User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2007 June

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A job for SmackBot
Hi, Rich. Do you think that you could please look into adding More sources, Moresources, Sources, and Refimprove to the templates that get date tags placed by SmackBot? --After Midnight 0001 04:27, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi yes, I though it did some of these already. SB will be resting for a few days though. Rich Farmbrough, 09:55 26 May 2007 (GMT).
 * It's good to see SB back to work! Can it make a special pass against Category:Articles lacking reliable references to get these all cleaned up? If you let me know here when it is done, I can check to see if there are any other template issues that need correcting. --After Midnight 0001 03:44, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm hoping to get a complete run through today. SO keep an eye on the cat. Ideally I like to empty the cats at month end, but it will be a bit of a struggle this time. Rich Farmbrough, 18:25 31 May 2007 (GMT).
 * It looks like you made it through the second half of the alphabet from looking in the category now. Even though many were not done, this is still a great improvement, and the ones that weren't tagged for May can get June.  Looking in the later part of the alphabet does show that we should also consider adding inline citations to the list.  Also, there is something wrong with  refimprovesect.  Either the parameter needs to be changed to remove the "date=" (i.e. from "|date=May 2007" to just "|May 2007", or the template needs to be changed to accept it in the "date=" format.  Which do you recommend?  I can change the template if you think that is the way to go for consistency, but however we go, we should probably coordinate for timing, etc. --After Midnight 0001 04:40, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

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Smackbot and Template:moresources
There are quite a few articles directly in Category:Articles lacking reliable references. I think these are tagged with sources, refimprove, and moresources and more sources. Could you add these to SmackBot's list if they are not already there? There is a relevant TfD discussion here. CMummert Ã¯Â¿Â½ talk 13:48, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I got here first.... Please look up 2 headings. --After Midnight 0001 01:25, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Reference tag by Smackbot
Hi, I think, that demanding references or sources in the articles about regional and international organizations with existing official web-sites, already mentioned in the "External links", is excessive. If any organization has its official reliable web-site, it seems to be enough in many cases. Example:Pacific Regional Environment Programme.Ans-mo 13:04, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Ususal note left - SB only dates these tags.... Rich Farmbrough, 18:28 31 May 2007 (GMT).

Your bot
I noticed that Smackbot changes External link to External links without regard to the number of links in the section. If there is only one link, I would prefer the singular to be used. Is there a reason why this is not the case? Catchpole 10:43, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, there are a number of reasons. (And of course there are a number of reasons that the singular is good too.) External links is the guideline, and the main reason is style. We use plural for both "External Links" and "References" (and I guess "Notes") in the same way that books have a "Contents" page even if there's only one chapter. Subsidiary reasons include that people often add links without updating the headings, and consistency.  If you trawl through the talk page you'll see the various arguments come up on either side.  Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 19:24 30 May 2007 (GMT).

Dating trivia tags
Hi! Would you mind adding trivia and toomuchtrivia (which redirects to the former) to the list of maintenance tags that SmackBot dates? The template was modified recently and monthly categorisation is now possible. I initially brought up the request here, if you want to see more details. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 22:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi, yes no problem, will include it over the next couple of days, once SB has caught up with its backlog. Rich Farmbrough, 13:54 1 June 2007 (GMT).
 * Thanks! Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 15:56, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

SmackBot de-wikilinking years?
I noticed that SmackBot apparently de-wikilinked the year 2003 in this edit. Unless I misunderstand this, it should not have done that. -- Boracay Bill 23:09, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Joey (film)
A "" template has been added to the article Joey (film), suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but yours may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice explains why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may contest the proposed deletion by removing the  notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. JHunterJ 23:19, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Joey (film)
A "" template has been added to the article Joey (film), suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but yours may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice explains why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may contest the proposed deletion by removing the  notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. JHunterJ 23:19, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

SmackBot is moving stubs below categories.
Since categories are shown below stubs I think it should keep them there in the markup. -- JeandrÃÂ©, 2007-06-03t11:50z
 * Hi, the reason for this is that stubs introduce categories of there own. Since these are meta categories (WP:selfrefs if you will) not content, it is good that those categories go at the end of the category list. Rich Farmbrough, 12:53 3 June 2007 (GMT).

Malfunctioning bot
Stopping a malfunctioning bot is not vandalism. Your bot keeps tagging sections as trivia which aren't trivia sections at all. You didn't address that problem at all!! You should see to repairing your bot. --Maxl 16:27, 3 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Maxl - your concept of what constitutes a trivia section seems at odds with quite a few other wikipedia editors + bots. From what I can see, Smackbot is doing a fantastic job. Could you quite an example of where the bot is misbehaving? --Oscarthecat 16:41, 3 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for those few kind words. Of course SB doesn't have an opinion, it merely dates existing tags.  However I am not completely at odds with Maxl on this, in that I prefer to call such sections "Miscellanea", although I wouldn't remove the tags.  I also support incorporating the miscellaneous facts into the thrust of the article, where possible, if they are really "trivial", disposing of them, but if they are relevant and can't be made to flow, then they should be left as a bulleted list. Rich Farmbrough, 16:54 3 June 2007 (GMT).

Current event template dating by SmackBot
I don't think SmackBot meant to make the following edits on Fourpeaked Volcano. It seems to have messed up then fixed itsef using AWB. Smackbot then proceeded to add date tags until now. The edits don't seem to mess anything up but they also don't seem necessary. P.Haney 21:00, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
 * No this is a foo-bar. As you say, no serious breakage, and I believe I've stopped it now. Thanks for letting me know. Rich Farmbrough, 15:54 4 June 2007 (GMT).

Just to Let You Know
Hey, I'm not sure if you care about this or not ... but just to let you know some of the templates on User:Rich_Farmbrough/test are making it show up in the actual categories - for example User:DumbBot has a list of pages incorrectly listed as AFDs - and it's there. Again, you don't actually have to do anything - I just don't want the page to be deleted (since there are deletion nominations on it) and then you have to create it again - so if you still want it you might want to consider substing some of it to stay on the safe side.. daniel folsom 22:29, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Daniel, Thanks for letting me know. Not a big deal if it does get deleted I guess... But "subst" would break the testing regime - still I think that work has been superseded by someone else. Rich Farmbrough, 14:12 4 June 2007 (GMT).

Dear Smackbot
I see that you are fond of inserting "citation needed" tags to articles. The trouble is that, even when, having encountered such an insertion, one has an appropriate citation up one's sleeve it is exceedingly difficult to see how that citation can be supplied in a manner that would please Your Botship.

Citation templates -- the article to which, in trying to add a citation, one is eventually lead -- is hardly the most well-meaning-technoramus-friendly article included in the Wikipedia... -- Picapica 13:45, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
 * SB only dates the tags.... RF.

Smackbot error in removing underscores
This edit, with a similar one repeated a few days earlier, resulted in removal of an underscore from a URL, breaking the link. Might want to check up on the rules for that one... GDallimore (Talk) 13:48, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, this is an AWB bug, I can see why it's happening, I wall pass to the developers. Rich Farmbrough, 14:10 4 June 2007 (GMT).
 * Cool, thanks! GDallimore (Talk) 17:35, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

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Providence, Rhode Island
Editor, I've noticed your contributions to the Providence, Rhode Island article. I've just nominated it for Featured Article status.--Loodog 15:10, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
 * FA page is here. Any feedback and assistance you have to offer would be greatly appreciated.--Loodog 00:02, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

SmackBot redundant edits with
Hi, just letting you know that SmackBot is doing redundant edits when fixing substed 'fact' templates: it first turns the big substed mess into a proper, and then subsequently replaces that with ; Here's an example: first edit, second edit. Should be an easy fix, but if it's not, nothing's broken anyway. -- intgr #%@! 15:55, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, the rules-base needs refactoring.... Rich Farmbrough, 16:02 5 June 2007 (GMT).

Template:Who
Is who working right now? I think you might have stuck in at least one extra curly bracket. See? --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 14:43, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Fixed (and nowikied above). -- JHunterJ 14:58, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
 * thanks both. Rich Farmbrough, 16:15 6 June 2007 (GMT).

Re:cleanup
I replied on my talk page. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:14, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Smackbot: Unicode
I don't think it's benefical to substitute Unicode by the actual symbol as it brings no benefits to a reader, but may bring a little of confusion for a Wikipedia editor. If you are not using the latest system (such as Windows Vista, which supports Unicode 5.0) then may look like  due to missing fonts with the later being even more confusing than the former. (Smackbot activity) --Novelbank 18:50, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi thanks for your note. There has been substatial discssion in the past, I will attempt to find apointer to it, biut I am away from home until later this week. Rich Farmbrough, 15:15 11 June 2007 (GMT).

tagging of article BOOKIT
I noticed your smackbot changed the tagging on article BOOKIT. I do not find the tagging being relevant for the article if you read it in context. Please have a look at it. --Tradof 08:25, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi, the tag in question was until recently a redirect to the tag the bot placed. The bot now uses the new destination tag I believe. Rich Farmbrough, 15:12 11 June 2007 (GMT).

List of Wikipedians by edits
I went ahead and took a stab at writing an FAQ on how to generate the list at the top of Wikipedia talk:List of Wikipedians by number of edits. Mind checking it? I've never generated the list, so I may have made a mistake or skipped a step. Ã¢ÂÂDisavian (talk/contribs) 19:15, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi - that's not the method I use so I can't comment definatively, but it looks a bout right. Rich Farmbrough, 15:09 11 June 2007 (GMT).
 * What is the method that you use? I tried that method, and it didn't seem to work for me. Ã¢ÂÂDisavian (talk/contribs) 03:31, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

My WBE method
The file to use is the latest version of "stub-meta-history.xml.gz" at http://download.wikimedia.org/. This is 3.6 Gb + so will take some time to download. The simplest thing to do, if you have disk space, is to expand the file using winzip or similar (gzip for linux).

You will need a version of perl installed, if using windows Active PErl is quite good, or the mainstream perl from (I think) www.cpan.org.

Then put this code in a text file called em.. "wbe.pl"

You should then be able to run >perl wbe.pl  >> results.txt

This will produce a set of results with the biggest contribs at the top. Take the first however-many-you-want lines and paste them to a wiki page. Bots and admins will not be marked on this version. The version that does mark them (when flagged) is on my dead machine, but may be back "RSN". Rich Farmbrough, 08:50 12 June 2007 (GMT).
 * I've already downloaded the xml file, so I may give this a try later today :) Ã¢ÂÂDisavian (talk/contribs) 12:52, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Just started it. Any idea how long it takes? Ã¢ÂÂDisavian (talk/contribs) 12:56, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I seem to remember around 1-3 hours. I.E. too long to have a cup of tea, but not long enough to worry that it won't be done overnight. Rich Farmbrough, 14:54 12 June 2007 (GMT).
 * Done! The "results.txt" file is 154 mb. You're at #13, including bots. I went for a cut-off of 5000 edits. Ã¢ÂÂDisavian (talk/contribs) 17:24, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. Well done. Rich Farmbrough, 10:49 13 June 2007 (GMT).

Unsigned comment
Source of the the joint collection was provided in bold letters. and since this is itself a debut of reference work, no other reference at present is available except the link to the original article is provided.
 * the above was unsigned, Rich Farmbrough, 08:58 12 June 2007 (GMT).

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Birmingham City Council URLs
All Birmingham City Council short URLs with the appended ".bcc" (e.g. those in the form "http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/towerhilllibrary.bcc" are not supported, and may soon cease to work, according to Talk:Birmingham, which say that they should be re-written in the form "http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/towerhilllibrary". Is that something you could look out for, or should I ask at WP:BOTREQ? Andy Mabbett 16:16, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I am scanning the May dump. Seems straightforward, and affects very few articles. Rich Farmbrough, 21:15 13 June 2007 (GMT).
 * Found 9 articles, all now fixed I believe. Rich Farmbrough, 21:29 13 June 2007 (GMT).


 * Thank you. I thought there were a lot more. There is the possibility of new links also using that suffix, because, on visiting such a page, the BCC web server currently appends it :-( Andy Mabbett 10:35, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Smackbot wikilinking errors
Hi, I noticed the Smackbot is disrupting wikilinks. e.g. Antonov An-12B is being changed to Antonov An-12B where the 'B' is not part of the wikilink. See this. Ã¢ÂÂ AA (talk Ã¢ÂÂ¢ contribs) Ã¢ÂÂ 16:20, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, this appears to be a strangeness in things ending with digits inside the ]]. Will escalate to AWB developers. Rich Farmbrough, 21:16 13 June 2007 (GMT).

Server appliance
SmackBot is making bad edits and removing the article stubs. I am reverting the article. Please leave it alone.

--Akc9000 21:54, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * It is debatable whether this is still a stub. However with the redundancies removed it becomes more stubby. Rich Farmbrough, 13:47 14 June 2007 (GMT).

SmackBot: intentional underscore removed
Regarding this change by SmackBot, it removed underscores from the link to (____surrounded):, where the underscores were actually intended to be there. Is there a way to avoid having SmackBot do that? (I don't know why the link was previously piped, perhaps that was an effort to avoid this problem. It obviously didn't work, but perhaps it should. Also, the bot might as well have unpiped the link, since it made both sides identical. ) Thanks. --PEJL 20:25, 14 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh, I see a similar issue was reported at . Sorry for the dupe. --PEJL 20:28, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * No probs. This needs fixing. Rich Farmbrough, 15:47 15 June 2007 (GMT).

Birth and death dates
Did my 'birth and death date template' request ever come to anything? Andy Mabbett 22:53, 14 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I found the energy to write the reg-exes and test them, but not to submit the bot approval request. Rich Farmbrough, 15:45 15 June 2007 (GMT).


 * I could send you one of these... Andy Mabbett 15:08, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

My edit to your bot's page
Hope this edit is OK. It will aid accessibility. Andy Mabbett 22:53, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not the bot's page, it's a doppleganger page... Rich Farmbrough, 15:44 15 June 2007 (GMT).

Server Appliance category
Hi Rich, yes I know it should be Server appliance but I have no idea how to rename it so I built a redirect for it. There are already 11 articles in it. I have been fixing things. Any ideas? I see you are an admin can you rename it? It does not work for me.

--Akc9000 07:15, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. You have to create a new cat and move the items, then delete the old one.  WP:AWB helps. Rich Farmbrough, 10:54 15 June 2007 (GMT).


 * Thank you so very much, you have no idea how I tried to fix this and could not figure it out. --Akc9000 13:10, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Article Question
Hello Rich. Thanks so much for your help. I was wondering if you could look at this article server appliance and tell me if it is still classified as a stub? I just want to be sure before I move on, this is done properly. Thanks! Please leave response here, I am having issues with my talk page. It says edit conflict and I lose what others have said. --Akc9000 01:32, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi looks like more than a stub to me. Rich Farmbrough, 12:03 16 June 2007 (GMT).

Thanks Rich. I looked at the def. and it said a sentence or two, so I was not sure. Best Regards, --Akc9000 12:20, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Bot
Dear

Can you guide me in creating a bot. I need the steps and what to use and do. I have already looked at how to create a bot and need guidence. How do you create one and what programs? Please respond on my talkpage. Thank You! -- Crunch13 PS: Respond on my talk please --Crunch13 PS (again): Respond if you can and even if you can't help
 * OK Rich Farmbrough, 15:40 16 June 2007 (GMT).

Cleanup templates
Just to let you know that most cleanup templates, like "unreferenced", "fact", "cleanup" etc., are best not "subst"ed. See WP:SUBST for more details. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 09:09 17 June 2007 (GMT).


 * Hi,
 * you left me a message about clean-up templates (most should not be subst'ed) but I don't know what "subst'ed" means or where I "subst'ed" one. Could you let me know? I'd like to learn so I can avoid ;messing up again. Jd2718 10:24, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi, this edit is a "subst" of confusing.  You may have cut and pasted the content, or used subst:confusing which has the same effect. Regards Rich Farmbrough, 12:38 17 June 2007 (GMT).


 * Thank you for the explanation. I will be careful in the future. Jd2718 13:35, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Edit on Mii
I don't understand why the SmackBot made this edit to the Mii page. It mostly considered changing wikilinks in such a fasion that, for example "eyes" before the edit became "eyes" after the edit. Surely it is best to use the prior version, as it features the correct wikilink (although I noticed the "(Redirected from 'name X')" text doesn't appear under the page title anymore), and, perhaps, looks a little neater (with the whole word contained within the wikilink)? Either way, what is the reasoning behind these edits? --Zooba 14:40, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The purpose for making the edit was to date the refimprove tag. Like many bots SmackBot is based on WP:AWB which has a host of general clean-up functions.  In particular the changes you mention are designed to make the wiki-text clearer, per WP:MoS. Either "Eye" or "eye" are correct wikilinks ("Eye" for the start of sentences), and you should not see a redirected from message following either link. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 10:27 18 June 2007 (GMT).

John Buscema
Hi, Rich. Appreciate the John Buscema copy edit, though I'm flummoxed as to how you did it when the article is protected. Just wondering, since the piece really does need the protection till a mediation happens. Thanks for any info! --Tenebrae 10:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Admins can edit protected articles. Rich Farmbrough, 13:50 18 June 2007 (GMT).


 * Thanks! I thought that might be it, but I wasn't sure. 'Preciate the response! --Tenebrae 00:55, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Response
You asked me about the subst thing in my merge template placed on the boar page. I tried following the instructions on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Mergeto but I guess I probably did it wrong.Lilac Soul 11:08, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah. Yes, if you had put it would have done the right thing. Not a problem. Rich Farmbrough, 12:14 18 June 2007 (GMT).

Template:Not verified
Can you make the template have a date parameter on Not verified and then have smackbot update it? I am using the verify as used on Northwest Territories general election, 1987. Thanks :) P.S. I think Smackbot is pretty cool. Jeepday (talk) 03:34, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Smackbot
Broke a link inside a citation template: — Omegatron 06:48, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Left trailing spaces while unlinking year partial dates in DeVry University. Vagary 07:41, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

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Chicago Landmark WP:FLC
You helped us at WP:CHICOTW create and improve List of Chicago Landmarks. This week we have nominated it at Featured list candidates/List of Chicago Landmarks. Feel free to make comments about its candidacy or to come by and help respond to the comments of others. TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 00:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Reference database for WP
Hi Rich,

I'm from the Math Project. Right now I'm about to write a database for references to facilitate creating, maintaining and using them in WP articles. Right now the child is doing its very first steps, i.e. I'm still working on correct DB design etc. User:KSmrq urged me to contact you about this, so if you are interested, see my post here and also the follow-up discussion here.

Jakob.scholbach 02:08, 20 June 2007 (UTC)


 * To be more specific, I thought you'd be a great resource for dealing with ISBNs. Maybe if this project succeeds all ISBNs will be validated and properly hyphenated! Maybe. :-)
 * Your general programming expertise and Wikipedia-wide knowledge may also be helpful. Thanks for any assistance you can offer this fledgling effort. --KSmrqT 02:50, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Need arbitration on Elizabeth McGrath article
I'm having a spot of trouble with an poster calling him or herself Fountains of Bryn Mwr. I wonder if you could put your two cents in on this issue. The above mentioned poster has flagged the article for deletion on notability grounds. I pointed out that artists in the same movement with less "notability" have no flags like this. She also flagged the founder of the movment for lack of citations. She then put a flag in my own comment page warning me not to edit my own page! What?!?!? The tag includes an implication of vandalism on my part with a possible ban. I object very strongly to that and to her apparent arbirary self assignment of authority. Thank you. WJBean
 * Elizabeth McGrath...
 * Rich. I responded to your points on my own talk page. Thanks. William (Bill) Bean 17:56, 21 June 2007 (UTC)