User talk:ListasBot/Archives/2009/May

Test
Test to see if ListasBot's new code detects that it has messages. Matt (talk) 07:36, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
 * And another one. Matt (talk) 07:42, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

ListasBot bug
If you're coming here to notify me that ListasBot is only changing whitespace and/or reordering parameters, I've seen the bug and fixed it. I don't think it's worth the database load to go and roll back all those changes, however. Sorry for the inconvenience. Matt (talk) 09:22, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

ListasBot making non-bot-flagged edits
I just hit "Hide Bots" in my watchlist, yet ListasBot is still showing up. There is not a "b" next to the edits to indicate that it was a bot edit for some reason.--Unionhawk Talk 18:32, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Change to Eileen Favorite
No, you did not get the wikilink part wrong, I just put in some wikilinks, then removed the tag. Captain Gamma (talk) 01:03, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * ...huh? You do realize you're talking to a bot, right?  Matt (talk) 01:19, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Redirecting talk pages
Hello. I have just noticed your bot's function 3 (Bots/Requests for approval/ListasBot 3) and I have a few concerns about it. Firstly, a fair number of WikiProjects actively keep track of redirects within their scope by marking them as Redirect-Class. By redirecting the talk page, you are destroying this information which may be useful to the project. Secondly I just wonder at the usefulness of this function - is anyone likely to type the name of the talk page into the search bar? Personally I have never done this and I would always want "Talk" to take me to the talk page of the page I am looking at. Have you had any other comments about this? I don't know if your bot is still doing this operation, but if so, perhaps you would consider stopping and discussing this a bit more? Best wishes, &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:38, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Nested parameter?
Why does the bot remove the nested parameter from project templates where it is not yet used? When other templates are added and they are wrapped in WPBannerShell nested has to be added back again. Is this bot behaviour really necessary? – ukexpat (talk) 00:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It was explained to me by User:Magioladitis that all WikiProject banners automatically provide nesting when necessary, therefore, this parameter is no longer necessary. See WP:Bots/Requests for approval/ListasBot 5.  Thanks, Matt (talk) 01:01, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not sure that's quite right. I added a BannerShell to a talk page earlier today and it looked like crap until I added the nested parameter to all the wrapped templates. – ukexpat (talk) 01:12, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * You might want to bring that up at Template talk:WikiProjectBannerShell then, because they're under the impression that they've fixed it so that "nested=yes" is deprecated/obsolete. Matt (talk) 01:17, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * OK will do, when I figure out which page it was. Thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 01:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Spacing
Hi. I know you said that you ll stop being such a pleaser to everyone but I want to ask you to stop adding this unnecessary space in every line. IT has been discussed in the past for other templates and I am quite sure that there is a general rule not to add spaces in templates. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 22:54, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Ugh. I should make you cite precedent on this one.  Just remember, you owe me one. :-P  Matt (talk) 23:37, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I think I'll pay you back by... giving you more requests :P [Check http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Hidekazu_Yoshida&diff=prev&oldid=288921508 this one]. "Attention" and "Removal" are also "yes or delete" parameters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:40, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That's not much of a payback, that just sounds like something else you owe me for. :-P ✅  Matt (talk) 19:42, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I bet you missed my requests :P Check this out. "Baronets-work-group" is another "yes or delete" parameter. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 08:33, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I didn't miss it. The method I used was to put together a list of all the parameters supported by WPBiography, and flag them as either "I can delete it if it's empty or 'no'" or "I can't delete it".  The reason for doing it this way was because the "past-collaboration" parameter is supposed to be set to a date, rather than "yes" or "no", so I didn't want to risk deleting it, and I didn't feel like making a special case for that one parameter.  Matt (talk) 08:59, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The verb "miss" above doesn't mean "forget". I meant that I am demanding things quite regularly from your lately. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:37, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Oy...well, chalk another one up in the "you owe me one" category. :-P ✅  Matt (talk) 10:50, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

listas for Richard, Little
I know you're just a bot, but no listing for the stage name of Richard Penniman should appear as "Richard, Little." In every list I've seen in the last 50 years, his name has always been stated as Little Richard. Are the Rolling Stones referred to as Stones, Rolling? Besides, calling him Richard, Little would confuse him with the comedian Rich(ard) Little, or Little, Rich(ard).

Or maybe I'm wrong. Seduisant (talk) 03:37, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's because someone put that in the article's DEFAULTSORT tag. The bot merely copied the article's DEFAULTSORT value.  Apparently this edit is to blame.  Matt (talk) 04:25, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!
I'm glad someone has finally got round to using a bot to make DEFAULTSORT and listas consistent! And I love the edit notice you have here reminding people that it is DEFAULTSORT that needs to be corrected. Is there any chance of also looking at the sort value in WP:Persondata where that is present in the article? If you want, I can also point out old discussion on biographical metadata. For now, see WP:Biographical metadata and in particular here (though all the other stuff might interest you as well). Carcharoth (talk) 20:34, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. :-) I don't have a whole lot of experience with WP:Persondata, and I have some personal commitments that need attending to, so I'll look into it later tonight or tomorrow.  Matt (talk) 20:48, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Dutch surname capitalisation
Hi! Just a very minor point: here, "van" should not be capitalised because it directly follows the first name. Only when the surname appears by itself, e.g. "Van den Hoogenband, Pieter", should "van" be capitalised. I don't even know whether this affects the sorting at all or it's just cosmetic. Oliphaunt (talk) 19:26, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, in this case, the bot simply copied what was in the article's DEFAULTSORT tag. I don't know if capitalization makes a difference in sorting, but since "Van" appeared so far into the name, I don't think it's going to make a significant difference.  Thanks, Matt (talk) 19:29, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Random message
Testing out a program I wrote. Matt (talk) 12:30, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * And another random message. Matt (talk) 12:32, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * And one more. Matt (talk) 12:34, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * And one last one. Matt (talk) 21:51, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Listas on all projects
Why not make the bot add the parameter to all projects tagged on a page instead of just to the Bio project? Otherwise, can I request the bot to work on WikiProject Mississippi tags? - ALLST✰R &#09660; echo wuz here @ 22:14, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Because there's too many WikiProjects to keep track of, and WPBiography is the only one of them that puts the page into a maintenance category if it's missing the listas parameter. However, if other templates on the page have listas as one of the parameters, then ListasBot will bring it into sync with the listas parameter of WPBiography.  Matt (talk) 22:28, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * WPBio isn't the only one that puts the page into a maintenance cat. See Category:Mississippi articles without listas parameter - 2,300+ articles in there. And after seeing it, now you know why I need help! lol - ALLST✰R &#09660; echo wuz here @ 22:56, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Huh, I've been proven wrong...well, let's rephrase that then -- WPBiography has the biggest backlog of pages without the listas parameter (although that won't be for long). However, all things considered, my opinion would be to limit how many WikiProject banners on a given page have the listas parameter in them, since the more you have, the more chance that someone will come along and change one and not the others, and introduce a DEFAULTSORT conflict.  That's not to say that I would be opposed to having ListasBot go through a few other categories such as Category:Mississippi articles without listas parameter, it just means that I wouldn't be in favor of using ListasBot to blanket every WikiProject with a listas parameter.
 * Understand. Well, all I can do is ask and all you can do is say no. lol I would very much appreciate it if you'd do it. :] - ALLST✰R &#09660; echo wuz here @ 02:23, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Nothing wrong with asking. :-) Do you know if there are any other WikiProjects that throw their listas-less pages into a maintenance category?  Matt (talk) 02:24, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell from Category:Wikipedia template parameter issues, besides WP Mississippi and WPBio, WP Tennessee does too at Category:Tennessee articles without listas parameter. So it doesn't appear to be a major Wiki-wide issue.. unless of course any other Projects just aren't listed at Category:Wikipedia template parameter issues because they don't have their pages tagged with it. - ALLST✰R &#09660; echo wuz here @ 02:43, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

To-Do List for ListasBot
This is my list of what I'd like ListasBot to be able to do in the future. If you want to make a suggestion, please feel free to add on to this list.

Signing this section so that it gets archived. Matt (talk) 08:40, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Recognize pages that were set up with instead of  .  Skip them for now, but eventually be able to replace the content with an appropriate  tag in the future.  Bot now skips pages that do not have a WPBiography tag in them. (3/13/09)
 * As an alternative, we could tag these pages with a special category tag so that a user could easily identify them. DONE (3/13/09)
 * ListasBot needs to be able to recognize pages that it has already tagged with Category:Pages with incorrect WPBiography tags so that it doesn't tag them a second time.
 * Ignore text inside of &lt;nowiki&gt; tags. DONE (3/13/09)
 * Remove extra punctuation and replace Unicode characters with their alphabetical equivelants. DONE (3/13/09)
 * BUG: ListasBot is replacing listas tags where the value is an HTML comment with its internal index of the comment. I thought I fixed this one... DONE
 * If the page is a talk page (almost always happens), search the main article for a DEFAULTSORT tag. DONE

Default sort for Anglo-Saxon names
Just a note in case the bot can avoid this issue: it's not an absolute rule but in almost every case Anglo-Saxon names with "æ" or "Æ", the "Æsc" character, should be listed as "ae" or Ae". The issue I saw was not the bot's fault: I noticed "Rædwald of East Anglia" was changed to "Redwald of East Anglia"; it should really be "Raedwald", but in that case the problem was that the defaultsort parameter from the article was wrong.  However, I thought I'd check to see if the bot understood this in general.

Unfortunately I can't guarantee this will work for every word that has an æsc, but I think it will be accurate for almost all of them. The only exception I can think of is Ælfred, who is better known as Alfred the Great, and in that case the article is already at the correct name. Mike Christie (talk) 10:18, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * If the DEFAULTSORT tag has an "æ" in it, the bot is already programmed to change it to "ae". In this case, though, the bot just copied what was in the article's DEFAULTSORT tag.  Doesn't look like there was an æ in there to begin with.  Matt (talk) 18:40, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, looks like the bot is doing the right thing already. Thanks for checking. Mike Christie (talk) 22:06, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Irish names
You seem to have entered "Terence Patrick O'Sullivan" as "Osullivan". This is incorrect orthography for this kind of Irish surname. Deipnosophista (talk) 10:35, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * According to WP:MCSTJR, punctuation (such as apostrophes) should be removed from sort keys. In any case, the bot pulled the DEFAULTSORT tag from the article page, which didn't have an apostrophe in it at the time -- however, if it had, it would have removed it, since that's the rules.  Matt (talk) 18:16, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Living always in lowercase
Check this edit. IT would be better if you could ensure that the living parameter is given in lowercase, otherwise it's unrecognised. It also would be useful if any occurrence of "Yes" or "No" changed to "yes" and "no". -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:43, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Working on it. Matt (talk) 18:58, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, ✅. Matt (talk) 19:06, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Band listas
The bot seems to be using default sort of some band articles (e.g. The Black Swans, The Byrds) and using that as a listas. Surely that usage isn't right? Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!  02:13, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's basically where you'd want the page to show up in an index...so yes, I'd have to say that the way those two are sorted is right.

Mendele Mocher Sforim
You've got this wrong both in the article and the discussion page. It is a pen name meaning "Mendele the Book Peddler" and is not a first-, middle-, and last name construct. ==Futhark|Talk 05:13, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The bot is only copying what was in the DEFAULTSORT tag in the article. This edit from a year and a half ago would be to blame.  Matt (talk) 05:15, 29 May 2009 (UTC)