User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2008 April

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Suzanne Engo
I'm just letting you know that another user has all but blanked this article and is now attempting to have it deleted. John celona (talk) 02:18, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Centuries
I was just wondering what the policy/advice on this was? I'm not challenging it, I'm just curious. I'm sure I read somewhere that centuries ought to be in number format (i.e. inline with the articles themselves - e.g. 12th century)? --Jza84 |  Talk 14:47, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Yuen kay-san proposed for deletion
Hi, you took part in the discussion over at Branches of wing chun, and we could now use your input at Articles_for_deletion/Yuan_Kay-shan. Some guy not familiar with Chinese martial arts history is insisting on getting the Yuen Kay San article deleted. He'll probably move on to a lot of the other historical figures from there. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 17:23, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Football templates
Hi, I have started a discussion here about football templates. I'm sorry that I can't explain what I would like to happen in more technical language. The basic idea is that players appear in the Current squad on the team article and on the Argentinos Juniors squad which is used on player articles. The information used in the two templates is basically the same.

What I propose is including all the information on each player in one template



and then using it to display something exactly like the navbox used at present on player articles, but having a function triggered bysomething like the inclusion of "clubarticle" which makes the template convert into something looking like the current squad section used at present in club articles. So that gives the navbox and  gives the current squad.

The main reason for this is to reduce the huge maintenance workload for people who update football articles, by storing all the current squad information in one place instead of two. An additional benefit would be to stop the Current squad and the squad navboxes getting out of sync (as can be seen in the Argentinos Juniors squads used as examples).

I really need some help from someone who knows parser functions etc, but have not been able to find any yet. If you are unable to help could you please point me in the direction of someone who can. If I haven't made myself clear, please contact me on my talkpage. Regards English peasant  22:42, 30 March 2008 (UTC)


 * As an afterthought, I was wondering whether it would be possible to bung the neccessary code into a template on the Infobox Football biography which automatically transcludes the relevant info to the current squad template on the team page and onto the team navbox which would just be a semi protected shell. This way the number of edits for a player transfer between clubs could be reduced from at least 5 (out of Current squad, out of navbox, details on player article, into new current squad, into new navbox) to 1 (change the player bio and adjust the transclusion parameters in the infobox). I don't know if this kind of thing is even possible, but it could potentially be of great ergonomic benefit to maintainers of football and potentially all sports articles. Let me know if you think its possible. All the best English peasant  22:13, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I was thinking about this some more at work this morning, if it's possible do implement my ideas the current squad template would become something like a glorified category, indexed by squad number. A potential problem with this would be that people could add any old player into the squad and it would not appear on anyones watchlist and may stay uncorrected for ages. One possible solution would be to create a List of recent football transfers. Whe someone makes a change to the club parameter of any current squad template, it automatically gets listed on the list, in the same way that when you nominate an image for deletion on Wikmedia Commons an edit to Deletion requests. This could be monitored by people at WP:FOOTY and any unsourced or ridiculous transfers could be quickly undone.

So my idea is to create a currentsquad template in each player infobox comprising something like this

which would generate


 * 10 MF 🇦🇷 Nicolás Gianni

in the on the Argentinos Juniors page

and


 * • 10 Gianni

in the navbox

Say he changes club to Boca Juniors, when I change the details on the club= parameter and provide a new source, it then takes him out of the Argentinos Juniors template and puts him into the Boca Juniors current squad and generates an automatic report to List of recent football transfers where it can be verified by other football obsessed wikipedans. Perhaps transfers where the club is changed but the source isn't could be marked as dubious/source required on the list.

The report would look like

Under the heading April 1 2008
 * Nicolás Gianni Argentinos Juniors to Boca Juniors (with some kind of option to mark as patrolled).

and where the source isnt changed


 * Nicolás Gianni Argentinos Juniors to Boca Juniors No New Source

I think the first idea is probably much easier to implement, but the second idea would cut the workload for each player transfer by 80% and drastically reduce the number of unsourced transfers based on rumours by giving WP:FOOTY a list of transfers to revert if neccessary.

Perhaps a How to do a football player transfer page to explain how all this works, and that unsourced transfers will be reverted would also be helpful.

I would really appreciate some feedback on this issue, let me know if you think I'm talking pie in the sky. All the best English peasant  12:05, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Individual footballer templates that render as lines in current squad and links in the navbox sounds like a potentailly good solution. Would it be possible to make it render automatically from the current squad parameter so that you put that guy plays for Argentinos Juniors by writing currentsquad = that he plays foe Argentinos and he automatically goes into the Argentinos Juniors navbox and the current squad on the Argentinos Juniors page with no further edits. Would this be possible?


 * I've also been thinking through the transfer verification thing, some way of generating a List of recent association football transfers needing verification and making provision of a reliable source a neccessary part of the transfer process would help wikiproject football cut out a lot of amutuarish and bogus transfers and make the whole process more verifiable by creating a verification process (there is no real process at the moment transfers are only verified if they are noticed on enthusiasts watchlists). Perhaps this could be done by creating a feature of the currentsquad parameter that reports any non-trivial changes to the transfers for verification list. Then people such as myself can watch the list, mark properly sourced transfers as verified and undo unsourced transfers and leave a message on the editors talk page giving instructions on how to do it properly. If you can help me think of a workable methodology I'll raise the transfer issue at WP:FOOTY. See If I can get more interest than I did last time. English peasant  15:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I appreciate the effort it's taken you to come up with the individual footballer template thing, but I don't think it really solves the problem of having to do at least 500 edits for 100 player transfers, I currently just cut the line out and paste it into the new squad in the right place and just change the no= parameter and the same process for the navbox.
 * Perhaps we could go back to the idea of combining the navbox and current squad, maybe this could be done by adding the nationality and position parameters to the navbox and making it render as a current squad on the team article? Then each transfer would only need 3 edits (change player article, remove from old navbox/current squad, put into new navbox/current squad. This would reduce the number of edits by 40% and stop the squads getting out of sync, a definite improvement.
 * I have added two hidden parameters on the Argentinos Juniors navbox (flag and position), can you think of a way to make it render as something like a current squad, but with the [v] [d] [e] gubbins at the top.English peasant  15:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

SmackBot request
I've copied this from the bots request page. Would you be willing to help please? Nyttend (talk) 19:56, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

As a result of this discussion, the various GR templates were changed from being references to Geographic references to being various templates that produce standard-looking references. There was originally a different format for these links (like 2 for ), most of which were removed years ago with edits like this one. However, there are a lot remaining, and since the GR templates are standard references now rather than being links to Geographic references, the old-style ones are inferior. Could we have a bot simply to go around and put the respective GR templates in place of all instances of links to Geographic references with numbers?

To explain:
 * 1, 1 with
 * 2, 2, ² with
 * 3, 3, ³ with
 * 4, 4 with
 * 5, 5 with
 * 6, 6 with


 * GR6 and 6 with
 * GR2, 2 and ² with

Nyttend (talk) 16:56, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Give that to smackbot. its what it does. βcommand 17:05, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I converted the Harding Park, Bronx to a GR2. I'd advise that links like that, too, be converted (with the templates being removed, since they're in the GR template code), since the big thing is getting rid of the self-references in favor of a complete listing. Nyttend (talk) 04:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Could the bot check if there are a reference section and add one if there isn't one? Rettetast (talk) 19:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that. I found some more links to Geographic references, that should be replaced. I have added them to the above list. Rettetast (talk) 19:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

SmackBot and "name, State" links
I see that in Blaine, Minnesota, SmackBot has recently converted a couple of links from the format name, state to name state. For example, it changed the link Anoka, Minnesota to Anoka, Minnesota. Could you point me to the WP:MOS or other section that indicates this is the current desired practice? Also, I don't see this task listed anywhere at User:SmackBot. Thanks. – Wdfarmer (talk) 16:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Farmer, it's helpful to have separate links to the community and the state: for example, it's long been the practice in article intros to link separate to PLACENAME, STATENAME, United States. Nyttend (talk) 23:11, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Signpost updated for March 31st, 2008.
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Veteran editor
Congratulations...you're a veteran editor! Bob 01:54, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Let Me Live In Your Life -= Citation Needed For...?
A tag was cited on Let Me Live In Your Life as not having a valid citation when referencing the album Rhapsody. If a user were to click on the latter album, anyone viewing the list could compare the tracklists and find that the six unnamed tracks from the former's list are also on the latter album. A citation is not required in this case as the songlists prove the statement in the Let Me Live In Your Life article. Am I required to otherwise link a citation for every single individual songlist, which is referenced in some cases on many sites? Or do I do a citation in Let Me Live In Your Life to the Rhapsody album? Or should I just reference each song that is repeated as such and maybe bold new titles?

I'm still fairly new, so if there is something I'm not understanding, I'm happy for advice. For now, I have removed the tag.

Cyclone CycloneGU (talk) 02:52, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

''Received your reply on my page, Rich. Thanks.'' =) —Preceding unsigned comment added by CycloneGU (talk • contribs) 11:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

adding references section
Suggestion: Most editors now favor the reflist template over the bare   tag. Would it be reasonable for SmackBot to insert reflist, when appropriate, instead of references? This recent edit is the first time I've noticed it doing either. Is that a new feature? Very helpful bot, by the way. —EncMstr 19:06, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The problem with reflist is that the text is small, making it hard to read - maybe not for you youngsters (?) but for those of us in our forties or with certain visual impairments. SB has done this before and was adding reflist/references as the debate swung back and forth, but the deciding factor in the present case is that the tag is recommended for short lists.


 * Incidentally there is no very valid reason for using small text for references, providing the references/footnotes section goes right at the end of the visible page.


 * Thank you for your kind words.


 * Rich Farmbrough, 22:00 3 April 2008 (GMT).

SmackBot
On a recent edit, your (otherwise fantastic) bot added <tt> </tt>. Why not add <tt> </tt> instead?—Markles 00:42, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The problem with reflist is that the text is small, making it hard to read - maybe not for you youngsters (?) but for those of us in our forties or with certain visual impairments. SB has done this before and was adding reflist/references as the debate swung back and forth, but the deciding factor in the present case is that the tag is recommended for short lists.


 * Incidentally there is no very valid reason for using small text for references, in any event, providing the references/footnotes section goes right at the end of the visible page.


 * Thank you for your kind words.


 * Rich Farmbrough, 22:00 3 April 2008 (GMT).

Reference location
Thanks for the alteration to the references placement! Will the bot revisit those geographic articles previously edited? Huwmanbeing &#9728;  &#9733;  02:22, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Not sure. Rich Farmbrough, 19:28 6 April 2008 (GMT).

TfD nomination of Template:Citations missing
Template:Citations missing has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Terraxos (talk) 02:57, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Bot removes whitespace in headers
Hi, today the 'bot removed the spaces in the heading:

== References ==

in ASUS Eee PC. This makes the heading much harder to read for humans, while editing. It looked like:

==References==

Is fixable? Ideally to add spaces if they are not there?

Thanks -- quota (talk) 13:20, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Following up your reply on my talk page -- yes, the spacing is up to the original editor -- so why change it? It's not an error (and it's more readable, as already mentioned).   Thanks -- quota (talk) 09:16, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Busy next Sunday?
Meetup? Hope it's not too short notice.  Majorly  (talk) 14:45, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Afd
Since you have recently contributed a fair amount to the Celebrations of the September 11, 2001 attacks article, you may want to comment here I am Dr. Drakken (talk) 15:00, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Bad reference edits
At least two recent edits of about forty are leaving code debris in the articles:

Graeme Smith (Radio DJ and TV Presenter)

Graffiti Blasters

--Knulclunk (talk) 17:45, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the note: these are articles with bad references in them. Both fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 18:18 5 April 2008 (GMT).

Reference edits
Hi. SmackBot is leaving old code for references. The code should be. Tim meh <font color="darkred" size="4">!  14:23, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The problem with reflist is that the text is small, making it hard to read - maybe not for you youngsters (?) but for those of us in our forties or with certain visual impairments. SB has done this before and was adding reflist/references as the debate swung back and forth, but the deciding factor in the present case is that the tag is recommended for short lists.


 * Incidentally there is no very valid reason for using small text for references, in any event, providing the references/footnotes section goes right at the end of the visible page.


 * Rich Farmbrough, 22:00 3 April 2008 (GMT).

Merge template Talk changes
I noticed that SmackBot had touched up the merge template on John Doherty (baseball 1992–96) changing
 *   to

but this meant the links in the template were suggesting a merge with the Talk page and so a broken Talk:Talk: link was shown. I assume this is not intended behaviour -- Que (talk) 20:42, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Thanks for the message. Rich Farmbrough
 * Fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 21:13 6 April 2008 (GMT). 20:48 6 April 2008 (GMT).

References and edits on Ruud Lubbers
I have added references and edited the resignation section. I have tried to incoporate suggestions which add balance, but have left out scape goating accusations which are unsubstantiated. I leave in a couple of days trekking out of reacch of the www (as traumatic as it might seem) and would appreciate it if you could keep half an eye on the entry. --Joel Mc (talk) 13:04, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Smackbot adding reflist marker to articles using another accepted reference method
See here. Thanks. -- Avi (talk) 19:18, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The article uses both styles. If you could cenvert the &lt;ref> tag, then you could remove the &lt;references />. Rich Farmbrough, 19:24 6 April 2008 (GMT).
 * I missed that. Thanks for pointing it out! -- Avi (talk) 05:54, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Disease
Why did you change "&" for "and" - this was deliberate as the header then appears on one line rather than two - see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Infobox_Disease&diff=104205215&oldid=101946709 by Jfdwolff "(text generally overruns box boundaries on FireFox)", that was true for internet explorer too. David Ruben Talk 13:41, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


 * We don't generally use these in headers or titles. Rich Farmbrough, 20:00 10 April 2008 (GMT).

Query!
Hey! Sorry I hadn't gotten back to you. I rewrote my old program this week, and just finished running it against the latest (3+Gb! They grew!) dump. No results... SQL <sup style="font-size: 5pt;color:#999">Query me!  20:29, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh interesting, I ran a regex and got 16000 hits I think it was. They are all fixed up. I also ran the fix-up for some thousands that used GR - which was what reminded me. And I changed the dummy data for Infobox settlement not to include &lt;/ref> so that problem is now reduced. All the best. Rich Farmbrough, 20:33 10 April 2008 (GMT).

Possible bot task
Do you think your bot could delink common units of measurement? Lightmouse (talk) 09:36, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Help with updating Wikipedia:List of monthly maintenance categories
Thank you for creating List of monthly maintenance categories. I have attempted to clear the list of articles for Wikification that include old categories from 2006, but I am unsure if I broke the template. In short, the list needs everything marked with 2006 for Wikification to be removed. Can you check that my edit did not affect other areas listed in this maintenance log? Guroadrunner (talk) 23:57, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * 1) Well done for clearing those lists!
 * 2) Yes you broke the template, no problem.
 * 3) To take 2006 of the list just take that off the page itself. But as the instructions say "Old years should not be removed until they have been empty for a few months at least." This is because reversions and undeletions can re-introduce members, and we can see using popups if the cats are empty (even if they don't exist). Having said that, the invalid date category makes this less of a problem.

Rich Farmbrough, 17:36 21 April 2008 (GMT).

SmackBot
Hi Smack Bot, Thanks for showing your interest in Oriya Literature. I want to project a true pics of Oriya Literature, which was un touched by any wikipedians .My motto is to paint a real and established pics of Oriya Literature not to make ita bias article .you have marked I am trying to bring all information about Oriya Culture,Oriya Celebrities ,Oriya Language and oriya Literature. I need your help to make the articles authentic, aesthatic and readable .Please help the project by editing the grammar portion of the articles .Ask me if you have any doubt for sources or references .We may usr the user talk page for our suitability. Again I am in hope for a poitive anticipation.

Kanu 786 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.200.224.39 (talk) 01:30, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

SmackBot!
Made some edits ( , and perhaps more) that caused cite errors in a few articles. It might not be that the bot's edits were faulty, as <tt> </tt> was in the infoboxes of the articles for some reason. Just letting you know. — Bob • (talk) • 04:53, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Bob, you are right, these refs have no content. I'm asking the originator about them, Rich Farmbrough, 17:41 21 April 2008 (GMT).

Signpost updated for April 7th and 14th, 2008.
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Template:Citations missing
See: Templates_for_deletion/Log/2008_April_5 - Nabla (talk) 02:58, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Bot not quite working - Henry Paul
The bot caused a problem on the players infobox, just thought i'd inform. <font style="color:#fef;background:red;">Londo <font style="color:white;background:black;">06 10:44, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:The Bob & Tom Show
Template:The Bob & Tom Show has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. --Josh (talk) 04:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Signpost updated for April 21st, 2008.
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I-275 History section rewrite
As suggested, I rewrote the History section as prose and added Wikilinks and web citations. This is my first attempt at such a large edit, so your comments are welcome. Thomprod (talk) 03:13, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Smackbot vs. Sectstub
I'm not quite sure what this means, but Smackbot has just deleted all the <tt> </tt> tags I've placed in this article I'm editing: Spiritism. Is this an expected behavior? If so, why are these tags undesired? -- alexgieg (talk) 22:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

SmackBot feature addition request
Please can you take a look at Bot requests? Thank you for your time. --Adoniscik(t, c) 22:47, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Space:1999 entries
Hi Rich, a lot of the Space:1999 entries have been tagged with the "no citation or references" tag by a user who frankly seems to be a newbie, and as far as I know, that's all he's done. I asked him what sort of stuff he needed as I didn't see anything wrong with the page but he has yet to answer. Some help would be appreciated. It's the pages like the Eagle Transporter, Mark IX Hawk, Moonbase Alpha Technical Manual and so on. Douglasnicol (talk) 16:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Rich, I tried some basic work on the Eagle Transporter, mainly the variants, does that help? One part that was taken out of the main Space:1999 page was the fact that an Eagle Transporter appeared in a Futurama episode, I can see how that might be regarded as trivia in the main entry, however, would you mind if I put it under a section in the Eagle page for instance "In other Media" or "In Popular Culture".  The Serenity from Firefly has got such a section.  I have the DVD's and can cite an episode and if it helps even do a screen grab, although personally I think the Eagle page has enough images already. Douglasnicol (talk) 14:41, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Rich, I lifted a section that had been deleted from the general trivia and put it in the Eagle page. The section called References to other shows.  If this grows to include more, I'll change it to 'shows and other media'.  Does this seem ok? Douglasnicol (talk) 22:17, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Dennis Oliver
Can you please help to stop deletion of Dennis Oliver article?, this is a nice article and some people has removed nice pieces without obvious reasons.. the most good version is the one restored by the administrator of name Tatcher, but there is a user of name Pigman that after the administrator restored, Pigman returned and deleted again and placed deletion tag...at this point it looks malicious intention because the article has references to every single word noted on it, links to the actors database and newspapers. I understand that Dennis Oliver is not famous as John Deniro, but is does not mean that cannot be mentioned in Wikipedia. Please help to stop this deletion request and keep the article integrity. I've worked very hard in that article.. thank you!Ralicia (talk) 13:31, 30 April 2008 (UTC)Ralicia