User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2008 July

SmackBot
Hi -I think citation is needed for 'Allegation'section of Christmas Humphreys page. Secretly taped conversation between Andre McCallum and Christmas Humphreys appears in RUTH ELLIS MY SISTER'S SECRET LIFE. Perhaps this info could be uplifted please. Thanks.Charlton1 (talk) 18:18, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

MTBEbot
As you are the creator of SmackBot I was wondering if you could help me with this idea. I am willing to be responsible for running and maintaining it if you could help me with the first round of coding (I am an old semi-retired programmer but I have never created any WP software or bots before).

I am exploring the feasability of creating functionality similar to what I described here. The heart of this idea is to create a fair and objective way to determine what is "a reasonable amount of time for a response". For purposes of discussion (these numbers may change) I am assuming 3 days is reasonable but I am also assuming that many editors are not on Wikipedia every single day. My solution is to try and determine how often an article is editted (ie: Mean Time Between Edits) and give 3x that number (max=30) days suggested waiting period for a response. This would be advisory only and would not alter policy in any way.

My first thought was to make this a function that the template parser would handle (like the PROD template does) but now I am wondering if this could be implemented into a bot similar to SmackBot.

I see two options.

OPTION 1: Have MTBEbot add more parameters to certain templates. Example, SmackBot currently changes  to. What I propose is that MTBEbot would change it to:
 * or perhaps more simply just:

OPTION 2: Have MTBEbot create a new section using a template in the talkpage which would include the above parameters and also the last 50-100 characters prior to the tag. I think it would look something like:

This would of course be expanded into a meaningful message.

While I actually like this better I am not sure if this can be done ... can a WP bot pull data from a relative byte position within the article text?

Obviously the hardest part is calculating MTBE by analyzing the edit history. That is why I suggest a separate bot since it probably would run slower than SmackBot.

If you think such functionality could be developed I would pursue getting templates authorized for modification to take advantage of such parameters. These modified templates would then leave a small text comment at the bottom of the template saying something like:  "Analysis of the edit history of this page suggests a reasonable time to wait for a response on this tag would be 9 days, which would be sometime after 8 July 2008." 

What do you think? Low Sea (talk) 18:30, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

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SmackBot's shutoff button
I'm thinking it needs to be a tad bigger. I can barely see it. ;) Rockfang (talk) 19:25, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Bug
See this diff, where the bot incorrectly makes a substitution that afouls the template (see the rendered template). /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 04:13, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:HAU, Status, and you!
As you may know, the StatusBot responsible for maintaining the status of the Highly Active Users was taken offline. We now have a replacement in the Qui status system. This semi-automatic system will allow you to easily update your status page found at Special:Mypage/Status which the HAU page code is now designed to read from. If you are already using Qui (or a compatible system) - great! - no action is needed (other than remembering to update your status as necessary). If not, consider installing Qui. You can also manually update this status by changing the page text to online, offline, or busy. While it is not mandatory, the nature of HAU is that people are often seeking a quick answer from someone who is online and keeping our statuses up-to-date will assist with this. Note if you were previously using your /Status page as something other than a one-word status indicator, your HAU entry may have been set to "status=n" to correct display issues. Please clear this parameter if you change things to be "HAU compatible". Further questions can be raised at WT:HAU. This message was delivered by  xenobot 23:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

SmackBot - caps in templates
Is this really a change worth making? —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 22:43, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
 * No. See FAQ.Rich Farmbrough, 21:08 13 July 2008 (GMT).

SmackBot
Since there's no actual change happening, can it be worth the bot's time and effort expenditure to just convert a lowercase to a capitalized template as here? —  pd_THOR  undefined | 03:40, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * No. See FAQ.Rich Farmbrough, 21:09 13 July 2008 (GMT).

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SmackBot capitalizing and adding "date=" to fact tags
Edits like this seem completely unnecessary. Am I wrong? II | (t - c) 07:26, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, the date parameter needs to be there explicitly named so that article is in the hidden category Category:Articles with unsourced statements since July 2008. Rich Farmbrough, 09:51 15 July 2008 (GMT).

Very minor smackbot bug
I just reverted smackbot, which got confused at Skolem's paradox and deleted the name of a journal (possibly because some other editor did something odd with the references). R.e.b. (talk) 03:12, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * AWB recognise the Rich Farmbrough'', 11:56 18 July 2008 (GMT).

Dating the split tags.
Any chance of adding the date parameter to the four split tags? Cheers. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 23:28, 19 July 2008 (UTC) )
 * (this was done at some point Rich Farmbrough, 14:54, 12 October 2010 (UTC).

Minor SmackBot issue
Thought I should mention that SmackBot recently made an edit at Year 2038 problem in which it removed the underscore in " " (changing   to  ). I fixed the edit and added the pipe trick, will this prevent any more SmackBot edits or is there another way to stop it? TH 1 RT 3 EN talk ♦ contribs 03:29, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * This is an old (WP:AWB) problem affecting links to things like mod_perl. I forget the solution I proposed, but I think there was a whitelist created. Rich Farmbrough, 10:50 20 July 2008 (GMT).

Tone
Smackbot seems to have placed an "inappropriate tone" label on this page which I think is not correct. I edited it out but it's still appearing there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_arms
 * No it didn't. Article fixed. Message left. Rich Farmbrough, 22:02 3 April 2008 (GMT).

Needs archiving. Rich Farmbrough, 08:46 27 June 2008 (GMT).

Pandemic
Here's the the link for original article on where the rumor started that Pandemic is developing the Dark Knight game.

Rumor: Pandemic to Develop New Batman Game by Matt Casamassina May 17, 2007 http://ps3.ign.com/articles/789/789648p1.html

I'm just signed up for Wikipedia and wasn't exactly sure how the editing process worked. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AzBat360 (talk • contribs) 05:14, 4 April 2008 Needs archiving. Rich Farmbrough, 08:46 27 June 2008 (GMT).

sources for Tenth Army page
I hope I am doing this correctly. I have no experience doing stuff with wikipedia.

Rich, I see that in 2005, you were one of the first people associated with the wikipedia entry on the Italian 10th army (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Tenth_Army). I am trying to find out what sources the article in question was drawn from.

thanks,

Tom (gionpeters@comcast.net)
 * Answered out of band. Rich Farmbrough, 12:28 8 June 2008 (GMT).

WikiProject:Software

 * Archive please: Rich Farmbrough, 08:51 27 June 2008 (GMT).

farkhonda hassan, my grandmother
hi there, my name is omar abdel ghaffar khalifa, and i'm the grandson of dr. farkhonda hassan, i may have useful information on her personal life, photos, experience, anything you need. my email is okhalifa@aucegypt.edu. feel free to contact me anytime.

best regards,

Omar Khalifa
 * Archive pleaseRich Farmbrough, 16:53 28 July 2008 (GMT).

Lazs AREN'T KARTVEL/GEORGIAN
"Some Laz living in Turkey do not accept the umbrella term "Kartvelian" no no no Anybody Lazs dont accept that fascist 'Kartveli' term.Stop vandalism and all Kartvelist attacks.Lazs arent Georgian.All Lazs living in Turkey believe that reality.In some Laz living Georgia believe.But not important.Because Kartvelism, Kartveli languages and Lazs and other Georgians what is this ? Are you insane ?Lazs arent Georgian.Lazs are a Caucasic claim in Georgia-Turkey.I'm a Laz(Ma Lazi vore-Me Lazi var) but im not brother of Kartvelians/Georgians.Lazs are brother claim of Mingrelian nation.And Lazs are cousin of Georgians.   In Georgia, The number of Mingrelian speakers is declining, and most Mingrelian speakers positively identify themselves as "Georgian" (Kartveli).There are no Mingrelian language schools, books, or newspapers, although there were periodic attempts at establishing Mingrelian as a literary language in the late czarist and early Soviet periods.The assimilation of Mingrelians by the Georgians, which accelerated in the nineteenth century under the impact of modernization, was completed after the Soviet annexation and MİSHA's Georgia's...

And i didnt see Georgian Catholic Laz :) This is stupidly lie. Yes a small minority(in Sakartvelo) Lazs are Orthodox Predominantly Lazs are Muslim.Not Catholic. We know they.Stop "Georgianization" ATTACKS.Thats way please open Laz people page.And i shall change that falsesMy documents from MINORITYRIGHTS.COM gropus.Please we(Lazs) believe and much want.TuTastemre LAZ

SmackBot and Template:Tracklist again
Hi, did you get a chance yet to bring up SmackBot's removal of linebreaks in the tracklist template? It still appears to be an issue. – Cyrus XIII (talk) 08:36, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs&diff=prev&oldid=208996804 Rich Farmbrough, 20:55 18 July 2008 (GMT).
 * Ok, I'll follow up on that one. Just to be clear, SmackBot itself relies on (the current version of) AWB? – Cyrus XIII (talk) 15:10, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes indeed, AWB is the platform. Rich Farmbrough, 16:40 20 July 2008 (GMT).

Template:Footballer George Best
I just saw this template. I assume you forgot about it, what to do with it? Garion96 (talk) 21:46, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Moved. Rich Farmbrough, 16:54 28 July 2008 (GMT).

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neologism comment at Social Information Processing
Hi Rich,

You (or your bot) left a neologism note at Social_Information_Processing, a page that I recently developed. Would you tell me the next step. Am I supposed to defend the term in some forum? If I don't is the page going to be deleted? I'm confused about what happens next.

Thanks.

-- RussAbbott (talk) 19:38, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Looking for other possible acceptable neologisms, I just checked today's Main page. It includes a pointer to History of Solidarity. Isn't that a neologism? It certainly isn't the name of a defined entity. It's simply a descriptive phrase that refers to the history of the Solidarity movement. My term, Social Information Processing, although fairly new, is the name of an actual conference sponsored by a respected organization (AAAI) and held at a respected University (Stanford). It also appears in the title of a paper published in a respected journal (IEEE Internet Computing). This is an important field for which there is no other name. As it turns out, I have the time to devote to creating a page about the field. I hope that Wikipedia will be willing to accommodate it. -- RussAbbott (talk) 19:57, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi again, Rich,

I'm not sure how to proceed. You neologism marker on the Social Information Processing page will discourage people from contributing. So I'm going to remove it. My response is in the P.S. above. Let me know what else we should do about this if anything.

If yuo want to continue this discussion, I'd appreciate it if you would continue it on Talk:Social Information Processing. Thanks -- RussAbbott (talk) 03:03, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

RPA (Rubin Postaer and Associates) article
Hi Rich,

I work for RPA (Rubin Postaer and Associates,) and I noticed that you revised the agency's article. I'm hoping you can provide some guidance on how to best edit our profile in order to remove the "The tone or style of this article or section may not be appropriate for Wikipedia" message. I'm keen to understand how to make the entry more encyclopedic and where to address inappropriate tone.

Thank you, Britt McColl Bdainorpa (talk) 20:30, 28 July 2008 (UTC)