User talk:Anomie/Archives/2010

Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Collaboration of the week

I forgot to tell you that the VGCOTW has been inactive. Can you stop AnomieBOT from updating or something like that? GamerPro64 (talk) 02:25, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Just remove or comment out the bot's template. Anomie⚔ 03:17, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

New task idea for AnomieBOT

Hi there. There was an idea on ANI that a bot could mark requests at WP:RFPP as protected where an admin protected the page but did so without noticing the request or forgetting to add the appropriate response template. It would be something like the IFDCloser code you created for WP:FFD since it's imho a pretty similar task. If you return here in the next few weeks, could you consider creating such an additional task? Regards SoWhy 23:08, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Sure, I'll take a look. At first glance it looks fairly straightforward, each entry is a well-defined section and there are easily-detectable templates for the bot to tell if the admin already took care of the notification. If you think of anything I should watch out for, let me know. Anomie⚔ 05:18, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it's pretty straightforwarded as well. It would simply have to check whether the {{RFPP}} template (or maybe {{done}} etc.) are in that section and if not, add them after allowing the admin time to do it themselves. Regards SoWhy 14:20, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I've run into an interesting problem: I can easily query what the page's protection settings are now, but I can't query what they were at some time in the past. And the log messages similarly say what the protection was changed to, but not what it was changed from and older log messages don't even say what it was changed to. I suppose I could store the current protection settings whenever the bot sees a new request added, but if an admin manages to jump in before the bot reads those protection settings then it won't work right (and if the servers are heavily lagged, that could be a big window). This will take some thought. Anomie⚔ 22:48, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm...that's not good, true. Maybe it could simply assume that if it was changed to "autoconfirmed" or "full" that it was previously set to "none"? I did know that the software does not display it in the logs but I thought it would offer such info via the API. Although the previous protection level could be "guessed" from the protections made before, e.g. the bot could take the timestamp from the request, then check the protection log for previous protections and compare: If the last entry after that timestamp is a protection and the one before that is an unprotection, it can report that the page was protected after the request was filed. If the penultimate entry is a protection as well, it can query the "expires 23:59, 1 January 2100 (UTC)" part to calculate whether the protection had already expired when the new protection was set. I don't know whether it can be done this way though but thanks for considering it anyway. On a side note, I opened bugzilla:22293 to request this to be added to the software. You might want to comment on it. Regardless of your success with this bot task, I think it would be a good feature to have in the logs. Regards SoWhy 23:18, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Icon Group International

AnomieBOT reverted an edit to a reference I made to Irving Chernev. Works from this publisher are computer generated and not reliable. In many cases they are just computer generated references to Wikipedia and create a self-citation. Books from this publisher get cited because they are in Google Books. Look at [1] for details. Can you fix the bot to not revert these edits? Thanks. LarryQ (talk) 04:00, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

My mistake and error. My apologies for misunderstanding what the bot was doing. LarryQ (talk) 04:12, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

No problem, I'm glad it worked out. Anomie⚔ 05:10, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

You deserve one too

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		I gave your bot a barnstar, so I figured you deserve one as well! The orphaned reference fixer is a great idea and very well implemented at that. Good job!—Akrabbimtalk 15:25, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! Anomie⚔ 17:09, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

About the edit on the MK2 sales number...

Rather than bring up a probably dead discussion on the discussion page, I thought I'd bring this to your talk page directly. The Wikipedia list of best selling video games has reliable sources that show the number of MK2's sold for both the Mega Drive, and the SNES.

In addition to this, since there is a contradicting reliable source, Wikipedia policy is to show both sources. "Where there is disagreement between sources, their views should be clearly attributed in the text: "John Smith argues that X, while Paul Jones maintains that Y," followed by an inline citation."

Personally I feel this also applies to the video that mentions the 4:1 sales ratio of MK1 (which has been backed up by a completely unreliable sales number on someone's blog) Both views should clearly be noted, since many sites use the 4:1 number, and many sites source Kent/Wikipedia and the 3:1 number.--108.2.2.183 (talk) 06:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I see the source used in List of best-selling video games is listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources with a link to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources/Archive 2#The Magic Box, which seems to say that Magic Box pages that state where they got their numbers are ok but those without any source are not; the page Chart-USPlatinum.shtml doesn't specify where the numbers come from. If you want to know why it is used on List of best-selling video games despite not giving a source for its numbers, ask on that article's talk page. As for the mentioned video saying 4:1, a passing mention in some video of unknown reliability doesn't seem anywhere near as reliable as a researched book that devotes an entire chapter to the events surrounding the game; saying "Steven Kent in The Ultimate History of Video Games says X, while a humor website editor named Jeff in an online video mentions Y" would just be silly. Anomie⚔ 17:09, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

GameDaily is a well established video game journalism site. It's not a humor website. It's listed in green, in the list of sources you've linked me to. So, it's not unknown reliability. It has to be stated as an argument if nothing else. I've sent an email to The Magic Box (I suspect I'll need luck with a response) and I will ask TJ Spyke about it as well, since he maintains that Wiki page.--108.2.2.183 (talk) 19:02, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

According to the credits at the beginning of the video, the person in the video who makes the statement in the video is the managing editor of collegehumor.com. Not GameDaily. Anomie⚔ 20:17, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Which means he's pretty reliable right? Most people say four to one, Wiki copy sites and Wired say three to one (citing Kent,) while GameDaily, Sega-16, ConsoleDatabase, and Racket Boy all claim 4 to 1. Just the popularity of the 4 to 1 number has to be taken into account from what I've read on Wiki policies, so long as most of the sources are reliable, the other three are questionable sources at the worst, GameDaily is reliable, and Kent is reliable. It is thanks to our neutral point of view that we need to include both reliable numbers. 3 to 1, and 4 to 1.

TJ Spyke tells me he's not sure, but it's possible that The Magic Box has those numbers from Famitsu. To be sure, I'm asking someone else, at his suggestion.--108.2.4.225 (talk) 00:02, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

If you really think humor website editors are reliable in discussing video game sales, I guess there's no point in continuing this conversation. Good day. Anomie⚔ 02:31, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

: ( I didn't think I'd have to tell you this, but they're reading a script, and telling the story together.--108.2.4.225 (talk) 03:38, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

ReyBrujo has confirmed that The Magic Box got their sales numbers for US games from the NPD.--108.2.8.193 (talk) 19:46, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I like how you completely ignored him. lol--130.76.96.19 (talk) 19:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Wow, I completely forgot about this while I was waiting for the response. Anomie, I got the confirmation those numbers are reliable. ReyBrujo has confirmed the Magic Box's US numbers came from NPD. Now you can add the numbers into the article. It's up to you whether or not you want to take out Kent's quote, or keep it alongside the numbers. Please add something for MK1 like, "it outsold the SNES version by a ratio of at least three to one,(kent reference) if not four to one (other references that have been posted in this discussion.) This gives both reliable sources their entry, and both sides of the argument their undue weight. BTW Anomie, I can't find anything about the ratio in Purple Reign but, maybe I'm not looking hard enough. I'm only searching for keywords like three, 3, etc. I notice that Purple Reign mentions in reference to MK2 that "This time, the SNES version was the one to buy" I agree with that, and I think that comment is much better suited for the article. The SNES MK2 is vastly superior to the Genesis version, despite what the sales numbers hint at.--108.2.10.22 (talk) 23:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Replied at User talk:ReyBrujo. Anomie⚔ 00:51, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing me here. Well, first of all let me say that I am against using a single source for multiple games. It has been my intention for quite a long time to kill TMB from the list of best-selling video games articles, but it is pretty hard to find replacements for old sales (8 and 16 bits).

The facts: a) reliability: we know that they take their numbers from reliable sources. For japanese numbers, they use Famitsu, and for USA ones, NPD. We trust them that they don't tinker with the numbers (other than rounding them). b) Yes, numbers appear from one month to the other. It could be that they found old data and added it (just like we do every day) or that they noticed they were missing information, or whatever.

Now comes the issue: if we consider them reliable (whether or not they actually are, mind you), we don't question from where they obtain their information. That is why we can quote an article in the Wall Street Journal without asking the reporter to explain how he came with the information or to name the sources.

As an encyclopedia, we are a tertiary source, we pick information from secondary and tertiary sources. If we want to investigate how TMB came with the information (after considering them reliable) we are becoming secondary sources (investigating whether facts are true or not, where they came from, etc). That is the job of journalists, not encyclopedia writers.

So, do we consider them reliable? The WikiProject informally has always preferred it to, say, VGChartz, even if they haven't been approved or rejected according to Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources. However, that WikiProject page is questionable. It would be kind of not accepting an article from The New York Times just because the journalist hasn't pointed out who told him something.

Do I? For the time being, yes. They have been around since almost 10 years, and other than the usual scorn from NeoGAF, I haven't read anything against their sources. Do you? Well, it is hard to say. It is strange that certain articles can quote it and others can't.

If Anomie doesn't find any of the 4:1 references reliable, but if he considers TMB to be (at least for the time being), maybe you can post the sales number of both games and let the reader to make his own conclusion. If he doesn't consider TMB reliable, a serious discussion should be held at the WikiProject. Personally I would trust them (but use another source whenever possible because of what I mentioned first). -- ReyBrujo (talk) 02:40, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I just am not sure whether the numbers on that particular page really come from NPD. And, to complicate matters further, that page says "since 1995". Does it include sales from September-December 1994? Which could make a difference, apparently the SNES version was outselling the Genesis version 2 to 1 in October 1994,[2] and considering that numerous sources report $50 million in combined sales for the first week those 1994 sales could well make enough of a difference if they're not already included.

Given that we have one reliable source explicitly stating one thing, and one normally-reliable source giving numbers that would mean the opposite if we assume that the numbers actually are from NPD and are comprehensive despite a statement on the page itself that could easily indicate the contrary, I think we should stick with the former. Anomie⚔ 22:05, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Very interesting. I think Kent is a reliable source, and it's interesting seeing another reliable source from both GameDaily and TMB here that contradicts him. I keep having to defend Kent's sources on the Mega Drive article, though it's easier there, none of them contradict him, so I know how annoying this can be. I think good points are made by all here. Anomie is right about Kent being reliable, ReyBrujo is right about encyclopedic writing, and IP user has clearly read up on Wikipedia policy regarding Neutral Point Of View, and Undue Weight. The only way I see this coming to a compromise, considering all the source I just mentioned are said to be reliable, is to give them their undue weight in the article. Anomie, I feel you're the number one contributor for the SNES article, and therefore you should be the one to enter in the information's undue weight, and like Rey said, let the reader decide. I would enter it in myself after reading all this, but out of respect to you, and the fact I want to avoid using words to avoid I feel much more comfortable letting you enter this into the article yourself. I may change my mind if lots of time goes by however. I want the SNES to shine as bright as anyone else, my name SexyKick is inspired by Luigi after all.--SexyKick 00:28, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The home console games sold around 5 million combined, while the TMB references add to just around 3.2m. So, it is possible that indeed the reference missed from the Mortal Friday to Dec 13, 2004. Also, NPD started tracking video games on 1995. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 03:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, TMB only accounts for the US sales of the game. It excludes the European, and Japanese sales, they probably get the tally up to the 5 million. Look at MK3, which came out in 1995, total in the article is 3 million, but TMB's US numbers only reach 2.24 million.--SexyKick 03:39, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The reference I used could be interpreted as referring to sales in US only. Adding up the numbers given there don't come near the franchise total (around 26m). -- ReyBrujo (talk) 04:02, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Mortal Apathy is dated 2002, so it would fall short of 26 million (which is dated in 2007) also, the Mortal Apathy specifies when it means US only, "Mortal Kombat 4's estimated 1.4 million copies in the United States."--SexyKick 04:55, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

OTOH, they never say that the other numbers are not US-only, and it would be a misleading comparison to give worldwide numbers for MK 1-3 and US-only for 4 when claiming sales decreased for each sequel. Anomie⚔ 16:39, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

OTSH (same hand) why would they specify US only for MK4, and not specify anything for the other games, and give much higher numbers than anyone else has claimed for them in the US only numbers? Hypothetically MK1 only sold about 2.7 million on the Sega Genesis not counting JP sales, so how did numbers reach six million? Oh, I just realized...hand held versions count. There's another shoe in the box, if you will. Most certainly the Gameboy and GameGear sales of MK2, plus international sales of MK2 made the tally reach five million.--SexyKick 19:40, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

At any rate, there seems to be sufficient ambiguity here that trying to actually use these numbers would be problematic. "According to Kent, the SNES version outsold the Genesis version.^[1] But according to numbers on the-magicbox.com purported to be from NPD and possibly not including sales from September–December 1994^[2] (note that an article published October 13, 1994, reported the SNES version outselling the Genesis version two to one^[3] and Acclaim reported a record $50 million in sales for the first week^[4]), the Genesis version maintained a slight edge." would just be ridiculous. Anomie⚔ 22:47, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The article didn't mention handheld consoles, since it was talking about home ones (unless suddenly "home" consoles include handheld ones too). The ambiguity you mention, Anomie, is what calls for undue weight: in this case, if the issue is that an article says the game sold better in a console but the only numbers we have say otherwise, and you believe one reference has more weight than the other, you could say "According to Kent, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System version outsold the Genesis version, although NPD numbers (which started tracking video game sales a few months after the launch of the game) differ." This way you are adding both statements, giving more weight to one, and end with a proper sentence.

Dismissing a valid reference because it would bring inconveniences (in this case, ambiguity) is not the way a research should be done. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 02:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Which IMO downplays the issues with those numbers. It seems to me that it is giving undue weight to include any statement that numbers excluding the first four months, when over a million units were sold in that first four months and one version outsold the other 2-to-1 (which would theoretically mean a sales difference of over 0.33 million for that period), show a difference of 0.27 million. The difference is lost in the error. Anomie⚔ 03:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I have always seen the hand held systems listed on the "it comes home" Mortal Kombat posters. [3] [4] [5] I'm very into Mortal Kombat if you can't tell...I think if you want to avoid the undue weight for the MK2 numbers, just put the Purple Reign quote in the article. Instead of saying "this time, Nintendo's version outsold Sega's" just say, "this time, Nintendo's version was the one to get." Then you're still stating that the Super Nintendo version was the better one, you're implying it did better, and you're still keeping the numbers a secret, just like you wanted. And obviously, no one will try to argue with that statement.--SexyKick 05:53, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

That's kind of what I was saying earlier. Thanks guys. Don't forget to add undue weight for the 4:1 ratio as well.--108.2.227.13 (talk) 06:14, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Can't say whether you are joking or not, and that means I am losing the little time I can spend at Wikipedia per day in a senseless discussion. See you all. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 02:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Reporting a bot

I'm not entirely sure how to report a bot, but User:FaleBot seems to be doing odd things. It removes perfectly good interwiki links (for example, every interwiki link to 2010 in music). It seems to take offence at interwiki articles with non-ASCII names (such as Akasaka and the Japanese disambig page/Korean disambig page) and just removes them seemingly randomly.--Prosperosity (talk) 18:41, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I've copied your report to WP:BON#Reporting a bot. Anomie⚔ 19:00, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah, thanks! I couldn't find that page somehow. --Prosperosity (talk) 11:22, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Requesting WikiProjectTagger please

Per User:AnomieBOT#On_demand can I request: User:AnomieBOT/source/tasks/WikiProjectTagger.pm for Wikipedia:WikiProject South Park and Category:WikiProject South Park Thank you! Okip 02:21, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Please link to the discussion (ideally at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject South Park) showing a positive consensus for this tagging. If there hasn't been such a discussion yet, please start it and let me know if the results are positive. Thanks. Anomie⚔ 02:32, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Link classifier

There's a new deletion process for WP:Books. Could you update your link classifier to take care of WP:BPRODs? It would be very useful. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:05, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

 Done Unless there's something more complicated needed to detect them than just "anything in Category:All books proposed for deletion". Anomie⚔ 20:26, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, that's pretty much all there is to it. Thanks! Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:30, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

A suggestion for Orphan fixer

I think it would be smarter to simply remove orphaned tags or send a message to a user whose recent edit resulted in orphaned tags, rather than simply going back into the history and re-including the reference. Because what can happen is this:

• A person removes something that's not a RS, but forgets to remove all the orphaned tags [6]
• Your bot comes along and restores the broken ref [7]

Now although you fix the tag, you end up re-including non-RS ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 20:05, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Or what can happen is this:

• A person is copyediting the article, and accidentally removes the body of a named reference.
• AnomieBOT comes along and fixes it. And people appreciate the help (see above for many examples).

Or:

• A person splits text into a subarticle, not noticing that some named refs went with the split-out text and/or that the split-out text missed some named refs.
• AnomieBOT comes along and fixes it. And people appreciate the help.

Or:

• A person merges text from one article into another (linked) article, but loses some named refs in the process.
• AnomieBOT comes along and fixes it. And people appreciate the help.

Or:

• Someone edits an infobox template to remove an "obsolete" parameter, which causes all articles having the body of a named ref in the text of that parameter to suddenly have broken refs.
• AnomieBOT comes along and fixes it. And people probably don't even notice there was a problem.

If your suggestion were taken then in all of those situations the bot would be causing the article to lose information instead. And what's more, if no one notices right away that your proposed bot removed the ref it will quite likely be lost forever, while if no one notices right away that AnomieBOT restored the body of a non-RS ref then we're really no worse off than before and someone else could easily enough notice (again) the non-RS and finish the botched removal.

And quite frankly, the people removing non-RS refs are much more likely to be Wikipedia veterans and should know about orphaned refs, and should be conscientious enough to be watching the article after the removal to watch for anyone really trying to add the reference back in (i.e. not just for bots correcting their mistakes). And if they don't or aren't yet, they're much more likely to constructively learn from the mistake than someone who doesn't really know all the ins and outs of Wikipedia who could easily feel chastised or persecuted by bots whining about their mistakes on their talk pages (if they even stick around long enough to find their talk page) when they were just trying to copyedit an article.

BTW, an easy way to see if you missed an orphan is to see if the page ends up in the hidden category Category:Pages with broken reference names after your edit. Anomie⚔ 00:59, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, so removing the ref is a bad idea. But notification instead of re-inclusion? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 03:09, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Link classifier - run on demand

Hi. I love the script, but had to disable it a while ago because very long pages took so long to fully-load (Village pumps, Featured length articles, etc). I was wondering if there was an easy way for the script to be made "run-on-demand", rather than its current "autorun-every-pageload"? The script User:Dschwen/HighlightRedirects works in this way, so perhaps code could be copied from that? (ianajsexpert)

I asked the same thing at WP:US/R#Highlight disambiguation pages? but nobody has replied. If you do have any suggestions, perhaps answer there, so that other editors can benefit. Much thanks! :) -- Quiddity (talk) 18:25, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I made changes to allow this use case. You would have to add "LinkClassifierOnDemand=true" somewhere before the importScript() for the script, and you'll have to add an appropriate addPortletLink() or the like calling LinkClassifier.onDemand() to give yourself the button wherever you want it. Anomie⚔ 01:45, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the updates.

I've tried a variety of permutations of semicolons and curlybraces, but can't hit on the right combination. Could you correct the block of code below for me? Then I can copy it to various places for everyone's enjoyment. Thanks again :) -- Quiddity (talk) 04:42, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

// Linkback: [[User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js]]
LinkClassifierOnDemand=true;
importScript('User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js');
addPortletLink('p-cactions', 'javascript:LinkClassifier.onDemand()', 'linkclassifier');

addPortletLink must be called after the page is loaded, so use addOnloadHook something like this:

// Linkback: [[User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js]]
LinkClassifierOnDemand=true;
importScript('User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js');
addOnloadHook(function(){
    addPortletLink('p-cactions', 'javascript:LinkClassifier.onDemand()', 'linkclassifier');
});

Also, don't forget CSS rules, either from User:Anomie/linkclassifier.css or your own. Anomie⚔ 11:07, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Huge thanks. You've made my life easier and more productive, the twin goals of the true procrastinator :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:27, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

User scripts

Hi, Anomie. I was looking at your User scripts, and was wondering do these work at any .js page ie. Monobook, Vector ? I would like to try some of them but don't know where to put them. Mlpearc MESSAGE 18:08, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

They work with monobook, maybe with vector or others too. Anomie⚔ 02:48, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

• I just want to tell you that I think User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js, should be "Stanard Issue" to ALL Editors. This is a Great Tool. And a good secret too ! (and it works fine in Vector) Mlpearc MESSAGE 21:00, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Link classifier spotty...

I'm running the link classifier with

importScript('User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js'); // Linkback: [[User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js]] importStylesheet('User:Anomie/linkclassifier.css'); // Linkback: [[User:Anomie/linkclassifier.css]]

in my vector.js. However sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Right now I've got wikipedia loaded in both an opera browser and an ie 7 browser and it is working fine in IE7, but not opera. However it doesn't seem to be browser related. Any ideas why it might be working sometimes, but not in others and if there is any way to force it to be used on a reload of the page or something?Naraht (talk) 13:37, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

It does require the API to fetch the information on the linked page, so if the API query fails then it won't be able to do anything; if the system is having issues such that it can't serve the API queries then you might see problems like that. I have neither IE nor Opera, so I can't really test it in either browser myself. Anomie⚔ 02:57, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the addition of being able to run it manually!Naraht (talk) 14:21, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Changed a couple of your announcements

Since your talk page banner says you're on a wikibreak, I took the liberty of fixing a couple of links [8] [9], so they'd be less confusing to editors arriving to that discussion. I hope you don't mind. Pcap ping 08:48, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

linkclassifier at simple wiki

Possible or not worth it ? Mlpearc pull my chain 'Tribs 05:02, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Sure, as long as they use tracking categories in the same way we do at enwiki. Just copy the script (giving proper attribution, please) and replace the lists of categories with the simple wiki equivalents. Anomie⚔ 05:07, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks I'm not a very good programmer, but I see what I can do. But now after reading your response, It's not the program I'm worried about getting to work. It's the attribution I don't want to mess up :-). I'm thinking your meaning, copy the "whole" page at User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js and add it to my .js page and work from there ? Mlpearc pull my chain 'Tribs 14:20, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Attribution is easy. Just copy the whole thing to simple:User:Mlpearc/linkclassifier.js (or wherever) with an edit summary like "Copied from [[en:User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js]]", and include something like this at the top:

/* Copied from [[en:User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js]] */

Or write something more complicated if you want, the main idea is to let people know where to direct compliments, complaints, or suggestions.

You'll probably also want to copy User:Anomie/linkclassifier.css in the same manner, or write your own replacement. And you will also need User:Anomie/util.js, or change the instructions to say to use importScriptURI('http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Anomie/util.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript'); instead of importScript('User:Anomie/util.js');. If you have problems getting it to work, let me know and I'll take a look. Anomie⚔ 19:42, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

• Hey, thanks I copied all .js and .css and I can confirm that "Green redirects" work I don't think "Yellow Disambiguation pages" work I went to a disambig page and no highlights, and "Pink AFD" I can't confirm. I keep looking, but articles are so small it's not as easy to find the links. I will confirm each as I find here so you'll know whats up. In case you want to take a gander here's the diff link to the additions [10] [11] [12]. And again thanks I've said it before I think this should be standard issue to all editors. If you see anything that needs changing let me know and I'll get right on it. Thanks, Mlpearc pull my chain 'Tribs 03:20, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

  As for disambiguation, try changing "Category:All disambiguation pages" to "Category:Disambiguation"; looking at a random dab page such as simple:Keyboard (disambiguation), it seems that may be the category Simple Wikipedia uses. Do the same thing for deletions, just look at the deletion process pages and see which categories they use there. Anomie⚔ 03:29, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

• I think I changed the disambig line as you suggested, but no apparent change. Still working on deletion cat's. Mlpearc pull my chain 'Tribs 21:41, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

• Did what I thought you meant with the deletion cat's that's not working either, but with it could be something simple and I wouldn't see it Mlpearc pull my chain 'Tribs 04:00, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Reply

Replied on my talk, thanks for pointing out the error :) Ottawa4ever (talk) 12:30, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Bot

Your bot is brilliant - many thanks [13]. --Joopercoopers (talk) 09:30, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

You are now a Reviewer

Hello. Your account has been granted the "reviewer" userright, allowing you to to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged protection, will be commencing a a two-month trial at approximately 23:00, 2010 June 15 (UTC).

Reviewers can review edits made by users who are not autoconfirmed to articles placed under flagged protection. Flagged protection is applied to only a small number of articles, similarly to how semi-protection is applied but in a more controlled way for the trial.

When reviewing, edits should be accepted if they are not obvious vandalism or BLP violations, and not clearly problematic in light of the reason given for protection (see Wikipedia:Reviewing process). More detailed documentation and guidelines can be found here.

If you do not want this userright, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. Karanacs (talk) 17:08, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

You are now a Reviewer

Hello. Your account has been granted the "reviewer" userright, allowing you to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged protection, will be commencing a two-month trial at approximately 23:00, 2010 June 15 (UTC).

Reviewers can review edits made by users who are not autoconfirmed to articles placed under flagged protection. Flagged protection is applied to only a small number of articles, similarly to how semi-protection is applied but in a more controlled way for the trial.

When reviewing, edits should be accepted if they are not obvious vandalism or BLP violations, and not clearly problematic in light of the reason given for protection (see Wikipedia:Reviewing process). More detailed documentation and guidelines can be found here.

If you do not want this userright, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. Courcelles (talk) 18:34, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

TFA title

Hi Anomie,
Gary King pointed out at Template talk:Editnotices/Namespace/Main that the article name put into the {{TFA title}} subpages isn't in the canonical form (like here), which makes it harder to use in comparisons.
I think it would be enough (and cleanest) if you could just convince the bot to wrap the article title inside a {{subst:FULLPAGENAME:some article title}} which will replace underscores, collapse successive spaces, and capitalize the first letter.
That would only fail in one case, as far as I know (bugzilla:22553): percent-encoding works in wikilinks ([[The Tonight Show with Conan O%27Brien]] → The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien), but fails inside magic words ("{{FULLPAGENAME:The Tonight Show with Conan O%27Brien}}" → ""). I don't expect we'll ever find that in a TFA blurb though.
Amalthea 19:46, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Y Done It actually has to be slightly more complicated than that, or else the bot would be making null edits every time it checked each page. Anomie⚔ 20:59, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah, right. Hmm, I so don't understand Perl, and I don't know what your framework is doing, but the API is only returning a "normalized" field if there is anything to normalize, right? [14] Are you sure that's working in that case?
Thanks & Cheers, Amalthea 21:23, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Note that "//" in Perl is a null coalescing operator (like C#'s "??" operator), not a comment as in C. So $a = $b // $a is roughly equivalent to $a = defined($b) ? $b : $a. Anomie⚔ 22:45, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

And {'query'}{'normalized'}[0]{'to'} works if there is no "normalized" element? Perl is sick. :)
Thanks again, Amalthea 23:05, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Perl calls it "autovivification".^[15] Anomie⚔ 02:50, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Perl is … hey, that's actually pretty neat. Amalthea 10:32, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Pending changes logo arrows.svg

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:Pending changes logo arrows.svg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of "file" pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Image Screening Bot (talk) 19:05, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Apologies, this notice isn't right, I'm looking into it. FinalRapture - † ☪ 19:08, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Consider looking at Category:All non-free media instead of messing with templates. That category is specifically designed to hold every item in the "File" namespace that needs a fair-use rationale. Anomie⚔ 19:54, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

That's actually a good idea, thanks. FinalRapture - † ☪ 21:30, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Re: Safesubst

I was a bit uncertain quite how it worked, having only seen it used once, but I've added it in now, thanks. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 16:34, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Employ Your Bot

I would like to employ your bot in a small job. Per the lower part of this thread, I have renamed a well used template from {{Dead wikipedian}} to {{Deceased Wikipedian}} so it isn't so blunt and a "personal". Is there anyway your bot could go through and change the instances of the template {{Dead wikipedian}} to {{Deceased Wikipedian}}, please? Thanks. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 22:45, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Is this template normally substed? I see a total of 5 transclusions of {{Deceased Wikipedian}}, and it looks like User:Ktr101 already went through the few that were formerly {{Dead wikipedian}} by hand. Anomie⚔ 00:40, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Wow, I thought it was used more than that. My apologizes. Guess we can mark this as resolved. Take Care...Neutralhomer • Talk • 01:23, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

No problem. Anomie⚔ 01:29, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

THANK YOU SO MUCH...

for creating AnomieBOT. I was sooooooooooooo relieved when I saw in the history of the article I was about to work on that the 10 references I needed to search for and correct were all automatically fixed by the BOT you created. What a time saver. It actually fixed the other article I was working on too. Just for some background information, I wrote the article on Hip-hop dance. It was almost 90 bytes so I split about 1/3 of the content and created a new article History of hip-hop dance to follow summary style and split policies. The problem was that the portion of the article that I took the History of hip-hop dance from was at the beginning of the Hip-hop dance article which is where most of my ref name="name" citations were. I thought I would have to fix it all manually but AnomieBOT came in and did everything for me. Thank you so much. //Gbern3 (talk) 14:09, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

mw:Help:Magic words

Salve, Anomie!

You more or less reverted the edit of mw:User:Patrick about padding. While I agree with you that truncation should be pointed out as "misuse", I would prefer to have the samples again. Extension:StringFunctions - even the implementation in Extension:ParserFunction - is still deactivated and unfortunately will be. So padding is the only way to truncate a string with a "cheap" method. Every other workaround by templates is much more "expensive". This should be suppoted by an padding-example. What do you think about it?

Vale, Oculus Spectatoris ^disputio_e-mail 19:31, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

AFAIK, without StringFunctions (mis)using padleft or padright is the only way to truncate a string at all, not just the only cheap way. Most of the other string function templates are expensive because they have to be built using only the truncate, concatenate, and equality operators; even {{strlen}} works by effectively checking "Is the string truncated to 1 character equal to the string? Is the string truncated to 2 characters equal to the string? Is the string truncated to 3 characters equal to the string? etc." (the actual function is optimized using binary searches and other divide-and-conquer strategies, but that is the basic idea). {{str index}} works by checking "Is the string truncated to N-1 characters concatenated with 'A' equal to the string truncated to N characters? Is the string truncated to N-1 characters concatenated with 'B' equal to the string truncated to N characters? Is the string truncated to N-1 characters concatenated with 'C' equal to the string truncated to N characters? [And so on for every possible character]" (see Template:Str index/getchar for the major portion of that), and {{substr}} works by concatenating {{str index}} for each character position of interest.

I personally don't have any opposition to documenting these string manipulation template hacks, but stating that padleft intentionally truncates a string is just incorrect and the documentation for padleft is IMO not the right place for documenting these hacks. I would suggest creating a separate page documenting the hacks and linking it from an appropriate place on the page, perhaps in the lead or below the table in the "Formatting" section (and perhaps from mw:Extension:StringFunctions too). Anomie⚔ 20:26, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, you're right - breaking down these templates you'll mostly find padleft as the core. Though there are some masterpieces its not my goal to document these hacks. I just want to give a hint to the reader of the help page in order to show what's possible - not hiding that this is only a workaround. It's not because we need another 153.8 versions of strlen, but it may help to understand the complicated way of "wikimedia-template-programming". I appreciate your compromise solution ("The padding string may be truncated […]"), but - to be honest - I had to read it thrice to comprehend it entirely. Nothing - beside the proverbial picture of thousand words - is as helpful as an example. So I propose to put the samples back and to add a comment like: "As a side effect it is possible to 'misuse' padding for truncation." How about that? -- Oculus Spectatoris ^disputio_e-mail 11:52, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The example {{padleft:xyz|5|abc}} → abxyz already shows the documented behavior. I think it is stupid for the official documentation of a function to describe ways to misuse it, but I won't revert it if you insist on doing so. I will, however, hope someone else does. Anomie⚔ 15:38, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I see your point - and I don't insist. Guess why I started this discussion. ;-) Okay, let's wait what will happen. At least I'll sleep on it some more nights. Have a nice day, Oculus Spectatoris ^disputio_e-mail 08:57, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I wanted to get your input on this matter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mega_Drive#Should_we_get_rid_of_the_JP_Mega_Drive_logo.3F.3F Thank you for taking your time to tell me your input on this matter, you have far more experience with wikipedia than I do.--SexyKick 13:03, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Non-free image crap is always a tricky issue, as there are some who take the German attitude (dewiki allows no non-free content at all) while others take a more pragmatic approach. The best move at this point is probably to take it to WT:VG and hope the people who bother to reply there will be inclined to support having all three logos and have the clout to counter J Milburn's opinion. You could also try incorporating some discussion of the logos into the text of the article; despite J Milburn's insistence that they must be discussed "at length", even a sentence or two pointing out that it was marketed under different names and with different logos in different regions might help somewhat; if you can find a non-primary source discussing it, even better. And while it may not have worked before and certainly won't work now because it will be (correctly) seen as a cheat, you could reduce the number of non-free images used by combining all three logos into one image.

In the discussion, you could also try to illustrate the problem by asking those opposing all three logos which one they would keep; if they pick any but the Genesis logo, point out that USians would eternally whine that there is no Genesis logo, and if they pick the Genesis logo point out that Europeans would eternally whine that it was only called Genesis in the US. And if by some chance they pick the Japanese logo, point out that both sides would complain that that logo wasn't used in any English-speaking region. The Japanese logo is probably the most difficult to justify keeping since it's for a non-English-speaking region and since the console did so poorly in that region, but it is also the most different and therefore leaving it out detracts most from completeness in the "identification" justification for including logos.

FWIW, I expect someday someone will complain about the Super Mario World image in the SNES article and I doubt I'll be able to really justify keeping it. Sad, really. I'm surprised J Milburn hasn't done so already with how often it's been brought up in your discussion. Anomie⚔ 16:06, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

It is sad, since the SMW picture works so well there. SMW is the whole reason I bought a Genesis in fact. Funny story really...but I thought the Super NES was the Genesis, so when I finally got a Genesis, I was like "what is this thing?!" I eventually got a Super NES as well, and they're two of my three favorite systems (with Dreamcast,) not sure which I think is my favorite though. I just want to get this Mega Drive article to be featured already.

"And while it may not have worked before and certainly won't work now because it will be (correctly) seen as a cheat, you could reduce the number of non-free images used by combining all three logos into one image."

So you're saying I can't, and shouldn't do that??--SexyKick 17:57, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

You can try, but be prepared for J Milburn to pick on you for it and say it doesn't change anything as far as "too much non-free content". I could be being too pessimistic, but I doubt it. Anomie⚔ 19:22, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your help A. I do appreciate it, and may need to ask more in the future. For instance, I was wondering if you would be able to tell me if it would be relevant to include the introduction of the VRC, and the court case that ensued following the release of Mortal Kombat and Night Trap in the Mega Drive article? It's the only piece of possibly relevant information missing from the article that I can think of. Thankfully no images needed : ) SexyKick 19:37, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Maybe. I included it (or at least the parts involving Nintendo) in the SNES article because it directly led to Nintendo dropping their "no violence at all" policy. It was a bit more "business as usual" for Sega, though. But if you can find a good way to tie it into the narrative of the article, go for it.

BTW, I notice you raised the question of whether File:JP MegaDrive Logo.gif might be {{PD-textlogo}}. A good case could be made. The right side is completely made up of text (stylized text is still text) and IMO is clearly PD-textlogo. The left side is a little more iffy. Is there sufficient creative input in the red and green "MD" to make it copyrightable? The required threshold of originality is very low, but on the other hand it's still just an M and a D. I personally think it's probably {{PD-textlogo}} since it is just an M and a D and it's not really more complex than the W-thing at the top of File:Best Western logo.svg which the US copyright office officially ruled three times as insufficiently original, but others might well disagree.

I also notice some people are throwing around "no logos!" as some sort of option, but that could potentially lead to trouble with WP:FACR #1b for leaving out a major method of identification (of course, I don't expect the "no logos!" faction to buy that argument). Anomie⚔ 20:49, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again for this advice. You are a beast at Wikipedia. I was actually hoping you could help get me started on adding that information to the article. I think it would fit right before the add ons section, but I don't know what to name the new section, or where to begin. Doing what I did with the emulation section wasn't even particularly easy for me. I'm best at just editing little things.--SexyKick 22:27, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I'll take silence to mean you'll think about it? No worries either way. Just let me know.--SexyKick 17:32, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Employ Your Bot (Part 2)

Hello, after discussing it with another user, it was decided to move the category Category:Wikipedian WikiElfs (which isn't the correct spelling) to Category:Wikipedian WikiElves to (the correct spelling). This category change is associated with the userbox Template:User wikipedia/WikiElf. The old category was depopulating itself on its own and repopulating the new category at the same time, but all has seemed to come to a halt. All the userpages have the new category on them, just need to get the category pages swapped around. Can you help? - Neutralhomer • Talk • 08:00, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

The only way to speed along the process is to make an edit (even a null edit) to each page. The general consensus when a bot to do this is suggested is that we should wait for the job queue, and fix the job queue if there is really a bug in it. OTOH, there are only 34 pages in the problem category at the moment, someone could go through and null-edit them all manually in less that 10 minutes. Anomie⚔ 11:18, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, I will see where I can make null edits at. I don't like editing userpages (except my own) unless it is vandalism, sometimes it tends to upset people. This might be a case where I have to be patient. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 19:36, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I went ahead and did the null edits manually at about 12:00 UTC. Anomie⚔ 20:02, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh...OK, that works too :) That should give the system the kick in the butt it needs. Thanks! :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 20:04, 21 July 2010 (UTC) 20:04, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Looks like that did the trick. Old category is depopulated and the new one is fully populated. Double Thanks! :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 20:05, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

AnomieBOT is a brilliant invention

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		I moved a bunch of content from civil disobedience to a completely new, 1-revision article, examples of civil disobedience, and it somehow knew where to look for those orphaned refs! Amazing. Tisane talk/stalk 23:19, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

(See diff) Wow. Not sure how you implemented that, but it's pretty cool. Tisane ^talk/_stalk 23:19, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! If checking the history doesn't turn up the needed refs, the bot checks pages linked from the problem page and pages linking to the problem page on the theory that text was copied from a related article and related articles are often linked to each other. Anomie⚔ 00:45, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Second that, good work. On the current run it seems to be getting confused by multiple reasons [16] & [17] and also multiple dates [18] & [19]. Not sure how much of a problem these are so didn't want to stop it. Misarxist (talk) 11:15, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

When it doubt go ahead and stop it, it's no big deal. All those should be fixed now, thanks for the bug report! I underestimated the number of ways people could screw things up Anomie⚔ 12:13, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js

Just wanted to give you the heads up, this wonderful tool has stopped working for me. Cheers! bd2412 T 02:45, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Looks like someone broke the API. Fun. Anomie⚔ 03:09, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into it. bd2412 T 03:47, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Working again! Thanks! bd2412 T 20:04, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

BRFA

It's not that I'm not interested in finding a consensus, it's more than it would obviously be a time-consuming task when I'm entering a fortnight where my time on here will be very limited. Though with the comments posted after my last post, it's obviously more controversial than I ever thought, so I may or may not come back to it. Courcelles (talk) 22:35, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok. Anomie⚔ 23:26, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Just Awesome, if I May Say So

My liege, AnomieBOT has proven itself quite helpful to me with this edit, which resulted from a little sloppiness on my part while trying to remove some unneeded information from Glee (season 1), a page which I currently have a big interest in while trying to help work it to GA or even FA status. It conveniently came in quietly behind my two edits and restored two reference tags that I had orphaned in error and without realization. I just wanted to give you a kudos for a bot that does such a wonderful service to the community. =) CycloneGU (talk) 23:15, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		In recognition of your bots' wonderful work on Glee (season 1) digging behind my orphaning edits within the hour to fix up my mistakes. I really have no clue how you programmed that, must have been tough! CycloneGU (talk) 18:55, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I decided this kind of bot work deserves a barnstar, as well. =D CycloneGU (talk) 18:55, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! Anomie⚔ 19:55, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Sid Sackson

Hello, Anomie. I was wondering whether I could remove the merge template at the top of the talkpage, even though it said that your bot would take care of it. It seems that the article has been redirected to a different page, and that the bot could has not acted upon the merge template for a while now. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 21:35, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Someone made {{afd-mergefrom}} note that a bot would take care of updating the template? How interesting. I should add to the documentation that "incorrect" merges (e.g. your example, where the AfD was closed as "merge to Sid Sackson" but the article was merged to A Gamut of Games instead) will be listed at User:AnomieBOT/Afd-mergefrom report for human attention. Anomie⚔ 06:50, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks so much! It will greatly help when I try to clear the backlog. Thanks again, :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 05:44, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Citation needed

On another note, has your bot finished with the category yet? I think that we can cleanup after recent use of the {1} parameter; who knows, maybe it'll turn up some false positives with someone actually using the new param instead of the deprecated |reason= param, in which case, I think we should be able to take after the bot now. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 05:47, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The bot seems to have finished the backlog, but it looks like people are still adding 10-20 new instances per day. At the moment the new use for the parameter isn't active yet, so there shouldn't be any false positives. Whenever someone updates {{fact}} to start using |1= for its new purpose, they should also remove the tracking category from the template and therefore the bot won't see the new uses in the first place. BTW, |reason= isn't deprecated, the use of |1= instead of |reason= is. Anomie⚔ 15:05, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Dermatology task force/Articles created

Thank you for your reply on the village pump. Would you be willing to help me setup the automatic graphing? Regardless, thank you again for your reply. ---kilbad (talk)

If User:Svick doesn't want to do it (since his bot is already generating that page), I'll have a go. But ask Svick first. Anomie⚔ 13:52, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

He doesn't have the time currently. I talked with him, and don't think he would have a problem with you helping out. Also, while you are generously helping me/those of us at WP:DERM, should there just be a dedicated derm bot for this type of work? ---kilbad (talk) 00:41, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

It might be more efficient to have one bot do both, but at the moment it looks like it'll have to be done with two. Do you want a bar chart, a line chart, or something else? Anomie⚔ 02:04, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

An line chart would be great. Thank you so much for doing this! ---kilbad (talk) 15:40, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

How does this image look? (The actual image is an SVG, but I didn't feel like uploading it to Wikipedia if it's not acceptable and Imageshack doesn't do SVG). Anomie⚔ 20:19, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

That looks totally awesome!! Will it update automatically? Thank you so much! ---kilbad (talk) 22:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Kevin Lowe (lacrosse)

Thanks for fixing, this problem has been driving me crazy on a couple of articles. Just so I know for the future, what exactly does the addition of the <nowiki></nowiki> code with nothing between the tags actually do? Thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 13:57, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Explicitly-named template parameters (e.g. {{foo|bar=baz}} or even {{foo|1=baz}}, but not {{foo|baz}}) strip leading and trailing whitespace from the parameter value. So if you want to actually preserve that whitespace, you need something in there to guard it. <nowiki></nowiki> is a convenient construct that produces no output in the rendered page, but does guard the whitespace. In the edit in question, the <nowiki></nowiki> I added was to make sure there was a newline after the last bullet point, so the </div> inserted by the infobox template would not end up attached to the end of the bullet. Anomie⚔ 15:13, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Excellent explanation, thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 16:21, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Infobox lacrosse player

Whatever change you made to correct the {{Infobox lacrosse player}} for Kevin Lowe (lacrosse) has messed up Trevor Tierney.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:37, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I didn't touch {{Infobox lacrosse player}}, or any other template today. You gave it the same problem Kevin Lowe (lacrosse) had when you added the bulleted list inside |career_highlight= in this edit. I applied the same fix and it fixed it there too.

Perhaps {{Infobox lacrosse player}} itself should be changed to avoid this issue. Anomie⚔ 18:15, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Lightmouse BRFA

• Are you still attending to Lightmouse's BRFA? Were you aware it moved to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 5? –xeno^talk 17:01, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
  • I am aware, and I have been keeping an eye on it. I haven't found much to comment on as of yet, I've mainly been watching for Lightmouse to respond to various queries from other users; I suppose it's about time to take a more active role there. I would appreciate the input though, what do you think about the whole mess? Anomie⚔ 18:37, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure, to be honest. I'm wary because of controversy generated by this operators' actions in the past. However, perhaps a small 15 or 25 edit trial might help show what's on order, as it's fairly confusing to figure out what's going on. –xeno^talk 18:41, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
      • Isn't what's on order exactly what he did in [20][21][22][23], except with a better edit summary? I doubt we'll get a chance to see the claimed exclusion of direct quotes or anything in the trial. Anomie⚔ 18:49, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
        • Yea, maybe so. Did you see WP:A/R/A, BAG is going to be put in charge of deciding whether Lightmouse can use semi-automated scripting. Not so sure about that... –xeno^talk 23:21, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Cullen

Hello, sorry I dont understand what you say about Boyne in Cullen article... could you explain please? --Gian piero milanetti (talk) 05:01, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

It looks like you figured it out in this edit. Anomie⚔ 10:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

For you...

		The Original Barnstar
		For your work developing the automatically updating dermatology-related article and redirect creation graph! ---kilbad (talk) 01:04, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

A couple follow-up questions

Would it be possible to generate a graph of total WP:DERM pageviews over time? Also, I have a background in php programing (example code is is avaliable at my website); therefore, I wanted to know if I created a User:DermBOT account, if I could move all these functions under that account? Just some thoughts. Thanks again! ---kilbad (talk) 01:13, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I have also notified User:Svick and User:Xeno regarding this thread, ---kilbad (talk) 01:18, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I would assume you could pull the stats from http://dammit.lt/wikistats/ and make what graphs you wish. Alternatively it might be cheaper to pick the data from pages like http://stats.grok.se/en/201008/Wikipedia%3AWikiProject_Medicine/Dermatology_task_force a page at a time and add them together. Rich Farmbrough, 01:44, 27 August 2010 (UTC).

To clarify what I am looking for, I am looking for a graph of all dermatology-related pageviews over time, not just the task force page (my fault for poor wording earlier). ---kilbad (talk) 01:56, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

With the data Rich Farmbrough linked it would be possible, but it would probably be best done like http://stats.grok.se/ rather than as a bot uploading files. I'm not prepared to do that. Anomie⚔ 15:11, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I created User:DermBOT, and wanted to know if we could consolidate the article/redirect data creation under there? Also, @Anomie, would you be willing to take me under your wing with regard to learning how to go about developing bot actions, and getting approval for them? With regard to this latter question, I do not mean so much how to code a function, but how do you test your scripts out when you are creating them (i.e. prior to approval)? Thanks in advance. You all have been great. ---kilbad (talk) 17:34, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Kotbot

Hi. Sorry I got frustrated yesterday at the thought of having to face the community and receive possible backlash like I did over the gebot proposal several years back. The whole proposal was written by me, Kot just moved it to the seperate page. But I believe this is different as the content is already there for the taking. I;ve made a proposal at the village pump proposals. If there is indication of support then I'll repoen the bot proposal. You're right we need some form of consensus to running a bot before running, I just didn't want and unpleasantries directed towards myself again that's all. Dr. Blofeld 13:30, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

No problem. BTW, if the community doesn't seem enthusiastic about the bot creating these 3800 articles, an alternate suggestion would be to team up with WP:WPBIO and have the bot create the articles as subpages under Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/DNB (or something similar). Then people could move them to article space as they clean them up. It would save you the trouble of copying and pasting the text while not dumping them into article space before they're considered ready. Anomie⚔ 15:08, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

...for volunteering AnomieBOT to archive ITN/C and for filing the BRFA so quickly! Much appreciated. :) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:11, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Possible derivative uploads by User:83d40m

I am receiving no direction regarding how to proceed in order to prevent the deletion of my images that qualify as Florida public documents and you participated in the discussion at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files/2010 August 23. I suspect that these images will be deleted today even though I was told that I had two weeks to respond. I have discovered the correct template for the files.

May I open those image files, insert the correct template in the license window, delete the notice, and get on with life? One of my images already has been deleted. How do I make correction to that so that it may be restored? Any help you can give me would be most appreciated? ---- 83d40m (talk) 16:42, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Certainly open the image pages and insert the correct template in the license section. You should also change the Source from "self-made" to something indicating just which branch of the Florida government provided you with the original image; I see in at least some of them you mentioned this information in the Description field. You also should change the Author to specify who created the original image (e.g. "Photograph by John Doe. Scanned and cropped by 83d40m."). I'm not sure whether it is strictly correct to remove the notice yourself or wait for the closing admin to do it, but I suspect the latter. Also, you should comment in the PUF discussion that you have changed the images to {{PD-FLGov}} per the discussion, so you hope the discussion can be closed as "Keep" now.

As for the one image that was already deleted, you can ask the admin who deleted it to undelete it and place {{PD-FLGov}} on it; if they refuse, you can post about it on WP:DRV. Anomie⚔ 18:25, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks -- I was concerned that these images would be deleted and, knowing that I would not have time yesterday to wait for guidance -- I decided to insert the tag for the PD status, which I did for each that remained. I finally decided that taking the other tag off made more sense to me for consistency -- will go back and reinsert that now, per your suggestion, as I have time again to work on these. I also will make a note on the discussion page. Today I see that the editor who made the complaint against all of these finally responded regarding the deleted image and has given me directions to load the image again using the new tag. I will get to these tasks now. Thanks again. ---- 83d40m (talk) 14:30, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again and follow-up

Thanks again for creating that graph. Also, would you be willing to develop the statistics section of the Dermatology task force? We really need a member who is good with computers and data mining. Any improvements or new ways of looking at the task force development would be greatly appreciated. You can take that section in any direction you want. Just some thoughts. Thanks again! ---kilbad (talk) 21:26, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

MfD nomination of User:Anomie/User NoCommons

User:Anomie/User NoCommons, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Anomie/User NoCommons and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of User:Anomie/User NoCommons during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Acather96 (talk) 18:52, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Arbitration notice

You are involved in a recently-filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests#MOS:JP – Romanization for words of English origin and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the following resources may be of use—

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests#Requests for Arbitration;
• Wikipedia:Arbitration guide.

Thanks, Prime Blue (talk) 22:18, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Oooh, fun. Anomie⚔ 03:46, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

DNB

Hi. I think it appears that these DNB articles are wanted in general judging by the overall response at the village pump but only if the articles are created with a link to ONDB to allow editors to verify them afterwards. There seems to be a consensus that the articles are notable and are wanted. If I renominate the KotBot for this task i need to know if you would see this as an indication that it can go ahead. Please respond and let me know. Dr. Blofeld 14:51, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

There does seem to be sufficient support there to consider the technical aspects of the bot approval, which in this case means "Can the bot create a halfway-decent-looking stub from a big run-on paragraph?". That could be done by posting a few examples of what the bot would create in a sandbox somewhere or by doing a very small trial (which is mainly up to Kotniski). You could help by suggesting a selection of biographies for a test, including at least both "short" and "long" entries, so we can get a good idea of what the bot would create. Don't worry, it won't be a very high bar to be "halfway-decent-looking".

While it doesn't matter a whole lot if you don't, do consider waiting to re-nominate until Kotniski is ready to exhibit those examples. You two may have a bit of discussion to do beforehand in figuring out how to best wikify the DNB data, as I am sure you want the bot to generate the best possible stubs as much as anyone. Anomie⚔ 16:20, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah that's the idea, OK I'll ask Kot to do a trial. Dr. Blofeld 09:08, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

How?!

		The Cleanup Barnstar
		I didn't know the bot can rescue refs from other articles! I like to think that my proper edit summary helped the bot find the ref, but I imagine it's much smarter than that. (Hopefully not too smart =) For your bot cleaning up after me, please accept this as a small token of my appreciation. –xenotalk 02:25, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Someday I need to get around to adding checking of links in the edit summaries. What it actually did in that case was look in all articles linked from your article, on the guess that the text may have been copied from a related article (it also checks articles linking to the target article, as long as there aren't thousands which usually means the article is linked in a widely-used infobox or navbox). Details in AnomieBOT 6, if you're curious. Anomie⚔ 12:32, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

WP:USURP clerkbot

I wonder if you have the cycles to look into possible replacing ClueBot VI (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights)... Cobi (talk · contribs) seems to be at a very reduced activity level as of late, and the bot seems to go down fairly often and hasn't clerked since the 28th of August... –xeno^talk 17:28, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Sure, I can take a look. BTW, are there any improvements I should look into making at the same time (e.g. SUL checks)? Anomie⚔ 18:18, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

That would be awesome. Notifying users who haven't been notified would be cool too (Not sure why we didn't think of that before. Maybe it should first check if the usurp would be otherwise eligible.) –xeno^talk 18:57, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

← Cobi came back and jumpstarted the bot so this can perhaps be tabled for now. I had another idea for a bot, this one would add the : prefix when users erroneously add interwiki links on noticeboard pages when they meant to simply internally link to another wiki. (e.g.) Thoughts? –xeno^talk 20:01, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Sounds interesting, but it should probably handle categories too. BRFA filed Anomie⚔ 23:22, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

• The usurp bot has gone AWOL again. Do you want to have a crack at it? –xeno^talk 15:05, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Sure, I though that might happen so I kept the half-finished code. Anomie⚔ 18:02, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Code is just about done (User:AnomieBOT/source/tasks/CHUUClerk.pm). An example of what it might do is here here. I do have a few questions:
      1. I see that it says log entries "other than user creations" prevent usurpation. But how about abusefilter hits, or for that matter log entries with types block, protect, rights, delete, patrol, suppress, review, stable, gblblock, renameuser, globalauth, or gblrights (i.e. everything except upload, move, import, or merge)? Not that there's any chance of someone successfully usurping an account that managed to perform most of those actions.
      2. I added reporting of SUL accounts, but if there is no SUL account I can't get information about unattached accounts without querying the user on every individual wiki. Would that be worth the trouble?
      3. The bot will notify the target user itself in certain cases. It's currently fairly conservative, it won't notify if any of the following are true:
         • The new account has any non-deleted contribs.
         • The new account has any (non-ignored) log entries.
         • The request is for SUL usurpation, and there is no SUL account for the target name or the target local account is already linked to the SUL.
         • The request is not for SUL usurpation, and the requesting account is less than 6 months old and the requesting account's SUL account (if any) is also less than 6 months old.
         • The request is not for SUL usurpation, and the requesting account has less than 200 edits combined on all wikis.
         • The request is not for SUL usurpation and an SUL account exists for the target name.
      4. I changed a bit of behavior from what ClueBot did. In particular:
         1. 'Crat matching requires a plain wikilink to the crat's userpage, instead of just the text "User:" followed by a 'crat's username. This does break if you post as a 'crat from User:Xeno on an iPhone with your current sig.
         2. For some reason ClueBot wouldn't edit a section if it contained "{{[[Image:". What is the use of that?
         3. Extraction of usernames goes by the values passed to {{Usurp2}} or {{Usurp4}}, not by parsing the section header.
         4. Filling in of |logs= to {{CUU}} ignores log entries with type "newusers" or "abusefilter", and possibly others will be added.
         5. Notification is detected by "Did the old username ever edit the new username's talk page?", rather than "Is the old username ever mentioned in the current version of the new username's talk page?".
         6. The text of the notes posted are changed somewhat, as are the edit summaries.

      Comments? Anomie⚔ 00:35, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

1. I'm not exactly sure the reason for that. I guess moving a page would've been considered GFDL-significant. Wouldn't worry about it too much.
2. What we're looking for in terms of other-project accounts are 1) accounts that are active or 2) accounts that have more than 25 edits per year of inactivity. If you can't screen scrape the SUL util, then I wouldn't worry about it too much as clerks or 'crats will probably be double-checking anyway.
3. Sounds good. Clerks or 'crats can notify if we are excepting.
4. 1. No problem. 2. No idea. 3. That's better because sometimes the header will contain CURRENT oldname / NEW newname because user didn't follow instructions. 4. Cool. 5. You could also detect the hidden cmt "Usurpation requested". 6. Sounds good.

USURP is getting kinda messy. Will speedy approve a trial or you can just IAR and get'er'goin. –xeno^talk 14:36, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

1. I figure that anything that might actually change the article is at least worth a human glance. Yeah, moves probably don't actually do anything GFDL- (or CC-BY-SA-) significant, but blocks, reviews, and such certainly don't. I think I will go ahead and skip all those other log types.
2. If the global account exists, I can get the same information as sulutil from the API's meta=globaluserinfo, including the list of unattached accounts. At the moment, if the global account does not exist then I can't get that list of unattached accounts except by querying each wiki individually (which is really what the sulutil does behind the scenes, except it can do it with a database query instead of numerous API calls); I consider this a bug in the CentralAuth extension's API query module. Note that neither sulutil nor the API gives any indication of inactivity.
4. 5. So I should check both the current revision and the talk page history? Or just the current revision?

I'll file the BRFA soon. Anomie⚔ 15:15, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I would guess if the current revision doesn't contain "<!-- Usurpation requested -->", it's because the target user has cleared it from their talk page, which is probably an indication they don't want to be usurped. If you wanted to get really clever, you could detect this, but just saying they weren't notified would be fine as well and someone will clue into what's going on. –xeno^talk 15:18, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

BRFA filed Anomie⚔ 16:43, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

• If you get a moment, could you tweak the nesting of Template:CUU to tell about notification no matter the other warnings? Thanks =) –xeno^talk 03:53, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

• Hi Anomie. I wanted to draw your attention to this request. If you've got it on your agenda, that's cool - just wasn't sure if you saw the post. –xeno^talk 17:52, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Been busy lately. Feel free to ping me again in a few days if I still don't get to it. Anomie⚔ 20:15, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Your "Linkclassifier"

Hi, it's being written up at The Signpost, in case you're around before publication late Monday or early Tuesday UTC to check it. Tony (talk) 08:58, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Request for mediation of Video games developed in Japan

A request for formal mediation of the dispute relating to Video games developed in Japan was recently filed. As an editor concerned in this dispute, you are invited to participate in the mediation. The process of mediation is entirely voluntary and focuses exclusively on the content issues over which there is disagreement. Please review the request page and the guide to mediation requests and then indicate in the "party agreement" section whether you would agree to participate. Discussion relating to the mediation request welcome at the case talk page.

Thank you, AGK 22:58, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

OpenlibraryBot Trial

I've completed the trial for OpenlibraryBot and was wondering what the next steps are. Thanks, Arielbackenroth (talk) 19:03, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Bot request

Sorry to bother you on your user page; I noticed that you were recently active on the bot request list and I've been waiting for some time for approval for a couple of requests. I'm keen to get going with these as soon as possible and wondered whether you might be able to make a decision on whether a trial would be appropriate (no-one has given any reasons why not). The requests I'm most urgently looking to proceed with are at WP:BRFA#Taxobot 2 and WP:BRFA#Taxobot 3.

Thanks!

Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:09, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Request for mediation accepted

The request for mediation concerning Video games developed in Japan, to which you were are a party, has been accepted. Please watchlist the case page (which is where the mediation will take place). For guidance on accepted cases, refer to this resource. A mediator should be assigned to this dispute within two weeks. If you have any queries, please contact a Committee member or the mediation mailing list.

For the Mediation Committee, AGK 21:36, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
Message delivered by MediationBot, on behalf of the Mediation Committee.

Possible Malfuction?

Its edit to ITN knocked out all the Canidates instead of the single days worth.... [24] Unsure what happened The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 01:08, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

How so? In the diff you link, it removes October 3 and adds October 8, just as it is supposed to. October 4, 5, 6, and 7 are untouched. I also see HJ Mitchell undid your revert of the bot's edit. Anomie⚔ 11:33, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

ITN

Hey! When you have a moment, could you take a gander at WT:ITN#Future_events and see if that's something your bot could help out with? Much appreciated. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:38, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Would it be possible to have the Future events pages be consistently formatted? I see Wikipedia:In the news/Future events/2010 has months at level-2 headings with dates at level-3, while Wikipedia:In the news/Future events/2011 has months at level-3 with dates at level-4. Since WP:ITN/C seems to use level-4 subsections for each date, I'd suggest making the dates on the Future events pages at or above level-3 (as is already done on the 2010 page); the bot could then split the page on level-3 sections and copy the one with the matching date. Anomie⚔ 03:18, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:VPR#Append welcome templates automatically to first talk posts on new editors talk pages

Hi Anomie. Thanks for chiming in. We seriously need to do something about it - it's been bothering me for a long time already. A discussion now needs to be coordinated somewhere other than at the VP. Please keep in touch. --Kudpung (talk) 06:04, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

AnomieBOT: Orphaned references in Kiwi

Re AnomieBOT's question on the talk page of Kiwi, IUCN status does not apply to Kiwi because it is a genus article dealing with several species rather than a single-species article. Thanks for the great work the bot does though. Kahuroa (talk) 22:36, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't matter to me. Anomie⚔ 23:10, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Bot removing things at editor review

It appears that the bot is also removing entries from the archives that don't follow the standard formatting. See [25] this for an example. Would it be possible to let it allow both for the time being? Thanks.(Awesome bot by the way =P) Netalarm^talk 02:24, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

There was a bug, actually: when the link was "Wikipedia:Editor_review" with an underscore instead of a space, the bot would remove it. Fixed that. Anomie⚔ 04:51, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Never mind, I've corrected the page locations. Could you prevent the bot from adding the Discussion top/bottom templates to completed editor reviews? It used to be done in the past, but now reviews are just archived so anyone can continue reviewing even when the focus is on other editors. Thanks. Netalarm^talk 02:29, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Done. Anomie⚔ 04:51, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm... is it possible for it to autotransclude requests? This one might be a bit harder though, and the previous bot didn't do this. All requests are located at Category:Wikipedians on Editor review/Backlog. If that's not possible, do you think you could make the bot notify the requester that they didn't transclude their request? Thanks. Netalarm^talk 05:18, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I thought I did that already; is there one it is not transcluding? Anomie⚔ 11:15, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

None of them have been transcluding, like Wikipedia:Editor review/S1312, Wikipedia:Editor review/Pedro João, Wikipedia:Editor review/Gbern3, and Wikipedia:Editor review/Ocean Shores. Netalarm^talk 20:39, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. It was a stupid bug, instead of looking for untranscluded reviews created in the past 7 days, it looked for reviews created in the past 49 seconds. Anomie⚔ 02:25, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Happy Anomie's Day!

Anomie has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, so I've officially declared today as Anomie's Day! For being a great person and awesome Wikipedian, enjoy being the star of the day, Anomie! Signed, Neutralhomer A record of your Day will always be kept here.

For a userbox you can add to your userbox page, click here. Have a Great Day...Neutralhomer • Talk • 05:16, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Nifty, thank you! Anomie⚔ 01:18, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

You're quite Welcome! :) Keep up the Great Work! :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:51, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

linkclassifier mod request

As you may know, we have set up a system of intentional disambig links to disambig page "Foo" being piped through "Foo (disambiguation)" redirects. Can you make those show up differently from other redirects to disambiguation pages? Maybe in a lighter highlight? bd2412 T 03:14, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Good idea.  Done Anomie⚔ 04:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! This is perfect. bd2412 T 05:23, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

ArticleAlertBot

There is a discussion going on about who should take over the ArticleAlertBot that has been down for awhile. Someone has the code and there was going to be a person working on it, but they have either retired or are about to. I suggested you, since you have experience with bots and coding on your two bots. If you would like to chime in at the discussion, feel free. Just giving you a head's up. Take Care...Neutralhomer • Talk • 00:15, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I could probably help fix the login issue I saw mentioned in there somewhere, but I'm not interested in running the bot myself at this time. Anomie⚔ 01:28, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Okie Dokie....your name was just the first I thought of when it came to bots. If you know of anyone who might be a good candidate for running the bot, ask 'em, we might get AABot back up and running sooner rather than later. :) Take Care...Neutralhomer • Talk • 04:02, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

ANI

While I understand you may have received the impression that I think I "don't even have to explain myself", facts suggest otherwise. Since this farrago started (28 September) I have added just under a megabyte (946,187 bytes) to discussion pages of various types. While it may not all be relevant, a goodly proportion of it is. Rich Farmbrough, 23:17, 21 October 2010 (UTC).

Wow. 946,187 bytes! How explaining! Clearly, as RF says, "facts suggest". -DePiep (talk) 23:51, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Welcome to my stalker. <wave> Rich Farmbrough, 00:19, 22 October 2010 (UTC).

pagestats.js

Hi! I just wanted to suggest that perhaps encodeURIComponent() could be used instead of escape() in your pagestats.js script? That way the non-ASCII article titles would not get mangled as they currently do. Also, thanks a lot for the handy script! :) —Quibik (talk) 08:32, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Good idea. Anomie⚔ 18:06, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/J Milburn Bot 5

Hey, I'm contacting you as you look to be active right now. Shouldn't be controversial- could you possibly just rubber-stamp this so it can run before I go to bed? Thanks. J Milburn (talk) 23:31, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! J Milburn (talk) 23:50, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

No problem, it was a perfect candidate for a speedy. Anomie⚔ 23:50, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

hello

Please send your bot here please. Thank you.-- ♫Greatorangepumpkin♫ T 12:12, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

If the page ends up in the categories the bot watches, the bot will (and did) go there itself. Anomie⚔ 18:51, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

▲ to ?

Quoted from User talk:Jarry1250:
“	What happened here? Anomie⚔ 18:31, 16 November 2010 (UTC)	”

...character encoding issues. Oops. Fixed now, naturally :) - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 19:17, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Error with User:Anomie/useridentifier.js

Hi there Anomie. I don't know if you know already but User:Anomie/useridentifier.js does not work (for me) in the new Firefox 4 beta 7 (which uses the new JägerMonkey-engine). The error in the error console is this:

Error: api is not defined
Source File: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Anomie/useridentifier.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript
Line: 71

Could you have a look at this and check why this is? Regards SoWhy 12:44, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Does it work if you put

importScript('User:Anomie/util.js');

before the line for useridentifier.js? Anomie⚔ 14:25, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, it does. Thanks for that. Any idea why that is? From what I saw, the line is in the useridentifier.js as well. Regards SoWhy 14:34, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

"Older" browsers would load all scripts added with importScript before firing the onload event, to the point where if one importScript-added script had another importScript it would further delay onload. "Newer" browsers don't do this. Firefox 4 isn't the first to do this, IIRC I changed that bit in the instructions after someone reported the same problem with Opera. Anomie⚔ 15:03, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you

...for your timely attentiveness at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DeltaQuadBot 3. It is appreciated. Regards, Skomorokh 21:54, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

AnomieBOT

The bot seems to have malfunctioned at WP:ITN/C. It added a heading for yesterday's date (a couple of hours ago) and then re-added it when it was removed a few minutes later. I've soft-blocked it to prevent it edit warring. If you could look into this, I'd appreciate it and I'll unblock it as soon as you say so. If I'm not around, post to my talk page and one of my TPSs will take care of it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:27, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

It was also shut off via User:AnomieBOT/shutoff/ITNCArchiver, so I've unblocked so it can continue with its other tasks. –xeno^talk 19:22, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks xeno. Further discussion is at User talk:AnomieBOT/Archive 3#ITN/C archiving shut down. Anomie⚔ 20:09, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Barnstar

		Bot oversight barnstar
		For your BAGger scrutiny at the BRFAs, especially mine. A bug or two might have slipped unnoticed if not for your careful check. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:23, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Anomie⚔ 16:56, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

BRFA filing

Two quick questions for you Anomie:

a) Am I correct to say AnomieBot whatever-the-number-was moves BRFAs to approved, and can be relied on to do so regularly in all normal cases?
b) Do you feel that this provision is sufficient for BAGers like me to leave this duty to the bot? Because I'm lazy :)

Regards, - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 16:56, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes to both. Let me know if you see anything is not working. Anomie⚔ 17:43, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Wonderful :) I take it the issue with TorNodeBot was a one-off, or fixed, or whatever? Anyway, good work .- Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 18:11, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

User error, actually: the bot operator filled out {{BRFA}} incorrectly and no one else caught it.

If the bot is named "TorNodeBot 2", then the template should be {{BRFA|TorNodeBot 2||...}}. But if it's request 2 for the bot named "TorNodeBot", it should be {{BRFA|TorNodeBot|2|...}} instead. I'm looking at adding some code to say "if user 'TorNodeBot 2' doesn't exist but user 'TorNodeBot' does, adjust {{BRFA}} and {{Newbot}} appropriately" now. Anomie⚔ 18:44, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. Incidentally, is it my error or the preload's error that I keep having to make this edit to my BRFAs? - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 20:26, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a limitation of the system: there is no way for the preloader to know whether you're requesting a task for "LivingBot 14" or the 14th task for "LivingBot". Ideally they would have set things up so it would be Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/LivingBot/14, but they didn't so we're stuck. Something in there could try to guess that it should remove / \d+$/ from the end, using a hack like {{italictitle}}'s handling of disambiguators, but that may or may not be worth it; personally, I just have User:Anomie/brfa.php on a local webserver bookmarked. BTW, your edit is incorrect, it should be {{Newbot|LivingBot|14}}. Otherwise the "tasks" link just under the header will go to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/LivingBot instead of Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/LivingBot 14. Anomie⚔ 22:04, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that, by the way. One more thing, perhaps AnomieBOT should not include its own edits on Wikipedia:BAG/Status? I think the last human's edits to the BRFA are the more interesting/useful thing to look at. - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 15:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

That is a good point, I've been also meaning to bring up. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and while we're nitpicking tiny details, might it also be possible to discern fro the Trial-TrialComplete-ExtendedTrial on Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/SmackBot_37 that "In trial" is the correct status? Just a suggestion :) - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 19:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

 Done and  Done. Anomie⚔ 15:46, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

AnomieBOT is stalking me

Just joking. It just seems that every time I ask for sourcing or add other tags to an article, AnomieBOT is coming along not two minutes behind me.  :) Corvus cornix_talk 07:58, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, AnomieBOT is doing the "date maintenance tags" run now. Let me know if you spot any issues. Anomie⚔ 14:43, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Date > date?

I am not sure why this edit is necessary or helpful. Nor do I see it as approved edit on the list at User:AnomieBOT. Am I missing something? Jeepday (talk) 11:50, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

It is necessary because |date= is case sensitive. If you turn on "Show hidden categories" in your preferences, you can see that before the article is in Category:Articles lacking in-text citations and no date is displayed in the issues banner, while after it is in Category:Articles lacking in-text citations from December 2010 and the date is displayed in the issues banner. While not explicitly mentioned, it is one of the "other parameters" mentioned in Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/AnomieBOT 49. Anomie⚔ 12:02, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Seems like it would be simpler remove the case sensitivity to make Date = date. But I have already shown my lack of knowledge on the subject. Jeepday (talk) 12:23, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

The major problem there is that there are quite a few templates that would have to be changed. Anomie⚔ 15:18, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

The number of templates that would need to be changed would have to be significantly less then the ongoing article changes. Where do you think would be a good place to start a discussion on it? Maybe Help talk:Template? Jeepday (talk) 18:33, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Off the cuff, I'd say most of the article changes are for people completely neglecting to apply a date, followed by people putting the date in an unnamed |1= or using a misspelled or incorrectly formatted date; the majority of people who do supply a correct date use |date= with the correct case. But if you really want to start such a discussion, I'd recommend holding it at WP:VPR and posting an invite on the talk pages of the major affected templates, plus any relevant project-space talkpages; a list of all templates to be dated in this manner is at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Dated templates. Anomie⚔ 18:48, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion, based on your assessment I am leaning towards let it go and trying to use the correct case. On thinking about it more, there probably are not a lot of people who putting a capital letter in the middle of a string like that. Jeepday (talk) 22:29, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I can confirm my experience is that these are relatively uncommon cases, and I considered making the parameter case insensitive in the "early days", but decided, somewhat ad-hoc, that the overhead of supporting two parameters (and what about DATE?) was an unwise exchange for the "saved" edits. Rich Farmbrough, 13:55, 30 December 2010 (UTC).

Cleanup templates, redirects, dates, etc.

I unblocked SmackBot some hours ago. In order to save double-runs and unnecessary drama I would like to ask you to do some work in bypassing certain templates redirects. Community seems to endorse certain bypassing for readability reasons. Examples could be {{wfy}}, {{cn}} and probably more.

We always have to balance between "easy to add" and "easy to read". Shortcuts/Redirects serve the first. Bots can serve the latter.

I also suggest that you come in contact with Rich Farmbrough, owner of SmackBot. I think SmackBot corrects incorrectly dated tags in cases where AnomieBot fails.

Thanks for your nice work in the project. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:05, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Is there a link to a discussion on bypassing these redirects? How many of the redirects at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects are really there due to consensus that they should be bypassed versus how many are there because bypassing redirects simplifies some people's AWB rules?

As for SmackBot fixing incorrectly dated tags where AnomieBOT fails, I'm not too worried about that. AnomieBOT logs every incorrect date it finds and I get an email summary each morning. I haven't seen much that AnomieBOT didn't recognize, especially now that AnomieBOT can recognize any typoed month name with an edit distance of 1; more often, I've seen articles where AnomieBOT didn't try to date a tag at all because it wasn't listed at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Dated templates. Anomie⚔ 15:28, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

There was a discussion in Wikipedia talk:Redirect#Template_redirects_and_WP:NOTBROKEN. I'll try to see if I can find anything else. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:45, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

My bot request

Sorry for the inturrupion but I just wanted to inquite about the status of my bot request. Has anyone made a decision about wether I even need one? If I do how much longer might it be. It was submitted on the 23rd and since we are on day 5 and knowone has added any comments in the last 2 I was wondering how much longer it might be. Thanks --Kumioko (talk) 19:40, 28 December 2010 (UTC)