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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Rich Farmbrough (talk | contribs) at 23:24, 4 March 2011 (→Controversial and/or incorrect AWB edits). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Nudges

About bots and categories - clarify request

Conversation - actions required.

I brought this up at wp:ani but it's not that relevant. (Fine details of sort are important, but not my main point, I think we can live with any alphabetical ordering - especially when cat contents tend to group similar items anyway..). The issue is that your bot (and others?) appears to be acting only on recent or new pages (based on experience). It would be reassuring to know that this bot or another bot is applying the changes systematically starting at Aardvark and working up to Xylophone..

Does the bot do that�?, and if not can there be one please (I think I explained why at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Minor_technical_question). Just mark this section "done" if the issue is definitely already addressed, and a solution exists and has been implemented. Thanks.Sf5xeplus (talk) 16:21, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well - yes and no. I have a BRFA for diacritics in biographies, and I have done all those pages. I did have a plan to do exactly what you suggest - and not just for diacritics - and for the excellent reason that starting at Aardvark means not breaking any ordering as you go through (if I remember correctly) but there was one extremely vociferous critic that sapped the energy out of the whole thing - believe it or not you can't change a space on WP without someone objecting - possibly me! However: what would be possible, if a little hard, would be to do it on a category by category basis: automatically identifying categories where an "out of order" (lets call it an O3) occurs and correcting all members. And of course setting default sorts for pages with diacritics only would also probably be acceptable. Rich�Farmbrough, 16:39, 1 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
ok thanks. I'll be back (or get Yobot to fix it) if a similar problem occurs; now I've mentioned the probably of that becomes infinitely unlikely. Problem not resolved, but probably solved.
As for systematic bot A to Z diacritic work - maybe wait a bit and suggest again. I can supply +1 !vote.Sf5xeplus (talk) 17:00, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Italic titles

Conversation - actions required.

Back in July you were a model of efficiency using AWB to strip out {{Italic title}}. Just curious - not to seem demanding, I hope - would your technical abilities and/or old-school industry be sufficient to the job of restoring those templates where removed, in the wake of this discussion? Wareh (talk) 01:59, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Was it as recently as July? And I can't remember being very thorough about it although I try.
Not to restore, specifically (although it wouldn't be that hard), but to install for, for example, all ships, novels or whatever the consensus is.
Incidentally it would have been good to have been involved in the discussion - you may have missed that I was replacing or proposing, at one point (maybe back in 2009), more specific templates - I forget the names but effectively {{Novel title}} or similar. This allows policy to flip-flop without having to edit a zillion articles. I was also installing "Italic title" (I proposed a specific name for that I think) on taxon pages, the temptation of projects to build the formatting into infoboxes is very large - I see the ships are going down that channel? - but misguided because 1. not all articles will have the infobox 2. it then becomes very difficult to use the infobox without italics 3. it is not clear from the page source how an "effect" is achieved - newbarrier. Rich�Farmbrough, 07:27, 3 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Topic specific templates also allow automatic processing of standard exceptions for example "HMS Midgard" instead of "HMS Midgard" if that is needed. Rich�Farmbrough, 07:52, 3 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
The connection to you only just occurred to me as I manually changed a couple of articles on books whose italic titles you had removed. I'm sorry if this news of the discussions was not timely (and I did in fact know nothing about your previous template proposals), but I hope even this belated information about the change in policy may be useful in the hands of someone who clearly knows a lot about templates, automatic processes, etc. I take it you are suggesting that {{Italic title}} could perhaps be routinely added according to categories, e.g. Category:Books by date. The problem is that even "books" is too narrow: Category:Works by author and Category:Works by date are really only slightly too broad, but they include a lot of non-"books" (by WP category) whose titles should be italicized in running text. Most everything in Category:Ancient Greek works by author and Category:Philosophical works by author (areas near and dear to me) should be italicized, but I suspect many of them are not categorized as WP "books." So, if more specific templates were to be developed, I'd suggest that {{Novel title}} is way too narrow: even {{Book title}} has coverage issues for the relevant range of works.
You've already lost me with some of the technical issues you raise, but book titles (more or less) are where I'd really love to see automated changes in equal or greater volume to the previous italic-removals. Do you see a good chance of achieving that?
Here's what may be the most practical idea I can come up with. If the article title appears in the lead '''''Like this''''', isn't that the best criterion for applying {{Italic title}} (or DISPLAYTITLE for longer titles that break that template)? This seems to me to apply perfectly the new policy at WP:AT, which is simply, "Use italics when italics would be used in running text."
If you think that's a useful avenue, perhaps you can take it to WP:AT or the appropriate technical forum where such things get implemented? Or I can at your suggestion: but I am very inexperienced on the technical side. Wareh (talk) 15:01, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • No criticism was intended. Yes I miss lots of discussions, and end up "sighing" some of the time - but I really couldn't keep up with them all anyway - this one seems to have come to an acceptable conclusion, although I'm not sure I agree with it, I have always found this issue tricky, and, of course non-critical (unlike invisible capitals in template names <joke />).
  • The ' ' ' ' ' idea is great - cuts to the chase - in would include ' ' too, since that probably means that the bolding was forgotten.
  • It would probably be suitable for a WP:BRFA - I have a bit of a backlog there right now.
Rich�Farmbrough, 15:18, 3 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
I'm glad that sounds useful--it really only occurred to me in the course of replying to you here. So does "backlog" mean you think you'll pursue that eventually, or would it make more sense for me to go to somewhere like WP:BOTREQ, and if so, with or without stopping by Wikipedia talk:Article titles first? (The policy at WP:AT is plain enough, but I don't want to step on any toes in initiating action on that scale.) Sorry if this is asking for too much hand-holding, but I'm only slowly learning the ropes of all this behind-the-scenes work. Wareh (talk) 15:47, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No it's fine, I'll get a BRFA in presently. I'm just trying to streamline the way I deal with it - although the average response time of the BAG is long. Rich�Farmbrough, 16:06, 3 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
I'll drop you a note when it's there, and you can mention it at other venues to gain input. Rich�Farmbrough, 16:07, 3 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Thanks. You are a true Wikipedia public servant! Wareh (talk) 13:57, 4 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Railway

Conversation - actions required.

Hi, did you correct those Burmese infobox errors afterwards? Can you move all of the Gare de... in Category:Railway stations in France categories to ...... railway station. There is consensus to do so at WP:Trains. They should be in english.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:34, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

E.g Gare de Colmar should be Colmar railway station.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:35, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See #Burma .. let me know. Yes that's not hard, when I get back about 5pm I'll get on to it.
category:Paris Métro should not be a sub cat of Paris railway stations as this puts rolling stock into a station category. Rich Farmbrough, 13:03, 6 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Gare Aero d'Montparnasse

OK Gare de, Gare du and Gare d' I take it are fine to move, how about:

? Rich Farmbrough, 13:08, 6 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Mmm I'd go with:

List here. Rich Farmbrough, 17:57, 6 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Hang on a moment - I'm new to this but can't find the consensus for change described above. (Yes I tend to favour the Gare de .. title obviously.)
Don't look at Category:Railway stations in Germany either :) . Lot's of stuff like Mannheim Hauptbahnhof.
Particularly there is an objection to things like Gare d'Avignon TGV are in fairly common use in English, as are others. I'm worried that if you bot this it will make a mess eg consider Gare du Nord.Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:16, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Look on the talk page - specifically Manheim Hauptbahnhof and Gare du Nord are mentioned as exceptions. I don't think even if I was "botting it" I could affect the BBC pages... Or perhaps you mean the content of pages? There is no intent to do a search and replace (As far as I know.) Rich Farmbrough, 18:31, 6 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Yes funny - I linked to the BBC to show an example of common usage.Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:38, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd also suggest (can that be demand) that the ones moved be moved back. This Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Trains#Railway_stations discussion hasn't really established a consensus for such a big change. Also despite being an English word too, I don't feel that 'maritime' is the correct English translation, possibly 'marine' is better, but fundamentally its usage is specific to the name - a literal translation probably won't make much sense. Although not English the French names satisfy Wikipedia:Article_titles#Deciding_an_article_title, especially recognisability. This definitely seems to have been an error in your judgement in honesty.Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:27, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Of course you can Revert (using "undo" - not roll-back if you have that) - then go and Discuss - its part of the BRD cycle, although with a month elapsed form the discussion, it's not that bold. Just drop me a note to let me know which bits if any you revert - or if you wish discuss then revert if necessary. Rich�Farmbrough, 19:05, 6 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
I might have but as I'm not objecting to the other changes they exceptions with "Maritime" would seem out of place. There seems to be a few examples in english of the usage that's been proposed/changed ("xxx maritime station"), I'm not sure if "xxx harbour station" or "xxx port station" is better or worse. Must do more research before acting.Sf5xeplus (talk) 19:16, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note Just to make it clear - I've changed my position (on naming) from object to neutral - you can ignore the above.Sf5xeplus (talk) 19:50, 6 October 2010 (UTC) (Thanks for the note: RF.)[reply]

Will try to get back to this today or tomorrow. Rich�Farmbrough, 11:52, 8 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

More

Anyway far be it for me to stand in the way of progress - if the station name is simply "gare de xxx" then I don't object to "xxx station" etc. I'm not sure about the ones with "maritime" in.

However you did get the capitalisation wrong, its railway station (lower case) eg King's Cross station. (ok so some USA stations use Railroad Station with caps, but that's for another day). Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:51, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes that is what was suggested, and normally I love WP's "down" style, and regularly take Dr Blofeld out the back and threaten him with his own sharks for using capitals in things like "Splurgle District". However thinking about it for a moment will reveal that it is not that simple. If the name is "Gare d'" then Station is part of the name. Though I argue elsewhere that, for example Kingston University is also Kingston university, so "downing" is a fairly safe operation, where as "upping" is not (Manchester universities <> Manchester Universities for example), in this case I think the cap is justified. I am open to persuasion however, more: if you can get consensus from WP T on either style I will go with that quite happily . I would indeed personally prefer just "Station" or "station", since to my ear "Railway" is the default. Other varieties of English, however, may vary. Rich�Farmbrough, 19:01, 6 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Category:Railway stations in Belgium could be an example of precedence - 1/2 of it speaks French of a sort (or maybe that's wrong too). As an additional capitalisation of gare is not always done (except at the beginning of a sentence) eg [1] [2], also http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=+site:www.lemonde.fr+le+monde+gare Le Monde uses lower case if not leading a sentence. eg [3] No idea what the official French ministry of spelling and culture position is on this controversy.Sf5xeplus (talk) 19:13, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's interesting. I am, sadly, an expert in neither Walloon (as I remarked earlier today, funnily enough) or railway stations, although there is a fascination about abandoned underground stations that probably speaks to either a deep character flaw, or to much "Quatermass" as a child. (Hobbs End I think? OR was that the good Doctor?) The place for discussion is is most likely the WikiProject. You can cut and paste this wholesale if you wish. Rich�Farmbrough, 19:18, 6 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Or maybe I should take your opinion, my doubts, and the talk page suggestion as consensus for lower case? IDK. I'l think on't. Rich�Farmbrough, 19:19, 6 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
I've left a note at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Trains#Capitalisation_of_french_railway_stations and on Blofeld's page too. I can let you know (though I've suggested others post here since I'm fairly certain this is a non-controversial thing already decided). I can let you know. the reason I'm hassling you about this is because I'm under the impression that you have 'thousands' of station articles to name change..? maybe that's not the caseSf5xeplus (talk) 19:34, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. It's about 400 - see the list I mentioned. I was planning on creating redirects to the Gare du Nord articles - an of course anyone could move back specific items. Oh and yes, re: Le Monde, French capitalisation differs from ours for proper nouns (e.g. Académie française) but that's about as far as my knowledge takes me. Rich Farmbrough, 19:49, 6 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

There seemed to be no objection to moving the pages to lower casing e.g Rouen railway station. These really should be moved as Gare means nothing to most non French speakers. I personally prefer the Railway Station capitalised but consensus at WP:Trains seems to be lower casing. "railway" station is necessary as "station could refer to bus station, tram/cable car station or even a scientific research station.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:41, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the notes, will try to get back to this today or tomorrow. Rich Farmbrough, 11:52, 8 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Printworthy

Conversation - actions required.

It occurs to me that any redirect that is categorised (Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects) excluding those which only have categories which are subcats of Category:Wikipedia redirects should always be printworthy redirects (Template:R printworthy)..

Any chance of a bot for that?? Sf5xeplus (talk) 14:05, 9 October 2010 (UTC):[reply]

Yes, but probably better to either ensure Category:Unprintworthy redirects is in the appropriate redirect templates, and the rest would be printworthy by default? Rich Farmbrough, 14:08, 9 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Maybe - in an earlier life I might have created various unprintable redirects (spelling and caps variations) that I haven't got on a watchlist and don't remember.. I haven't done that for years since I learnt better.
Following on with the logic - a bot could "printworthy" all mainspace categorised redirects, and "not-printworthy" all other redirects not already having "printworthy". A few printworthy redirects might get missed but that's a user problem.. The final sauce would be to have a bot to tag "printworthy" any "unprintworthy" redirects if they are subsequently categorised in the 'mainspace'.
That would categorise all redirects, with only minor printworthy omissions - the omissions could be manually caught by categorising with "bot categorised unprintworthy" - giving a much more easily human-checked list of possible bot errors. Once done maintenance should be minimal.. Hope springs eternal.Sf5xeplus (talk) 14:28, 9 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I think there is something to that. I just changed 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection: The Best of Rob Zombie to unprintworthy, it was the second one I looked at - and quite bottable. Rich Farmbrough, 14:51, 9 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

SmackBot duplicate tags feature request

Conversation - actions required.

Sorry if this is not the place to leave this, but this is mostly a feature request I think. In this diff, it would be nice if SmackBot would notice that there are duplicate tags and remove the duplicated tags. Would this be easy to implement? Devourer09�(t�c) 16:25, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how hard it would be, it depends on scope, I suspect that the main difficulty would be dividing the list up into remove and don't remove, dfor example, multiple Expand section, or multiple Citation needed tags are legitimate (but not adjoining). Simpler might be to limit it to tag knots, in which case it would be fairly easy. I'll submit a BRFA. Rich�Farmbrough, 16:31, 12 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
BRFA submitted and in trial. Rich�Farmbrough, 02:12, 16 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Minor issues

DNB

I've left a comment at WT:WP DNB#Bot_building about the new Magnus Manske tool in the area (Magnus put it together in a couple of hours after the meetup). I've never been exactly sure about the merits of importing text from Wikisource other than in an article: but I think the merits would be improved by a number of possible "added value" steps. One of those would be to take into account the output of this tool, and only import articles for the project to work on which come up as "none found" with that matching tool. I.e. remove or sort according to what the tool finds, which can be (a) no match, (b) very plausible match, (c) inconclusive run with numerous candidates none of which is a great fit, (d) > 50 hits. There is actually a good argument for first doing that sorting into four. The case (d) is one either for human intervention, or for another layer of matching attempt. Case (b) is the sort of stuff I'm going by hand, and invites work expanding stubs and adding the ext lk back. So anyway case (a) is the most fruitful at this point for an import.

And what else? Imported text should be topped-and-tailed in some way to make it more useful (will need a lead section, should finish with reference using {{cite DNB}} and attribution using {{DNB}}, both filled in with wstitle=[name as on WS, no suffix]). There is actually a lot of scope for stripping out parts of the article too: certainly the [references at end in small] sections, and with more intelligence much of the inline refs between parentheses. NB the use of small caps within parentheses for author names, which should be a clue.

Charles Matthews (talk) 13:18, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Risk list bot

Conversation - actions required.

I would love to see the BLP risk list turned into an ongoing bot. We could manage it as an ongoing queue by having the bot keep all the previous hits with context in a local file or DB on the backend.

For example:

After this hit, "riskbot" would keep this in a local file or db, and then would filter it out of subsequent runs, context included. That way if the affair gets added back in with slightly different context, we'd get another warning. It would take all the "new hits" and append them on the bottom of the running queue page. As people check the hits, they'd remove them from the page. It's O(n^2) on the number of hits, but scrubbing one set of lines with another is pretty inexpensive, since it's just simple equality. Let me know what you think. Gigs (talk) 01:13, 30 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's worth doing I think. The time consuming part at the moment is actually accessing all the articles, thought they are mostly small. There's ways to optiminze this away however. Rich Farmbrough, 01:45, 31 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Bibliographies

This is just a personal opinion, mind you. Like I said, I am, rather slowly, assembling bibliographies of the various geographical areas of the earth. As they would deal with things like the local flora, fauna, people, culture, and the like, they could also serve as the basis for things like, for instance, Bibliography of South American military history, which would be a selection of books about the military history of that area drawn from the bibliographies of the main states/regions themselves.

That will not however include such things as the sciences, or philosophy, or the major religions, and certainly not off-world topics like astronomy. They would probably need to be created entirely separately.

My own basic choice would be to maybe have others create bibliographies for the sciences, business, and other topics that don't have clear geographic ties.

I would think the items to be included would best include separate books/works on the topic that have been reviewed by academic journals and other reputable specialist magazines, and/or included in books or articles of bibliography of that topic.

There are obviously questions regarding how long to make these bibliographies, and that's a separate matter entirely. The bibliography of physics, like the bibliography of Christianity, would be potentially endless. For such broad topics, maybe the best way to proceed would be to look at the various extant reference works, like encyclopedias, that deal with the topics, and to start include only those works which are included in the bibliographies of the articles in those encyclopedias. That would be a start, anyway. John Carter (talk) 17:15, 7 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The bibliography of physics should probably include some well known wide ranging texts, Weidner and Sells, Richards, Wier, Zehrs and Zemansky I think are two, the vade meca of various fields, seminal works, and key references (Handbook of Physical Data?) and cross references to detailed, bibliographies of mechanics, relativity, gravitation, string theory, etc... Rich Farmbrough, 12:57, 9 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Ask Fred, and Ed. Rich Farmbrough, 22:26, 19th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).
And DGG. Rich Farmbrough, 15:20, 20 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Conversation - actions required.

Hey Rich,

If you have the time, would you mind doing another search of the dump, as you did at User:Rich Farmbrough/temp14? I've run through that last list. (20 articles which I can't do on my own are all that's left.)

A couple things different this time: no article exclusions (I will simply have AWB ignore anything within templates, unless you can pre-parse those at your end), plus a couple extra characters we missed last time. (If you can search for pure diacritics, that would be even better; otherwise I've noticed some more common combos, such as β̞ i̯ u̯ e̯ o̯, plus another character, ‹ˁ› that is commonly mistaken for IPA ‹ˤ›.)

Thanks, — kwami (talk) 07:13, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, silly me. That worked fine. We missed β̞ last time, though, and if individual diacritics aren't possible, i̯ u̯ e̯ o̯ will probably turn up a good number of hits. — kwami (talk) 06:04, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm doing my own search of the IPA letters (the first block in your search), so never mind about doing them again. However, AWB won't work w ˥ ˦ ˧ ˨ ˩ ꜛ ꜜ, which you included in that block last time. There are also a few new ones you didn't include and AWB wont' cover, if you can add them: ꜞꜝ ↗↘‖˕˔‿ and t͜ . Plus, of course, any diacritics, which AWB search doesn't handle well.
Thanks!! — kwami (talk) 18:54, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note to self

Need to check on enzymes. Rich Farmbrough, 10:39, 18 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Burma

Hi. What's the chances of you being able to use your tools to help with dabbing for Burmese settlements. Check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Burma (Myanmar)/Township templates and User:Dr. Blofeld/Burma#Repeated places names...♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:57, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What I'll do first is draw up all of the templates. Once that is done Abok should be linked inside two different township templates when currently it is just Abok and so. Most of them do not even have dab pages...Once I've drawn up the templates hopefully you will be able to read the what links here and run something... example:Ahlaw. Perhaps you have something which will be able to read the ... Township links and generate dab pages like Ahlaw with Ahlaw Paungbyin and Ahlaw, Tamu linked. Bets thought to wait until I've created all the templates so the links can easily be accessed in the what links here.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:09, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What I envisage is a script which reads .... Township , e.g Ahlaw being linked in the template named Tamu Township and extracts the name and dabs them e.g as Ahlaw, Tamu. It would need to generate pages and also correct the existing links in the templates. Might need BAG approval. I've also proposed it to Plastikspork. Perhaps you could contact him and decide the best way to do it. Meanwhile I'll continue making the templates after I've stubbed some of the few missing township articles for Bago region..♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:30, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Norway

Hi Rich. A while back I began adding infoboxes to Norwegian villages, mostly unreferenced stubs lying around from 2006 which were created by Punkmorten (Geshicte). Given that he won't so much as make the tiniest edit to Norwegian geo articles these days, somebody has to do it.Basically it just adding an infobox with the location info county etc and a pin map like Kjelvik. I was wondering if you could copy the that infobox and use some sort of script to add infoboxes (and copy the coordinates from the bototm of the page into the infoboxes to the rest of the villages by county of the Category:Populated places in Norway. So far I've done Finnmark and Sog. Browse Category:Villages in Akershus for starters for example.. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:57, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What's troubling you Rich? I also need your help with User:Dr. Blofeld/Country year templates.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:42, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Villages, North Cyprus

Hello, I wondered if I could ask you for help? Some time ago someone started a stub for all the villages of North Cyprus. The problem is that they used the Greek names, which are today historical (they have not been used since the war in 1974). Today the Turkish names are used. Hence, as I understand it, according to WP:NAME (see the discussion on Gdańsk vs Danzig) the Turkish names should be used in the articles (Please correct me if I'm wrong).

I have started moving some of the villages of the Kyrenia District -however, it takes for ages for me to do so. I would very much appreciate some help. Thanks, Guestworker (talk) 01:56, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is there evidence that the Turkish names are used in the English speaking world? Rich�Farmbrough, 19:21, 30 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Hi, you can look at any guide-book in English of "North Cyprus" or "Northern Cyprus" (Books which are published in the English speaking world) and you will see the the Turkish names are used. Thanks, Guestworker (talk) 06:53, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Wikipedia:Database reports/Unlisted stub types

I like what you did with this report on the stub templates. Can it be updated? Can a similar report be run for the Categories? Finally, could these be automatically set to update, say, once a month? or even once a quarter? Dawynn (talk) 20:30, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's pretty much what I planned, if they are going to be maintained. However it looked like there were other lists doing a similar job that had not been attended to for a significant period of time. Rich�Farmbrough, 17:49, 8 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Note there is a report for "Uncategorized Stub types" too [[6]]. Rich Farmbrough, 05:24, 9 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Revive Wildbot?

A few folks would love to see someone revive and/or take over Wildbot. You've been mentioned a couple times: [7] [8] Up for it? --W☯W t/c 20:25, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of townlands of County Cork

I note that you've tried to slim down the above page a bit. I took the matter of size to WikiProject Ireland but they didn't seem particularly interested! As you have been around Wikipedia a fair bit (apparently you've got a few thousands edits under your belt), I wondered if you had any ideas on how to make the article accessible to Joe Bloggs. Would splitting it up into List of townlands of County Cork, A–E etc. be acceptable? What's the point in having a page which 80% of readers won't be able to access? Thanks. —Half Price 20:42, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Splitting by barony would make more sense. Rich Farmbrough, 23:31, 19 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Yes, though significantly more troublesome. OK, thanks. —Half Price 11:23, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Except that I already did it.... Rich Farmbrough, 11:25, 20 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Yes, sorry, it isn't hard at all! —Half Price 16:07, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox wine region

Being f Fixed. BTW, hundreds of users have used the wrong infobox on UK school pages (maybe other countries too, I haven't looked yet). Do you know of a quick fix that retains the data? I can't use AWB on my computers. Cheers. --Kudpung (talk) 00:57, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oh? Which template? I thought that there was a resolved discussion which ended up unifying the school (educational institution) infoboxes. Yes I have a fix for this sort of thing. Rich�Farmbrough, 06:38, 31 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]
There is no cohesion at the schools project of the kind you get with a project like wine for example where there is a standardised template and a regular group of dedicated members who monitor the quality of the articles and intervenes where necessary. School articles are each and every one written by SPA, none of them read the guidelines, and in the same way as many new editors think every new article needs a new cat for it, they think every school type or school district needs a custom infobox. The end effect is that we have 39 different infoboxes out there where all we need are three: one for US Schools, one for UK schools, one for Oz schools, and a generic one for the est of the world. A big team has just recently improved the programme functions of the UK Schools infobox, and I've had a list made at Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/UK schools using wrong infoboxes of nearly 400 schools that are using the wrong one. I started to work through the list manually but I felt that this could somehow be automated as I am currently running the schools project pretty much single handed. Any ideas you have would be greatly appreciated. --Kudpung (talk) 07:14, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am pretty sure I replaced all except the UK/Oz ones a couple of years back. And at that time both were completely replaceable with the main infobox - I actually did a trial replacement of each, without loosing any fields. We flatter ourselves that "Ofsted" or "DFES number" is somehow special. Rich�Farmbrough, 09:18, 31 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Hi Rich. Yes, you're right about the DfES and Ofsted fields, but if it was that long ago I guess the 370 on this list are more recent. They have either used deprecated boxes, or copied ones from other school articles. --Kudpung (talk) 19:12, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Removing noinclude tags

Why are you removing noinclude tags: [9]? These year pages are transcluded in higher level articles, and your removal royal screws up the entire chain. 68.35.24.151 (talk) 22:25, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for explaining, I was told there was no current purpose. Onlyinclude is a better directive for this purpose. Rich�Farmbrough, 22:54, 1 January 2011 (UTC).[reply]
I agree. It should be a straightforward task to take all the "year" articles and flip the logic. Even better would be to add a comment next to it as well, so people don't inadvertently remove it. I know I have done the same before in season episode list articles which were being transcluded in another article. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 23:25, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Project Stamford

I've taken up your invite to join, and hope I can do something helpful. But it seems to me there are clever people than me about.

R.J.Penhey (wikipedian RJPe (talk · contribs) might be a useful addition, although he might not want to get involved, judging by what he has said elsewhere. But his own research expertise is far superior to mine [10]

The obvious person to write about Stamford Castle would be David Roffe. But I can't see that he is a wikipedian, unless you know differently. [11] --Robert EA Harvey (talk) 10:24, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Another name: Martin Bell. Have a look at These pages --Robert EA Harvey (talk) 02:26, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]


United States settlements

Hi. I was wondering if you could run something which adds a pushpin map to every infobox by state. I did start doing it manually previously and removed the census maps but I got sidetracked because of objections to the removal of the census maps. However if you were to keep the census maps and to add the pushpin maps this should be fine. Minot, North Dakota for instance. The majority of the articles have the shoddy census maps in them which mostly leaves you really having to look hard where the place actually is in the state. let alone America. Eventually the pin maps will have the US state inserts so you can see where in America it is. Of course I've proposed we have the option like on French wikipedia for clickable maps but nothing is happening there.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:09, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Any thoughts?♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:29, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I did one. May not really suited for AWB because of the complex logic (which I'm not sure of yet) - what other parameters are needed for the pushpin map to work? Rich Farmbrough, 19:35, 19th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).
I was assuming "coordinates_region" needs to be defined. Rich Farmbrough, 19:36, 19th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).

Note

  • The AUTOMOBILE magazine, August 1983.

--

ISO 3166 templates

There are 5895 templates in Category:ISO 3166 code from name templates, 4060 in Category:ISO 3166 name from code templates, 245 in Category:ISO 3166 name from code country templates, and 1868 in Category:ISO 3166 code from name country templates, or in total some 12,000 templates you created over 6 months ago. At first glance, none of these is used anywhere. Can you indicate whether and where these are used (and if so, which categories of these are and which aren't), or if they aren't used, why they shouldn't be deleted (per WP:TFD, "Reasons to delete a template 3. The template is not used, either directly or by template substitution (the latter cannot be concluded from the absence of backlinks), and has no likelihood of being used") Fram (talk) 12:50, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes there is a likelihood of these being used as they are designed particularly for infoboxes, where I intend to use them. Rich�Farmbrough, 13:31, 26th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).
Could you give an actual example for each of the four groups of where and how you intend someday to use them? Fram (talk) 13:34, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm trying to think of examples where people would prefer to type "ISO 3166 code Hungary Veszpr�m City" instead of just HU-VM, or if it has to be templated anyway, why it would be easier to have 12000 separate templates than one (or four, or at most one per country) like with Template:CountryAbbr, which actually is in widespread use. Fram (talk) 14:04, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have nominated the lot at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2011 January 27. Fram (talk) 15:19, 27 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

SmackBot: spacing before stub tags

Last month, the stubs guideline was edited so that it now recommends adding only one line, not two, before stub tags. I recall that, at one time, SmackBot performed these types of edits as part of gen-fixes; I am not sure if that is still the case but, in case it is, I wanted to let you know of the change. Best, -- Black Falcon (talk) 19:53, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Black Falcon, that's weird. Because the text was there for two years and it was changed as minor edit. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:28, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I am not that surprised because I have noticed that 2 spaces now seems to be a little too much, and put it down to the DEFAULTSORT, persondata, and other new gubbins, but it could be that the css fix that we wanted years back has finally gone live. But I hadn't seen anything about it anywhere. Rich�Farmbrough, 21:52, 4 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Rich Farmbrough, 09:11, 2 September 2009 (UTC).

This page shows that 2 blank lines are needed to have the desired spaceing. One and zero are the same as we said in the referenced discussion (referenced in the change to the docs). Rich�Farmbrough, 22:01, 4 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Only thing we should change is to count the DEFAULTSORT as not interrupting the blank line count. Rich�Farmbrough, 22:05, 4 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
After the guideline was changed, I made an AWB request at WP:AWB/FR#One blank line before stub templates. If you disagree with the change to the guidelines, you should make your point here before AWB is changed. McLerristarr�|�Mclay1 05:11, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have reopened the discussion here. Debresser (talk) 09:59, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Poke

Hey RF, Just leaving a note here reminding you to take a look at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SmackBot 40. Thanks! -- Tim1357 talk 05:04, 5 February 2011 (UTC) --[reply]

Just a question

I have a question to Smackbot's 40th task. Could this task be expanded to the following categories: Category:Current sports events, Category:Current sports seasons (and it's subcategories) and Category:Scheduled sports events? Armbrust Talk Contribs 20:39, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Rich�Farmbrough, 20:47, 11 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Ownership/personal attacks

Hey, just a quick question. Is repeatedly accusing another editor of article ownership considered a personal attack? I am curious. ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 20:52, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's an interesting question. I would say it depends on the context. Really citing WP:OWN to a putative owner is only useful if they acknowledge it, or at last stop being OWNy. Which is only going to happen if they are being OWNy. but on the substantive point, I would say it is not a personal attack if it is a.) done in good faith and b.) done to improve the encyclopaedia. I would add a rider that "accusing" is not very often a good idea, as it a conflictive approach, softening words can make for far more productive discourse. Rich�Farmbrough, 21:03, 11 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
As you might imagine, I am not asking simply out of idle curiosity. I have been accused, more than once, in the past week, of article ownership, in cases in which I believe the accusation to be false. The editor who made said accusations has since reverted my edits, with edit summaries that are, at best, snide and accusatory, and certainly not designed to elicit a positive response. The situation is going to continue to worsen unless I decide to stop editing the article, which I refuse to do, since I believe my edits have, overall, been positive. ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 21:20, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hm, well then, ask them to stop the "accusations", ask them to discuss the content and generally promote the D part of BRD. Certainly they should not be making "snide and accusatory" remarks in the edit summary, the edit summary should address the edit, not other editors. And discussion, while it does sometimes take place in summaries should ideally be on the talk page - where consensus can often be reached if there's more than two editors. Rich�Farmbrough, 22:55, 11 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Ok, I realize that was hopelessly vague, so why don't I give you some specifics?
On the 8th, I removed a film from List of steampunk works because the film article never describes it as steampunk, and the ref. provided was questionable. Andy Dingley reverted with his first edit summary accusing me of ownership issues. Andy and I have differed in the past, and he has accuse me of article ownership before.
Then, on the 10th, I removed an addition to the Steampunk article, stating that the ref. provided was to a primary source and thus not reliable. Andy reverted, stating that the individual in question is notable, which was not the issue. I reverted, restating my original argument, and asking that he not simply revert my edits on sight. He reverted yet again, stating, essentially, that I should find a reference. Now, one can argue that, as an editor, I share the responsibility to source the articles that I edit. But, that does not mean that I should refrain from removing content that is not adequately referenced. I would still argue that the content in question is of unproven notability (regardless of the notability of the composer) and the source provided is still a primary source that proves nothing more than that the piece exists and was commissioned by Carnegie Hall. That said, I am not going to revert again.
The larger issue, I believe, is my ability to edit these articles without having to pass muster with Andy Dingley, who, by his actions, is showing some ownership issues of his own. I would like this to stop. I do not want it to continue to escalate. I am asking for your advice/intervention, both as an administrator and an experienced editor. Thanks. ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 01:48, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

User:Femto Bot

Why does this bot keep recreating Category:Articles with trivia sections from October 2007--Jac16888Talk 00:00, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Because it keeps becoming non-empty. Rich�Farmbrough, 00:01, 12 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Note: Feature needed to cite a member page. Rich�Farmbrough, 13:00, 27 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Long-term plans to update Convert

Thanks for helping to improve Template:Convert. I will try to give advance notice when I have changes ready, during the next few weeks. I don't want anyone to feel they should "drop everything they're doing" to update {Convert} within 1 day. No, instead, changes can wait several days, as long as there is a path to progress. Also, User:Plastikspork has been helping to make small fixes, so others will be able to help as well. My next concern is changing Template:Convert/round to correctly round negative numbers, which are rarely used because most measurements are lengths, as real-world positive amounts. Here is the goal for negative rounding (to same number of digits), where negative and positive will be similar:

  • {{convert|700|ft|m}} → 700 feet (210 m) versus {{convert|-700|ft|m}} → −700 feet (−210 m)

Although it seems shoddy now, to round the negative amount as "−213.4" rather than −210, few users have noticed, because most measurements are positive numbers.
After the fix for negative numbers, I think we should eliminate all special treatment of "imperial units" versus "US customary units" by editing all those subtemplates, as a major step toward simplifying Convert; the plan to edit U.S. & imperial templates is discussed at:

In fact, I think most of those U.S./imperial subtemplates (as "Template:Convert/imp*" and "Template:Convert/us*") are basically unused, so most could be reduced to "semi-protection" to allow easier editing of each, as time permits. More later. -Wikid77 14:14, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

New functionality

This edit shown properties to Template:Ambox that I didn't know about and that replace part of the usages of Template:DMCA (which I liked very much). Debresser (talk) 19:46, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, this is going to screw stuff up royally. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 19:50, 13 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Perhaps you two would like to contribute to the discussion? If it is going to screw things up, it would be nice to know about it in advance. By the way I was going to ask if the "undated" category parameter is actually used anywhere because I haven't found it yet. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:04, 21 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes indeed, the whole reason for leaving the thread on my talk page is to remind me to go and comment. Rich Farmbrough, 18:11, 21 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Query; Lists of People

Hi Rich. I hope all is well. A question ...

The rule as to lists of people is that, if an entry lacks both a wikipedia article and a ref -- it is properly deleted.

Many such lists are replete with such entries. I've spent a good deal of time cleaning up many nation lists the past two weeks. Is there any way for a bot to do it? And is there any way to block new entries that lack both indicia of notability? Many thanks.--Epeefleche (talk) 06:53, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Short answer, yes to the first and no to the second. (Well you could use editfilters, but I suspect the edit filter people would say the overhead was not worth it.) Using a bot would have to be restricted to certain pages (like [[<Nationality> people]]) and would have to assume that any ref, web link or WP article blue link on the line meant it was OK. It would have a very small risk of breaking stuff even so. Rich�Farmbrough, 13:41, 23 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
That would be fantastic -- even the first would be a great help, and relieve contributing editors of bot-work. How might we move that forward? Many thanks.--Epeefleche (talk) 22:35, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Can you create a list of the pages? The I could put in a BRFA citing this thread and see what happens. My BRFAs do seem to take an inordinate amount of time right now. Rich�Farmbrough, 22:48, 23 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
The hundreds of lists of people that are listed at the following page (and the indicated sub-categories) would be an amazing start:
--Epeefleche (talk) 11:02, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, there are included pages such as List of names in A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Rationalists, where it would be an error to remove the red-linked names. Rich�Farmbrough, 13:16, 24 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
If the red-links there are not footnoted, I think they are subject to deletion, per wp:LISTPEOPLE. Which says: "If a person in a list does not have an article in Wikipedia about them, a citation (or link to another article) must be provided to establish their membership in the list's group and to establish their notability." But, if you think it better, perhaps we could start with a very small and clean group of lists, such as Category:Lists of people by U.S. cities. Or, (and this has more "gray" entries, which I could cull if you like) Category:Lists of people by nationality.--Epeefleche (talk) 13:31, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That is what I meant, pretty much, by a list of the pages. (The example I gave would escape the letter of the rule, but would fall foul of a bot, but there are others such as List of Swedish ambassadors to the Ukraine which are clearly not the sort of thing meant, but technically fall under the rule.) The purpose of the rule is to protect against massive, unmaintainable and (possibly) inaccurate lists. Rich�Farmbrough, 13:55, 24 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

ship by year categories

About a year ago you ran a program that was making changes like this to ship articles that need a "by year" category. I can no longer find the threads where this was discussed but I believe that you ran this using another editor's script. If it's possible for you to dig up that script again I would be grateful if you could run it again. Brad (talk) 21:11, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't remember much of the details but I do remember there was some complexity with
  1. ships with no laid down date / launch date etc.. there was a hierarchy of fields to get the year from
  2. the categories only goo back by year to a certain point, and from then are decades and centuries
I'll try and look for the settings, but as it was a one-off I may well have tweaked them as I worked through the groups and only have the comissoned/centuries version left. Rich�Farmbrough, 00:25, 26 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
I found the thread at botreq. It would be the same routine this time around as well. Likely there will be less articles than the last time you ran it. Individual years run from 1850 to the present and by decade from the 1600s to 1840s. But no hurry on this one. Actually, let me think about other chores that could be done at the same time so as not to upset the edit police. Brad (talk) 04:43, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There's a few thousand candidates at first glance - going by {{Infobox ship begin}}, but most are actually "class" articles. Rich�Farmbrough, 21:30, 26 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Well I'm not sure whether you're adding the by year categories by hand or by bot, but either way I think you should stop. I found three or four incorrect entries in your last three or four edits. Ship commission dates are not ship launch dates, which is what the "by year" categories list. Ships can often be commissioned years after they are built, particularly in the case of merchant ships purchased by the Navy as auxiliaries etc. Gatoclass (talk) 15:01, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If they have no launch date and no completed date, then I can leave them blank, awaiting further discussion, that's no problem. Of course sometimes there is acquired date, maiden voyage date or laid down date, which I can use if appropriate. Rich�Farmbrough, 15:06, 27 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Unfortunately, you seem to be missing at least some of those as well. I looked over half a dozen edits and found at least three where a "laid down" or other date was there and you still used the commission date. So if you are going to continue this, I think you will need to take more care. Apart from that, I think it would be better if you left the category blank if you only have a commission date. The U.S. Navy had hundreds of requisitioned ships in numerous wars where the launch date was long before the commission date. Regards, Gatoclass (talk) 17:59, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's fine. I did notice some civil war ships were dated (in the title) by the date of acquisition (e.g. USS Calypso (1863)), but I can use launched, completed, failing that and laid down finally, otherwise leave blank. Rich�Farmbrough, 18:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Guidelines

By year categories should be added when infobox ship career has:

  1. A year in |launched= or
  2. A year in |completed=

Any other heading is too arbitrary to count on. The idea behind 'ship by year' was to identify what year the ship was built. Class articles are another challenge as classes of ships sometimes span a decade in which they're built. If a class of ships were built during the 1970s then 1970s ships would suffice. But some classes spanned decades and |Built range= is not always filled in for Infobox ship class overview. Any ideas on how ship class articles could be done? Brad (talk) 04:01, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I didn't know that people were adding year dates to ship classes. That does seem a bit awkward to me. Can you point me to an example?
In regards to the by year guidelines you mention, I would endorse those. There is still the question however of whether we should prefer launch dates or completion dates (I can't see anything about by year categories in the guideline BTW). Gatoclass (talk) 04:56, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
When Sam set up the categories he was using launched as the preference, and when I added a lot of ships later I was using the same priority. The first couple I looked at, however included one where "laid down" was equal to "commissioned" this was eminently categorisable of course. Rich�Farmbrough, 13:40, 28 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
We have always gone with a preference on launch date over completed. Sometimes one is filled in over the other or both. As for class articles, why would a year category be the wrong thing to do? The ships were built during a decade and sometime two decades. You complain; I educate. Brad (talk) 15:42, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If classes are to be categorised mayeb they should be
  1. Top sorted
  2. In all the decades which apply.
Rich�Farmbrough, 13:40, 28 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
I'm not sure what you mean. Top sorted? Brad (talk) 15:42, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, something like [Category:1860s ships| Brigade class destroyer] so that the classes come before individual ships. Rich�Farmbrough, 15:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
I think it would be best to not top sort just now. That's something requiring a project conversation. Have you figured out a way of determining a decade for the class articles that don't a built range filled in? Brad (talk) 18:28, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 28 February 2011

Copyedit

Any reason why your sparse "copyedit" edits are going against the MOS and other guidelines in almost every respect? E.g. here: changing the capitalisation of templates for no good reason, changing U.S. to US against Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Abbreviations, and removing the spaces from around one header and leaving it all the the others (making it inconsistent), instead of leaving it well alone? Here, you mix some good things with again changing U.S. to US, and changing reflist to Reflist. This also just replaced one parameter for no good reason, changed the capitalization for no reason either, and improved one thing at the same time. While you are no longer doing it automated (or at an automated speed at least), you are still doing the same changes. Why is it so hard to leave spaces in headers and template capitalization alone? Fram (talk) 09:35, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good to see you are keeping busy. Funnily enough, in normal English we don't say "Fred Bloggs (profession)". Nothing is contrary to MoS. I edited in an alternative title for Others and changed it back if you must know. Why is it so hard to leave other editors alone? Rich�Farmbrough, 09:45, 1 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]
In the first example, you change U.S. Army to US Army, but the MOS states "In American English, U.S. (with periods) is more common as the standard abbreviation for United States". None of the exceptions in the MOS apply. So why did you change this? Your change to the section header violated WP:CONSISTENCY, a general principle of the MOS. Apparently this time it was by accident, fine, but it still is "contrary to MOS", despite what you claim. The same inconsistency is apparent in your capitalization of templates: changing "wiktionary" and "tocright", but not bothering with "selfref" and "disambig". In general, you violate the second general principle of the MOS over and over again, previously in your AWB edits, now in your "copyedits": "Editors should not change an article from one guideline-defined style to another without a substantial reason unrelated to mere choice of style, and that revert-warring over optional styles is unacceptable.[1] Where there is disagreement over which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor." Spaces from section headers, capitalization of templates, changing the MOS supported U.S. to US, ..., these are all your personal preferences which you impose for no good reason. Fram (talk) 10:13, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wiktionary is a proper noun. "TOC right" is clearer than tocright. MoS does not support U.S. over US it simply states that U.S. is more common in American English, and specifically deprecates U.S. when juxtaposed with other county acronyms. Take a chill pill, preferably two. Rich�Farmbrough, 10:25, 1 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]
And which other "country acronyms" were in that article? ... Then again, I had previously said to you that changes like this and the thousands of identical ones shouldn't have been made in that form, introducing US State in all these articles when the actual article is at U.S. state. So this is clearly a continued MOS violation by you. Whether TOC right is clearer than tocright, and whether Template:Contents right wouldn't be even clearer still, is personal preference. And you can hardly claim that Reflist is clearer than reflist or any of the other capitalization changes you made. Apart from that, I am quite calm, thank you, so no need for a chill pill. Apart from that, I notice that I have ignored your "copyedits" when you were still mainly active through AWB, but I shouldn't have ignored these apparently. looking at some older edits with the same edit summary, there are plenty of problems. Changing BCE to BC is a pure MOS violation[12]. Other, more recent ones? Let's take e.g. the end of January: this is again just a capitalization change. 10:51, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
This shows the article was created with BC style. And indeed you should have ignored them because you are not helping anything, you are serving no purpose, by your actions. You are not helping me, you are not helping yourself. You are not helping readers, or other editors. Please return to editing and allow me to do the same. Rich Farmbrough, 11:00, 1 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Bot jobs on main account

Regarding the "Replace deprecated 'WikiProject Space' banner" job you are carrying out using your main account.

  1. Would you be able to do this job on a separate account?
  2. Is there a BRFA for this task or did you decide this was unnecessary in this case?

Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:06, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  1. I can run this on another account, though I don't know how that will help.
  2. No BRFA should be needed for this task.

Rich Farmbrough, 16:13, 1 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]

  1. It is something which you have repeatedly been requested to do. There are several reasons for this. One advantage is greater transparency: having thousands of trivial edits on your main account may obscure important edits you are making. Another is that it is easier to block a second account if something goes wrong with the process, whereas some may be more reluctant to block your main account. So, if you don't mind doing so, please run all bot jobs on a separate account in future.
  2. How do you decide whether a BRFA is necessary or not? In some cases, when you have bypassed BRFA it has turned out in hindsight that further discussion would have been helpful.
— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would rather run everything on bot accounts, script assisted edits are extremely tedious, AWB edits even more so (though they deliver more value). However for anything up to a few thousand edits, unless it's going to be a recurring event it's just not worth it. My BRFA's languish for months at a time, when they are finally approved I often have to re-code from scratch - enthusiasm is somewhat diminished too. I prefer to get stuff done even if theoretically I should have 100 more BRFA's in the queue. Rich Farmbrough, 16:58, 1 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]
That's a helpful response. Could we separate the two issues? Whether you run a job on a separate account or your main account does not seem to be affected by whether or not you obtain approval for a task. In other words, you could continue working with your script or AWB on a separate account. If you can agree that all future jobs be run on this other account could we consider this first matter resolved? About the second issue (whether to go to BRFA or not) I can appreciate your point that the delays can be demotivating. It seems that in the past your reluctance to face these long delays have meant that you've failed to get approval for some processes which would have benefitted from greater attention. Is this a fair assessment? I have a suggestion which might alleviate some concerns. On those occasions when you are confident that the job is sufficiently small and uncontroversial that getting explicit approval is unnecessary, could you at least discuss what you are going to do with at least one other editor (preferably more) before you start? And if you could link to a relevant discussion in your edit summary I think that would also help. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There is a reasonable but hidden assumption that, for example AWB is used for 100s or thousands of edits. Sometimes I use it for a handful of edits, even sometimes just one. This affects both your proposals. Secondly some things actually need preliminary work to determine if they are feasible, before it's worth having a discussion. Thirdly , often something can be floated and get no response until you actually start doing it (On one template I made a proposal, and after two days with no comment, implemented it - only to be told that I had "unilaterally" made a change). Subject to those reservations your ideas are sound, if people will actually behave better as a result. Experience to date is that some, at least, won't. Rich Farmbrough, 18:12, 1 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Okay so would you agree to do any job that will involve more than 100 edits on a separate account, starting from today? And will you provide a decent edit summary with a link for those who want more information to go and find a relevant discussion or official approval? The summary "Minor fixes using AWB" is quite unhelpful and it is these minor edits which are causing most of the controversy. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:54, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the assessment that it takes so long for a BRFA that even a moderate speed edit rate could accomplish most tasks long before the BRFA ever came back. I also question the need for yet another account (Rich Farmbrough lite as it were) when he already has several. IMO this would in fact make it even harder to determine the source especially since Rich is so well known in the community. It shouldn't matter if he is doing 5 edits or 5000 as long as it is a needed change (like updating the Space banners). Although I do admit that sinc he has so many fans and followers these days watching his edits that creating a new account might draw less attention for the Paparazzi. --Kumioko (talk) 16:09, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I was hoping from a response from Rich on this, please. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:43, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
More than 24 hours on, still waiting for a response. Can we make any progress on this issue? You are still running bot jobs on your main account and still using non-desciptive edit summaries such as "minor fixes". — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:09, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
They are not bot jobs, would that they were, they would be complete. I'll tweak the edit summary. Rich Farmbrough, 20:18, 4 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]

SmackBot

Smackbot, Rich, Spencer et al. Please let us know what we need to send to you so you can stop reverting the University School Wikipedia page. There are descriptions (such as "the Greater Cleveland Ohio area" that we want to use - why are these changes being reverted? Similar, "Other Championships" is an appropriate heading for Tennis and Lacrosse because these are not OHSAA sports. The list goes on and on... Please advise what we need to provide you to prevent the constant editing of our webpage. Thank you. K. Pleasant, University School Director of Marketing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kcpleasant (talk • contribs) 18:15, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

SmackBot

NL-Aid has published a list of evidence against the organisation. Less proof has been submitted for UFO's around the world. I would take it very serious. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joop Versteggen (talk • contribs) 18:44, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Scotland (continued)

Hi. Thanks for that, I've sorted out Indonesian links. Now Scotland. Can you do the same thing with the maps in Category:Populated places in Inverness committee area and Category:Populated places in Sutherland? Once that's done I'll add the infoboxes to the remainder.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:22, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Controversial and/or incorrect AWB edits

Any reason that you are still changing the capitalisation of Persondata parameters, despite clear opposition to this from a number of people?[13][14][15][16][17][18], ... It's not as if your code cant' handle it, here it works just fine. This is the kind of edit you shouldn't be making with AWB (lots of diff noise, but no actual change to the page or anything related to it). Your AWB edits also again contain errors which have been pointed out to you previously, like adding the same parameter twice with different values[19] or adding new tags with the wrong month[20][21][22]. Fram (talk) 07:49, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Would it be an idea to request the folks at AWB to ensure that the Personendata field names are in lower case? --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 09:21, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Considering that the previous discussion on this at Wikipedia talk:Persondata#Uppercase parameters was just last month and didn't support the change from uppercase to lowercase; and considering that the actual template Template:Persondata uses uppercase in its documentation (and most pages that have persondata use uppercase as well), I see no reason to change AWB (which wouldn't affect Rich anyway, probably, since his "AWB" edits are not really standard AWB anyway). Whether newly added Persondata templates should use upper- or lowercase parameters, or leave it up to whatever the editor prefers, is a different discussion. But changing ones already there from the documented version to a personally preferred version, with the help of automated tools to speed up the conversion, is a clear violation of the rules of use of AWB, and of MOS:STABILITY. Fram (talk) 09:35, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem with the date is that because of limitations in the WikiMedia software the date has to be left explicitly - this means code needs monthly updating. It's really not a big deal if a few articles get put in the wrong bucket. Rich Farmbrough, 13:41, 2 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]

So, you just continue with this[23][24]? What a surprise... By the way, any reason why you keep the "auto=yes" when you change "unreferenced" to "refimprove"? That parameter is not supported in that template, and I assume that you have actually chcked the articles, so the tag isn't "auto-"added anymore anyway... Oh, and the obligatory actual error is also present: here you have corrected the date you use in the new tags, but adding the year twice is not really helpful... Fram (talk) 13:23, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes because I upgraded all my rules last night, finishing at about 6:30 am, and didn't add back the one that removes auto=yes from refimprove tags. Rich�Farmbrough, 13:27, 2 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]
You know you complained about duplicate parameters and I accommodated you, you complained about the order of the parameters and and I accommodated you, then you complained about mixed case and and I accommodated you. Lower case are standard for parameters. I'm not even changing every occurrence I come across, just those where a new parameter is added. Rich�Farmbrough, 13:41, 2 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Or stated otherwise: you made multiple errors with duplicate parameters until I repeatedly pointed this out to you (well, you even did it today, as indicated above[25], so it's not really clear whether you really "accommodated" anything); you changed the order of parameters for no good reason, until I pointed this out to you; you mixed uppercase and lowercase parameters in one template, for no good reason, until I pointed this out to you; basically, you don't check your AWB edits thoroughly enough by far, but you just continue despite numerous complaints, restrictions, and blocks. The uppercase vs. lowercase parameters for Persondata has been discussed with you by other people than me, and at the template page: it is clear that there is no consensus for your position. Therefor, you should not be doing this. This has nothing to do with "accommodating" me, this is just following some basic polices and guidelines, and the rules of use of AWB. Fram (talk) 13:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As to the actual error I am investigating that now. That is a useful bug report, which I nearly missed. Rich�Farmbrough, 13:41, 2 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]
�Done Rich�Farmbrough, 13:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Apart from continuation of the above, you also violate your editing restriction with this. Any reason, by the way, why you are in many other edits also changing "reflist" and "references/" to "Reflist"? These are not included in Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects, and I thought you were not supposed to change the capitalization of templates (certainly not in cases wher you otherwise don't change it, like with reflist). Fram (talk) 15:41, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, reverted. Rich�Farmbrough, 15:44, 2 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Above you said: "I'm not even changing every occurrence I come across, just those where a new parameter is added." Oh really? [26] Fram (talk) 15:47, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes "date of birth" is added there. Rich�Farmbrough, 15:49, 2 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]
I don't have a problem with the other edits but I do agree that we shouldn't be changing persondata to lowercase unless there is some technical reason for this that I do not understand I think leaving it all caps, due to the unique nature and purpose of the template, is best. In the past I have found that the date fields in the persondata template sometimes confuse the date fields in things like infoboxes when they are lowercase. Even in some cases adding the parameters again because they weren't recognized. If they are uppercase I have not seen a problem. --Kumioko (talk) 15:54, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The re-adding problem is, I believe, resolved in AWB. Possibly if we want to emphasize the unusual nature (it's not unique) of the template, we should call it {{Meta data}}. Persondata was just foisted on us by de:, who do things very differently in some respects, without tailoring it the en: practices - indeed we could have (could still) incorporate "Person authority" (terrible name, almost worse than "Normdaten") into the template, simplifying things a lot. Rich Farmbrough, 16:03, 2 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]
I actually agree that calling it persondata is a bit bland and not very evident of its purpose. Meta data person I think would be more appropriate and better explain what its purpose is. Especially if at some point in the future we start creating metadata templates for other things like ships, buildings or locations for example. --Kumioko (talk) 16:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, and the reason we have invented natural language is to express the complex concepts we want to express, real world things actually take a lot of coercion into words, take the height of buildings, for example, there is a whole sub-science in defining the top and bottom, and even what constitutes a building, that is known only to tall-building buffs. And yet we are quite happy to talk about the height of most buildings that probably haven't used these definitions, or even to simply cl something a "four story building". Even the person who does use Persondata argued for the retention of what are in effect natural language markers. Rich Farmbrough, 16:28, 2 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]
My apologies, I missed that. Fram (talk) 20:04, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. Rich Farmbrough, 20:13, 2 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Considering my mistake above, I'll try to bring this one in a less snarky manner, but I think that this edit changed the capitalization of the Persondata parameters without any change to the values, and additionally it added a "date" parameter to the multiple issues tag, which doesn't use a "date" parameter... Herehere and here you use the capitalized version of the defaultsort for the persondata, instead of the article title (Mac vs. mac). You still use incorrect months in new tags[27]. And of course I still oppose you changing uppercase persondata parameters to lowercase ones, and Kumioko above does as well (and others did in other discussions). Please stop doing this until you have a consensus for it. Fram (talk) 08:24, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The name parameter had previously been added. Multiple issues does take a date parameter, although it is usually unused. I hope to change that soon. The "mac" issue is interesting, and can be addressed I suppose at AWB level - i am already fixing a lot of "Of" and "02" but in the case of mac I can't assume that "mac" is correct and "Mac" wrong, so a regex fix would be harder. Rich Farmbrough, 16:55, 3 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Dating for {{multiple issues}} is done by placing the date as the value of each issue parameter so each issue can have its own date. |date= is used only in conjunction with |expert= when that parameter is used for the type of expert needed. Please don't go making one of your "I'm going to change a widely-used template without discussion because I think I know best" edits. Thanks. Anomie⚔ 19:05, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I am aware, among other reasons, since I created {{Multiple issues/message}}. Rich Farmbrough, 19:31, 3 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Since AnomieBot can do the tagging with no mistakes why the two bots don't cooperate? -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:46, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Since AnomieBot can do the tagging with no mistakes why don't we just let AnomieBot do the tagging? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:07, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Anomiebot does make mistakes but it doesn't have 5 or 6 edits checking every edit looking for a problem to report. I have noticed occasional hickups in Anomiebots edits but it wasn't what I would consider an error so much as a minor edit so I didn't bother reporting it. I don't think its a problem to have 2 bots doing the same task (I think they both do changes the other doesn't) but I do agree that there are some edits that need to stop here. --Kumioko (talk) 14:45, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If it is just about the dating of tags, then SmackBot is currently running without much problems as well. The problems mainly happen when other edits are combined with it (other Smackbot tasks in the past, and the current AWB edits). Fram (talk) 15:06, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't just that edit and as far as I am concerned the dating of tags falls under the Minor/trivial edit that CBM keeps harping is not allowed. What does it really mean if the tag has a date, very little, the problem still exists regardless of how long its been there and few if any are actually looking at the oldest ones first. I am not going to open that can of worms here though because frankly I don't have a problem with the edit aside from my feelings that its unimportant. I make the assumption that Smackbot does other things based on the fact that SmackBot 42 is pending a bot request. I realize not all got approved and some were probably one off runs that are done but that leaves at least a few items in the 41 previous requests that don't pertain to dating maintenance tags. I have to assume that there are some in there that are not covered by another bot. Even if they are Rich frankly spends far more time on here than most of the other operators combined so the chances are higher he will get it done faster, even if the rate of inconsequential edits is higher. --Kumioko (talk) 16:45, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Most of SmackBot's other tasks are not happening right now, because we have transitioned from a laid back "get things done" approach (the essence of Wiki) to an "OMG he made an edit, the world will end" approach. It's no big deal. Things that would be done in one edit will take maybe 10, and those complaining about "unnecessary edits" "Clogged watchlists" and "long histories" will be happy they did the right thing because, they will say to themselves (and each other, probably) "things would have been even worse if we had done nothing". And things will take 10 years that should take 2 months, but no-one will know. And eventually, I suspect, maybe in 4 years maybe in 20, the project will be more and more locked down, and part of the establishment, and become the Encyclopaedia Britannica of Web 3.0 - some new entry will take its role as the cutting edge place to go to find things out, not, maybe, a bad thing. Rich Farmbrough, 18:46, 3 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]
You sir are absolutely right and evidence of that is all around us. Less people using it, less people editing it, less edits being made, more articles being deleted, more people discussing and less people editing, we already have more rules and policies than any US state has Rules for driving, etc. Why do today what you can put off till tomorrow. Hard work pays off over time but laziness and complacency pay off now. (shaking my head) every day I get closer and closer to my last edit! --Kumioko (talk) 19:01, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is irrelevant of what's going on here. I also don't like the "don't disturb the watchlists" argument but this argument is one reason that I support Rich/SmackBot to do as much as possible in 1 run. I also try most of the things to be part of awb in order to have control of bugs, exceptions, etc. But, right now, SmackBot adds tags in a way that produces more bugs than anomiebot and persondata in a way that produces more bugs than rjw's bot. awb provides a way to add persondata with no bugs but Rich uses a different method! So, my problem is not "many edits" or "trivial edits" but "wrong edits" (duplicated entries in persondata, wrong date tags etc.) and "unnecessary changes". I also get a lot of fire from Carl and others but we have to find some way to work all together. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:30, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The bot does not, as far as I know have any problems, except that I don't use AWB for it much if at all now -throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and making development a question of perl rather than regex/C#. Rich Farmbrough, 19:46, 3 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Oh and AWB does make mistakes in the name part of Persondata. Rich Farmbrough, 19:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]
I am assuming that one of the "errors" Magioladitis is mentioning is the lowercasing of the persondata and the random casing changes the some (although I also prefer the templates to have an uppercase first letter) have a problem with. Perhaps it is not the bot but your personal usage of AWB with your main account (i'm not really sure and I'm not really sure it matters). Personally the lowercasing of the persondata is the one I find most annoying and could personally care less about a few unneeded casing changes or minor/trivial edits. Even the Persondata isn't something I would complain about since it isnt't "breaking something", but I don't agree with it and prefer the persondata to be uppercase. --Kumioko (talk) 20:18, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For example: AWB fixed the date bug inside cite templates and I see no reason to use a custom made function that adds wrong dates (January 2011 instead of March 2011). This is minor of course but makes me feel insecure. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:00, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The version I have still adds {Subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME} Rich Farmbrough, 23:24, 4 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]

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