User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2009 May

Article PodUniversal
You have posted the following message in the discussion page of article PodUniversal "Is the section Some exclusive Podcasts necessary? It consists only of external links to individual podcasts from the site. --bonadea contributions talk 18:01, 25 April 2009 (UTC)"

My response

Since the podcasts relate to different categories of public interest, i have classified them properly and given external link. They would be useful for the public. Please advise. --Varsha1990 (talk) 04:09, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 12:39 2 May 2009 (UTC).

Étienne Poulin
User:SmackBot appears to have moved an existing entry from one spot to another here. I'm not sure why. The description of the edit was (Date maintenance tags and general fixes). Maybe it was confused by the accent in the article name? --Big_iron (talk) 08:29, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Becasue the cats generated by Lifetime belong at the end of the list, but before stub cats. Rich Farmbrough, 08:33 1 May 2009 (UTC).

Template:ISO 639 name pl and co.
Hi, I have been working on a single template to replace all these language name templates. This should make for easier maintenance. Just thought I'd get your response on this, as I think you're the one who created most of them! &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:34, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm wondering whether "Esimbi" is a real language. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:10, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Discussion in advance
Isn't it common practice to discuss things with the editor of a page before slashing and burning your way through it?

Why is it that a page that has done things a certain way for THREE or FOUR YEARS all of a sudden doesn't meet with the approval of a certain "Mr. Rich Farmbrough", whoever the hell that is, so he is simply free to do as he pleases?

Varlaam (talk) 17:15, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
 * So it's been agasin WP:MoS for three for four years? Is that good?

You seem to have a lot of interest in a page you have NEVER CONTRIBUTED a bloody thing to.
 * You drew my attention to it above.

How come your totally arbitrary personal opinion is more consequential than those of people who actually put CONTENT INTO WIKIPEDIA?
 * It's not. That is it is neither arbitrary nor personal.

Eh?

In my years of contributing to Wikipedia, I've managed NEVER to blow away anybody else's good faith content EVER. Vandalism I've blown away 50 or 100 times. But content, never.

So who are you exactly?
 * I think you are a little over excited here. I moved a chunk of comment to the talk page and changed USA to US.  This hardly constitutes "blowing away" the article. Rich Farmbrough, 20:00 1 May 2009 (UTC).
 * P.S.it helps to mention the page you mean. Rich Farmbrough, 12:11 2 May 2009 (UTC).

deleting help
Thank you for your help.

Yes I do need all the Sany images deleted but here's a list:


 * [[File:SANY0638.JPG]]
 * [[File:SANY0626.JPG]]
 * [[File:SANY0623.JPG]]
 * [[File:SANY0593.JPG]]
 * [[File:SANY0587.JPG]]
 * [[File:SANY0578.JPG]]
 * [[File:SANY0577.JPG]]
 * [[File:SANY0573.JPG]]
 * [[File:SANY0570.JPG]]
 * [[File:SANY0556.JPG]]
 * [[File:SANY0554.JPG]]


 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY0111.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY0250.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY0214.jpg
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY0222.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY0236.jpg
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY0265.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY0279.jpg
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY0304.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY0309.jpg
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY0452.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY0464.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY1647.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY1634.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY1633.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY1628.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY1623.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY1590.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY1586.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY1580.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY1452.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY1445.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY1412.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY1410.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY1402.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY1395.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY1392.JPG
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SANY1390.JPG

Thank you again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Filmnerd (talk • contribs) 00:49, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot stub removal
Yesterday I did some touchup editing on Gerald Brashear that included adding a tag and a stub template. I notice that SmackBot has since removed the stub. I won't say that's a bad choice, but out of curiosity, what criteria does SmackBot use for stub removal? Rklear (talk) 01:18, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It is an wp:AWB general fix. So I don't know the exact criteria. Rich Farmbrough, 11:25 2 May 2009 (UTC).

Herbie, once a car, now a living person
SmackBot appears to have been confused by the anthropomorphic nature of Herbie, Disney's Volkswagen from a string of movies. It tagged that article as a biography of a living person...here's the diff. (To be fair, it looks like someone tagged the article as a BLP, and SmackBot was just converting a refimprove.) TheFeds 02:27, 2 May 2009 (UTC) Yes robots do have trouble telling the difference... Rich Farmbrough, 12:06 2 May 2009 (UTC).

It's USA not bloody U.S.
"U.S." is an adjective. The nationality column contains NOUNS, not ADJECTIVES. Do you know the difference between a noun and a adjective? The nationality column now says "Germany" and "Belgium". You're going to be changing those to "German" and "Belgian" to keep it consistent, are you?

The guy who created that page years ago, an American, used "USA". I, a Canadian who lived in the USA as a boy, where I attended a Bobby Kennedy campaign rally, someone who still has traces of his Illinois accent, used "USA".

The Internet Movie Database, maybe you've heard of it, uses "USA":

Gone with the Wind (1939)

Thomas Mitchell ... Gerald O'Hara

Barbara O'Neil ... Ellen O'Hara - His Wife (as Barbara O'Neill)

Vivien Leigh ... Scarlett O'Hara - Their Daughter

Country:USA

Language:English

So why do you need to be different from the entire rest of the world?

Why don't you find something worthwhile to do with your time INSTEAD OF WASTING MINE?

Varlaam (talk) 15:57, 2 May 2009 (UTC) (in Toronto)
 * Such ranting and incivility are unlikely to get you very far. I suggest you calm down and be reasonable. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:06, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I've deleted the contents of my page
Since, hey, it's my data. Or "original research" as you probably prefer to call it.

Varlaam (talk) 16:12, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * You need to read WP:OWN. I've restored the page. (Sorry for butting in here Rich.) &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:18, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That's fine, you said it all. Rich Farmbrough, 16:26 2 May 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot: Template bug
Howdy, SmackBot messed up a template by moving one of its arguments to the end of the file.



Thanks, JackSchmidt (talk) 18:38, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This is AWB trying to move interwikis to the end. I have fixed up the article. Rich Farmbrough, 05:18 8 May 2009 (UTC).

Template:Lang
This edit of yours broke Ancient Greek grammar (tables), List of Greek place names, and List of Greek words with English derivatives such that they now trip Category:Pages with too many expensive parser function calls. --Pascal666 20:10, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I have fixed this I believe. Rich, excuse me for interrupting again (I'll have to stop watching your page :D) but I hope my edit to lang goes some way to showing why this approach using ISO 639 name is the best approach. (Sorry I haven't answered your questions on my talk page yet.) &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:47, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you. BTW, your statement {{#iferror:{{ISO 639 name|{{{1|}}}}}|non-English|{{ISO 639 name|{{{1|}}}}} is needlessly complex.  #iferror will return the result of the input if no error.  ie {{#iferror:{{ISO 639 name|{{{1|}}}}}|non-English}} is all you need.  --Pascal666 21:31, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow, I didn't know that. Template duly simplified. Thanks, &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:48, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Can't do that. en and eng have non-canonical values. Rich Farmbrough, 22:30 2 May 2009 (UTC).
 * OK this was because the correct value was "Ancitnt Greek" not "Non English". Rich Farmbrough, 22:30 2 May 2009 (UTC).

We can simply write something like {{#if:{{ISO 639 name {{{1|}}}}}|{{ISO 639 name {{{1|}}}}}|non English}}. Rich Farmbrough, 22:34 2 May 2009 (UTC).
 * The code that I put on lang was fine. I think you were too quick to revert. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:43, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I can certainly see the logic of not coding the exception for English into Template:ISO 639 name, although it's a pity that it will make the code more complicated. Can we talk about this in a central place (Template talk:Lang?) because I can't stand the disjointed conversations on our talk pages?! About the page User:Rich Farmbrough/another user page, is there any chance you could put the two systems side by side for comparison? You might like to look at User talk:MSGJ/Sandbox3 where I did something similar. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:47, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks for doing all that analysis. I feel a little stupid, to be honest, about my certainty about the right way to code that template! I still find it hard to accept the results, but I guess I have to believe it. Cheers, &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:44, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Why did SmackBot change Pokémon to Pokemon?
Hello Rich Farmbrough. This edit by SmackBot seemed all fine and dandy, except that it changed one instance of "Pokémon" to "Pokemon". Why'd it do that? It's incorrect to spell it without the é. Cheers. -sesuPRIME talk • contribs 14:16, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
 * , thanks for your message. SmackBot and other WP:AWB robots and users change the diacritics in category sorting (including "DEFAULTSORT") to non-diacritics. This does not affect the name shown in the category, just the sort order. This is the accepted way to sort items in Wikipedia. Regards,
 * Oh okay, I understand now. I thought it might be for some technical reason, which is why I didn't revert it. Cheers. -sesuPRIME talk • contribs 23:42, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Template:Confusing section
Hi there, your changes to Template:Confusing section template to add the category for the proper date wasn't working. I first thought it was because the CDMA template that you added didn't exist so I changed it back, but that didn't fix it either. I changed the template back to the category addition that was there before you moved it. I didn't want to change the template anymore because I didn't want to make a mess. Can you recheck the change that you made and make it work? -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 05:10, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks,fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 09:21 4 May 2009 (UTC).

hi man
hi man please help  me to complete cheshme3vom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheshme3vom

i dont know what am i doing ? olease help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.165.15.39 (talk) 13:48, 4 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I tidied it a bit. Rich Farmbrough, 22:01 4 May 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot "Fact" tag bug?
Hi. I've noticed a couple of times recently that SmackBot changed a fact tag from the incorrect format    to the equally incorrect      instead of to the correct. This is the one I just came across. Ed Fitzgerald t / c 13:55, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This is a balancing act. Should SmackBot interfere with the default parameters? In the case of Fact it is probable that a default parameter is mistake, but the nature of the mistake is not clear, for example "In May 2008 ". And indeed some templates are very complex, such as the fb_footer family.  So the way it works now, it is not "equally incorrect" it is functional and possibly has some parameter cruft in it.  However it may be worth looking at this again. Rich Farmbrough, 21:55 4 May 2009 (UTC).
 * I understand. Thanks for the response. Ed Fitzgerald t / c 00:52, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot
Nice hack job!!! Wiki is not about sour fans leaving garbage under the name of an article. Pull this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.177.206.57 (talk) 20:57, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks: For your note but I have no idea which of our 2 million plus articles you refer to. Rich Farmbrough, 21:20 5 May 2009 (UTC).

Colorado Time Systems
Rich,

Could you please take a look at the Colorado Time Systems page you tagged with the tag that it didn't meet general notability guidelines? I have added references to relevant material. I am new to wikipedia and also have a few questions:

1. For references that are not inline citations, how do I determine whether I should put them under references or see also? 2. How many links to relevant articles is too many - too few?

Rich,

Thanks for the help. Can you please review the page again and remove the tag if it looks ok. If not, please explain.

Thanks Again, --Ebgundy (talk) 22:49, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

List of Speakers of the National Assembly of Botswana
I have a couple of questions concerning your tags. You have written that List of Speakers of the National Assembly of Botswana belongs to a trivia section. In fact, legislative speakers is a subcategory in English Wikipedia. There are several separate articles containing names with legislative speakers of the world.

You have also added that the article might contain inappropriate or misinterpreted citations that do not verify the text. I can, however, inform you that my source is the Parliament of Botswana: http://www.parliament.gov.bw/pgcontent.php?UID=707.

Best wishes! Mbakkel2 (talk) 15:59, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Smackbot question
This may be an ignorant question, because I do not understand the workings of, or how to program, a bot. Would it be possible to add the following to Smackbot's fixes: Finell (Talk) 08:18, 9 May 2009 (UTC)  (To preserve the continuity of the conversation, I will watch for your reply here on your Talk page.) 
 * Add a non-breaking space where there is no space between  or   and the page number(s)?
 * Replace a space that follows  or   with a non-breaking space?
 * Where a list of numbers is separated by commas without spaces, insert spaces? For example:
 * Change  to
 * Conform page or number ranges to the rule that drops repeating numerals prior to the 2 final numerals? For example:
 * Change  to
 * Change  to
 * Yes, but best added as WP:AWB general fixes, for a number of reasons. Personally I "page" and "pages" in WP. Rich Farmbrough, 08:25 9 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Thanks for the quick reply. I requested these for Smackbot because I see it doing general fixes much more often than I see any other tool. As long as Smackbot is changing those hyphens to en-dashes ... Also, pardon me, but I don't understand what you mean by "Personally I 'page' and 'pages' in WP." Finell (Talk) 08:43, 9 May 2009 (UTC)  (To preserve the continuity of the conversation, I will watch for your reply here on your Talk page.) 
 * Personally I prefer "page" and "pages" (to p. and pp.)in WP. Rich Farmbrough, 09:38 9 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Thanks for explaining. To the best of my knowledge, there is no widely used citation system that spells out page or pages, nor does any of Wikipedia's citation templates; some citation systems use bare page numbers with no abbreviation. Finell (Talk) 11:54, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Smackbot problem: Changing p. and pp. to pages
SmackBot is now changing "p." and "pp.", which is accepted citation form, to "pages" (example diff), which is not. This leads to inconsistent, and incorrect, citations throughout the article. Also, saying "pages" before a singular page number is an incorrect use of the word. Finell (Talk) 12:43, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi. In my opinion this edit to the Nicolaus Copernicus page is unacceptable.  The abbreviations "p." for "page" and "pp." for "pages" are absolutely standard in citations in scholarly works &mdash;the only common alternative being to omit the abbreviations altogether.  Nor can I find anything in the Wikipedia manual of style which either requires, or even encourages, the entire word "pages" to be used instead.  Moreover, the use of the word "pages" in a citation to a single page is illogical.  Could you please fix the bot so that it does not make edits like this.
 * &mdash;David Wilson (talk · cont) 13:39, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Apologies for not checking the talk page before posting the above message. Nevertheless, rather than refactor it entirely, I'll simply leave it here as support for  Finell's complaint.
 * &mdash;David Wilson (talk · cont) 13:49, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I've also noticed the bot edit in the Copernicus article, and I do agree with the concerns voiced by Finell and David.-- Matthead Discuß   13:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


 * No problem - just a little testing. Rich Farmbrough, 14:44 9 May 2009 (UTC).

Articles with invalid date parameter in template
I just found Category:Articles to be expanded since Feb 2009. How hard would it be to get Expand-section to use Category:Articles with invalid date parameter in template so your bot can fix this kind of thing?

Also, thank you for your kind words at Template talk:DeletedMonths. --Pascal666 07:11, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Just found a couple more templates that could benefit from the same treatment:

--Pascal666 07:48, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Category:Articles to be merged since JApril 2009
 * Category:Articles lacking in-text citations from Feb 2009
 * Category:Articles lacking in-text citations from 17 May 2008


 * I creatd DMC and DMCA to simplify/unify the dated logic of some 394 templates (less the in-line ones). It's live in Expand section, and I'll retrofit it to the others as I come across them. Rich Farmbrough, 11:12 28 April 2009 (UTC).


 * Thank you. I would appreciate it if you could update More footnotes and No footnotes.  --Pascal666 21:55, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * DOne BTW. Rich Farmbrough, 23:48 2 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Thank you. It's a shame most of these templates are fully protected so I can't just do it myself.  --Pascal666 06:05, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I just realized you said you would not be updating the in-line templates. Mind if I ask why? It looks like you could update the majority of them by just editing fix.

I also wonder how hard it would be to create something like fix for the non-inline templates. --Pascal666 06:37, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The inline ones already hacve it. Rich Farmbrough, 16:03 9 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Sorry, blind as a bat. --Pascal666 18:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot and the Article issues template
With this edit, why was there a |date=May 2009 added to the end of the Article issues template?--Rockfang (talk) 23:36, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * So why add the date if those parameters aren't present?--Rockfang (talk) 23:14, 8 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Would you be willing to change the bot to only add the extra date if certain fields are present? The reason I ask is because it seems only useful if someone puts "expert" (for example) in the article issues template during the same month smackbot added the date.  Otherwise, if someone added the expert parameter later down the road, the date would be incorrect.  I think it would be safe to say that a decent number of people don't even know that the "expert" parameter can take a date.  I don't see it on the doc for the article issues template.--Rockfang (talk) 03:08, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what you mean with this edit.--Rockfang (talk) 22:13, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Article issues template
In this edit Smackbot added a date parameter to Article issues. This template only uses a date parameter if the expert parameter is also specified. As feature requests, it would also have been nice if Smackbot would have merged the notability into Article issues and dated copypaste. Thanks! --Pascal666 18:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * See above convo with Rockfang
 * Merging templates: AWB now does this as a GF -
 * Dating copypaste, np.

SmackBot appears to have major issues with Article issues:   --Pascal666 23:57, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This is an AWB bug, by the looks of it. Rich Farmbrough, 03:57 10 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Any idea which version of AWB you were using at the time? --Pascal666 08:37, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * User:Rjwilmsi states that these bugs are fixed in AWB . Your upgrading would be appreciated.  Thanks!  --Pascal666 09:47, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot capitalization
Your fix to keep SmackBot from making no changes other than capilalizing a template does not appear to have worked:  --Pascal666 19:20, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I had to revert because it is simply a setting to skip case change only edits. This means that stuff like date=april 2009 gets left unfixed. Rich Farmbrough, 03:44 10 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Given the choice I would agree with your decision. --Pascal666 08:37, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Your changes to Wikipedia maintenance templates
You have made mistakes in Template:Cleanup-rewrite, Template:Recently revised and Template:Needs table as of late. Each time with repercussions for many articles. Would you please be carefull next time. Debresser (talk) 19:46, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for letting me know. Rich Farmbrough, 03:42 10 May 2009 (UTC).
 * It happens. But since the templates are maintenance templates, used in many articles, you should make sure it works. Debresser (talk) 11:04, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Deletemenow
A tag has been placed on Deletemenow, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the page appears to have no meaningful content or history, and the text is unsalvageably incoherent. If the page you created was a test, please use the sandbox for any other experiments you would like to do. Feel free to leave a message on my talk page if you have any questions about this.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding  to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:53, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Why, why would you do that? Are you drunk or something or has your account been compromised? Beeblebrox (talk) 03:54, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No I need occasionally to test in articlespace. In this case there is a bug in AWB that doesn't express in user space.  Typically I only need the page to exist for about 30 seconds. Rich Farmbrough, 03:59 10 May 2009 (UTC).
 * I figured there must be some sort of explanation... Beeblebrox (talk) 04:04, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot - Added two date parameters to Copypaste template
In the article R. H. King Academy, Smackbot seems to have created two identical parameters  while attempting to correct a copypaste template. One replaced a full YYYY-MM-DD date, the other was added. Refer to the edit log. When I added template to the article, I followed the example on how to use it from the template documentation, which shows a full date rather than. If the Smackbot correction is the WP standard, perhaps the documentation for Copypaste should be changed. Cheers. --papageno (talk) 17:17, 10 May 2009 (UTC) == Wikipedia Signpost : 11 May 2009 ==


 * News and notes: Wikimania 2010, usability project, link rot, and more
 * Wikipedia in the news: Quote hoax replicated in traditional media, and more
 * Dispatches: WikiProject Birds reaches an FA milestone
 * WikiProject report: WikiProject Michael Jackson
 * Features and admins: Approved this week
 * Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
 * Arbitration report: The Report on Lengthy Litigation

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe

Delivered by SoxBot (talk) at 22:17, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

is different than
Rich, SmackBot is replacing "or", an inline template, with "original research" a section-oriented template. I assume this is an error. ✤ JonHarder talk 21:26, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, someone had redirected "OR" back to "original research". Rich Farmbrough, 05:06 13 May 2009 (UTC).

Erotic spanking
I cannot help being childishly amused to see that Erotic spanking has been edited by SmackBot! See here. Keep up the good work. Gaius Cornelius (talk) 16:02, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Chuckle. Rich Farmbrough, 16:09 13 May 2009 (UTC).

Thanks
Thank you for correcting the the "et. al." typo that is in some of the dermatology stubs I created. I apologize for that mistake. ---kilbad (talk) 23:21, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * You are welcome, that is why it is a wiki.Rich Farmbrough, 07:27 14 May 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot
Hi, In this edit the bot removed two categorised stub tags. OK, the article was probably not really a stub (a previous editor had added an uncategorised stub tag), but the two stub tags I'd added gave it categories within parent categories. Removing them left it totally uncategorised. If the bot is removing such tags, could it add categories based on the parent categories? These may be broader than the ideal categories but will certainly be better than nothing. Here we could have had Category:American academics and Category:Archaeologists, if the bot was instructed to add any parent categories not including the word "stub". I do a lot of stub-sorting, but don't usually add them to my watchlist - because I'd moved this page, it came up on the list. I don't know how common it is for the bot to remove categorisation in this way! PamD (talk) 11:46, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well as you know, the stub cat tree doesn't correspond to the main category tree.  So therefore a little extra smarts would be required.  I will float the matter at WP:AWB if I find the time.  Rich Farmbrough, 12:01 14 May 2009 (UTC).

Default formats
Hi Rich. I just noticed this edit which changed the default formats around headings. Now this isn't some earthshaking matter, but I just wanted to share some observations with you. The Wikipedia defaults are that there are spaces in the heading between the text and the equals signs, and a blank line between the heading and the first line of text. You can check this by making a test edit here. Just click the "new section" tab, put in some letters in the "subject/headline" box and also in the body. Save it and then edit it. You'll see what I mean. I don't know why those are the default settings, but I find it easier to edit when they are left it place. It makes it easier for my old eyes to spot heading breaks, among other things. If you're going to make such changes, you're working against default settings and can keep going forever. It's futile effort, and it makes editing more difficult for me and probably others. I'm sure there are more important things to do. Thanks. -- Brangifer (talk) 13:39, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Hermance (river)
Please see the result of this edit do you really think it is an improvement? --PBS (talk) 14:57, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Minor point
Not really very important, but why does SmackBot convert Infobox Settlement to the redirect Infobox settlement, as here? --Kotniski (talk) 17:14, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * AS you say, minor, but the infobox guideline says it should be a lowercase s. While that infobox hasn't yet moved I'm picking up a few instances now, since they won't be changed in the articles unless they are being edited for some other reason. Rich Farmbrough, 17:50 14 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Sorry, without wishing this to become a bigger thing than it needs to be, but the guideline seems to say that only because you recently changed it. Where is the consensus supposed to be for this change?--Kotniski (talk) 18:05, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * On the talk page. And the change was made in February here - I made the examples better match the guideline, removed a historical "now" and made some unconnected changes relating to the old VfD.  Rgds, Rich Farmbrough, 18:14 14 May 2009 (UTC).
 * OK, I don't want to spend time arguing about it, as I don't care much one way or another, but that seems to be the wrong diff, I can't find any such agreement on the talk page, and even if there was, I think there may be resistance at the talk pages of popular Infoboxes (like Settlement) to the implementation of such a change without them being notified of the discussion.--Kotniski (talk) 18:25, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot bug
On longevity myths, bot changed template "or" to "Original research" repeatedly. The former is inline, the latter is a big graphic. If anything it should just change "or" to "Or". Thanks. JJB 20:09, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. OR was pointing to Original research, hence the problem. Rich Farmbrough, 20:12 14 May 2009 (UTC).

AfD nomination of University of Atlanta
An editor has nominated University of Atlanta, an article which you have created or worked on, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes ( ~ ).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate. Thank you. A. B. (talk • contribs) 22:53, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Headings format
This discussion is centered on an edit made by you. You'll probably want to enter the discussion. Debresser (talk) 14:34, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Editing Barnstar

 * Thanks Rich Farmbrough, 16:50 13 May 2009 (UTC).

Effectrode Wikipedia Article
Rich,

I would be grateful if you would examine the Effectrode article again and see if it meets Wikipedia's requirements.

Thanks in advance

Sam
 * I looked..Rich Farmbrough, 18:46 23 May 2009 (UTC).

links
More links are added to the person in the captioned subject/headline. Quite a lot of articles about her personal profile indeed.
 * ??Rich Farmbrough, 18:46 23 May 2009 (UTC).

Saigon South International School

 * (SmackBot)

Hello, I just made some edits to the page of our school, following the style of similar pages for other schools. I didn't want to remove the tags for the problems of the original version, in case this is considered rude or inappropriate. Can you take a look? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saigon_South_International_School Thanks.
 * ✅ Rich Farmbrough, 04:38 12 May 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot
Dr. Heenal Raichura

"However the title of youngest doctor in the UK ever now belongs to a student from the University of Birmingham in 2009 having just turned 22 a week before graduation."

Again this seems to be some type of vandalism and vendetta as there is no basis of this claim to be added on this web page.

The information is neither backed with the name of the person or any factual information and even if this is a fact, there are no citations.

Tomorrow you will mention that someone from the University of Timbuktu had become youngest doctor at the age of 5!

Hence you are requested to stop vandalising this page and immediately delete the above entry which has no relevance to facts about Dr. Heenal Raichura.
 * Well neither I nor SB have made such a change. Rich Farmbrough, 07:23 14 May 2009 (UTC).

Et al. or et al..
Hello;

I think you may be getting a superfluous period in some of your et al. changes when a comma is involved, for example in this change to Aerosteon. It looks like the AWB is trying to get the period inside of the italics, but the period outside of the italics is still there, so it ends up as "et al..," instead. J. Spencer (talk) 03:16, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'm scanning for this now. Seems to be rare, luckily. Rich Farmbrough, 07:10 15 May 2009 (UTC).

or "et alia"?

 * Howdy! For reasons I don't fully understand, I find the idea that you are adding "." to the end of "et al" ... "interesting". As a matter of academic interest and idle speculation, may I ask why you chose "et al." over "et alia"? Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 14:31, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Standard abbreviation would be et. al. alia is "others", so "and others". but I find it better to write "and others". I rarely use "et cetera" or whatever for same reason. SimonTrew (talk) 02:15, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed et al., e.g., i.e., loc. cit. and ibid. are all better known than their fully spelled out equivalents. et of course is "and", so takes no punctuation.  Rich Farmbrough, 08:31 17 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Yes, et alia would be inconsistent with general use. Thanks. --Pdfpdf (talk) 08:50, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot nearing its two millionth edit
I thought this was a neat milestone. And no, I don't know why I pulled that up :P I don't suppose there's any way to know what its two millionth edit is, when it comes? Should be about two weeks, by the numbers. Anyway, just thought this was cool, thought I'd share if you hadn't checked it out. Nosleep break my slumber 10:20, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you. According to "my prefernces" Number of edits: 2,099,991 - this includes deleted edits.  Rich Farmbrough, 11:25 15 May 2009 (UTC).


 * SmackBot gets a SmackBiscuit good little bot (mostly) SimonTrew (talk) 02:18, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I have three questions
I made an edit today--one edit--to the article Carrie Prejean and have not made an edit to the article in days, but yet another editor reversed my ONE edit and then reported me on the 3RR notice board. I find this to be a clear use of Wikipedia to win a debate about article content and direction. Prejean was called a series of negative things by Perez Hilton, most of the words are contemptuous and vile, such as the b-word and c-word. There are editors that believe that each and every one of Hilton's use of those words MUST be included in the article about Prejean. Now, I don't see the need to have an article about Prejean dominated by the words and comments of ONE individual (highly negative words at that) dominate the life story of Prejean. It is tantamount to having the words of Saddam Hussein concerning George W Bush dominate the Wikipedia article about Bush. It violates Wikipedia avowed goal of NPOV and it violates BLP. Now, I know that consensus in Wikipedia editing is one of the goals, but consensus does NOT override other valid Wikipedia ideals such as BLP. There can be a compromise made where the gist of Hilton's highly negative opinion is included in the article, but at the same time it does NOT dominate the life story of Prejean. Prejean is notable for many, many reasons, not just her public fight with Hilton. She is notable for being a successful model; she is notable for participating in Deal or No Deal; she is notable for being the current Miss California USA; and she is now notable for being a TV personality. My first question is: Can you at least review the article and see if the second, third, fourth, and fifth repetitions of the b-word and c-word violates BLP? I believe that it does. And my second question is: Is it appropriate to make a report on an editor for violating 3RR even though that editor has only made one edit? And my third question is: Is misusing 3RR to win a debate on the proper interpretation of BLP appropriate? I don't think so.--InaMaka (talk) 15:59, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * OK. Looks like this one is old news. Rich Farmbrough, 17:32 15 May 2009 (UTC).

et al.
Hi Rich,

Some of your AWB edits are adding duplicate periods. See for example here. Can you fix this? Firsfron of Ronchester 18:14, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * (yes)
 * Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 20:26 17 May 2009 (UTC).

Don't rename  }, {where?}}, etc
these templates get changed to things like. while these may redirect there, the problem pointed out by the tag should not be changed. (still put in dates)Scientus (talk) 09:15, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes I understand your point. You are saying these are "Redirects with possibilities"  I think.
 * SmackBot currently deals with about 1800 templates of which about 1400 are redirects. It is able to automatically pick up new redirects, otherwise I would be adding and removing them daily.  It  would also be dificult when (as has happened in the past) someone changes the target of a redirect.
 * Renaming, as well as in general making the articles more readable in wikicode, reduces the number and complexity of the rules vastly. Bearing in mind that some regexes have had to be re-written in order to terminate.
 * Solutions:
 * Do nothing. If the reason for clarity being requested isn't clear, the editor reading is probably not the person to supply it.
 * Supply the reason explicitly. SB allows for a "reason=" parameter in all its templates, or an HTML comment could be used (outside the template please), better and edit summary, or (best) a talk page comment.
 * Change the specific redirects to either a.) be normal templates or b) call their target  rather than redirecting.

Rgds,
 * Rich Farmbrough, 10:45 18 May 2009 (UTC).

Reordering citations
Why did your recent edit to Bicycle and motorcycle dynamics, which is described as fixing the spelling of et al., and appears to have been made with AWB, change the order of several citations. -AndrewDressel (talk) 21:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It is indeed AWB, and I have added the legend "and gen fixes" to the edit summary. AWB re-arranges the footnotes into numerical order thus insteat of [18][8] we have [8][18].Rich Farmbrough, 00:21 19 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Cool. Thanks. I didn't notice that in the diff view. -AndrewDressel (talk) 02:55, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Claygate Beds
Hi there, Your recent change of 'claygate beds' to a link currently redirects to the same section within London Clay. Were you intending to add an article? Pterre (talk) 15:16, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah no. I recently saw several hundred Infobox rockunit being used so I made a tentative link, and when it came up blue...

Rich Farmbrough, 15:45 19 May 2009 (UTC).
 * OK, I'll revert - I can't see there ever being an article. Pterre (talk) 08:18, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Analytic Hierarchy Process
You made some recent changes there. I don't object, but I'm wondering about the rationale. I suspect that you know some things about references that I do not. If you could share a little of it, I'd be grateful. Lou Sander (talk) 19:16, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * There are four changes, two are punctuating "et al.", one is removing the (duplicated) text of a named reference and one is putting references in numerical order. Rich Farmbrough, 19:18 20 May 2009 (UTC).

Porbeagle
Hey Rich

Thanks for your cleanup at PORBEAGLE.

I could swear I added a little note saying it is an anagram of BARGEPOLE. I know in a way that's not notable but is kinda funny (and useful if you play Scrabble). I know we have to be an encylopaedia but small little things like that can "accidentally" slip in, can't they?

I am up to a thousandth of your edits now!

Best wishes SimonTrew (talk) 22:54, 20 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Well it's vaguely notable because "Bargepole" was a contributor to Punch (magazine) under that pseudonym, and nobody quite knew he was. One (obviously ludicrious) suggestion was that he was a porbeagle. Can't believe Bargepole is a redlink. One more on the TODO list. SimonTrew (talk) 22:57, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It is interesting, becasue longer single word anagrams are I think reasonably rare. Rich Farmbrough, 23:15 20 May 2009 (UTC).

Mark Howard Producer
hi i see you did some edits on my page... not sure what you did but thanks i guess. did you take 2 of my notes/sources off. i had 16 now only 14. could you please tell me which ones and why? cheers--Charliedylan (talk) 00:02, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 08:23 21 May 2009 (UTC).

Reference shuffling
Seemingly random swapping around of references. The and endash fix were fine, but for the moment I've done a rollback until I understand what the bot was attempting to do. —Sladen (talk) 01:17, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

PS. I tried to stop the BOT, but the page to do that is protected ... which perhaps defeats the point of having the stop page option in the first place.
 * Thanks it is only meant to be semi protected. The references were " media;[15][13][8] " post edit " media;[8][13][15] " . Rich Farmbrough, 08:19 21 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Ta, thanks for the quick; I'll know what it's doing if I see a similar edit in the future.  Would it be possible to replace the generic summary message with one that relates to the test/regexs changes actually made.  Eg.
 * "endash(1) order-refs-by-number(1) rm-blank-lines-in-cats(3) spelling(th1s/this, th4t/that, 07h3r/other)"
 * This would then give an exact idea of what actions the bot was taking and also an overview of the extent of the actions in this edit (how many rules have been acted upon and the total number of corrections)? —Sladen (talk) 13:26, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * SmackBot uses the WP:AWB platform, these general fixes are coded there. There is a string generated, which is available as a mouse-over to the user - but the options for edit summary are to show the replacements after a general comment or not.  With the Typo Fix plugin I use that option, in other cases it is not really helpful. Your suggestion would make a good feature request - see the WP:AWB pages to propose it. Having said that the ref re-ordering one is one of the few general fixes I get asked about - maybe that would be worth a specific summary extension - it took me a while to work out what it was doing. Rich Farmbrough, 13:33 21 May 2009 (UTC).

CfD_categories_renamed
Please visit Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents

Rm uncategorized
Hi Rich, at Council_for_European_Studies, there is still just the stub category, uncat shouldn't be removed. -- User:Docu
 * Thanks, looks like an AWB bug, I have logged it. Rich Farmbrough, 22:48 21 May 2009 (UTC).
 * We revisited the uncat tagging question a couple of weeks ago, it seemed to work. Apparently the tag is not applied if there is any other template than a stub one. This can be reasonable for infoboxes or navigation boxes, but if there is any other maintenance templates applied before, it wont get the tag. -- User:Docu

problematic bot
Hi Rich, your bot did a bit of too much changing names into months and rewriting links... --Olaf Simons (talk) 08:49, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the catch. This is manual and quite painstaking - obviously I goofed on this one.  Rich Farmbrough, 09:57 22 May 2009 (UTC).

Infobox code capitalization question
This is a very minor question, but is there any reason you are changing the name of infoboxes to lowercase such as Infobox Settlement to Infobox settlement in this diff (which I changed back to uppercase). The page is currently at Template:Infobox Settlement (capitalized), so why change this? Browsing your edits I noticed you doing this to other infoboxes like Template:Infobox Disease. I'm just curious why you are doing this. You can reply here. Thanks. LonelyMarble (talk) 21:01, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply, I was mainly just curious. I've thought for awhile now that the infobox titles should be in lowercase, which would be in line with all the other naming conventions. So changing it preemptively in articles seems fine to me since it doesn't matter either way. Cheers. LonelyMarble (talk) 21:30, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

SDSM Template
Sorry, what I have done? Where is the problem for the template of Social Democratic Union of Macedonia?--  MacedonianBoy Oui? 22:47, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, I think I solved the problem.--  MacedonianBoy Oui? 22:59, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Can't shalln't won't!
Rich, please could you consider changing the word "can't" at the top of this talk page (referring to replying preferences). Perhaps "won't" or "am unlikely to [watch your talk page]" would be more accurate. "Can't" (particularly in bold) implies a technical impossibility, whereas this appears to be a situation that is one of choice. Cordially, —Sladen (talk) 23:19, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No it is not possible . I have 25000+ pages on my watchlist I believe. It is not possible that I will watch your talk page in any meaningful sense in the near future. Rich Farmbrough, 23:43 22 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Possible, is different to not useful, or not practical. I would hope that it is possible to convey this aspect—perhaps even by stating it as succinctly as including "I have 25,000+ pages on my watchlist ... it is not possible that I will watch your talk page in any meaningful sense" at the top.  Would that be a better wording? —Sladen (talk) 23:53, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Based on Olaf's expressed concern above, I did a quick review of the last fifty edits on this account. I hope that any comments are useful or can help in refining any macros/expressions being used. These edits took place over a period of 25 minutes (an average of two edits per minute, and a highest rate of five edits per minute). Side-note: This speed of editing is probably verging on WP:BOTPOL territory, based on being faster than a human can carefully review. Within those 50 edits, I noted the following and like to highlight them in the hope that they can be useful:
 * Review
 * replacement of a working with a broken, capitalised,   tag
 * Human error gives a better view
 * , I believe the full title of the rôle is "Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs" and (I think) there is only one of them. Probably this was down to 'a' being used instead of 'the'.  WP:MOSCAP
 * In general we don't capitalise job titles, Rich Farmbrough, 11:41 23 May 2009 (UTC).
 * some of these values are used as adjectives and thus the separator between the value and unit should a hyphen ('-') rather than a non-breaking space . This type of edit is harder to automate as each number requires checking the context.  WP:MOSNUM
 * There is a discussion on ordinance - I raised this as a possible AWB change. The gun folk do not look for a hyphen, those that have said anything look for no space at all.  Rich Farmbrough, 11:41 23 May 2009 (UTC).
 * changing case of template; → looks quite strange; and iso probably a loosing battle because of the automated methods used to add it. (It might be worth considering not altering template capitalisation en masse (either Upcase, or downcase) unless it is actually causing a problem).
 * In general most template casing I leave alone, with the exception of about four infoboxen and the cleanup templates which are strongly canonicalised. Rich Farmbrough, 11:41 23 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Overall the quantity of your automated, manual and semi-automated edits are substantive and valuable to Wikipedia—I found no serious issues and as such I would like to thank you for your continuing contributions, —Sladen (talk) 00:33, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the review. It is useful feedback. Rich Farmbrough, 11:41 23 May 2009 (UTC).

Confused
Just curious, what was the point of changing "Infobox Settlement" to "Infobox settlement" in this edit? Not complaining, since obviously it didn't hurt the page, but I don't understand how it helped. Nyttend (talk) 00:57, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 00:59 23 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Thanks for the explanation; I wasn't aware of this guideline, since the only templates I work with much are county templates that consist exclusively of names. And thanks for your I-will-reply-on-your-talk-page preference — I'm always forgetting to check back at talk pages of users who reply on their own pages :-)  Nyttend (talk) 01:31, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Cleaning up al those "et al"s.....
I'm sure that your zeal is appreciated, but you should be aware that in doing this in every case (specifically, where a file name uses "et al", with our without the final full stop) means that sometimes (as in Un ballo in maschera), you actually fail to make the link work.

If you look at the Ballo article under "Selected recordings" you'll see that it now works, but only because I have removed that final "full stop / period". A link with the missing "dot" works; by adding it, it doesn't. A simple test is to see if the link turns from blue to red.

So, BOTs are all very well, but they can be too literal for everyone's own good. Viva-Verdi (talk) 01:30, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes you are quite right. Generally AWB will avoid such things and I will spot those it doesn't. This (re-)raises the interesting question as to whether templates should perhaps take such arguments in the form [[File:blah blah.ogg]] . Rich Farmbrough, 01:43 23 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Since it's been brought up, I'd like to say that I appreciate your zeal, but only because there's one source I cited in a few dozen places that uses "et al" whereas I've since learned how to cite all the authors and I've been following your edits with my own. Couldn't someone alter the templates to allow the period or to be neutral to periods? — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  01:51, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Verify credibility
Your last change to this template is making articles show up in "Articles blah blah blah from (month year)", which are all red linked categories. Why did you switch it to from just to make hundreds of red links? Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 01:48, 23 May 2009 (UTC) == Wikipedia Signpost : 18 May 2009 ==
 * Oh, I see, I caught you mid process. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 02:30, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * From the editor: Writers needed
 * Special report: WikiChemists and Chemical Abstracts announce collaboration
 * Special report: Embassies sponsor article-writing contests in three languages
 * News and notes: Wiki Loves Arts winners, Wikimania Conference Japan, and more
 * Wikipedia in the news: Arbitrator blogs, French government edits, brief headlines
 * WikiProject report: WikiProject Opera
 * Features and admins: Approved this week
 * Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

Read this Signpost in full &middot; Single-page &middot; Unsubscribe

Delivered by SoxBot (talk) at 13:26, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Dermatology
Lately you have been making minor edits and cleanups to dermatology-related pages, and given that activity, and your overall experience as a longstanding editor, from what you have seen, do you have any general comments regarding the dermatology related content on Wikipedia? Any feedback on how I and WP:DERM can work to make it better? Any thoughts on the current categorization scheme, etc? Regardless, thanks again for all your help! ---kilbad (talk) 13:52, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

90482 Orcus page error by AWB
Your recent contribution to [|90482 Orcus] has a page error generated by AWB. Please consider upgrading to a newer version of AWB. HumphreyW (talk) 20:04, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Manual of Style (icons)
Hi, I saw you edited Manual of Style (icons) heavily recently. Could you perhaps give an opinion on the use of the template POV-section there. The last time John tried to remove this tag but was inserted again by User:Oicumayberight, see also the discussion here and here. Since the RFC there was now really over I removed it but was obviously reverted again by User:Oicumayberight who seems to think there is a problem if only one user thinks there is a problem. Garion96 (talk) 00:31, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Things that stayed too long
''Troublefield Cemetery was added on May 26, 2008 to the list of cemeteries in Wedgefield, South Carolina. It remained until I reverted it May 22, 2009. clariosophic (talk) 12:33, 23 May 2009 (UTC)''

Speedy deletion nomination of Template:Infobox book series
A tag has been placed on Template:Infobox book series, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G4 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be a repost of material that was previously deleted following a deletion debate, such as at articles for deletion. Under the specified criteria, where an article has substantially identical content to that of an article deleted after debate, and any changes in the content do not address the reasons for which the material was previously deleted, it may be deleted at any time.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding  to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 03:21, 25 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Dude, you've been here long enough to know better than to try to do a copy/paste move of anything, and especially not of a template that has a TfD action pending! Whats up with that? -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 03:24, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Archaic tags
Yeah, I did a few, manually looking at the histories to determine when the tag had been placed; realised tis was going to redlink categories, and unilaterally pushed all the dates forward to the latest point when they could have been thus subst'ed: January 2007 (still very much bluelinked). It's off little consequence of course - I think unreferenced was the only tag subst'ed in this way now appear on the CW error list. But I diverge. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 08:48, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Merge templates
Your change to the templates have incorrect grammar, whether or not they meet Wikipedia guidelines. Please move any appropriate categories back to where they were. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:14, 25 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Why not just correct the grammar? And could you be a little more specific, like which templates and what problems with grammar? Debresser (talk) 11:51, 25 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Why not just correct the grammar? Because I don't know what other changes you made.  Please change "from" to "since" in all the templates.  "Since" should be in the template names.  As for redlinks, it's your fault, making template name changes not discussed at XfD.   It probably would have be simpler to revert all your edits on May 22-25, but that would still probably leave a few loose ends.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 14:35, 25 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, changing all "from" to "since" would be easy after we finished. Not when people meddle in the middle of a process. Debresser (talk) 15:18, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Di-no source
I've reverted your edit to Di-no source. There are two reasons for keeping the old category name: first, all the other deletion templates use the "as of" category names, and second, automated tools for dealing with unsourced images expect the category names to be in the "as of" format. --Carnildo (talk) 20:22, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The second reason is more significant, but please discuss with User:Debresser who has spoken (?) to DumbBot and MizerBot already. Rich Farmbrough, 20:26 23 May 2009 (UTC).
 * I contacted User:DumbBOT and User:MiszaBot and they were invited to report and I do not expect big problems. If needed User:SmackBot could do some updating, I guess. Please restore Rich' version. Debresser (talk) 20:41, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * BTW, which other deletion templates? We have over 80% at "from" now, with none at "as of" that I know about. If there are any more, we'll work on them too. Debresser (talk) 20:43, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Deletion is a separate hierarchy from the article maintenance templates. Which is not to say it can't become cromulent. Rich Farmbrough, 20:52 23 May 2009 (UTC).


 * Of the deletion tags I checked, Di-no license, Di-no permission, Di-no fair use rationale, Di-orphaned fair use, Di-replaceable fair use, no copyright holder, no copyright information, Di-missing article links, Di-no source no license, No license needing editor assistance and User:ST47/notagr used the "as of" wording, while Di-no source used the "from" wording. A side effect of this very partial changeover is that unsourced images may be in either of two categories, depending on who tagged them. --Carnildo (talk) 22:00, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Or rather when? But that is easily dealt with if it's a problem, alternatively the displaced style can wither on the vine. Rich Farmbrough, 22:06 23 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Does this present OrphanBot with any difficulties? Rich Farmbrough, 22:07 23 May 2009 (UTC).
 * See List of monthly maintenance categories given month that where articles are concerned we are almost finished. What do you say, shall we do the same for files then? We are willing to do all the work as far as categories and templates are concerned. See User:Debresser/My_work_on_Wikipedia that I did some background research. We just weren't ready for the difference between files and articles. Debresser (talk) 22:10, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * BTW, you missed my edits to Category:Wikipedia files with unknown source and Category:All Wikipedia files with unknown source, so I reverted them.
 * I have a suggestion. We could simply leave things the way they were. It will be "from" in article namespace and "as of" in files namespace. Or we could go on with the change. I don't mean to say it's a bad idea. I just mean to say that leaving things the way they were is not going to be a large inconsistency in Wikipedia's housestyle. What are your opinions? Debresser (talk) 00:07, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * OrphanBot gets the list of images to work on from the "all files" category, but it uses the "as of" category to figure out when the images were tagged. If the name of the category changes without me updating the bot, it'll assume that the images were tagged a long time ago and will start removing them from articles immediately, rather than waiting the standard five days.  Changing the name of the categories is fine, but I need to know about it in advance. --Carnildo (talk) 04:49, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * That we can promise. But at the moment we is tinkin (Jar Jar speech) that perhaps things are good the way they are. Let's await the opinions of User:DumbBOT and User:MiszaBot as well. Debresser (talk) 14:14, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * No problem for DumbBOT. The bot will probably end up creating some old categories for a couple of days, but I can delete them afterwards. As far as I can remember, category creation is the only affected function. 151.100.59.194 (talk) 12:44, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

You're at WP:ANI
Your edits are being discussed at ANI. Thanks, weburiedoursecretsinthegarden  09:21, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion has been moved to the archive, and on Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion the discussion was officially closed. Debresser (talk) 04:24, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

== Wikipedia Signpost : 25 May 2009 ==


 * License update: Licensing vote results announced, resolution passed
 * News and notes: New board member, flagged revisions, Eurovision interviews
 * Wikipedia in the news: Wikipedia: threat or menace?
 * WikiProject report: WikiProject LGBT studies
 * Discussion report: Discussion Reports and Miscellaneous Articulations
 * Features and admins: Approved this week
 * Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
 * Arbitration report: The Report on Lengthy Litigation

Read this Signpost in full &middot; Single-page &middot; Unsubscribe

Delivered by SoxBot (talk) at 04:03, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Your signature
FYI. Do mind if I put commas in your signature in this section of my talk page? :) Rockfang (talk) 01:14, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This quirk of the bot is worth remembering. Sometimes I'd like to put a 'Resolved' banner on a thread, properly signed, without delaying the archiving of it. All I'd need to do is type out a manual signature and leave out the comma after the time of day. EdJohnston (talk) 04:08, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot - close, but could get closer!
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=IBM_3270&diff=292941693&oldid=292886041 - picked up that I'd missed a  parameter but could it be taught to recognise that I'd already added the correct date, just missed the   bit? --ClickRick (talk) 00:16, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes it used to do that. There is a risk of something like " The Queen intends to abdicate in favour of her corgi Jaqumunda in May 2009. and I rather think one  or more of the merge templates has a default date parameter.   Rich Farmbrough, 08:54, 29 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Ah, fair enough. --ClickRick (talk) 09:38, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

English vs. english in Billiards related articles
Hi Rich. You do a great deal of cleaning up which I appreciate but please be aware of the capitalization issue noted above, resulting from this diff. English is not capitalized when used as as a term for sidespin in billiards disciplines, just as the "french" in french fries and is not capitalized. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:28, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * You're right that there isn't a great deal of consistency when the term is used generally. This is not surprising when an exception exists to what is a normal rule of construction. Even dedicated books on the subject (and I own about 60) are not consistent. Note though, Dictionary.com states: "also english 1. The spin given to a propelled ball by striking it on one side..." The same singling out of it as lowercase is seen in the American Heritage Dictionary. In any event, those of us who work on billiards-related articles employ it consistently in this way. Thanks for the quick response earlier.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:58, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Your input
I'd appreciate your imput here. I feel you might be the expert on the subject. Debresser (talk) 18:42, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Are you the admin I'm looking for over there? Or is there such a thing as making me an admin for the completion this project only? Or do you have other suggestions? Debresser (talk) 02:00, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Debresser (talk) 15:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Great. In that case I'll start making a list of what categories to create and which editprotected changes to make. You'll probably agree with me that the right time to do this is Sunday, May 31. There'll be mistakes, no doubt, so we'd have to stay around for a while afterwards.


 * The problem with editprotected is that it sometimes takes only a few minutes but at times a few hours for an admin to find the request and feel sure enough about what he is doing to go on with it. Especially in this case, where the changes will not be trivial. Would you like to centralise discusion, or we'll just write on each others talk pages? Debresser (talk) 16:17, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Part of the work can be done already. Where templates are not involved. I feel we can take our chances. Don't like pigs. That is ethnically determined in my case. :) Debresser (talk) 16:26, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I've done Dead link and all its category pages (22). All should be well, but please keep an eye on it. Debresser (talk) 00:04, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I have two questions.
 * Why is Dead link only semi-protected?
 * Why do some categories have an "all articles" category (like Category:All articles with dead external links on Category:Articles with dead external links) and others don't (see Category:Articles with disputed statements)? I understand how it is done, but not why. Debresser (talk) 00:12, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I see. Thanks. I would be happy to see them go also. The first point holds only for very small categories, of up to perhaps 50 pages at most. More than that will demotivate any single user to take up with it. The second point, and what can or can not be done with that parser function, is above my comprehension.

What do you say? This transition went well? Debresser (talk) 00:35, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Could you please change "as of" to "from" in Template:Current and Template:Recent death. I've created the categories. Debresser (talk) 14:27, 19 May 2009 (UTC) And Template:Current related. Debresser (talk) 16:16, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Please delete Category:Current events as of February 2009, Category:Current events as of March 2009, Category:Current events as of April 2009, Category:Current events as of May 2009.

FYI, I make a list of all templates I find connected to a specific category for future reference at User:Debresser/My_work_on_Wikipedia.

Please consider having a look at Requests_for_page_protection, where I propose to lower the protection level of all three templates mentioned above. Debresser (talk) 17:11, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Could you please repeat this edit in Template:Cfd, Template:Cfm, and Template:Cfr. Debresser (talk) 22:08, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. But with this one there is a complication. These templates are usually substituted. Which means that our change will not affect any category that was tagged already. BTW, for this reason I think you can delete not only Category:CfD 2009-07, Category:CfD 2009-09, Category:CfD 2009-08, Category:CfD 2009-06, but also my Category:Categories for deletion from April 2009. Unless I change those 9 categories there manually. What do you say?

Something else, why didn't you remove whitespaces in those three templates? I checked Template:Cfr (not to check upon you, but because I updated Template:Cfr/doc) and there are 3 whitespaces to remove. Debresser (talk) 22:59, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

A related question. Template:Cfd adds categories both to the specific monthly cat as well as to te general Category:Categories for deletion (see there). IMHO there is no reason not to deleted that line. Debresser (talk) 23:07, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

The whitespaces are around cats, which are anyway invisible. So no reason not to remove them. Especially in front of there should not be a whitespace as it translates into a whiteline. Not that in this case that would be a big problem, but it is sloppy programming. I'm a matematician, after all. :)Debresser (talk) 23:11, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

All these CfD, AfD, TfD, MfD are substituted. Don't know why, but in this case I feel sure there is a good reason. Debresser (talk) 23:13, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok, it's visible if you look at the code. But not in the template as it shows. Compare Template:Cfr/doc which I condensed and Template:Cfr which you didn't. The only visible difference will be if you remove the whitespace in front of. The rest is just a matter of principle. So what do you say, shall I use AWB to transfer those cats that are already tagged? Debresser (talk) 23:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Well... I just tested it on the sandbox, but there is no difference whatsoever. Perhaps that is because of the substitution, because I have upon occasion witnessed the disarranging consequences of that whitespace.

I'm waiting for two answers. About manually moving cats with a CfD to our newly created categories. About deleting the line in Template:Cfd adding Category:Categories for deletion as well. And I hope you'll delete those superfluous cats.

If you are going to do something to Template:Cfd, consider removing the break in  and change it to , and consider changing "cfd" and "cfd2" to "Cfd" and "Cfd2" as well. Debresser (talk) 00:45, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

We have the first category newly tagged. And it seems to work. Debresser (talk) 00:51, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Don't delete Category:Categories for deletion from April 2009. I moved the pages there. Want to put a bot on moving the 438 or so pages from Category:CfD 2009-05 to Category:Categories for deletion from May 2009? Debresser (talk) 01:03, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I see you moved them and deleted the old cats. Thanks. What about updating Template:Cfd with removing Category:Categories for deletion, changing "cfd", "cfd2" and  to "Cfd" and "Cfd2" and  ? Debresser (talk) 13:08, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

There's a LOT of noice about this last one on Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion. Debresser (talk) 20:53, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I noticed that from his style. Then I had a look at User talk:William Allen Simpson. I was just about to drop you a note that we have an agressive editor here, when I saw your last post. Just hope he is one of those who make more noice than actual trouble. Debresser (talk) 21:29, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Does that discussion mean we have to have more discussion before we continue or since all the eight categories left are just from "since" to "from" is that trivial enough?

I was ready to propose changing  to   (sic!, as it was before the last edit) in Template:Tdeprecated. Just take care to drop me a note right away if you make the change. Debresser (talk) 22:51, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I had a real good look at it yesterday and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. A regular transcluded template, used within noinclude tags for obvious reasons, bestowing a simple datecategory like all others. And there's only 11 or so of them. Would you care to mention what is special about it? Debresser (talk) 10:59, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I know it isn't article namespace, and the regular queue will update it. I don't see the problem. I choose it because it is small and can be done with a single simple edit. Whatever you say. Debresser (talk) 11:12, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Please add  to Verify source and Verify credibility. All is ready.

And perhaps delete a few db-g6 I left from my mistakes (see Special:Contributions/Debresser for all 8 or so of them together). Debresser (talk) 13:39, 22 May 2009 (UTC) Done by some admin. Debresser (talk) 15:15, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Did you notice the articles with dead links from after 2007 don't disappear. (The categories from 2007 are empty and can be deleted.) A long queue? Debresser (talk) 13:54, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I checked a few of them for additional templates, but found none. I you say it happens, then it's ok with me. There is Category:All articles with dead external links but null editing all of them is not very sensible. Debresser (talk) 15:24, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Are you going to make a nomination for renaming CfD, or do you want to wait till things quit down and till we finish all other categories? Debresser (talk) 15:25, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

If you'll be around in another 26 or so hours, we'll tackle Original research with three editprotected templates. I'm going on my weekly wikibreak now. :) Debresser (talk) 16:10, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I found another template connected with Category:Wikipedia articles needing factual verification: Expert-verify. Would you please change it. Pay head: only change the second instance of the word "since", connected with this category, at this time. Debresser (talk) 18:45, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

No I didn't. What and where? Debresser (talk) 18:57, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

You want to tell me it wasn't in Category:Wikipedia articles needing factual verification at all? Debresser (talk) 19:02, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Good I am not an admin. I make too many mistakes.

Please add  to Fact and change "since" to "from" in Citations missing. Debresser (talk) 19:20, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Please chnage "as of" to "from" in Di-no source and afterwards null-edit Nsd. Debresser (talk) 19:35, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

I know Nsd is substituted. I warned User:DumbBOT and User:MiszaBot. Since the oldest category there is 11 May, the troubles should be over within two weeks and will consist in some files showing up "as of" and others (with transclusion rather than substitution) in "from". Debresser (talk) 19:46, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Please see. Will you talk with him, or me? He probably wasn't aware I made all categories (which was a LOT harder than I thought. (see e.g. all my edits to Category:Wikipedia files with unknown source from 11 May 2009 ‎) Debresser (talk) 20:34, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I see he wrote you at the bottom of this page. I answered there and left him a talkback. Debresser (talk) 20:50, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Please have a look at this diff. It seemed to me like a mistake, since Citations missing didn't do that for over a year (if ever). Do you agree? Debresser (talk) 21:16, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

See this diff that I have found the categories you created for Verify credibility. Debresser (talk) 21:24, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps re-revert him? We have tried to contact him, but he doesn't seem to be around. Debresser (talk) 21:45, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok. I saw User:OrphanBot on those files. Didn't think he had to be contacted, so I wrote just to the other 2 bots. I think he can work it out though.

What I meant about the missing citations documentation is that it used to say "Adding this sorts the article into subcategories of Category:Articles lacking sources" which I think was a mistake, wasn't it? Especially since later on it says (correctly) "This template will categorise tagged articles into Category:All articles with unsourced statements and either Category:Articles with unsourced statements or a monthly category like Category:Articles with unsourced statements from May 2009, if a date is supplied."

Please add  to Failed verification. That should be the last template for this category. Debresser (talk) 22:06, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Please add  to Or and change "since" to "from" in Original research. Also afterwards null-edit Section OR. Debresser (talk) 22:40, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea what "tiffing" and "bedding in " is. I'm from the continent. :) But that's fine. Would you care to give a third party opinion here? BTW, I found an extra non-protected template in this cat and two templates in the or cat were also non-protected, as well as two templates in Category:Articles with unsourced statements. See User:Debresser/My_work_on_Wikipedia. Debresser (talk) 00:22, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I just found another template in Category:Wikipedia articles needing factual verification. But the thing that made me say "wow" was Article issues. There are a lot of "since" there. If you feel like combing them, go ahead, but perhaps just boldly change all of them, because we've done most of them and will do the other two there tonight, God willing and you helping. Debresser (talk) 19:41, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I have a question. I'd liketo create a cat Category:Articles needing expert attention by month to be a subcat of Category:Articles needing expert attention, just like we have Category:Articles to be expanded by month as a subcat of Category:Articles to be expanded. That would clean up the page a little. My question is, this won't interfere with the sorting mentioned on Category:Articles needing expert attention through Expert-subject? Debresser (talk) 19:55, 24 May 2009 (UTC) No problem here, so that's what I will do. Debresser (talk) 20:26, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Could you please change "since" to "from" in Expand and Expand-section. Debresser (talk) 20:22, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I thought of that. Check it after my next post to you, please, just to make sure. Debresser (talk) 21:03, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I think you missed one "since" in Article issues. Debresser (talk) 21:27, 24 May 2009 (UTC) Now you got it.

I now understand what you meant in this message to me. Of course. I would start making them an hour or so before the first place on the globe changes to the new month.

Please change "since" to "from" in Expert-subject and Expert-verify, Mergefrom and Mergeto. Debresser (talk) 21:42, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Please have a look at Category:Deprecated templates by month ("per month" and not "per date"). You can change "since" to "from" in Tdeprecated. BTW, I wanted to change "Templates deprecated from" to "Deprecated templates from", but forgot about that. Debresser (talk) 22:39, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

20 of what? Merge templates? Debresser (talk) 22:44, 24 May 2009 (UTC) Ok, I saw them on your contributions. Debresser (talk) 22:46, 24 May 2009 (UTC) I found the cat. Only 21 of the 33 templates used a dated category, it turnes out. If you didn't miss any. I'll check. Debresser (talk) 22:50, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

About that includeonly tag on Tdeprecated. I liked it better the way it was, when you could see what the template would loook like. Just seeing that yellow template will be already more than half of the answer for somebody who saw it instead of the template he expected. Debresser (talk) 22:53, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I did as well. It's in userspace, but better be bold than leaving him with a malfunctioning template. Debresser (talk) 23:04, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I take it you disagree with me about Tdeprecated? Did you check if SmackBot can work with Category:Articles to be expanded by month and Category:Articles needing expert attention by month? Debresser (talk) 23:08, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I understood that. That's why the doc stated clearly that it was not deprecated. You should perhaps update the doc now. Debresser (talk) 23:18, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

The last category: please take care of Weasel-inline, Who and By whom. Does Smackbot update Which => Which? ?

One more thing. Many templates use Fix. Do we want to change Fix from a default of "since" to a default of "from"? And then delete the line  from those templates? I would like that. Just that if yes, we had better wait a while, so that if there are any templates we missed, they will show up. Debresser (talk) 00:22, 25 May 2009 (UTC) I dont know the DMC/DMCA templates, although I thought about them. My conclusion was that they are probably used not only for "from". But for Fix I have an idea: replace "since" by and any case we forgot should show up as a template loop soon enough. Which I check every day anyway. Debresser (talk) 00:47, 25 May 2009 (UTC) Another bold idea is to delete all "since" categories and let SmackBot null-edit all pages that show up with invalid date parameters. Debresser (talk) 00:50, 25 May 2009 (UTC) BTW, the second "since" in Fix can already be changed. Debresser (talk) 00:51, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I had a look at DMC and DMCA. They are obvious. DMCA is DMC for articles only, therefore the "A". Why didn't you use ? Wanted it to be able to stand on its own? Debresser (talk) 00:59, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

The trick is to change to "from", or to make it default to "from"  (or sth like that). Debresser (talk) 01:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC) On the other hand: the charm of DMC is that it can take any variable. It would be a shame to limit such a potent template. Debresser (talk) 01:09, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

You can delete Category:Deprecated templates by date and all its subcategories. Debresser (talk) 01:20, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

You missed this and this. Do you have more such suprises for me? :) Debresser (talk) 11:12, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

You have said nothing about my ideas for Fix. Debresser (talk) 11:33, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

This one was a lot more polite. And he reverted his edits. As to my previous questions and remarks about DMC/DMCA and Fix:

When nudging I meant as to my wild ideas of boldly adding a template loop or deleting categories. I'd like to restate my opinion that it would be a shame to change DMC. It has an appealing forcefull generality to it. Might I suggest changing only DMCA for this purpose (which, it seems, is indeed the one used). Debresser (talk) 16:45, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll take my proposals are rejected. Now, as to finishing nicely with Fix and DMCA. On the list of all categories and templates we worked on, which I keep at User:Debresser/My_work_on_Wikipedia I added small notes indicating which templates are editprotected, which use Fix and which DMCA. Then, to make your live a little easier, I copied those without either and placed them in a special list at User:Debresser/My_work_on_Wikipedia. Hint: it would be very usefull if you could work DMCA into those ten templates in the next few days. I'd do it without problem, but I would probably get it wrong. And two of them are editprotected. Debresser (talk) 18:16, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I added DMCA to 8 of them. Could you please check I didn't make any mistakes?
 * Current person
 * Current spaceflight
 * Ongoing weather
 * Synthesis
 * Empty section
 * Expert
 * Technical (expert)
 * Expert-subject-multiple

That leaves just two editprotected templates: Tdeprecated and Article issues (about which last I forgot before). Debresser (talk) 21:29, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Do you have any idea why these last two categories are done in one day and others are waiting almost a week now?

You're right about Tdeprecated and I wouldn't use DMC for it. What is the logic in standarising 1 template in a stand-alone group> If you get my point. So when we want to centralise the use of "from" (or whatever) we have to do that at DMCA, Fix, DatedAI, Article issues and Tdeprecated (done). Debresser (talk) 23:59, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

By the way, did you know about Category:Attempted de-orphan, using "in" as programmed in Orphan? Could you rewrite it with DMCA please? It's easy. If you want to use "from", let me know. Debresser (talk) 00:09, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I though we were close to done, but I forgot that I have information only about the catgories I worked upon together with you, which is only about 10 out of 43. I'll see if I have energy for all of them. But a good start would be to have Article issues to use DatedAI in all sections. Another thing is that DatedAI should know that is  +" from". Which would simplify Article issues and centralise the use of "from". What to do with the exeption, Category:Wikipedia cleanup and Category:Cleanup by month The obvious solution would be to rename Category:Cleanup by month and all its monthly categories to Category:Wikipedia cleanup by month. The best thing is probably to build the exeption into DatedAI and discuss it later, after all is centralised. Debresser (talk) 01:13, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Four last small notes:
 * 1) I have not found any more templates. Those slow cats are perhaps lower on the priority scale of the queue.
 * 2) I personally can see the use of all-inclusive cats for bots that work with them.
 * 3) You can delete all monthly categories with "since" in Category:Merge by month and Category:Articles needing expert attention by month. Debresser (talk) 01:28, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 4) The change to DatedAI would look something like from   to  . Debresser (talk) 01:37, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I know you are a programmer, and I am not. It wrote this to explain what kind of change I had in mind. Words are ambiguous, code is not. Would it work the way I wrote it? I would be very proud if it would. I really am not a programmer. I just look a lot at what I see and try to understand the way things work. This is without the abovementioned exception. Debresser (talk) 01:43, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I was not being modest. I am not a programmer. When I was a child I learned the basics of Basic and in university the basics of Pascal and that's it. What language are these templates written in anyway? Another reason I wrote you the code is so that I shouldn't give the impression I am just inviting you to do all the hard thinking.

Now another thing. If we want this to work we must check all templates use either Fix or DMCA. Could you send me the list of all 423 templates you said ScmackBot dates. If up util now you could justify not sending me this list by claiming that I might actually find some more templates, that isn't true any more because now we are starting to standarise categories that are already at "from". BTW, did I find you any templates ScmackBot didn't know about? When I get the list I'll start sorting them per category and I'll add indicators like I did with the new "from" categories at User:Debresser/My_work_on_Wikipedia. BTW, I think we'll need to copy that section somewhere into Wikipedia namespace, for future reference. Probably something like List of monthly maintenance categories with templates. I'll do that.

Had a look at List of monthly maintenance categories with templates?

About User:Rich Farmbrough/temp5. Am I allowed to remove redlinks and update redirects? Nothing else. Debresser (talk) 15:56, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Above questions waiting for answers. And I asked you once what language templates are written in on Wikipedia. As to my question, did I find you any templates ScmackBot didn't know about? The answer is: yes (at least Season needed). You might want to add it. Or I could, if you tell me that's ok. Debresser (talk) 17:12, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I didn't understand you. Is User:Rich Farmbrough/temp5 supposed to have all redirects, or not, or doesn't it matter? Because if you say it is - I can add them, and if you say it isn't - I can remove them. So far I added 1 template, fixed 1 typo (=1 redlink), deleted all redlinks. Debresser (talk) 21:09, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

BTW, I removed a few redirects from User:Rich Farmbrough/temp5. I also removed Merge-school, because it doesn't use a date parameter in the category, but I forgot to mention its removal in the edit-summary. Debresser (talk) 22:48, 26 May 2009 (UTC) Since it does take a date, just that it is not used in categories, I relisted it. Debresser (talk) 10:23, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Why are you so quite? I mean, in connection with things here. Debresser (talk) 20:46, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

What's interesting in Fix at the moment? Debresser (talk) 22:25, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Please add  to Attribution needed. Debresser (talk) 21:20, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

The section in Article issues dealing with Cite check is missing the line. Could you fix that? Debresser (talk) 00:31, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. Rich Farmbrough, 23:41 27 May 2009 (UTC).

A technical question: does  do the same as  ? Can DMCA take both categories inside? Debresser (talk) 21:34, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 23:41 27 May 2009 (UTC).

And in the same vein: can  be replaced by  ?
 * Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 23:41 27 May 2009 (UTC).

I'm checking all templates. Want me to do these first? Debresser (talk) 23:05, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * They are the relevant in-line ones, so yes that would be good. Rich Farmbrough, 23:46 27 May 2009 (UTC).

Please add  to Facts. Debresser (talk) 00:06, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Rich, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I have no idea what you meant with that last post to me. I need simple answers, like "yes" or "no, because this does #1 and that does #2". Debresser (talk) 21:56, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * that was apropos of the section it was in. Rich Farmbrough, 23:41 27 May 2009 (UTC).
 * My fault for not paying attention. Debresser (talk) 02:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I created Category:Articles with close paraphrasing from March 2009. Please have a look and tell me if I did right. Then I'll make the other 2 monthly categories needed here. Debresser (talk) 22:45, 27 May 2009 (UTC) I made some changes, was content, and created the others. I also added it to List of monthly maintenance categories given month. Debresser (talk) 22:56, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Pretty much ok just missing a Tl . Rich Farmbrough, 23:46 27 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Thanks.

I noticed Clarify me a week ago. It uses "from" but the text is. If you want, please change it to  and remove that whitespace after the "cat-date" which is a thorn in my eyes. :) Debresser (talk) 23:11, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's fine, when we are done the line won't be needed. Rich Farmbrough, 23:46 27 May 2009 (UTC).
 * I know. Thanks for doing it anyway for my sake. Debresser (talk) 02:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Would you have a less awkward solution for the beginning of FalseStatement? That would centralise "from", I mean. Debresser (talk) 00:10, 28 May 2009 (UTC) Ok. Deleting it was a nice idea. Debresser (talk) 02:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Now if we want to work into DatedAI the exeption for Category:Wikipedia cleanup it shoud probably be something like. I seem to remember that within parser functions spaces are discarded so perhaps that should be.
 * No I think it is a bad idea for the dated AI to know about what is calling it. I'd rather fix the cat structure later. Rich Farmbrough, 23:41 27 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Ok. I understand your point. Debresser (talk) 02:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

When you finish DatedAI, the next thing will be to make Article issues use only DatedAI. Which is up to you, because of the editprotection. The only three entries not yet using DatedAI are "notable", "notability", and "Intro rewrite". Let me know when you finish, ok? Debresser (talk) 09:44, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This is where it has been going for some time. The notablity stuff is I recall complicated. Rich Farmbrough, 23:41 27 May 2009 (UTC).
 * I noticed that you added "wikify" today. I must have missed this fourth entry somehow. Debresser (talk) 02:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Chemformula has a dated category in it, but no dated categories exist. Apparently none have ever been created. I propose to remove it from the template. What do you say? Debresser (talk) 22:06, 27 May 2009 (UTC) I see you changed it in a way that keeps the dated cat. I really don't think we need more than one category for all of them, since it is not in use at all. Debresser (talk) 22:49, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not minded to mess with it. If it is used then it's useful to know if the items are old. Rich Farmbrough, 23:46 27 May 2009 (UTC).
 * This is true, but see below that I can use this argument also... Debresser (talk) 03:04, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Can't  used in Chemical-importance be replaced by  ? Or even by ? Debresser (talk) 21:45, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes the straight category I think. Rich Farmbrough, 23:46 27 May 2009 (UTC).
 * That's what I like about DMCA. It is so general. Debresser (talk) 02:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

You made some typos in Episode. I fixed them. Debresser (talk) 00:13, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm updating User:Rich Farmbrough/temp5. I remove the redirects up till #45. And added all templates I found from those you sent me. I'm afraid SmackBot will be one busy bot the next few days. Debresser (talk) 00:17, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I updated List of monthly maintenance categories given month and still have to update List of monthly maintenance categories with templates. No sleeping for me here. Debresser (talk) 02:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC) Done. Debresser (talk) 04:15, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I added User:Debresser/What's up? to the top of my talk page. From it you can see that in another 2-3 hours I'll have a 2-day wikibreak. Debresser (talk) 12:39, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Remember about "The obvious solution would be to rename Category:Cleanup by month and all its monthly categories to Category:Wikipedia cleanup by month"? Since there is discussion now at Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_May_26 and the two entries after that in the same vein, I think you should make that proposal now (and possibly even refer to those discussions). Debresser (talk) 10:31, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The point of preceding category names with "wikipedia" is lost on me. Especially now they are hidden.  I would prefer to move to "Articles needing cleanup" and loose the inclusive cats.   Bots can recurse the categories,  and counting can be done using parser functions and template cleverness. Rich Farmbrough, 23:41 27 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Actually I think I have a point here. The whole idea is simplifying DatedAI and Article issues with that code I wrote above, which eliminates the need for both a and  parameter, using only  . This can be done only when the names for the dated and undated categories are the same.
 * Therefore I propose the abovementioned rename. Actually, the "wikify" which you added to DatedAI today also has different names: Category:Articles that need to be wikified and Category:Wikify from . Again I would propose to rename the monthly categories to Category:Articles that need to be wikified from e.g.
 * Actually you said yourself above "I'd rather fix the cat structure later." You could wait, of course, but it has to be done sooner or later. Debresser (talk) 02:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I like to go a little slow with this stuff, because than any problems can be reverted. I'm fine with moving those cats - again Dated AI is built to deal with the reality of what was there, if the names can be systemitisd to be   "[All]  article XXXX [from YYYY]"  then Dated AI calls can be simplified.  The only issue is a style type one where we are passing a string to create a category. I mention this because I haves seen several cases where a string is made into an image  - "image = my_picture.jpg" - this is hard for automated tools to recognise as an image name.  However this is  a very self-contained template. Rich Farmbrough, 12:29, 29 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Ok. Let me know when you are ready. Debresser (talk) 19:22, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I saw Catholic-cleanup which sorts into Category:Wikipedia cleanup, but is in content parallel to 1911 POV which sorts into Category:NPOV disputes. I'd propose to have both sort into the same category, preferably something like Category:Articles with minor POV problems or Category:Wikipedia articles in need of updating. Debresser (talk) 03:40, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Catholic and 1911 may have specialised gnomes working in them? Try their talk pages. Rich Farmbrough, 12:29, 29 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Left 1911 POV and changed the sorting category of Catholic-cleanup analogously to 1911 POV. I left a message on the talkpage (which was empty). Debresser (talk) 19:22, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't know how you made that list of templates using Fix without the line, but I'd like you to try again. I'll be glad to here the result is "none found". Actually, I expect you'll still see InlineXend. I don't know how to fix it, so I'll leave it to you. Debresser (talk) 00:15, 28 May 2009 (UTC) When you move the "from" into Fix let me know, and I'll remove  from all templates I can, while you have a look at List of monthly maintenance categories with templates to find the editprotected ones. Debresser (talk) 04:17, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The whole X stuff is unused and should be nominated for deletion. Rich Farmbrough, 12:29, 29 May 2009 (UTC).
 * I saw you changed Fix. Congratulations with this big step forwards. You removed  from all templates, or do you still need some help? Debresser (talk) 19:22, 30 May 2009 (UTC) Which stuff did you mean here? Debresser (talk) 19:23, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * All done. Rich Farmbrough, 19:29, 30 May 2009 (UTC).

Hi. Please have a quick look at and then a longer one over here, because you have not replied to 2 of my questions. Debresser (talk) 19:22, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

The category page of Category:Self-contradictory articles needs an update introducing a date parameter to the general public. Debresser (talk) 23:28, 27 May 2009 (UTC) The same with Csense. Debresser (talk) 23:36, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Hm I'll take a look. Rich Farmbrough, 23:46 27 May 2009 (UTC).
 * OK it Contradict doesn't take a date parameter yet. And even if it did I prefer to simply document the categories rather than parameter.  Reason is that so many people get the parameter wrong, they try all sorts of fancy stuff like date=  not to mention mis-spelling "date" and the month names.  I spend a fair amount of time clearing up these messes. Rich Farmbrough, 23:52 27 May 2009 (UTC).
 * I see I have to add some explanation here. First of all about Csense. It takes a date parameter and uses a dated category. But the documentation page doesn't mention anything about that.
 * We have two templates sorting in Category:Self-contradictory articles: Contradict and Contradict-inline. The difference is that Contradict doesn't take a date parameter, while Contradict-inline not only does take a date parameter, but also uses a dated category and sorts in Category:Self-contradictory articles by month.
 * I think both should behave the same. By your argument above in connection with Chemformula, that "If it is used then it's useful to know if the items are old." we should add a dated category to Contradict. Many users have indeed added a date parameter to it, not knowing that the template doesn't do anything with it. Note that Contradict-inline is at the moment nowhere in use, and monthly categories do not exist yet. Let me know what you decide, please. Debresser (talk) 02:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * YEs I think that's fine to do. I wil ahve a quick look. Rich Farmbrough, 19:29, 30 May 2009 (UTC).
 * Thanks. I fixed the typos . And here too. Debresser (talk) 20:59, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

What is the difference between Contradict-inline and Contradiction-inline? Debresser (talk) 01:47, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That's what I thought. But if so, Contradict-inline, which is the template for contradicting other articles, should sort into Category:Articles contradicting other articles, like Contradict-other, and not in Category:Self-contradictory articles. Note that Category:Articles contradicting other articles is not dated. Debresser (talk) 01:55, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Obviously itself. The existance of Category:Articles contradicting other articles proves this. Debresser (talk) 02:02, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I fixed this. I'll update all the documentation pages and category pages. Debresser (talk) 02:11, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

BTW, the right moment to make the new monthly categories using Wikipedia:List of monthly maintenance categories given month is at noon GMT. I'm not going to be around tomorrow at that time. So would you like me to create them today, or are you going to be around? Debresser (talk) 20:31, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I understand why you say "mignight UTC", but noon GMT is more logical, since that is the time the first place on earth enters the new month and any user there will rightfully want to add his tag to the new category.
 * I stronly recommend making sure all of them get created in front of time (and frankly speaking I think they can already be created), because any article tagged before the category gets created will clutter Category:Articles with invalid date parameter in template. Debresser (talk) 00:45, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Please delete all monthly categories with "since" from Category:Articles with dead external links. Debresser (talk) 23:45, 30 May 2009 (UTC)


 * And from Category:Wikipedia articles needing factual verification. Debresser (talk) 23:50, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * And Category:Articles that may contain original research. Debresser (talk) 00:08, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * And Category:Articles with specifically-marked weasel-worded phrases. Debresser (talk) 00:33, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Please also notice my last edit to List of monthly maintenance categories. Debresser (talk) 02:40, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * While creating categories in List of monthly maintenance categories given month, I noticed that 2 categories do not exist, so I put them aside as remarks. Wich makes 4 remarks. Debresser (talk) 09:22, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

What happened to List of monthly maintenance categories given month/cat?? Why does it say "July" now? Debresser (talk) 02:44, 31 May 2009 (UTC) In other words, why does give, while  gives ? Debresser (talk) 02:58, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * After the fact it was obvious: we told it to create a new cat starting from 31 (May+1) = 31 June. But since June has only 30 days, that became 1 July. Your  solution has solved this. Debresser (talk) 09:22, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I promised not to make any more changes to categories without discussion. And we really shouldn't. It is an obvious proposal though. It might even be speedied. Debresser (talk) 19:50, 30 May 2009 (UTC) The same for the proposal concerning the cleanup categories. You might consider finishing work on the last parts of Article issues first. Debresser (talk) 20:31, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll draft a proposal tonight. How is Article issues? Debresser (talk) 09:22, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I have some issues with article issues. It doesn't alert to non-existent cats like the other templates. I will sort this some time soon.
 * If only I knew what that means. Debresser (talk) 19:40, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I fixed up your dating templates.
 * I noticed. Thanks. Debresser (talk) 19:40, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * You might be interested in Progress box - needs a minor tweak but works pretty well.
 * Nice. You had Merge progress. Was that also yours? Probably works analogous, just a generalisation? Debresser (talk) 19:40, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Re:
I've left a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Notability. Cheers, –B LACK F ALCON  (T ALK ) 17:57, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Copyedit template
Cheers for doing that. It took a fare while to update that template with a calculator. --James Chenery (talk) 18:05, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

A study on how to cover scientific uncertainties/controversies
Hi. I have emailed you to ask whether you would agree to participate in a short survey on how to cover scientific uncertainties/controversies in articles pertaining to global warming and climate change. If interested, please email me Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 18:40, 31 May 2009 (UTC)