User talk:Δ/20110301

The Signpost: 28 February 2011
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Thanks
Just a quick thanks for your edit to Bots/Status  ·Add§hore·  T alk T o M e ! 19:24, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 7 March 2011
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Request for WebCite archiving
I just sent a request to archive the reference links in New Horizons, using the toolserver link you gave me a while ago. I just managed to repair all broken reference links in that article and want to prevent them from going dead. Some of the references have already been archived at WebCite. If this works, it wouldn't be necessary for me to archive a links 'by hand'. Hope it works. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 18:28, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ ΔT The only constant 18:38, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Cool, thanks very much. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 19:37, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Editor count as of date
Thanks for your offer. I'd like to know the edit count as of the creation of a WikiProject proposal in 2009, which are listed here. (The purpose of the empty column in those tables is to record the proposer's edit count. Ultimately, I'm trying to figure out what characteristics predict significant activity in a young WikiProject beyond >12 months.)

Do you have a preferred format for the data? I know that wikitables aren't always the most convenient. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:01, 12 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Also, if it's not too much trouble, would it be possible to get some idea of the account's age as of that date? (Number of days would be fine.)  Thanks,  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:20, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * account age should be trivial, as for format I just need a username and a timestamp 20110313031300 is the preferred timestamp format. ΔT The only constant 03:14, 13 March 2011 (UTC)


 * No problem. It will take me a few days, but I'll post the list when I have it.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:23, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

spam blacklist still on watchlist?
Hi!

Still watching MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist? -- seth (talk) 21:24, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, just have a lot on my plate. ΔT The only constant 03:14, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

New snapshot
I strongly advice that you update to AWB's latest snapshot: http://toolserver.org/~awb/snapshots/ We fixed tenths of minor problems. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:28, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * thanks I checked with the updater before starting. ΔT The only constant 15:29, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 March 2011
Read this Signpost in full &middot; Single-page &middot; Unsubscribe &middot; EdwardsBot (talk) 00:40, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

~betacommand/AFD.html
Some suggestions for http://toolserver.org/~betacommand/AFD.html - Add a sort feature so that each column can be sorted. Add a total # participants column, a keep/delete ratio column, and a keep/delete ratio column. That way, editors can keep tabs of where the AfD action is (as of this moment Proposed Libyan no-fly zone has 22 participants and Anton Hysén has a 10:1 keep/delete ration and 2009 UCLA throat slashing has a 1:9 keep/delete ratio) and to post at the oldest AfDs having the fewest participants (Jumz was filed 2011-02-01 05:42 UTC and has 0 participants). Thanks. - Uzma Gamal (talk) 10:37, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * just click on a table heading, it already can be sorted. ΔT The only constant 23:52, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Recent Cleanup
You made some good changes to the article on 2001:A Space Odyssey but please do NOT convert mdash to regular dash, and what on earth were you thinking when you changed all the cite book templates, changing "pages=" to a second "page=". There are two parameters "pages=" and "page=". The first is for the total number of pages in the book, and the second is for the exact page of the reference. You changed all instances of the first to a second instance of the second. Please study the templates before you make a change like that again.--WickerGuy (talk) 07:07, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I did not covert mdash to regular dashes, I just converted the HTML entity to the normal character. Also please review the cite book parameters, you are using it incorrectly."pages or page: These parameters are for listing the pages relevant to the citation, not the total number of pages in the book." ΔT The only constant 11:41, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * example: both — and &mdash; are the exact same, the first is just HTML encoded. ΔT The only constant 11:55, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 21 March 2011
Read this Signpost in full &middot; Single-page &middot; Unsubscribe &middot; EdwardsBot (talk) 00:25, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Cleanup
I guess it's easier to just manually clean up articles using scripts rather than going through the silly bot request procedure, eh? I think I've learned my lesson. Good work on cleaning up the worst of the worst. If the bot request eventually comes through, I'll clean up the remainder. &mdash;SW&mdash; express 16:23, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * let me, Im doing a lot more than just merging refs. ΔT The only constant 16:24, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * There are over 6000 articles with duplicate refs. I meant that I'd clean up the remaining 5,750 if the bot request ever comes through.  The 250 in the table are yours to fix.  &mdash;SW&mdash;</b> converse 16:48, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Feedback on User:Headbomb/ADSABS
I'm writing a letter to the ADS team to see what's our querying limit. Could you check the details on your bot to see if I got them right? Any other feedback is welcome too. (Feel free to edit the page it you want.) Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:59, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Approaching 3RR
I invite you to actually discuss the issue with me at Talk:Nicola Formichetti. What you are calling spam and an unreliable source, namely myfdb.com, is actually the fashion world's equivalent to imdb.com, which is widely linked throughout the project. Both have affiliates and both offer pro memberships.

Also, please stop leaving warnings on my talk page. I have been around for a year longer than you and have created 92 articles to your none. You are not an admin and we have the same access level. DinDraithou (talk) 18:24, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Ive been around since 2005, and have close to 115,000 edits so please dont try to play that card, the site that your adding has zero other usages on wikipedia, and has been spammed a lot, including by the site owner, it was removed per our spam, and external links policy. Please do not re-add it. ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 18:28, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * PS I am a former admin. ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 18:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't care if you might have been. What you are is unhelpful and rude until challenged, and acting like an admin when you're not. You could have pointed out the problem on the talk page. Why not do so and not try to make it look like I've done something genuinely wrong? I'm writing a dandy little article for the project but you can't be courteous. I don't care for it. DinDraithou (talk) 18:39, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I tried that route, I removed the link with a nice little edit summary, which covered all the points. I only escalated the situation and left warnings after your second revert ignoring my edit summaries. I never made any statement on the quality of the article which you wrote, only about a single link that you added. If you have questions about someones actions do not blindly revert, that will result in you being blocked, however come ask the person for more clarification, or details if you need it. ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 18:49, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Template clean-up at Shakespeare authorship question
Would you mind explaining what you did? I don't understand how expanding the Harvard reference template that added another 5kb on a page that is downloaded 600+ times a day is a clean up (although I appreciate the anti-spam note). Tom Reedy (talk) 19:57, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I also merged duplicate refs (which was my primary function of that edit) to cleanup the refs. ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 20:02, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * But how does adding text that does nothing of use and makes editing more difficult (because of the extra code) help? Paul B (talk) 20:04, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * all I was doing was bypassing template redirects, if that template name is too long, maybe it should be moved over the shorter name. ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 20:05, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't understand why bypassing template redirects is a good thing or anything else about this, but if we did a search-replace of "Harvard citation no bracket" with "Harvnb", would the benefits of your edit be preserved? Tom Reedy (talk) 20:34, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * yes. ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 20:36, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The edit also removed leading whitespace from the (manually formatted) references, unlinked publishers in same (which tends to get remarked on at FAC), and for some unfathomable reason changed “ C ite web” to “ c ite web” (which creates a redirect, albeit one handled by MediaWiki itself). Perhaps you could check your script (AWB?) and redo that edit? --Xover (talk) 20:53, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Common publishers should be unlinked per WP:OVERLINK. Cite vs cite is not a redirect, they are the same page. ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 20:55, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * WP:OVERLINK doesn't actually say that (or even imply it as far as I can tell), and, as mentioned above, the source reviews at WP:FAC tend to request publishers to be linked, where possible, on first occurrence. As for Cite vs. cite:

GET /wiki/Template:cite_web HTTP/1.0 […] HTTP/1.0 301 Moved Permanently […] Location: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cite_web
 * As I mentioned, one handled by the MediaWiki software (by returning a 301 HTTP status code) rather than an internal redirect, but a redirect all the same. The template in question is at Template:Cite web not at Template:cite web. --Xover (talk) 21:11, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Having a link in each citation with the same publisher is not an overlink, AFAIK. Of course, I think having a link for any publisher is kind of stupid anyway. How many people read a cite and then say, "I'd really like to know more about that publisher"? But if you're going to have a link for one, it makes sense to link all of them. What if the cite you're reading doesn't have the link? Are you supposed to hunt down the single link in the 100-odd refs that contain it? Tom Reedy (talk) 00:18, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That is why I unlink all common publishers that I come across. Regardless of what headers you get, they are the same page. Ive seen some cases where MW returns 200 OK and the page does not exist or has been deleted or some other problem, For the most part you need to ignore those header codes for mediawiki software. As for the MoS ....if it links to words that can be understood by most readers of the English Wikipedia Associated Press, New York Times, and other common publishers fall into that category. ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 01:53, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Duplicate references
Please stop adding autogenerated ref names to History of macroeconomic thought. I don't think they are useful in that article. Duplicate references are acceptable, and no one has tried using ref name citations until you made your edits.--Bkwillwm (talk) 01:20, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Having 81 dupes is not acceptable. If this was just one or two I might shrug it off, with 81, it makes the article a mess. ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 01:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Please show me where the MOS says duplicated references are not acceptable. This isn't an issue about letting a few slide. It's about picking a format, and sticking to it. None of the editors to the article have used ref name citations, so it would be best to leave it as it is. From everything I've seen, using duplicate refs is considered a legitimate editorial choice. I personally prefer "duplicate" refs them for a few reasons. For one, if I click on a ref, I don't have to figure out whether I clicked on a,b,c,...j,k.. I just click on the same ref on the ref I jumped to, and then I jump back up to my old spot. It also makes it easier to eyeball which references are used in which sections. Maybe I'm missing something. Please let me know. I know ref names came be useful sometimes, but, here, it only serves to shorten the list of references. I don't see that as much of an advantage. Is there something I'm missing?--Bkwillwm (talk) 05:17, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I cannot remember which MoS page contained the note, but it recommends using named refs in order to cleanup, and avoid reference errors, it just makes the page a lot cleaner to use named refs vs repeating the same thing over and over. Take a look at an example: before and after where a 106 references end up being removed due to them being merged together. The cleaned up version looks a lot better and is a lot easier to read and follow. ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 15:47, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The relevant policy/guideline pages are WP:REFNAME, WP:CITEFOOT, and WP:NAMEDREFS. Grouping duplicate references is highly preferable to leaving them ungrouped.  <b style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#000 0em 0em 0.4em,#a00 -0.2em -0.2em 0.4em,#0a0 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;color:#ddd">&mdash;SW&mdash;</b> comment 16:03, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 March 2011
<div style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Read this Signpost in full &middot; Single-page &middot; Unsubscribe &middot; EdwardsBot (talk) 00:30, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Tricky one
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1999_NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia&action=historysubmit&diff=421478068&oldid=421354050 - consolidating the url post-Reflist creates an error. Rich Farmbrough, 08:28, 31 March 2011 (UTC).