User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2007 April

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Thanks smackbot!
I'd just like to leave a note of appreciation for SmackBot. The number of minor corrections it's made for me is really great. i kan reed 18:56, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
 * It's good to be appreciated. Rich Farmbrough, 12:14 28 March 2007 (GMT).

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CHICOTW
TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio) 00:34, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you!
I just wanted to express my appreciation for your work, and consequently the work of Smackbot, in correcting my linking and style errors in the past month or so. Not only has it kept the articles up to standard despite my bumbling efforts, but I'm slowly learning how to do these things (so the bot won't have to follow me around - I'm sure it has better things to do). Thanks again for all your hard work! *Vendetta* (whois talk edits) 15:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

AWB Request:Don't complain of empty categories - Added
Hi, Just to let you know, i've sorted the complainging about categories, so it will wait till its loaded all categories before it complains

As per my response Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature_requests

I decided to go with the complain, but not until its loaded all the categories. It will make a list as it goes through of any bad categories, and then display a message box at the end to teh user listing them all. Then the user isnt left wondering what went wrong, and it wont interrupt the page loading from category process.

Cheers

Reedy Boy 21:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

SmackBot error?
You probably already know about problem edits like this. I left a note on SmackBot's talk too ... Keesiewonder talk 21:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi, Fact needs a date= parameter. Was that what you meant? Rich Farmbrough, 23:04 30 March 2007 (GMT).


 * Please click on the link above, then click on "Revision as of 09:44, March 28, 2007" (or the revision in the right column), then scroll down and look at the categories. One is in red, that should not be. Maybe the infobox cannot handle fact templates with dates? Hope that is clearer. If not, let me know and I'll try again ... Keesiewonder talk 23:12, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Ah yes, there is some "smart" code in the infobox that puts commas in numbers more thatn 3 digits long. (All very well....) I had forgotten about that.  Article fixed up now. Rich Farmbrough, 08:15 31  March 2007 (GMT).

proposal about maintenance templates
There is a proposal here to make a new maintenance template that would allow multiple issues to be adddressed within a single messagebox. Would you be willing to modify SmackBot to add dates to such a template, and is there any particular way of structuring the syntax of the template that would make it easier? This is all at the early proposal stage, and I wanted to let you know before anything is settled. CMummert · talk 12:17, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I would, and the proposed syntax would work reasonably well. Rich Farmbrough, 12:34 2 April 2007 (GMT).

Please date-fix "LocateMe"
There's a new Template:LocateMe; please will you add it to SmackBots patrol for date-fixing? Thank you. Andy Mabbett 00:21, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. Rich Farmbrough, 10:53 1 April 2007 (GMT).
 * Thank you. Andy Mabbett 17:10, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry - and Template:LocateMeBot, please (100 instances today; future bot edits should include the date). Andy Mabbett 22:45, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

AWB weirdness
This was an odd edit. There happens to be an 's version what is a redirect, but... weird. Can you expand on this bug report with your version info, etc? Thanx. &mdash; RevRagnarok Talk Contrib 14:28, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * D'oh. OK I guess it's all good ;) &mdash; RevRagnarok Talk Contrib 16:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for contacting me anyway. Rich Farmbrough, 17:01 2 April 2007 (GMT).

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Bot message
Thansk for your response; I'll do as you suggest in future. --Mel Etitis ( Talk ) 14:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Claudia Costa
You flagged my page at Claudia Costa...why? what material do you feel is being misused? Please let me know.
 * First of all I didn't tag the page, merely dated an exisiting tag. Secondly it's not considered "your" page (see WP:OWN). Thirdly the problem, which is not as major as it may seem, is that there is no source for the data, as Zimbardo Cookie Experiment said "It's definitely unreferenced. I'm not saying it's wrong, but it's unreferenced. Please see WP:ATTRIB" Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 19:00 5  April 2007 (GMT).

I saw that you may have edited the article on the Kabbalah
Hi! I just formed a new project, WikiProject Kabbalah, would you like to join? It is in great need of your assistance. Thanks. Lighthead 22:59, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Propose move SmackBot -> MassageBot
SmackBot does what computers should do, making life easier for people. Hate the name. The names FixBot, Doh!Bot, OopsBot, CleanBot, HaHaBot, TouchupBot, MassageBot, ConsistencyBot would all refer more to the function performed, rather than to its unwarranted Smack on the user. I'm already smacked by WP vandalism and WP politics, not to mention real life, I don't work on Wikipedia to be smacked yet again. I'll cop to a Massage, though. So, in future, please log all edits to articles I work on as by MassageBot. --Lexein 01:56, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Think of it as the smack at the end of a Swedish massage, or the smack of a Homer like pate when saying Doh!  Whatever makes you comfortable... The name was never intended as a reprimand,  although some users have taken it as such, just a passing pun.  Regards Rich Farmbrough, 07:41 6  April 2007 (GMT).

uncategorizedstub parameterisation
Why this change from a numeric to a named parameter on uncategorizedstub? It's now inconsistent with the most similar such template, uncategorized, and the various examples of its use. If there's a move on to have all maintenance templates use the same parameterisation, it would at least be a good idea to maintain "backwards compatibility" until such time as they really all are consistent. Alai 18:07, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes,this was a mistake, working on too many templates. I have restored "backward compataibility". Rgds, Rich Farmbrough, 21:46 6 April 2007 (GMT).
 * Thanks. Yeah, I'd noticed one of those edits, checking up on my bot's latest run, but I'd no idea that editor was retagging so many (though, seems to have been doing at least some categorisation in there too).  If they're still editing, must from under a different IP, so not much sense in complaining about it.  Alai 22:45, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

SmackBot goof FYI
FYI --Keesiewonder talk 23:08, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, source of problem already fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 09:44 7 April 2007 (GMT).

Ernham is back
Hi. I notice you've been involved in blocking User:Ernham before. He's just come back from his ban, and is already at it again, removing sourced references etc. he doesn't like with no attempt to discuss. I'm immensely frustrated at wasting time reverting him, and hope not to get sucked into another edit war. I'd appreciate your help in keeping an eye on him, especially his 'contribution' to Lothar von Trotha and Herero and Namaqua genocide. Thank you :) Greenman 12:52, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll keep an eye when I can spare one. Rich Farmbrough, 13:47 7 April 2007 (GMT).
 * Thanks - he's just reverted the two articles again :) I'm not going to get involved in an edit war again, but perhaps you'd like to case your eye over the two articles when you're feeling inspired, and see what you think :) Greenman 11:54, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I've reported him at and commented on a report of his against another user at . It would be much appreciated if you could add your comments if you get a chance. Thank you :) Greenman 12:42, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

its a mistake
If you are looking for a new job, you should find this agency suits you to a T. -- RHaworth 06:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

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SmackBot vs. DoBs
Might you consider using SmackBot to convert 1 April 1963 format birth dates, in info boxes, to April 1, 1963 format (output: April 1, 1963 - see birth date and age)?

You can use April 1, 1963 if the subject is dead and if there is consensus to keep that template (last discussed August '06; its talk page) (output: April 1, 1963 - seebirth date).

I'm a big fan of templating data, for semantic reasons, and in this case for future use in hCard microformats (see also WP:UF). Thank you. Andy Mabbett 23:06, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * No problems with this in principle. How do you tel if someone is dead? Rich Farmbrough, 10:33 11  April 2007 (GMT).

Stub tag ordering
Could you please tell Smackbot to not put stub tags below the categories. They belong above them, which is where they are on the page and where they are easily visible to someone editing. Categories, on the other hand, are more like meta-data on the order of inter-wiki links. —Centrx→talk &bull; 20:47, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * There's an archived discussion here. The salient points seem to be


 * There's not a mandated place.
 * Stubs are an editor feature (and a form of sef-reference) so belong at the end after user features.
 * Stubs include a category, so they should definately come after any "real" categories, so that the category listing makes more sense. Before or after interwiki is debateable, perhaps it doesn't matter much. Rich Farmbrough, 10:32 11 April 2007 (GMT).

Your view of ISBN-13?
Hello Rich. I notice this template has been created, perhaps by people who didn't know that ISBN magic would work with ISBN-13. In the past, counter-productive ISBN templates have been deleted with fair regularity, after the issue was explained. Do you have any strong views on this one? I assume that, since subst may not be used, your off-line ISBN-checker, which reads wiki text, would face an additional hurdle in checking for validity that it wouldn't face if the ISBN were entered in the normal way. The claimed benefit, from the entry for ISBN-13, is that this allows a where-used function for usage of ISBN-13 within Wikipedia. So what do you say? Replying here on your Talk page is fine. EdJohnston 19:09, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * AFAIC it can go. In fairness, though, ISBN has only supported 13 digits relatively recently. Rich Farmbrough, 10:15 11  April 2007 (GMT).

CBOTB GA
For Smackbot:

TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio) 17:16, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Bot messed up?
teh bot parsed and turned it into  in which the super script text don't appear but spills out the  broken text. Getonyourfeet 17:47, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Which article? Rich Farmbrough, 18:49 11 April 2007 (GMT).
 * Barrel man but i fixed it...check the history Getonyourfeet 18:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, there were several of these, but the cause of the problem is fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 18:59 11 April 2007 (GMT).

SmackBot
The SmackBot added a link to a global warming site in this article about Internet marketing:. Am I missing something? Panfakes 17:03, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes two things:
 * The site relates to a SEO competition.
 * I (SB) did not add it.
 * Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 11:44 12 April 2007 (GMT).

Underscores
your bot removed all the _ for one of the articles i've been working on... i've tried to preach to always put the _ in for any article, so i'll be reverting it back to the previous one prior to it editing, but i'll leave the date added to one of the tags... here is the edit summary, if ya have any problems with my revert then message me and change it back... peace,  Ancientanubis ,  talk  19:20, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * No problem, but most people (and robots) preach against those underscores. Rich Farmbrough, 11:34 12 April 2007 (GMT).
 * really??? i've always been under the impression that the _ were consitered more o the norm then no _... hmmmm  Ancientanubis ,  talk  13:34, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Pectuscast Tone
Hello,

I noticed that you disapproved of the tone of the article on the Nuss procedure, without adding any suggestions on how to improve the article on the talk page. I started this article, and I keep an eye on it to maintain it. Please either explain the designation on the talk page, remove this designation because it is unexplained, or fix the article as you see fit, and remove the designation. If you just want to explain your objection, I would be glad to make the corrections myself.

Thanks,--Seth Goldin 22:10, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Seth, I made some style changes at the time, I have made a few more, can you check that I have not introduced any inaccurcies? Rgds, Rich Farmbrough, 23:56 11 April 2007 (GMT).
 * Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what you changed, as I haven't monitored all of the edits lately, but the article looks good as it is now. Thanks.--Seth Goldin 04:15, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Tag curiosity
Please remind me what this edit adds. I'm curious since I've been warned in the past to not make what appear as trivial edits to articles with AWB. Thanks for your thoughts. Keesiewonder talk 14:01, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Probably a bug, as it doesn't seem to add anything of any value? --kingboyk 16:09, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi I noticed a message in my archives that I had not replied to about this edit. (Kingboyk had said it was probably a bug.) The answer is that the template was transitioning from default parameter to a named parameter, all the dated clean up tags now use "date=". Rgds, Rich Farmbrough, 09:15 28 August 2007 (GMT).

templates and categories
Why does SmackBot seperate a meta-template like DEFAULTSORT from the categories? As soon as it's not near the categories, people will wonder about the strange sorting. --32X 19:43, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * This was standard AWB behaviour, has now been changed - see . Rich Farmbrough, 08:11 16  April 2007 (GMT).

Me again
Hope I'm not becoming a pain. Here Smackbot corrected the capitalisation of the template (!) but left it wrongly formated (it doesn't take the "article" argument, giving rise to a category error). --Mel Etitis ( Talk ) 14:01, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Smackbot is only attempting (hee) to deal with date arguments and a few ancillary issues. The use of the default template argument leads to many problems, which can only be fully dealt with by AI... (E.G. cleanup|Fev 2007, cleanup|2007 etc. etc.) That's one of the reasons that I encourage the use of date= format for all cleanup templates, and in due course hope we can phase out the use of the default parameter (possibly adding a standard "reason="). Ideally we could add parameter parsing to the template as well to detect invalid values of date parameter.  This also answers some of the points below. Rich Farmbrough, 08:26 16  April 2007 (GMT).

Strange edit
Hi Rich, you might want to look at |this edit, where SmackBot's edit summary said "Date/fix the maintenance tags", but all it did was a trivial formatting edit. The maintenance template was removed by me in the edit prior to that. HTH. --kingboyk 16:24, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It is an inaccurate summary, I suppose I should check for presence of cleanup template. Rich Farmbrough, 08:27 16  April 2007 (GMT). 08:27, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Implied date field
Could you update the bot to understand implied dates in templates? See this edit for an example of broken behavior. /Blaxthos 21:47, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * It is actually not bad at doing that, however that template was already broken as there is no implied date behaviour for default parameter 2. Rich Farmbrough, 08:29 16 April 2007 (GMT).

SmackBot
Here Smackbot moved a graffito, presumably mistaking it for a stub &mdash; I don't suppose there's anything that can be done anout that, but I've often wondered why it moves stubs from the bottom of articles to part way up. At the bottom makes more sense for them, because they're temporary additions. --Mel Etitis ( Talk ) 09:53, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * AWB puts stubs after categories but before interwikis. Personally I woul like to see all stubs and other maint. templates right at the end, but for stubs that's good enough.  What you saw with the graffito was the cats being moved to the end. Rich Farmbrough, 11:36 12  April 2007 (GMT).


 * Ah [smacks head] &mdash; not A being moved before B, but B being moved after A. Obvious now you explain it. --Mel Etitis  ( Talk ) 11:48, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi there. Your SmackBot edited tags over at Orks (Warhammer 40,000) and turned them into partial tags. An Example was changing a tag around sexual to have sex tagged followed by ual. Its a messy error and I do not know how many other pages it commited the error on. Thanks. SanchiTachi 17:44, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Dominique Peccatte
I have in the past sighted the reference in question, and it was changed by another user perhaps for grammatical reasons. Nevertheless, I have updated my revision to reflect your request. Could you please delete the > "Categories: Articles with unsourced statements since April 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements"

Thank you in advance. User:Milliot 10:10,  16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks for your message, SmackBot does not generally add tags, but merely dates those that are already there. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 08:45 17  April 2007 (GMT).

Template:ASIN
Template:ASIN was nominated for deletion. You created it, so I thought you should probably know. --- RockMFR 22:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 08:45 17 April 2007 (GMT).

Messy User:Talk
My user:talk page is suddenly a mess and I cannot read any of my archived dialog from respondents. How can I revert to the clean page? Dogru144 00:39, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Seems User:RockMFR has kindly fixed it up for you. Rich Farmbrough, 08:49 17 April 2007 (GMT).
 * Yes, quite nice of him/her. Dogru144 08:51, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

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Cleanup templates
Thanks for the tip! Just for my own reference, which of my edits were you refering to? Thanks! Hiberniantears 18:49, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * This one. Rich Farmbrough, 22:39 17 April 2007 (GMT).

SmackBot & template name first-letter case
I know it's a bit silly at this point to think that we will _ever_ have a MediaWiki that doesn't force the first letter to be capitalized, but assuming we ever did, it won't have helped things to have unnecessarily standardized to capitals. 2¢ ¦ Reisio 00:29, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Sure. When I canonicalise a template name and layout, from potentially hundreds of variations (for example "unreferenced" has 16 synonyms, plus 8 variations, times a least 196 layouts, ignoring case) I have to choose first letter caps or lower case. I choose caps. Rich Farmbrough, 07:55 18  April 2007 (GMT).

CHICOTW
TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio) 00:34, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup templates
You're just trying to confuse me, aren't you? :) OK, I'll try to be good.  ;)  Corvus cornix 18:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

SmackBot
Why does SmackBot add "date=" to a maintenance tag when it's not needed? For example, has the same function as , as far as I can tell. It seems a waste to have SmackBot making these changes. --Sable232 14:39, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Sable. Most cleanup templates that take a date use "date=" but a significant few use (used) the default parameter, it is very hard for editors to remember which are which (I find it hard, and I work with these templates a lot).  For that reason "date=" support is being added to the templates which didn't support it, such as Orphan, and over the course of time these should migrate to only using "date=". SB has traditionally added or taken away the "date=" as required, this will become simply adding "date=".  The default argument then becomes unused, unless the template is re-written. I have to day fixed up several hundred articles where the default argument (which stood for the date) had been used as a "reason" field or contained "article" as other templates default arguments can do, as well as the normal crop of wikilinked dates, quoted dates,  misspelled dates etc., some of these problems should go, when the transition is complete, and the syntax will be easier to remember.  Hope that explains what's happening. Rich Farmbrough, 15:35 19  April 2007 (GMT).
 * Thanks. I got it. --Sable232 17:20, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

SB: EL section heading
SmackBot changed the external links section of Backmasking from "== External links ==" to "==External links==", removing only the spaces. The rest of the article uses spaces in the headings, so I reverted the change.  Λυδ α  cιτγ  23:22, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * No worries. Rich Farmbrough, 08:12 16 April 2007 (GMT).


 * Perhaps SmackBot should remove leading and trailing spaces from all headings? Andy Mabbett 11:18, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Possibly, I believe AWB did this once upn a time, but arguments ensued.... Rich Farmbrough, 11:19 20 April 2007 (GMT).


 * ! Andy Mabbett 11:21, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Template:Current
Could you have SmackBot "date/fix" this maintenance tag? See Template talk:Current. Obviously this will be different than other dated tags as it would be removed after a few months of no significant changes, though I'm not sure whether that part could be automated. I mean, an event can still be very current, and even ongoing, without getting much attention from us (systemic bias — the rate of editing is not always a good indicator). — CharlotteWebb 16:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
 * No problem, provided it's ok if everything gets bunged into April to start. Rgds, Rich Farmbrough, 17:03 20 April 2007 (GMT).

Please resolve ongoing move dispute, over name
Persons named Juan González use an accent over the "a" in Gonzalez. Editors have moved the page to Juan Gonzalez (journalist) without the accent several times. Please help secure that the page can remain with the accent. The system is locked against moving the page to the proper spelling. Dogru144 21:36, 21 April 2007 (UTC)