User talk:CBM/Archive 15

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (military history) has been marked as a guideline
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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide no longer marked as a guideline
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PR quirk
Thought you might like to know that Peer review/Carpal tunnel syndrome/archive1 was listed on the Talk:Carpal tunnel syndrome/to do page (instead of on Talk:Carpal tunnel syndrome), and as a result the bot was unable to archive the PR. I moved the PR notice from the to do page to the talk page and archived it. First time I can recall seeing that, so wanted to let you know, thanks as always for all your help, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 11:41, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * This was intentional behavior when I programmed the bot. The bot normally removes the PR template from the article's talk page. If the PR template isn't there, the bot tries the ArticleHistory template. If that also isn't there, something is wrong, and the bot reports an error. If I turn off this double-check, the result in cases will be that the old PR template is never removed, and the talk page makes it appear that the peer review is still open. So I think it's better to report these as errors. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 21:04, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks - your explanation makes sense to me (and I am glad you thought all this through!). Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 14:30, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

ANI
Where? Rich Farmbrough, 15:51, 26 May 2010 (UTC).

Peer Review full?
Hi Carl, Veblenbot keeps giving notices the PR is getting full - I have done the partial tranclusion trick on all PRs larger than 10 kB, but this seems not to have worked. Could you please check and make sure there is not some new issue (or that I have not screwed up)? I have also asked. Thanks, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 13:22, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * It should be fixed now; see User talk:Geometry guy. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 14:12, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks very much! Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 14:51, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Prem Rawat
This particular page appears to still be blank? -- Cirt (talk) 18:33, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Prem Rawat articles by quality
 * Do you know how to fix this? -- Cirt (talk) 05:44, 1 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry; I missed this thread last night. The answer is that the bot does not update the "by quality" pages on the wiki any longer, since January. Instead, there is a program at http://toolserver.org/~enwp10 that allows you to list the articles in a project and to search using various criteria.  This change was necessary to allow the bot to scale up to the current number of wikiprojects and assessed articles. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 11:03, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I see, thank you. -- Cirt (talk) 18:26, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Transcendental Meditation movement
Transcendental Meditation movement Thank you very much, -- Cirt (talk) 18:38, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I created this template, and tried adding it to the main article's talk page.
 * I will be tagging other related talk pages, can you make the bot do its thing to update the various quality statistics pages at:
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Transcendental Meditation movement/Assessment?
 * I think I did it, at User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/Project/Transcendental Meditation movement. -- Cirt (talk) 05:44, 1 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm glad you got it to work. I tried to set up the bot in a way that almost nothing requires me to do things "behind the scenes". The hope is that this will make the bot more robust. I try to help people whenever they run into issues, of course. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 11:06, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much. -- Cirt (talk) 18:26, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

8% slack for WP 1.0 bot
Just in case you're not aware, it takes 22 hours for WP 1.0 bot to run its job and it starts every 24 hours. That leaves a margin of about 8% for new projects to be added or server slowdowns; which seems a bit thin. I assume that if the next iteration started firing before the current one is done there wouldn't be a huge problem, but I though you might want a heads-up in case you want to check.--RDBury (talk) 02:17, 1 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure exactly what you mean. According to my logs, the "update" phase on May 30th took about 200 minutes starting at 16:00UTC, and the "upload" phase took about 200 minutes starting at 23:55UTC, from to . There are some other edits by the bot due to people manually running it. Am I missing something? I added a little extra debugging data to the log generating code to double-check that my running times are accurate in the future. The bot did not run May 31 due to toolserver  maintenance but this has been resolved now and so the bot should run again June 1. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 03:48, 1 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I was going by the user contribution for the bot but it appears I was misinterpreting them. My apologies.--RDBury (talk) 18:05, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Google searches and numbers has been marked as a guideline
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Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection no longer marked as a guideline
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six cross-ratios
Hi CBM, I see you have updated the rating status of the new page. The response at WPM has been lukewarm :) I hesitate to spend more time on it unless someone else is interested. Tkuvho (talk) 12:44, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Reverts
Can you atop following me around breaking stuff. Rich Farmbrough, 11:27, 11 June 2010 (UTC).


 * I am not following you around, just responding to edits that appear on my watchlist. Like everyone else, I suggest you should use the talk pages when your edits are reverted. Re-doing the same edit with no edit summary is very bad form. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:04, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

WP:WikiProject Essays table broken?
User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/Custom/Essays-1 is returning a zero. I don't know why, because the toolserver is returning the data just fine. Any ideas? ɳorɑfʈ Talk! 14:13, 11 June 2010 (UTC)


 * It was because the categorization changed so the pages are marked as "NA" quality now (this is how it should be). I changed that line in the table generating code and the table seems better now. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 14:19, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks! ɳorɑfʈ  Talk! 14:21, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Reflist
No problem, I had seen a few other editors doing that as well and it seemed like a good way to save a couple of bytes while I was there making other edits. I removed it from my list, Let me know if you see anything else. --Kumioko (talk) 12:21, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Ill go back through those later. The portal par template is deprecated know and a bunch of changes have been made to the portal logic to make it a lot cleaner and display better with multiple portals. --Kumioko (talk) 12:56, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

That was strange
Thanks, I fixed the reflist thing again. I completely deleted it this time instead of disabling it. My last save must not have worked or something. That is strange with the merging of sections. I have absolutely no explanation for that but I will keep a better eye in those as well. --Kumioko (talk) 17:06, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/People has been marked as a guideline
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Stop removing philosophy content
Carl, you have a habit of removing content which is actually important to philosophers as if it does not matter. This is a respect issue, and I have discussed this with you before. You did the same thing at tautology (logic) and I do not have the time and energy to keep up with your gratuitous POV pushing (I am sorry Carl, but with great respect that is what it is).Greg Bard 21:30, 15 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Have you looked at the talk page of that article? &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 23:17, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

It's fixed
Well nothing to fix actually. You obviously have no idea how AWB works, despite running around mass reverting and rollbacking people using it all the time. I have explained to you that to comply with your wishes I have had to make a hacked version of a piece of software - as you insisted. That means I need to use the broken version when I am running SB, since I develop my regexes and lists using the clean undamaged version it is natural that it gets used occasionally. Also you assume it is the "same run" - the nature of this kind of clean up is that when the regexes hit live, bulk data there are usually cases which they don't correct, for example someone puts a tab character in an unexpected place. As the regexes are sharpened, the list is regenned and re-run, often not having got particularly far through the previous run, If you have re-broken one of the articles it will of course be picked up again and fixed again. Rich Farmbrough, 09:24, 16 June 2010 (UTC).
 * This belligerent reply does not seem to address the concerns that led to the block. I also note that Rich now seems to have started running the bot on his main account, which is unacceptable and likely to lead to a block of that account as well. As an outside observer the concerns that CBM has raised do seem reasonable and in line with best practice. The issues need to be resolved before continuing the task. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:44, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
 * On the contrary it addresses them both. The hacked version of the software is ready to go, and the bot was not picking up articles twice in the same run. Rich Farmbrough, 14:30, 16 June 2010 (UTC).
 * By "ready to go" you mean that you will use it for all SmackBot tasks going forward?


 * As for "same run", the usual BRFA method is to refine the regexps during the trial phase, make a single automated run, and then examine any fallout once it's done. If you need to restart the run in the middle, the right practice is to set it to pick up where it left off, based on the same list of article. The point is that if a user reverts a bot edit, you don't want the bot to redo that edit before you have manually looked into it. It looks like this is another example of the bot repeating an edit over and over – did you examine why the edit didn't go through? &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 14:36, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The edit did go through, there was a particular problem with use of italics, the editor spoke to me and we sported it out. Rich Farmbrough, 14:54, 16 June 2010 (UTC).
 * This diff shows the bot redoing an edit that had been reverted, all within the span of 70 minutes: . That is exactly what bots should not do. Anyway, you're aware of the issue now. If you've enabled the fixed version of AWB for all SmackBot's edits, that resolves the concerns in my message about the block. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 15:09, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
 * You forgot to unblock it. Rich Farmbrough, 19:41, 16 June 2010 (UTC).
 * I was waiting for you to confirm you have completely disabled the reordering. Is that right? &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 20:25, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes I have the no-ref-reorder version fired up and failing to edit for several hours. Rich Farmbrough, 21:05, 16 June 2010 (UTC).
 * I have unblocked it. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 21:35, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Bare subst?
What is that when it's at home? Rich Farmbrough, 18:49, 18 June 2010 (UTC).

Why not find an article to edit? Rich Farmbrough, 19:07, 18 June 2010 (UTC).

Response
Please see my response to your comment on User:Raamin's page. --BF 21:59, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Pythagorean theorem
Hi Carl: The sections Solid geometry Inner product spaces Non-Euclidean geometry Differential geometry all are connected to the notion of shortest distance and the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. This extremely basic role of Pythagoras theorem isn't brought out clearly in the article. Do you have some suggestions about how to make this very fundamental point more central to the article? Maybe a section on "Shortest distance"? Brews ohare (talk) 17:13, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Project MUSE
Hi. Sorry for bothering you, but I saw here that you have access to Project Muse. Can I ask you to download a study for me? → Vegas Bleeds Neon 06:10, 20 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Sure. Could you send me an email with the "Email this user" tool on the left, with the details? &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 11:36, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Reviewers
Hi, CBM. I just noticed you added the reviewer right to User:Dank's account, who is also an admin. I thought I'd remind you that admins have the reviewer right automatically, so there's no need to take the time to manually apply it. Regards, Parsecboy (talk) 13:47, 18 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I had a list that explicitly filtered out non-admins, then I saw his name elsewhere and thought I would check. I forgot that the screen would even allow you to add redundant permissions. I'll remember to double-check in the future. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:49, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Hello, I have read on my talk page that you have marked me as a reviewer and I read the infos at the link you added: it sounds fine, so I'll try to do it. :D Best regards.--Daniele.tampieri (talk) 15:29, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd just like add my thanks for marking me as a reviewer and even more thanks for having done what must have been a tedious job. All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 22:11, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Pythagorean theorem – Inner product spaces – "pairwise-"
In the present state of the section there is,


 * "The identity can be extended to sums of more than two vectors. If v1, v2, ..., vn are pairwise-orthogonal vectors in an inner product space, application of the Pythagorean theorem to successive pairs of these vectors..."

What's the purpose of "pairwise-"? I was going to delete it but then I thought you might have had some special reason for including it that I wasn't aware of, and I was just plain curious. --Bob K31416 (talk) 02:25, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Bob: I read "pairwise orthogonal" as a shorthand way to say every one of the vj is orthogonal to every other one. What did you take it to mean? Brews ohare (talk) 04:17, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I took it to mean that too, but I also took orthogonal alone in that context to mean the same thing. I've seen pairwise orthogonal used elsewhere so it's apparently a legitimate term, but I didn't see why just orthogonal wouldn't do better in the present context because it is simpler. I suppose you and I can go back and forth on this, but I'd rather see what CBM has to say, and that's why I came to his talk page. --Bob K31416 (talk) 06:50, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * It's just a way of writing. "If ... are orthogonal vectors" makes it sound like each one is "orthogonal", whatever that might mean. And I wanted to avoid using the word "set". &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 10:54, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Policy/Draft has been marked as a policy
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Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Policy/Draft has been marked as a policy
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A favor
You did a great job in setting up the bot to update the WP:USRD leaderboard, but now there exists the first article for American Samoa. Can you add that territory to the updates on User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/Custom/Roads-1? Don't worry, unless the US annexes Canada or something, no other territories would need to be added. The Northern Marianas are the only territory not in the list, and they don't have a numbered highway system.  Imzadi  1979   →   07:40, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
 * No problem, it's done. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 10:42, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks! (Btw, AS should have the grey background the like other territories. Feel free to fix that whenever without a special bot run.)  Imzadi  1979   →   18:15, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protect Algorithm article?
This article's "etymology" section comes under sporadic "assults" by unregistered editors who want to change al-Khwarizimi's heritage from Persian to Arab. I and others repair the damage periodically. I'm wondering if this would be a good article to semi-protect in the way you protected Godel's incompleteness theorems; that was a good move and I'm glad you did it. Bill Wvbailey (talk) 14:15, 30 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I've also noticed those edits from time to time on the article. The only reason I haven't protected it is that I'm not sure there are enough of those bad edits to meet the criteria that people expect before expecting a page. The "pending changes" system is, at the moment at least, limited to only pages that would normally be semiprotected. It's a tough call for that article. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 14:32, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah. . . let's just continue to keep an eye on the article and revisit the issue if it gets bad again. BillWvbailey (talk) 20:19, 30 June 2010 (UTC)


 * If it becomes at all frequent, I'd be glad to protect the article for a few months. The difficulty is just that our policies are not very clear about this sort of situation. They're more focused on juvenile vandalism. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 21:59, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Pythagorean theorem
You are absolutely right. "You making haste haste on decay..." -Robinson Jeffers. Writtenright (talk) 19:31, 30 June 2010 (UTC)Writtenright

Wikipedia:Pedophilia has been marked as a policy
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Wikipedia:Pedophilia has been marked as a policy
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PR maintenance
Hi Carl, I tried to stabilize Peer review/June 2010 per step 4 at the bottom of the Wikipedia talk:Peer review/Maintenance page, but it does not seem that the file exists. Not sure what I am doing wrong, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 17:41, 1 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The problem was that VeblenBot hadn't been told to track that category. I added it, and now the page exists. I also added the category for July 2010. In the future, you can also add these yourself with the tool at using the password I sent you a while back. Or remind me at the end of the month and I can take care of it. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 18:31, 1 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the fix and for setting it up for July. I have the password and have used it in the past, but am pretty sure that Geometry guy did the honors last month and I was not sure what the problem was now. Thanks again as always for all of your help, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 03:21, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

citation bot
Thanks for blocking Citation bot over the bug with publisher. I fixed or reverted maybe half a dozen but strongly suspect there are more that aren't on the watchlist of any sufficiently vigilent editor. Let me know if there is any central discussion I should be aware of (other than WP:DBUG), and I hope the bug is fixed soon so that the block becomes unnecessary. Kingdon (talk) 02:28, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

AfD revert
Hi, just pointing out that I undid this edit of yours, presuming it to be a mistake. (I checked the user and he doesn't seem to have been blocked, or voted already, and is not a single-purpose account.) If you really meant to remove the comment for some good reason, it would be clearer if you gave a reason. (I don't think poorly argued votes in deletion discussions can be simply removed?) Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 19:33, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It was a mistake; I was browsing on an iphone. I didn't even realize it happened, or I would have reversed my own edit. Thanks for undoing it. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 20:25, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Articles without math rating
I noticed that the articles without math rating tool also lists redirects, which shouldn't have math ratings anyway (I think?). Of course this isn't important at all, but if it is easy to tweak to the tool to not list redirects, that would be useful. (For example this cat is almost completely redirects.) --Robin (talk) 04:36, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I added some logic so that the redirects are hidden but they can be displayed with the click of a link. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 11:50, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Great; thanks! --Robin (talk) 14:35, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Child protection has been marked as a policy
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Wikipedia:Pedophilia no longer marked as a policy
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Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine-related articles) has been marked as a guideline
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Categories for discussion nomination of Category:Wikipedia essays articles by importance
Category:Wikipedia essays articles by importance, which you created, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. Fences &amp;  Windows  11:47, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

What is a "Total function"? u- versus non-u "general" recursion
Hartley Rogers 1987 defines "total function" as one that is defined over all positive integers (he calls this N, or N x N x ... N = Nk if there are k variables (cf pages xv-xvi)). I would have thought a "total function" could be defined as one that is defined over its entire domain of definition, a domain that could be restricted to be much less than all positive integers (what comes to mind is a computer algorithm that can only accept unsigned N=0 to N=216-1. As Rogers then notes (page xvi) a partial function is indeed defined only over some of N, or Nk. Do you think that my confusion is my misinterpretation of the notion of "total", or is the notion used differently in different theories e.g. recursion theory versus computability theory, or what? I'm hoping that the conversationalists at Ackermann function and Primitive recursion theory are using the notion "total function" in the same way.

Is there any sort of "general" i.e. extended-beyond-primitive, recursion other than u-recursion? Lemme know, thanks, Bill Wvbailey (talk) 00:08, 15 July 2010 (UTC)


 * You're right that in principle a mathematician can have a total function with any domain. But in computability theory we use "total" in a more specific way, for functions defined on every possible input. This is because in most cases the intended domain of definition is the whole set of natural numbers, and so our terminology has adapted to suit the needs of the field.


 * (2) There are more general recursion schema than primitive recursion. For example, the recursive definition at the top of Ackermann function is an example of a recursion for one function on two variables. This sort of recursion is strictly stronger than primitive recursion, since the Ackermann function is not primitive recursive.


 * More generally, you could write down a system of two or more mutually-recursive functions in several variables. The point of studying "general recursive functions" was to consider systems of recursion equations in complete generality. There are difficulties, though, because not every system of recursion equations actually defines a function.


 * This is one motivation for Kleene's recursion theorem and its generalizations: to show that if a function is defined by a set of recursion equations, that function really is computable in Turing's sense. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Both answers help. The Total function article doesn't seem clear about the convention. Thanks, Bill Wvbailey (talk) 14:10, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Assume bad faith has been marked as a policy
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I've been sent your way
"There was an error connecting to the database. This is most likely a temporary condition. Please try again in a few minutes. If the problem persists, please contact User:CBM on enwiki.

The error message is: User 'enwp10' has exceeded the 'max_user_connections' resource (current value: 15)

WP 1.0 bot revision 298, updated Sun, 25 Apr 2010 by cbm"

0.o I dunno know what this means. But it said to tell you. So... here it is. I got this when clicking on a link in WikiProject Fashion. The linked number 30 under high class stub articles in the grid graphic box. Xanatos290 (talk) 04:22, 17 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for reporting this. The problem seems to have gone away now. It's the sort of thing that's very hard to diagnose because it only happens very occasionally. I think it happens when too many slow requests are made to the web system at once. Eventually the database system clears the requests and everything works again. None of the links from WikiProject Fashion should be slow, though, so it was almost certainly some other request that was doing it. Please let me know if you run into any other trouble, and I will try to keep an eye on the system to see if this one reoccurs. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:05, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (sports) has been marked as a guideline
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WikiProject Conan O'Brien
Hello, I tried adding the User:WP 1.0 bot to the WikiProject Conan O'Brien page, which I recently created, but I am stuck at how I am supposed to get the bot to collect the numbers. Is there any way you could help me out? Gage (talk) 04:24, 18 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The setup looks correct. I used the web interface to manually update the table. It should be automatically updated every day from now. The underlying page for the project table is User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/Project/Conan O'Brien. Please let me know if you have any other issues or specific changes that I can help with. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:03, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Parasitic oscillation
sorry, I did not mean to offend, I will stop adding the math project to talk pages. l santry (talk) 16:22, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

V 1.0 bot
Hi

I just tried to manually run the bot to update the assessments on WikiProject_Robotics/Assessment

It's telling me "can't find the server at wp1en.kiwix.org" when I click the link for

Is it a permission issue or is it that problem you were lookig into ?

thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 22:02, 20 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The correct link is http://toolserver.org/~enwp10/bin/update.fcgi . I must have missed a link to the old script somewhere. If you point me to the page, I'll update it. However, that script does not update the logs to the wiki immediately. They are updated on the web tool immediately, but they are only copied to the wiki once a day. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 03:40, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Template talk:Ref label
Hi. If you've a moment, could you look at my question at Template talk:Ref label? Thanks! • Ling.Nut 11:08, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Second-order formulas
I've built a second-order formula (whose variables range over a set of basic elements as well as of partial functions of basic elements), about which I want to state that: 1. every first-order variable ranges over the set of complex numbers, and that: 2. every second-order variable ranges over the set of analytic functions. Which way (of the three below) do you recommend (or see as the most common/elegant way) for fulfilling the requirement mentioned above? Thank you in advance. HOOTmag (talk) 08:07, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * To state that the model of the respective structure consists of: 1. the set of complex numbers, and: 2. the set of analytic functions (if so then how should I formulate exactly all of that about the model and about the formula, in a technical notation)?
 * To build - for the language of the formula - an interpretaion in which: 1. a first-order predicate symbol (in that language) should be interpreted as "is a complex number", and: 2. a second-order predicate symbol (in that language) should be interpreted as: "is an analytic function", and then to rebuild the given formula respectively, and then to state that the (rebuilt) formula is in a language interpreted as mentioned above (if so then I should I state all of that about the formula, in a technical notation)?
 * To use some combination of both ways mentioned above.

Peer Review Bot
Why is this bot making edits that add two characters that are marked as neither bot nor minor edits? john k (talk) 13:44, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Could you point out which page you are looking at? &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:48, 23 July 2010 (UTC)


 * If you mean edits like, they're correct. The bot is closing a peer review, so it has to change the template on the article talk page. The edit is intentionally not marked as a bot edit or minor edit because editors who follow the page should be informed that the peer review is closed. But the edit summary and bot name make it clear that bot is a bot. Also, the bot edits very few talk pages per day so the edits have little chance of filling up anyone's watch list. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 14:02, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot
What is going on with User:WP 1.0 bot. Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Chicago articles by quality log‎ and Version 1.0 Editorial Team/WikiProject Illinois articles by quality log have not been updated in three days and it seems that the bot has not done any projects.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 01:19, 26 July 2010 (UTC)


 * On Thursday, someone broke a large number of wikiproject templates temporarily when trying to rename them, which led to a lot of articles temporarily losing assessments by those projects. I turned off the automatic execution of the bot for a couple days while I watched it to see what would happen. I was running the data-gathering part of the bot every day, but I didn't run the wiki-uploading part until yesterday. That seems to have worked fine, just like it had been for a long time, so I have turned the automatic execution back on. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 15:05, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Reviewer status
Hello.

I noticed that I have received reviewer status some time ago, thank you for adding that property to my account.

However, I did not quite understand how to mark an article as "reviewed". Could you please explain that ? Thank you.

And I excuse for the late response; I don't have much time for Wikipedia recently. - ☣Tourbillon A ? 13:14, 27 July 2010 (UTC)


 * It only applies to pages that are under "pending changes protection". Almost all pages are not protected, so there is no need to review anything. If an article is under protection, and there are unreviewed edits, you will see them in the "View history" page for that article. Here is an example that is under protection, just so you can see it. If there were unreviewed edits, they would be prominently marked on the history page. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:22, 27 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I see, thank you. - ☣Tourbillon A ? 13:25, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Assessment page on Toolserver
Hi

Apparently I have to tell you that the Assessment data on the toolserver is not working when I try to create summary for Robotics:

The error message is: User 'enwp10' has exceeded the 'max_user_connections' resource (current value: 15)

WP 1.0 bot revision 298, updated Sun, 25 Apr 2010 by cbm

Thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 17:47, 27 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Seems like it has fixed itself :¬) Chaosdruid (talk) 18:04, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Otheruses4/About
I though you were one of the persons that asked AWB to automatically change Otheruses4 to About, or not? -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:26, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

As I recall I ran some months ago, Yobot to move DABlinks on the top. This automatically fixed Otheruses4 to About. In the same way all AWB bots, including SmackBot fix Otheruses4 to About. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:35, 27 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not talking about the distant past; you did 12 in a row yesterday, ending at 19:12, 2010-7-26 . I tried to explain it to myself as random chance, but then I looked at how few transclusions are left. There was never consensus to orphan the template, but now it's virtually gone. I was hurt to see that this had happened, and I'm afraid I will be more cautious in the future. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:45, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Check my edits in long term and you 'll see I didn't touch the template for months. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:58, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe you; I only went back about 3000 edits. I just have the uncomfortable feeling of being the only person not in on a joke at the moment. I doubt that was your intention at all, and I don't mean to say that it was your personal responsibility. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:00, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Like a month ago there were a few thousands tranclusions. Since this replacement is part of AWB genfixes many bots may have been replaced it by doing other stuff. SmackBot touches hundreds of pages per day and some days ago Yobot did 20k edits. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:04, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I just checked 20 math articles on my list. Yobot changed 15 (in March), that IP user whose name is like 1010101 changed 3, and SmackBot changed 2. I had though YoBot was only going to make the change if there was a reason to edit the page, but among my 20 are edits like . Now I expect that I need to review edits by SmackBot, but I hadn't expected to need to look at edits by Yobot. By the way, that IP user is back again, if he ever left. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:19, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * In March the Move DABlinks function wasn't still fixed. Whitespace next the template could in fact trigger the function. This amonst other bugs. It was improved in the following months. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:25, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I know you have the best of intentions. But if you knew the bot had made a large number of bad edits, why didn't you go back and revert them? That sort of gesture of good faith goes a long way. Conversely, at present, the situation I see is indistinguishable from one where the template was intentionally orphaned. That makes me feel like I should adopt a trust but verify strategy in the future. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 14:06, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I didn't go back because the template is deprecated anyway. "About" is a much better name than "otheruses4", compatible with this and for. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:09, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * You see what I'm talking about here. I'm sure you were aware there wasn't consensus to run a bot to orphan the template. If there wasn't consensus to do it intentionally, there certainly wasn't consensus to do it accidentally or because of a bug in a bot. At best, you "didn't go back" when your bot did something you knew it wasn't supposed to do, and then accidentally continued doing it more recently. At worst, the situation is indistinguishable from one in which you intentionally orphaned the template but didn't take responsibility for it. This is all very disillusioning. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 00:56, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * But the bug didn't occur in the test runs and later it wasn't that common or nobody really cared since the main job (move DABlinks on the top) had already finished. Things went ugly when a, later blocked, editor made a request that confused me. For me the real question is: Is someone really using these templates nowadays? -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:59, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Read WP:R2D more carefully. It applies only to piped links. Renaming links to enhance readability is a common practise. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:46, 30 July 2010 (UTC)


 * It does not apply only to piped links; it's about bypassing redirects in general. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 10:56, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Request to leave open the ANI
Hi.

You closed an ANI that I had opened a few hours ago before I had a chance to respond to the various points that were raised. Could you re-open it so that I could respond? I think that many people there are unclear about what WP:OUTING actually says. We obviously don't need to keep this discussion open for days, but surely I deserve a right to reply to those points before the discussion is closed. David.Kane (talk) 18:54, 30 July 2010 (UTC)


 * You are free to raise the matter at the open arbcom case. You may also reply to points even when the thread is marked "resolved". However, no admin is likely to take any action regarding outing while the arbcom case is open, given the situation described there. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 00:58, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot
Hi CBM. Do you have any idea why WP 1.0 bot isn't updating Version 1.0 Editorial Team/The Simpsons articles by quality statistics anymore? Regards, Theleftorium (talk) 22:10, 31 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The bot has been updating User:WP_1.0_bot/Tables/Project/The_Simpsons. That page is transcluded to the page you linked, so you are seeing the latest info there, even though the page itself is not being edited. The bot also updates Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/The_Simpsons_articles_by_quality_log daily if there are changed assessments. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 00:41, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, thanks for clearing that up! :) Theleftorium (talk) 09:57, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (military history) has been marked as a guideline
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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Content guide has been marked as a guideline
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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide no longer marked as a guideline
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Nested templates
It's tricky to code for all the variations people come up with. Part of the problem lies in documentation, generally I have found any pages that attempt to explain how to put dates into the tags result in more problems than they solve, however apparently clearly they are worded, mainly through confusion with use/mention distinction. I would rather people just didn't try, dating another few hundred a day is nothing comapred with the effort of cleaning up - and when I am doing the manual leftovers I mis-spell month names, and mistype "date" so I know it's easy to make those mistakes (though SB will catch and deal with them - it is especially good at January). Rich  Farmbrough 15:11 20  June 2010 (UTC).

TUSC token e23829aa6a05a4576d845642e74bbbeb
I am now proud owner of a TUSC account!

Adminstats
Hi, I'm putting together an article for next weeks signpost Wikipedia Signpost/2010-08-09/Admin stats that you might be interested in. I'd be especially interested in the wiki generation thing - after several hours work and a PC crash I was able to get figures on when admins started editing, I'd like to add your figures on when our active admins started editing but I'd need to screen out bots for it to be meaningful. Can you help? the table is at User:WereSpielChequers/RFA by month.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  14:52, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I can exclude accounts with a bot flag from my data. It gives these counts for when active admin accounts were first registered.


 * through 2001: 14
 * 2002: 34
 * 2003: 71
 * 2004: 163
 * 2005: 221
 * 2006: 183
 * 2007: 69
 * 2008: 29
 * 2009: 9
 * There are 793 total. Is that what you need? &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 15:21, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


 * By the way, I do not have the WT:RFA page on my watchlist, so please contact me here if I can help in some way with the stats. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 15:44, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks that's perfect. Would you like a creddt in the signpost story?  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  17:02, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * No thanks. I just compiled a few numbers. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 17:17, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Do you have the raw data for the File:Active admins by month, December 2007 to August 2010.png graph?©Geni 00:49, 5 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I put it at and I put the code that generates it at . &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 02:41, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Administrators' noticeboard/Archive241
FYI, as you've been involved in an administrative capacity in the past. – xeno talk 14:58, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Bantu) has been marked as a guideline
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Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts) no longer marked as a guideline
has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Early updates of archive selection for Math project
This month and last month, you switched to the new monthly archive for Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics several days before it was appropriate to do so. Notice that the current setting is to archive talk sections 14 days (two weeks) after the last new comment is added to them. Thus the appropriate date for a switch-over is the 14th day of the month, not the eighth. JRSpriggs (talk) 15:25, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I've always just switched it a few days after the start of the month. It's true that the dates won't line up perfectly, but I think that's too much to ask for. On the other hand, if you'd like to take over, I don't mind letting you do the updates. I think you and I have been the main two people doing them. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 17:25, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I realize that perfection is not necessary, and is perhaps impossible. However, I try to do the switch-over as indicated so that the last date on a talk section comment matches the month of the archive. But I do not edit the archives to move sections around to make it that way. So this is just a target, not a strict requirement. JRSpriggs (talk) 23:18, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Jason Leopold
Would it be possible to semi-protect this article? Enabling pending changes review has not really had the desired effect. There seem to be technical issues with the approval process when an edit-warring IP makes multiple changes, it seems they can only be approved or rolled back as one. This has led another editor to threaten me with pursuing a block for edit warring when I am simply trying to reject pending changes from an edit-warring IP. That is, reviewing the changes is much more trouble than just semi-protecting the article and forcing the IP with COI to go to the talk page as they should be doing. Yworo (talk) 23:19, 8 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I have been checking up on it from time to time. During pending changes protection, the usual editing rules apply, including the 3RR. However, they apply to the IP editor, too. It looks like there are plenty of people watching the article. Since it is only one IP address at issue, I am hesitant to semiprotect the article yet. But if things do get worse, that would affect my opinion. I will keep watching the page. I was glad to see another admin is going to work with everyone on the content. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:00, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Templates
This edit has nothing to do with template:about.

The hatnote is cleaner with my edit. Why can you be more careful when you are reverting or discuss why you feel the words should be included.199.126.224.156 (talk) 09:03, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


 * You are banned from editing Wikipedia . I am going to roll back the edits you have made this morning. Please read Banning policy. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 11:44, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Did you look to see what you were rolling back? They were almost all fixing heading problems, removing spurious newlines, simplifying sectioning, fixing POV statements, etc., and your rollbacks made the articles worse.  I'm not going to stop you from changing about to the redirect otheruses4, but please don't remove the more general MOS fixes.  Thanks. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  16:35, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * See the section "Bans apply to all editing, good or bad" in WP:BAN. By convention, you're free to "adopt" edits by a banned user that you think are worthwhile by reinstating them, although doing so too much may be a form of enabling of the banned user. But people who revert edits by banned users do not need to look at them individually or examine their contents. I don't pick edit summaries such as "Undo edit by banned user" lightly. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 17:30, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I did see that section, which includes the policy that "when reverting edits, care should be taken not to reinstate material that may be in violation of such core policies as neutrality, verifiability, and biographies of living persons". Several of the edits included changes that fixed "neutrality" problems. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  18:12, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The vast preponderance of edits made by this user consist of changing section titles and replacing templates. If the user wishes to edit productively, the first step is to get unbanned. Other positive steps include using descriptive edit summaries.The user also needs to abandon the "I didn't hear that" response to the RFD, which that user started under a different IP address, which closed with a result that the template shouldn't be orphaned.


 * There is no general requirement to examine every edit made by a banned user in case a few of the edits happen to involve neutrality issues. The ongoing issue with the IP user is that they are banned from editing. The best way to convince editors they are actually banned is to treat them as if they are banned, and revert their edits, rather than enabling them by letting them edit through the ban. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 18:23, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * There is also no general requirement to revert all the edits made by a banned user. I saw no harmful edits in the bunch.  It would have been far better to just run through the list of edits and change any changes to  if that was the point of contention.  However, in my opinion, that would have been equally pointless.  By the way, the changes that corrected neutrality issues did indicate this in the edit summary.  If it were me, I would have left it up to another uninvolved editor to do the rollbacks. Clearly we aren't going to agree on this issue, so I plan to just drop it at that. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  21:26, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Plastikspork on that. The banner user does a small(?) proportion of good edits. No reason to rollback them. It's a ban not a block. And reverting "about" to "otheruses4" is equally pointless. I am aware of the fact that the banner user is periodically making some disruptive edits but following him and reverting every single edit is not helpful. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:48, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The point that it's a ban is the key point. Banned users are prohibited from editing in any way, shape, or form. It makes no difference if a small proportion of the edits are good; all edits are forbidden. I don't have to follow him or her because the edits appear on my watchlist, at which point I revert them.


 * Re Plastikspork: for any non-banned editor, I would just edit the disruptive changes out (e.g. otheruses4, etc). But for a banned user our best practice is to roll back all the edits, because doing otherwise just encourages the editor to keep going. There's no reason to enable the disruption from the IP editor, as you are encouraging me to do.


 * Re Magioladitis:if someone changes a template like that, per WP:BRD anyone else is free to reverse the change. Otherwise there would be a bias towards whoever edits first. The template is not deprecated in any way: the RFD closure said not to orphan it, in fact. The problem here has been a few editors who ignore the RFD close and worked on orphaning the template anyway. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 23:31, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Re Plastikspork: I have scanned through the August 9 contribs from the IP editor two times. I cannot see any edit summary that mentions neutrality or BLP. I went back to August 4 and found three with the summary "pov" (no other explanation). But looking at the actual diffs shows that the edits were hardly significant:. The last of those might seem plausible but the IP left the word in the main article. In reality, all of these trivial edits are simply a pretext that the IP editor uses to justify removing the otheruses4 template.

And, I'll say it again, this editor is banned from editing in the first place. I don't need to follow this editor's history to track the otheruses4 template; I can make a list of historical transclusions from a database dump and change them back at my leisure. The reason to revert the edits is precisely because the editor is banned. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 00:01, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Banned users are prohibited from editing in any way, shape, or form This is a statement on your part and not something you've quoted from any policy or guideline. If maybe one of my edits was blatant vandalism, then even I would assume that I should be unquestionably reverted. Obviously, you are not assuming good faith and probably making a point.199.126.224.156 (talk) 04:16, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Edit notice on P versus NP problem‎
I didn't even know that mechanism existed. How did you do that? -- RoySmith (talk) 15:00, 10 August 2010 (UTC)


 * When you edit any page, there is a link to the top-right of the edit box that says "page notice". That takes you to a page where you can edit a message for just that page. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 15:02, 10 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Neat. Thanks.  -- RoySmith (talk) 15:05, 10 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The only place where I see this "page notice" link is on the article where you added a page notice. Is this something which can only be started by an administrator? Or does it depend on which "skin" I am using (Monobook)? JRSpriggs (talk) 14:52, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah you can only see the link if you are able to do something with it. So non-admins only see links to those which exist; admins also see the redlinks when they don't exist. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:10, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Note


You have already been warned about reverting templates per redirects in this discussion:

What you are doing is starting a wheel war. You have been given fair warning.199.126.224.156 (talk) 03:55, 13 August 2010 (UTC)


 * As I pointed out before, the community has banned you from editing Wikipedia. Your edits will be rolled back. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 10:50, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines/Medical advice has been marked as a guideline
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Jason Leopold
Hi. As a courtesy, I wanted to let you know about the draft RfC I'm working on, since I've mentioned your involvement with the issue in the evidence. Please feel free to contribute (or not) as you will. Yworo (talk) 15:42, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Incompleteness theorems -- moved section
No offense taken, to say the least. Like yourself I just want to help create an excellent article. I've added the /Arguments page to my watchlist.

I just don't understand the Wittgensteinians' concern with Russell's PM -- this seems a red herring. There are two problems with their obsession: First, a reading of both the intro to the 2nd edition of PM, and some of the history, indicates that Russell had abandoned his work in logic (i.e. "logicism") after circa 1927; he threw in the towel with regards to his axiom of reducibility and his type theory, and he set off to do other things. Indeed I found a quote in a Hao Wang's 1981 paper where Russell (in 1943) acknowledges Goedel's criticisms of his logic(ism) (paper written 1942-43) as "highly probable ... are justified" (cf footnote 8 on page 657 in Wang's "Some facts about Kurt Goedel"). Secondly, although Goedel invokes PM and the Peano axioms, the frame (boundary, structure) of Goedel's incompleteness results is the Formalism of Hilbert et. al., not the train-wreck that was logicism. Hilbert's formalism was what Goedel was working in, not logicism.

The "truth versus provable" business and "Platonism" also seem to be red herrings. I'm quite aware that Goedel is considered to be a "Platonist", but what that means exactly is not so obvious; Wang mentions "objectivism"; Goedel took intuitionism quite seriously (cf his papers published in the 1940's). Writing this makes me want to spend the $39.15 for Wang's book (but I fear my wife will kill me if I get yet another package from Amazon.com). Bill Wvbailey (talk) 01:09, 16 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Your concern about PM is completely reasonable. It's something that I noticed has not yet been addressed in the philosophy papers that are being cited on the talk page. In fact, Floyd and Putnam explicitly complain about other authors switching from Russell's system to PA or ZFC. But any argument that turns on using only Russell's system has to be historical, because PM is of very little interest in the contemporary study of foundations, but it's of obvious historical interest.


 * Goedel is usually regarded as adamant in his realist philosophy of mathematics - that statements like the continuum hypothesis have well-defined truth values independent of our knowledge of them. He also took constructive mathematics seriously, as did Kleene and many other strong classical mathematicians.


 * Wittgenstein's view are more complex. The philosophy papers are based on unpublished writings from his Nachlass that he did not have an opportunity to defend publicly. At the moment they come down to "I think it could be possible that he meant this" / "here's why I don't think he could have meant that", etc. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 01:35, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Talk page templates has been marked as a guideline
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Article ratings
The bot responsible for updating the tables of maths article-ratings seems to havebeen broken for some time now. For example, the "main table" mentioned on the user page User:VeblenBot seems to have been last updated in June. Melcombe (talk) 12:13, 23 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I need to look into this. I do see that it's turned off, but I don't remember why. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 11:04, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (British Isles) has been marked as a guideline
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Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) has been marked as a guideline
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Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine-related articles) no longer marked as a guideline
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VeblenBot
Hi CBM. I was wondering whether you saw my suggestion for VeblenBot. --Bsherr (talk) 23:03, 28 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry to say I missed it. If you can give me a pointer, I'll respond as soon as practical. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 23:37, 28 August 2010 (UTC)


 * User:VeblenBot/Suggested improvements. Thanks! --Bsherr (talk) 00:38, 30 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Looks like it's working great. Thank you! --Bsherr (talk) 05:31, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Non-dating changes
Yes there is some category lag oocurring over the past few days, should be back to normal imminently. Rich  Farmbrough 22:43 29  August 2010 (UTC).
 * Build 492 will include the further reading cleanup template. Rich Farmbrough, 00:27, 30 August 2010 (UTC).

links to commercial software (on the Turing machine page)
Carl, do you what the wikipedia conventions/rules are relative to external links that end up at sites selling commercial software? Lemme know what you know, thanks, BillWvbailey (talk) 13:09, 2 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think there is any established rule about it. But personally I cannot see why I would like to a site like that except in an article about the software itself. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 19:23, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Request to restore deleted page for MPEG-C
Hello ... My name is Arianne Hinds, and I am a current member of the MPEG committee (ISO/IEC/JTC1/SC29/WG11). I was trying to start a page on the topic of MPEG-C and had posted a page that was simply an outline (with some references as external links). Other members of the MPEG committee were waiting for me to post this page so that we could work on it together online. Would it be possible to get the page restored so that we can continue to work on it? I have also added this comment to the person who posted the speedy-delete tag to the page. Thank you. Ariannehinds (talk) 18:37, 3 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I think that the issue was just that it was not obvious from looking at the page alone that the plan was to expand it, and someone flagged the article as not having any significant content other than links. Are you planning to work on the article in the immediate future? If so, I would be happy to restore it. Please let me know, &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 18:42, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Possible PR bot glitch
Hi Carl, I am not sure what happened, but thought you might want to know about the problem reported at Wikipedia_talk:Peer_review. I note another PR has successfully started and been listed by the bot since, so am not sure if there was a problem or what. Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 19:09, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

response to deleted MPEG-C page
Hi Carl -- yes, I am relatively new to making Wikipedia pages, so made this mistake of simply posting the outline for the page. Since then, I have started a new page under my username Ariannehinds/MPEG-C, but I am not sure if other folks from MPEG can see this page. Regarding the original page that you offered to restore, we would probably not work on it over the holiday weekend, but thank you very much anyway. I will just continue to work on the "username" version of the page, and post it as a new page for MPEG-C once I have more done. Thank you! Ariannehinds (talk) 15:48, 4 September 2010 (UTC)


 * OK. You should "move" the page when you are ready, rather than just copying the content. You can do that yourself, or I'd be happy to do it if you let me know. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 20:36, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists no longer marked as a guideline
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WP 1.0 bot malfunction
It replaced all assessment tables with an empty table. Renata (talk) 00:55, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yep.  — Rlevse</b> • Talk  • 01:30, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the note; I wouldn't have noticed as quickly. The error is because of some toolserver maintenance. I had thought I told the bot to stop if the database becomes unavailable, but apparently it didn't. I'm running the uploading process again, which will upload the correct tables. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 02:30, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Harvard refs
Hi Carl,

I think you may be the person most familiar with the Harvard referencing style. When the work is by more than one person, do you give both names in the citation? See scale (descriptive set theory). Thanks, --Trovatore (talk) 08:34, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * For two authors, you should use both. Different style guides vary their advice about how many authors it takes before you switch to "et al.". But for just two, "et al." would be very strange, because there aren't "others", just one other.


 * Apart form that, there's an argument that I personally find compelling that we should include all the names whenever practical, because otherwise authors who have names near the end of the alphabet are at a disadvantage. And, because we alphabetize names in mathematics papers, the only special property of the first author is that her name starts with an earlier letter. Here's a blog post about the issue .  &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:06, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm, yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. But now I'm thinking maybe I'll change it to footnote style for that reason.  I don't want to have to keep repeating (Kechris, Moschovakis) &mdash; it's a little long. --Trovatore (talk) 18:29, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Is there any precedent for writing (KM 2008) instead of (Kechris, Moschovakis 2008)? That's more or less what I'd do in a paper. --Trovatore (talk) 22:20, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Nobody seems to do that on Wikipedia. One compromise style is to use "short footnotes" such as followed by a reference list in the usual style. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 01:41, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

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Arthur Rubinstein
Hi. I am reverting your edit to this article. Even though the previous changes were made by a now-blocked editor, the removed a bit of hyperbole and questionable style. Cheers!THD3 (talk) 13:23, 18 September 2010 (UTC)


 * No problem. That editor (who has a community ban) tends to do essentially a search-and-replace for things like the word "famous", even when removing it makes little difference overall. However, you are free to take ownership of the edit to the Arthur Rubinstein article by making it yourself. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:36, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

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Veblenbot suggestion
Hi again CBM! It looks like the addition of the time to PERtable is working well. Could you do the same to SPERtable for semi-protected edit requests? Thanks. --Bsherr (talk) 15:12, 19 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, I can do it. I will be a day or two before I have a chance to get to it, though. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 10:26, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Great! No emergency. Thanks. --Bsherr (talk) 20:47, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Bots/Requests for approval/J Milburn Bot 4
This is an entirely serious question- in one line, what is your opposition to this proposal? I'm getting the distinct impression there's a reason beyond the arguments you're using. J Milburn (talk) 19:54, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm most worried about the loss of attribution history. Particularly for edits that may have created a new copyright alongside the original one. As a secondary issue, it seems a little like feature creep if we move to a new practice where non-free images may only have a top revision, and all the previous revisions have to be deleted when the image is edited. The downside of that practice is that it makes it hard for non-admins to see the history of the file. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 20:09, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Stats for moved pages on Version 0.8
Hi CBM, I've been reviewing the feedback on 0.8, and we're beginning to see a small trend. It looks as if articles that were moved recently are scoring much lower than they should, because (I presume) the no. of hits is (naturally) very low under the new yet-to-be-created name. For example, Wagga Wagga (a GA) is the top article for WP:Riverina, but on this list it scores below the Wagga Wagga newspaper! Another example is the British Aerospace Sea Harrier for WP:Aviation. Would it be possible to compile a list of articles that had a page move during the critical period, then re-run the "no. of hits" statistics using numbers after the page moves? Alternatively, could we make sure that the stats are done on the article under its current name? That would allow us to catch a few articles that might otherwise be significant omissions. Also, is there some way to amend the SelectionBot code to avoid this in the future? Many thanks, Walkerma (talk) 21:54, 22 September 2010 (UTC)


 * This is something that I was vaguely aware of. When I wrote the code years ago, I assumed at the time that the sort of articles that would be selected (highly trafficked, highly rated) would be unlikely to be renamed. Apparently that's not very accurate.


 * The difficulty is that the external interest data is taken from database dumps, which are by their nature always slightly outdated. However, I can update to the latest one, which was only a few days ago, and then manually look for articles that
 * Moved in the past few months
 * Have a high enough score to be selected
 * Aren't part of the automatic selection
 * Hopefully that will help with this release.


 * I need to think for a while about how to change the underlying system to try to deal with page moves. There are complications I'm worried about, and the format that I get the data makes the problem harder. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 01:07, 23 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I think it is quite rare, but when you have 50,000 articles, a 0.05% chance becomes significant. I have seen even major pages get moved - I've seen Sulfuric acid (a million hits/year) get moved on two separate occasions (in good faith) to silly names.  Also, if that moved page happens to be one that's really important to you, you notice it!  It may be rare, I think we want to avoid this happening, because we don't want to accidentally omit something like sulfuric acid.  All the best, Walkerma (talk) 01:35, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Importance Chart
Can you tell me how to create an importance chart for WP:Glee, I can't seem to find instructions. C T J F 8 3 chat 04:14, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe the instructions are at Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Using the bot. • Ling.Nut 02:28, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, thank you C T J F 8 3  chat 02:32, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Query on AFD statistics
Hello, CBM, I hope you are doing well. ;) I was wondering, if there is some way to utilize ArticleHistory, or some other such tool, in order to compile a statistical list of articles that went through AFD, which later went on to become GA and/or FA? Thank you so much for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 02:26, 25 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The hardest thing seems to be to get a list of articles that have even been good articles or featured articles. If you just want a list of articles that *are* good or featured and have been through AFD,that is easy. To get a list of articles that went through AFD, were promoted, and might have been demoted since, that would indeed be doable with ArticleHistory. The other difficulty that I forsee is that an article might have gone through AFD under a different title.


 * At the moment, most of my free time is taken up with the Wikipedia 0.8 release. You might want to post at WP:BOTREQ and see if someone there can take care of it faster than I can. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:05, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much for the response, will post there. -- Cirt (talk) 15:51, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Monitoring of WP:5P
Apparently some editors have been trying to quietly downgrade WP:5P to an essay. Can your bot monitor when it's been tagged or added to an Essay category, and send a notice to WP:VPP? Gigs (talk) 16:10, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The difficulty is that it has not been categorized as a policy for a long time (possibly due to category changes from a long time ago). If you look at this edit, the old category was "Wikipedia policies and guidelines". If the page is actually supposed to be a policy, it should be in Category:Wikipedia policies or one of the policy subcategories of Category:Wikipedia policies and guidelines. The bot does track changes to those categories.


 * I think there are too many essays to make it worthwhile for the bot to track them all, and I don't think it's good practice to hard-code individual pages into it. So if the page is not a policy or guideline, we'll have to rely on watchlists to track its status. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 16:28, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Hermitian variety
Is it good to cat this under Linear algebra? Rich Farmbrough, 17:16, 27 September 2010 (UTC).


 * The algebraic varieties category is more specific. I changed that and the stub type. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 17:20, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah I had it under that before but mistyped a bracket. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 17:31, 27 September 2010 (UTC).

Weirdness making list peer reviews into redirects
Hi Carl, there is something weird is going on with peer reviewes for lists. Peer review/List of extreme weather records in Pakistan/archive4 was set up as a redirect to Template:Peer review/preload10, and Peer review/List of defunct colleges and universities in Kansas/archive1 was a redirect to Template:Peer review/preload11. I fixed both PRs and left preload10 alone for those more knowledgable than I to look at. I deleted preload11 as it was the one I found first, via the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Peer_review. I have also asked for help with this problem. Thanks in advance for any assistance with this problem, Ruhrfisch <sub style="color:green;">&gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 12:51, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It was a lingering problem from when someone mucked with the PR template on September 3. I edited the template and it seems to work right now. You should feel free to move the discussions to the appropriate locations. The original redirects should probably be kept, although I don't think they are needed for the template to function properly. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:05, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks very much for your quick solution to the problem. I have restored the file I deleted. Ruhrfisch <sub style="color:green;">&gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 14:28, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Semidecidable?
Re: this edit. The term semidecidable does not appear to be widely used. (In the 2 books I have here on automata, neither have an index entry for the term.)

I'm not very knowledgable in this area. I was wondering whether the term semidecidable is widely used, or should it be removed? Justin W Smith talk/stalk 16:58, 29 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I think it's used often enough that we should mention it in the article on recursively enumerable sets. For example, Bridges, Boolos, and Jeffrey use it in their book. I don't think it has to be in the article on recursive sets but I don't strongly object either. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 19:09, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that it deserves mention, but I don't know that it needs to be in the lead section of recursive set, especially with the somewhat confusing wording currently describing such sets. (Every now and then I have to revert someone who changes "if and only if" to "if" in the definition of r.e. sets; it took me a little thought to figure out what was different about the current wording for semidecidable.) --Trovatore (talk) 19:31, 29 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes; the "if and only if" is necessary here because an algorithm that always halts does have the property, for any set K, that it halts on an input if that input is in K. The fact that it halts on other inputs is not an issue unless we include the "if and only if" part. I will rephrase it some other way. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 19:52, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

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Suggestion for VeblenBot
Hey, I noticed that, on User:VeblenBot/SPERtable, the content is stored in two tables, one of which is inside the other. The "parent" table is, for some reason, a sortable wikitable, even though there's no need for it to be sortable. I edited it and made it a normal wikitable, but, because the page is maintained by a bot, it was made sortable again upon the next update. Could the code that VeblenBot produces be changed to not make that table sortable? Here is exactly what I want to be changed in the first two lines of that table (I bolded the difference):

Thanks! -Oxguy3 (logged in as Oxguy the 3rd) talk 17:41, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

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Changing revisionIDs
Forgive me, I'm a little unclear on the procedure for changing the revisionID, as in the example requested here. Can I simply enter it as a manual selection, with the new revision ID, and will that override the autoselected one? Or is there a different procedure? Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 02:05, 5 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, the manual selection overrides the automated selection for revision ids. The change should take effect immediately, so you can double-check on the article list to see that the new revision id is being used in the diamond link. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 10:43, 5 October 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, done! How do I remove and article completely from the selection? Walkerma (talk) 02:33, 8 October 2010 (UTC)


 * You can use the manual selection tool, and mark the article norelease instead of release. That should make the diamond disappear. I'm going to be traveling Friday and Saturday, so I can answer here but I don't have the ability to look into anything more deeply until Sunday night. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 11:32, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

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