User:Debresser/My work on Wikipedia

Wikipedia error and maintenance categories

 * Missing references list

Category:Pages with missing references list.

A forgotten tag will "eat" the rest of the page, also causing this error. Sometimes the problem is in consecutively transcluded templates, like in this fix. See Help:Cite errors for more cases and solutions.

I often use Template:Template reference list (see below) to fix this error in templates.


 * Broken references

Category:Pages with broken reference names contains the real and hard-to-solve broken references. Most of them are the result of vandalism, sometimes of careless edits by unexperienced editors, adding whatever they have to say right in the middle of a reference. Very hard to solve was this fix, or this one, fixing an edit that had hidden part of an article and displayed an error message since 24 August 2007.

The message I leave on user talkpages:


 * Incorrect references

Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting


 * Broken citations, deprecated parameters

Category:Articles with incorrect citation syntax has been expanded to include all kinds of errors. I used to fix Category:Pages with citations lacking titles and Category:Pages with archiveurl citation errors, but they have grown huge. So I took upon myself the smaller Category:Pages with URL errors only. Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters is now also a subcategory here and is huge as well.

I try to work at least on the templates, since they affect other pages, sometimes even many pages. Templates in this category can be found here. Debresser (talk) 21:39, 21 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Protection templates

Category:Wikipedia pages with incorrect protection templates

See the category page for my proposed remedies.

A message I have to place on templates often is


 * Invalid date in template

Category:Articles with invalid date parameter in template

Often very easy: capitalization of names of months; spelling out names of months from abbreviations; typos; and incorrect dateformat (like DD MM YYYY instead of MM YYYY).


 * Substituted templates

Category:Pages with incorrectly substituted templates

The message I use is


 * Template loops

Category:Pages with template loops.

The standard message I use for the almost daily template loop made by some novice user is:


 * Soft redirects

Category:Wikipedia non-empty soft redirected categories

Mostly this is simply renaming categories in articles. But occasionaly there are complications, as when a template sorts into such a category, like in this fix.

A message I often use on articles is:


 * Deprecated templates

Category:Pages using deprecated templates

Many files come from templates that are tagged as deprecated not in the correct way, which is with noinclude tags in the initial phase.

Sometimes one needs to add date parameters, which sometimes involved moving Tdeprecated to documentation pages, adding noinclude tags, eliminating remaining occurrences of deprecated templates, and nominating a few of them for deletion.

An editsummary I often use is


 * Misplaced userspace drafts

Category:Misplaced userspace drafts


 * Half merges

Category:Articles for merging with no partner Find the intended merge target and tag correctly.


 * Items to be merged

Category:Items to be merged I remove categories and templates, since they should be tagged with other, more specific templates. Often I decide to reject a merge proposal, or nominate it with the correct templates.

Note that merge templates should never be on talkpages.


 * Misplaced templates

Category:Pages with misplaced templates Just switch between article mainspace and talkpage.


 * Unsourced categories

Category:Articles with unsourced categories (Moved to Category:Articles with uncited categories.


 * Speedy template

Category:Templates for speedy deletion with incorrect formatting


 * Self-reference

Category:Articles containing self-references

Remove the self-reference, or decide it is justified.


 * Overlinked

Category:Articles with too many wikilinks

One should delete both repetitions of internal links as well as irrelevant ones.


 * Maintenance categories

Category:Wikipedia maintenance categories with missing months


 * Unsupported types

Category:Articles with tags with unsupported types Just find them and remove them.

Jewish
And I created categories Category:Chabad-Lubavitch Wikipedians and Category:Wikipedian rabbis to go with them.

Note: The picture was removed from the Chabad-Lubavitch userbox by a bot because it is not free-use. If you have a free-use picture of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, please let me know. Debresser (talk) 08:59, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Currentmonthday
Currentmonthday:

It even inspired User:Edokter to make another template like it but the European way around:

Currentdaymonth:

I wanted they should be turned into Magic words, but apparently I was the only one to think that's a good idea.

Templaterefsection
Template reference list: A template for showing references on a template page.

Monthyear
Monthyear: July 2024

Shows the name of the month and the year.

Monthyear+1: August 2024

Shows the name of the month and the year as they will be in another month.

And analogously Monthyear-1: June 2024

Shows the name of the month and the year as they were one month ago.

Absolute value
renders 5 (This template was deleted, although for no good reason, IMHO. Available at User:Σ/Testing facility/Absolute value.)

Of course, one could always use  ->

Contributed to significantly
I have contributed significantly (usually more in quality than in quantity) to intricate templates like:
 * undefined parameters in Coord (see here)
 * category handling in Fix (see here) and Ambox (see here and here)
 * archive parameters in Citation/core and Cite web (see here)
 * parameter handling in Album cover fur and related templates (see here)
 * exotic parameter handling in Deprecated template (see here)
 * and general discussion regarding Dated maintenance category (see talkpage).

Editnotice
I created Editnotices/Group/Template:Broken ref an editnotice: for a template and its related pages that are supposed to show error messages.

Monthly maintenance categories
See List of monthly maintenance categories given month and List of monthly maintenance categories with templates.

Linnea Sinclair
The first whole article I tried to write was Linnea Sinclair.

I did this because of two reasons.
 * 1) I was looking for a Wikipedia page on her myself.
 * 2) For the fun of writing a Wikipedia page myself.

Point Valid
Point Valid is a band performing with Catherine Asaro (see below) in the Diamond Star Project.

This article is also where I do my test edits in Wikipedia mainspace. Probably out of a misplaced sense of ownership.

The Last Homecoming
An article about The Last Homecoming, a Greek language film by Cypriot female director Korinna (or Corinna) Avraamidou. Starring the beautiful Maria Kitsou.

Romantic fantasy
I reworked the lead of the Romantic fantasy article. See the talkpge for what and why.

David Weber / Honorverse
I started working on the articles about Science Fiction writer David Weber and the Honorverse he created, together with all related articles (see Template:Honorverse). This included a lot of deleting and merging, among other things. Categorizing redirects, updating the template.

The Languages of Pao
As I have mentioned elsewhere, the book The Languages of Pao has had some influence on me. I have never forgotten the central idea of it, called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, as I found out today while reading the Wikipedia article on the book]]. It's no more than a stub really, just a large plot summary. This plot summary was actually wrong in a few places, both in factual content as well as in the order of events, not to mention that it didn't mention some events at all. Actually, it still doesn't. But I did change the things that were really wrong.

I added a section "Sapir–Whorf hypothesis" with a great reference.

I added a short section about euphemisms to the article. I added a line or two about this book in the articles Eunuch and Drowning, and in the article Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as well.

Catherine Asaro and the Saga of the Skolian Empire
I improved the article about Catherine Asaro itself. Then I reworked much of the Saga of the Skolian Empire articles. They were put together well, both the articles as well as their internal linking.

Merged the redirected articles Jagernaut, Roca Skolia, Eldrinson Althor Valdoria, Kelricson Garlin Valdoria Skolia, and the deleted Kurj Skolia, Sauscony Lahaylia Valdoria Skolia, Jaibriol III, Dyhianna Selei, Taquinil Selei, and Tarquine Iquar (which I had restored from deletion), into a rewritten Saga of the Skolian Empire.

Merged Rhon, Kyle Web, and Psion (Saga of the Skolian Empire), into a rewritten Rhon psion.

My user page
I've started something of a user page. For the fun of it. And so that you might know me better. For to know is to respect - D. de Bresser (that's me).

I actually like it. Please come and visit. Bring along your sense of humor too.

I keep updating it, as I find more banners and other stuff.

Jewish Wikipedians
I completely revised Category:Jewish Wikipedians and its subcategories, as well as the related Category:Jewish user templates and its subcategories. Basically that means checking for each individual page (be it a category itself or a template/userbox) whether the categories it possesses put it in its appropriate place in the category tree. And for templates and userboxes that means checking apart from the above also whether it bestows the appropriate categories on pages it is transcluded to. I added tables with appropriate templates where applicable.

WikiProject Belarus template
I removed the WikiProject Belarus template from some 70-80 articles related to Chabad-Lubavitch. Apparently they were tagged en masse in 2007. At that time some complaints were noted at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Belarus. I do not know what action was taken at that time, although some was promised, but today I cleaned them all out. I left the template only in a few instances, on the articles of some 5 rabbis who were born in places that at one time or the other belonged to what is now Belarus. I left a note on the talkpage of the project's founder and main activist, User_talk:Zscout370.

Cite error sorting
See also Template:Broken ref and Template:Citation error.

Wikipedia over time
Wikipedia has been getting better. And it has become more of a bureaucracy. I see signs of that in the ever increasing amount of reverts as part of the total number of edits on Wikipedia.

It used to be that sanctions were meted out as needed, to prevent further trouble in an ongoing specific conflict. Never punitive. That is one of the differences between a community and a bureaucracy. When sanctions start to take into account the possible future behavior of individuals in not yet exploited area of conflict, which may never be exploited if things were left to their own accord, then we have reached the status of bureaucracy.

Wikipedia used to be a community. I think it is at least on the border of a bureaucracy. I watch further development with interest. Debresser (talk) 05:51, 25 June 2014 (UTC)


 * You are right, I think it is both, but then I am an editor who went to WikiMania2012 and WikiMania2014 partly to meet and enjoy the community, partly to learn, and partly to oppose parts of the bureaucracy.--DThomsen8 (talk) 22:28, 1 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Nice to meet you. Debresser (talk) 22:49, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Another thing I notice is the increasing amount of reverts. That implies either that there are more vandals relatively speaking, or - and that is what I think it implies - that the article are better now than they used to be, and most editors who think they improve an article actually do not make improvements. Debresser (talk) 16:53, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Of the 5 edits on my watchlist today (I removed a lot of articles after I stopped being an active editor), 4 were reverts. Debresser (talk) 19:04, 9 December 2021 (UTC)