by SmackBot than it did after your last edit. I have tried to undo the damage done by SmackBot and add more material to the article since SmackBot last attacked it. 67.86.75.96 (talk) 03:28, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Well thanks for your positive comments. Rich Farmbrough, 14:56, 24 March 2010 (UTC).

The Wikipedia Signpost: 22 March 2010

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Biographical template mergers

Please note: Template talk:Infobox person#Mergers, redux. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:32, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

"build xyz"

What's with the ":build 402:" messages in every edit summary? We don't care. If you want to track your software versions, do it internally. Gurch (talk) 13:01, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

BAGBot: Your bot request SmackBot XXV

Someone has marked Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SmackBot XXV as needing your input. Please visit that page to reply to the requests. Thanks! AnomieBOT⚡ 19:40, 28 March 2010 (UTC) To opt out of these notifications, place {{bots|optout=operatorassistanceneeded}} anywhere on this page.

Thanks

Thanks again for your help with the broken DoD links a few months ago. It was a big help.

Rather than setting a bot at the task I think you used a robot assisted editing tool to change them yourself.

There is a similar broken URL. And, I would like to use that robot assisted editing tool, or a similar one, to fix them myself. Do I need to be authorized to use that tool? Can you help me with some hints as to how to use that tool?

Thanks! Geo Swan (talk) 18:18, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Request

Would you please care to look into the issue indicated in this edit. Debresser (talk) 12:06, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 29 March 2010

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Manual requests for SmackBot

Another useful bot, CorenSearchBot, accepts manual requests to check a page at User:CorenSearchBot/manual. Could you do something similar for SmackBot to allow users to request a SmackBot test of a page they have worked on? Eastmain (talk • contribs) 00:51, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Have been looking at this sort of thing. But General Fixes are currently mainly on hold, because there are a couple people object to a couple of them. Rich Farmbrough, 11:03, 2 April 2010 (UTC).

Coalition Casualties Update

http://www.icasualties.org/OEF/Index.aspx

1707 killed(US:1032, UK: 279, Others: 396)

8,938+ wounded(US: 5,393[1], UK: 3,545[2])119.152.83.251 (talk) 09:46, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Soapy Smith

Please be careful when using automated tools, because you broke a template in your recent edit of Soapy Smith. I have fixed the error. —Notyourbroom (talk) 16:21, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your note, it was manual. Rich Farmbrough, 17:30, 4 April 2010 (UTC).

AWB

I tried it out yesterday. I am afraid it seemed to me to be the kind of tool that only seems obviously easy to use to those already familiar.

I couldn't figure out, for example, the automatic find and replace, or the automated prepend feature.

I'll keep trying... Geo Swan (talk) 00:00, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps

Would you care to move {{Inuse}} to {{In use}}, {{Increation}} to {{In creation}}, and {{Newpage}} to {{New page}}? Debresser (talk) 06:22, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes I cared. Rich Farmbrough, 15:28, 4 April 2010 (UTC).
Thanks. Debresser (talk) 19:59, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 5 April 2010

Amish school shooting @Amish response with forgiveness

Rich, your smackbot apparently found dead links and when I tried to correct one by substitute the archive.org link [128] and deleting the dead link notation between the {{}} for reference 17, it still shows as a dead link. Maybe if you'll tell me why I can ask http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jared_Hunt to work on some others, as he worked on the original article and his bio notes he likes to fix references. BTW, grammatically, maybe the section title should be "respond" --Beth Wellington (talk) 05:25, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! It was 17 when I edited it????--Beth Wellington (talk) 08:51, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

It may be a mess, but I need to work on the Montcoal disaster, not this. Just happened by to look up a reference for my blog post on Fred Phelps, who is coming to Blacksburg. See: Shout out to the Naughty: Fred Phelps May Be Coming to Town. Just as he picketed the memorial service for the Sago Mine disaster, now he's also threatening to come to WV for the Montcoal disaster.

Do you have suggestions for what the Amish article needs, besides the dead links fixed?--Beth Wellington (talk) 09:25, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Oops, it appears that Mr. Hunt hasn't been on Wikipedia since maybe 2006. He started off going great guns, but something must have happened. Maybe I'll look through the history and find someone else later, but for now, I'm on to my other projects. Cheers.--Beth Wellington (talk) 10:13, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

AWB bug input: template doc subpages

AWB bug input: Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs#Issues_with_Template:Xxxx.2Fdoc_pages_.28part_II.29. I've addressed the {PAGENAME} issue. What, if anything is AWB needed to do over the DEFAULTSORT? Rjwilmsi 17:42, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Well I am uneasy about this, but to conform to the current doc pages, not add a DEFAULTSORT. The header template {{Template doc page transcluded}}/{{Template doc page viewed directly}} => {{Documentation subpage}} adds this code: {{DEFAULTSORT:{{{defaultsort|{{PAGENAME}}}}}}} (and that is after I added the parameter to allow overriding). This seems to me unfortunate as it stops custom DEFAULTSORTS being used unless you know the template has an override - and anyway the top of the doc page is an odd place to put it for either the doc or the template. Arguably we could make things better by replacing the cliché

<includeonly>{{template doc page transcluded}}</includeonly><noinclude>{{template doc page viewed directly}}</noinclude>

with

<includeonly>{{template doc page transcluded|defaultsort=Title Cased Template Name}}</includeonly><noinclude>{{template doc page viewed directly|defaultsort=Title Cased Documentation Name}}</noinclude>

Rich Farmbrough, 07:29, 9 April 2010 (UTC).

Dead end

In this edit I had to restore the spelling "dead-end", to avoid problems with categorisation, although I think it should be "dead end". We also have Wikipedia:Dead-end pages. Should they be moved to "dead end"? Debresser (talk) 09:36, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi Debresser. Just noticed your inquiry. If I'm not mistaken, whenever the phrase is used as an adjective, the hyphen should be used, as in "dead-end street" and "dead-end pages". If the phrase is on its own as a noun, then no hyphen should be used, as in, "That street is a dead end".
 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  12:40, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for commenting. If that is correct, then I off course have no further questions. Debresser (talk) 14:42, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Look up dead-end or dead end in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
I believe that is close to the final word - for me the important thing is avoiding ambiguity, even spurious ambiguity which makes stuff harder to parse. So as there are end-pages of books, I would tend to hyphenate "dead-end page" to distinguish it from "dead end-page". Similarly "light-green jacket" is not a "light green-jacket" or even a "green light jacket". The Wiktionary examples, incidentally include both hyphenated and unhyphenated noun forms. Rich Farmbrough, 08:07, 9 April 2010 (UTC).
Thanks. Also a good argument. Debresser (talk) 18:26, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

STOPnote from 5 April

I left the following STOPnote on SmackBot's Talk page back on the 5th...

STOP Re: Hatnotes !

The note's since been erased, but I haven't been notified of any action taken. Was the bot repaired?
 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  12:26, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I would need to investigate whether this is still a problem for SB, I think not though. I will drop a note at the AWB pages. Rich Farmbrough, 03:25, 9 April 2010 (UTC).
Thank you, Rich!  —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  02:03, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Feature request for Template:Failed verification

Rich,

Since you've worked on the template in the past, could you please consider adding links to talk page to Template:Failed verification. Otherwise, could you comment at the discussion.

Thanks, SteveMcCluskey (talk) 22:16, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Done. Rich Farmbrough, 07:55, 9 April 2010 (UTC).

Antineutrino edits

A "bot" has apparently reversed some of the edits I made to antineutrino. I've been trying to merge it with neutrino--Robert Treat (talk) 22:38, 9 April 2010 (UTC).

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 20:08, 12 April 2010 (UTC).

A question on AWB settings

Hi Rich,

I was wondering if you could help me.

On the Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Settings page, I have noticed a number of scripts written by you.

I clicked on one, Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Settings/Full date unlinking, which reveals a page of code.

I'm not quite sure of the next step.

Could you tell me how to import this code in AWB in order to make use of the feature?

Kind Regards -- Marek.69 talk 23:44, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the quick response, Rich
One more question, if I may, can I use more than one of these scripts at once, e.g. ‘Full date unlinking’ and ‘/Removing caps in headers’, at the same time in AWB?
Regards -- Marek.69 talk 23:57, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
OK, that sounds a little complicated (and likely to introduce errors)
I think I will stick by running them one a time to begin with.
Thank you for all your help Rich, its much appreciated :-)
Kind Regards -- Marek.69 talk 00:16, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot and legitimate orphans

SmackBot recently tagged SATA International destinations as an orphan [129]. However, in the case of articles such as this, their status as an orphan is entirely legitimate (the airline article, rather than the list, should be linked to). I'd actually removed the tag earlier in the day. How can situations like this be avoided? (See the discussion I've started at Wikipedia talk:Orphan#Airline destination lists.) Thanks, --RFBailey (talk) 04:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I mentioned you in a bot request

The Wikipedia Signpost: 12 April 2010

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SmackBot

What exactly was the point of most of this big edit? Is there not a general principle that if it is just editorial style changes that does not affect the view of the article, then such changes should not be made as it makes it difficult for editors to keep track of changes? -- PBS (talk) 01:37, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Well it's fairy modest, but your point is well made I will ponder it. Rich Farmbrough, 02:00, 17 April 2010 (UTC).

Smackbot XXV

Task approved. Snowolf How can I help? 03:30, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

Hi Rich! Thank you for checking my new (and first) article. I added now links to diferent pages in Wiki so it would not be orphan anymore. "Stockholm Lisboa Project" page. One more question I don't know how to handle is . I created first the page with small caps on "lisboa" and "project", this was wrong. Then I created the page with big caps "Stockholm Lisboa Project" and moved the other to this. How to delete the first attempt with small "l" and small "p"?

Thank you! Regards Sergiosbox (talk) 06:14, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

It is fine to leave the redirect to Stockholm Lisboa Project. Redirects are cheap - so cheap that they cost less to leave than to delete in some ways. {{Orphan}} refers to pages with no links from other articles. Adding sensible links to other articles is a Good Thing[TM], however. Rich Farmbrough, 13:30, 17 April 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Hi, I was wondering if you could change:

Rationales:

  • This will reduce the confusing templates
  • Both otheruses templates redirect to the above latter templates

TIA174.3.123.220 (talk) 20:53, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Already does this in passing. Note that it is {{Other uses}} now. Rich Farmbrough, 22:14, 17 April 2010 (UTC).
No mass change in this way should be made while the RFD is open. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:56, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
That's not what is being asked for here if you read the botreq. Rich Farmbrough, 03:05, 18 April 2010 (UTC).
I didn't know there was a botreq; I was just following up on the IP's edits. The IP has already asked at least one other bot operator to do a mass change, which would not be appropriate while the RFD is open. I know you would check before actually doing a 15,000 page bot run, I just wanted to leave a pointer since I have already mentioned the same thing to some other bot operator. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:08, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Too Short

The Too Short Template {Too Short} keeps giting confused by Smack Bot that it means Lead Too Short which it doesnt. And it removes the Too Short Template and puts

such as this edit Have any way to stop this STAT- Verse 07:07, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually that is exactly what {{Too short}} means. Maybe you are looking for {{Expand}}? Rich Farmbrough, 07:11, 18 April 2010 (UTC).
No in case u didn't know there is a rapper named Too Short and his template is Too Short which resalts in this
STAT- Verse 07:14, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Of course there is a rapper called Too Short.. sigh.. thanks for telling me. Lets dot this one out. Rich Farmbrough, 07:15, 18 April 2010 (UTC).
 Fixed Rich Farmbrough, 14:06, 18 April 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot formatting citations

Hi; I've noticed that SmackBot changes "year" fields in citations to "date". However, User:RjwilmsiBot changes "date" fields in citations to "year". I see potential for conflict so I'm cross-posting this to both bot's owners. - JRBrown (talk) 01:49, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 02:00, 17 April 2010 (UTC).
Follow-up to that regarding this edit: in some cases, the use of |date= for a year alone, without day or month, can break {{harv}} linking (it doesn't always do so, I can't yet determine the circumstances). Also in your changes to that article, I see no sensible reason for any of these changes, except for the DEFAULTSORT one.
In particular, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of railway-related articles which use the {{stnlnk}} template (or one of its five aliases such as {{rws}}), so has this been discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways? --Redrose64 (talk) 12:41, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
The cite templates have special code to deal with Harvard referencing. They use the date field if no year field is present, and combine it with the author name. There are some 700 articles where the year is not set to a plain year, about half of these use Harvard referencing in a template, some of the rest use it in text format. In any case it is a little odd to have "year = 2007g ", although that is a slightly different matter, this can be handled by the ref field in a number of ways (1. ref=Godd2006g, 2. using CITEREF, 3 modifying cite php or allowing page variables - which are the best because they would avoid leaving gaps and all the other problems associated with manually maintaining a sequence), or by having a new field (remember in these cases you might need a date field AND a year field, in all other cases it is a Bad Thing to have both).
In the case of of rws/stnlnk there are three things going on here;
  1. there is a template name that is not particularly readable. I thought, for example, that RWS might be Victorian train company I hadn't heard of, or the Railway Society, maybe they had a link, or some special reference work. Similarly Stnlnk, although I was pretty sure it meant "station link" I expected it to be an external link, or possibly something to do with a railway use of the word "link" (as in Alençon Link perhaps).
  2. the template name is a short-cut - basically it save typing and reduces errors
  3. the substituted code is a slightly verbose [[Xxxxxxxx Yyyyyy railway station|Xxxxxx yyyyyyy]] construct - but one we encounter a lot, not just with railway stations. This is possibly the critical point on my mind at the moment.
This is why I haven't done anything substantive at the moment. Options are varied and with various pros and cons
  1. do nothing - pros;easy, cons; readability
  2. move all templates to Stnlnk or Station link or Railway station link - pros; easy, cons still not intuitive for new editors
  3. subst all templates; pros; easy, action of link readable - con; wiki code slightly cluttered
  4. create or find a generic "back extension" template something like {{X|Display bit|extra bit for link}} {{City state}} is a little like this. Pros; easy, wiki-wide, reads forward. Cons, might need special handling for separators, still adds learning curve.
  5. Ask for a MediaWiki extension, something like [[Basingstoke|| railway station]]. Pros, highly readable, low learnign curve, fits existing syntax. Cons, people might have trouble with ||, might take several years to happen.
Rich Farmbrough, 15:19, 17 April 2010 (UTC).
I know what the citation templates are supposed to do with dates to allow Harvard ref linking; the point is, it doesn't always work. If |date= contains all three components of a full date, it works fine. But if the day is unknown and therefore omitted, sometimes an incomplete |date= works but sometimes it doesn't, so it's safest to omit |date= and instead use |year= (and |month= if you have one).
Consider this; refs 5, 26, 42, 64 are "Oppitz 2003". The Harvard ref (which here is done using {{sfn}}) correctly creates a link to #CITEREFOppitz2003; however, clicking any of these four does not move to the "Sources" section. Examination of the wikicode shows that the {{cite book}} has |date=2003; but examination of the HTML source code shows that the generated anchor is <span class="citation book" id="CITEREFOppitz2010">. I have absolutely no idea why "2010" has been used instead of "2003"; what I do know is that if I change |date=2003 to |year=2003, as here, the generated HTML anchor becomes <span class="citation book" id="CITEREFOppitz2003"> and the shortened footnote now links correctly: #CITEREFOppitz2003.
Also, please examine the first diff that I gave: by changing |year=1976 to |date=1976 you changed this:
  • Conolly, W. Philip (1976). British Railways Pre-Grouping Atlas and Gazetteer (5th ed.). Shepperton: Ian Allan. ISBN 0 7110 0320 3. EX/0176. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
to this
  • Conolly, W. Philip (1976). British Railways Pre-Grouping Atlas and Gazetteer (5th ed.). Shepperton: Ian Allan. ISBN 0 7110 0320 3. EX/0176. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
that is, |month=January is now ignored.
I would still like to see consensus obtained from Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Railways before further removal of {{stnlnk}}. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:45, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
OK cite book is bugged I will fix that presently.
The month point it one I have become aware of, and will be avoiding that problem.
AS I indicated above I am not looking to do anything much with stnlink in the short term.
Rich Farmbrough, 23:14, 18 April 2010 (UTC).
Fix for cite book at {{Cite book/sandbox}}. Doing some extensive testing. Rich Farmbrough, 01:26, 19 April 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot uncommenting template

In this edit, SmackBot moved a template ({{dab}}) from inside a comment to outside the comment. Probably not a good idea .... --R'n'B (call me Russ) 10:04, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, looking into it. Rich Farmbrough, 16:00, 17 April 2010 (UTC).
Seems to not be happening with the latest AWB. Rich Farmbrough, 04:45, 19 April 2010 (UTC).
Hm, yes it does. Bug filed. Rich Farmbrough, 13:42, 19 April 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot - removing urls from dead link template

Any idea why SmackBot would have removed urls from two dead link templates in this edit? I think the url use follows the template correctly, and Wayback Machine archives do exist for these pages so the links serve a purpose. Ryan Paddy (talk) 20:23, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes some idea, it's not deliberate. For some reason it is interpreting it as part of the date field, I think. This is odd because there are other examples in the same article where it does not do that. Rich Farmbrough, 20:33, 18 April 2010 (UTC).
Ok this is an AWb issue, it seems to count the |url= as part of the URL - since I told it to ignore URLS, the } is taken as the delimiter of a strange date field. Raising a bug. Rich Farmbrough, 01:24, 19 April 2010 (UTC).
Thanks Rich. Ryan Paddy (talk) 02:27, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot removing blank lines

Hi Rich, in at least one article SmackBot has removed the single blank lines after section titles. As the WP MoS declares these lines optional and many editors, including myself, think that they make the article source more readable, the removal by SmackBot doesn't seem appropriate. Would you please modify the, otherwise much appreciated, bot accordingly? Many thanks, --EnOreg (talk) 09:40, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Done. Rich Farmbrough, 13:02, 19 April 2010 (UTC).
Great--thanks much! --EnOreg (talk) 13:24, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Template subst issue

Here is a strange edit [130]. I'm leaving it here so as not to stop the bot. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:37, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

More: [131]

Yes I'm aware of it. Due to users fiddling with the line I think. I put a tempfix, but ha to regenerate the ruleset for other reasons. Rich Farmbrough, 15:28, 20 April 2010 (UTC).
Either that or the start template was broken. Whichever it has now been fixed to avoid this problem. Rich Farmbrough, 15:36, 20 April 2010 (UTC).
Interesting to note how many links there were to these non-existent templates, maybe a dozen to 2010, 6 to 2009 and a few to 2008. Rich Farmbrough, 18:28, 20 April 2010 (UTC).


I think that having a robot re-order the sequences of grouped citations is a bad idea

I think that having a robot re-order the sequences of grouped citations is a bad idea. That the choice of which cite to put first is a part of editor content and should not be automatically undone by a robot. Sincerely North8000 (talk) 11:12, 21 April 2010 (UTC)


The Wikipedia Signpost: 19 April 2010

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SmackBot

Hello ! I saw that you've contributed to do the article on Kappa Opioid receptors and I wondered if you could tell me where they are situated in the brain (not in the spinal cord), in which part of the brain they are situated.

I am doing a work on salvia dovinorum and I talk a lot about Salvinorin A, so knowing where its agonist receptor (the opioid kappa) is located will help me a lot to know how Salvinorin A affects the brain !

And sorry for my english, it's really bad lol (I'm French ...^^)

please answer to b2o.marc of gmail.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by Evendar (talk • contribs) 17:19, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Hello! Thanks for your message. Unfortunately (or fortunately) User:SmackBot is a WP:BOT, an automated process, and has little or no understanding of these matters, yet. Rich Farmbrough, 17:24, 21 April 2010 (UTC).

Edit Request(Coalition Casualties Update)

1,733 killed(US:1047, UK: 281, Others: 405)[3]

9,967+ wounded(US: 5,629[4], UK: 3,608[5], Canada : +400[6], Germany: 166, Australia: 120[7], Romania: 44[8])

Please update War in Afghanistan(2001-present) article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_%282001%E2%80%93present%29 

119.152.61.170 (talk) 04:15, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Copied to article talk page by Rich Farmbrough, 04:22, 22 April 2010 (UTC).
Except it is already there. Rich Farmbrough, 04:24, 22 April 2010 (UTC).

institute for policy studies

Hi again Mr. Farmbrough. Apparently I'm involved in an edit war again with user annonymous who has been blanking information that I've been putting up. Is there anyway I can report this person to the Wikipedia administrators? Fellytone (talk) 16:52, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 16:58, 22 April 2010 (UTC).

Articles with sections needing rewrite progress

Are you still using this template? Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 15:19, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Category:Articles with sections needing rewrite has been deleted, so no. Rich Farmbrough, 15:22, 23 April 2010 (UTC).
Great, I deleted the template. That's one more off the orphan list. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 20:40, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Central Intelligence Agency Office of Inspector General

thanks Decora (talk) 13:49, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Infobox journalist

Can you please comment in User_talk:Magioladitis#Another bot job? -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:32, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Merge categories?

I just now noticed Category:Too long article in {{Very long}}. Shouldn't that be merged with Category:Articles that may be too long? If you think it shold, you could either do it, or I could nominate them at WP:CFD for a merge. Debresser (talk) 11:18, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

It's just the "all articles " version. But it seem unnecessary to have it in the template, like the other "all articles" categories. Rich Farmbrough, 11:25, 25 April 2010 (UTC).
I see. Are you up to tackling them already? At least I think it should be renamed from Category:Too long article to Category:All articles that may be too long, don't you think so? Debresser (talk) 11:30, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
I adjusted the template. Rich Farmbrough, 11:55, 25 April 2010 (UTC).
In the best possible way, if you ask me. Debresser (talk) 12:12, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Did you see the categories of Template:Very short?? Debresser (talk) 12:23, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned this recently created template, in use on 1 article precisely, can be nominated for deletion. Debresser (talk) 12:30, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Replaced, there. Rich Farmbrough, 12:32, 25 April 2010 (UTC).
Nominated on Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2010_April_25#Template:Very_short. Please add your opinion there. Debresser (talk) 12:35, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Should I remove that nomination, now that you have redirected it to {{Expand}}? Debresser (talk) 12:37, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Just close it as speedied. I deleted two fo the redirects and redirected the other two. Time for some sleep. Rich Farmbrough, 12:38, 25 April 2010 (UTC).

Citation requested at Bazooka article

Dear Rich, You left a citation note at the Bazooka article at the Korean War section for a reference on the Chinese copying the 3.5-inch. I thought that was incorrect but I dragged out a copy of Janes Infantry Weapon 1976 and it states the Chinese did indeed copy the 3.5-inch as the Type 51. I left a reference and I hope that is adequate. I can find nothing else. Jack --Jackehammond (talk) 06:06, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Dear Rich, Could you go to this Bazooka history page. It shows my account inserting a vandalism comment which I did not do?????? Jack--Jackehammond (talk) 17:16, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

SmackBot has completely blanked the Paramore article except for issue tags, twice. One of those revisions is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paramore&oldid=358276715. Thought you should know. Katharineamy (talk) 21:22, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, there is an AWB bugfix for this I think. Rich Farmbrough, 21:32, 25 April 2010 (UTC).

Floruit

Hi. I see that you have been linking floruit or fl. in a large number of articles. Please note however that the linked article Floruit says that this term should only be used when the birth and death dates are both unknown, which is more often true for persons who lived centuries ago. For persons who are still alive or who lived more recently, the birth (and death) dates are often in the article (or else can be found quickly with Google). So it would really be better to check whether the fl. is appropriate before linking it. If not you could substitute the birth (and death) dates, as I have now done for Stanley Norman Cohen in Cohen (surname). Dirac66 (talk) 22:38, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I did kinda write that, so maybe I have to take responsibility if it misleads, it is certainly the case however that you can write fl.1453, d. 1496. (the birth or death dates are unknown) The purpose of the current exercise is just to provide the link, in case readers are not familiar with fl., however it might be worth revisiting by using "what links here" of Floruit and scanning for birth and death dates. Rich Farmbrough, 22:49, 25 April 2010 (UTC).

Blanked Thailand

This Smackbot edit: [132] ruined the good article Thailand. −Woodstone (talk) 06:57, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, was an AWB bug, now fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 07:03, 26 April 2010 (UTC).

Unsigned

Hi Rich. I noticed that Template:Unsigned has been changed recently. Do you think you could implement the same changes to Template:Unsignedip? Thanks, Dabomb87 (talk) 13:01, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Template:ISO 639 name zh-tw

Hi, this edit is more than fixing typo's but I have no idea if it is correct or not. Since you created the template, could you have a look? Garion96 (talk) 13:56, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Linked dates in [[File:]]

Rich,

By my reckoning, there must be at least 9,000 files/images which have linked dates or date fragments. Can you run SmackBot over these to delink the occurrences? Cheers, Ohconfucius ¡digame! 09:34, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Pages with full dates only, about 5000 of them. Will do the runs for days of the week and months of the year RSN. Rich Farmbrough, 16:52, 26 April 2010 (UTC).
I'm pretty sure the "date=" parameter in {{Information}} is supposed to reduced to ISO 8601 format rather than words. I don't see a mention on the English template, but on Commons it's explicitly requested, and I think a bot changes them there, because Information on Commons translates it into the native language. You may want to have SmackBot use ISO format on at least the date= parameter (or the whole description if the bot doesn't know what's in a template and what's not) so that useful files are already prepared for moving to Commons. (I know it would be probably be a lot of extra work to distinguish Commons-usable free images from unmovable non-free images unless the bot is already working on that, so just reducing them all to ISO 8601 is easier.) --Closeapple (talk) 00:05, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
If you can demonstrate consensus for that I am more than happy to do it. Just needs a BRFA. Rich Farmbrough, 00:08, 27 April 2010 (UTC).

Re: ISO 639 codes

Hi, thanks for your advises and suggestions to me! According to the lang-code used in Chinese Wikipedia, the related templates here become more and more complex on facing to the non-Chinese users, and I found that they may not standardized enough and even would possibly make confusion on some of other fields.

As the "yue"="Cantonese" is an easy definable code, we, the most of Chinese wikipedians, believe that "zh-hk" is for the different way/style of using phrases to describe a same object in Chinese, where not based on pronunciation but the writing system and culture differences, as well as the "zh-cn", "zh-tw", and "zh-sg". So, why using "zh-hk" for "Cantonese" again? Do English users think that Guangdong/Hongkong/Macao people only can speak their mother tang? It should be related to Mandarin Chinese and not fully associated with other dialects spoken in Chinese areas.

BTW, when I reading the source of templates, the customized name for displaying seems no more supported. For example, "{{langicon|es|The Spanish Language}}" will show as (in Spanish), where "The Spanish Language" after "es" is ignored.

For you to understand how we Chinese Wikipedians use it in usual, it to ensure that "zh-cn"="Simplified Chinese (PRC)", "zh-hk"="Traditional Chinese (HK/Macao)", "zh-tw"="Traditional Chinese (Taiwan)", and "zh-sg"="Simplified Chinese (SG/MYS)".

Regards. --Gzyeah (talk) 17:32, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Speech puntuation

This article's edit history has you as the only editor. What's the story here? Was it a redirect, or something? Woogee (talk) 01:49, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Thought it was something like that. It just occurred to me I should have checked the deletion log.  :) Woogee (talk) 01:53, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi Rich

Added links to the Silver Star Families of America and removed orphan tag. Thank you for your help my friend. Steven1969 (talk) 02:10, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 26 April 2010

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 13:09, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

The note the bot left on Gert Potgieter contains a misspelling. "(add listas from aticle's DEFAULTSORT)" I assume it is misspelling "article" in all such notes.Trackinfo (talk) 18:01, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, goes to show bots are only human. (Fixed.) Rich Farmbrough, 18:20, 27 April 2010 (UTC).

Adding DEFAULTSORTS that match the MediaWiki default

By the way, please consider creating a manual review list of DEFAULTSORT edits. This has a one word title so was not needed. I have a, perhaps unfounded, concern that Quantum gravity may get a DEFAULTSORT of Gravity, quantum, without human review, or that the bot makes many unnecessary edits.

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 12:46, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Hellespont

Was (and is) a redirect to Dardenelles and had WPBio on it's talk page. Presumably some older version had biography of Lord Byron on it. Therin lies the rub, to follow or not to follow redirects? In this case SmackBot followed the redirect, and I too the WPBIO off the talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 00:09, 28 April 2010 (UTC).

Hellespont is ok because you fixed it yourself (thanks!) WPBio was added to Talk:Dardanelles by YoBot and ListasBot. If SmackBot followed ListasBot then I guess the problem lies there.

However, in the cases of Rockers Revenge [133] Ren Ng [134] and Steinunn Refsdóttir [135], it seems ListasBot did the right thing, but SmackBot still guessed incorrectly at a DEFAULTSORT. I wonder if this affected other articles in yesterday's run.

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 04:47, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Ren Ng

I added Ren as a Chinese surname, which may be wrong, I need to check. I will add Ng as a surname at some point, which can overrule the Chinese. Icelandic and Viking names will need treating differently, there are heavy hints for the former (the Iclandic name template for example). But I removed a very large number of items from the "articles without listas" category yesterday, and it is such a complex field I am relatively pleased with the outcome so far. Although there are still many more I can do, it is quite tedious, even bot assisted so I will likely not attack the problem again for a few days. Rich Farmbrough, 04:54, 28 April 2010 (UTC).

Good point. There remains some concern in my mind that when the bot goes beyond English-speaking countries, it may be making a noticeable proportion of errors that may be hard to spot and fix. I would guess that more than 5% errors would be too high, but my Mandarin Chinese is too poor to check, and I know none of the Norse languages. (My username looks Icelandic but is actually pinched from Old English.)

Anyway, I don't want to drag you into a new debate over things that I have no doubt you discussed elsewhere. Could you post a link to the relevant bot approval please?

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 05:16, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

There was little discussion, you will find more on the talk page of the listas category. Basically what I did was thin the list by insisting that the names be of the form Fred A. B. Bloggs, where Fred was a popular western first name, on this list I allowed AWB to have its way. Then I build another list of articles which should have an in-order DEFAULTSORT , DJ Bloggs, Blah blah (band), Xyz baronets, Milo XX and so forth. The sticking point has been "Arabic" names since these can have up to five parts, and we should in theory sort on the last, but we don't always have that bit, so they tend to be used unsorted, but no-one has bitten the bullet an actually given any of them DEFAUTLSORTS of listas (and some of the claimed Arabic names are actually Pashtun , but that's another story.) As a result since so many begin with "ab" the listas category has stayed pretty blocked. Rich Farmbrough, 05:56, 28 April 2010 (UTC).

  1. My concern is not the listas category, which is administrative and is worth as much bot muscle as you can offer, per Category_talk:Biography_articles_without_listas_parameter#A_little_progress
  2. SmackBot's work on DEFAULTSORT seems troublesome. The approval says "where there is an unambiguous sort key given to existing categories", and I am not sure that a category of all Chinese people (for example) is unambiguous (though I imagine easier than Arabic, especially where Persians, Turks, and Americans, for example, have Arabic names).
  3. Please don't add in-order DEFAULTSORTs.
--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 08:06, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for cleaning up List_of_English_Writers. Makes all the difference. Bmcln1 (talk) 12:05, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Proper use of CfD tag

When tagging a category for deletion, please use {{subst:cfd}}, in stead of copying {{cfd full}}. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:56, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Brooklyn College APD

How can I link this to the Alpha Phi Delta National Fraternity Page?

This is just one of the chapters.

Burg (talk) 15:45, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Floruit

Watch out what you are doing with AWB - you added an unneeded self-referencing wikilink in the Floruit article. :) LadyofShalott 16:00, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Rich Farmbrough, 16:30, 28 April 2010 (UTC).

mos collision

Hi, You recently edited Orca (disambiguation) to add a link to floruit. I think that is not a good idea. I think the correct MOS here is MOS:DAB which reads, "Each bulleted entry should have exactly one navigable (blue) link to efficiently guide users to the most relevant article for each use of the ambiguous term. Do not wikilink any other words in the line." I think the point is that a dab page is designed to get a reader to the page that they really wanted to get to in the first place, it is not like a usual article where wikilinks are used for arborization. 018 (talk) 01:45, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

I am familiar with MOSDAB, and I agree that in the case of Orca loosing the link to fl does not cost much (although I can't seriously think someone would click fl. instead of "Quintus Valerius Orca", nor yet find themselves overwhelmed by the multiplicity of links). However on other dab pages not knowing the meaning of fl. could easily lead to the wrong ramification. Rich Farmbrough, 01:53, 29 April 2010 (UTC).
I think there is a lot to be said with keeping the blue specific to the word in question on a DAB page. When I come to a DAB page lain out like this, it is so much easier to read and find what I'm looking for. You also appear to have used in inappropriate pipe on the same page. I undid it. I don't see any exception for states. 018 (talk) 02:02, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

not knowing the meaning of fl. could easily lead to the wrong ramification. I think in those ambiguous cases, if we expand the abbreviation in English, or explain it, it would work better than a blue link. Not everyone is accurate with a mouse, and an extra blue link could be seriously annoying to someone using keyboard navigation or a screen reader. Just my 2 drachma. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 06:26, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

I also just have a hard time imaging looking for someone born centuries ago, not knowing what fl. means and getting confused by it. I would say that in the case of Constantine_I_(disambiguation), it is not necessary to link that fl.. In the case of John_Hart_(disambiguation), I can see the argument, but I wonder if the fl. dates are useful at all or if naming the single thing James L. Hart did would be more useful. 018 (talk) 14:29, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Disruptive editor

Hi there. Do you have time to please look into this issue? There's a disruptive editor who goes against community consensus, and who apparently wants to engage me in an edit war. Thank you. Amsaim (talk) 09:00, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

SmackBot added tags to a page that has the {{nobots}} tag. I am not sure if this is a problem but it caused the maintenance tags to be transcluded onto Preamble to the United States Constitution. I have removed the maintenance tags. ~~ GB fan ~~ talk 11:34, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Fixed, largely. {{Tl|nobots}] was never meant as a long term hack in article space, but we never really got to grips with transcluding content wiki-wide. Rich Farmbrough, 16:10, 29 April 2010 (UTC).

References section on disambig page

A little concerned about SmackBot adding a Refs section to a disambiguation page -- shouldn't he know not to do that? Disambiguation pages should never have references. Propaniac (talk) 16:26, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

It picked up thisversion of the page which was badly broken (not MoS broken), so it was a timing problem more than anything. But it is a useful point to consider. Rich Farmbrough, 16:30, 29 April 2010 (UTC).

Minor SmackBot Error

In this edit, the line "|orphan =April {2010" was added instead of "|orphan =April 2010". I didn't feel like it was important enough to stop the bot though. :) Sorafune +1 00:10, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Another example: [136] John of Reading (talk) 06:17, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Already fixed, along with a small bunch of others. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 06:18, 30 April 2010 (UTC).

Pointless style changes

Hi, why are you making pointless whitespace changes like this with your AWB? Every once in a while I see people like you automatically converting articles to one style, then someone else comes along and converts them back to their preferred style. Nothing is improved, you only waste time of people who monitor their watchlist because it takes longer to figure out what content was changed. -- intgr [talk] 01:39, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

  • I believe the real edit was the removal of the category, as indicated in the edit summary, which serves no encyclopaedic function. The whitespace/CR removals were merely incidental. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:48, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
    • Yes edit summaries are cool, I should use them more. Rich Farmbrough, 01:53, 1 May 2010 (UTC).
I understand that the reason for the edit was this category. But then why do you need to do several unrelated and unhelpful edits, to no benefit, based on your subjective whitespace preferences? -- intgr [talk] 02:08, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
Well they wouldn't justify a separate edit. Of article headers, over 80% use that style,[citation needed] so it is not purely subjective. But it's not a big deal either. Rich Farmbrough, 02:25, 1 May 2010 (UTC).
If it's not a big deal, then don't touch it. Even if that 80% figure were true -- maybe because your automated edits have touched 80% of Wikipedia -- there is no consensus. In fact, various tools like the article wizard and "new section" on talk pages create sections with spaces. And many people prefer that style.
  1. Please point me to a consensus
  2. Please explain why the no-spaces style is preferable?
  3. Back up your figures -- intgr [talk] 11:14, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

High school coordinates

Dear Mr. Farmbrough,

I notice that you gave the coordinates here with your bot for this high school in BC, Canada. I have been adding some high res. photos to some schools in Surrey BC, Canada (in Metro Vancouver) and it would be nice, if you (or your bot) had some time, to add coordinates to other high school articles below which I provided photos for....just to give a sense of completion to them. Its a slightly long list below. So, please take your time--if you can--adding coordinates in your free time:

I hope you can help. PS: I am a trusted user on Commons but mastering metadata coordinates is beyond my scope. Regards from Canada, --Leoboudv (talk) 06:31, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

This was added a long time ago here. Having said that I can look at my database.Rich Farmbrough, 06:47, 1 May 2010 (UTC).

imprl

If you're going to continue running the AWB task for a long period of time, you might wanna fix the spelling of "Imperial" that you have. :-) I wasn't going to mention it, but it seems you have a long list. Killiondude (talk) 07:31, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, sorted. Rich Farmbrough, 07:33, 1 May 2010 (UTC).

Unit pref

Your plan sounds like a good one, but it would be great if we could use a term other than Imperial, since Imperial units are not square miles. The areadisp subtemplate has a list of alternatives. Or if there is an even better label not included here, we could always use that and convert all transclusions to that term using a bot. This could be a good idea, since we could then strip out all the other choices from the switch statement. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 15:13, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Removing auto-categorization at Template:Infobox law enforcement agency

See reply on my talk page. Vegaswikian (talk) 16:23, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Template:Quick commune19

Are you still using this, or should it be deleted? Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 03:49, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

And Template:Blank alba infobox? Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 03:57, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 15:50, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Portals

I think it would be useful if you could do similar changes to Template:Portal box as you did at Template:Portal. Thanks -- WOSlinker (talk) 08:42, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

A12 Authentication

Hi Rick and all,    While going through this A12 page, i thought of posting a question related to this. In my view A12 authentication is not required at all. What is requires is return of MN-ID from AAA. Having said that i'd say AAA need not require to check for password value. AAA need to play a role of Authorizer only. AAA should get IMSI/ESN from request and return corrosponding MN-ID into RADIUS Callback-ID attribute.    Please throw a proper light on same. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sumit.pandya (talk • contribs) 09:05, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Well the IMSI is public knowledge. Having said that I have no idea how these things work. You could try the author of the A12 Authentication article. Rich Farmbrough, 09:16, 3 May 2010 (UTC).

Discrete mathematics

I haven't quite understood some of your edits to Discrete mathematics: you appear to have inserted some portal test code, which then interfered with your attempt to state the portal name directly. I've changed the portal reference to what I think you intended (diff). -- Radagast3 (talk) 09:25, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Well the end result is good, the first was to check default behaviour with no icon, I have since added an icon for Discrete mathematics, so that plus your edit, it's all good. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 15:34, 3 May 2010 (UTC).

Speedy deletion of Template:Portal/Images/paleontology

A tag has been placed on Template:Portal/Images/paleontology requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section T3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a deprecated or orphaned template. After seven days, if it is still unused and the speedy deletion tag has not been removed, the template will be deleted.

If the template is intended to be substituted, please feel free to remove the speedy deletion tag and please consider putting a note on the template's page indicating that it is substituted so as to avoid any future mistakes (<noinclude>{{transclusionless}}</noinclude>).

Thanks. Svick (talk) 09:30, 3 May 2010 (UTC)


Speedy deletion of Template:Portal/Images/Paleontology

A tag has been placed on Template:Portal/Images/Paleontology requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section T3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a deprecated or orphaned template. After seven days, if it is still unused and the speedy deletion tag has not been removed, the template will be deleted.

If the template is intended to be substituted, please feel free to remove the speedy deletion tag and please consider putting a note on the template's page indicating that it is substituted so as to avoid any future mistakes (<noinclude>{{transclusionless}}</noinclude>).

Thanks. Svick (talk) 09:30, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

AWB edits breaking WebCite links

Hello. I notice your edits titled "delinking ISO style dates using AWB" have been breaking all WebCite-archived sources. For instance, this edit replaced 

http://webcitation.org/query?date=2007-08-11&url=http://www.pgwodehousesociety.org.uk/awwwnorman.htm

with 

http://webcitation.org/query?date=11 August 2007&url=http://www.pgwodehousesociety.org.uk/awwwnorman.htm

Please check your logs to repair all that damage, and more importantly update your script. Thanks. 62.147.9.150 (talk) 11:37, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

This was nearly half a year ago. I can more usefully find all articles with invalid web-cites and fix them. Rich Farmbrough, 11:40, 3 May 2010 (UTC).

Aunt Dahlia and Gussie seem to be it. Rich Farmbrough, 13:19, 3 May 2010 (UTC).

Top Gun Talwar

What's up with Top Gun Talwar?

checkY Answered on user's talk page. 13:17, 3 May 2010 (UTC)~

Balko, Oklahoma

I am looking for information about Balko, OK. Why is it named Balko? Who was the first to settle there? Etc... Wbalko (talk) 14:51, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

You might want to ask at Wikipedia:WikiProject Oklahoma. Rich Farmbrough, 15:12, 3 May 2010 (UTC).

Rearranging references

You need to stop rearranging references. At your present edit rate, it is not possible that you are actually reading the text of the references and deciding which one is most relevant. Moreover, the AWB "rules of use" (see WP:AWB) are clear that one should not make edits merely to change the capitalization of templates. They also say that one should not do anything controversial with AWB - and rearranging references without reading them is certainly controversial. So edits such as [137] are inappropriate. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:11, 3 May 2010 (UTC)


That isn't true; I have seen other users bring it up, in other places. However, now that I have informed you, recommencing this series of edits would be appropriate. If you want to get a guideline that footnotes must be in numerical order, use WT:CITE. Lacking that, you need to follow the advice in WP:CITEHOW, which says to keep whatever style is established in each article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:15, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
Here [138] is a separate complaint about the rearranging. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:17, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
It's not a complain it's a query and the interlocutor says "there was nothing untoward in the reference re-ordering;". Rich Farmbrough, 13:21, 3 May 2010 (UTC).
It's a complaint. In any case, this is my notice: if you want to run a bot task to put all footnotes in numerical order, then get permission for it first. Otherwise, you should not be running a single-purpose task to rearrange them until you get such approval. It is extremely unlikely to run into so many pages with this problem unless you go out of your way to find them. Getting bot approval will first require actually getting a guideline that says the references need to be in numerical order; the present guideline says instead that you should leave the established style in each article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:25, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Regarding [139], the issue here is only for footnotes that are back-to-back, and the version you cited did not have any footnotes back to back, so it had nothing to say about them. The first edit to add named references put the footnotes out of order, so the "established style" for that article is that back-to-back footnotes do not need to be in numerical order. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:37, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

And this points out the essence of the problem: if you do not know about the topic of the article, and you have not read the references being given (not the citations, but the actual references), then you have no way to tell which order is better. In this case, the next edit [140] was not just a drive-by: the editor added a lot of information and apparently was familiar with the topic. That's the sort of person who should decide which reference is most important. In some cases, it may be better to rearrange them, but it requires careful article-by-article work, and cannot be done automatically. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:42, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

And this leads to a deeper problem: even if an article had in-order footnotes at some revision, the article could also be in the "most-important first" style. Without actually looking at the references of the article, there is no way to tell. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:48, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

But the truth of the matter is that the references have just got out of order. While I know you love policing minor edits and even better rolling them back, in the end these improvements will happen one way or another. In March there were over 15,000 articles with out of order references, a good 3,000 of those have been fixed, not by me. Many more may have been created. Similarly http style markup will continue to be replaced with wiki-markup, and obscure template names like otheruses4 will be replaced with about. Your rollbacks just waste your time and everyone else's, if you want to vandal-fight get Huggle and find some vandals, otherwise there's plenty of work to be done actually making stuff better rather than getting in the way of the people who are trying to do that. I already built in a versioning system, and hacked C sharp to stop changing , no: to stop correcting - reference order to keep you happy. And in the meanwhile I estimate over 100,000 minor fixes were lost - because you perceive that someone might have done, what they actually have never claimed to have done, on some article somewhere that might one day have its references re-arranged. I say, when it is actually a problem, then we deal with it. Why borrow trouble? Thousands of edits have lead to maybe three queries - and CBM. Rich Farmbrough, 14:24, 3 May 2010 (UTC).
The reason I feel strongly about the referencing rearranging is because it isn't a minor fix: the order of references is a key choice when writing, and should not be changed lightly. So the AWB changes don't make stuff better; instead, they destroy the effort of editors who went out of their way to arrange the references carefully.
Evidence rather than supposition points to it notbeing a choice. That is what I keep telling you. Not one person has said "my carefully ordered references were put out of order and now the article is broken".
The problem is that SmackBot didn't stop changing the reference order. I check the bot's contribs from time to time, and just this weekend SmackBot was still rearranging references, which is why I blocked it. It had two other errors that I also posted to the bot's page. You didn't reply there, but today you were manually rearranging references en masse. It's far from best practice to respond to a problem with a bot by making the bad edits yourself while the bot is blocked. I do not think it is likely that you would get a bot approval to rearrange references, and such things should not be done without approval once someone has objected.
Yes because it was doing a different task form a different computer, without the special hacked up CBM version of AWB. And mostly to articles with zero references, let alone 2 in a row.
The most productive thing here would be for us to figure out how to fix SmackBot once and for all, and then simply leave reference order to the editors of each article. I have been in touch with Magioladitis, and he is thinking of adding an option to AWB to be able to disable its controversial changes while keeping the other general fixes. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:44, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
As far as that goes Mag should look at my proposal on the matter. It is hard work to set up, but it would resolve the gen fixes disputes ongoing. Rich Farmbrough, 15:39, 3 May 2010 (UTC).

It's also inappropriate to run bot tasks under your own account while the bot is blocked (look at the history of [141]). — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:39, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

It happens I am prepared to do it manually, to protect the wiki from the consequences of other's foolish actions. You will notice the log was moved from being a bot log to a mere log of runs last time you engaged in this blocking activity. The runs are also being done on the hacked version of AWB, which means that and disordered references are staying disordered, therefore I am not working the claimed intention of your block, which is to keep the references out-of-order, despite no scrap of evidence supporting this as intended in even tiny minority of articles, let alone one which has sufficient currency to allow a significant number of other articles to be disfigured. Rich Farmbrough, 01:31, 4 May 2010 (UTC).
The issue is that when a bot is blocked because it is broken, it's not appropriate to run the task under your main account regardless whether you think the task is desirable. This is particularly true here, because you have had great difficulty keeping the bot under control. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

2010-5-3

In this edit [142] you changed "references" to "reflist". As WP:FOOT says, "The choice between {{Reflist}} and <references /> is a matter of style; Wikipedia does not have a general rule." As you are aware, WP:CITEHOW says not to change from one style to another at random. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to assume you have fixed the problem with your bot, and so I will not contest your unblocking of it, although I find it quite inappropriate to do so without contacting me. The next time that I need to block the bot, I'll take the matter to ANI as well. There is no reason that the same coding error should continue to (re)occur for months. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:29, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

As I point out in my block message, regardless whether you think it has good effects, there is no bot authorization to rearrange references. As I said, if I see this problem again, I will block the bot and take the matter to ANI. Unblocking your own bot in order to avoid fixing would be an abuse of your administrator abilities. However, I assume that in this case you have fixed the problem before unblocking the bot. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:59, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 3 May 2010

Template:Expand

Hi Rich,
do you have any plans on how Smackbot should handle {{expand}} and {{multiple issues|expand=...}}, regarding the TFD? It could probably remove the tag if an article is marked as a stub, as suggested.
Just asking since I was asked to remove it from {{multiple issues}}.
Cheers, Amalthea, watching your page. 12:37, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I can't believe that the tfD passed. Rich Farmbrough, 12:39, 4 May 2010 (UTC).
Heh, pretty much what I said, but I didn't follow the TfD. Amalthea 14:05, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
No I have picked myself up of the floor, SmackBot already does remove it from stubs. Rich Farmbrough, 12:54, 4 May 2010 (UTC).
:) Amalthea 14:05, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
There are on;y 20,000 uses of Expand, only 10% on stubs. WP:DRV? Rich Farmbrough, 23:57, 4 May 2010 (UTC).

Hey

How are you doing? You seem not yet reply me about this question for some weeks already.--Gzyeah (talk) 03:57, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Re:Ganeshbot stubs

Hello Rich,

Yes, some of the older stubs may have missing taxonomic cats. It is on my to do list to work on. Recently I have been making sure that the family categories do exist. I also make sure the articles do not link to disambiguation pages.

I think you are referring to the space in between <br and />. I will change it. Thanks for the tip. — Ganeshk (talk) 10:55, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot rearranging stub tags

Hi, though SmackBot is one of the best bots (and me saying that, it's no mean compliment ;-) ), I find it a bit irritating that it shuffles categories to above the stub tags.

Because I have found it makes editing easier when one puts the stub tag at the end of the "actual" article, offset with 2 empty lines (so that it will be a bit offset in the article as displayed - I think it's ugly when the stub note creeps up so closely on the article itself). And below the stub tag, categories, interwiki, defaultsort... - all the automatic tags that do not belong to the article proper. IONO how other users do it, but I think it has been the usual way as long as I can remember. It might also mess with footer infoboxes - these drop-down things -, but I have not checked (the infoboxes must not be offset, they will only look good when separated by one empty line from the main article).

IONO if this can be fixed, but I think it should, because it makes editing easier to have a clearly offset bunch of code where all these tags go. Now, one gets categories directly below the article proper, then a break, then the stub tag and the interwiki tags. Doesn't affect the output, but looks strange in the code - I always mentally "stumble" over it. Cheers, Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 11:09, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Heya... Saw your note on D's talk page. How about splitting the difference... literally. Move only the "-stub" templates below the categories. In theory, those templates will eventually get removed anyway. Just a suggestion. (And I'm a SmackBot fan, too! *grins*) - UtherSRG (talk) 11:51, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

That's what it does. Rich Farmbrough, 12:59, 5 May 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot & Template:IndigenousAustralia-stub

I think SmackBot is at least occasionally adding WPBIO templates incorrectly because the article has the above stub template eg [143] & [144]? Or that's what seems to be common to those 2, otherwise I can't work work out why it would be doing this. Misarxist (talk) 11:12, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes there's a problem with the stub category tree (these are sub-cats of "people stubs"). Back to the drawing board a bit on that one. Rich Farmbrough, 13:01, 5 May 2010 (UTC).

I imagine...

...that old habits die hard, but please see WP:NEWSECTION. Thanks! –xenotalk 17:00, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Hehe, I thought of you when I saw the edit, xeno. :)
Cheers, Amalthea 17:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
'Twas what prompted this note! ;> –xenotalk 17:13, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
'Tis what I thought. Amalthea 18:18, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Can be javascipted? Anyone? Rich Farmbrough, 23:55, 4 May 2010 (UTC).

 Fixed

Nice! You should copy/move it into a separate js so that xeno can advertise the script from now on. :) Cheers, Amalthea 08:55, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Anyone who actually knows javascript can improve it massively in a few moments. Rich Farmbrough, 08:58, 6 May 2010 (UTC).
That reminds me, MediaWiki code is modifying the section headers a little when it creates the auto summary: it will remove all "[[:", "[[", and "]]" for one. Amalthea 09:10, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

How did you add 5,000 WPBography that fast?

I am impressed. How did you generate this list? did you just run in subcategories of ...? Cheers, Magioladitis (talk) 15:15, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes see above. And pirates. Rich Farmbrough, 16:59, 5 May 2010 (UTC).
Better turn genfixes on. Genfixes for talk pages are 100% safe and we need to add missing headers. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:44, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Less than perfect edit

Just FYI, your edit added a really odd DEFAULTSORT, presumably an assistance script that choked on the malformatted existing category, or something. No biggie. Studerby (talk) 20:13, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you saw presumably that the was the apparent sort order of the only "category" there? maybe worth looking for more "non categories" like that, non-existant cats are already on my mind. Thanks for letting me know. Rich Farmbrough, 20:16, 5 May 2010 (UTC).

Thank you

Thank you, for your portal updates. -- Cirt (talk) 01:08, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome! Rich Farmbrough, 01:09, 6 May 2010 (UTC).

Hello

Not sure if your a bot or a real person! But if this is a bot pls be aware that it replacing portal links with there templates (this is great), however its doing it to the actual temples aswell, thus rendering the whole process useless. Pls see examples --> [145], [146] and [147] this are a few that i have seen. not sure if the bot has done this all over....just FYI i have fixed the ones i have seen...Moxy (talk) 01:20, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 02:50, 6 May 2010 (UTC).

Portals

I noticed on my watchlist that you removed the break= parameter from a portal call inside Template:maths rating. Unless you can point me to a discussion where it was agreed to remove break= from all portal template calls, you should not be removing it. Template:portal supports it; I checked. Removing the break parameter from portal templates would break other templates that depend on them, like our maths rating template would if it didn't call template:portal directly. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:34, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

For the record, I don't care about the hardcoded images one bit, provided that the edits to remove them preserve the other existing parameters. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:39, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Rrich

Hi - just wondering - are you aware that your span tag trick is also making your page name show as "Rrich Farmbrough" (at least I believe that's the cause)?  7  02:37, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's about the best I can do with the trick. Rich Farmbrough, 02:39, 6 May 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

SmackBot recently added a WPBio banner template to Talk:BabaKiueria, although BabaKiueria is a film, not a person. Do you know what caused the misclassification? —Paul A (talk) 02:43, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's the stub category "Category:Indigenous peoples of Australia" stubs which is (wrongly) a sub category of "Australian people stubs" Rich Farmbrough, 02:47, 6 May 2010 (UTC).
(I will go through and check al the cat later on.) Rich Farmbrough, 02:48, 6 May 2010 (UTC).

Portal templates

I did not see any functional advantage to your edits to Template:Alabama portal, Template:Colorado portal, Template:Connecticut portal, Template:Florida portal, and Template:Nevada portal, so I reverted your edits. These templates were sized to have a uniform height, and they can be resized and left justified. Please see Wikipedia:List of U.S. state portals. Please let me know if these reversions cause you any grief, or if you have any other suggestions. Yours aye, Buaidh (talk) 03:30, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Greetings

Greetings Rich Farmbrough - Just letting you know that I've courtesy blanked & db-bio tagged Rhiannon Casey Dewar!. I've just seen at its History that you editted there recently. Cheers! --Technopat (talk) 10:45, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Greetings

Hi there - I have discovered i cannot load pictures and logo's to the pages. How would i go about doing this or do i need to ask somebody such as yourself to do it for me.

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Laurenfindley (talk • contribs) 13:45, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

What do you know about Father's Rights???? I'm one of the guys who invented it in 1993 with my first book: Surviving the Feminization of America. Asa Baber was my mentor. Jeff Leving tried to get me to write HIS book. I worked in D.C. with Stu Miller and the American Fathers coalition and published articles on fathers from Penthouse to the San Francisco Chronicle. I don't even know who Bettina Arendt is!!!!

And I don't know who you are.

Leave my stuff alone. Leave ALL my stuff alone or I am going to make sure whoever the hell runs wikipedia knows about you. Go find someone else to bother.

Rich Zubaty —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.253.135.100 (talk) 06:07, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Smackbot question - edit to Nathanael Boehm

I am having trouble understanding what happened on this SmackBot edit: [148]. It looks like the bot removed references. Thanks! Jminthorne (talk) 07:39, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

This is broken, probably because User:RHaworth moved the page, deleting several revisions of the target, presumably excluding this one. Look at the diff before and after SmackBot's edit [149]. SB simply does not "prod" articles (although most new people articles with a lower case surname are eminently proddable), and only adds a very few tags, excluding COI and Notability. Rich Farmbrough, 07:51, 7 May 2010 (UTC).

svg version of File:UEFAEuropaLeague.png

Hi, you requested an svg version of File:UEFAEuropaLeague.png. See de:Datei:UEFA_Europa_League.svg. Maybe you want to upload it here, too. Cheers --Saibo (Δ)

Archive please. Rich Farmbrough, 23:57, 9 May 2010 (UTC).

Singeing the king of Spain's beard

Rich, this is a page Smackbot visited in March this year. I have reverted to the original page layout and translated the original article as was requested. I have left one paragraph for deletion with reasons on the discussion page and I am now about to add the references. I have started a discussion on whether this a world view article in the discussion page. Let me know if there is further to be done!! Thanks Jkslouth (talk) 15:46, 7 May 2010 (UTC)jkslouth

This looks good. SmackBot by the way merely dates clean-up tags (and does a little cleanup) - it doesn't place them. Rich Farmbrough, 00:12, 10 May 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot erroneously added WPBiography

SmackBot added WPBiography to an article about a company. In trying to discover why this happened, the only clue I found in the article is that it contains {{UK-architect-stub}}. That stub, unfortunately, applies to either an architect or a firm of architects. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 21:29, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Template:Expand

I noticed that you attempted to get the deletion of Template:Expand reviewed by putting a "deletion opposed" template. Although that edit was reverted, I have now taken the matter to deletion review. Just letting you know. Best wishes. Immunize (talk) 18:28, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 22:15, 9 May 2010 (UTC).

Incorrect change of Template:Main with AWB

Hi, in this edit to Artificial intelligence, you changed {{Main|Outline of artificial intelligence}} to {{Main}}, which doesn't work. AWB alone doesn't do that for me, so I think you have an error in one of your custom rules. Could you fix it? Thanks. Svick (talk) 15:36, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

 Fixed Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 22:16, 9 May 2010 (UTC).

please leave "| break=yes"

{{{inline}}}

You may have noticed my placing portalboxs on many many catagoies. I use the "|break=yes" on purpose there and elsewhere (like below). As you remove all the obsolete paramitors, would you leave that one in, since it is unrelated to you main purpose. I can also give you a list of most of the pages that are ready changed unnessarly, if you are willing to put them back in. Thanks. şṗøʀĸɕäɾłäů∂ɛ:τᴀʟĸ 20:49, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 13:09, 11 May 2010 (UTC).

The Wikipedia Signpost: 10 May 2010

Comment

Hello Rich Farmbrough, I really like what you have done with the portals, such as what you did to the Augusto Rodriguez article here: [150], however I think that you should know (in case you didn'y already know) that User:CBM is undoing your portal work, example:[151]. Just thought that you should know in case you would like to discuss the issue with him/her. Take care. Tony the Marine (talk) 16:09, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Tony. Rich Farmbrough, 05:21, 12 May 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot dating {{adoptoffer}}

I have just added a date requirement to {{adoptoffer}} and there is no obvious way to persuade users to adapt to the changes quickly. Every time the template is added to a page - which will add that page to Category:Undated adoption offers - it needs the text |month={{subt:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}} inserted before the final }}. At Bot requests they recommended SmackBot - do you mind helping me out? strdst_grl (call me Stardust) 12:26, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Not a problem. Rich Farmbrough, 13:32, 12 May 2010 (UTC).
Thanks! strdst_grl (call me Stardust) 15:40, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Portal changes

Could you point out the bot request to change the syntax of the portal template? If there is not one, you should stop changing them immediately. I do not believe a massive overhaul of a widely-used template should be carried out without any public notice. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:53, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I am sure that you will find plenty to oppose and revert. Rich Farmbrough, 23:55, 9 May 2010 (UTC).
I am sure you are aware that large sets of edits require bot approval even if you plan to use AWB. In this case, have you announced the changes on a village pump or otherwise advertised them? — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:59, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I noticed this because of this edit on my watchlist, which seems to have removed several see also links without explanation. A separate benefit of bot requests is that they lead to code testing. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:02, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I have started a section on ANI here. Unless someone else has a strong reason not to, I plan to revert the portal changes as an unapproved bot job in a couple hours. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:23, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I have a very strong reason not to. You would be reverting for no good reason. As you have often done in the past. I have hinted to you that this is not a good idea. If something is broken by all means revert but reverting that IP who changed "otheruses4" to "about" simply because you can is just foolishness. Rich Farmbrough, 00:36, 10 May 2010 (UTC).
It's also not a good idea to run bot tasks without seeking approval for them. I think you've been told that in the past, too. I know you've been here a long time and done lots of good work, but you're still subject to these little processes we have, I think. Equazcion (talk) 00:40, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Seems CBM is reverting at 4 edits per second - fantastic making pages worse at that rate. I wish he would get Huggle and spend some time with that instead. Rich Farmbrough, 09:24, 10 May 2010 (UTC).
Your evasiveness regarding your own edits detracts greatly from any sympathy I might have otherwise had for your criticism of their being reverted. Equazcion (talk) 09:39, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Coming to this late, I've just noticed you made major changes to Template:Portal without any discussion beforehand. I would like to ask you not to do this in future. There may be merits in this system, but other editors should be given the change to evaluate them. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:03, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Use of Citation needed in a template

I am thinking about using the Citation needed template in Infobox weather, in an #if statement, to display when the source parameter isn't used. But dating it using the #time function would cause them all to have the current date, which is incorrect, it should be dated when the weather infobox got added to the article. I would have to keep the date parameter empty, my concern is that when the bot is alerted to an article using Citation needed without a date, but then can't find the Citation needed template, what will happen? 117Avenue (talk) 06:24, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

We have got around this before by simply adding a "date" parameter to infoboxes. SmackBot then treats the infobox as a cleanup template. Only problems are: Smackbot isn't very good at multiline templates, or nested templates. An alternative would be to simply put a "{cn}" in the footnotes field by default (i.e. in the cut and paste copy) but this is not fully satisfactory either. Rich Farmbrough, 08:09, 12 May 2010 (UTC).
A date parameter won't work because I am trying to tag articles using unsourced weather data, if the user hasn't input the source parameter, he's not going to input a date. 117Avenue (talk) 04:33, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Motto of the Day

Hi there, Rich Farmbrough! Thought you might be interested in Motto of the Day, a collaborative (and totally voluntary) effort by a group of Wikipedians to create original, inspirational mottos. Have a good motto idea? Share it here, comment on some of the mottos there or just pass this message onto your friends.

MOTD Needs Your Help!

Delivered By –pjoef (talk • contribs) 12:20, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

IndiaStudyChannel page

Hello,

I have fixed the links problem of the IndiaStudyChannel page. More than 3 links are now pointing to it. Kindly remove the orphan tag from it.

Gyandeep Kaushal (talk) 15:55, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Donaldson Report

AfD was closed as "no consensus", but I think obviously your suggestion was the most appropriate. I am going to make a Dab page for "Donaldson Report" to differentiate between the various reports referred to as such. Regarding the article I nominated (re: TWA 800), what can I do now? Is there another method (Prod?), or should I just make the Dab page, work on the TWA Flight 800 alternative theories for a while, then renominate the page at some later date? LoveUxoxo (talk) 01:36, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

If TWA Flight 800 alternative theories are notable they should stay. If the information on the page is significant and either verifiable or, if contentious and about a living person, verified, then it should stay. Rich Farmbrough, 07:50, 14 May 2010 (UTC).

Template:Arcadia (band)

Rich, there's a serious problem here! I tried adding a video album to this template, which requires the "dot" that separates titles, anyway, as I done this, WP wouldn't accept this and one of those block notes appeared, saying something like "okay" or "cancel". Please fix and correct this "internal" problem, so I can resume editing! Thanks. Best, --Discographer (talk) 21:16, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Major flaw with New Features

Rich, I've had to turn off New Features and go back to Take Me Back because it does not enable anyone to edit a template with inserting the wiki "dot" without disruption, quickly ending the pending edit. Try it yourself, you will find I'm correct. Best, --Discographer (talk) 21:50, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

 · The Videos Lets try ... Rich Farmbrough, 07:42, 14 May 2010 (UTC).
 · The Videos · The Videos · The Videos Seems OK to me... but I have it turned off too most of the time. Rich Farmbrough, 07:43, 14 May 2010 (UTC).
I've got it now, (by switching back to New Features, that is; - one of the developers must have fixed it since I contacted them!) but my computer however pops a box up {"OK" / "Cancel") when I click on the insert toolbar table where the dot and other symbols are displaced while I'm in edit-mode form making it where I have to click on "OK" (or "Cancel"), in order for the edit to proceed. I suppose it's a minor issue, though it could still use some fixing up! Best, --Discographer (talk) 08:36, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
OK I was cut and pasting, but I'm trying that now ••••••••∘, still nothing - and I'm not privileged with any access to the workigs other than the usual admin stuff. Rich Farmbrough, 08:50, 14 May 2010 (UTC).

Template:catmain, etc.

Hi-just wanted you to know that whatever you did to change {{catmain}} is not working correctly. See the header at: Category:Recipients of the Order of Ushakov, it's just showing the soft redirect. --Funandtrvl (talk) 19:34, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

BAGBot: Your bot request SmackBot XXIV

Someone has marked Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SmackBot XXIV as needing your input. Please visit that page to reply to the requests. Thanks! AnomieBOT⚡ 09:58, 15 May 2010 (UTC) To opt out of these notifications, place {{bots|optout=operatorassistanceneeded}} anywhere on this page.

Problem with edits from a while back - NL infobox import

See [152].. See the caption display? |250px|none|alt=|Location of Absdale]] - Please investigate. –xenotalk 22:12, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

IPA search

Hi Rich,

I have s.t. I wonder if you can help me with. I've been trying to clean up the IPA on WP, linking to the proper language keys and standardizing our transcriptions. However, there are a good number of articles that use the IPA without transcluding an IPA templates, which besides meaning that they don't display properly on IE, makes them difficult to find and verify.

Could you perhaps add onto one of your bots a side search for IPA characters that aren't enclosed in an {{IPA... or {{pron... template, and keep a list somewhere, or flag/categorize? I could then go through and fix them up.

Or is there maybe s.o. else I should ask? Or is there a way to do a search on my own for articles that contain character X?

Thanks — kwami (talk) 07:53, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

{{Audio IPA too and some interwikis include IPA characters . I am looking at the following list:
ɐɑɒɓɔɕɖɗɘəɚɛɜɝɞɟɠɡɢɣɤɥɦɧɨɩɪɫɬɭɮɯɰɱɲɳɴɵɶɷɸɹɺɻɼɽɾɿʀʁʂʃʄʅʆʇʈʉʊʋʌʍʎʏʐʑʒʓʔʕʖʗʘʙʚʛʜʝʞʟʠʡʢʣʤʥʦʧʨʩʪʫʬʭʮ
Rich Farmbrough, 08:24, 14 May 2010 (UTC).
Preliminary list User:Rich Farmbrough/temp14 will remove all with references to "Azer". Based on dump form 12 March. Rich Farmbrough, 09:00, 14 May 2010 (UTC).
Wow, that was fast! Thanks!
Yes, you were right to exclude {{Audio IPA. Sorry, that slipped my mind.
Azeri only has the schwa, so any other hits in those articles would be legit, though there probably aren't many. (It might be easiest just to remove schwa from the search string, or I can ignore anything w schwa in the article name.)
I'm going through another list right now, and it's past my bedtime, but I'll get to this in a day or two. Thanks! — kwami (talk) 09:12, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
Just looking at your exclusion string, "Azer" is probably good if the only hit is schwa, or if the search is case sensitive. But there are several {{Audio templates, sometimes used with unformatted IPA, and it's only {{Audio IPA that I would want to avoid. But I can start with whatever you come up with, and go back to the old list if I have any energy left. — kwami (talk)
Never mind about refining the search any further. I'v gone partway through the list and cut it down to 1200 articles. Probably can eliminate half of the remainder before it gets time intensive.
When the next dump comes along, I have a few requests (additional letters to search for), if you don't mind doing this again (or you could just tell me how), and this time we can just ignore the schwa altogether. It's found in all sorts of things besides Azeri: maybe half the list is hits on schwa. (But it was valuable to do that search at least once.) Also, I'm finding IPA symbols instead of Greek letters in chemical and mathematical formulas, which is rather amusing. — kwami (talk) 00:54, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Obi Muonelo

An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is Obi Muonelo. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also Wikipedia:Notability and "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Obi Muonelo. Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:03, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Uniq quni error?

Hi,

Some time ago you added an infobox to the Nootdorp article. You wrote: Adding infobox from nl. Wikipedia.
There seems to be a problem with the population reference though. Do you know how to fix that? It's the same code as on the Dutch version and it works there! I think it's this bug (http://geometrus.com/wp/2010/03/uniq-qinu-bug-in-mediawiki/) but I don't know how to fix it.

Greetz,

VH —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vamhendriks (talk • contribs) 14:23, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

There are a number of things - I have fixed the following:
  • Date needs to be iso, not reversed
  • Population needs the punctuation removed.
  • Footnote needs moving to its own field
Also if you can find a figure for the area, the template will calculate the density. Rich Farmbrough, 15:54, 15 May 2010 (UTC).

Hi Rich,

Thanks for the changes :-) I have one more question for you. I have just undone my revision of this afternoon. I deleted a paragraph with information on a rugby league team that after some searching seems to actually exist (apparently I missed it in the 29 years I've lived in Nootdorp, even though the home stadium is the footballclub where I played football myself!!!). I thought the rest of the paragraph was spam also, but having discovered that I was wrong on the rugby-thing, I'm not so sure anymore. Would you mind taking a look at this text:

The town is also well renowned for its cottage arms industry, producing approx. three quarters of the Netherlands' armaments during the first Gulf War [3]. The town has lost out on such industry in recent years, with industrial giants focusing largely on the teahouses of Amsterdam.

Not knowing if this is a true thing or not, I think some things are at least questionable:

  • How is it possible that something that supposedly happened during the Gulf war has a reference to a 1944 publication (which I can't find anywhere else)?
  • If I Google the word uberbeneigektier (which I can't find in a German dictionary) I only get results pointing to this article.
  • The same roughly applies to LeckerShmecker (apart from references to this article, I find references to a person on facebook and to German cooking sites).
  • The authors of the article in the reference: Goering (Nazi war criminal) and Kandinsky (Russian painter that died in 1944)???
  • From armaments to teahouses???
  • Allthough I overlooked the rugby team (about which I'm still flabbergasted!), I'm pretty sure I would have noticed a weapons of war factory (the town is fairly small...)

What do you think?

VH —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vamhendriks (talk • contribs) 16:56, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

It was IP vandalism. Rich Farmbrough, 18:02, 18 May 2010 (UTC).

So I thought.. Thanks for the action :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.84.215.213 (talk) 18:24, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Tong edit

Hey, just a friendly note. This diff shows that you moved the comment from the cat line to the top. In the future this change shouldn't be made, because the comment doesn't make sense if it's above all the cats. Just an FYI. Wizard191 (talk) 16:45, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, sorted. Rich Farmbrough, 17:53, 18 May 2010 (UTC).
Cheers! Wizard191 (talk) 17:59, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 17 May 2010

Refs

When I looked through SmackBots BRFA list, I didn't see any of them that included rearranging references. So they all need to use a fixed version of AWB. If I missed something in the BRFA please let me know. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:12, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, "common sense" is what I am after too. Adding a "reflist" tag does not inherently require rearranging things in the text part of the article; common sense is that the bot task would not include that. I have carefully explained before why it's bad to automatically rearrange references, and I have also pointed out that you do not have bot approval to do it. These are separate reasons why you need to fix the bot. I am not sure why you are so reluctant to do so. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:18, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
I am going to go ahead and unblock the bot, since I know you are aware of the issue now. I attempted to contact you by just stopping it, but that wasn't successful. The issue is that none of SmackBot's tasks includes rearranging references, unless I have misread the BRFAs. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:26, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
Having written several bots and [153], I do not believe that maintaining a development environment is anything out of the ordinary for a bot operator; it's a basic part of the job. All that you need to do to "accomodate" me is to disable a single function in the code, which is the most trivial kind of change.
If you had pointed out that you were going to restart a fixed run, and fix the code for the broken one, I would not have blocked the bot or stopped the fixed run. However, you did not respond at all, and I have no ability to tell which runs you have started. As far as I could tell the bot simply restarted itself, maybe because of a crontab.
I will try to avoid bothering you again today, assuming that the bot code is fixed. If I notice broken edits in the future, I will point them out (of course). — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:40, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Bad formatting on tags?

Hi Rich, I have recently noticed that on some orphaned pages, you have made edits that have introduced bad wikitag formatting. Some examples are:

As you can see, the "multiple issues" tag has somehow been corrupted which is causing issues listed in the tag to not be properly tagged with their respective dates. Minor issue, I know, but I just thought I should bring it to your attention. Thanks. Matt.T.911 (talk) 13:53, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok thanks. I will probably pick any pages up because of the wrong cats, but I can check my last few thousand edits fro more of the same. Rich Farmbrough, 14:00, 20 May 2010 (UTC).

Your contributed article, Deleteme now

Hello, I notice that you recently created a new page, Deleteme now. First, thank you for your contribution; Wikipedia relies solely on the efforts of volunteers such as yourself. Unfortunately, the page you created covers a topic on which we already have a page - Dick the Mockingbird. Because of the duplication, your article has been tagged for speedy deletion. Please note that this is not a comment on you personally and we hope you will to continue helping improve Wikipedia. If the topic of the article you created is one that interests you, then perhaps you would like to help out at Dick the Mockingbird - you might like to discuss new information at the article's talk page.

If you think that the article you created should remain separate, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag - if no such tag exists then the page is no longer a speedy delete candidate and adding a hangon tag is unnecessary), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. Additionally if you would like to have someone review articles you create before they go live so they are not nominated for deletion shortly after you post them, allow me to suggest the article creation process and using our search feature to find related information we already have in the encyclopedia. Try not to be discouraged. Wikipedia looks forward to your future contributions. Peasantwarrior (talk) 19:09, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Inherit the Wind

My addition to the article on "Inherit the Wind" linked to the article on the Butler Act, which clearly indicates that Scopes was not subject to imprisonment for violating the Act. What further verification could be required for the statement that Scopes was never subject to a sentence of imprisonment? John Paul Parks (talk) 04:19, 21 May 2010 (UT

The user Johannes003 makes troublesome infections to many wiki articles and also he lacks respect . His edits lacks neutral point of view and serves as monopoly. Please warn him to stop his repetitive infections.The wind or breeze 10:31, 21 May 2010 (UTC) Thank you §The wind or breeze 10:42, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

IMDb agrees http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0376076/awards. Rich Farmbrough, 10:54, 21 May 2010 (UTC). Why you have pasted this in my user talk ? I cant understand . The wind or breeze 11:02, 21 May 2010 (UTC)→ —Preceding unsigned comment added by The wind or breeze (talk • contribs) But it was for 2004 and its National Award and its not our issue which is [TAmilnadu's State Award] —Preceding unsigned comment added by The wind or breeze (talk • contribs) 11:08, 21 May 2010 (UTC) The discussion is for the year 1999 and its for Tamil Nadu State Film Special Award for Best Actor. You understood the other way around. The wind or breeze 11:22, 21 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by The wind or breeze (talk • contribs)

Hello sir, I'm the one Johannes who this user is speaking about. He should have first approached me regarding this matter, instead he directly asked you for help and I'm glad he did, I believe he will listen to you. It's about the Tamil Nadu State Film Award (Special Prizes) in 1999. The Special Jury Award for Best Actor was given to Vikram, the Dinakaran site had earlier a full list of the awardees, but since Dinakaran has renovated its website and moved to a new server, the links are no more existent. I still was able to find a link which clearly says that Vikram won the Best Actor Award for Sethu in 1999 [154]. So, problem should solved now, unless he can't proof that Vijay won the Special Best Actor award in 1999, (which he certainly can't since it's not true). What you say? Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding. Johannes003 (talk) 11:47, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Best discuss at Talk:Tamil_Nadu_State_Film_Award_(Special_Prizes)#1999. If you two can't find agreement, then ask for help from one of the film projects. Rich Farmbrough, 12:42, 21 May 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Hi i am designing a community project for Chelsea and want to make contact with all the Chelsea contributors to Wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sarah farrugia (talk • contribs) 11:36, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

List of family offices in Switzerland

Hi there, I added links which direct to this article from other articles. Is this sufficant? Minders1 (talk) 12:36, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Military Barnstar

Military Barnstar
I'd like to recognize your recent efforts on general cleanup of many US Air Force pages. The Wikipedia project is greatly improved by your efforts!--Ndunruh (talk) 13:17, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
Thank you! And to think I expected to never receive a military award! Rich Farmbrough, 13:25, 21 May 2010 (UTC).

List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War (A-F)

This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a search with the contents of List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War (A-F), and it appears to be very similar to another Wikipedia page: List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War. It is possible that you have accidentally duplicated contents, or made an error while creating the page— you might want to look at the pages and see if that is the case. If you are intentionally trying to rename an article, please see Help:Moving a page for instructions on how to do this without copying and pasting. If you are trying to move or copy content from one article to a different one, please see Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia and be sure you have acknowledged the duplication of material in an edit summary to preserve attribution history.

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot (talk) 14:27, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War

Hello, I am working on reducing the Category:Pages with broken reference names. Two pages you created on May 21, List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War (1966) and List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War (1975) have broken references, I gather because you broke them out of the larger List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War. I'm unable to load the older version of the article to restore the references (because of the size, it keeps timing out, I'm only on moderate DSL) and would greatly appreciate it if you would go back and make the repairs yourself. thank you!! - Salamurai (talk) 18:37, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 18:45, 21 May 2010 (UTC).
thanks! -Salamurai (talk) 18:57, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
Oh, man. To me, you have almost ruined the article. It was once the longest article in Wikipedia. Because of this, it loses its position. I really don't like this. Carolingian (talk) 19:45, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Removing a stub tag

SmackBot has twice removed a stub tag from Video blogging, and I'm not really sure why. Is it from a size threshold or something? Either way, I don't really agree with the decision. And I had reverted the first edit that did it, only to have SmackBot come back and do it again. —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 00:43, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the article is bigger than "few sentences". So it's not as stub. Try using {{expand-section}} in order to request expand of a certain section. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:46, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Anyway the bot should probably not be edit warring over it :) Does the bot check whether it has already been reverted? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:12, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
No it is AWB. I is only edit warring in that it is happening to revisit an article, no that it is searching out either "long stubs" or it's own changes undone. Rich Farmbrough, 08:35, 23 May 2010 (UTC).

Smackbot and Template:Lede

Re bot edits like this: {{lede}} was changed to be a redirect to {{Lead rewrite}} rather than {{Lead too long}}. Cheers, cab (talk) 07:23, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I have regenerated the rule base. Rich Farmbrough, 10:29, 23 May 2010 (UTC).

Portal box

I just wanted to stop and say good work on fixing the coding for the portalbox template, its much cleaner and easier to use now. One question, since the portal box template can work with 1 or many portals doesn't this make the portal template somewhat deprecated? If the portal box logic were applied to the portal template then there would be no need for the other and we could eliminate 1 of the templates. Just a suggestion. Cheers--Kumioko (talk) 14:25, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes I would like to merge the templates. Unfortunately there are many instances of "Portal" with the image as parameter 2. Rich Farmbrough, 14:32, 22 May 2010 (UTC).
Thats a good point. --Kumioko (talk) 15:09, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

I also want to stop by and say thanks for adding the Portal:Capital District box to a bunch of Capital District-related articles. We appreciate it! upstateNYer 21:26, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Since it relates to the same topic Ill add my comment here. I wanted to let you know that another user is going behind you and redoing the United States Marine Corps portals to the template. --Kumioko (talk) 15:24, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

United States visas by type

Can you help removing WPbiography for all articles in Category:United States visas by type. The tag was added accidentally by SmackBot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:40, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Certainly. Rich Farmbrough, 18:58, 23 May 2010 (UTC).

RfD nomination of Template:Too Short

I have nominated Template:Too Short (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) for discussion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. The Evil IP address (talk) 21:24, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Help:Cite errors

Please exclude Help:Cite errors and all subpages from SmackBot. There are several subpages that are used to demonstrate and maintain the error messages and should not be fixed. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 14:31, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 14:33, 24 May 2010 (UTC).
See the history of Help:Cite errors/Cite error refs without references. I'm not sure how the exclusion is implemented of how it could break. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 14:40, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

General Cleanup

Okay, I understand your dislike of {{BD}} and {{lifetime}} but it appears that you are putting more than one {{DEFAULTSORT}} on some pages and sometimes they are not identical thereby causing a conflict. I have found three instance in edits that you made in the last half-hour. Are you going to go back and fix those articles or should I continue to resolve the conflicts?

Also, could your clean-up include putting the value for {{DEFAULTSORT}} as the value of |listas= on the Talk Page of the Articles?

Thank you. JimCubb (talk) 18:49, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry. It seems you were taking care of the problem when I jumped into the middle of it. However, there is another problem.

The template "Northern Ireland by year" seems to have a {{DEFAULTSORT}} value hidden within it. The articles that use it are named appropriately "yyyy in Northern Ireland" and should probably be sorted that way as I am certain you agree since you put {{DEFAULTSORT}} on the 79 pages that use the template. I am not a template writer but you are. Would you please look at the syntax in the template and remove the hidden value? Thank you. JimCubb (talk) 19:05, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. JimCubb (talk) 19:20, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Al B. Romano

Somebody keeps vandalizing the Al B. Romano and I'm having trouble implementing the right procedure for preventing unregistered users from doing that. Does Wiki have such a procedure? Shaneymike (talk) 22:51, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 23:02, 24 May 2010 (UTC).
Appreciate it. I'll totally understand if this article winds up being deleted due to lack of notability and I certainly won't bitch about it if that happens. It just really pisses me off to see somebody act as childish as whoever keeps vandalizing it. You know what I mean? Shaneymike (talk) 23:14, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot questioning PsychoPy notability

SmackBot put up a notability question mark for the PsychoPy page. I think there is sufficient notability to it: 

 - it is software used by a significant number of people (the homepage has >1500 uniques visitors per month)
 - it is pointed at by other pages on wikipedia
 - it has 2 articles published about it (referenced on the page). Although these were written by the software author they have been through external peer-review as quality control
 - it is an open-source equivalent of other commercial packages, eg. Presentation_(Software) and e-Prime_(Software) that do have similar pages.

I guess the problem is that the page was principally written by me (the author of the software). But I've tried to be totally unbiased and reported solely what the software is and how it came about.

Is there any more I can/should do to convince you and/or SmackBot that this is a genuine page of encyclopedic interest to others? I cringe a little at presenting usage/download stats (e.g. the Presentation_(Software) page above lists their own claims of having 10,000 users as an external reference). But I can add stuff like that if it's needed.

cheers Jon.peirce (talk) 11:15, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 17:21, 26 May 2010 (UTC).

ANI

I have reported your resumption of the unapproved portal bot job at ANI, here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:48, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry - here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:53, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Rich, your input would be welcome at the ANI thread (I'm especially interested to know if your editing was manual (and if so, how you managed to edit so fast, overlook mistakes, and edit at the same time as editing in other areas), semi-automatic, or fully automated), also, please turn off the bot while that and the BRfA request you just submitted are ongoing. - Kingpin13 (talk) 16:47, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 24 May 2010

Slovakian villages

Hi Rich! I created the Slovakian villages in the wiki dark ages when I did not know about pin maps or infoboxes. They were created with rather redundant district maps. I was wondering if you could make a template like you did with Hungary and add infoboxes to all of the articles with coordinates for pin and remove these maps at the same time? Something like this. I believe that Slovak wiki has the infoboxes and the information can just be copied into English if that would be best...I've added a few to articles like Bruty but this sort of thing would best be done with what I suggested I think. How are you? We haven't spoken for a while. I rather got the impression you got tired of me, understandable.. Dr. Blofeld White cat 09:14, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

What do you mean broken? I see... Dr. Blofeld White cat 12:12, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List of U.S. state portals

I like your rearrangement of Wikipedia:List of U.S. state portals. Originally, this was just a list of U.S. state portals and nothing more. As more things were added, they were put on the right. Your arrangement is much more logical. Yours aye, Buaidh (talk) 18:51, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I was wondering if the page would belong now at a slightly different title, but I couldn't come up with anything satisfactory Wikipedia:List of U.S. state meta-pages is accurate but clumsy, all the other useful terms like list and index are specific items already. Rich Farmbrough, 18:57, 27 May 2010 (UTC).

London Transport

Was this series of edits discussed anywhere? At least one (Crayford Manor House Astronomical Society) has no relationship whatsoever to London Transport, while Holborn Viaduct railway station has had a link to P:LT added immediately below :llan identical existing link. What criteria are you using in selecting which pages get this link added? – iridescent 20:58, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Look at the history fro Crayford_Manor_House_Astronomical_Society and you will see the net edit is to remove an unwanted navbox. Rich Farmbrough, 20:59, 28 May 2010 (UTC).
Ah, I see. If you're doing the run in future it would probably be worth skipping anything that already has a link to P:LT on it (most of the LT infoboxes include it) to avoid the duplication as with Holborn Viaduct (which currently has three copies of the link). – iridescent 21:03, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Yes I actually was doing it by hand, I whittled down several hundred articles to about 30. The point was to remove redundant boxes from other pages (by removing a transcluded transclusion) not add them where they weren't wanted. Rich Farmbrough, 21:07, 28 May 2010 (UTC).
Aah, got you. Makes sense now. – iridescent 21:08, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Holborn Viaduct, however you are perfectly correct, I have removed the surplus item. Rich Farmbrough, 21:07, 28 May 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot is awesome

Thanks for making it. I'd been doing things wrong with the formatting of links, and I hadn't been looking forward to fixing them all by hand. It did all of that for me. Keep up the good work! =) Faceless Enemy (talk) 01:39, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough, 17:55, 30 May 2010 (UTC).

User:Rich Farmbrough/temp60

Rich, I'm wondering why your development page User:Rich Farmbrough/temp60 has been added to the Led Zeppelin Project. Probably no big deal but the page is showing up in project stats as needing an assessment, etc. Please remove the project banner from that page when you get the chance. Thanks. --DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 21:36, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Comparison of regular expression engines

Hello, SmackBot has twice deleted a reference on the page Comparison of regular expression engines, making the page kick out on Category:Pages with broken reference names. I don't know what its problem is, could you please make it stop or change the ref's name to something that it will like? Thanks. (Also, your user message on SmackBot's talk page has typos, you may want to fix.) - Salamurai (talk) 21:47, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. Two refs on the same page with the same name, but grouped differently, and using the same group name. I changed on ref name, I should probably have changed the group names. Rich Farmbrough, 22:18, 30 May 2010 (UTC).
thanks. Didn't notice the group names were all the same; I'm about to change that. - Salamurai (talk) 22:27, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
actually, never mind, renaming the groups doesn't actually work. - Salamurai (talk) 22:34, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

On SmackBot, when you "add a new section" a notice appears suggesting leaving a note here instead, that's where the typos were. I just discovered I can edit that notice (User talk:SmackBot/Editnotice) and have done so. (I spend a lot of time proofreading.) thanks for your help - Salamurai (talk) 22:42, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

TY. Rich Farmbrough, 23:02, 30 May 2010 (UTC).

Monthly cleanup categories

I see you are doing something that makes a bit of a problem e.g. in Category:Articles needing additional references from June 2010, so I'll rely on you to make the categories this month. Unless you tell me I can go ahead. Debresser (talk) 10:01, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I felt sure you were going to do something like that sooner or later. If you need any help, please tell me so. Debresser (talk) 10:13, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
It strikes me as rather redundant to have these pages with {{Null}} as their only content. Can't that be avoided? Debresser (talk) 11:41, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
I did a few, but am not up to doing all of them. I have no time to create the subtemplates. You may have noticed I am hardly on Wikipedia nowadays. I'll checks those I already did though. Debresser (talk) 11:49, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
I made a fix and a small change to Template:Monthly clean up category/to add. Looks nice now, IMHO. Debresser (talk) 12:03, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I had quite some work cleaning up a few mistakes I made before I found out how everything works. In addition, I tried to add a whiteline in front of the TOC, just as there are extra whitelines in front and after the refresh button. I added it in Template:Monthly clean up category/core, but don't see any change. Could you have a look at it, please. Debresser (talk) 12:20, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

That worked. Nice. BTW, wouldn't it be better to have the message before the refresh button? Debresser (talk) 12:29, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
I think the refresh button is useful for people who work intensiively on a certain category. But isdoesn't seem logical to have it between the general description of all categories and the specific message. It could come between the message and the TOC, e.g. Debresser (talk) 12:34, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Not completely. :) Sometimes a date-dependend interwiki is added to a cleanup category. Debresser (talk) 12:39, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

And I guess {{As of}} still needs to be done by hand. Debresser (talk) 12:40, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
You had to introduce |datecat= to solve the problem of subcategories, I see. Nice. Debresser (talk) 12:42, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
I obviously agree with you not to create dated interwikis automatically. Please consider the placement of the refresh button again sometime. Good luck! Debresser (talk) 12:55, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

The new button is too big. And inconveniently placed. Just keep the old one, but have it right above the TOC. Debresser (talk) 14:18, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Must be a matter of taste. ;-) Debresser (talk) 16:48, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

Not sure what happened here, but it completely messed up the page. Xeworlebi (t•c) 16:35, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Very oddly there is (was) an empty element in the list of redirects to {{Expand section}}. Fixed for now. Thanks for the note. Rich Farmbrough, 17:27, 31 May 2010 (UTC).
Caused by template: {{...}}.. sigh

regex for floruit AWB FR

I'm hoping you've got a regex for the floruit AWB FR that I can put in the genfixes. Thanks Rjwilmsi 12:48, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

 Done Rich Farmbrough, 12:58, 1 June 2010 (UTC).

Tamil films

Hi can you add this to the rest of the Tamil films 1942-present I think for these lists it looks bare without a side bar. Shortly I'll make one for Bengali cinema. SO if you could quickly add them using AWB this would be agreat help. \Yes also Bengali see this, If you could de clutter the bottom templatesd somwhat and add this side plate this would be great. Dr. Blofeld White cat 14:42, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Don't worry the side bar is used in all of the film articles like British films of 1969 etc... It is normal.. Dr. Blofeld White cat 14:59, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah that's the problem with Indian films is lack of credible sources. Most are fan blogs. Even Bollywood films you have a hard time finding decent sources, Even for 2000s films. So imagine trying to write an article about a 1946 Malayalam film...Somehow I managed to concoct Joymati and Indramalati which are Assamese! But only becayse they were the pioneering films.. Dr. Blofeld White cat 15:06, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Cheers. That was fast! Dr. Blofeld White cat 15:23, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 31 May 2010

TYA

Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2010 June 2 Debresser (talk) 09:49, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List of U.S. state portals

I think we should all aspire to Not that bad. --Buaidh (talk) 18:35, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

It could always look worse. --Buaidh (talk) 18:51, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Categories for discussion nomination of Category:Articles containing explicitly cited English language text

Category:Articles containing explicitly cited English language text, which you created, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:06, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

New template

I found a new maintenance template, Template:Opinion Debresser (talk) 11:38, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

TY added to SB's list. Rich Farmbrough, 12:58, 1 June 2010 (UTC).
Do you think it should be added to any maintenance categories? Debresser (talk) 09:50, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
NPOV? Rich Farmbrough, 13:46, 2 June 2010 (UTC).
Or Category:Articles with minor POV problems. Debresser (talk) 21:15, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
Sure, either. Rich Farmbrough, 13:44, 4 June 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot, period hunter?

Hi, Rich. I'm more or less completely bot-ignorant, so let me begin by asking for a fool's pardon if what I'm suggesting is not feasible. I've noticed that many references in WP articles have duplicated periods, one before the ref tag and then a superfluous one after it (Macropsia#Epilepsy (note 20) and Macropsia#Viruses (note 24) are a couple of examples I've left uncorrected so you can see what I mean). Is deleting the extra period a task that might be added to SmackBot's chore list?

Similarly, in a stupefyingly large number of cases, ref tags are placed before punctuation rather than after it, where MOS:PAIC recommends they be placed. Superfluous spaces before punctuation marks are another abundant eyesore. Are these potential SmackBot-y tasks? Perhaps the consumption of resources outweighs the benefits of large numbers of trivial changes, but as a reader I find that poor copyediting damages my impression of an article's credibility, whereas even seemingly trivial improvements, if they contribute to an article's professional appearance, can considerably enhance it. Cheers. -- Rrburke (talk) 15:51, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The first case could be usefully added to general fixes for WP:AWB (which is the program behind SmackBot almost all the time), the second has, I think been turned down, for the case where one wants to ref a phrase or word, rather than the whole sentence. Rich Farmbrough, 19:58, 3 June 2010 (UTC).
Thanks. I've asked for permission to use AWB so I'll have at least a faint idea what I'm talking about before submitting a feature request. To clarify: when only a word or phrase (occuring at the end of a sentence) is being reffed, the ref is to be placed prior to the period? -- Rrburke (talk) 13:43, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
I put a feature req in anyway. That's what I understand, although I could support an argument that the level of granularity for references is not a good thing. but we are talking perhaps of stuff like " Large planets include Uranus[1], Saturn[2] and Jupiter[3]." Rich Farmbrough, 13:48, 4 June 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot ISBN code

Hi. Have you released your code for checking ISBNs for good hyphenation, good checksum, and assignment of language/publisher code (or could you, pretty please)? Thanks much. (You can reply only here.)—msh210℠ 17:49, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Some of it was released: the hypenation code is here but is for an old version of AWB. The checksumming code will need re-creating, it was lost in a disk crash I think. Rich Farmbrough, 19:51, 3 June 2010 (UTC).
Ah, the hyphenation was the one I wanted least. Oh, well. Thanks much, anyway.—msh210℠ 15:12, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

NYHC

I noticed you had a sub-page dealing with New York Hardcore and thought you might find this quote from Harley Flanagan of the Cro-Mags interesting (and hopefully not offensive):

The one obvious difference between way back in the day and now days is back then we didn't have the internet and shit like that, so now word travels faster and shit is able to spread quicker. Back then you really had to know what was up, you had to go and find out for yourself. Now you can google it, or even better Wikipedia it so you can make sure to get all your facts wrong.[155]

--Supertouch (talk) 21:39, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Portals

Since you seem to be the point man on this portal cleanup endeavor I thought I would let you know that I think I have completed the portal cleanup for the following portals: American Civil War, United States Army, United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. I can't say I did every one but I think between the 2 of us we covered most of them. I am currently working on United States Airforce and then I will work on World War I, World War II and Coast guard. Not necessarily in that order. Please let me know if there is anything else you would like me to look at. --Kumioko (talk) 18:11, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

That should keep you busy! Great stuff. Rich Farmbrough, 18:13, 4 June 2010 (UTC).
Yep, I got about 2200 pages left for the Air Force so itll take me a couple days. Im not as fast as you. --Kumioko (talk) 18:26, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

Dear Mr. Farmbrough,

You put an "orphan" tag to the contribution "Ivan Samylovskii". This contribution was kindly formatted by your colleagues "Chase me ladies, I am the Cavalry" upon a request. My understanding was that this biography will be hosted by one of the Wikipedia Projects, and I hoped that the biography would be published under WikiProject Biography, and was puzzled to see the "orphan" tag. I added all reasonable and meaningful links to other Wikipedia article and will be very grateful if you could please take of the "orphan" tag. If you could kindly advise on whether there is anything I could/should do to have this biography with "WikiProject Biography" tag, please kindly let me know. All my apologies if I did something wrong, I am very new to Wikipedia and my only concern is to have Samylovskii's biography in the best possible format and in the most appropriate project.

I have noticed the biography is linked to "Soviet diplomats" page, but unfortunately, it is misplaced, and there is no way I can change it and place under the letter "S" by family name(to move it from the letter "I" where it is now since Ivan is the first name).

I would highly appreciate if you respond me. Look forward to hearing from you. The administrator mentioned above has all my contact details. Yours sincerely, ERASWK (talk) 19:29, 5 June 2010 (UTC) ERASWK

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 08:15, 6 June 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Hello, I have personally had multiple seizures induced by Hydrogen sulfide remaining in a medicinal Hash Called budder,

This hash is very rare and there have been 0 studies on it and its effects etc.

I have only my experiences and the experiences of 3 other patients who had seizures after smoking budder.

I edited the budder wiki a long time ago to add these as possible side effects to WARN PEOPLE OUT THERE that this is NOT A SAFE DRUG

Yet i find i have had to re-edit it maybe 20 times to combat against People who make/sell it, People who think im an idiot and have no idea what im talking about, And wikipedia mods who claim my research is unreferenced.

Your bot has been making edits on that page although its quite difficult for me to make out what he removed and what others have i have a couple questions.

Is there any way for me to setup a bot that re-posts the information i know to be true, As to inform the other possible victims of this drug of the dangers?

And could you possibly have your bot stop removing my section of the wiki if he is doing so?

I really appreciate your time, If people like you didnt exist the internet could be a terrible place filled with l33tspeak, gramatical errors, and false claims everywhere ;-)

Thanks again http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budder —Preceding unsigned comment added by NotAlright (talk • contribs) 21:23, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 18:19, 6 June 2010 (UTC).

AWB issue?

Not sure if this was an AWB issue (and thus should be reported there) or something else, but something definitely went wrong with this edit. - TexasAndroid (talk) 15:19, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. It's a kinda known issue where the API seems to serve an empty page once in many thousands of pages. AWB threw an error for that page (correctly) but I somehow managed to save it anyway. Rich Farmbrough, 15:22, 4 June 2010 (UTC).

AWB wrecked this article’s formatting with English-language_editions_of_The_Hobbit&diff=366408369&oldid=349577059. The formatting of the article is idiosyncratic and perhaps ought to be structured some other way, but I don’t know how to fix it, and clearly AWB doesn’t, either! ;^) Strebe (talk) 19:35, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure this article used to be more extensive with illustrations. Thanks for the not I will make the changes using Firefox. Rich Farmbrough, 19:41, 6 June 2010 (UTC).

A question from us...

Hello dear Rich,

A few months ago we have included an important insurance software company in Wikipedia, see this page: IDIT_I.D.I._Technologies

We would really appreciate to know why Wikipedia sais that this page is written like an advertisement, as we would like to fix it.

We appreciate your help. Thanks a lot! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.179.40.11 (talk) 13:20, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

It looks OK to me as it stands, I made a few minor improvements. Rich Farmbrough, 18:07, 6 June 2010 (UTC).

Portal moving when portals have named arguments

Rich, I'm not clear on how {{portal box}} supports multiple portals coming with named arguments (for doing the AWB portal merging FR). Can you put an example in the documentation as your portal settings link is a dead link? Thanks Rjwilmsi 13:23, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 18:08, 6 June 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot and portal fixes

[156] -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:52, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

That was quick! -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:00, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

One more comment: I would like that you comment on Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature_requests#Succession table. If Headbomb os right we have to replace start box with s-start instead of only capitalising as you did [157]. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:00, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Be aware: New genfixes bug

Wrong removal of small tag. Problem in FixSmallTags in FixSyntax procedure in Parsers. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:19, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Line Breaks

The Smackbot is going around and adding a slash to the line breaks (i.e. turning <br> into <br />). But, based on a conversation I had awhile ago with the Line Break people (see here), it should not have the slash included...though it is ok to have, the correct way is without the slash.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 01:29, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for bursting in uninvited here, but no, the correct way is <br />, not <br>, <br/>, </br>, or some other form. <br> is acceptable in normal HTML, but Wikipedia is supposed to be based on XHTML, according to the top of every Wikipedia page: "<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> ", and XHTML only allows <br />. Sorafune +1 01:43, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
NP, I had already replied on Bignole's talk. Rich Farmbrough, 01:50, 7 June 2010 (UTC).
Ah, I see. Well either way, I might as well retract my comment. Sorafune +1 03:27, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Not at all, it's all good stuff. Rich Farmbrough, 07:56, 7 June 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot - Bad bot edit

Here. Have fun. - TexasAndroid (talk) 15:55, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, lots of... Rich Farmbrough, 16:00, 7 June 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot removing orphan tags to aggressively?

E.g. on Canopy clustering algorithm, SmackBot removed the orphan tag. However, the article is only linked from User:, WP: namespaces and "List of ..." pages. Cophenetic correlation is another example of a barely-reachable article, where SmackBot removed the just added orphan tag immediately. Maybe you should not count "List of ..." pages when considering removing the orphan tag? IMHO these articles needs to be linked better, and should thus keep the orphan tag. --Chire (talk) 09:35, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

This is an AWB function, I will investigate if it includes "List of". Rich Farmbrough, 09:53, 6 June 2010 (UTC).
"List of" is counted like any other mainspace page. Wikipedia:Orphan#Criteria has no mention of "List of" being special. Rjwilmsi 13:25, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
This criteria was removed (rightly) in July last year - things like Bulbophyllum abbreviatum are unlikely to ever have links except form lists. Nonetheless I would consider not counting them for purposes of removing orphan tags. What do you think? Rich Farmbrough, 18:22, 6 June 2010 (UTC).
I'd also set the auto-remove threshold higher than the auto-add threshold. There are situations where you have three isolated articles that link to each other. By the formal definition, they all have two "true" incoming links and thus are not orphans. But actually they are not reachable, since the links are a clique (graph theory). So how about adding orphan tags only for "strong" orphans, while automatically removing orphan tags only on pages that have more than say 3 incoming links from "strong" pages, and leaving the other "orphan" tags for human editors to decide? By too strongly auto-editing orphan tags via the bot they somewhat lose their use for human editors, IMHO. But I'm rather new to Wikipedia. --Chire (talk) 08:46, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
There is a switch to only add for zero incoming article links - I use that. In terms of disconnected parts of the graph, the overhead in loading articles is too great to even make a small exploration of the surrounding nodes, however you can grab a database dump (remembering that this is a directed graph) and do graphical analysis on that to find orphan groups (sub-graphs with no incoming links). I suspect there wouldn't be any - sweeping statement I know - or at worst a few that could be quickly fixed, but it would be good to know for sure. Rich Farmbrough, 08:53, 7 June 2010 (UTC).
Incidentally node colouring is the way to go if you do, but you probably know that. Rich Farmbrough, 08:54, 7 June 2010 (UTC).
Yeah, I don't expect SmackBot to check for cliques. I just wanted to note that e.g. an editor might have added an "orphan" tag because the page is part of such a clique, but the editor isn't sure where to add appropriate links. SmackBot would remove the orphan tag again, because he just sees there are enough incoming links. --Chire (talk) 08:52, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Ha - so you do exist!

Just spotted you on Hilbert space ;-) Stephen B Streater (talk) 19:32, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

I love you SmackBot! :D Faceless Enemy (talk) 03:37, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot's tin heart is warmed. Rich Farmbrough, 09:47, 8 June 2010 (UTC).

Portal link broken by SmackBot

I just wanted to point out that the following edit: "FIx up portal template" actually broken the portal template link. Please take these type of cases into consideration for future edits. --dbolton (talk) 04:17, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Resolved (including past cases). Rich Farmbrough, 09:48, 8 June 2010 (UTC).

Lady Gaga

[158], [159] = did not seem to work. Thoughts? -- Cirt (talk) 06:00, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

User:MSGJ has fixed. Just casing. Rich Farmbrough, 09:46, 8 June 2010 (UTC).
Okay, thanks! -- Cirt (talk) 23:14, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Template:Infobox shopping mall

Hi. I've added the only two special paramters to infoobox building so this template is OK for merging. There are four people in support on the talk page including Plastikspork who didn't comment. Can you use AWB to go through what link here to the mall template and replace with Infobox building? This way maps can be added to the infoboxes and the standard parameters added. Dr. Blofeld White cat 14:54, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

If you compare here you'll see how these can be replaced. Really though the number of stores, number of anchors and parking should go further up in the Template:Infobox shopping mall. If you can account for the name variation perhaps you could create a wrapper template and use AWB to replace them or whatever way you do it. Dr. Blofeld White cat 15:04, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

That's because a wrapper template needs to be made and the template able to accomodate for both parameter names, like you;ve done previously. Once that is done the templates can be switched. It should have far more parameters than the example you gave like this. They can be filled out by other people over time. Probably some of the engineering sections and "antenna" could be taken out though. Dr. Blofeld White cat 21:41, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah looking at templates tired is never a good idea! Always best to look at them with a clear head. Dr. Blofeld White cat 21:45, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Removing anti-italicizing marks from {{cite web}} templates

Hi, as can be seen in this edit, SmackBot is removing anti-italicizing marks in the work= parameters of my templates. In a discussion I held on that template's talk page, Template_talk:Cite_web#.22Work.22_vs_.22Publisher.22_parameters, I was wondering why the work= parameter had to be italicized when it was clearly used for websites. Most websites are not published journals and should not be italicized. I'm going to revert the bot's edits, but I won't stop the bot. I'd like your input. Thank you. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 19:40, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you so much for the fixes! – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 21:21, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Low-Pass Filter (Electronics) Article

Hello,

I am not a wikipedia member, but I noticed an error on the Low Pass Filter article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-pass_filter) and have fixed the vandalism I found, but I don't know if any is present in other parts of the article. Also, I assume you have some way of blocking IP addresses so vandals can't just go back and vandalize whatever they want, so if you could block the vandal, that would be great.

Sorry if this isn't the 'official' way of fixing articles or whatever, but you happened to be the last actual member of wikipedia to do anything to the article, so I thought you could help.

Thanks, Josh —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.117.21.76 (talk) 19:46, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing it. Yes we can and do block but we tend do warn first. Rich Farmbrough, 20:29, 8 June 2010 (UTC).

330th Bombardment Group

Thank you for you assistance with my 330th Bombardment Group page!

Cheers,(B29bomber (talk) 20:15, 8 June 2010 (UTC))

Index of ?-related articles

It is inappropriate to add a Template:Empty section box to the alphabetical index articles. Virtually all of these articles have letter sections for which there are no existing articles. It is very misleading to ask editors to add information to these sections. Could you remove these templates with SmackBot. Thanks, Buaidh (talk) 22:29, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing it to my attention, fixing now. Rich Farmbrough, 22:39, 8 June 2010 (UTC).
Done. You can actually make a TOC that works using one of the compact TOC templates - and call the top section "other" rather than an incorrect 0-9. There is also a {{Center}} if you wish to use it. Rich Farmbrough, 23:03, 8 June 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot is misbehaving

SmackBot is being used to convert appropriate Wikitext like:

{{portal|Scotland|Flag of Scotland.svg{{!}}border|size=x22px}}{{Scotland WPbox}}{{Scotland NB}}

into gibberish like:

{{Portal|Scotland}}border|size=x22px}}{{Scotland WPbox}}{{Scotland NB}}

Could you please see who is doing this and ask them to restore the original Wikitext. Thanks, Buaidh (talk) 22:40, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Empty sections

I noticed that you removed a lot of Empty section tags. Do you think we have to modify the auto-tagger somehow? -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:32, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's a moot point. Skip one character headings sounds sensible. But if those sections are empty, and it's not reasonable to ask for entries, then maybe there should be no section, or maybe P-Q rather than P and an empty Q? But of course either play merry hell with Compact TOCs - I'm sure I've addressed this before somewhere - maybe it was one of my own pages which don't matter so much. Rich Farmbrough, 23:36, 8 June 2010 (UTC).
I confess that I have also been deleting empty sections manually as well. Although I did stop after the conversation on the AWB feature request. --Kumioko (talk) 23:38, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

We could omit 1-letter headers. The tagger can't help on lists a lot anyway. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:54, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I think its the way to go. Also [0-9 –—-]+ for years. If the page is mature, the empty sections should be pulled out, subject to the problems mentioned above. Rich Farmbrough, 23:58, 8 June 2010 (UTC).

Kumioko

Hello, Rich Farmbrough. You have new messages at Kumioko's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
Oh ok I would have thought at least a couple hundred thousand. On a seperate note I have noticed a number of articles with multiple Commons cat links. I have been manually changing them to Commons cat multi but that might be an edit that could be added to AWB and or Smackbot in the future.--Kumioko (talk) 00:21, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 7 June 2010

Hamburg portal

I've found another portal box that you could convert. {{Hamburg portal}} -- WOSlinker (talk) 19:53, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Here's another - {{WPEssayportal}} -- WOSlinker (talk) 22:39, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 22:42, 9 June 2010 (UTC).

Revision to Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri articles

I noticed that you have revised either Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri or Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire.

I intend to revise those articles following the Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines. There are more details on the discussion pages of those articles. I'd be interested in any comments you have. It would be best if your comments were on the discussion pages of the two articles.

Thank you.

Vyeh (talk) 03:58, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

«₯»« b nepali is the one of the most recognise able contry whhere the people living with cooperative thinking »À —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.171.240.110 (talk) 08:20, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Fantastic! Rich Farmbrough, 08:33, 10 June 2010 (UTC).

Template:Portal

Is your addition of Category:Templates with transitional syntax to Template:Portal intended as preparation for eliminating the named parameters, eliminating the positional parameters, or merely an act of terrorism? Yours aye, Buaidh (talk) 22:07, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

The first of the three. Rich Farmbrough, 10:20, 11 June 2010 (UTC).
Is there a consensus that the named parameters should be eliminated? Named parameters are generally considered more flexible than positional parameters. If a template has more than five positional parameters, it is pretty hard to tell which position is which. --Buaidh (talk) 13:06, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Odd behaviour by SmackBot

Hi Rich. I'm wondering why SmackBot removed the <small> formatting in this edit. I've fixed it, but I thought you might like to know. Regards. DH85868993 (talk) 08:41, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Looks like it's a regression of a known AWB bug. Rich Farmbrough, 10:21, 11 June 2010 (UTC).

Maybe you could help in this one

User_talk:Magioladitis#Follow-up_on_to_my_commons_cat_multi_question_on_the_AWB_FR_page. We need to simplify/merge stuff. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:18, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Title

I give up. Why is your user name on this page's title misspelled?--Bbb23 (talk) 00:06, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

It's the display title code at the top. Hard to do anything fun with it, because as an anti vandalism measure it can only omit letters or change formatting. Rich Farmbrough, 02:12, 14 June 2010 (UTC).

Question

Good evening good sir! I wanted to ask you about the ongoing conversations regarding the commons templates. I left a comment/question in Mag's talk page and I was wondering if you were going to take a stab at fixing the coding or if you were under the impression I was doing it, which I am willing to try, but I am not very good with. --Kumioko (talk) 00:20, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes I will probably have a look at it. But it's hard to know what to include, also on the one had removing redundancy is good, but creating monstrous templates is bad. Rich Farmbrough, 02:12, 14 June 2010 (UTC).

Volley

I have seen that you edited some volleyball articles. Some players articles, most of them looks outdated. I would like to improve players by country. Could you please choose a country to contribute with? Please take a look on Yekaterina Gamova, Hélia Souza, Serena Ortolani and Kenia Carcaces for a model to follow. Please can you please improve some volleyball players with infobox and some addons? References are very important. Let me know. Oscar987 22:08, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Redirects to Citation needed etc.

Rich, when SmackBot changes {{fact}}, {{cn}} etc. into {{Citation needed|date=June 2010}}, does it work from all existing redirects to that template, or just a list which you have set up? I'm asking because a lot of new redirects seem to have been created in the last few days, see Template talk:Unreferenced#Redirects, and the user concerned has also amended several redirects (some of which he created, and some which already existed) to point to different templates. Some of them have pointed to {{citation needed}} at some point, see here. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:18, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't necessarily want you to do a new build ahead of schedule; the thing is, there is a possibility that some of these redirects (new or existing) may have been used by people who believed that they had one effect, but the effect has been changed. The user in question attempted to alter WP:MYSPACE from Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a blog, webspace provider, social networking, or memorial site to Wikipedia:Facebook, which is a huge difference of meaning. This particular case isn't a template, but it's a redirect which was altered without thought for the consequences (it has since been reverted). I don't want to see collateral damage by, say {{citation needed}} popping up in places where {{unreferenced}} was intended - or vice versa. BTW, I'm watching this page, because I like to keep threads in one place. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:34, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia templates

Rich, either my computer is messing up, or there's a serious problem with all the templates that just occured. Somebody's messing around with this! Please fix ASAP! Thanks. Best, --Discographer (talk) 23:34, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

The problem is, is that somebody removed (hide)/(show) from the upper right-hand corner of the actual template template. See my talk page for example, as I've always kept them closed, not opened, as they now appear. This drastically affects the group templete box to, as you will see (well, as you would know, since you're the template expert)! Best, --Discographer (talk) 06:06, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
Hello. I encounter the same problem as mentioned by the editor above, however, this is when I use new features. When I use old features, it does not do this. --Astrodia (talk) 19:31, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, one for WP:VP/T. Rich Farmbrough, 19:33, 15 June 2010 (UTC).

This may explain the problem and provide a solution. Rich Farmbrough, 19:38, 15 June 2010 (UTC).

Hi Rich, again. Thanks for responding back to me! I clicked on that link you mentioned, and couldn't find anything there. Interesting, that I'm not the only one with this problem. I'll have to try the old way again, but I've been doing this the new way since the last time I talked to you, and I had no template problems (hide/show) until last night! I'm going to bring this up on that link you gave me. Thanks Rich, as always! Best, --Discographer (talk) 20:34, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
How do I clear the cache (I don't even know what a cache is? Oh, God, that must be pretty bad!) Best, --Discographer (talk) 20:38, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
Depending on the exact issue, see WP:PURGE or WP:BYPASS. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:45, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
It worked! I pushed the "Ctrl" key and pressed the "F5" key, and now it's restored! It is now fixed. I'm so happy! Thanks Rich, and thanks Redrose, I have to remember this. Best, --Discographer (talk) 21:06, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 14 June 2010

Re:User talk pages

Sorry, it is necessary for this purpose, I may only have to stop here when I'm finally done with it. 84.86.199.99 (talk) 16:59, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

WP:PCQ

Hi Rich,
I've dumped some more candidates into WP:PCQ. Since you've notified the talk pages of the last batch, would you do the same for those? Won't hurt, even though most of the concerns we got as feedback weren't actually coming from the article watchers I think.
If not I'll ask someone else, or do it myself tomorrow. :)
Cheers, Amalthea 22:47, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Wrong edit summary. :) Amalthea 23:50, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
If I had a pound for every time I have done that.... Rich Farmbrough, 23:53, 16 June 2010 (UTC). 23:53, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Ulysses S. Grant Pending Changes

Hi Rich. In the USG article I am attempting to change the USG Civil War segment. The current Civil War segment on the USG article is to be transferred to a separate article, since it has outgrown this article. Having a separate article on USG and the Civil War will allow room for expansion. The rewrite on the Civil War section is only done to condense the USG article, not to make any drastic changes or cause edit wars. Rjensen approved. I have put the summary in the Talk page to get input and I am allowing others to review the USG Civil War summary and make comments. I have gotten valuable help on the edits. The summary in the talk page includes information on the Battle of North Anna and Lee's dysentary during the Overland Campaign. The purpose is to make the USG bio article stream line and give separate articles to longer life topics. A separate article can also be done on USG's world tour. Articles on his Presidency and Presidential scandals have already been done. The 150 Anniversary of the Civil War is coming up and it has been mention that a separate article on USG's civil war carreer would be good. {Cmguy777 (talk) 02:28, 17 June 2010 (UTC)}

SmackBot

Hi! smackbot. I am an adminn from hindi wikipedia. i observed that you made a very big contribution to make vaarta shirshak(talk pages). so we all give thank to you. but why you have stopped your bot now. please come in hindi wikipedia at some small intervals so that all talk pages may get form. I think mr gunjan verma there had already talked to you about this. so I request you to do your bot activity.regards--mayurkumar —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.242.100.137 (talk) 06:14, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Baseball lists

Just wondering if there was some sort of discussion as to why the lists of baseball jargon were moved to "Glossary of baseball". Thanks. — KV5 • Talk • 11:42, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 12:07, 17 June 2010 (UTC).

Portalpar template

I wanted to let you know I have finished going through the articles that linked to portalpar. There are still about 5 that pop up but I can't figure out why but the other 4500+ are done. Now I am working on WWI and WWI portals. Ill let you know when I am done. --Kumioko (talk) 16:33, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I noticed that too with what transcludes here. everytime I run it I get a few more. --Kumioko (talk) 16:39, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Underground stock

Hi Rich. Could you please have another look at your last edit to this template? I don't understand what your change was supposed to do. The infobox now always shows a weight value of "date= May 2010".

Cheers -- EdJogg (talk) 15:13, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

 Done -- Thank you. -- EdJogg (talk) 19:14, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Hoxne Hoard

You might be interested in this project Wikipedia:GLAM/BM/Hoxne_challenge... Are you a "FA Kinda guy"? Witty Lama 19:01, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

In this edit of Portal:Mars, SmackBot misunderstands the syntax. Iceblock (talk) 19:29, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, fixed already, but I found another page affected (out of 30,000 checked) so thanks for the note. Rich Farmbrough, 09:42, 19 June 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Hey, the citation you left (House of Hair with Dee Snider) saying that Blackie Lawless was born in Staten Island, that doesn't actually say that he was born there, it only says that he was raised there. In an interview that I found on Youtube, Blackie said that he was born in the kitchen of the Rainbow Bar and Grill in Los Angeles California. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.120.163.23 (talk) 22:13, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 09:43, 19 June 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Rich, I am a descendent of Lt. Col. Stephen Moulton. The information you have looks correct. I have much more on his genealogy if you think the entry deserves more.

Where did you get this picture and why do you know it is him?

Kirk Moulton [email protected] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.69.241.122 (talk) 02:02, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Details on the picture are at File:Stephen Moulton 33.GIF (Granted permission by Floyd NY County Clerk). The author of the article and uploader of the picture is User:HMS INDEFATIGABLE who was active for a few days in 2007, creating also Brent Brandon. My edits to the article are minor, technical, grammatical or cosmetic. By all means add significant information, if possible quoting a reference. Rich Farmbrough, 09:37, 19 June 2010 (UTC).

Removal of spacing

Hi there - I just had a look at this edit and noticed that your fixes, particularly the removal of ndash from the bottom infoboxes, have caused years to display like 1909- 1910 instead of 1909 - 1910. It's occurred on a few Premier pages... and who knows how many others. Is there an easy way you can think to fix it? Timeshift (talk) 02:26, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

If you look at the previous version of the page you will see it is exactly the same. Rich Farmbrough, 09:40, 19 June 2010 (UTC).

Help on a task

Maybe you could help me with User_talk:Magioladitis#Yobot_bug.3F? I have limited access to network till Monday. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:53, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your help with this task. 24.44.14.186 (talk) 16:08, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

subst pagename in Gutenburg template

Hi, you recently made an edit to Monmouth Rebellion which added subst pagename to a Template = Gutenberg|no=9504. I don't understand what it was supposed to do but doesn't seem to have worked - if you look at ref 24 it includes {{Subst:PAGENAME}} at Project Gutenberg which I don't think should be there.— Rod talk 13:14, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 17:47, 19 June 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

The few other recent Smackbot edits I've looked at seem fine, but this edit to DDT broke the formating in most of the references. It's been reverted. Yilloslime TC 16:06, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

That is very odd, thanks for letting me know. Rich Farmbrough, 16:08, 19 June 2010 (UTC). 16:08, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
This is a side effect of the template redirect {{...}} which I still have to deal with. I have been wasting time on other matters, unfortunately. Rich Farmbrough, 17:48, 19 June 2010 (UTC).

Thanks

Thanks for the clean up at Talk:Shakespeare authorship question/sandbox draft2‎ deeply appreciated. Any criticisms of the quality of the page also would be most welcome. Best regards Nishidani (talk) 11:13, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

And thanks for the explanation. At first I thought it messed up the ref formatting and reverted, but after you did it again I discovered that I had tested the only cite without a ref. I did remove the "Untitled" title, though, to restore the page view. Tom Reedy (talk) 13:23, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Cite template cap

I'm using Cite from My Preferences option. It writes in "cite" not "Cite". So what? --Chris.urs-o (talk) 13:07, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Articles needing chemical formulas progress

Template:Articles needing chemical formulas progress has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Svick (talk) 20:51, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot and Template:Infobox road

In this edit, SmackBot broke {{infobox road}} by changing "country=USA" to "country=US". The infobox uses the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code for countries, and that means "USA" is the correct parameter value for the United States. – TMF 01:27, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

This too. [160] --Rschen7754 01:34, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
OK, thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 01:35, 21 June 2010 (UTC).
US should now work fine. Rich Farmbrough, 01:37, 21 June 2010 (UTC).
You're missing the point, we want your bot to stop changing USA to US in {{infobox road}}. --Rschen7754 01:39, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Yes I understand that. However making the template easier and safer to use is a good thing. Rich Farmbrough, 01:41, 21 June 2010 (UTC).
I don't understand this comment at all. The template doc page explicitly states to use the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code for the country parameter, with a link to said codes; doesn't get much easier than that. As for "safer"...I'm at a loss for words. There's nothing unsafe with how the infobox or its subtemplates are coded. – TMF 02:05, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Principle of least astonishment. Rich Farmbrough, 06:32, 21 June 2010 (UTC).
Still not following. In my opinion and of the opinion of the others who have commented here, your bot's change is a solution in search of a problem. – TMF 06:52, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Two different questions, re HCI it is best not to assume people read the documentation, if the do "the obvious thing" it should work, if they do something very odd it should fail gracefully. This isn't always possible, especially with the limits on template programming.
As far as the bot is concerned there is a long standing WP MoS for using US rather than USA, (and, apart from sporting pages for using alpha2). For that reason making the change from USA to US in most templates, where it is treated purely as a string is a Good Thing™. However it is pretty minor so there's no problem turning it off. Rich Farmbrough, 07:06, 21 June 2010 (UTC).
Reg-exs changed. Rich Farmbrough, 01:44, 21 June 2010 (UTC).
(edit conflict)Making it easier is one thing, breaking it is another. I don't know what making it safer requires or does. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 01:46, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
A moments more thought than I gave it. Done. Rich Farmbrough, 01:53, 21 June 2010 (UTC).

List of tallest buildings in Springfield, Missouri

I was expanding the List of tallest buildings in Springfield, Missouri, and while I was doing that, your bot came along and caused an edit conflict (not to mention that it seems that I am always on the wrong side of an edit conflict). I didn't want to lose my changes so I saved them and now the whole article is screwed up, and I have no idea how to fix it. Would you be able to help? Thanks. Zonafan39 (talk) 04:44, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I was able to fix the error, don't worry about it, the article is fine now. Zonafan39 (talk) 05:13, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

WPBS

Check User_talk:Xeno#WPBS. Maybe we need your help. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:30, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Requiem (Mozart)

[161] "to this day" = "until today". not clear? cheers ;-) --FordPrefect42 (talk) 10:27, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Okay, got that. Good point. Cheers --FordPrefect42 (talk) 10:42, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Unit-attn

Template:Unit-attn has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Axem Titanium (talk) 12:13, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Template:zh-hk

Re your revert of User:Gzyeah, can you comment at Template talk:Language icon#zh-hk vs. yue? I don't understand these language codes very well, but something seems to be wrong here. Thanks, cab (talk) 01:18, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Sig migration

Hey, I was wondering if anything else happened with the migration you mentioned awhile back[162] If possible, would love it if it could be done throughout my archives, if nothing else, to make it less easy to connect the dots (though if it could also be done in my FA/GA stuff that would rock). -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 03:55, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I did about 500 pages that needed editing for other reasons, but I saw some negative comments at WP:BOTREQ. However your archives seem unexceptional: I did a blanket replace, also did my pages. Rich Farmbrough, 15:22, 22 June 2010 (UTC).
Ah...sorry, about that, I thought the discussion had died there and hadn't seen the last replies. Do appreciate your doing the archives though. :-) -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 15:42, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

AWB help

Thanks It's actually a little unlikely that I'll get to use that rule between me finishing off all the good articles and the bot request, but I might be able to apply that in the future. Thanks again. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:57, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 21 June 2010

Question

Hey Rich,, regarding this,

How am I supposed to implement this if the template is not amended? I had placed the non-English ones at WP:CFDS to rename them as well to match. Good Ol’factory (talk) 23:46, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I saw the discussion at Template_talk:Lang#Names_of_categories. As I said there I think I'll just change the CFD close. Thx, Good Ol’factory (talk) 23:53, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
Excellent. Rich Farmbrough, 23:54, 22 June 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Hi, how can i change the title on the new template. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xeex (talk • contribs) 12:34, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Request

Could you please check what happened to Template:New page and its talkpage and protection settings. Look slike a rogue admin to me. Debresser (talk) 12:49, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Page was only semi-protected. Rich Farmbrough, 14:53, 23 June 2010 (UTC).
Xeev moved it to Moldavian Identity card and edited it, VW reverted and moved it back. Rich Farmbrough, 14:55, 23 June 2010 (UTC).

Robert Wadlow repeat vandalism

As I am not on Wiki as often as I once was, thought I should draw someone's attention to this, and saw your name in the edits, and remembered previous contact. Hopefully that is not onerous. I came upon it accidentally, settling a debate, and noted it had previously been messed with on the 21st. Respect. Seasalt (talk) 12:46, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Problem with edits from a while back - NL infobox import (pulled from May archive)

See [163].. See the caption display? |250px|none|alt=|Location of Absdale]] - Please investigate. –xenotalk 22:12, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I see you fixed that one article, but this occurs on all the NL infobox imports that you conducted with Smackbot, such as 't Nopeind and 't Veld. Please correct all the articles. –xenotalk 19:17, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Cydebot fixed it I think, but I have now done the others as far as I can see. Rich Farmbrough, 07:29, 25 June 2010 (UTC).

Fic depercated paramter in cite tempalte (and GFs) using AWB

Might want to run a spell checker on your edit summary :-) ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 20:34, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Please be careful

We warn newbies not to refactor other people's talk page comments. I have undone this edit because it completely misses the point about why those particular parameters have been used. Further, the bug which I described here still exists, so please don't replace |year=, or month/year, with |date=, unless a day is also present. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:25, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Empty Category:User-created public domain images

Hi Rich Farmbrough, you seem to have a bot to timestamp the files in Category:User-created public domain images. Could you give it some extra botsnacks and fire it up to empty out the category? Please reply here, my watchlist works ;-) multichill (talk) 21:24, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

TB

Hello, Rich Farmbrough. You have new messages at Sadads's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
Archive me. Rich Farmbrough, 17:13, 30 June 2010 (UTC).

Dummy section to test link with HTML comment in

Rich Farmbrough, 17:13, 30 June 2010 (UTC).

Programming issue with Pending changes

It was just pointed out at WT:Pending changes#Some_positive_feedback that the edit page still says "When you click Save, your changes will immediately become visible to everyone" even when Level 1 or Level 2 protection is in place. Thought you might like to have this minor glitch reported to whoever is doing the programming work for WP:PEND. Thanks Rich. ... Kenosis (talk) 19:39, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 28 June 2010

Smackbot issue

Hello Rich, Smackbot in this edit changed the capitalization of a section, but the capitalization is part of a proper noun and thus should not be changed. Regards, -- Jeff3000 (talk) 00:17, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks I have fixed that. Rich Farmbrough, 07:31, 30 June 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot Allowable upper case in section heading

In Alexander Mitchell Palmer you changed the heading "Attorney General" to "Attorney general", which is wrong. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 02:22, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Similarly, "Prime Minister" should always be capitalised, but the bot changed it in Feleti Sevele.-gadfium 06:42, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the notes, we don't capitalise titles of rank unless they are used in conjunctions with the name of the person, or the entity to which they apply.MoS Rich Farmbrough, 09:06, 30 June 2010 (UTC).
That is incorrect. "Attorney General", "Prime Minister", "Speaker of the House" are all correct when used as titles. Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:03, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Removal of "small" tags

I agree with most of this edit, but why remove <small> tags? They help readability by indicating levels of importance in text.  HWV258.  04:52, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I had this logged as an AWB bug, but it looks as if the text in galleries, in Monobook, is already small. Using small tags would result in even smaller text which is not good for accessibility. I have added this example to my bug report however. Rich Farmbrough, 05:09, 30 June 2010 (UTC).

Stub removal

I noted that in this edit SmackBot removed stub tags. Removing a stub tag should be the result of a specific human evaluation of the article; what criteria is SmackBot using to remove stubs? Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:01, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

AWB removes stub tags from pages over a certain size, using a weighted algorithm that values pure text more than lists, for example. It is extremely conservative, and widely accepted, although occasionally there are queries. Generally if an article is long enough to have its stub tag removed it is not a stub, although it may still need expansion. It is normal to either expand the article or tag it with {{Expand}} if this is the case. Rich Farmbrough, 16:56, 30 June 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot - The Band/The band

Rich, I can understand why the program would do it, but SmackBot shouldn't have lower-cased the name of the musical group The Band to The band in Robbie Robertson's article. --John (User:Jwy/talk) 15:15, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Hm, that's a good one. There were 136 occurrences of "The Band" as a stand alone title, nonetheless I think I will simply have to allow them to remain in future, since the methods for marking something as an exception, such as {{Sic}} aren't really appropriate for headers, the alternative is to use a white-list, which has its own drawbacks but might be worth considering. Rich Farmbrough, 15:35, 30 June 2010 (UTC).
I presume the bot will scan the page again sometime? Maybe a version of {{Sic}} (or another template) that places a comment string the bot would recognize? Probably an outlier case, but there are probably one or two other such cases! Or even a commented template like the one I just put on the heading here? --John (User:Jwy/talk) 16:14, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
Yes it would get hit when the next database dump is complete, which is RSN (real soon now). Anything between the == delimiters can affect the section link, but HTML comments shouldn't and would be a great fix if it works. Rich Farmbrough, 16:39, 30 June 2010 (UTC).
I'll restore one of the other hits on Robbie's article to detect the scan hit it and try the commented sic on the heading. --John (User:Jwy/talk) 17:02, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
OK the links still work fine with the HTML comment, and I don't think there are accessibility issues (which is the other area where "funny" headers cause problems) so it looks great. I can force SB to run against that page after the current run is complete. Rich Farmbrough, 17:15, 30 June 2010 (UTC).
This is fine from the bot's point of view. Rich Farmbrough, 20:00, 30 June 2010 (UTC).
Cool. Good to know its an option. I'll leave it up to you whether you want to recommend it in other situations. Nice working with you. --John (User:Jwy/talk) 22:37, 30 June 2010 (UTC)


SmackBot on RuneScape

Hey Rich, we already sent you a message on runescape, but I thought I'd tell you here as well. SmackBot has been malfunctioning and was shutdown. It was adding "DUMMY" to the beginning of prices and dates. I noticed that this also happened in November of 2008. Just thought I'd tell you. CookMePlox (talk) 01:56, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

Can you please tone down Smackbot? - I appreciate that some things can be checked automatically but it appears to make a lot of 'changes' that are totally invisible in a diff. If its invisible then why bother? Some changes that it does produce can be an arbitrary matter of taste which doesn't affect the final article. The meat of any genuine change is completely lost in the dozens of irrelevant alterations. E.g. Changing sub-headings from'== xxx ==' is very subjective and irrelevant to the ultimate format. (Personally, I think spaces make it easier to read, but there is no right or wrong answer here.) Removing carriage returns and splicing together lines is irrelevant, and just makes reading the diff impossible. Sifting through hundred of these changes is the sort of infuriating trivia that deters authors Ephebi (talk) 10:35, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Re: Smackbot and "Video music" changes

Just letting you know that Smackbot went through and changed a bunch of the musician awards lists. Section headings for the "MTV Video Music Awards" were changed to "MTV Video music Awards", which looks odd given in terms of capitalization. (For example, List of awards and nominations received by Adele, with the edit being shown here). I went ahead and "undid" the changes to a few of the awards lists that were on my watchlist, but I am not sure if other lists need to be changed back as well. --Another Believer (Talk) 17:37, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes I can find them and fix them. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 19:33, 30 June 2010 (UTC).
Done those. Rich Farmbrough, 18:24, 1 July 2010 (UTC).

Formula Three

Hi Rich. Can you please ask Smackbot not to change "Formula Three" to "Formula three", as it did here. Thanks. DH85868993 (talk) 13:30, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes that will be done.
It probably shouldn't be doing this either. DH85868993 (talk) 13:34, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
Ah no, foolish bot believed me when I said that "Two" could always be lower-cased. We were talking about "Side two" and things like that. Will explain (to it) in more detail. Rich Farmbrough, 18:32, 1 July 2010 (UTC).
Thanks :-) DH85868993 (talk) 03:23, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Gaza_flotilla_raid

Rich, this seems badly biased--the statements of those on the flotilla slant towards admitting violence, which is not congruent with what I've read in the press....I don't have the time to edit this and then have it reverted. Sorry. Hope you're well--Beth Wellington (talk) 16:57, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

for instance, see: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wirestory?id=10812607&page=3--Beth Wellington (talk) 17:09, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Also, support in Israel was not monolithic, even among the military. For instance, http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/Article.aspx?id=180119--Beth Wellington (talk) 17:51, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I've quickly glanced at the article, it is a bit of a mess on the level of basic sentence structure. I tweaked a couple of things. I don't think it implies that support in Israel was universal, mentioning the Knesset member who was on the flotilla, for example. From what I have understood there was extreme violence on just the one ship, and lesser amounts on the others. Of course with these types of events you get people who were there, (and often people who were not!) claiming all sorts of stuff and it takes a while to piece it together. To me it is shows that people can be extremely foolish - taking a one-year old on such a trip has to be grossly irresponsible at least. Rich Farmbrough, 18:35, 3 July 2010 (UTC).

Template:Portal/Images/Connecticut

Would you have any objections to changing this from "Flag of Connecticut.svg" to "Seal of Connecticut.svg" which is what the old PORTAL_IMG parameter was in {{WikiProject Connecticut}}? I think it adds a little visual interest to the project banner since the flag is already used as the main image. I'd do it myself, but 1) the page is protected and 2) I'd be afraid of breaking everything. Thanks.Abby Kelleyite (talk) 20:01, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

ISO 3166 code templates

I noticed you were the author of Template:ISO 3166 code, so I figured you're the person to ask: Is there any reason not to make Template:ISO 3166 code North Korea, Template:ISO 3166 code South Korea, or other such redirects? I'm using the ISO 3166 templates to make a new version of Template:Globalize at User:Closeapple/new/Globalize/testcases, in regard to the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2010 June 21#Template:Globalize/Australia. Is there some other template I should be using instead to make names canonical? --Closeapple (talk) 19:43, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Timeline of United States inventions (before 1890)

This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a search with the contents of Timeline of United States inventions (before 1890), and it appears to be very similar to another Wikipedia page: Timeline of United States inventions. It is possible that you have accidentally duplicated contents, or made an error while creating the page— you might want to look at the pages and see if that is the case. If you are intentionally trying to rename an article, please see Help:Moving a page for instructions on how to do this without copying and pasting. If you are trying to move or copy content from one article to a different one, please see Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia and be sure you have acknowledged the duplication of material in an edit summary to preserve attribution history.

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot (talk) 11:39, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

botched date ranges

just wanted to draw your attention to a botched mdy to dmy date range conversion I spotted. Now fixed. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 15:02, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Found a few more from various people going back several years. Fixing as I go. Rich Farmbrough, 23:41, 5 July 2010 (UTC).

Splitting pages

Hi. Please remember to include a wikilink in the edit summary the next time you split an article or move content from one article to another. See WP:SPLIT and WP:CWW for more information. Theleftorium (talk) 21:05, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

BP

This edit seems quite strange and I partially reverted it. Beagel (talk) 16:13, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 16:30, 6 July 2010 (UTC).

The Wikipedia Signpost: 5 July 2010

Auto refresh watchlist

Hey, can you look at the conversation here and weigh in some thoughts. Sadads (talk) 17:52, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Template:$

Re this edit, what is Smackbot doing here? Mjroots (talk) 17:54, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

See BP above. Rich Farmbrough, 18:39, 6 July 2010 (UTC).
(Essentially there is a redirected template called "..." who's name needed escaping. Rich Farmbrough, 20:57, 6 July 2010 (UTC).)

Please help with this?

Rich, often at night, I go through the Category:Musicians work group articles needing infoboxes and look for those that do exist, and cross them off the list, and also add infoboxes to articles with enough information to put into them. Today, I found someone had started an article, but it's TITLE is User:Christineargue -- I'd actually begun to work on it and it's talk page before realizing how screwed up this is. Can you handle this? Figure out what the editor is trying to do, etc.? I don't feel qualified to handle anything like this. Thanks. --Leahtwosaints (talk) 03:37, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

  • I've moved it into her sandbox. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 06:32, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
    Thanks OC, - there are many user pages that are copies of/drafts of/look like articles - if I'm doing a manual fix I often fix them up, but they can be legitimately ignored, de-categorised or whatever is needed, the encyclopedia is the important bit. Rich Farmbrough, 13:56, 7 July 2010 (UTC).
    Stil not sure how you ended up on that page, Leah. Rich Farmbrough, 14:41, 7 July 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Re: this change, "Court" is always capitalized when referring to the U.S. Supreme Court ("the Court"). The header should probably be changed to "The Supreme Court's decision", but in any event lower case is incorrect. postdlf (talk) 22:53, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes I understand, we do not capitalise words merely because it is the practice of some other body or profession, no matter how august or venerable. Rich Farmbrough, 08:31, 8 July 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot - Baltimore Orioles

You need to "white list" or whatever you do so that "Baltimore Orioles" stays appropriately capitalized. I've reverted and marked with a commented sic (its in a heading) at Alan Wiggins. --John (User:Jwy/talk) 00:23, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Hm, thought I had. Thanks for the note. Rich Farmbrough, 08:28, 8 July 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Hi....I took a picture of Estelle Getty's grave when I was in LA a few weeks ago. I can't figure out how to add it to the page...can you do this?

here is the link: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4122/4773696902_93be78157a_m.jpg


If you could upload this or give me instructions on how to do it myself I would appreciate it. I can make it larger if need be.

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.97.178.22 (talk) 05:20, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

On the left of the screen is "toolbox", opening this should give you a link called "Upload file". Rich Farmbrough, 08:30, 8 July 2010 (UTC).

Antonio Francisco Xavier Alvares

You've added a NPOV template there without stating the dispute. In fact the article talk page is empty. IMHO these templates are rather worthless without an explanation on the talk page. --Pjacobi (talk) 13:49, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

It only takes reading the article. Even the headers are (were) adulatory "True Missionary" etc. Rich Farmbrough, 14:37, 8 July 2010 (UTC).
Or worked with dedication to spread the true faith... C'mon. Rich Farmbrough, 14:38, 8 July 2010 (UTC).
"Explicit is better than implicit"[164]. If you can't be bothered to state the problem explicitely, why should anyone be bothered to fix the article?
But, yeah, of course. I see that problem. Mostly wondering whether any specific, non-obvious, question should be added to list of problems.
--Pjacobi (talk) 10:55, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Smackbot and orphans

hi rich, smackbot correctly flagged Euphoria Emporium as a orphan. I have linked the article to one other article, but am unsure of what other steps will appease Smackbot and convince it (him?her?) to remove the banner. Theinterior (talk) 19:43, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Anyone can remove the tag if the problem is fixed. In this case I have done so. Rich Farmbrough, 19:52, 8 July 2010 (UTC).
There seems to be no page for the "Channel 10" mentioned. List of television stations in British Columbia does not list it as far as I can see. Rich Farmbrough, 20:05, 8 July 2010 (UTC).
Cable 10 was the public-access channel provided by Kamloops Cablevision in the 80's and 90's. After Shaw cable bought the local license, they ended the community-access program. I am unable to reference this at the moment. Theinterior (talk) 20:14, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Benny Kalama

SmackBot just ran on Benny Kalama. Not a problem, but something interesting with the bot you might want to know. If I understand what it did, it "corrected cap in header" in the Birthdate in the infobox. The infobox changed it right back. Where that birthdate template came from is here: Template:Birth date So if it incorrectly has a cap, maybe somebody should get the template changed. If not, maybe it was just one of those things. Maile66 (talk) 21:07, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

It is not a problem. The header change was from "External Links" to "External links" - the others are just very minor things it picks up at the same time. Rich Farmbrough, 21:09, 8 July 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot heading issue

Hi Rich Farmbrough, I'd like to let you know of this edit by SmackBot. It changed ===Theatre=== to ===Theatre==, accidentally removing one equal sign at the end. XLerate (talk) 02:39, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks this happened a number of times, they should all be fixed. Any more let me know. Rich Farmbrough, 09:43, 9 July 2010 (UTC).
I'm rechecking the last 25000 edits to be sure. Rich Farmbrough, 10:04, 9 July 2010 (UTC).

Advice?

Helllooooo~! I wanna have kids, but I'm afraid my fiance won't want any. What should I do? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.59.250.67 (talk) 02:44, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Ask them. Rich Farmbrough, 09:44, 9 July 2010 (UTC).

Kind Pointer?

Rich--I'm looking for a a bot I can run against my personal wiki that will automatically build links. For example, if I create a new article I would like the bot to automatically scan the others and automatically wikify it by adding links in each section whenever it encounters the first occurrence of the new article. Any ideas? Thank you in advance!--P Todd (talk) 01:42, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Depends on how many articles you will be adding, and how many pages you expect to have. If it is very few you could use AWB, otherwise your best bet is to use perl- mix in some wget if it helps. Read Special:NewPages every so often, when there's a new page open each page in succession using the perl API module you will find on CPAN. Loop through the content looking for matches. If it is a local wiki this should be fast enough for a few thousand pages to do it.
You might also look at the tool-server, there are a couple of wikification tools on there.
You need to think about what to do if you have "blah blah titanium dioxide blah blah" and you add page Titanium Dioxide.
Rich Farmbrough, 09:53, 9 July 2010 (UTC).
Awesome. Just the info I was looking for!--P Todd (talk) 22:28, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot RFA Sir Tristram (L3505)

Smackbot has introduced a minor grammar error changing "Roll of Honour" to "Roll of honour" on RFA Sir Tristram (L3505). Its usually written in upper case as a proper noun. Regards, Justin talk 18:30, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot incorrectly changing capitalisation of section titles

Hi Rich, I have a problem with SmackBot. It has been changing the section titles of some of the FA Cup and Football League Cup articles so that instead of "Fifth Round Proper" or "Sixth Round Proper", they read "Fifth round proper" and "Sixth round proper". First of all, this is incorrect, as The Football Association refers to the rounds as proper nouns, so the words should all be capitalised. Second, the bot has been only changing the Fifth and Sixth Round sections, leaving rounds 1-4 alone. Any idea why this is? – PeeJay 12:40, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Oops, forgot to include an example diff: [165] – PeeJay 12:42, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the note. On the first point we follow our own manual of style, many organisations refer to things associated with themselves (primarily) with capitals, which we don't. A prime example is Nobel laureates but also endless job titles, boards, and so forth. On the second point I would imagine that rounds 1-4 are less common headers, therefore the bot hasn't yet thought about them - it works on a per heading basis but knows something about words to enable it to make some of the decisions about headings itself. Rich Farmbrough, 13:14, 9 July 2010 (UTC).
Fair enough on the MOS point, but I'm fairly sure that - as a WikiProject - WP:FOOTY agreed that we should follow The Football Association's naming style for the rounds of the FA Cup. Does that count for something? – PeeJay 13:34, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
Well, in my experience, it varies, for example the "Tree of Life" project got agreement to have italic titles for articles in certain cases (the MoS was changed), but in general projects follow MoS unless there's an outstanding reason not to. In the case of caps my opinion would be that the MoS should be followed, because there are so many areas where customary usage is confusing, and varying from the WP style, as well as damaging the overall coherence of the work, is a barrier to editing for people not expert in the project-specific rules. Rich Farmbrough, 13:22, 11 July 2010 (UTC).

Estelle Getty

Sorry but I can't figure out how to upload that Estelle Getty grave picture. Your suggestion wasn't really any help at all for someone who doesn't have an account and a good sense of knowledge working with Wiki. Please pass it to someone who can if you cannot do it yourself.. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.97.178.22 (talk) 05:31, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, I swapped to the new interface to check but I didn't log off. You might have seen this message on the upload page.

See Wikipedia:Images for upload to request the upload of a free or fair use image available on the Internet.

This will direct you to Wikipedia:Files for upload/Wizard - if there's a problem with using this, let me know and I'll see about uploading it myself.

All the best. Rich Farmbrough, 22:13, 10 July 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot changed my references

Most the other edits on the page seemed correct, but I'm not sure why it changed the chapter numbers on my references. If this bug was fixed then disregard this message, but it seems like a pretty big deal when it's changing the references. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 10:03, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

If you look in the previous version of the page there was a reference <ref name="Vol2Ch12">{{cite book |last=Okamoto|first=Lynn|title=Elfen Lied, Volume 2|year=2002 |publisher=Shueisha |chapter=Chapter 10 |isbn=4-08-876379-3}}</ref>. Rich Farmbrough, 13:11, 11 July 2010 (UTC).
I see you fixed this, should not be a problem now. Rich Farmbrough, 13:14, 11 July 2010 (UTC).

Cambridge Meetup 8

Wikipedia:Meetup/Cambridge 8. You would be most welcome. Charles Matthews (talk) 14:04, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

help

hi Rich, Can you tell me how to run a script present here on perl.I have installed strawberry perl on my pc, but donot know the procedure--वार्ताबाट (talk) 00:21, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Save the perl script locally, and from that directory run
\strawberry\perl\bin\perl script.pl
where script.pl is the script name. Rich Farmbrough, 10:03, 9 July 2010 (UTC).

Thank you, I saved it as varta.pl and then run it on command prompt by writing C:\>\strawberry\perl\bin\perl varta.pl, then the following result came as cannot locate Mediawikihindi.pm in , compilation aborted at varta.pl line 25. Can you check source of these scripts at वार्ताबाट/सोर्स and वार्ताबाट/सोर्स/MediaWikiHindi and make correct them or guide me.We all are grateful to you for your help.Regards--वार्ताबाट (talk) 10:58, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Ok it's looking for use MediaWikiHindi perl module. Let me look at what I was doing:it is simpler, but only works each time a database dump is run. Rich Farmbrough, 16:44, 9 July 2010 (UTC).

I copied that script from an older bot whicj both scripts सदस्य:Bolbalabot/सोर्स/MediaWikiHindi and सदस्य:Bolbalabot/सोर्स. this user has left wikipedia.when i run his scripts then error was shown as Message content must be byte at Mediawikihindi.pm line 98. --वार्ताबाट (talk) 17:02, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

  • Here is the AWB script I use. [166]
  • The process is to run this on the talk-pages of new pages - it will skip any talk pages that haven't been created, so provided it is run on talk pages only it should be safe.
  • The list of new pages is generated by comparing the list from a database dump - of article names only, with a previous list.
  • The script that does this uses several utilities, and relies on the new "article-names-nz0.gz" being downloaded into the working directory. Utilities are:
    • perl (Strawberry perl you already have)
    • sed (part of cygwin)
    • grep (part of cygwin)
    • gzip
    • del (command shell)
    • dir (command shell)
  • The batch I use is [167]
  • The perl script is [168]
  • Instructions are here
While this is not as "instant" as running a full bot dynamically looking for new pages and creating talk pages, it is very simple to run and uses standard components.

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 21:59, 10 July 2010 (UTC).

Probably want to force stuff to use UTF8 too. Actually I have had some problems with UTF8 titles using the perl module - that may be the problem you are seeing. Rich Farmbrough, 22:03, 10 July 2010 (UTC).

Thank you, but can you tell me the procedure stepwise that what should I do.I have strawberry perl installed. you have given me above scripts. but please tell me the steps in sequence now.You gave me and hindi wikipedia a lot of time, many many thanks for it.Regards--वार्ताबाट (talk) 22:24, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

OK first install WP:AWB and cygwin (and gzip). I have gzip in the AWB directory, not very tidy but you can put it there or somewhere else - maybe cygwin comes with gzip too I don't know - the batch assumes it is in AWB directory - you can easily change that.
Make a working directory, put the following files in there.

Now you are set up (provided directories are correct): Follow the instructions in readme.txt

  1. Download "all-titles-in-ns0.gz" from the http://download.wikimedia.org/hiwiki/201007093/ to the working directory
  2. from the command line, in the working directory type "newlist"
  3. run AWB,
    1. file=>settings=>open... hindihi.xml
    2. makelist=>newtalk.txt
    3. Check it is logged in and in bot mode
    4. start.

Rich Farmbrough, 23:30, 10 July 2010 (UTC).

Thank you very much, finally it worked and double thanks for your come back to hindi wikipedia.We all are grateful to you for your humble assistance and great bot work in hindi wiki.At present time you are no 1 bot by contributions.I hope you will continue your contributions in hindi wiki. You are always welcome there.Regards--Mayurbot (talk) 15:33, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

actually I am वार्ताबाट but got bot status on mayurbot account.--Mayurbot (talk) 15:35, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for your Smackbot fixing my edits on the Greater Green Snake page! I am not very good at the codes and formats, so any help is appreciated. Also, I had tried to add a photo that I'd added to wikimedia, but I apparently didn't know how to do it right. Could you take a look and tell me what I did wrong, and how to not mess it up in the future? The photo is here: [169] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Reptileadventure (talk • contribs) 21:09, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 10:40, 12 July 2010 (UTC).

Unit-attn

I closed this TFD and made a first attempt to convert it to a maintenance tag. However, the wording probably could use some improvement, as I was not entirely sure what in particular was being addressed. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 14:57, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Cold Spring Granite and Diamond grinding

Good afternoon - you added orphan tags to the Cold Spring Granite and Diamond grinding pages, but I'm not sure why. There are several categories at the bottom, two outside external links and several wikilinks throughout the Cold Spring Granite page and a similar amount for the other. These were both reviewed and approved by an administrator a while back before they went live after Requests for feedback was utilized. Could you please let me know what specifically you think needs changed on these pages? I understand that an orphan page means that there are few or not links coming to the page, but I thought they had enough from the previous admin's comments.

I appreciate your response and look forward to your comments and/or suggestions. Thank you in advance Wendyfables (talk) 16:25, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 21:23, 12 July 2010 (UTC).

New Hampshire Department of Justice

In the article New Hampshire Department of Justice, Smackbot is changing a heading from "Attorney General" to "Attorney general". That would be fine, except that "Attorney General" is a title. I've changed it back once, but Smackbot has found it and changed it a second time. Can you tell it to ignore this heading? Thanks. --Ken Gallager (talk) 16:35, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes I can, it's not what we normally do, though. MOS:CAPS#Titles of people applies. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 19:38, 12 July 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Why did you delete 98% of the copy and images from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_S._Lewis —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aflewis (talk • contribs) 21:12, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Well it would be about 80% and it wasn't SmackBot but User:BilCat here, his reasons are explained in the edit summary. Rich Farmbrough, 21:21, 12 July 2010 (UTC).

The Wikipedia Signpost: 12 July 2010

Sir Thomas Gates

Can you "move" (i.e. rename) the Thomas Gates page from "Thomas Gates (governor)" to simply "Sir Thomas Gates"? I am not an autoconfirmed user. Also, someone altered a few things on the page, which I just performed an "undo" on. I'm assuming these were vandal edits as Gate's name was changed to "Austin Gleitz" in the subheading. I'm posting on your talk page because you made the last accurate edit for this page. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.48.142.100 (talk) 22:24, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Generally we don't use "Sir" in article titles (though it seems we make an exception for certain baronets). The primary reason is that titles change over the course of a lifetime. Is there any reason to treat this article differently? Rich Farmbrough, 14:44, 14 July 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Hi Rich, I'm concerned about the use of ritual "of any kind" in the proper definition of Pragmatic Buddhism, as the organizations who apply Pragmatic Buddhism do sometimes carry out intentional practices, behavioral commitments, etc. that are virtually undifferentiable from "ritual" in a non-dogmatic definition of the term. I think the outright rejection of the term "ritual" is unnecessary, or at least unpragmatic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abe2008 (talk • contribs) 13:02, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Repost of List of Jewish chess players

A tag has been placed on List of Jewish chess players requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia, because it appears to be a repost of material that was previously deleted following a deletion process. If you can indicate how it is different from the previously posted material, place the template {{hangon}} underneath the other template on the article and put a note on the page's discussion page saying why this article should stay. Administrators will look at your reasoning before deciding what to do with the page. If you believe the original discussion was unjustified, please contact the administrator who deleted the page or use deletion review instead of continuing to recreate the page. Thank you. SyG (talk) 15:19, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot added WPBiography in a slightly wrong place

Hi, I just discovered a minor SmackBot issue, but it's from over two months ago, so I don't know if it's still relevant. (I looked through your talk page archive of that period and didn't see anything about this.) The bot added {{WPBiography}} at the top of a page which had an existing {{WikiProjectBannerShell}}. The WPBiography should go inside the WikiProjectBannerShell, especially in cases like this, where the bot's edit caused two blp banners to display. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 00:44, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Hello

Hello, it's Lolly Pop, thank you for protecting and correcting my page... <3 Merci merci! xxx —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.63.244.3 (talk) 06:12, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

You are most welcome. Rich Farmbrough, 13:41, 17 July 2010 (UTC).

1953 New Jersey State Highway renumbering

Hi,

Just wanted to let you know that at one time what is 17 was 17n and 2. I don't know how to edit the tables, so I won't try. But if you go to the NJ 17 article you'll see what route went where.

Keithdennison (talk) 15:04, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, so is there sometign that needs changing? Rich Farmbrough, 16:11, 17 July 2010 (UTC).

Redirect issues

Hi there. Could you please assist me in the following issue? While trying to leave a message on the talk page of an editor, I found out that the talk page had been moved by the editor to a namespace article. I reverted the move only to have the namespace article now moved to the user talk page. I don't seem to know what exactly I did wrong, and I'd appreciate it if you could help me out here. Thank you. Amsaim (talk) 18:16, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

'tis done. Rich Farmbrough, 18:23, 17 July 2010 (UTC).
Thanks very much for your swift assistance. Where exactly was my mistake? I went to this page and clicked the 'Revert' button, with the intention of reverting the user talkpage move. Amsaim (talk) 18:25, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes, all that happened is Alienmindtrick created the Broxton Rocks page on his talk page, then when he was happy with it moved it to Broxton Rocks, leaving a redirect behind (this is one occasion where the "leave redirect" shouldn't be ticked). Your revert moved it back to his talk page. After that you used the history revert and removed the templates you had added. Alienmindtrick should not have been developing an article on his talkpage, a sandbox page such as User:Alienmindtrick/sandbox would serve the purpose better, but it's not a biggie. People do it all the time, or more often use their User: page. Rich Farmbrough, 18:33, 17 July 2010 (UTC).
Thank you for the information. A bit tricky these redirects if one is not used to them. I'll be more vigilant in future. Amsaim (talk) 18:40, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 19 July 2010

piped ISO dates

could you help out here, please? I did a database scan which returned over 500 articles potentially with piped ISO-style, botched ISO dates (like 2007, 12-8), pseudo-ISO style dates (such as 12-8-2007). I have now delinked some, and corrected non-MOSNUM compliant ones. There are perhaps a hundred articles left on my list. But I am seriously bored doing it. As you can process these in a flash, can you take over, please? Ohconfucius ¡digame! 03:32, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Minor bug

Hi, Rich! Just wanted to point out that this edit (which is one of several) is redundant as it adds an "empty section" tag to a section which is commented out anyway. Probably an easy tweak on your side; just thought you'd want to know. Also, what is the purpose of switching the order of the references? Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 19, 2010; 14:56 (UTC)

rev 6866 Don't tag commented out empty sections with {{empty section}}. Rjwilmsi 08:18, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
Many thanks as always. Rich Farmbrough, 17:25, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

Nomination for deletion of Template:Film title

Template:Film title has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. —innotata 19:30, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Poker probabilities

(I prefer you reply here.)

/* Frequency of 7-card poker hands */ not probability 1/4140 but frequency 4140; rewrite to accommodate and clarify that

That is the description for the only one of my edits that seems essential. Maybe I should have left it thus, but I tweaked some other things in the 7-card sections of the article and left some suggestions on the Talk page. --P64 (talk) 21:55, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Frequency is of course correct. I was just compelled as soon as I saw 4320 to investigate and record the reason for the anomaly - all semblance of doing it in a meaningful way went out of the window. It is curious, not only arithmetically, but from the point of view of poker hands, the highest ranking hand is actually more common than the second highest (King high straight flush) - more, the source for the section IIRC, explains the apparent anomaly of their being more pair hands than the lesser valued X-high hands, but not the one at the top of the table. Rich Farmbrough, 00:34, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot continuously making very small adjustments

I wonder if having adjustments like this, i.e changing {{cn}} to {{Citation needed|date=July 2010}}, a few hours after I had put the tag, with no visible effects on the page, and clogging the page history, is of any utility. In a few days, I will remove the tag (and also the phrase, if I do not see a reliable citation).

But it is not only your bot to do this: there is an intense traffic of any type of bots (adding ukrainian or vietnamese language, or adding ISBN, or modifying references in some other subtle way, or applying "general fixes") which have made the page histories unreadable. For me it is often difficult and time-consuming to discover who and why has written what.

I think there should a policy which limits small bot editings. For example one could propose: look for the fixes to be done, put them in a database, and apply them once a month, in a unique big editing, so to avoid the dozens of items we see on the histories. I don't know to whom this proposal can be told, so I am telling it to you.

Thanks--GianniG46 (talk) 13:27, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I am leaving for a vacation this evening, so I will not be on line for a dozen of days.--GianniG46 (talk) 13:27, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

This edit categorised the article based on the date the unsourced statement was spotted. This isn't a useless edit. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:06, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

Template name casing

Richard, please stop changing[170] the capitalisation of Template names. I remember seeing this raised on your Talk page months ago by other people, and IIRC it stopped for a while. The change adds nothing to articles, and instead makes template entries harder to read. Thank you —Sladen (talk) 13:57, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I can pull Stnlnk from the list of stuff SB knows about. Rich Farmbrough, 15:50, 21 July 2010 (UTC).
Plus {{s-start}} and {{reflist}} please. Thank you. —Sladen (talk) 17:32, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Userboxtop

I notice you moved this, and I think I know why: it's being used in the mainspace. It's not supposed to be - it should be replaced with {{cladogram}} in most instances, which largely duplicates the formatting and has a far more professional name.

FWIW after an RM reversed one of the moves, I undid them all. If this were to be spacified (though I don't see a need), it would be "userbox top", but I think that's even more confusing.

Let me know if you're interested in replacing the mainspace uses, otherwise I'll probably have a go at it. –xenotalk 03:15, 21 July 2010 (UTC) [do note there are a few other assorted uses, but not sure if there's enough to make another mainspace template, or if a suitable one exists]

Cladogram is good in those instances. If the functionality is simply to be a box top, then it should be called "Box top". The documentation says "This template is not just for userboxes; it is also an efficient way of creating a column of images to run along the side of an article." I don't know where the made-up word "userbox" comes from, but I'm not really worried about it being used in template names for user-space, although "user box" seems better. Rich Farmbrough, 11:21, 21 July 2010 (UTC).
Incidentally "userboxside" was ubxside (something to do with unexploded bombs no doubt) - and is partially documented as such since the reverts. Rich Farmbrough, 11:23, 21 July 2010 (UTC).
You say " creates more problems than it solves" what problems are these? Rich Farmbrough, 11:46, 21 July 2010 (UTC).
The major problem is that they are userboxes (or userboxen, if you please), a single instance being a userbox. The fully-protected double redirects that didn't get fixed were another problem. In any case, I don't think it should be used in mainspace, neither "boxtop", "boxboxtop", nor "userboxtop". Surely we can come up with a better name for something that is going to be used in articles. Such that 'userboxtop' should only be used in userspace, there is no need for pedantic application of a manual of style. –xenotalk 12:29, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
"Box top" seems descriptive to me, and understandable to all. If people want "Foobarbazboxtop" on their user pages, then it is not making editing content harder, however it does perpetuate the letsrunallthewordstogether style of naming. Rich Farmbrough, 13:11, 21 July 2010 (UTC).
Hm.. And do you think it's fine for a template originally designed to be used on user pages to also be used in articles? [Would this one day present a conflict whereby some change was needed to affect articles but was undesirably for userpages? Probably not, and namespace switches could be used, I guess] Perhaps we should file an WP:RM to move "userboxtop" to simply "box top"? –xenotalk 13:37, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
Sounds good. Or split the functionality - there's CSS in there (I'm inclined to say CSS junk, because as far as I can see all it allows you to do is suppress userboxes - which is very limited utility). But certainly templates starting with "User..." seem out of place in articles. Rich Farmbrough, 19:18, 21 July 2010 (UTC).
Ah yes, good point. class="userboxes"... So either that code should go (because then we'd have userspacey-stuff in our HTML source) or it should be forked. I favour forking. –xenotalk 21:04, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
A forking good idea. Rich Farmbrough, 21:46, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

Usless editing with AWB

Hi Rich. "Houston we have a problem..."

To begin with, this editor [171] is using AWB for multiples and multiples of trivial edits here [172]. This user did the same with WP Journals changing a large number to Wikiproject Academic Journals. Prior to this, and at the same time, if you view this person's talk page, there is recently - one section after another - editors are telling this user that his edits are insignifigant, or are causing a problem and to please stop. Instead of taking the constructive critism he just refuses to quit, and moves on to some other uselsess massive editing effort with this bot. I think an Admin needs to step in here. Also all the useless editing of the past week probably needs to be rolled back. I just left this same message with Materialscientist. Thanks----Steve Quinn (talk) 13:26, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

While I agree that Mag has been doing an awful lot of trivial edits (and should stop), rolling them back seems rather counter-intuitive. –xenotalk 13:34, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
Rolling back edits that just bypassed template redirects doesn't help anybody, and would be a waste of admin time IMHO. Rjwilmsi 13:51, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I don't know what this means "just bypassed template redirects". In addition, it appears that this type of editing has been going on for the last month, and changing BD, and WPBS templates for some reason is another example. Sorry, but I think rolling back all these edits is best (imho). ----Steve Quinn (talk) 14:02, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
What possible benefit would be had with rolling them back? They've already been done, they are now using non-redirected forms of the template. I agree that running AWB only to bypass redirects is inappropriate, but once it's already been done, rolling them back to restore the redirects would be just as wasteful. –xenotalk 14:04, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
  • On BD: There is a consensus in replacing this template. It's an approved task based on discussion in Template talk:Lifetime. Same goes for Lifetime.
  • For the rest of templates: It's certainly something nobody should be doing in regular basis. Check my talk page and User talk:Yobot for answers. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:10, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Seems consensus here:

  1. BD and lifetime are very few and should be substed. Extensive discussion occurred over these.
  2. Mag will try to avoid redirect-bypass only edits with Yobot - he has a method for doing that.
  3. Rollback doesn't really help much, if at all (essentially it's a deliberately inserting a redirect).

Suggest any further discussion at User talk:Magioladitis - I will try to be around, but can be prodded if you want my comments. Rich Farmbrough, 16:13, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

Just a quick reply to xeno - yes, you are correct. Rolling all these edits back would be unnecessarily time consuming, and a waste of resources. I think I was responding in the heat of the moment. So, nevermind...----Steve Quinn (talk) 21:37, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Mass removal of italic titles

No one else has asked about this, so I will. Why are biologists entitled to have Begonia × tuberhybrida correctly italicized, but students of literature are not entitled to have titles of books correctly italicized? Does whatever discussion preceded this really rise to the level of Wikipedia policy, or can't expert subject editors be granted some judgement in the matter? P.S. I realize that this is possibly a brand-new feature of AWB, which you just happen to be the first to make widely effective; but even then I can't figure out how and where the decision was taken to start moving against the standards of well-edited English now. If the answer is last year's discussion here, I'd like to find out if the discussion can be had anew in a better forum where a wider range of informed editors can contribute (because the idea that biology may follow the conventions of published English while literature may not is bizarrely inconsistent). Wareh (talk) 14:58, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes that was the discussion. Subsequent to that italics have started to be applied in a peicemeal fashion - as predicted by the doomsayers at the time, to be fair. Possibly if the tempalte had been called "Taxon title" this wouldn't have happened. I have removed a bunch of miscellaneous examples today and yesterday (after the TfD for {{Film title}}), but seeing the back-door addition (not meant in a conspiritorialist way) of journals to the MoS was going to start a fresh centralised discussion. If you could do that it would be great. You will see the probable places it should be advertised at or soon after the previous discussion. The main users of {{Italic title}} at the moment, apart form taxa, are comics (1600) journals (~2000) and a relatively few books, albums etc. Rich Farmbrough, 16:02, 21 July 2010 (UTC).
Thanks for this reply. I would like to promote a new & centralized discussion, despite my limited experience with such things. Could you please suggest the best places to conduct and advertise such a discussion? Wareh (talk) 16:54, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
The same location might be best. Many of the more heavily visited places archive every day or few days. There is some help at WP:CD: I would think add to {{Cent}} list at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, mention at village pump, the Literature/Novels, Academic Journals, Comics and maybe Albums and Film projects. Rich Farmbrough, 17:24, 21 July 2010 (UTC).
Thanks, those are exactly the kinds of pointers I hoped you might be able to give. Wareh (talk) 18:52, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Raising edit conflicts

It happened a few times that during a series of edits this bot got in an caused a edit conflict message. Maybe it should be set so that it kicks in only a few minutes, maybe an hour, after there has been no edit to the article.Sum (talk) 18:34, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, that would be a little tricky. It's the first time anyone has mentioned an edit conflict that I recall, but it must happen I suppose. Rich Farmbrough, 18:49, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Ur my hero —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.18.190.171 (talk) 01:26, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 16 -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:32, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot and Infobox road, part two

SmackBot messed with the country parameter again here. – TMF 15:31, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, can you please teach your bot to ignore the country parameter in {{infobox road}}? Thanks. Imzadi 1979 → 20:55, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Code for Article alert bot

Good day to you good sir I have another question today in regards to a bot. There has been some interest in started up the Alertbot bot again but it seems when the creator and maintainer (I meant to do that by the way) left WP they took the code with them. Is there any way to view this code on the tool server so we can get this bot running again? If we can locate the code I would be glad to take up the torch of monitoring and sort of leading it but I would need help from yourself or one of the other programmers in order to actually do the maintenance of the thing if bugs come up or it breaks. --Kumioko (talk) 18:26, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't have a tool-server account, so there's not a lot I can do there until and unless I get one. Rich Farmbrough, 18:34, 22 July 2010 (UTC).
Oh ok, I didn't know that. I think xeno runs a bot Ill ask them, thanks. --Kumioko (talk)

Scout templates

Pls see User_talk:Gadget850#Scout_template_moves — Rlevse • Talk • 23:32, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Was there any discussion of this or did you just do it? We've had those names for like 5 years. Where does it say what you did is the standard? — Rlevse • Talk • 00:07, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes it has been around since 2008, Wikipedia:Banner standardisation, this name format is in use by the vast majority of project banners. Rich Farmbrough, 00:23, 23 July 2010 (UTC).
You didn't answer the first question. The fact that no one tried to do this for two years tells me it's rather a dormant issue. I don't mind the standardization but with it laying unworked for two years the absolute least you should have done is notify the projects. And the fact that link is an essay not a policy or guideline makes it even more problematic. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:50, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Some info that may help: Recently, editors xeno and WOSlinker did a lot of job further categorising WikiProject templates. After the wide use of WikiProjectBannerShell we would like to have a way to easily identify WikiProject banners in order to update them/clean them/etc. Rich, xeno, me and probably others did a lot in this direction the last days. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:55, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
That's all fine but it's basically a few editors getting together and deciding to change hundreds of project templates around without any of them being notified; leaving people like me seeing 6 edits by Rich doing and leaving us wondering WTF? . — Rlevse • Talk • 11:41, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
As page moves are easily undone, I don't think they should be viewed as any more controversial than making other edits to the template. We can follow WP:BOLD here - if you actually disgaree with the move then just revert it and it can be discussed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:06, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
We can also follow common sense here and let projects know what's going on instead of blindsiding them. Since none of you seem to realize nor care, you create work for the projects when you do this too. — Rlevse • Talk • 12:16, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

General template question

Sorry to bother you with this but it seems that the list of folks who are good at template creation is pretty short, and your on the top, sorry :-) Anyway, I have thought for a while that certain "link" templates lacked substance and should be expanded. These include the {{findagrave}}, {{hallofvalor}}, {{imdb}} and others. Typically when these are created by users they say something to the effect of "Mons Monssen at Find a Grave Retrieved on 2008-10-29", see Mons Monssen for an example. I think that this template should allow and display more of the fields of the citation template. It seems the general format for these references are fundamentally the same containing a source, title, url, date, accessdate and author. I was thinking that creating a generic template for these might be appropriate and thought that using something like {{Include-USGov}} as a baseline seemed appropriate with the other templates using that code as the base. Of course it wouldn't include the wording of in the public domain and all that but I wanted to ask your opinion anyway. Do you think this is a worthwhile change or am I just wasting my time trying to change these links? --Kumioko (talk) 19:12, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest simply using "cite web" within with all its flaws.
Rich Farmbrough, 21:27, 21 July 2010 (UTC).
I implemented it with the accessdate parameter, extending it to other parameters as needed should be easy. Rich Farmbrough, 21:31, 21 July 2010 (UTC).
Thanks, I didnt mean for you to have to do it but thanks all the same. --Kumioko (talk) 00:09, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
It's no problem, the point is to show how easy it is. A chance for you to do the same to the other templates if you think it wise. Don't forget to test in a sandbox! Rich Farmbrough, 00:48, 22 July 2010 (UTC).
I will thanks. --Kumioko (talk) 01:17, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks again, I used similar logic for the {{Hallofvalor}} template and I think its much improved. Do you think it would be possible to make a couple chanegs to the find a grave template? I would like to add author, work, date and accessdate as additional parameters and I would like to modify the parameter that says title=Rich Farmbrough/Talk Archive Mega 2 at Find a Grave to this: title=Rich Farmbrough/Talk Archive Mega 2 |publisher= Find a Grave. I do not have admin rights to do it myself and I completely understand if you want to put it in the sanbdbox and query the community via the template talk page to see how everyone feels. Since it basically follows the Cite web template and the parameters are optional I don't personally think thats needed though. If you do decide that this is a worthwhile change let me know when its done and Ill go and update the documentation to reflect these new parameters. Thanks again for the help. --Kumioko (talk) 21:47, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
I also just found something else thats rather strange. It appears that {{Congbio}} has logic in it that links it to the data input on the find a grave reference template. So if the data in the findagrave ref is changed the congbio info changes as well. I personally think that this logic should be removed but if not then the logic for congbio would (and probably should anyway) need to be updated as well. Sorry this seems to be so much more work than I thought and I didnt intend to push it onto you. --Kumioko (talk) 22:10, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I went and made the changes to the Find a Grave template in the templates sandbox. I don't have rights to move it over though. The logic for the Congbio template is much more complicated, but I am going to go and change that in its sandbox as well. --Kumioko (talk) 12:53, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'll check out the sandbox. I changed Congbio to support the accessdate via Find a Grave - but it does seem a little tortuous not to just use the two component templates. Rich Farmbrough, 15:27, 23 July 2010 (UTC).
SilkTork put the Find a Grave sandbox live. Rich Farmbrough, 18:55, 23 July 2010 (UTC).

Response to Template:Template: burning bright

I'm not sure what you are asking. Do you want me to move the pages to a different name?Philipmj24 (talk) 17:31, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I was going to move them. Thanks anyways!Philipmj24 (talk) 18:46, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

gymnastics request

Please start an alexandra raisman page. I can build it, but not start page. A quick google will get a few real sources. She is an elite gymnasts on the national team, placed in several international and national meets. Trains with Alicia. Just start and I will build. Or build whole thing if you want. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.156.19 (talk) 01:43, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject The Beatles template

Just wondering if you could fix the template move for {{WikiProject The Beatles,}} as you've put a comma on the end of the name. You will also see that the template name without the comma redirects to a banner for userpages and it is in use on a few page (see [173]) so they will need changing first. -- WOSlinker (talk) 09:12, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:17, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Tagging

Dear Rich, with all due respect, it would be nice if you could read the changes suggested by your bot prior to committing them. I've just been reading the "Component-based software engineering" which is cluttered with tags from your bot all over. The fact that your bot's tags annoyed me enough to be writing this should give enough of a clue.  :-)

While a few of the tags are correct (for example, marking "some say" as weasel word), the majority of them is just utter nonsense and in all honesty a major annoyance when reading the article.

When reading through the article, one does not get the impression that these are actually helpful in increasing the quality of the article, but they look much more like a self-important person being, well, self-important. You could avoid that impression if you were checking your bot's modifications.

For example, two citation tags on the principles of OOP which are explained to show the contrast to CBSE is just ridiculous. Not only is that paragraph stating a well-known fact (see "Paris is the capital of France does not need a citation") in a well understandable and conclusive way, but there are also sufficient citations in the linked-to Wiki entries, if one really wanted to be pedantic about having as many citations as possible. The same is true about three who/weasel-word tags in the following paragraphs. While the inserted tags are technically correct, it would be much better to slightly change the wording of the otherwise perfectly correct paragraphs so they formally comply with the Wikipedia NPOV rules (Note: I am not the author of that page, just some random guy who came to read it). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.202.8.165 (talk) 12:30, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your message, SmackBot does not generally add tags, but merely dates those that are already there. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 13:51, 24 July 2010 (UTC).

Philomena

Although your still recent edit to Philomena was only a cleanup, I wonder if you would be so good as to look at what in practice has there unfortunately grown into an edit war (which for that reason I do not wish to continue) between me and a single-purpose editor who sometimes logs in as Merk1333 and at other times edits unlogged from Garland, Texas (obviously the same person). I have tried to engage the editor on the Talk page, so far without success. Can you either intervene yourself or advise me on how to proceed? Thanks for your attention. Esoglou (talk) 19:49, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Some kind of a conversation has begun on the Talk page. It does not look very promising yet, but perhaps we can work it out. Esoglou (talk) 20:41, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for helping. I have raised the problem here. Esoglou (talk) 07:30, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

reqphoto rename

I don't understand the recent rename of {{reqphoto}} to {{request photo}}. I can't find a template naming guideline to govern this situation, and there has been no discussion on the talk page for this template or any of the other image request templates on my watchlist. Can you help? Thanks. Tim Pierce (talk) 04:38, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)There is no template naming guideline (perhaps there should be) but there is a fairly long-standing precedent for using clear names for templates and avoiding abbreviations where possible. (One reason is that it makes it easier to see the purpose of a template when looking at the code.) Note that the previous name will continue to work as before and remain as a redirect indefinitely. However if you disagree with this move you are free to request its revert and participate in a discussion. Personally I would voice support for the move. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:25, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Actually a discussion might be a good idea because there may be better names, e.g. {{requested photo}} or {{photo requested}} or even {{image requested}}. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:27, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Even better might be {{Image needed}}. Rich Farmbrough, 11:05, 25 July 2010 (UTC).
I agree that {{image requested}} would probably be a better name than {{reqphoto}}. But this template is in use on 75,000 pages. I was under the impression that editors were supposed to propose changes before acting boldly on such a widely used and prominent template, but maybe I was mistaken about what constitutes "widely used." Adding redirects to this template will also require recoding PhotoCatBot, so if there's going to be a rename I would prefer to minimize the number of gratuitous redirects. Tim Pierce (talk) 13:10, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
This is already one of the most redirected-to templates! I have put a comment on Template talk:Request photo earlier, maybe the other template talk pages in the family should have a link dropped to them. Rich Farmbrough, 14:45, 25 July 2010 (UTC).

Air Force Portal Administrator

I am looking for an editor or editors to take over administration of the US Air Force Portal. If you think you might be interested please see the Portal Administration section on the talk page to see what is involved and comment there if you’re interested or have any questions.Ndunruh (talk) 17:17, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Misnamed

Er, "Template:WikiProjec Record Labels Task Force,"? --Redrose64 (talk) 18:03, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

You are quick - but it's sorted. Rich Farmbrough, 18:06, 25 July 2010 (UTC).

WikiProject Meteorology and Weather Events

All sub-projects of WikiProject Meteorology and Weather Events would be better handled as paramaters into a main template and not with separate templates, don't you think so?

Yes, there are three two of interest. Adding the taskforces would be good, I think, but I'm not against renaming the templates in the meanwhile. Rich Farmbrough, 22:10, 25 July 2010 (UTC).
Do whatever you find best. If possible contact WikiProject Meteorology and Weather Events. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:15, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I guess the 4-5 tram templates could also merge to one. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:47, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

They are wrappers, they do no harm. Rich Farmbrough, 00:01, 26 July 2010 (UTC).
Need to update Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Trams/Banners with the new names. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:20, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 26 July 2010

Thank's for Ally and may I have another?

Sacramone page needs an update to reflect Cover Girl classics breakout performance:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2010-07-26-athlete-of-the-week_N.htm?POE=click-refer —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.127.138.199 (talk) 04:50, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

You can edit that page I believe? Rich Farmbrough, 14:17, 27 July 2010 (UTC).
No, I can't. It's silver-locked.  :( —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.248.6.25 (talk) 20:03, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Should be unlocked now. Rich Farmbrough, 22:31, 27 July 2010 (UTC).

Template:Congbio

I modified {{Congbio}} in its sandbox and left a comment on the talk page. Please let me know what you thoughts are on the changes I made! --Kumioko (talk) 15:09, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Unused Templates

Templates you have included in Wikipedia:Templates with names differing only in capitalization; Template:Infobox Station Begin, Template:Infobox station begin, Template:Infobox Station Example, Template:Infobox station example, Template:Infobox Station Header, Template:Infobox station header, Template:Infobox Station Main, Template:Infobox station main, Template:Infobox Station Services and Template:Infobox station services, have been marked for deletion as a deprecated and orphaned templates. If, after 14 days, there has been no objection, the templates will be deleted. If you wish to object to their deletion, please list your objection here and feel free to remove the {{deprecated}} tag from the template. If you feel the deletion is appropriate, no further action is necessary. Thanks for your attention. Secondarywaltz (talk) 01:30, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I 've been working with WikiProject banners for a while. First step in order to create a good function for working with WikiProject banners is that we can easily identify them. Recently I noticed that more people are working on that. Check Category:WikiProject banners with non-standard names and Wikipedia:Banner standardisation/data maintained by xeno and WOSlinker. I think almost all banners can be moved to WikiProject xxx scheme. Exception for me is WPBiography (with 600k+ transclusions and it will be a huge mistake to move it) and some others highly visible templates. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:16, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Well we eschew camel case everywhere else, and the capitalisation is not following the standard for everything except portals and projects. Thing is even if we moved WPBiography with 600k transclusions, it doesn't mean we need to rename every use proactively, the redirect will be cached and cost next to nothing in page rendering. A couple of listas runs and 10% would be moved. Those active in the project could have a little javascript to change the template name on pages they edit - in five years, unless we dump the whole project infrastructure by then, which is not impossible, I bet most of them would have been moved. Rich Farmbrough, 21:40, 21 July 2010 (UTC).
Better leave WPBiography as is. It's well known with this name. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:40, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't have a strong opinion about it but you might want to leave WPMILHIST as well. Its another one that hits a lot of articles and is well known. --Kumioko (talk) 13:06, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Can you be more careful when moving these templates? Some of those that you have moved today rely on /class and/or /importance subpages which have not been moved over, causing the templates to break. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:49, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Got it. Do I need to revist any? Rich Farmbrough, 19:24, 22 July 2010 (UTC).
All class and importance pages sorted. Rich Farmbrough, 19:54, 22 July 2010 (UTC).
If this is more disruptive editing, perhaps this needs to stop right now until Wikiprojects can be alerted, and consensus can be taken. This is what yesterday's discussion was about. I did not see widespread support over a time period of months for what was happening. It is only fair and common courtesy that concerned Wikiprojects have a chance to voice their concerns and opinions. Should I alert some Wikiprojects that I work with? Where is the consensus for this action? What are the results of this action? ----Steve Quinn (talk) 19:25, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
No it's not disruptive, mainly it concerned inactive wikiprojects. Rich Farmbrough, 19:54, 22 July 2010 (UTC).
It's also not quite what was discussed yesterday (at least not if we're thinking of the same discussion). Yesterday, Magioladitis was bypassing redirects for templates that had already been moved to another location. This is about Rich moving templates to a normalized/standard form, see wp:standardize for more information on this. –xenotalk 19:56, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
OK thanks for the information. ----Steve Quinn (talk) 20:02, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
I apologize for my alarmed response, above. ----Steve Quinn (talk) 23:59, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
  • I don't understand why UKTrams has like 5 banners. –xenotalk 18:43, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Proably would be better as task forces? Rich Farmbrough, 18:45, 23 July 2010 (UTC).
That was my thought. Set it up as a task force in the main template and then convert the others into wrappers. –xenotalk 18:47, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

FYI, I have reverted your move of Template:WPAFC-admin->Template:WikiProject Articles for Creation. The problem is that we have a separate template at Template:WikiProject Articles for creation and it would be too confusing to have separate templates with different capitalisations. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:45, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks I saw that, and agree - one of my bugbears is templates that differ by capitalisation only. Rich Farmbrough, 22:22, 26 July 2010 (UTC).

This is incredible! Thank you. Are you planning to update it now that most of them have been standardized? [I'm also curious how you generated that list] –xenotalk 04:06, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes I will update it when they are done. I use some pre-API perl that generates redirect consolidation for SmackBot - doing it manually became infeasible some time ago. Rich Farmbrough, 22:14, 26 July 2010 (UTC).
I'm planning on commencing another shelling run sometime soon, so an update would be greatly appreciated =) –xenotalk 00:34, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
Will do soonish. Incidentally re the above see Wikipedia:Templates with names differing only in capitalization. Rich Farmbrough, 14:18, 1 August 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

I don't understand this system. I have started several small articles as a consequence of correcting an error in one other and discovering place names mentioned did not link. All the information I have added is within my personal knowledge and the articles I have started can be easily verified however I do not have the time or the expertise so to do it. Having started the articles it is my hope that those with better knowledge and/or time will add to them and make even better links than have been done already to articles about other places in Essex. If those articles are automatically removed even the small correct information I have provided will not be available to researchers from afar who will even now currently be assisted by the links I have provided. The article I amended was Messing Maypole Mill and the ones I started were Salcott cum Virley, Inworth, Layer Marney and Great Wigborough which is adjacent to Little Wigborough at which point I gave up!Stranger on the shore (talk) 08:43, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 14:08, 1 August 2010 (UTC).

Speedy deletion of Template:Fact-now

A tag has been placed on Template:Fact-now requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section T3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a deprecated or orphaned template. After seven days, if it is still unused and the speedy deletion tag has not been removed, the template will be deleted.

If the template is intended to be substituted, please feel free to remove the speedy deletion tag and please consider putting a note on the template's page indicating that it is substituted so as to avoid any future mistakes (<noinclude>{{transclusionless</noinclude>}}).

Thanks. Axem Titanium (talk) 10:57, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Since it's a subst: template (albeit one I don't like) I have removed the speedy notice. Rich Farmbrough, 19:50, 2 August 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot and infobox road

Two edits screwed up the display of the infobox, [174] and [175]. In the former, it broke the display of the auxiliary route information, and in both cases it reverted the color of the infobox headers to the default blue from the US/Canadian green. Can you please, please, PLEASE program SmackBot to ignore |country=USA in the {{infobox road}} code. Consensus in revamping the template over a month ago was to use the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes for each country because as that article states so well, "they allow a better visual association between the codes and the country names than the two-letter alpha-2 codes." That way we would only need to set up support for one code for each country in the new subtemplates instead of creating redirects for each of the 6 or so subtemplates for each country from multiple input values. In the past we had users inputing various different abbreviations and even full country names. Now, please, this is the third time I've asked you, but |country=USA is the correct coding for this template and it should not be changed. Such automatic bot changes are starting to smack of unintentional vandalism when I have to fix articles to clear them back out of the error categories. Imzadi 1979 → 11:02, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes sure I'll take care of it. Rich Farmbrough, 11:44, 2 August 2010 (UTC).
Thanks. Imzadi 1979 → 18:16, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Meonstoke

Hi. I have expanded the article on Meonstoke. However, as I am new to this game, I thought I’d contact people who have contributed to the article as it now stands before I change it. My proposed version is on my user talk page. If you are interested, I’d welcome any comment, changes, suggestions. Thanks Gramorak (talk) gramorak 12:00, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Nudge

Rich, Can I just give you a nudge on this request for piped ISO dates, please? Cheers, Ohconfucius ¡digame! 18:34, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 2 August 2010

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Smackbot

Hey, Smackbot is making a mistake with the multiple issues tag, see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=German_International_School_Boston&action=historysubmit&diff=376782940&oldid=376775787 . It should be "unreferenced=August 2010", not "unreferenced date=August 2010"... Maashatra11 (talk) 18:43, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 19:43, 3 August 2010 (UTC).

Infobox standarisation

I am trying to standarise Infoboxes based on the entries of Infobox person and Infobox officeholder which have the most of transclusions. I made a list in User:Magioladitis/Sandbox.

First aim should be that all infoboxes support birth_date / death_date even in addition to the already existing parameter.

Standarisation will enable us to use this fields for adding human categories via AWB. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:42, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm all in favour of standardisation but we don't need to force all of them to use the same field names – AWB already has "yearofbirth", "dateofbirth", "born", "birth date", "birthdate", "birth_date", "birth". Rjwilmsi 15:46, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
Also space is preferable to _, as used in template names, categories, files, etc. Rich Farmbrough, 15:56, 3 August 2010 (UTC).
Another idea I would be then to see which ones are not needed, if any. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:21, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot and DEFAULTSORT

I am puzzling over a minor edit to DEFAULTSORT on a page here. The bot changed: 

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy as International Phenomenon}}

to: 

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy As International Phenomenon}}

I don't see that this edit achieves anything. (Also, if I change it back, will SmackBot fight me?) Please respond here. HairyWombat 04:33, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

This edit capitalised a letter in the title. This is exactly what it was supposed to happen. First letters of all words must be capitalised in DEFAULTSORT. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:20, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
Changing the capitalization of the sixth word in anything as an aid to sorting is a little bit overly rigorous especially when there are so many articles that lack any value for {{DEFAULTSORT}} but need one. Quibbling over the change may indicate a deeper problem. Just saying. JimCubb (talk) 15:54, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
Sure but since it is happening at the same time as another edit, I wouldn't feel inclined to ask the developers to put an arbitrary cut-off at any particular point. And of course HHGTTG is one compound noun. Rich Farmbrough, 16:01, 4 August 2010 (UTC).
SmackBot will only "fight" you if it happens to visit the page again. The question is, why would you want to put it back? It only affects the sort order, not how the name is displayed in categories. Rich Farmbrough, 16:01, 4 August 2010 (UTC).
I wasn't aware of the requirement that the first letter of each word be capitalized. Nice one, SmackBot. HairyWombat 16:15, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Onuphrius

hi,

i was wondering about the change in the meaning of the name since the previous meaning was there for a long time.... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Onuphrius&action=historysubmit&diff=367939566&oldid=334310491

thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Onoufrios d (talk • contribs) 17:17, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

The editor that made the change commented on the talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Onuphrius#Beautiful_Rabbit. Rich Farmbrough, 18:10, 7 August 2010 (UTC).

Regular expression question

If, in AWB in my Advanced find and replace, I want to find out in the "if" if an article with Infobox book contained the phrase variable and input "country = United States" how would I write that in regex? Regex is blowing my mind right now, don't really understand how it works. Sadads (talk) 06:13, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

\bcountry\s*=\s*\[\[United +States\]\] would probably cover what you want, maybe \|\s*country\s*=\s*\[\[United +States\]\] which avoids stuff like "second county =" but will need to be tested to check behaviour when split across lines. Rich Farmbrough, 14:18, 8 August 2010 (UTC).
Thank you very much, we are currently trying to populate the subcategories of American novels, and the best way I can figure to find actual populate it would to find all the novels which have country as United States and add them to the main category then sort them out from there. That is huge help, I think I can read that and should be able to duplicate the same idea in the future.Sadads (talk) 14:25, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

RE: Template talk:Request photo#Best name for this template/these templates

You have edited a protects page without consolation or notification. Could you please undo this move and return to original {{reqphoto}} name until a consensus has been reached.--Traveler100 (talk) 05:27, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I thought there was general agreement that Template:image requested was the most appropriate. In which case, shall we just move it there rather than reverting, having another discussion and then moving it there? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:56, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes please make the move to the consensus name. Rich Farmbrough, 12:03, 10 August 2010 (UTC).

The Wikipedia Signpost: 9 August 2010

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trevor guthrie

hi , this is trevor guthrie.... not sure if you are the one to talk to, but i want this whole page completely revamped. we can skype an talk about it if you are able to fix it. thankyou 

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.229.32.33 (talk) 23:27, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

hi , this is trevor guthrie.... please contact me to talk about my page....we can skype over webcam

oh yeah, sorry, we can start with an old email to contact me.

trevgdogg (at) aol.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.229.32.33 (talk) 23:31, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi Trevor, Best thing you can do for the page is upload a public domain picture of yourself. Any other information you think should be included can be mentioned on the talk page Talk:Trevor Guthrie. If possible include a reference to a third party source. Rich Farmbrough, 10:55, 7 August 2010 (

thankyou for your response. i am not interested in uploading a picture of myself on wikipedia. the problemr Rich, is that the so called facts about me are written by fans dont realy have the facts.I dont like people writing things about be that are not true or inaccurate. they are just assumed correct. this is starting to cause problems for my career as well as my personal life. and i dont like discussing it here because everyone can read this. this is why i suggested we talk via email. sincerely Trevor Guthrie

[email protected]

  • I think it would be most helpful if you give us the weblinks to articles from established journalists or writers (or you could send scans of press articles to Rich) which have the correct facts. That would enable us to ensure that correct information is used in your biography. We can certainly remove anything which is not properly sourced, as is our requirement. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 09:07, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Appropriate move ?

Would you mind looking into this set of actions that appears to switch redirects with the actual title of the page here. The title in question is Wikipedia:IPA/Introduction. No rationale was supplied, but this would probably not make sense anyway.---- Steve Quinn (talk) 17:56, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Moved from user page.

Sorry about that. I thought I was on the talk page. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 17:56, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense, generally we prefer full words, keystroke saving abbreviations can be redirects. Rich Farmbrough, 10:51, 11 August 2010 (UTC).

Is MetaDataSorter needed for category namespace?

For this bug report I disabled MetaDataSorter for the category namespace. Is that any loss of functionality? Rjwilmsi 08:57, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes a little. I don't do much in category namespace, so it's probably not a big deal for me. However removing leading blank lines as one of the last steps (media wiki removes up to 1 leading blank line every save) either of GFs or MetaDataSorter might be purer. Rich Farmbrough, 10:50, 11 August 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot edit question

Hi, I don't understand why in this edit SmackBot replaced a correctly piped link (to avoid a redirect). What is the reason for this (just curious)? --Crusio (talk) 11:45, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

It's just a simplification, no redirects are involved in either version - both go directly to [via] peer-review (the first letter is automatically capitalized on en.wiki). It is part of the general fixes of AWB. Rich Farmbrough, 16:13, 11 August 2010 (UTC).
Ah, I see now, the original was peer-reviewed, not peer-reviewed as I thought (I missed the dash earlier). The latter avoids a redirect, correct? --Crusio (talk) 16:42, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes correct. Rich Farmbrough, 21:21, 11 August 2010 (UTC).

The Judd School

Hi there. I'm not sure how bots work (whether you tell them which articles to edit, or they do them automatically?), but the bot has helped insert ref names to The Judd School in the past, and I was hoping you (or the bot!?) could do it again? Tom (talk) 23:01, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done Rich Farmbrough, 17
42, 13 August 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Thank you for your comments on the Bulgarka Nature Park article - I have added links to the article from a number of other, related articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Robertsullivan1973 (talk • contribs) 07:50, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Categories for discussion nomination of Category:Second Life residents

Category:Second Life residents, which you created, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. Robofish (talk) 15:11, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Kelly Hoppe Notability question

I've lately been building infoboses for musicians' work group articles missing them in my spare time in the evenings since it doesn't require a ton of thinking to fill out whatever you find in the article and stick it in the box. Lately, I'm finding lots of articles like: Kelly Hoppe. Usually they have no references, perhaps three unsupported sentences, etc. Am I crazy? Cause my first response is not friendly to that article. No wonder people think the level of editing in Wikipedia is a laugh. --Leahtwosaints (talk) 23:29, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, Rich, didn't see the links to other establshed articles. But it does seem like far too many "articles" are started and left with only a few lines of text, and abandoned, esp. in the jazz group. --Leahtwosaints (talk) 02:55, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Sometimes I feel that way, but on the other hand even the small amount of information might be of use. Also for less notable people three sentences might be appropriate. Rich Farmbrough, 16:21, 15 August 2010 (UTC).

Categories for discussion nomination of Category:PAGES WITH INCORRECT FORMATTING TEMPLATES USE

Category:PAGES WITH INCORRECT FORMATTING TEMPLATES USE, which you created, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:36, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Au Pair (film)

Hello from Spain, could you write the article Au Pair (film) in spanish wikipedia, thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.125.198.106 (talk) 16:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately I know little Spanish, and less about the film. Rich Farmbrough, 21:04, 16 August 2010 (UTC).

The Signpost: 16 August 2010

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SmackBot

I am not sure that I know how to use this item. In your article on Knob Creek Church of Christ, you had some very interesting points. This church and the people mentioned in your article are my family. You talked about two daughters of John Simon Foy. I do not question you information, I have known only the two boys, William and James, William is my family. Could you tell me where you got your information, I have been looking for that for some time. Hilton Royster [email protected]

The information was added by an anonymous contributor here.
SmackBot just does a little tidying up. Rich Farmbrough, 15:31, 18 August 2010 (UTC).

Template:WPMILHIST

A question about templates and regex at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history#Task_force_parameters_for_the_Milhist_banner would you mind taking a look?Sadads (talk) 14:35, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Confusing note

Sorry You posted on my talk, but I don't understand what you wrote. I'm sure that I'm just being too dense here, but what is it you want? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:06, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes I saw several of them, but not all of them maybe. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:38, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot adds date to infobox template

I am curious why the bot is adding date parameters to infoboxes that do not have a date parameter such as in this edit, I thought that it was only supposed to add dates to maintenance templates? Thanks. Keith D (talk) 21:46, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Because the template {{Infobox weather}} (which isn't really an infobox) did have a date parameter, see the talk page of the template and edit history, and will again. It needs it because of the way that the template author wants to force a "citation needed" notice if no reference is given. The Fb.xxx.footer templates work in a similar way (and are just as big a headache). Rich Farmbrough, 21:52, 20 August 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Concerning this diff. Is there a reason why Smackbot is changing the dead-link date? Surely the earliest date is of interest, not the latest. The earliest date allows you to determine something other than when smackbot last saw the field. User A1 (talk) 00:10, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes the earliest date is best. The templates shouldn't have two date fields, I guess that is what confused the bot. (In turn this is casued by an earlier bug back in 2009, which I thought I had cleaned up after.)Rich Farmbrough, 01:21, 21 August 2010 (UTC).

You wrongly categorised my sandbox

Re this edit - there were several template subst: tests going on, which you have broken. First, the parameters to {{citation/core}} are mostly of the form |Surname1= etc., which you altered to |surname1= etc - unlike template names, parameter names are not case-insensitive on first letter. Second, those subst'd templates had several categories within {{#if: ... }} tests, the tests when resolved meant that the page was not placed in those categories - but you moved them outside the tests, collecting them at the bottom, so the page now incorrectly shows in five categories which it shouldn't be in, and wasn't in before. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:35, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes I skipped the rest of your sandboxes, thought I'd aborted that one. If you are testing templates it's not really a userspace draft, though and shouldn't be categorised as such. Rich Farmbrough, 20:42, 21 August 2010 (UTC).
Alright what is the equivalent to {{userspace draft}} which is permitted on any kind of sandbox, regardless of what I happen to be doing in there? --Redrose64 (talk) 20:53, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Do you need one? {{User page construction}} is an option, or {{Userpage}}, depending wht you want it to display. Rich Farmbrough, 21:03, 21 August 2010 (UTC).

Sandbox issues

Looks like your bot's (or you specifically) are editing many users sandbox pages, including mine. [[176]]. Whether you think you're helping or not, you should always ask first before barging in on someone else's work in progress. Ljmajer (talk) 19:51, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is all "someone else's work in progress". Your sandboxes are either userspace drafts or they are not, if they are they are intended for article space and can have problems (however minor) corrected. Rich Farmbrough, 20:47, 21 August 2010 (UTC).

Amarna/Execration texts

The following discussion may interest you: Execration_text_places --Sreifa (talk) 04:56, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Don't process pages undergoing major edits?

Can you modify your bot so it won't make changes to a page that has the GOCEinuse template on it? That would prevent it from making changes while a major copy-edit is under way, resulting in edit conflicts and duplicated effort... Macwhiz (talk) 21:22, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Rich—you got me as to why GOCE uses their own, "I just work here" :) I will add {{inuse}} to avoid the bots, thanks. Macwhiz (talk) 21:35, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Collaborative news on quippd

Hey, I noticed that you had recently edited the Pakistan Floods article, and I hoped that you could help out on another collaborative community edited project.

I run quippd, a collaboratively edited social news site, which mixes elements of Wikis, social networking, and social news sites. You can get some more information about what we are doing at: http://quippd.com/about/intro

Basically, we want to get good coverage on news stories, collaboratively edited, like Wikipedia. We are trying to take the ideas of WikiFactCheck -- to make news less biased and speedier (unlike something like Wikinews).

I hope you check us out -- and feel free to contact me with any questions, comments, or concerns.

--Yoasif (talk) 00:39, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

How do I put thumbnail in an article? I tried to put a thumbnail in "Paramjit Kaur Sirhind", but was unsuccessful. Sukhmani1978 (talk) 10:47, 23 August 2010 (UTC)Sukhmani1978Sukhmani1978 (talk) 10:47, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Full details are at Wikipedia:Picture tutorial. Rich Farmbrough, 13:10, 23 August 2010 (UTC).

date tags for maintenance templates

Rich,

What do I need to do for Smackbot (or any other bot, for that matter) to add dates to the templates {{dmy}}, {{mdy}}, {{EngvarB}}, {{EngvarOx}} - in the way it's done for {{citation needed}}? Are changes required to the templates themselves, or is it up to you to program these into the bot? --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 07:58, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I have to tell it the templates, however to draw it's attention to the articles in question there will need to be a category structure, such that undated templates sit in a first level sub-cat of Category:Wikipedia_maintenance_categories_sorted_by_month. Note that it will also canonicalise the template names, so moving them to the clearest names before starting is a Good Thing. (I would recommend "Use British English" etc.) Rich Farmbrough, 14:35, 20 August 2010 (UTC).
Great. To make a start, I have now created the category. Do I need to create the entire category's tree structure, or will the bot take care of that? The difference between the traditional use of such tagging and what I am envisaging is that the tag will remain permanent, its time stamp will change with each update/bot run. Presumably, I will have to insert something similar to this ({{Fix}}) in the template to get the category populated? --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:43, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot please give me one call

  • Caption1
    Caption1
  • Caption2
    Caption2
checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 07:01, 24 August 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot vs Britt Allcroft

You may be interested in this one... SmackBot has just labelled Britt Allcroft as a 2010 birth! (See this edit).

Now, historically, people have often added birth dates for Ms Allcroft, but I have trawled many internet sites and no news article that I have found has given any indication of her age, less still her DoB. (So I have to keep reverting these edits.) Obviously your bot's edit is not quite along the same lines, but I thought you ought to know the background...

EdJogg (talk) 23:11, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, it is clearly picking up the date from the "Citation needed" template. I will raise a bug with the AWB team. Rich Farmbrough, 23:16, 23 August 2010 (UTC).

IMDB vs Imdb

Small matter: I'm baffled by changes of {{Imdb name}} to {{IMDB name}}, e.g. here (SmackBot) or here (Rich Farmbrough). The former is the proper name of that template, the latter a REDIRECT. I've never seen a bot or you change a template invocation to a REDIRECT, only the other way round. What's the reasoning here? TIMWTK -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:17, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I had, at some point in the past, intended to move the template at some point, and added the preferred name to the "tidy up" list. Normally this does nothing until and unless the template is moved, since there are no redirects to a redirect (or non-existent template) however in this case sine it's juts a change of case they are picked up. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Incidentally SmackBot is picking up a lot of biographies while the Category:BLP articles lacking sources is sorting itself out. Rich Farmbrough, 06:57, 24 August 2010 (UTC).

International child abduction in Brazil

I'm concerned at some of the sections that have been removed from this article on the grounds that they are not notable. I would be grateful if this page could be protected - particularly given Cybermud's recent actions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dikaiosynenemesis (talk • contribs) 07:40, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Cybermud is now vandalising this page. The latest edit was something he had ever even referred to or mentioned before. Please take steps to protect this page from further vandalism by Cybermud. I fully agree, and have said so many times, that changes are needed but there is an extreme amount of nit-picking and unwarranted criticism of some of the content. I have already stated that the Nazi comments are a disgrace and are taking this too far, but the case studies are solidly sourced and need to be respected. Dikaiosynenemesis (talk) 12:25, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Whitespacing lines suggested

Hi Rich, I noticed that, at least in this edit, SmackBot has been removing blank whitespacing lines between the == External links == section header and the first item residing within it. I'd suggest that, given the availability of server memory at costs orders of magnitudes lower than even 10 years ago, it makes better sense for SmackBot to ensure there are blank lines after all section and subsection headers, as a service to those editors working with small monitors. For those with large monitors, the blank whitespaced lines makes no real difference, but for those with eensy-teensy monitors, of which there are undoubtedly plenty worldwide, that extra blank line allows a better grasp of the material being edited, and would, IMHO, allow more accurate, error-free editing (no, I can't cite anything to support that -just my gut intuition and past user experience!). For the vary same reasons, I tend to add an extra blank line between the various groupings of extraneous article data at the very bottom, e.g.: two blank lines between External Links and the Category section and the interwiki links section, etc...; additionally extra blank spaces between the section header indicators and their titles looks way less cluttered, eg: ==Cluttered== vs. == Less cluttered == .

In any event keep up the good works, only 3M edits seems kind'a low, eh? Best: HarryZilber (talk) 14:11, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes I agree memory costs are irrelevant, and indeed SmackBot/AWB do add white space (including before the category block, but only one line, and two before stub templates for formatting reasons) as well as remove it. As a small monitor user myself I often have only a dozen or less lines to edit in (and more people are using mobile devices now so there is probably much company) and I find the opposite of what you say. The figures for article space which I last collected on 22 June are:
   * Spaces in header 2,246,272
   * No spaces in header 10,398,391

   * Blank line after header 1,417,076
   * No blank line after header 10,713,717
indicating preference for less white space after and within headers (I did not check blank lines before headers but I would estimate over 99%). Nonetheless SmackBot does not currently make these changes on a regular basis, I suspect that the one you noticed is due to the list following. I will check further. Thanks for your note. Rich Farmbrough, 15:24, 24 August 2010 (UTC).

Recent edits

Why did you do this edit? 117Avenue (talk) 04:33, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I've noticed a similar edit and I'd like this explained as well; is the purpose of the date to determine the order with which articles tagged with such style templates are visited by the bot? It looks meaningless at first glance.
As does the addition of {{DEFAULTSORT:Palace Of Westminster}} to the article Palace of Westminster. If I had to guess I'd say that capital and small letters are ordered differently and the template counters this effect, but I really don't know. Waltham, The Duke of 11:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
  1. Dating tags: yes exactly so, I tend to start dating tags as soon as I am aware there is a significant possibility they will need it in the future - this is to reduce the "bulge" that usually occurs once we make a tag part of the system proper. Generally it will only happen if the page is being edited for some other reason. The purpose of dating these particular tags is slightly different, the proposal being that they will be checked for compliance and the tag updated, however the principle still applies. See above for the note from User:Ohconfucius and his talk page about both these tags.
  2. Again you are spot on about DEFAULTSORT, the articles still lists with the same name in categories, but sorts case insensitively.
Rich Farmbrough, 13:06, 23 August 2010 (UTC).
Thank you for your clear and prompt reply, Mr Farmbrough. I wonder whether a comment somewhere (an invisible one by the template in the article, or something in the template's documentation) would be appropriate; I'm sure a few other editors will think along the same lines as I have and remove the template in good faith, and one might want to try and prevent that from happening. Waltham, The Duke of 23:05, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Welcome back, Your Grace. Thank you for your advice. I have now added an explanatory note to the templates. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:45, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
That is excellent, Ohconfucius. It feels great to be back; let's see for how long it will be this time—this Real Life thing is very demanding. Waltham, The Duke of 11:50, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot and redirects

Howdy. I was wondering why your bot made this edit? It appeared to be a valid redirect of a template. The edit seemed kinda pointless. Also, doesn't this redirect guideline apply as well? If there is something here I'm missing, I apologize.--Rockfang (talk) 18:03, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes you are correct, generally SmackBot will avoid making edits like that unless there is a more substantive change happening at the same time. However there are a number of reason (User:Rich Farmbrough/FAQ#Known reasons for SmackBot visiting an article it can't fix) why it may visit articles and make only less substantive changes. At the moment there is a fair amount of category lag mainly around Category:BLP articles lacking sources which is currently getting dispersed into dated subcats. As far as fixing redirects, templates are slightly different in that we want to encourage people to use the correct names (or short cuts) to make the whole editing process simpler - example infoboxes, you can, due to the work of many editors over the past year or so, be pretty sure that you will find "Infobox roller coaster" is the canonical name, not Infobox-RollerCoaster or any of the dozens of other styles that have been used (including Foo Infobox). However as a newbie editor you will see many different styles in articles, and will a.) be left trying to guess the correct name and b.) if you make a new infobox, probably use something, let us say, odd. Therefore while most of us that have the opportunity will not make edits specifically to bypass template redirects, we are pretty keen on them being bypassed en passant (if that's not a tautology) - provided they are not bypassed to "old style" names which we wouldn't create these days (runtogetherwords, excessive-or-over-hyphenation, camelCase, abbr o. 2 mny Wds adn Strange CAPITALZATION). Rich Farmbrough, 18:24, 24 August 2010 (UTC).

Smackbot default sort

[177]

Not sure why smackbot is setting defaultsort to titlename? - isn't that the default anyway? seems like an unnecessary addition.Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:41, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that is the default, however in categories "RENFE" would sort before "Random", whereas "Renfe" sorts after. The name will still display as "RENFE" in the cats of course. Rich Farmbrough, 19:00, 24 August 2010 (UTC).
It may be useful to set the defaultsort on the other articles in Category:Diesel locomotives of Spain as well. -- WOSlinker (talk) 19:12, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Ahead of you there. <chuckle> Rich Farmbrough, 19:15, 24 August 2010 (UTC).
Ah, didn't see that, thanks, understand now.Sf5xeplus (talk) 19:22, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
more in Category:RENFE high speed trains Sf5xeplus (talk) 19:25, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Categories

I seek your advice on what should be a category. There is much more written about what should be an article.

I do not seek your vote for or against a category, just some insight on what is a category.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2010_August_23&diff=prev&oldid=380768883 for details.

There are certain funny things about Wikipedia. The link above gives a practical reason. However, sometimes bureaucratic reasons win discussions. I seek not to win a discussion but I seek discussion to confirm that my ideas are valid and not some crazy idea. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 19:27, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 August 2010

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user:Rich Farmbrough/temp61

I hate to be a bother, but did you ever generate a final list of bypasses for the WikiProject banners? I'm about to commence another shelling task, and I don't want to have to reinvent the wheel. Thanks! –xenotalk 13:04, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

  • Thanks again for this new list. Did you notice the recent requested move discussion for ArticleHistory? Since it ended in no consensus (and I know that the move would've at least broken my bot), it should probably be discussed prior to being moved, so I moved it back. –xenotalk 23:20, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

orphan tag removed from solidarity (australia) page

hi. i noticed the orphan tag has been removed from the Solidarity (Australia) page. but the majority of the article has no links whatsoever to any other wikipedia articles. apart from the intro (which i authored) it still seems like it needs a lot of work if it is not just intended to be an advertisement for the organisation.

cheers. Marxwasright (talk) 15:42, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes , the tag you need is "Wikify", I have added it. Orphan is about lack of articles linking to the page in question. Rich Farmbrough, 19:02, 25 August 2010 (UTC).

Now commons

Hi! If you think it is worth moving to get it in two words why small "c" in "Template:Now commons"? The name is Wikimedia Commons so the template should be "Now Wikimedia Commons" or "Now Commons". Or perhaps "This media is now available on Wikimedia Commons".

Further more bots uses the term "NowCommons" - have you filed a request to fix the bot scripts. --MGA73 (talk) 17:55, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Quite right, of course it's capital C. Changed and left notes for Multichill and .. um you. Rich Farmbrough, 22:43, 25 August 2010 (UTC).

Minor Problems with Weather Box

Please fix the following. otherwise, great, and very logical, work!

  1. all instances of Hum (for humidity): please replace with "humidity"
  2. all instances of scprecip (green colour for precipitation): please replace with "precipitation colour"

Thank you. I am watching your page, so need to reply on mine. ---何献龙4993 (talk) 22:54, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting that. Rich Farmbrough, 23:05, 27 August 2010 (UTC).
 Done Rich Farmbrough, 14:45, 28 August 2010 (UTC).

WikiCup

You are the #1 Wikipedian, so I recommend the WikiCup to you. Us441(talk) (contribs) 23:11, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Most kind. Rich Farmbrough, 14:00, 28 August 2010 (UTC).

Civil parishes in England

Hi Rich, Civil parishes in England, an article you have contributed to, has been reassessed to C class from Start class. Apparently many people watch and/or visit this page as an alternative to the broader Civil parishes article. I've quickly scanned it for needing a possible copy edit, but it already looks reasonably good to me. However, I did feel it just needs a little attention such as adding more inline refs. It's not tagged or anything, but if you can help ut with a source or two, it would be much appreciated. Perhaps from your other work on geography articles, you will know where to look, and we will be able to promote it to 'B'.Kudpung (talk) 12:54, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of International child abduction in Brazil

An article that you have been involved in editing, International child abduction in Brazil, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International child abduction in Brazil. Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message.

Archive:Rich Farmbrough, 12:57, 29 August 2010 (UTC).

Replied

See User talk:Ucucha#Cosmetic only changes. Ucucha 13:02, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

IMDB vs Imdb (2)

You recently moved {{Imdb name}} to {{IMDB name}}. Do you intend to move {{Imdb title}} to {{IMDB title}} as well? (Small beer: you are aware that they style themselves IMDb?) -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:41, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes and yes. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 14:37, 29 August 2010 (UTC).

Done with dermatology-related ICD-9 redirect and article creation

Thank you again for generating the ICD listing of dermatology related conditions. Do you have any other sources you can draw upon to generate another listing I can manually crawl? ---kilbad (talk) 19:16, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Thry this.. User:Rich_Farmbrough/temp78. Rich Farmbrough, 00:44, 31 August 2010 (UTC).
Thank you. Perhaps you could move this list to a subpage of WP:DERM:MA? ---kilbad (talk) 00:49, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

thanks

Thank you for assisting in helping make my sources fit the wiki format on the Fawad Siddiqui actor article. As you can probably tell I'm not up to speed on it all. But the page was missing a lot of information that is out there and had a few little things wrong that I wanted to try and correct. That before it started to get attacked by people who obsess over the format with no regard whatsoever for the accuracy of the information and clearly weren't even reading the edits. There is no such city as Plainsfield, IN. It's Plainfield. Anyway, it just annoys me. Thank you for being nice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.148.146.39 (talk) 19:50, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome. Rich Farmbrough, 04:05, 31 August 2010 (UTC).

Peter Foster

Thanks for working on Peter Foster - the article needs all the maintenance it can get.Autarch (talk) 20:23, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome. Rich Farmbrough, 04:05, 31 August 2010 (UTC).

List of Israeli music artists

Thanks for that. Hopefully someone will create some of those missing article, I'm sure there are dozens more articles about Israeli musicians that HeWiki has and we're missing. Hopefully they are created. Cheers, Ynhockey (Talk) 22:12, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome. Rich Farmbrough, 04:06, 31 August 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot doing {{Use dmy dates}} automatically?

When did SmackBot start applying the dmy tag automatically?

I don't really mind, just curious as it conflicts with the documentation at {{Use dmy dates}} (which I fixed) and also {{Use mdy dates}}, particularly "Bearing in mind the possibility of erroneous tagging if done by bot". It could also conflict with {{Use ymd dates}} if it were consistent with the other two. I'm happy to clean this up if you can point me to where it's approved or explained.

I'm sorry if I've missed where this is mentioned (I've searched User:SmackBot and User:Rich Farmbrough/Talk Archive Index). twilsonb (talk) 03:30, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 03:38, 31 August 2010 (UTC).

The Signpost: 30 August 2010

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 16:03, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

hey, why is Divya Singh page is appealed for deletion ? i am adding content to it. all the sources given their is true for the person. she is representing Indian team. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.177.162.236 (talk) 16:37, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea, perhaps if you look at the deletion discussion you will find out. Rich Farmbrough, 16:45, 31 August 2010 (UTC).
I just checked and I don't see it on the articles for deletion page. --Kumioko (talk) 16:52, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Neither her article nor her sister's have ever been listed for deletion, let alone review. I have removed both tags, also the wikify tags which seem unnecessary, and cleaned up a little. Rich Farmbrough, 16:58, 31 August 2010 (UTC).
Thanks a lot..:) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.177.170.243 (talk) 04:08, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Delete me now

A tag has been placed on Delete me now, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the page appears to have no meaningful content or history, and the text is unsalvageably incoherent. If the page you created was a test, please use the sandbox for any other experiments you would like to do. You may also wish to consider using a Wizard to help you create articles - see the Article Wizard. Feel free to leave a message on my talk page if you have any questions about this.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag - if no such tag exists then the page is no longer a speedy delete candidate and adding a hangon tag is unnecessary), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. ROCKOPREMtalk 13:09, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for this message! Was that page created on some purpose?? Looked like it had some history! ROCKOPREMtalk 13:12, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 13:25, 2 September 2010 (UTC).

Delete me now

I wonder if you can explain why you keep creating Delete me now? On the face of it you seem to be doing things which would be more appropriate in either a userspace page or the sandbox, rather than an article. I am intrigued to know your reason. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:16, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes I usually use test pages (you can see a list of them, together with other cruft at User:Rich_Farmbrough#All_my_pages), or sometimes I go to test-wiki. However sometimes I need a page in mainspace and on the live wiki. This is fairly harmless as the page only exists for a few minutes at most, and is not linked to from anywhere (except my talk archive!). Rich Farmbrough, 13:44, 2 September 2010 (UTC).

CFD

Please do no remove a CFD tag for something in progress. Thanks. Soundsboy (talk) 17:56, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Well how many days does it take to list a category for discussion? There is still no entry on the CfD page, and the previous tagging was incomplete.Rich Farmbrough, 18:57, 2 September 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

I am not unduly alarumned, this example is likely due to the bot working double time to catch up with the recent delays. Rich Farmbrough 19:46 2 September 2010 (UTC).
I don't know what that means - does it mean you are duly alarmed and fixed the problem, or that you don't plan to address the problem at all? The speed of the bot shouldn't affect the actual edits it makes, no? I'm commenting here just to avoid stopping the bot. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:38, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Due to the backlog separate threads were running. This is not normally a problem, since the the article will not generally pick up additional changes from a second visit. The number of pages that don't get fixed on the first visit is normally about 1%, and the place I would prefer to be putting my effort is reducing this 1% - my target is about 0.25% which would be due to new templates and the like, and would be harder to automate, especially as I am, remember, using a third party tool, and an out-dated hacked version at that. The more my effort gets distracted from this, the more the pool of undated articles gets polluted with "problem" items, and the harder it becomes to see quick win improvements (for example I resolved several hundred today by a template fix, which with a backlog of 7000+ articles was almost invisible, but normally would be a sore thumb - I also built a useful management tool that enables me to see which categories are having problems). Also bear in mind that where category lag is a problem, successfully suppressing "minor" edits just means I will have to null-edit the article by hand. Rich Farmbrough, 23:15, 2 September 2010 (UTC).
In AWB, we recently did some progress in reducing the number of additional changes on second runs, recently. I keep recording cases that AWB failed to make a fix in the first run or that parsing an article created a new issue that needs fixing. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:22, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
That's cool but I use a special hacked version that doesn't arrange references, so I will have to do some kind of source merge. I used to just pick the latest release. Rich Farmbrough, 21:39, 3 September 2010 (UTC).

He had a porn star infobox for more than 12 months

[178] LOL. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:27, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Funnily enough I have misread that "adult" myself. Rich Farmbrough, 13:57, 4 September 2010 (UTC).

Category:Populated places in Slovenia

Hi. I have an AWB request for you. Can you split the giant category Category:Populated places in Slovenia by municipal category? I've done the first two but its best done with AWB. You can find the categories at User:Dr. Blofeld/Launch Pad 1. Dr. Blofeld 12:23, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Somethign went wrong with this. Also some of your recat claims don't recat and are just minor fixes.. Dr. Blofeld 17:59, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah you;re forgetting the the Municipality of part to the categories. Please fix! Dr. Blofeld 18:00, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Wow, excellent job!! Yes you have a point about it seeming weird replacing the municipalities in the by municpality cats but they are both about the town and muncipality. Given the lack of info on them it would be unfeasible right now to split the town form the munciipality. You could place the articles in the relative municipal categories for the time being until I or Kaktus or any of the others has enough energy to split the towns from the muncipality with enough content? Ideally we should have seperate articles on the muncipalities form the main towns though.... Eventually I'm sure we will... Dr. Blofeld 18:15, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Dunno. OK we'll leave it for now then, i'll addressing the idea of splitting the municpialities form the towns at a later date. Dr. Blofeld 18:30, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

template:Hall of Valor

Thanks for making the change clarifying the title. I had kicked that idea around and never got around to it. I went through and changed all 300+ articles that linked to it to the new one. Just wanted to let you know. --Kumioko (talk) 18:00, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Good stuff, I was going to drop you a note. I saw your edit summary on a page in Recent Changes, funnily enough, that's what triggered the action. Rich Farmbrough, 13:59, 4 September 2010 (UTC).

Murder of Meredith Kercher

Hi Rich, I notice you've made a couple of edits to the MoMK article and and that you have accidentally buggered-up the template at the top of the page. Could you please fix it? The page is currently protected, so mere mortals such as me cannot fix the problem. I assume you have the necessary super-powers to do so. Thanks. Maybe there is a wider point too. The page has been protected to enforce editing by consensus only and the admins who are policing that protection have come in for some criticism for wielding their powers. I think it looks bad if another admin (you in this case) can just walk in and make edits without consensus. I appreciate that you are just tidying up mistakes in the article but it could be seen as an admin flaunting their privileges, especially by the several editors who are new to Wikipedia. At the very least, a note of what you are doing, in the talk page, might clarify things for those who have not necessarily worked it out for themselves. Cheers. Bluewave (talk) 08:09, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Rich, I noticed this too, and have fixed it. If it was a AWB bug, you may want to fix that. If it was a user error, well, .. umm, I'm sure you are below your quota for this year. ;-)
Bluewave, besides the mangled bit, which was an accident, Rich's edits didn't change any of the text, and the layout&formatting changes he made have project wide consensus already. John Vandenberg (chat) 08:59, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for fixing that. I'm not trying to make a big thing of this, but a note on the talk page to say that the changes being made would not affect the text and already have a wider consensus might have been tactful at a time when some of the editors (not me, as it happens) seem a bit upset at admins preventing people from editing the article. Particularly so, as some of the editors concerned are very new to Wikipedia and are probably unaware of the project-wide consensus. Bluewave (talk) 09:24, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for your notes, yes it is me typing into the edit pane instead of the search box... Rich Farmbrough, 13:52, 4 September 2010 (UTC).

Unneeded cats

Sorry - saw them redlinked after the others had been created yesterday, and I thought that a decision on renaming them had been taken. I'll tag them for deletion as soon as I can. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 18:25, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 18:40, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

section titles search request on village pump

Thx for response. There is a fair chance that I may only need 1 search and that is to search for all section titles containing the word "abuse". It is not important that a bang uptodate version of Wikipedia is used. --Penbat (talk) 19:30, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

User:Rich Farmbrough/temp78 Rich Farmbrough, 23:18, 4 September 2010 (UTC).
thx very helpful. I have copied it to my user space.--Penbat (talk) 07:32, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
just occurred to me that it would be very useful to have a list of redirects with the word "abuse" in the title. Any chance of that ? --Penbat (talk) 10:35, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, easy enough. Rich Farmbrough, 10:36, 5 September 2010 (UTC).
524 results, same place. Rich Farmbrough, 10:59, 5 September 2010 (UTC).
thx. i have copied them to my userspace. --Penbat (talk) 11:06, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Slovenia

Regarding your recent work on subcategorizing settlements in Slovenia, could I ask you to double-check the coding you're using to do it? Just between A and K alone, I've found at least a dozen articles today where your edit was a weirdly formatted error, such as "[[Category:Populated places in the Municipality of the [[Gorenja vas-Poljane]]" (complete with the excess brackets) instead of the actual Category:Populated places in the Municipality of Gorenja vas-Poljane or "[[Category:Populated places in the Municipality of City Municipality of Ljubljana]]" instead of the actual Category:Populated places in the Municipality of Ljubljana. Bearcat (talk) 06:56, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Scanning.... Scanning.... Rich Farmbrough, 10:36, 5 September 2010 (UTC).
OK all odd ones are fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 17:26, 5 September 2010 (UTC).

Uncategorized tag

Hi, can i now remove the uncategorized tag from the EVER_TEAM page since it has been categorized. thanks.--Sazarian (talk) 07:10, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Rich Farmbrough, 07:36, 6 September 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot adding dmy template

I've just spotted an edit SmackBot made[179] which added {{Use dmy dates}} to an article. This doesn't appear to be on the bot's list of tasks, so while I'm not objecting, I'm concerned that it's impossible for another editor to know whether this is SmackBot behaving as desired, or if it's malfunctioning and needs to be shut off. me_and (talk) 11:30, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 17:26, 5 September 2010 (UTC).
Can I ask, then, how SmackBot decides to tag things? I'm dubious of the decision in that case, at the least—I find it difficult to see how a bot could determine "close national ties", and at the time of that tagging, yyyy-mm-dd dates considerably outnumbered d mmmm yyyy ones in that article. me_and (talk) 17:53, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Right, that makes sense. Thanks for clearing it up!
I am indeed Enfield-based; I moved here a little over a year ago. Why'd you ask?
--me_and (talk) 18:19, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Ah, cool! I'm just the other side of Enfield Town. Whereabouts are you based now? me_and 17:15, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Template capitalization

Hello, Rich Farmbrough. You have new messages at Fuhghettaboutit's talk page. -- ~~~~~
Archive Rich Farmbrough, 20:20, 5 September 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

+++

Rich, thanks for making the picture on the Douglass High School - Kingsport article. When I uploaded the picture originally, it was huge and I had no way to make it smaller.

I would like to upload more pictures, but the resolution of the camera is rather high. Can you tell me how to lower it, or could I send you the pictures and you do it? I would appreciate it. I'd like for it to conform to WIKI standards, but I've a novice at adding pics to anything. Please get back to me at: [email protected] Thanks!

Calvin

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 20:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC).
Archive; Rich Farmbrough, 20:21, 5 September 2010 (UTC).

The Signpost: 6 September 2010

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 23:36, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Deletion request

Hi there. Do you have time to please delete this subpage which I created last year and completely forgot about it? Thank you. Amsaim (talk) 19:56, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done Rich Farmbrough, 20:04, 7 September 2010 (UTC).
Thanks very much. Amsaim (talk) 20:06, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
I forgot to mention the documentation page. That needs to be deleted as well. Thank you. Amsaim (talk) 20:12, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks again for your assistance. Amsaim (talk) 20:16, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Capitals in defaultsort

Could you explain the rationale behind using DEFAULTSORT only to capitalise the first letter in the second word of articles with >1 word titles? JFW | T@lk 22:37, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

These are the instructions in Template:DEFAULTSORT to have correct categorisation. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:54, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
yes but they are not great, our documentation falls down on this. I started writing a documentation page somewhere - I have put a little in my FAQ, which I include here for what it is worth.

Why is this being set or changed?

Generally, in order to sort categories without regard to case, and people by family name.

  • Example John Smith => Smith, John
  • Example SCUBA diving => Scuba Diving

Will the wrong name show up?

No, the name listed in the category will be the name of the article,

What about diacritics?

Diacritics are sorted differently from normal letters so they are replaced with the nearest typographical equivalent in the sort key.

Are there exceptions?

There are many exceptions where specific categories have therr own sorting rules. These are best dealt with by giving each category entry its own explicit sort key.

There are also a few exceptions where numbers are best expressed in leading-zero numeric format rather than words or normal ordinals (third or 3rd might become 3, 03 or 003, depending on the nature of the article).

Rich Farmbrough, 22:59, 7 September 2010 (UTC).
Oh addendum, - "Why are the words capitalised rather than lower cased or upper cased?"
  • Because that is how we treat names, for historical reasons, and while names like "Smith, John" will the same with respect to, say, "Smith and Co" regardless of the case of "and", some names like "Alfred the Great", names form the Far East, and so forth will not have a comma. Rich Farmbrough, 23:03, 7 September 2010 (UTC).

Strange stub tagging from SmackBot

Hi Rich -I notice that in October last year (yeah - strange that it wasn't noticed earlier) SmackBot added both {{EAntarctica-geo-stub}} and {{Antarctica-stub}} to a bunch of geo-stubs. They should have had only the geo-stub, since the other one is redundant to them. Any chance of a quick bot-run to find anything tagged with both and remove the generic one? Cheers, Grutness...wha? 01:01, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 01:15, 8 September 2010 (UTC).
Cheers, Grutness...wha?

(Copied back ) Do you have an example? Rich Farmbrough, 01:07, 8 September 2010 (UTC).

Never mind looks like there are 13 such articles, easy to fix. Rich Farmbrough, 01:10, 8 September 2010 (UTC).
Fixed, guess you'll find that like this diff, SB moved the stub templates to the end rather than adding them. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 01:14, 8 September 2010 (UTC).

Feedback to reduce reparsing

I need data to reduce reparsing in AWB. For example I need reports like Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs/Archive_17#Handling_format_parameter_after_removal_of_dead_end_in_references and Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs/Archive_17#Adding_bullets_AND_removing_break_lines. Or cases like this one.

If you have any please report on AWB's bug page or my talk page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:46, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

AWB

Hi

I notice on AWB's page you said that you had to install a new directory to get it to work. Can I ask how you did this? At the minute it won't even let me install :( --5 albert square (talk) 22:04, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Hm, it's a bit of a memory stretch, but I think I manually extracted the contents. Rich Farmbrough, 23:17, 4 September 2010 (UTC).
Can I ask how you do that? I'm a complete novice at stuff like that so it would have to be in laymans terms lol --5 albert square (talk) 23:19, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Big Kenny

Is there any way to stop SmackBot from doing this? It's defaultsorted Big Kenny as "Kenny, Big" several times. "Big Kenny" is treated as a stage name, not a first-lastname combo (his real middle name is Kenneth), so it should stay sorted under B. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 19:14, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes thusly, {{DEFAULTSORT:Big Kenny}}. I have done several thousand of these, mostly musical groups and names such as "George the Helpless" but including a lot of DJs and MCs. By the way were those M*A*S*H episodes ever merged? Rich Farmbrough, 19:24, 8 September 2010 (UTC).
I don't know. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 20:18, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Disaster

[180] and the two edits following. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:11, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

  • All the more reason to leave the re-arranging to AWB!

SmackBot

mtx stand for mazda transmission standard

75 is actually the ft/lb rating of the trans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.227.148.56 (talk) 07:51, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Great to know. What article are we talking about again? Rich Farmbrough, 12:50, 9 September 2010 (UTC).

Changing "cite" to "Cite"

SmackBot does a great job. However, I am puzzled by a change in build 513. I am curious what prompted adding code to change "cite" to "Cite" in the citation template. According to Template:Cite news: "All parameter names must be lower case." In a recent SmackBot edit to Lambert-St._Louis_International_Airport this edit occured. I also vaguely remember another bot recently changing "Cite" to "cite" in another article. --Dan Dassow (talk) 14:05, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Parameters are the bits like "title =" - and keeping them lower case is something I support in general (I prefer ISBN = to the bastardized "isbn =" - the template does support both). As far as capitalizing template names, SmackBot has a list of templates that it canonicalizes, I noticed recently that there are a lot of uses of "Citeweb" "Citebook" etc, replacing these with "Cite book" and Cite web" helps reduce the learning curve for editors - template names should be made up of space separated whole words (or standard acronyms like NASA, ISBN etc.) in sentence case, wherever possible. Rich Farmbrough, 14:13, 9 September 2010 (UTC).
Rich, Thank you for the clarification. I generally think of parameters as the arguments of a subroutine or function. However, there are some formal language theorists who insist that the subroutine or function name is also a parameter. Wikipedia:Citation_templates follows the convention of capitalizing "Cite". I prefer this convention. Unfortunately, or ironically, Template:Cite news follows the convention of "cite" in the examples given. I also cringe at seeing "isbn ="; it is visually jarring. --Dan Dassow (talk) 17:06, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

I wanted to leave a message on the bot's talk page but it seems to be protected. Would it be possible to add {{userspace draft}} to the list of templates to which the bot adds dates? The Article Wizard covers most new drafts, but occasionally the template is added manually without the date parameter. I've asked at the template talk page about the advisability of it, but nobody has responded so I'm going to be bold and just request it. Thanks. 69.181.249.92 (talk) 03:00, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I think this thread may have been overlooked. 69.181.249.92 (talk) 19:09, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, it does already date {{Userspace draft}}, however I am always cautions about running out outside mainspace (and usually do it semi manually), so it doesn't get done very often. Rich Farmbrough, 19:13, 9 September 2010 (UTC).
Fair enough. Thanks for the consideration (and the Bot itself, which, despite it's critics, does a very important task). 69.181.249.92 (talk) 19:51, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

UB-7 Found!

UB-7 is found in August 2010 in Black Sea 15 miles south of Varna. First it was taught that this is S-34 /С-34/ Russian submarine sunk in 1942, but later it was found that this is UB-7 / sunk September 1916. Video: http://dnesplus.bg/VideoNews.aspx?n=502100

My e-mail: [email protected]

Bekyarov —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.190.193.153 (talk) 06:42, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

How interesting.Rich Farmbrough, 06:45, 10 September 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot template changes

Why does this change {{flagicon}} away from the direct transclusion to the redirect {{Flag icon}}? example. Thanks, Rambo's Revenge (talk) 10:34, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Flag icon is easier to read and to remember, being made up of real words. The cost of the redirect is negligible, we should move the template as we have done with thousands of others with run-together words, extra capitals, extra hyphens, camel case, abbreviations and so forth, however there is/was resistance to this and I was too lazy to go and put the case for a move. (We did BR of BRD.) Rich Farmbrough, 16:57, 10 September 2010 (UTC).

Tired of seeing automated bad tagging

I am getting tired of seeing AWB or bot edits turning an unreferenced tag on a living people categorised page into a BLPunreferenced tag without checking that the article did actually lack references and the living person cat was valid. ie this article has references, so BLP sources is the appropriate tag to use. Please take full responsibility for your AWB edits, don't just assume both the tag and the cat are valid, and I'm going to call for a block on any bot that does likewise. Make a database list and go through it manually, if you want to, but please stop putting incorrect tags on articles.The-Pope (talk) 05:45, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

What do you mean both tags are valid? {{Unreferenced}} and {{BLPunreferenced}} {{BLP unsourced}}>[RF] are mutually exclusive. Unreferenced article which is about a biography of a living people (BLP) should be tagged with BLPUnreferenced. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:29, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
I've clarified my statements above to hopefully make it clear what my problem is. To be fair to Rich, this is the first AWB one I've seen, most of the others are by bots, mainly MZBot, I think.The-Pope (talk) 07:34, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
OK. Now it makes sense. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:46, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
And here's one by Smackbot. I think that this task should be removed from all bots and put into a database intersection list so that a human can check if the cleanup tag (look for all BLP specific templates, not just unref) should be converted to a BLP equiv tag, or if either the living people cat or tag is invalid. There are just too many errors to leave it with bots. Of course I know that the bot doesn't cause the error - someone else has either tagged wrongly or cleaned up without removing/changing the template, but the Bot is propagating the error.The-Pope (talk) 08:48, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
BLPunreferenced is more accurate than unreferenced for living people. Then we need user's intervention to determine if the article is really unreferenced. But BLPunref will attract more attention than unref anyway. So, in most cases the edit is useful (in the worst case, not worse than the previous tag). -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:11, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
It isn't more accurate if the article already has references or isn't actually a BLP. Where is the bot request/approval for this task? "attracting more attention" is a very poor reason to be propagating errors. You are attracting attention to articles that don't need attention - thereby reducing attention on those that actually do need attention. Can we at least try a list instead? The-Pope (talk) 09:51, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Do you have any example where the template was added in a non-BLP? -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:57, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Do you have any stats on how many unref to BLPunref changes the bot makes in a day? If an editor was doing this we'd be warning him/her and not accepting it. Why are accepting a bot making incorrect edits?The-Pope (talk) 12:32, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
OK. Here's the situation: We have a BLP that it's marked with unref tag. This may be wrong or not. This can only be decided by a human. A bot goes and re-categorises article into the BLP unref category by changing the tag. Now, editors dealing with BLPs can spot the page in question easier and decide to keep or discard the tag. This is an improvement. Of course, there is a question if we can do better but what is sure is that the bot helps us with this change. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:38, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It is correct to say that the tag is wrong, however in this case it is the unref part of it that is wrong, not the BLP part. There's no reason we can't fix some unref. to refimprove (I thought we already did). Clearly we must assume that the BLP identifiers are correct, we need to err on the side of caution with BLP. Z-Bot has converting to BLP-unref as a specific task and Erik9-Bot tagged a large number (many htousands) articles as unreferenced, with very high accuracy - I was able to review that group automatically and remove several thousand that had had references added since. In short, what a bot can do (with moderate effort) is:

  • Categorise articles as being referenced or unreferenced.
  • Categorise articles as being about living people.

Automated systems cannot, without a lot of effort,

  • Categorise articles as being poorly or well referenced.
  • Categorise articles as not being about living people.

This means that of the six tag states an article can be in a bot can move articles only into five, and not from each of the other states.

From/To Unref BLP Refimprove BLP Referenced BLP Unref Refimprove Referenced
Unref BLP No change Yes No No No No
Refimprove BLP No No change No No No No
Referenced BLP Yes No No change No No No
Unref Yes Yes No No change Yes No
Refimprove No Yes No No No change No
Referenced Yes No Yes Yes No No change

This is quite limited, and the agents currently running are even more conservative than this in their changes. I think that on the basis of this, it right to say that what has happened is an invalid tag has been replaced with another invalid tag, and it is also correct to say that a less conservative agent could have changed this to the valid tag you chose eventually (BLP sources) although spotting references conservatively would not guarantee that it would always be able to make such a change when it would be OK to do so. (For example, unref tagging will not tag an article with external links, but conversely an article with external links will not be promoted from unref to refimprove, let alone referenced.) I will look into this. Rich Farmbrough, 12:49, 9 September 2010 (UTC).

Maybe it was just bad luck on the first smackbot one I checked was wrong. Maybe the AWB one that Rich did was just testing, so he was looking for other things. I understand all of the above and if you think that the bot can accurately move an article from unref to BLPrefimprove, then that is great. I've previously been told (here and here) that a bot can't do that. But if there is doubt, uncertainty or a relatively high chance that we go from one incorrect tag to another, why don't we simply make a list of them, so that real people can work through the list and decide what the right tag is? Do you have any rough indication of how many of these sort of "incompatible" tag changes happen each day? The idea that moving articles into a group that currently has 25500 members to give it "more attention" is also a bit misguided, in my opinion. Sticking it onto a list of a few hundred, maybe a thousand, articles that are in Category:Living people but have a non-BLP specific tag (how many BLP specific tags are there? UBLP and RefimpBLP I know... any others?) would be more useful than dropping it into the already overwhelmingly large UBLP pile.The-Pope (talk) 14:31, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm actually scanning for BLP unsourced => BLP sources right now, the headline figure looks like between .1 and 1%. The category living people is about 485,000, compared with 25,000 in BLP unsourced and 35,000 in BLP articles lacking sources. I would suspect that there are many more unref. or lacking BLPs than we see. Rich Farmbrough, 15:47, 9 September 2010 (UTC).
Good luck, I tend to agree with some people who think that it is just too hard and qualitative to automate a BLPunref to BLPsources... how do you rule out IMDB/personal sites/blog/deadlinks etc. I've just gone through a portion of BLPUnref from April 2010 and found about 14 of about 80 that had refs, about 3 or 4 BLPPROD candidates and the rest valid BLPunrefs.
I was a big proponent of the "if you let us know, we'll ref them" approach. I've spent hours over the past few months allocating UBLPs to WikiProjects and working with Tim to get the Dashbot lists set up. We now have virtually complete coverage of the 25500 UBLPs into the 700 odd wikiproject lists... but even when I notify the projects, we rarely have a list drop by 10 a day, unless one of the 10-20 people who are fairly active do a run through a section. That isn't a sustainable way to reference 25,000 articles, especially, when like you say, many "new" UBLPs are being found each day from old Unrefeds or Untaged. I'm wondering if Kevin, Scott etc were right. Give it a couple more months then delete the remainder.The-Pope (talk) 16:52, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Well, at least we have the information; AS I remarked on another discussion, a three year backlog means articles are leaving the category due to death. If we started deleting I would suggest we use a trailing automated AfD, probably posting a months worth on a single page - the trailing months do seem small but I've not kept statistics over time. Rich Farmbrough, 17:56, 9 September 2010 (UTC).
What are Refereneces (sic)? And do offline references not count anymore? This is the problem I'm talking about. Automated process don't work well. Humans reading articles would not make these errors, or if the do, they'll be warned about it. I'm not actually trawling through hundreds of your edits to find these problems, they are just appearing in almost every one I've checked, maybe I'm just (un)lucky.The-Pope (talk) 05:37, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

[Post-archive note:Of course the type was my (human) typo while investigating the editor's queries. RF.]

SmackBot deleted moved wikibooks link; left a deceptive edit summary?!

Rich, why did SmackBot remove this: {{[[Template:Wikibooks|Wikibooks|How to reduce energy usage]]}} here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Energy_conservation_in_the_United_States&diff=380584021&oldid=380538082 and mark is deceptively as merely m (Date maintenance tags and general fixes: build 478:) --Elvey (talk) 21:59, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The {{Citation needed}} tag and can achieve reductions in energy consumptions of up to 69%.[citation needed] was dated, and the Wikibooks template was moved to where belongs in External links. Rgds, Rich Farmbrough, 22:10, 10 September 2010 (UTC).
Ah, moved, not deleted.  :-) --Elvey (talk) 23:09, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Wiki Terrorism

Someone has been deleting sources and references from a page about me. If there is a hidden reason for silent blindside attacks on a disabled pensioner you might want to let me know. Any claim made about me can be confirmed by talking to real people on the phone or emailing them. I want direct contact with the people who are editing reputable sources and a reference to an article in a News Limited publication. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dupisha (talk • contribs) 09:54, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

In fairness the IP was removing a statement about "notoriety" not suppressing references. By the way leaving a link to the article you are talking about does help. I have cleaned the article a little. Rich Farmbrough, 11:20, 11 September 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Hello, why is SmackBot removing stub templates from stubs? {{Uncategorized stub}} doesn't encompass what kind of stub a stub is. 70.29.210.72 (talk) 02:10, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Well it is a WP:AWB General Fix to remove stub templates from longer articles. It is however a SmackBot specific fix to change {{Uncategorized}} to {{Uncategorized stub}} if there are stub templates present. SmackBot generally applies its fixes first and GF's second - doing it the other way around creates different problems. However, there is a bug/feature request (Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs) current to get AWB to make the template change as a GF which would solve this particular order effect. Rich Farmbrough, 02:17, 12 September 2010 (UTC).

Articles with dead external links

Howdy. When you create new cats for articles with dead ext. links, you may want to add some parameters to fix what is displayed.--Rockfang (talk) 07:47, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

{{Monthly clean up category/Messages/Articles with dead external links}} deals with the "message" part, "hidden" is default, "cat" is worked out by the template itself, I have created {{Monthly clean up category/Messages/Type/Articles with dead external links}} to deal with the remaining parameter. See Category:Articles with dead external links from October 2010 (although this category is nominating itself for speedy deletion, due to not being quite smart enough). Rich Farmbrough, 15:05, 12 September 2010 (UTC).
Incidentally these cats are generally created from Wikipedia:List_of_monthly_maintenance_categories_given_month which means that the previous month's paramters, interwikis, comments etc are simply copied over. However editors quite rightly create them when they see the need, sometimes significantly before month end, due to another editor incorrectly dating a template, hence the drive to simplify the syntax to the greatest extent possible, even though it means more complex apparatus behind the scenes. Rich Farmbrough, 15:11, 12 September 2010 (UTC).
I understand why the categories are created, and what their purpose is. All I'm saying is {{Cleanup-link rot|date=October 2010}} probably shouldn't be listed on any month pages for that category since {{Cleanup-link rot}} doesn't appear to populate it. Some step in the process should be adjusted so that the suggestion to use {{Cleanup-link rot}} doesn't show up.--Rockfang (talk) 16:36, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for that, I see you fixed the message. Rich Farmbrough, 16:43, 12 September 2010 (UTC).
You are welcome. I figured I could learn some stuff along the way. :) Rockfang (talk) 16:45, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

CfD

I noticed you tried to tag Category:Anotheca for deletion WP:CfD has the instructions for doing this. The same may apply to Corythomantis, Itapotihyla, Nyctimantis, and Scarthyla. All have a page in them. Rich Farmbrough, 04:33, 12 September 2010 (UTC).

OK, I'm not sure what you're hinting at. I added the cfd template, gave my reasons as to why, and left the article in the category until it could be discussed. The tag was added on 8 September 2010, its now only 12 September 2010, and we're supposed to allow 7 days for discussion. Where am I dropping the ball? Dawynn (talk) 10:10, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Ah, it's nothing major, since you listed them (I didn't follow up - or even look at the other cats) but the CfD notice should be substituted {{subst:Cfd}}, this creates a link to the discussion and puts it in the correct category. I am an occasional visitor to CfD, so I can't quote precedent, but there does tend to be exceptions made for small categories that are part of a scheme, although up-merging also occurs. Rich Farmbrough, 15:24, 12 September 2010 (UTC).

TB

Hello, Rich Farmbrough. You have new messages at Debresser's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 15:44, 12 September 2010 (UTC).

Template replacement

Is there a good reason that Smack Bot is replacing transclusions of {{WPMILHIST}} with {{WikiProject Military History}} when the former is the correct title of the template? If there was a change in policy, we should have been informed of it, don't you think... -MBK004 04:54, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, pretty much every project uses a "WikiProject XXXXXX" banner, so people know what to expect, nothing to stop you using MILHIST if you find it quicker to type and reckon the time is worth being obscure (Millennium History? Militant History? Words per minute, Illinois history?), but basically using the full expression is much clearer to people who may not be project members. Rich Farmbrough, 01:23, 13 September 2010 (UTC).

Talk:Eurostar

It's dating the tag "{{Use British English}}" and doing minor clean-up at the same time. Rich Farmbrough, 18:23, 12 September 2010 (UTC).

Which is awesome, but doesn't explain the removing of an unbalanced equals sign from the heading further down. I might be able to point you towards the broken rule if the bot was configured to put a list of the executed rules (or as many as will fit) into the summary. —Sladen (talk) 18:29, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
(Room/rule, I knew what you meant.) Yes, I can probably find it. I take it you mean the unbalanced removal of an =. Anyway I'll investigate. Rich Farmbrough, 18:33, 12 September 2010 (UTC).
Found it, correcting a bug arising from the move of "article issues" to "multiple issues" combined with a rule to deal with multiple = signs in that template's parameters, combined with the actual bug... Rich Farmbrough, 21:04, 12 September 2010 (UTC).
Fixed build 526. Rich Farmbrough, 21:07, 12 September 2010 (UTC).
Maybe you missed a comment I did in SmackBot's talk page: You have to prevent this from happening. One idea of reducing the number of your personal customisations is to use Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Custom_Modules#Customised_.22General_Fixes.22 and remove unwanted features for bots (ReorderReferences for example). "Skip if only whitespace changed" must be activated too. This will probably reduce error ratio and save you from, I presume, hundreds of extra lines of codes. -- 21:10, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Skip if only white-space cannot be activated because SB fixes June2010 => June 2010. And in fact category lag is so bad (around a month) that I have to force null edits to clear my queue in some circumstances. And the fix for the Sada Tomson is not to leave trailing spaces, I have implemented this in my version, and given the basic code on AWB pages, although I can probably (and will) continue to improve the definition of minor changes. Rich Farmbrough, 21:18, 12 September 2010 (UTC).
Trailing spaces fixes are defined as minor for some time. Rich Farmbrough, 21:19, 12 September 2010 (UTC).
"Skip if only white-space fixed" refers only to the built-in whitespace fix functions which only remove whitespaces from line ends and spaces between sections, stubs, etc. If white-space is added by other functions and/or F&R, AWB won't skip. You can give it a shot I think. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:03, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Makes no diff, I have skip if no F&R anyway, and skip if only minor F&R. Rich Farmbrough, 00:05, 13 September 2010 (UTC).
Ta. Thank you for finding/fixing it before having re-enabled the bot. —Sladen (talk) 21:39, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Template:Mirror move

Hi, with these edits you moved Template:Mirror to Template:Wikipedia mirror with edit summary "Clarify - and free name" and then protected the original template with "Protected Template:Mirror: Highly visible template ([edit=sysop] (indefinite) [move=sysop] (indefinite))". Please could you reconsider those edits? The Template:Mirror mirror had been in use for some time in all the subpages of Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. The move has caused the history of those pages to be practically unreadable. I agree with clarifying the name Mirror" to Wikipedia Mirror, but I do not agree with freeing the name, instead a redirect would be better. I had been using the history of those Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks subpages to determine when certain websites get entered there, and now the old versions are frankly messed up. I find it disturbing that such a template can be usurped without discussion. I do hope you will seriously consider this request. -84user (talk) 21:26, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Hm, this is a reasonable point. Let me give it some thought. Rich Farmbrough, 22:33, 12 September 2010 (UTC).
Please could you roll it back first, then give it thought. Regressions have the tenancy to really annoy people. —Sladen (talk) 00:44, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
It's not a regression. 84 did not seem to be in a tearing hurry. Rich Farmbrough, 01:07, 13 September 2010 (UTC).

CPAlead and Poker probability (Texas hold 'em)

Hi,

I saw your reply at Wikipedia talk:Mirrors and forks/Abc#Blogspot and I determined that this revision is the once copied in the blog posting. Since you are a significant contributor to the article, you should file the copyright complaint, as I have not edited the article. RJaguar3 | u | t 03:57, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Enron Trader Tapes

You removed the Enron Trader Tapes section form California electricity crisis article. I wonder how it violates NPOV? —Preceding unsigned comment added by VinnieCool (talk • contribs) 04:11, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

"A powerful indictment" "It appears to acknowledge that Enron executives were involved in the trading, were aware of the illegality of it, and were involved in covering it up." I would have just tagged the section, and done some improvement, but I couldn't find any sources including the LA Times article which is cited for the last para. However looking at Time-line of Enron scandal points us to http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/04/national/04energy.html so there is some citable source for some of the material - well probably for all of it. But fairly clearly "Bill and Rich" aren't both traders - supported by the NY Times. The purpose of the section is to display Enron in a bad light, not difficult, but not what we are here for. There is nothing about the source of the material, which is interesting in itself, since the FBI were made to hand it over by legal action. I am surprised that this isn't the subject of a whole article, and would have expected the transcripts to be available on-line and analysed to death by the media - perhaps they are. Rich Farmbrough, 06:51, 13 September 2010 (UTC).

Two lines collided

Line 188. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:38, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 19:26, 13 September 2010 (UTC).

Toplist

Why didn't you bother to discuss this with me before raising a DRV? Spartaz Humbug! 15:07, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 19:27, 13 September 2010 (UTC).

The Signpost: 13 September 2010

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 20:18, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Non-free files in your user space

Hey there Rich Farmbrough, thank you for your contributions. I am a bot, alerting you that non-free files are not allowed in user or talk space. I removed some files I found on User:Rich Farmbrough/temp82. In the future, please refrain from adding fair-use files to your user-space drafts or your talk page.

  • See a log of files removed today here.

Thank you, -- DASHBot (talk) 05:02, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Slightly amused. Rich Farmbrough, 12:13, 14 September 2010 (UTC).

Counties of China

Hi Rich. Its been borught to my attnetion that the Counties of China by province are in need of cleaning. There are just too many parameters that will never be used. They need cleaning and condensing like this. Are you up for the task? If possible if the infobox doesn't ave a county map can you copy the one from German wikipedia, they generally have the county maps. Dr. Blofeld 12:15, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Yep, all in commons. See Xinjiang maps and locator maps of china. I believe the naming system is consistent too which may make the task easier. Dr. Blofeld 12:36, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

OK lets see if this works: Boo!. Rich Farmbrough, 12:42, 14 September 2010 (UTC).

Hmm... Rich Farmbrough, 12:43, 14 September 2010 (UTC).

Some don't have infoboxes, mainly Sichuan I think like Garzê County etc. The majority do have infoboxes though. If you could ensure they are consistent with infoboxes and clean ones at that this would be great. NOte though that Prefectures are the second level divisions, counties are the third -level divisions. Dr. Blofeld 12:48, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Scarily there are 47,000 towns/townships in China and like a 1 million villages. Here is our current coverage of townships. About 15 out of 47,000. And some people think wikipedia has an article on everything known to man... Dr. Blofeld 13:41, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, certainly the Internet issue is partly the reason but actually the Hudong Encyclopedia has detailed info about most of the counties of China online in Chinese and lists the townships and summary of them at the bottom of the articles and often has population figures. So technically is is possible to compile lists, the problem is that half of them translate too literally into some thing like "Chicken Head Town" etc so only a few townships names can properly be compiled. Unless you speak fluent Chinese and are willing to list all 47,000 then at present its not possible. At some point I hope a comprehensive source will become available in english to just copy the names and make all of the lists. Dr. Blofeld 13:52, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

If you really look you may find some info about townships like this. But as I say finding the resources to make a full 47,000 list is a tremendous task. Dr. Blofeld 14:08, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

DNB? Well it seems there is general consensus that these articles are wanted, the main problem is transferring the texts and making them encyclopedia worthy with minimal manual work and adding a link to ONDB. If you can devise a way to do so and Charles,myself and the rest of the new project are content with it go for it. Dr. Blofeld 14:13, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Monsterous. List of townships of Anhui. At least if I can get the Chinese names written down I can hopefully motivate a Chinese speaking wikipedian to translate properly. This will take months to do but if I can get some support from WikiProject China to help it is possible. As far as I can see there is no english language documentation of Chinese townhips by province, perfecture and county on the Internet so this is a must I think. Dr. Blofeld 15:12, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi. Can you not remove image skyline, image map, area and population parameters? Those at least are important...At some point some has to add the population an area to the infoboxes so if the parameters are missing it makes it doubly time consuming. I just meant a trim like in the example above rather than removing all unused paramters... Also the documemtnation is showing see here. Dr. Blofeld 17:10, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Please respond and tell me why you removed the population, area and image map parameters? Dr. Blofeld 19:42, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

You've actually made it harder now to go through and add the basic info, I kind of asked for you to give it a hair cut and only remove the extra parameters that will never be filled not the bare essential ones, but you've given it a Blofeld hair do so to speak!!!... Also if I want to add the translit info now I have to go and find the name parameter just to list it. Instead of taking 30 seconds to add the info now it will at least 4 times as long. I thought I said that they need cleaning and condensing like this. I gave you that example for a specific reason. I wanted them like this so the info can be added and then anybody can add the other info at a later date. Dr. Blofeld 19:58, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

If you could add the essential parameters from here and copy those into the infoboxes that would at least allow me to go through adding the population/area data and map...20:12, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Well those are the parameters I really need bare minimum. The full sized templates did take up a ridiculous amount of kb but I really do need to have the image skyline, image map, population and area and chinese translit parameters empty ready for adding the data... Dr. Blofeld 21:05, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Almost but they were in the wrong order. Try http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Qujiang_District,_Quzhou&action=edit. That would be perfect I think. Dr. Blofeld 21:10, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Excellent job Rich. Thanks for that. I'll begin the slow arduous process of adding data to the infoboxes shortly... Dr. Blofeld 10:12, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

"Flagicon" changes by SmackBot

Please stop changing instances of [Ff]lagicon to Flag icon, as the latter is a redirect to the main template. A template with hundreds of thousands of transclusions needs to be brought to WP:Requested moves to change its name, but to be honest, I think that well-known template names like {{reflist}}, {{navbox}}, {{flagicon}}, {{nowrap}}, etc. are perfectly acceptable with names that aren't separate words. Thanks — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 16:42, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Anything to make wiki-source more readable is good, we do not have the editor numbers we need. I think we forget the learning curve involved. There is no real downside to using the clearer form, people can carry on using the run-together version if they find it that much easier, no one who know one version will be "thrown" by the other, and it is perfectly OK for the rate of change to be slow. Rich Farmbrough, 03:42, 15 September 2010 (UTC).
Sure, the use of the alternate template name is an editing convenience for some editors, but that doesn't mean that your bot should go changing wiki markup to use the redirect name. I sincerely hope you aren't changing {{navbox}} into {{Navigation box}}, for example, and your bot shouldn't change flagicon either. Thank you — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 04:09, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

New dates conversion script

This is a courtesy note to thank you for your assistance in date-sorting, and inform you that I have now written a script, whose objective is to render article dates compliant with WP:MOSNUM. FYI, it incorporates regex code written by User:Lightmouse and User:Plastikspork. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 05:43, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

DNB

What was it you were saying about speaking to Charles? Dr. Blofeld 15:35, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

We me at a Cambridge meet. I was talking about extracting data from DNB - it is quite a tricky proposition to do it properly. He gave me a better understanding of the source material. I did a little investigation, other projects are ahead in the queue though. I joined the new DNB project. Rich Farmbrough, 16:48, 15 September 2010 (UTC).

your advice please

There is another contributor who slapped a {{userspace draft}} template on every subpage under User:Geo Swan, even though I asked, well over a dozen times not to. I asked, on WP:Village pump (technical), and had confirmed, to my satisfaction, that this template was redundant if a page already had a __NOWIKI__ on it.

I noticed that you tuned up many of those tags. I suspect you wouldn't have bothered if you had known that someone other than the author had applied those tags, and that those subpages were all, already, protected by a __NOWIKI__.

Do you concur with the advice I was given in the final answer to my question: "{{userspace draft}} is the only one of the 3 that provides a visual note in addition to noindexing; if you don't care about the box, then yes, its redundant."

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 16:53, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick response.
I drafted User:Geo Swan/An introduction to the notes on subpages under User:Geo Swan. And I put a link to it on User:Geo Swan.
Is this close to what you meant to suggest?
Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 18:06, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Let's be clear here there is no community consensus not to use the NOINDEX tag and {{userspace draft}} together. Geo does not own these pages and some of these pages might be even better deleted. Consider also that there are about 700 of these pages. Visual warnings are important as these are all biased controversial information about Guantanamo and the war on terror and we have to make sure that our readers do not get confused. IQinn (talk) 23:58, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

{{In Our Time}}

Hey there

I've tweaked your template to disambiguate it. I think it is working, and I've checked a few times, but I thought you might be able to take a look. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 05:14, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Not sure if you realize this, but you're adding the template to the talk pages which in many cases are not the applicable article of the broadcast. For example, Popper on In Our Time at the BBC is about Karl Popper -- putting the note on Talk:Popper is a little baffling. older ≠ wiser 12:24, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, as the note on the docs page says, some need checking. But I have modified the template to be a little less certain of its own applicability, and encourage wise relocation. Rich Farmbrough, 16:33, 16 September 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

In regards to "1995 Palo Verde, Arizona derailment ‎ ", I have solid knowledge of the incident and wished to provided two reliable print sources to back up my information.

  1. The Phoenix New Times Newspaper with the exact date of the article & author, who was on the ground as incident occurred and spoke to almost all parties involved. http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/content/printVersion/165145/
  2. "The Medusa File" hardcover investigative book by Craig Roberts. ISBN #: 0-9639062-4-0.

The previous editor removed my edits by stating "dead links"...but then suddenly...content not deemed reliable. How was content determined not to be reliable if it's a dead link? Everything was sourced accordingly, if it's not, then it was removed by someone. Here is the link, it is 100% valid. http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/content/printVersion/165145/

I thought much more of Wiki, now I think it's total garbage. If editors don't like the content or it's too controversial, they remove it, even though facts are only being stated. What a joke WIKI is!!!!!!

Mark99199 (talk) 15:55, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Well you can challenge the removal, as indeed you have. Rich Farmbrough, 16:35, 16 September 2010 (UTC).

What is even more of a joke is the current version of information has absolutely NO references listed whatsoever, so how can you post this original version in the first place with no references to back up any of the article???? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mark99199 (talk • contribs) 16:05, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I have restored the text of the note, which is available from WP:RS. I suggest you engage the other editor in conversation if you wan tot make progress with the article. Rich Farmbrough, 20:08, 16 September 2010 (UTC).

Vandalism unnoticed for 7 months

7 months, 3 non-edits but nobody noticed an obvious vandalism in [181]. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:30, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Unobvious vandalism exists too if you go looking for it. This I found based on searching for likely keyboard mashing... What to do? Rich Farmbrough, 22:02, 17 September 2010 (UTC).
And another! YYYYYYYY A very patrolled article too. Rich Farmbrough, 22:54, 17 September 2010 (UTC).

Battle of the bots!

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Battle of the bots: Reflinks vs. SmackBot. Thank you.--70.130.130.6 (talk) 04:48, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, just realized I should let you know. Sorry someone beat me to it. Your input would probably be appreciated. -Selket Talk 16:27, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry

I thought u were the 1 who contributed to the vandalism of TDWT. I'm sorry. (RealityShowsRock (talk) 17:10, 18 September 2010 (UTC))

AWB database dump file from network share – fixed

Re your old bug report db dump file from network share – I had this myself today, rev 7155 fixed for me: we were opening the db dump file read+write when I only had read over network share. Db dump file access is now read only, hopefully that will fix your problem too. Rjwilmsi 21:37, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Ah, many thanks! Rich Farmbrough, 21:41, 19 September 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot - Sleep apnea

diff

SmackBot added "September", which is an error. {{Update after|2010|September|15}}

Should have added "09" instead. {{Update after|2010|09|15}}

Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 05:07, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, fix building now. Rich Farmbrough, 05:13, 20 September 2010 (UTC).

The Signpost: 20 September 2010

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 22:48, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Merge Piero Della Francesca

"Thanks for adding the merge notice. You have to separate the "date=" with a | ... "|date=September 2010}}" or the system will think you are using a parameter called "this article is also about him date". Rich Farmbrough, 05:38, 20 September 2010 (UTC)."

Would you be so kind as to fix this for me? I've tried, and I can't figure out what I might be doing wrong. Worc63 (talk) 23:37, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 02:43, 21 September 2010 (UTC).

Infobox updates - Remove deprecated parameter and/or general fixes using AWB

Hi Rich. Per AWB#2 - "Don't edit too quickly; consider opening a bot account if you are regularly making more than a few edits a minute." Maybe you should setup a bot to do these changes. Thanks. Lugnuts (talk) 07:25, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Maybe. Rich Farmbrough, 07:26, 21 September 2010 (UTC).

IPA dump

Hi Rich,

Back in May you were able to filter the March 12 dump for unformated IPA.(discussion) I've finally gotten through it (actually, 9 articles to go, which I've asked for help with). Would you be able to do that again, with a more recent dump?

Slightly different search:

ɐɑɒɓɔɕɖɗɘɚɛɜɝɞɟɠɡɢɣɤɥɦɧɨɩɪɫɬɭɮɯɰɱɲɳɴɵɶɷɸɹɺɻɼɽɾɿʀʁʂʃʄʅʆʇʈʉʊʋʌʍʎʏʐʑʒʓʔʕʖʗʘʙʚʛʜʝʞʟʠʡʢʣʤʥʦʧʨʩʪʫʬʭʮˈˌːˑʰ˥ʷ˦ʲ˧ʱ˨ˠ˩ˤˀᵊⁿˡʼꜛꜜ

(No schwa this time--too many false hits--and adding some diacritics and tone marks. Is it possible to search for a combining diacritics as well, such as the ones on k̚t̪s̺s̻θ̼s̬n̥ŋ̊a̤a̰ə̆ə̯ə̃z̴ə̋ə́ə̄ə̀ə̏ə̌ə̂t͡ʃβ̞r̝?)

Thanks for your help, if you've got the time. — kwami (talk) 11:36, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Only if they are combined Maybe. Should we exclude {{Respell}} ? Rich Farmbrough, 12:29, 21 September 2010 (UTC).
No, no reason to exclude Respell or Azeri, as the only overlap should be with schwa, and I'd like to not search for schwa this time. (Same for {{USdict}}.) There may be other stuff in those templates/articles that should be caught. Also, no need to exclude anything per article title or links this time; anything in the article should be templated regardless. (That is, of the exclusion parameters at temp14, only part of the first is relevant: "but not containing {{IPA|{{Audio-IPA|{{[Pp]ron". (Regular {{Audio should still be searched.)
(edit conflict) Okay, if we can only search for combined diacritics, then most combinations wouldn't be worth bothering with. I'd suggest the following: t̪, d̪, n̪, l̪, e̞, o̞, r̝, ŋ̊, s̺, s̻, l̥, r̥, n̥, m̥, œ̃, ə̯, ə̃, t͡, s͡, d͡, z͡, p̚, t̚, k̚, n̩, z̴, s̴, l̩, r̩, n̩, m̩, β̞.
— kwami (talk) 12:44, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I seem to be hitting rather a lot of pages... the above are random examples. Rich Farmbrough, 12:56, 21 September 2010 (UTC).

Thanks. I'll take a look. Also, β should be included, as it isn't the same coding as Greek beta. (I'd modified some of the other parameters above before writing that.)
Yeah, those all look like legitimate hits. Apart from radiography, I see an IPA letter outside of a template in each. — kwami (talk) 12:58, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
I saw the change, I'll let this scan finish then re-run. Looking like 2-3000 articles. Rich Farmbrough, 13:17, 21 September 2010 (UTC).
Okay, thanks.
Oh, are you searching for articles that do not have {{IPA etc at all, or are you searching for articles with those characters outside of {{IPA etc. templates? I suspect there are a lot of articles that have the IPA only partially formatted. — kwami (talk) 13:23, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Without IPA. I'm sure you are right, this list should keep you busy for a while though! Rich Farmbrough, 13:24, 21 September 2010 (UTC).
Yes, I suspect it will!
Several hundred articles have Semitic transliterations that use IPA letters without actually being IPA. I should check with the wikiproject--I didn't reformat those last time, and they'll keep coming up unless I do something. Should be able to automate their prefs. — kwami (talk) 13:27, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Hm, well many of these can be wrapped in {Lang|he}. Rich Farmbrough, 13:30, 21 September 2010 (UTC).
User:Rich Farmbrough/temp14 is with the more-or-less initial conditions. I'll do a re-run more accurately later on today. Rich Farmbrough, 13:30, 21 September 2010 (UTC).
Looking at your last change to temp14:
"and not containing interwiki links with the above IPA characters in them"
I don't see a reason for avoiding those. Even links would need to be formatted for IE to display them properly.
"but not containing {{IPA|{{Audio|{{[Pp]ron "
Could you make that specifically {{Audio-IPA}}? AFAIK, other Audio templates shouldn't have IPA in them. — kwami (talk) 13:33, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Interwiki language links don't display. And yes to the other point. Rich Farmbrough, 18:22, 21 September 2010 (UTC).

Not sure you have the right β there? it's picking up thousands of additional articles. Rich Farmbrough, 19:14, 21 September 2010 (UTC).

OK  Done without the Beta. Rich Farmbrough, 21:44, 21 September 2010 (UTC).
Thanks!
You're right. I thought there were separate Latin & Greek betas, but there aren't. Next run maybe we can add β̞ to the list.
What was the date of that dump? — kwami (talk) 22:50, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
4 September. Rich Farmbrough, 22:52, 21 September 2010 (UTC).
Thanks. 2600 hits, of which a huge number are Semitic or use the ejective diacritic in place of an apostrophe. I've asked at one of the wikiprojects what to do about those. — kwami (talk) 00:08, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Set up stub using AWB

About your recent edits, just so you know, large scale semi-automated page creations must be approved by BAG at WP:BRFA, please see Wikipedia:BOTPOL#Mass_article_creation. Cheers, - Kingpin13 (talk) 23:03, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes it's not exactly large scale, though - 1966 to 2005 is 30 pages for the technology award (I already fully manually created 2006+). Rich Farmbrough, 23:14, 21 September 2010 (UTC).
One way to go about this would be to create them in your userspace and move them to mainspace after you've massaged them. –xenotalk 23:16, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
I was rather hoping that others would chip in and do some pages. Rich Farmbrough, 00:17, 22 September 2010 (UTC).
You... you were expecting people to work together, at Wikipedia?? *wink* Okay, that sounds fine, I just wasn't sure if you were going to continue doing a lot more or not :). Best, - Kingpin13 (talk) 10:53, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

AWB or SmackBot bug?

Line 243. It's also weird that between two edits of SmackBot there wasn't any other edit and a "the" was removed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:32, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, its a RF bug really. The revisit is due to recalcitrant category, the edit is due to a bug I introduced and removed. Fixed, reviewing other edits (maybe a dozen) at risk. Rich Farmbrough, 23:42, 21 September 2010 (UTC).

Main vs. Catmore

OK, the replacing "catmain" with "catmore" was probably not necessary. But "Catmore" is the preferred template for use in the category namespace, while "main" is the preferred template for article and project namespace, so I stand by those edits. I had requested a bot task for this a few months ago, but at the time there were no bots available for the task. --Eastlaw talk ⁄ contribs 03:48, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot vs Reflinks

I've noticed that Reflinks converts {{Cite web}} to {{cite web}} while SmackBot converts {{cite web}} to {{Cite web}}, which seems rather silly. Is it possible to get these two to agree on one case? --AussieLegend (talk) 07:18, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes I left a message for Dispenser, and am waiting to hear. Rich Farmbrough, 07:19, 22 September 2010 (UTC).
Perhaps you might like to involve the rest of the community as well, who by-and-large do not capitalize {{cite}} templates? –xenotalk 13:14, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
FYI: Wikipedia talk:Citation templates#Template caps: "Cite" or "cite"?. –xenotalk 18:30, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

June Card

You were so kind to clean up June Card, thank you. But please explain, for me to learn, why you changed the order of references from oper/papageno to papageno/oper? Please reply here, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:52, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

The papegeno reference has the same name as reference 1, so it gets moved first. In fact they are the same reference in slightly different format - I have merged the two, which should make it clearer. Rich Farmbrough, 06:08, 23 September 2010 (UTC).
Understood. It feels a bit funny because operissimo was the first source for the article, all others added later, papageno much later, but is ok. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:17, 23 September 2010 (UTC)


Header spacing

When doing your cleanup you remove spacing from section headers. Why do you do that? ΔT The only constant 21:27, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

There's a lot of unbalanced headers so I regularise them all. Unspaced is preferred 5:1. Rich Farmbrough, 22:23, 23 September 2010 (UTC).

"dabpages"

Hi, I happened to click on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rich_Farmbrough/dabpages while I was looking what else links to an article which changed name. It appears clicking on that slowed my browser down that much that I believed it was completely hung. What is that list for? Any way to make it more invisible? Just imagine, people still use metered connections in some cases. Richiez (talk) 22:02, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

There was a special page "Lonelypages" and it was full of dab pages. It could only lists 1000. So I hoped this allowed fresh pages on that were real orphans. However the lonleypages functionality is now disabled, so I have deleted 'dabpages'. Rich Farmbrough, 22:20, 23 September 2010 (UTC). (P.S. try editing "List of wind turbines in Denmark ‎" - 469 k... ) Rich Farmbrough, 22:20, 23 September 2010 (UTC).
Nice reading the "wind turbines", trying edit was not that bad. Is there some bot that would flag if some page gets terribly long? I would imagine bots might occassionaly create such pages.Richiez (talk) 23:32, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
It's the actual save that causes problems - yes long pages are are flagged under "special pages"->"long pages" - but limited to article space. There are bots that create huge multi-page reports, most of which no one looks at - but some of them are used so they continue. Rich Farmbrough, 01:50, 24 September 2010 (UTC).

Smackbot and {{Flag icon}}

{{Flag icon}} is a redirect to {{Flagicon}}, but SmackBot (talk · contribs) changes it. Why? Armbrust Talk Contribs 11:48, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Readability. Rich Farmbrough, 11:50, 24 September 2010 (UTC).
Why not move the template? PC78 (talk) 17:04, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
Please do not. I will instantly revert any move that is not supported by consensus at WP:Requested moves. {{flagicon}} is a very well-known and widely used template, just like {{reflist}}, {{nowrap}}, etc. so it is utterly pointless to make these edits and claim "readability" is improved. Rich, there is no consensus for these edits, so I'll ask again that you please stop. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:28, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot: Header modifications

Hi. In this edit by Smack, it removes the spacing between the equal signs and the header text. Whereas, the default format is with spaces (use the auto add header link to see for yourself). So just thought if it would be better to, I don't know, maybe recode the bot to not do that? ;) Thanks! Rehman(+) 12:54, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

There's a lot of unbalanced headers so I regularise them all. Unspaced is preferred 5:1, despite the software. Rich Farmbrough, 22:23, 23 September 2010 (UTC).

Nomination for deletion of Template:Infobox Candidate

Template:Infobox Candidate has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Magioladitis (talk) 12:17, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for all your proofreading and copy editing that makes Wikipedia a higher-quality encyclopedia! -- Ssilvers (talk) 13:47, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

You are most welcome. Rich Farmbrough, 13:49, 25 September 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot general fixes – IMDb

You may want to adjust SmackBot's "general fixes" regarding the rewrite of links to the family of IMDb templates; they are currently all spelled "IMDb …". -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 15:34, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes I saw the move, as a result of the rule generation. It's not one I agree with but it's not a big deal, will add support presently. Rich Farmbrough, 19:11, 25 September 2010 (UTC).

Test

{{Mirror thread|7357}}

CFD Notice

2010 September 19*Rich Farmbrough/Talk Archive Mega 2

SmackBot clarify tag

SmackBot corrected a clarify tag in Scosta. This is how I incorrectly added the tag - {{Clarify| September 2010}}. But is how SmackBot corrected - {{Clarify| September 2010|date=September 2010}}. btw - What do you think of this link for bork. Slightsmile (talk) 21:11, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes I know, I can't assume that parameter 1 is intended to be a date - especially as leaving it should be harmless. I could, I suppose, only do so if it is the current month year. Nice link. Rich Farmbrough, 21:13, 20 September 2010 (UTC).
Odd. Yesterday and today, when I click on the bork link I made, an error box pops up,
Stop running this script? A script on this page is causing Internet Explorer to run slowly. If it continues to run, your computer might become unresponsive. "Yes" "No".
Should I take this to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)? Slightsmile (talk) 00:11, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
Oh I get that a lot on Firefox, at least it tells you what the script is. IE won't even run on my main machine, speaking of borken. Rich Farmbrough, 12:58, 26 September 2010 (UTC).

Could you not capitalize citation template in the future?

Like you did here (and presumably elsewhere). They are standardized to lowercase all across Wikipedia. Thanks. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:21, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, the {{Cite looks out of place when compared to the standard. Also, you probably shouldn't change the ==spacing around headings== either (see MoS:HEAD#Section headings). All of these little changes make it harder to read the diff. –xenotalk 22:25, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
And can't you just please use a bot-flaged account for those edits so that they don't always fill up my watchlist? I'm normally all for consistency and cleanup tasks, and fine with bots making edits like this as long as I don't see them in my watchlist and they are clearly marked as a bot-made edits in the history (although I find it odd that you seem to be pushing your personal capitalization preference, I've yet to see consensus for any of this). You're obviously letting it run in auto-mode anyway, and have bot accounts. Use them. Amalthea 09:15, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
No comment at all? Amalthea 14:08, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
I've moved stuff across to botland. Rich Farmbrough, 14:10, 25 September 2010 (UTC).
Thanks. Amalthea 13:39, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Again, could you stop capitalizing those templates? It's really annoying. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 10:00, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll make some changes. Rich Farmbrough, 10:06, 26 September 2010 (UTC).
Building a new ruleset now. Rich Farmbrough, 11:29, 26 September 2010 (UTC).
Built manual ruleset to exclude canonical template names for cite templates when creating canonicalization rules, unfortunately reckoned without {{Cite_Web}} etc. Rich Farmbrough, 11:29, 26 September 2010 (UTC).
Also a bug in the build process. Rich Farmbrough, 11:36, 26 September 2010 (UTC).

← You're still doing it as far as I can tell? [182] Please stop capitalizing template names - if the editors who put it there made a human decision to use small case, you should not use an automated process to change it absent consensus to do so. –xenotalk 13:58, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

See build (manual) 550, I'm in the middle of some manual runs on stuff like "3 january 3" and I'm not going to retype all the specialist rules. Rich Farmbrough, 14:11, 26 September 2010 (UTC).
If you're doing a run focused on stuff like "3 January 3" (which is noble, useful and helpful), could I ask why are any there capitalisation shuffling rules enabled? The last time I had cause to stop the bot, you investigated and after approximately three hours traced the issue down to an unexpected interaction between rule-sets. If you're not (intentionally) using a rule at any one moment, please do not have it enabled. In this case, please do not have capitalisation adjusting rules enabled, unless you are exclusively on a capitalisation adjusting run—and doing the latter on the basis of a previously agreed and documented project-wide mandate. —Sladen (talk) 15:11, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
It's the pull of opposites. Minimising the number of edits vs. making them clear. It's crazy to fix a date, fix a DEFAULTSORT, date a tag via three seperate edits when it can all be done in one. Moreover really minor but worthwhile changes (like moving a ref after punctuation, or replacing "Web reference" with "Cite web") are generally not considered "worth" even a bot minor edit, but are good rolled into other stuff. Rich Farmbrough, 15:19, 26 September 2010 (UTC).
Yes, these are all (date formatting, DEFAULTSORT, dated cite) noble, clear-cut and good. Capitialisation adjustments are not clear-cut and—looking further up this conversation—are not universally considered good. Please disable capitalisation adjustments unless there is a project-wide concensus for them (which at the moment, does not appear to be the case). —Sladen (talk) 19:13, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Progress? —Sladen (talk) 17:32, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

WILL YOU STOP DOING THIS?. If you keep acting like a deficient bot, I swear next time I'm going to ask an admin to block you like they would a deficient bot. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:14, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Template:Unreferenced

Hello Rich, I've undone your edits to Template:Unreferenced because they were causing huge red letters to appear on articles that Template:Unreferenced was transcluded on. Regards, Airplaneman ✈ 03:47, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that was just a caching effect, form the earlier edit. See [[183]]. Rich Farmbrough, 03:50, 23 September 2010 (UTC).
Oh, OK. Works now! :) Thanks, Airplaneman ✈ 20:46, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

121.54.29.98

121.54.29.98, who you blocked for 3 hours, is at it again, adding redundant cleanup tags with dates from 2-3 years ago, interwiki links to nonexistent articles, and linked dates inside {{Persondata}}. I got BOLD and blocked him for 31 hours instead of going through the motions at ANI, but if you think it would be more appropriate I can open up a thread there just to get consensus. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:41, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

That's the right next step. It's almost like 121 is a training AI, replicating the types of additions to articles that are most often not reverted. Rich Farmbrough, 19:09, 25 September 2010 (UTC).
I went ahead and blocked the IP for a year, it seems like there's nothing good to come out of leaving it unblocked. rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:38, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
(BTW, I did leave a note at ANI yesterday, see WP:ANI#IP adding broken interwikis, but no one ever responded. I guess there was more interesting drama elsewhere... rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:38, 27 September 2010 (UTC))

HIIII

Originally sourced and properly cited'Rahstrapati Award' a category of national awards before 1968 box info was deleted - Citation requested to support the editor named Shshshsh 24 hrs ago claim support needed. Please protect National Film Award article by vandalism list of national awards among 'Rashtrapati Award 'deleted in the last 24 hrs by that editor please try to undo the edit if he again commits to vandalism. support needed from you thank you. please protect if Shshshsh deletes the National award list again.Report him to the administrator full support requested, your originally edited National award article was completely deleted through vandalism by the user 'Shshshsh ' support requested to (Prabhu6 (talk) 12:02, 25 September 2010 (UTC)). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prabhu6 (talk • contribs)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 07:07, 26 September 2010 (UTC).

Expansion of lifetime can lead to duplicate categories, DEFAULTSORT

E.g. here the expansion of {{lifetime}} can lead to duplicate categories and DEFAULTSORT. Would you add logic for this (could invoke MetaDataSorter after such an expansion to clean up). Rjwilmsi 16:46, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

This shouldn't happen much, if at all (that was 2009), as 1. lifetime is now very rare, 2. SB invocations start with GF's after F&R, and only gradually do I manually change them to "before" to deal with intransigent items. If I could invoke General Fixes both before and after search and replace... Incidentally the duplicates are there anyway, just not visible. This is one of the reasons for expansion of the template. Rich Farmbrough, 19:16, 25 September 2010 (UTC).
I hadn't seen it was last year, thought it was three weeks ago. No worries then. Rjwilmsi 21:35, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Burma

Hi Rich. Can you do a similar run for Burma like you did with Chinese counties cleaning the infoboxes. Basically the infoboxes of the towns and Townships of Burma need stripping like this. They are far too bloated and empty. ALso many of them contain "religion=Buddhism and an empty government parameter which should be removed as in the Tuimu example and replaced with the time zone given. Also the division names need linking properly. If you see Tuimu now you'll see what I mean. Can you go through the town by division/state Category:Populated places in Burma and clean them and the Townships of Burma. Note that some of them are called states not divisions so in the infobox you just need to change Division to "State". Please though can you at least keep the very basic paramters like image skyline, pushpin map option, area, population and altitude. You can remove flag/shield option too as obtaining those are unlikely.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:00, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Any response?♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:24, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

State/division - just pick that from the article name? Rich Farmbrough, 21:58, 25 September 2010 (UTC).
Incidentally I sorted the categories out, thy were a bit of a mess, sub-catting various "people in foo" cats, etc. ~~

Nice one. That'll do. Don't worry about any more as I'm gradually going through anyway and replacing the infoboxes/cleaning up the articles.♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:34, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Smackbot question - tagger code

When Smackbot is adding categories such as Category:Living people or birth and death year categories to an article that's tagged as being uncategorized, would it be possible to also have it switch the tag from {{uncategorized}} to {{morecat}}? Not a big deal if not, but I thought it worth asking anyway, because I've come across a few articles today where that would have been helpful. Bearcat (talk) 23:19, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it would be a useful AWB function - AWB is very conservative about uncat, though, assuming that any unrecognised template might hide a category - which mostly they don't or shouldn't. Comics especially has a wonderful categorising mechanism, but of course the cats aren't in the page source and don't work with intersections etc. This sort of project specific cleverness is a real problem sometimes. Rich Farmbrough, 23:30, 25 September 2010 (UTC).
We use the API to get categories, so whether they're explicit in page or not doesn't matter. Rjwilmsi 21:36, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
Maybe so, but the tagger code I saw looked a the page text. I'll check it out tomorrow. Rich Farmbrough, 21:40, 27 September 2010 (UTC).
            // skip article if contains any template except for stub templates
            // because templates may provide categories/references
            foreach (Match m in WikiRegexes.Template.Matches(articleText))
            {
                if (!(WikiRegexes.Stub.IsMatch(m.Value)
                      || WikiRegexes.Uncat.IsMatch(m.Value)
                      || WikiRegexes.DeadEnd.IsMatch(m.Value)
                      || WikiRegexes.Wikify.IsMatch(m.Value)
                      || WikiRegexes.Orphan.IsMatch(m.Value)
                      || WikiRegexes.ReferenceList.IsMatch(m.Value)
                      || WikiRegexes.NewUnReviewedArticle.IsMatch(m.Value)
                      || m.Value.Contains("subst")))
                {
                    summary = PrepareTaggerEditSummary();

                    return articleText;
                }
            }
Rich Farmbrough, 18:00, 28 September 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot uncategorized

In this edit SmackBot incorrectly tagged an article as uncategorized — there is a comment at the bottom of the article clearly state that the appropriate categories are present at redirects rather than at the article itself, but the comment is obviously human-readable only. Is there a way to automatically inform bots such as SmackBot that the categorization of articles such as this one is not problematic, to prevent it from coming around and making the same bad edit again? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:19, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Well not a good way! Let me look closer. Rich Farmbrough, 06:20, 26 September 2010 (UTC).
checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 07:41, 26 September 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Hi Rich I added references to an article I am working on titled "Youssef Elsisi", could you please let me know if it satisfies the notability and/or references for wiki. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Regards.

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 14:33, 26 September 2010 (UTC).

Thanks

The Redirect Barnstar
Despite our disagreements on other sundry matters, I would like to extend my sincere thanks and gratitude for generating the AWB rules for the list of WikiProject banner redirects used in my WikiProject shelling task. –xenotalk 14:33, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
You are welcome. Speaking of Xenbobots, did the Chicagoland problems resolve themselves? Rich Farmbrough, 14:36, 26 September 2010 (UTC).
Hmm, you'll have to jog my memory? I am working without the assistance of a beverage made by straining hot water through ground beans. –xenotalk 14:40, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
I too have an empty earthenware container at my elbow. It's one of Xenobot IV(?)'s project labelling tasks. WikiProject Chicago. However many of the pages once labelled were disputed and now have various "nobots" templates on their talk pages. I know you suggest this as one solution on your bot's talk page, but it has two flaws: firstly it doesn't solve the underlying problem, whether it is mis-categorisation, or poor project definition (assuming the banner doesn't belong), secondly if a project wants to include pages with little or no apparent connection to the subject of the project, it's not really for the pages "owners" to say them nay. Anyway the reason I ask is that I periodically try to clean up bots/nobots, and have managed to remove a couple of hundred plus (not least from the templates with red-links pages which were all denying AWB for no real reason - although that got me into updating the pages, which are quite owned at the moment). Rich Farmbrough, 14:49, 26 September 2010 (UTC).
Ah yes. It's a bit of a dispute over how wide a metropolitan area spans. One user feels that CHI is casting their net too wide, but on the other hand (as you note), projects are generally free to set their scope as wide as they wish. I didn't really feel like getting in the middle of it, to be honest, so I was fine with them denying Xenobot on a case-by-case basis. –xenotalk 15:32, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

cite vs Cite

At Carbon dioxide, you used AWB to change multiple occurrences of "cite web" to "Cite web". Why? The cite web template explicitly uses the lower case version. Q Science (talk) 15:49, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes some of the documentation does although it is not prescriptive in that sense. However
  1. Template:Web reference
  2. Template:Web-reference
  3. Template:Web cite
  4. Template:Cite website
  5. Template:Cite-web
  6. Template:Citeweb
  7. Template:Web
  8. Wikipedia:Citeweb
  9. Template:Web citation
  10. Template:Cite url
  11. Cite web
  12. Wikipedia:Cite web
  13. Template:Cite blog
  14. Template:Cite Web
  15. Template:Cite webpage
  16. Template:Cita web
  17. Template:Lien web
  18. Template:C web
  19. Template:Cit web
  20. Template:Cw
  21. Template:Cite tweet

all redirect to {{Cite web}}, and from the 6 September I started to pick these up. Capitalising is an added bonus (the majority of templates are capitalised), although there are some people that have objected, notably Amalthea for reasons of watchlist noise (which seems valid), for that reason I have created a new manual version of the clean-up rules that skips some of these corrections. Rich Farmbrough, 04:20, 27 September 2010 (UTC).

Actually, whether capitalizing templates really is a "bonus" is yet to be determined. I haven't seen objections to bypassing redirects, but many complaints about changing e.g. {{cite web| to {{Cite web|. I think I see your reasoning, and can see it as a good guideline to improve readability in meta templates. Not so much in articles though.
You'd save yourself much grief (and, from the looks of it, an ANI thread or RFCU sooner or later) if you just stopped changing capitalization of the first letter of transcluded templates (cites, tags, reflist, ...) and looked for consensus at some pump first. As I've said elsewhere, I'm in principle all for cleanup tasks and canonicalization, but this is a consensus driven community project – if members of the community object, you'll need to look for consensus, as annoying as it may be. I know you don't normally have BAG approve all your tasks, and you've been given lots of leeway since you generally stay within the important BAG guidelines. In this case though you aren't. Amalthea 12:35, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
Indeed in meta-templates it has the big advantage of making .....{{{{entity and ....{{{{{Entity clear nine times out of ten (or more). But there is not really much objection except to the Cite family, and that mainly since I have been busy manually over the last few days - and I understand the reasoning since "cite" is seen as something that fits into running text (I did cap a lot in numbered or bulleted lists with no complaints). In fact it rarely isin running text, it is usually offset from (or at least within) a sentence with ref tags, but as I said I have done a rebuild so I get a separate manual fixes that won't cap inline cites, unless it's replacing a redirect. (Well at the moment it will ail with most redirects but that's another story.) I completed one of the 8 tasks I was working on yesterday, another will be done in a couple of minutes, one I think I can bot (I will have to check my BRFAs) and the rest I might put on hold anyway as I want to look at 0.8, and work on Mirror Bot. Rich Farmbrough, 12:47, 27 September 2010 (UTC).
I don't understand what "redirect" has to do with this. When you actually go to the Template:Cite web page, the examples are in all lower case. This has nothing to do with page names, but instead is the fact that the examples and the new text do not agree. As a result, I think it is wrong to use mixed case anytime, even when "it's replacing a redirect". Q Science (talk) 18:41, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
As noted in several other places on just the recent talk activity, the lowercase is used in examples and the lower case seems to be want is preferred. If you wish to change the direction of Wikipedia, this can be done by gaining traction for a policy on the matter, rather than eroding the standardisation that there is. —Sladen (talk) 17:36, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I must have mis-read what was said above. The bot is still changing "cite journal" to "Cite journal". Also "cite news", "cite web", and more. Please stop. Q Science (talk) 19:00, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Template:Flagicon

Hi,

I just wondered why you interchanges {{flagicon}} with its redirect {{Flag icon}}, like you did here and here amongst many? Anyway, I thought that general Wikipedia consensus is you don't make an edit to a page just to update the template name, according to WP:R? lil2mas (talk) 21:25, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

  • Yes you are quite right (by and large) you don't make an edit to a page just to update the template name, in the first edit I replaced mark-up with a template ( Edit summary - replace markup with template and general fixes.) in this case <br clear="all"> with {{Clear}}, added a DEFAULTSORT and a couple of other minor changes, in the second (Datefixes and general fixes) replaced "22 April 22" with "22 April", and {{bda}} with {{Birth date and age}}. And there also lies the nub (or the rub, or the rub of the nub) - "bda", <br clear="all">, "flagicon" and "commonscat" (common scat?) are less readable than "Birth date and age", "Clear" "Flag icon" and "Commons category". And what is more they are less memorable, don't conform to simple rules to help users predict and remember the names of templates (whole words, normal capitalisation, no extra underscores, hyphens, Infobox foo, not Foo infobox etc.). And while none of these things is insurmountable, a simple interface encourages new users - I do remember when the only mark-up I knew was == [] - and a few minutes earlier not even that. There is a steep learning curve with Wikipedia, and we need to make it as shallow as possible. Rich Farmbrough, 03:48, 27 September 2010 (UTC).

Help with the A&R representatives editing their clients' articles

Twice in this month, I've found some funky writing, and look to the talk page of the article, only to discover that the Kaki King article was being edited by one of her record label executives, using a copyrighted photo which had been hanging in King's MySpace ..."with King's permission".  ?!! Today, the Easy Star All-Stars page had an album inserted into their article. A photo of former members from that band that I uploaded a year ago to Wikimedia Commons came under scrutiny by a new user at Commons, who asked to delete the image "because the people in the photo were no longer in the band". (I should have guessed this was the problem).. my response was to ask whether I should delete photographs of Mick Taylor since he no longer plays with The Rolling Stones! I was incredulous that anyone would ask to delete a photo that could be used in discussing the history of the band from Commons!! Today, I read on the talk page that the primary editor of what is a redundant article- with the text merely repeating the lead-- identifies themself as a new editor but never registered in the usual manner so it's not possible to leave a template on their talk page if they haven't got one! What to do with these people??!!--Leahtwosaints (talk) 01:59, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Tbanks. I never learned how to really interact with other editors on the Wikipedias, mainly being a Wikignome type, cleaning up after others. Just wanted to be sure that my efforts with these outsiders with definite POV interests regarding their clients don't screw up the BLP pages. I watched while others had a helluva time with the record folks on the article for Josh Klinghoffer (Red Hot Chili Peppers backup guitarist)-- who has now taken John Frusciante's place in the touring band, if not permanently. --Leahtwosaints (talk) 15:42, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Worcester

Hi Rich Farmbrough/Talk Archive Mega 2! an article you have contributed to, has been selected for the Wikipedia Version 0.8. offline release on DVD and iPhone. If you would like to make any last minutes changes or improvements, you are most welcome to do so. Deadline is midnight UTC on Monday, 11 October. See also: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Worcestershire/Archive 1#Worcestershire articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release.--Kudpung (talk) 04:47, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Cool! Rich Farmbrough, 04:48, 27 September 2010 (UTC).

Talkback

Hello, Rich Farmbrough. You have new messages at Kudpung's talk page.
Message added 05:07, 27 September 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Talkback

Hello, Rich Farmbrough. You have new messages at Kudpung's talk page.
Message added 06:09, 27 September 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

BTW if you're watching my tp anyway, I'll drop these silly tb templates.


Level two headline

Hello. Concerning your edit here, one minor point: Clicking on the icon "Level 2 headline" above gives automatically "== abc ==", not "==abc==", hence you should adapt your general fix accordingly or you will find yourself always editing against the general format trend. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:02, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

You would think so, however "==abc==" outnumbers "== abc ==" 5 to 1. Rich Farmbrough, 10:04, 27 September 2010 (UTC).
How you know? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:28, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
I counted them. Rich Farmbrough, 10:33, 27 September 2010 (UTC).
My impression, however, is quite the opposite, and that Wikipedia has automated the task to "== abc ==", not "==abc==" gives it much more force. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:58, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes I understand, however the decisions of MediaWiki developers 10 years ago, however sagacious, aren't really too relevant. Rich Farmbrough, 11:02, 27 September 2010 (UTC).
Whatever, you can propose a Wikipedia-wide change on the relevant talk page, but meanwhile I revert it on Andrew Wilson (and any other article I created). Thanks for your understanding. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 11:15, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
By all means. Rich Farmbrough, 11:19, 27 September 2010 (UTC).
Bracketing the place of birth is actually encouraged: Check out Wikipedia:Persondata#Using the template, the Magellan example.
It is also quite implicit recommended below: "For example, there's no need to link "Mount Juliet, Tennessee" as "Mount Juliet, Tennessee" (resulting in "Mount Juliet, Tennessee") when "Mount Juliet, Tennessee" ("Mount Juliet, Tennessee") is available." Please do your homework. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 11:38, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
Ah yes I beg your pardon. Rich Farmbrough, 11:44, 27 September 2010 (UTC).
Another trivial fix to suit a personal preference. –xenotalk 18:59, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


Radio City 1386AM

Rich

You posted an Orphan article notice on the article I posted about Radio City 1386AM any chance you can take another look I have added some more links just curious how many links are required for an article to not be classified an orphan?

Thanks David —Preceding unsigned comment added by DABenji (talk • contribs) 14:27, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 14:31, 27 September 2010 (UTC).

Thanks a lot, new to the Wiki World so not sure on the etiquette of removing what others have added.

David —Preceding unsigned comment added by DABenji (talk • contribs) 14:36, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

Hi Rich, Please, check the article "Tjaarke Maas", which was improved. since you tagged it. Thanks (Yuryo (talk) 16:18, 27 September 2010 (UTC))

Thanks Rich, for giving me a hand. Its looks better now.(93.45.20.221 (talk) 23:32, 27 September 2010 (UTC))

SWAT and WADS conferences

Hidden maintenance categories don't make an article properly categorized, and neither do the presence of categories on redirects. If SWAT and WADS conferences doesn't have at least one visible content category directly on it, then it's still an uncategorized article that needs to be tagged as an uncategorized article. Bearcat (talk) 18:42, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categorization does say that every article needs to have at least one category on it. Bearcat (talk) 18:56, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
Is there any good reason why certain articles should be exempt from the rules that apply to most others? If so, then why bother having a category system at all? Bearcat (talk) 18:58, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
Categorization tagging isn't something I do because I particularly like being perceived as an obsessive-compulsive little "rules for the sake of rules" geek. I certainly don't enjoy sitting here for hours on end clicking "save" in AWB over and over again — but when there's a backlog of almost 50,000 uncategorized articles, as there was two months ago when I started devoting almost all of my Wikipedia attention to this particular task, it's something that has to get done. I don't really see the point in essentializing it into a debate about whether there are "inherent" reasons why the rule is what it is. The simple fact that the rule is there, in and of itself, means that it's not particularly my responsibility to justify why an article should be categorized — it's the job of the other person to justify why a special exception to the rule should be made in their particular case. Bearcat (talk) 19:39, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 September 2010

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 21:55, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Parser functions on my userpage

I got the following warning message in preview mode of my userpage. I'm not sufficiently technically-minded to appreciate what it means. Any help in deciphering it would be most appreciated:

Warning: This page contains too many expensive parser function calls. It should have less than 500 calls, there are now 546 calls.

I suspect it may have to do with the cleanup category boxes I just included there. Thanks. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:32, 28 September 2010 (UTC) {{Dating maintenance categories progress box}}

Yes indeed it is quite irritating that "expensive" parser function calls - in this case "if exists" are hard limited to 500 per page. You can call {{some template that doesn't exist}} or make a red redlink - which must invoke some kind of "exists" functionality - which mean that blue links do too, so it is kinda silly (maybe a bugzilla). And I wanted a nice dashboard of all the progress boxes, sigh. However, good news is ... (as documented on my blogfollow - currently broken!) the progress box (abocve) on the right which is a rely helpful management tool for working with SmackBot. Rich Farmbrough, 03:48, 28 September 2010 (UTC).


Making work

Hi Dude! Made a little AWB re-work (month days) for you here (See history record) with an edit conflict situation. I got most of it (your updates to the old) manually... but had to balance a stale edit I'd started hours back and left in my que. If it matters run the BOT again to lengthen those month names! Be well. // FrankB 01:37, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I'll pick the article up again sooner or later, or someone/something else will. Rich Farmbrough, 03:51, 28 September 2010 (UTC).

British Waterways, AWB and the cite tool

Hi Rich. Regarding your recent edit to British Waterways article. I noticed that AWB changed the template names from cite to Cite. Reason for commenting is that the two cites I added last week used the new popup cite template tool in the editor: cite is being added by this new tool, rather than Cite. This would seem to be creating extra work for you (well, for AWB!) -- EdJogg (talk) 08:41, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

OK thanks for the note. It's not a big deal and the latest versions of my manual tools are skipping it anyway, but useful to know. Rich Farmbrough, 08:42, 28 September 2010 (UTC).
Off topic content
Based on the number of separate conversations opened precisely on this topic, I think the capitalisation adjustments are "a big deal", and not just for the odd person. Please, take heed of the crowd and remove the rules performing capitalisation adjustments from circulation. Please put the controversial rules beyond use and ensure that they do not silently re-appear a few months down the road (unless it is with a clear, documented, project-wide mandate). —Sladen (talk) 17:40, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Clarify date from /// format

Hello. Please can you keep AWB out of the title= parameter of cite templates, as in this edit. thanks, Struway2 (talk) 09:05, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do.... Rich Farmbrough, 09:13, 28 September 2010 (UTC).
Off topic content
Please stop capitalisation adjustments for template names. There are four unarchived topics on the this Talk page in the last week alone. Rich: you have been repeatedly asked by increasing numbers of editors to not make such changes. Rather than being vague and non-committal. Can we please have some action: please stop the bot activity (Smackbot and your "manual" ruleset) until such as time as the rules have been removed. The continuance is causing conflict and stressed editors, and these are not things that I like seeing on Wikipedia. —Sladen (talk) 17:31, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
this topic is about dates not capitalisation. Rich Farmbrough, 17:47, 28 September 2010 (UTC).
Above at 13:58, 26 September 2010 , I was referring to templates in general. I've been meaning to start an RFC on this so that you can see that the community is not in favour of your changing template capilization to suit your personal preference, but I'm having a hard time finding a good venue. –xenotalk 18:56, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
This topic is still not about capitalisation, nor is the one by Struway a request not to capitalise. There are threads about the desirability of caps. This is not one. Rich Farmbrough, 20:20, 28 September 2010 (UTC).

Find sources

Hi Rich. Two things:

Thanks. Alzarian16 (talk) 10:45, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Correspond with me

Do you want to correspond with me e-mail? I from Czech Republic and I want to be better in English. Write me on my takl page. Hi K123456 (talk) 10:36, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I think, private e-mail. My e-mail is XXXX . I know, how it goes on wiki. K123456 (talk) 10:55, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Cool. Rich Farmbrough, 10:57, 28 September 2010 (UTC).
It means yes? K123456 (talk) 10:58, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes. Rich Farmbrough, 10:59, 28 September 2010 (UTC).
OK :-), I will write you, about me as soon as possible. I can not wait. Hi K123456 (talk) 11:01, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

main page tagged uncategorised - really?

192.93.164.28 (talk) 15:20, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

That's a pretty silly mistake tbh. Especially since it took 13 minutes to fix... Modest Genius talk 15:25, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
NOtified 15:20, reverted 15:21- Between 0 and 120 seconds. Took you at least 180 seconds to say how slow I am. Rich Farmbrough, 15:28, 28 September 2010 (UTC).
Ehhh, everyone makes mistakes. :/  f o x  15:45, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Orphan

Hey, Mr Farmbrough. Does Neuroscience stubs count as a category? Basket of Puppies 15:31, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Not for the purpose of "uncategorised", "orphans" are pages which are not linked to by another page. Rich Farmbrough, 15:35, 28 September 2010 (UTC).
I added Category:Symptoms and signs: Nervous and musculoskeletal systems to Vertiginous epilepsy. Rich Farmbrough, 15:37, 28 September 2010 (UTC).
Cool. Basket of Puppies 19:15, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

More Burma

HI RIch I have another task request. Can you go through the Category:Townships of Burma by area and simply add Category:Township capitals of Burma to the capital/seat of the townships. Note don't add this category to the articles on townships themsevles but to the "principal towns". Effectively it should produce a very useful category of the main cities and towns in Burma and allow people to work through them later like Homalin etc. There should be over 300 although some of the townships and capitals have yet to be started majority are in place though.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:04, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Mmm maybe I'd better do it manually, give me a good chance to see what needs doing anyway..♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:01, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ http://www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf
  2. ^ http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/CorporatePublications/DoctrineOperationsandDiplomacyPublications/OperationsInAfghanistan/OpHerrickCasualtyAndFatalityTables.htm , http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/19DC9D5F-1390-4F4E-866C-6365CEE48F0A/0/opherrickcasualtytablesto15march2010.pdf
  3. ^ http://www.icasualties.org/OEF/Index.aspx
  4. ^ http://www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf
  5. ^ http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/CorporatePublications/DoctrineOperationsandDiplomacyPublications/OperationsInAfghanistan/OpHerrickCasualtyAndFatalityTables.htm , http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/2694A118-83DE-4A91-A341-0B08BED4DC82/0/opherrickcasualtytablesto31march2010.pdf
  6. ^ http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/news/local/article/8533--two-canadian-soldiers-wounded-in-roadside-bomb-attack
  7. ^ http://www.defence.gov.au/media/DepartmentalTpl.cfm?CurrentId=10110
  8. ^ http://english.defense.ro/misiuni/memoriam.php
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