User talk:ListasBot/Archives/2009/April

Bot making null edits
To avoid excessive server load, its preferable to avoid the use of bots to make large numbers of edits whose sole purpose is to remove whitespace, , ,. You can fix this problem by checking the "Only whitespace is changed" box in AWB's skip options tab. Erik9 (talk) 15:33, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * My apologies, it's been fixed. ListasBot (talk) 19:39, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * It's still happening, sometimes removing spaces, sometimes adding carriage returns. Adding carriage returns may increase readability, but I don't know how important that is, and the Edit summary in such cases is incorrect, as the listas parameter is neither added nor fixed., , , . MANdARAX  •  XAЯAbИAM  20:36, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Whoops. I have to set the options for it in AWB every time I start running it.  (I have to quit and restart AWB after about every 32,000 pages.)  I need to pay closer attention to that.  I'll start looking for a way to have the bot automatically set those options when it runs.  Matt (talk) 20:39, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Matt, AWB will save the skip options. Rich Farmbrough, 14:11 20 March 2009 (UTC).
 * It does, if you do File->Save settings as default. I was doing File->Save settings, and it was popping up a dialog saying no settings were loaded, and asking me if I wanted to save them as the default settings. Apparently it doesn't actually save your settings when you do it that way. Matt (talk) 19:26, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
 * If this is happening, then probably is a bug of AWB and you should report it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:39, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Tagging archive pages
Your bot just added Category:Pages with incorrect WPBiography tags to Talk:Ralph Merkle/Archive 1. It did it a while after I moved the biography tags from the /Archive page back to their correct place at Talk:Ralph Merkle. See this edit:

If the bug isn't obvious then don't bother about this. Since this is an exceptional case.

I had just done a content merge of Talk:Ralph Merkle/Archive 2 into Talk:Ralph Merkle/Archive 1. Then I did an edit history merge of the two archive pages back to Talk:Ralph Merkle, since big parts of the talk page history were on those archive pages since they had been created with page moves instead of cut and paste. As you might know, doing a history merge involves doing some page deletions, page moves, page restorings and in this case also some cut and pastes. So I can understand if it confused your bot.

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It's probably because the talk page was part of the Category:Biography articles without listas parameter list when I retrieved the list (which I think was yesterday or the day before), but by the time it came up in the queue, it wasn't. I don't know of a good fix for that right off the bat, but there's no problem with reverting the change.  Matt (talk) 20:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Try keeping the list at least one day old. Biography articles change really fast because of AfDs, PRODs, Speedys, etc. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:40, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Two suggestions
Hi. Since this bot runs through that many articles and does it faster than User:Yobot I would like to request two additional tasks for it.
 * Remove "|nested=yes| parameter from any WPBiography banner since the parameter is not supported anymore. (Nesting is automatic when needed).
 * Change "|importance=" with "|priority=".

Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 07:03, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Could be done easily enough. Would that require another BRfA?  Matt (talk) 07:15, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Meh, I guess we'll play it safe and fill another one out anyway. Matt (talk) 07:28, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
 * KingbotK plugin already does the second and I requested a fix for the first one. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:29, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

One more thing which I forgot. "class=" should also be added when not present. Keep up the good work. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:44, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Done and done. Matt (talk) 19:11, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Can you also add "core=" in your yes or nothing list? Moreover, I good idea would be I you could remove white space inside the template "living = " has to become "living=". The last is not standard but is was Kingbot and I do. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 07:33, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Ow. My eyes hurt from looking at the stereograms article.  Coding is complete, I'll be trying it out here in just a couple minutes.  Matt (talk) 08:04, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Edit to Jennifer Welles
Regarding this edit: as far as I can tell, Welles has not made any public appearances or really been heard from at all in approximately 30 years, so it's unknown whether she's still alive. I already removed this flag but ListasBot put it back in, not sure why.&mdash; Chowbok  ☠  14:31, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

This is because the person is probably alive and thus the article about her must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Any individuals that are in the category of Possibly living people are tagged with living=yes by the Wikiproject Biography. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:49, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Ditto. The bot looks at the article, and if the article is a member of Category:Living people or Category:Possibly living people, it sets "living" to "yes".  Matt (talk) 19:02, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

It is a big mistake to try to shoehorn traditional Arabic names into the European naming scheme of inherited surnames...
It is a big mistake to try to shoehorn traditional Arabic names into the European naming scheme of inherited surnames.

There are two parallel naming schemes used in Arabic. All names that begin with "Abu", like Abu Hamza al-Masri use a naming scheme similar to that of the old Norse -- as used in Iceland today. Lief Ericson was the son of Eric the Red. Ericson was not an inheritable surname. If Lief had a son, Joe, his name would have been something like "Joe Liefson". Abu names as similar, except they specify the bearers sons, not his fathers. "Abu Hamza" means "father of Hamza". "El-Masri" is not a European style surname. It means "from Egypt".

This bot should definitely not try to shoehorn any names that begin with "Abu" into the inherited surname style of naming.

In the other naming scheme a son does incorporate part of his father's name into his own name. But they incorporate their father's given name, their first name, as a kind of last name -- a last name that is not an inherited surname. If I had a son named "Joe", they would use my first name George as their last name. They would be something like "Joe George". Without regard to whether someone who didn't understand the Arabic naming scheme put a mistaken DEFAULTSORT onto an article this bot should not try to shoehorn Arabic names into the European naming scheme.

Some people with Arabic style names, who live in the west, or were educated in the west, may adopt the European naming style, for their children. But this is not true for most people with Arabic style names. .

Candidly, Geo Swan (talk) 00:38, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * This robot edit is doubly wrong. If one is going to shoehorn an Arabic name into the European style one would consider the "al-" prefix as part of the name.  "Al" the Arabic article -- equivalent to English "the".  It does not stand alone.  Geo Swan (talk) 00:43, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Geo, thank you for your feedback, however, the bot is not deciding on its own how the name should be arranged -- rather, in this instance, it merely copied what was in the article's DEFAULTSORT tag. I would suggest that you make an effort to correct those.  If you feel warranted, I can consider revising ListasBot so that it brings the talk page's listas parameter into sync with whatever is on the article page.  Thanks, Matt (talk) 00:43, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for understanding.


 * Well meaning volunteers have put mistaken DEFAULTSORT on hundreds of the articles on my watchlist, and probably several thousand other articles.


 * Would it be possible to not place a "listas" for all articles that have an Arabic tag? Geo Swan (talk) 01:07, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't that imply that all DEFAULTSORTS on all Arabic articles are wrong? I'm going to guess that's not the case.  How would the bot distinguish between what's right and what's wrong?  Matt (talk) 01:11, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't go that far. The Arabic named individuals who live in the west, or were educated in the west are going to be disproportionally represented here.  I believe these westernized individuals are a relatively small minority of the wikipedia's Arabic named individuals.  I wouldn't know how to confirm the exact percentage of those who have defected to the European style.  I am sure the percentage is well past the number necessary to demote the European style of surnames as the default for Arabic names.  Pashtuns from Afghanistan also follow the Arabic style.


 * I don't think the bot, or anyone who isn't familiar with the complications of Arabic naming conventions, should be trying to guess at whether that individual has defected to the European style. Geo Swan (talk) 02:37, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I am absolutely certain that no names that start with "Abu" should use naive sorts... Geo Swan (talk) 02:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, my personal preference would be "I'd rather have something there that has a chance at being right rather than nothing at all", given the backlog we have. However, I'm not going to kid myself and tell anyone that my views reflect consensus without getting it first.  I can recode the bot to skip over articles with Arabic in it, but I don't know how much it would solve, since the DEFAULTSORT would still be left on the article.  With this system, the talk page at least gets a listas tag that matches the article's DEFAULTSORT.  Matt (talk) 02:52, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Unwanted changesin translated page
Something went wrong in this one. The first template shouldn't be touched. The template was broken after this edit. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:38, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

In general ListasBot starting adding breaks not only in WPbiography but in all templates around. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:40, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * My bad. I noticed it and fixed it.  I added code that will set "blp=yes" or "activepol=yes" in the WPBS if either one of them are "yes" in the WPBiography template.  I also added code that would stick line breaks into the WPBS tag, but through my own stupidity it inadvertantly did the same thing to all the other tags in the page.  Matt (talk) 09:03, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

WikiProjectBannerShell
Since you are doing work with WikiProjectBannerShell as well, please try to add the missing "1=" parameter where missing. For example in this one. The original code has to be: {{WikiProjectBannerShell|blp=yes|1={{WPBiography|living=yes}}. The 1= parameter is necessary for KingbotK plugin.

Moreover, the completely unnecessary "blp=no" has to be removed from this template. Blp should be yes or not exist. Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:51, 30 April 2009 (UTC)