User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2009 September

Template:Infobox boxer/ Actor
Given that the template is now eligible for deletion, would it not have been more productive to delete it rather than move it? PC78 (talk) 23:08, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ Rich Farmbrough, 08:26, 2 September 2009 (UTC).

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Newer T:Taxobox_colour
To User:Rich Farmbrough & User:Eugene_van_der_Pijll: If you are still interested in fixing it, see:
 * Template_talk:Taxobox_colour

I have created a newer tested-version to fix all problems, tested. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:50, 31 August 2009 (UTC) ✅Rich Farmbrough, 20:07, 1 September 2009 (UTC).

Thanks
Hey Rich, looking for some advice on Marco Sartor. Are the citations not done correctly, do there need to be more? This is my first article and so far I have found Wikipedia to be very helpful. I am more than willing to do anything that I need to do to get this fixed. Any advice is much appreciated. Joshuadfisher (talk) 14:10, 31 August 2009 (UTC) ✅Rich Farmbrough, 20:07, 1 September 2009 (UTC).

Talkback
–Drilnoth (T • C • L) 18:31, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Templates
I simplified the category handling of all non-protected templates in List of monthly maintenance categories with templates. There were just some 20 left, almost all in the Category:Wikipedia cleanup. Could you do the protected templates? Or is there any way I can help? Debresser (talk) 22:05, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup template
BTW, in Template:Cleanup, don't leave Category:Wikipedia cleanup. I have removed it from all other templates also, because we use Category:All pages needing cleanup already. In other words, they should all be the same. . And for some a  if relevant. Debresser (talk) 23:46, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, I think that will have to be . Of all the cleanup templates, Template:Cleanup is the only one in active use on non-articles. Debresser (talk) 01:37, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Did you notice that SmackBot doesn't do the Template:Cleanup on talkpages? See e.g. Talk:A Requiem for Homo Sapiens. Debresser (talk) 01:00, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

And I found a lot of undated articles in Category:Cleanup. How come? Debresser (talk) 01:30, 1 September 2009 (UTC) ✅Rich Farmbrough, 20:07, 1 September 2009 (UTC).

Template:Rfd2
I noticed your recent edit to Template:Rfd2 and I think it's a great change. Would it be possible, though, to link to the stats for the previous month instead of the current month? The reason I ask is that stats for the current month will always be incomplete until the last day of the month. –B LACK F ALCON  (T ALK ) 22:20, 31 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I hadn't thought of that... Many redirects are nominated only a few days or weeks after they are created, and for those it would not make sense to bring up the previous month's stats. –B LACK F ALCON  (T ALK ) 22:44, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough, 20:07, 1 September 2009 (UTC).

Template merges
Could you merge Template:GBR and Template:UK, Template:EUR and Template:EU, Template:URS and Template:USSR. They are protected. I don't think it would really matter, which one were to be turned into a redirect. Debresser (talk) 23:03, 31 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok. Debresser (talk) 01:14, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough, 20:07, 1 September 2009 (UTC).

Whitelines before stub templates
In reaction to your comment on Wikipedia_talk:Stub: are you sure there is such a problem at all? Debresser (talk) 23:13, 31 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Do they call that a problem??? Debresser (talk) 23:18, 31 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Now, what to do with this discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Stub? I see a majority of people agreeing with me, that we should drop the two-line-requirement. But User:Gadget850 has clouded the discussion with his introduction of the possibility of a change to Template:Asbox. I don't see anything moving on either front. I am in favor of changing that CSS, as proposed on Template_talk:Asbox, just the margin, and then announcing that in view of that we can drop the two-line-requirement. Debresser (talk) 23:34, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I have a little different arguments:
 * 1) They look just fine without the double whiteline.
 * 2) It's easy to fix the template, and there's lots of time for the queue to be about it
 * 3) It is completely illogical to have 1 line everywhere, and 2 lines here
 * 4) Some editors remove the second line (by hand or even with AWB)

The first argument seems to be shared by most editors in the discussion.

The conclusion of all the above being that we should remove that second line requirement, with or without a fix to Asbox. Debresser (talk) 01:48, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Really why worry? Get rid of the requirement, AWB will eventually start changing them from double to single, someone will complain then we will be back at square one. I don't see that the mild advice on the stub page doe any harm. Especially as someone who was flayed alive several times for nto putting two blank lines by the same people who now seem to think that one is OK and will be kicking up a stink because it isn't. Why not go and make one stub a not stub instead? Rich Farmbrough, 08:31, 2 September 2009 (UTC).
 * I do understand your irritation. I really do. As to your suggestion, I have written a few articles myself, or heavily contributed to them, but most of my work is in other areas, see User:Debresser/My work on Wikipedia. In general it is more my style to get involved in the mechanisms behind things than in the actual work. Debresser (talk) 08:45, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Articles needing coordinates
See Category:Articles needing coordinates, that after I took care of a few things, the progress box looks very funny, with a negative value. Actually, it is redundant, because the only templates that sort into it, have been deprecated. Debresser (talk) 23:34, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Fixed for what it's worth. Rich Farmbrough, 08:32, 2 September 2009 (UTC).
 * The fix is the refresh button? I see all progress templates now have it. That's a big step forward, if you ask me! Debresser (talk) 08:41, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

(It was the factor parameter) Rich Farmbrough, 12:03, 7 September 2009 (UTC).

Includeonly
Could you please add  tags to Template:Cleanup-section, like I did with Template:Cleanup-table? Debresser (talk) 23:58, 31 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Debresser (talk) 00:53, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅Rich Farmbrough, 20:18, 1 September 2009 (UTC).

Skymine
Please meet this Template:Skymine. I shaped it up a little, and you can now add it to SmackBot's list. Debresser (talk) 00:47, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ Rich Farmbrough, 12:51, 3 September 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot
I think SmackBot made some overly aggressive edits on the Saint article, in the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy sections. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint#Christianity It seems to have put a [citation needed] after every sentence? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Groovecoder (talk • contribs) 06:11, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 06:14, 1 September 2009 (UTC).

Coding
I noticed Template:Merge-multiple is in use on various types of pages. How should we change

so that it would sort all but articles and article talkpages in Category:Items to be merged and those two in ? Debresser (talk) 06:56, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I looked it up on and I would guess:

Is that right?

But I think it would be easier this way

Is that correct? Debresser (talk) 07:40, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

BTW, anything you agree with me or tell me how to do, I can do myself. You don't have to bother changing all the templates. And protectede ones I can take care of by writing you, or using editprotected. Debresser (talk) 07:42, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Edit conflict

 * Yes, basically. But better to swop it around and have

Not sure if my code for main-space works here, that may need tweaking. It's essentially an empty string.

Rich Farmbrough, 07:48, 1 September 2009 (UTC).

Looks like you got the idea. "Talk" is more explicit and code efficient, ns1 is more portable...

Rich Farmbrough, 07:48, 1 September 2009 (UTC).

Resumed
Is it possible to use  tags inside the #switch template? Like this.

Debresser (talk) 09:29, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I answered that before you moved it. Yes. Rich Farmbrough, 09:29, 1 September 2009 (UTC).


 * Thanks. It was little hard to understand which were the answers to which questions. :) Debresser (talk) 09:36, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

You call it "your code for mainspace". You developed it? Since you're not sure, could you either check whether it works, or give me a workaround, please? Debresser (talk) 09:39, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

My code - as in what I put from memory. And it is right, I checked before hit save, and you can use an empty string instead, and putting "||Talk=" might stop people leaving aspace character which might not matter.... But you would of course test your code before deploying it... Rich Farmbrough, 09:50, 1 September 2009 (UTC).


 * I'd either be sure of what I would do, or test it, or ask you. I'll test it. And I'll probably use    , because leaving an empty string might raise all kinds of questions, etc. Debresser (talk) 12:21, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

New template
Template:Bio-coatrack Debresser (talk) 07:58, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Template:According to whom was a transclusion of Template:According to whom?, which is a redirect to Template:Whom?. SmackBot didn't know about it. I now redirected it to Template:Whom? as well. Debresser (talk) 08:14, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * TY I will tell it to learn about that. Rich Farmbrough, 08:21, 1 September 2009 (UTC).

Template:Undue-section Debresser (talk) 08:31, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅Rich Farmbrough, 16:08, 3 September 2009 (UTC).

StatisticianBot
See User_talk:StatisticianBot that one of the functions of this bot is now superfluous. However, the owner of this bot hasn't been around since May 19. Now what? Debresser (talk) 09:01, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for fixing that. Debresser (talk) 09:24, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Well it may or it may not. Rich Farmbrough, 09:28, 1 September 2009 (UTC).
 * It helped. it is now after 11:30 (with me), which was the set time for the bot on this page. Debresser (talk) 08:52, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ Rich Farmbrough, 16:18, 3 September 2009 (UTC).

Useless
I saw this edit. In it you add a second general category to DMCA. Last thing I knew, that wouldn't work. I even asked you. Has anything changed?

BTW, in this specific case, I really think we don;t need that extra category. Why cluster up two category pages with the same articles? Category:Wikipedia cleanup should be mainly for subcategories, in my vision. Debresser (talk) 09:48, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * They aren't. The fifth parameter allows you to override the undated category. But I mistyped it Category:Wikipedia Cleanup so it was good you drew my attention. There are already hundereds of articles there. I will set SB to removing them. Rich Farmbrough, 09:56, 1 September 2009 (UTC).


 * I noticed the typo, and would have fixed it later for you. I had a good look at the documentation of DMC and you're right, of course. Parameter 4 gets assigned in any case. Parameter 5 overrides parameter 1 for undated categories.
 * I removed Category:Wikipedia cleanup from all templates yesterday. And frankly I still don't see the reason to have both Category:Wikipedia cleanup and Category:All pages needing cleanup. I think you had better check Category:Cleanup, because that is where they all came from, and there are more of them there. Could you explain? Debresser (talk) 10:08, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, back in the early days some editors were worried that they might not be able to find/spot some article if they had to trawl through dozens of dated cats. So there were created the "all" categories. Like many of the features of Asbox, developed not because they were a good ides necessarily, but to overcome resistance to change. Some were vehemently opposed to dating tags. Rich Farmbrough, 10:38, 1 September 2009 (UTC).
 * And how come all articles there are undated? I just don't get it. Debresser (talk) 10:34, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Because it is the undated category according to the DMCA structure. But according ot the category structure not where SB looks. Rich Farmbrough, 10:38, 1 September 2009 (UTC).
 * I had a very good look this time, and it seems to me the documentation of DMC is mistaken. At present, the documentation says "Parameter 5: Alternative default category (overrides 1 which is then only used to construct the dated category if it exists)." Actually, parameter 5 is used only in case there is no date parameter, so that should be "Parameter 5: Alternative default category, overrides 1 when no date parameter is defined." Debresser (talk) 11:09, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * And the question remains, why do you insist not to use the all inclusive category and categorise undated articles twice? Debresser (talk) 11:18, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * On a hunch... Do you have a vague plan of getting rid of all all-inclusive categories once? Debresser (talk) 11:43, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Default - that which is used when nothing is specified. If no date is specified parameter 1 is used as the default category name. However Parameter 5 can override this. Undated articles need a special place to go - we could call it "Category:Articles to be cleaned up (undated)" (there is of course no such verb as "cleanup") so that SmackBot can find them, if for no other reason. And yes I do plan to get rid of the "all..." categories. Rich Farmbrough, 12:03, 1 September 2009 (UTC).


 * I see. That reminds me that I wrote somewhere above that SmackBot doesn't fix instances of Template:Cleanup undated from Category:Wikipedia cleanup if they are talkpages or other namespaces. Is that on purpose? Do you want to add that?
 * So I understand correctly that the documentation of DMC is a little be wrong there? Debresser (talk) 12:16, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Well I tend to run SB on mainspace. really it should go across all spaces. Rich Farmbrough, 12:21, 1 September 2009 (UTC).
 * I see. What do you say of this edit of mine? Debresser (talk) 13:03, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

POV template
Could you please change Template:POV to the following (copy from the edit screen):

If I got this right, it means that I understood now. Which is not the same as agreeing. I'm waiting for you answers. Debresser (talk) 11:41, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes that works. You just don't need parameter 5 here because it is the same as parameter 1. Rich Farmbrough, 12:25, 1 September 2009 (UTC).
 * ✅ Debresser (talk) 16:17, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Deleted category
I see you deleted Category:Cleanup. That means you must have done quite some work, which is good. I'm not so sure it was a good idea to delete it. Are you sure no templates sort there any more?

Since you are deleting emptied and supposed to stay empty categories, could you please delete Category:All concert tour articles requesting maintenance? I emptied it, and took care that it should stay empty. Should be non-controversial, because it was populated by the same articles as Category:Concert tour cleanup. Debresser (talk) 12:54, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I think you probably had something to do with that deletion. Debresser (talk) 13:23, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Now, if you would just give me your opinion on, that would help me find my direction, and I could probably finish all of the merge templates on my own. Debresser (talk) 13:23, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ Rich Farmbrough, 12:06, 7 September 2009 (UTC).

lifetime
I added that so that it would replace the defaultsort and cats, but forgot to remove them. Sorry about that. --Rajah (talk) 14:44, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Content
Template:Content

I think this is simple enough. Debresser (talk) 14:56, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ Debresser (talk) 16:16, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Copyedit
Template:Copyedit I removed the possibilty to "shut off" the categories. I think that is unneeded for in a maintenance template.


 * Yes I agree with doing that in general - I have been removing them for some time, it is done just for documentation purposes and is one of the reasons for DMCA. People were misusing it and forgetting to apply it anyway.

And no other maintenance templates have it (that I have seen recently at least). If you agree with me, I'll update the documentation accordingly. I wanted to have a look at that docpage anyway.

Fixed it. Used "pre". Debresser (talk) 08:15, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ Rich Farmbrough, 08:23, 2 September 2009 (UTC).

Subst template when there is already a DEFAULTSORT.
Are you aware that many (all?) of your recent edits have an edit comment of "Subst template when there is already a DEFAULTSORT ..." even when the edits have nothing to do with DEFAULTSORT? (Respond here only... I'll watch.) &mdash; John Cardinal (talk) 03:47, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Can you give me an example? here for example there is a DEFAULTSORT and also a lifetime. It is possible that some templates had no parameter 3.  it is also the case that one article had two "lifetime"s and a DEFAULTSORT. [[User:Rich Farmbrough|Rich] Farmbrough, 04:05, 2 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Example.
 * Ah OK thanks. This was complicated there were a double handful of articles using BD - which is a redirect to lifetime. I fixed those separately, but they were still on my lifetime list. Therefore the first pass with the lifetime fix did what the second pass would have done, the second pass would then usually just be a "no changes", but it picked up the duplicate parameter in the cite that had been created since the first pass. I guess I should have changed the edit summary.  thanks for the note. Rich Farmbrough, 07:50, 2 September 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot defaultsort
In this edit, the bot adds a defaultsort beginning with "The". None of the existing category sorts would have provided the algorithm with a sort like "The Creation...", since they all began with "Creation". Second, it doesn't make sense to add any defaultsort that begins with "The ". Third, I believe the categories page says that there is no need to add defaultsorts that only reiterate the article title. I count three problems! Feedback for Smack. Outriggr (talk) 05:55, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that. Of course AWB wanted to capitalise Of, but it should suppress "The" except on a handful of articles which probably don't need a defaultsort. I'll put in a feature requestm. I was previously in favour of taking the category sorts, if they were all set the same, or if they were all set and there was a most popular sort key, but I am now more ambivalent. Rich Farmbrough, 06:27, 2 September 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot 2
See this edit. May I quote from Bot policy In order for a bot to be approved, its operator should demonstrate that it:


 * is harmless
 * is useful
 * does not consume resources unnecessarily
 * performs only tasks for which there is consensus

Please notice that this is the third time I am writing you about this. This time I'd like you to tell me when you are going to make that change you mentioned last time. Was that a week ago? If need be, I can help you find the time for it. That's what that big red button is about, isn't it? Debresser (talk) 08:08, 2 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah yes I did stop it doing that, but it makes it easier to identify headings which it has to do to insert the refs section. It has a hierarchy of 14 places. I think. I'm not about to re-write 14 rules to stop it making an invisible change, so I can just turn off that functionality. Rich Farmbrough, 08:16, 2 September 2009 (UTC).


 * Hi. Good you're here. Ok. If it is a matter of losing a certain important function, that may not be worth the trouble. Also, I have no idea how hard it is to make that change, and how much trouble it is to get to all those places. Nothing I can do to help?


 * Since you're here, please note I fixed that mistake in the code of Copyedit here. And do you approve of my change to the docpage of DMC? Debresser (talk) 08:26, 2 September 2009 (UTC)


 * BTW, talking about fixing references. I saw SmackBot did a checkup today (the first in three days), but Category:Pages with missing references list is still full with pages that can be fixed by the bot. Could you have it make another run, please? I always wait for the bot to register a new run before fixing the leftovers. For obvious reasons. :)Debresser (talk) 10:26, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Bot was run, and the docs were better, but I think I made them clearer still .Rich Farmbrough, 12:08, 7 September 2009 (UTC).

User:Monegasque's lifetime template switching & category removals
I've also noticed the above user's changing of the templates and removal of valid "people from" categories. Should the user's edits be reverted? Tweaked? Should this be discussed in some specific location? Sorry if I seem ignorant here, but my admin actions tend to be of the much more passive sort or in dealing with those acting in obvious bad faith (unlike this editor, who, despite the missteps, is acting in good faith). Cheers.  young  american (wtf?) 11:43, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I've talked with th euser and that is indeed the case, he or she just misread "people from" guidelines. The easiest way would be to revert the edits, but I try to shy away from mass reversions unless absolutely necessary, especially when they are in good faith. This would not be the case for all of the users edits, though, as in between removing categories and switching templates there are some good changes in there (hence the barnstar that I awarded before I noticed the problems).  young  american  (wtf?) 12:02, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Deduplicate person info.
Was this simply your mistake or an AWB bug that needs to be fixed? --Pascal666 23:25, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * My mistake. The article had 2 lifetime templates and a defaultsort. Of course it covers three people. I have filled in three of the missing dates. Rich Farmbrough, 01:22, 3 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Good job on the cleanup. Any idea what happened here?  --Pascal666 07:22, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes more or less. Testing some new code and not watching closely enough. Rich Farmbrough, 07:25, 3 September 2009 (UTC).

Rich Farmbrough, 12:10, 7 September 2009 (UTC).

Removing Importance listing as a redirect to Notability
I am curious why you did this edit and redid it in this edit when Importance still redirects to Notability.--Rockfang (talk) 06:12, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 11:07, 9 September 2009 (UTC).

Hi....


Rich Farmbrough, Abutorsam007 (talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Go on, smile! Cheers, and happy editing! Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message. Thanks for edit done on my userpage, Im new to wiki, so dont know much, could you please guide, why did , you make that edit.http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Abutorsam007&oldid=311543019 what is need... Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abutorsam007 (talk • contribs) 17:42, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

BLP unsourced
Template:BLP unsourced

See also Template_talk:BLP_unsourced. Debresser (talk) 14:00, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Unreferenced
Template:Unreferenced

What does  do? I saw this template categorised talkpages also. Which shouldn't be needed, IMHO. Debresser (talk) 14:31, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

That is what I would think to do, regardless of your answer to my question in this section. Debresser (talk) 14:41, 1 September 2009 (UTC) Subjectspace is the not-talk space of the page TALKSPACE is the talk space - so on, say  template talk page SUNJECTSPACE would be |Template TALKSPACE would be Template talk.

This was here to allow the template on talk pages. That time is gone.

Refimprove
Template:Refimprove

That's all. Debresser (talk) 15:11, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough, 17:45, 9 September 2009 (UTC).

Uncategorized
Template:Uncategorized

Just the last part:

Note that I have removed "|Talk" because this template is not in use at all on talkpages. Debresser (talk) 08:56, 2 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I thought there was a special cat for uncategorized templates.


 * I looked for it, but have not found one. I did find Previouslycategorised, and nominated it for deletion. And I found Template:Cat improve and Category:Articles needing additional categories, and did some nice work with them. Debresser (talk) 12:37, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough, 17:37, 12 September 2009 (UTC).

Help please
I put a request on WP:BOTREQ and someone suggested that SmackBot might be able to do it. Would you mind taking a look at Bot requests? Thanks &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:29, 2 September 2009 (UTC) Rich Farmbrough, 19:28, 6 September 2009 (UTC).

Cleanup templates
Template:Cleanup-list

✅ Template:Lead too short

✅ Template:Prose

Debresser (talk) 16:40, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅Rich Farmbrough, 19:29, 6 September 2009 (UTC).

Trivia
Template:Trivia

Debresser (talk) 16:48, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Uncategorized stub
Template:Uncategorized stub

Please note that the old version allowed for various namespaces, wich is utterly uncalled for in an article template (as per documentation and 100% of use). Debresser (talk) 17:01, 2 September 2009 (UTC) but making it DMCA. Rich Farmbrough, 20:18, 12 September 2009 (UTC).


 * You're right. My mistake. Debresser (talk) 06:34, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Weasel
Template:Weasel

Debresser (talk) 17:06, 2 September 2009 (UTC) and pp-template. Rich Farmbrough, 20:35, 12 September 2009 (UTC).


 * Yes. Debresser (talk) 00:17, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikify
Template:Wikify

Note that the old version allows for talkpages also, but after checking, I found that of the less than 300 instances, about half are connected with User:The Thadman/Template/Wikification, and I see no reason in the remaining ones to keep that possibility on an template that according to its documentation and main use is an article namespace template. Debresser (talk) 17:25, 2 September 2009 (UTC)


 * There were 4 ns 1 items transcluding the template: I fixed them. Rich Farmbrough, 13:32, 7 September 2009 (UTC).


 * Not bad! Debresser (talk) 13:20, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Note: pp-template defaults to small I think. Rich Farmbrough, 20:39, 12 September 2009 (UTC).


 * Indeed. But better be safe. Debresser (talk) 00:18, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

As of
Template:As of

[]  As of July 29, 2024 &#91;ref&#93;

Have a look if this will work. I did nothing fancy, just changed main other to DMCA. But I don't know if DMCA can take such a complex date parameter. Debresser (talk) 17:37, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * OK I tried this it doesn't work. I'm not sure why, I'll maybe look at it again.  Rich Farmbrough, 21:08, 12 September 2009 (UTC).


 * Neither do I. And I took a lot of vodka today... Debresser (talk) 00:28, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I made a fix. But, as said, the question if whether DMCA can take such a complex date parameter. I'll do some testing. Debresser (talk) 07:09, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * It works. Debresser (talk) 07:37, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough, 20:25, 18 September 2009 (UTC).

Notability
Template:Notability

I would have written just the end of the template, but because of a minor irregularity in the old template, I had to bring it all.

Note that the old template was missing the all-inclusive category. Will  work? Debresser (talk) 17:55, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes it will "work" in the sense that if the parameter "cat" is there it will call DMCA, but there is not guarantee the category will exist. Rich Farmbrough, 21:10, 12 September 2009 (UTC).

Expand language (non-Latin script)
Template:Expand language (non-Latin script)

This works technically along other lines than the old template in some respects, but I think it does basically pretty much the same. BTW, can the two last if-statements (that are both for templates) be combined? Debresser (talk) 19:25, 2 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes they can and I have.


 * ✅ Rich Farmbrough, 12:39, 7 September 2009 (UTC).

Hey Rich
There was a discussion about non-bio on WP Biog banner's Talk Page and it was agreed, perhaps too hastily, to delete it. PC78 started at the top and I started at the bottom.

As indicated in the discussion, just because an article is about an incident or article that is or was connected to a person that does not mean the article belongs in WP Biog. I would prefer that there be no work-groups in WP Biog that are not limited to people but that is another discussion.

I realized after I had eliminated a couple DEFAULTSORT that the temple could be useful in finding the article in Category:Possible cut-and-paste moves. I was very careful to avoid deleting anything other than project banners (and DEFAULTSORT) from Talk pages I redirected. I even left the page history although it would be worthless on the other page most of the time. I found it interesting that many times I could not find any discussion of the original redirect on either talk page.

Thanks for the note. JimCubb (talk) 19:38, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I notice that you have been replacing lifetime with DEFAULTSORT and the relevant birth and death categories. In at least four instances you created a DEFAULTSORT conflict on the page. (I know about them because I monitor Category:Pages with DEFAULTSORT conflicts. I do not remember what they were.  I merely fixed them and moved on.)  While lifetime is easy to misuse so is DEFAULTSORT. People do not know how to sort names.

Would it not be a better use of time, a more efficient use of page space (fewer characters), and a better way to improve the level of WP in general to correct lifetime when an error is noted and leave a that explains the nature of the correction? A lot of editors use lifetime and use it correctly. (I also am trying to reduce the number of pages in Category:Biography articles without listas parameter and often take the sort value of the article.) Actually, I cannot recall running into an instance where the parameters were used incorrectly. The first of two instances that you showed Magioladitis is the only one I have ever seen. I do not see what is wrong with the Arve Moen Bergset page. I think it is improved with the addition of a sort value for the whole page and the elimination of all those pipes.

It would also be better, in my opinion, for you to discuss the removal of lifetime at the template's talk page and at the Biography talk page. You may want to let the developer of the template know that you are holding the discussion. Did you see what happened when a programmer decided that Category:Biography articles with listas parameter was no longer necessary? It was not pretty.

JimCubb (talk) 00:12, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I have been banging against that brick wall for months. A small group of people, User:Geo Swan is the one I have seen most often and he may be the only one, hold the position that all persons who have Arabic names should follow the Arabic naming conventions. I have generally left a note within the existing note to the effect that the person in the article is not Arabic but (in the case of Mr. Begg) and not only would follow a different naming convention from the Arabs but may be insulted by being considered an Arab. I take the usage in the article as my guide, as with Mr. Begg, and move on.

I had to get a little sharp with our "esteemed colleague" User:Geo Swan when he refused to "correct" values he thought were wrong but simply eliminated them. After I had indicated that the values were necessary epecially if they were identical to the PAGENAME so that a bot would not enter an incorrect value a bot did just that three times. He deleted the incorrect values, put a note on the bot's talk page with incorrect links and told me about it. I entered correct values, gave the bot's owner the correct links and told User:Geo Swan what I had done, indicating that he should attempt in the future to improve things rather than make them worse and complain as he had been doing. I do not think he has bothered me since then.

JimCubb (talk) 20:12, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Template:Lifetime and AWB
I noticed that you have used AWB to replace quite a few instances of lifetime. Please stop doing this and undo your revisions - I don't see a consensus at Template:Lifetime that the template should be removed - in fact, a quite lengthy discussion about where it should go (Template talk:Lifetime) implies that there is consensus not to remove the template where it already exists. Please obtain consensus before replacing them. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 12:57, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually scarce a couple hundred I think. Basic testing. And there is enough consensus that the template has been re-written to facilitate substitution. Rich Farmbrough, 13:01, 3 September 2009 (UTC).
 * That is apart from those cases where lifetime was conflicting with DEFAULTSORT, or a category, of which I have only managed to fix a small proportion. Rich Farmbrough, 13:03, 3 September 2009 (UTC).
 * (e/c) Indeed. But "facilitate" tends to indicate "can do this when adding the template" not "go around and replace existing templates".  And, of course, I have no problem with fixing existing conflicts.  --Philosopher Let us reason together. 13:06, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * When the sort in lifetime creates a conflict with the DEFAULTSORT I will resolve the conflict the next time I log in.
 * Note further that the pipes in the categories are supposed to be different that the sort value for the page. For example,
 * Icelanders' names are sorted by the patronym in general categories (birth year, death year, field of endeavor, etc.) but are sorted by the given name in Iceland-specific categories.
 * When a category exists for a family name the person's surname is omitted for the sort value for that category.
 * From what I have read over the past few months more people prefer that lifetime be used rather than DEFAULTSORT.
 * JimCubb (talk) 20:33, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I strongly disagree with that. Templates should not be used to hide simple, normal wikisyntax from editors; and in particular this template hides the powerful defaultsort magicword and adds categories. WP:Template namespace was never intended for such practices. It is important that, as much as possible, the wiki syntax is used within the article to show editors what is being done. Double Blue  (talk) 21:52, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I do not see that at all. Like any type of wikimarkup, it has to be understood to be used properly.  Actually, that is a lot like most things in real life also.


 * I see two big advantages to the use of lifetime
 * It is a multi-purpose tool and a time saver. Rather than typing a template (DEFAULTSORT, eleven shouting letters), and two categories, one for birth and one for death, one meek template with its parameters is all that is needed.
 * As it is so easy to use, were its use to be more widespread there may be fewer pages with no DEFAULTSORT value, fewer DEFAULTSORT conflicts, and fewer pages with birth dates and death dates missing.
 * JimCubb (talk) 00:02, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * No one has any problems with using it to save keystrokes. You can use for that. But nearly all the uses are people converting from the explicit statement to lifetime. The guidelines on Category are against this sort of thins.  Yes I agree lifetime is not mind-bogglingly complicated, but people tend to forget the learning curve associated with Wikipedia.  You know there are probably templates kicking around that enable you to do stuff like:
 * and put the article in the categories "American female jazz players" American jazz trombonists" etc... And they would even be good tools if they were substed.
 * I wonder how many conflicts didn't concern a lifetime template?
 * Incidentally proof, if it were required, that people do not realise a hidden DEFAULTSORT is there, there were at least 8% of lifetime uses that had an addtional DEFAULTSORT, when you add those that duplicated the categories the numeber is even higher. Several articles had more than one lifetme template. Rich Farmbrough, 00:28, 4 September 2009 (UTC).


 * I agree. If you find it easier to use a template to enter that data, then do so but subst it; do not leave it hidden within the template. Double Blue  (talk) 05:10, 4 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Me too. These are convenience templates whose sole purpose is to boost the productivity of experienced editors. If an editor chooses not to use them, preferring to enter the equivalent wikitext in longhand, then there is absolutely no reason to jam them in after the fact. Furthermore the moment the editor who uses them hits the save button, they have served their purpose. From that moment on all they do is provide yet another barrier to entry for newbs. So if Rich feels like substituting them, he should be encouraged to do so. Hesperian 05:40, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Rich: I've added lifetime to Category:Typing-aid templates. I reckon everything in that category is, or should be, fair game for substitution. Hesperian 05:45, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

A discussion about lifetime in a user's talk page? Ok, here's my POV again: The only argument for using Lifetime is that it's easier to add data. Then a bot replacing it won't be a problem to anyone. On the other hand, we have to stick in a single way to add DEFAULSORT. Moroever, categories is always better to add as categories not as templates. Apart from that: Rendering lags servers, new users are not aware of the consensus and replace defaultsort with lifetime or the opposite, bots and programs had problems in the past, many editors use wrongly (tenths of examples in Lifetime's talk page), the cryptic syntax (you don't have to type any word to have your article in category living people) makes it impossioble sometimes to locate categories, etc. Conclusion, I think we are ready to replace the existing lifetime, have people keep adding it to new articles if they want and have a bot fixing the entries. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:33, 4 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm just running another short test, also fixing the remaining duplicates. Rich Farmbrough, 11:37, 4 September 2009 (UTC).


 * Isn't it time to discuss this potentially wholesale replacement of Lifetime in a wider forum such as the template talk page or an RFC? – ukexpat (talk) 15:01, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks


Rich Farmbrough, Abutorsam007 (talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Go on, smile! Cheers, and happy editing! Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message. (Abutorsam007 (talk) 12:53, 4 September 2009 (UTC)).

Alwynne Pritchard
Rather than replace Lifetime to deal with the duplicated Category:Living people, why did not not just deleted the duplicated category? Wholesale replacement of Lifetime to deal with this issue is not constructive, IMHO. – ukexpat (talk) 14:48, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I notice you replaced the template with an inaccurate edit summary. The template hides categories and hides DEFAULTSORT.  "Resolving" the issue by deleting the DEFAULTSORT and categories will just result in more  DEFAULTSORT and categories being added by people who don't know what Lifetime actually does, which is nearly everyone. The matter has been discussed extensively, really the only solution is to use the template as a subst only, where it can be a valuable time-saver for biography creators.  ::Rich Farmbrough, 15:13, 4 September 2009 (UTC).

Bot help
Hello, I'm a user of the Basque Wikipedia and I manage a Bot. I have some problems with the Bot because I'm new with Bots and I wanted to make you a question. If in a template there is  can I replace automaticcaly with the Bot to get this:. Is there any possibility? I would be grateful if you could answer me. --An13sa (talk) 09:34, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes if you are using a regular expression framework it is easy.
 * (since coordinates don't change I would question the liberal use of white space here).
 * Replace \| *koordenatuak *= *
 * with | dn = $1 | mn = $2 | N = $3 | de = $4 | me = $5 | W = $6
 * Do you have consensus on eu. for the changes? Incidentally there seems to be a problem with this page. Rich Farmbrough, 10:04, 4 September 2009 (UTC).
 * I am authorised by the eu wikipedia administrators. We are trying to do this in different ways. Could you change coordinates with the Bot here? --An13sa (talk) 11:06, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I am authorised by the eu wikipedia administrators. We are trying to do this in different ways. Could you change coordinates with the Bot here? --An13sa (talk) 11:06, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Well I fixed the template first. Rich Farmbrough, 11:52, 4 September 2009 (UTC).
 * OK I did that, however the txantiloi does not seem to support this format. Rich Farmbrough, 12:11, 4 September 2009 (UTC).
 * First of all, thank you. Now I have a trouble. I used AWB to replace that stuff of the coordinates, but I enabled find and replace and in normal settings I wrote \| *koordenatuak *= * in Find and | dn = $1 | mn = $2 | N = $3 | de = $4 | me = $5 | W = $6 in Replace with. The Bot started, but didn't change anything in this page. What is the problem? --An13sa (talk) 12:36, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I made a typo.
 * Replace \| *koordenatuak *= *
 * with | dn = $1 | mn = $2 | N = $3 | de = $4 | me = $5 | W = $6
 * There was an extra space before "koord".
 * You need to be able to track down bugs like this really. It can be frustrating. Rich Farmbrough, 12:42, 4 September 2009 (UTC).
 * I'm sorry if I am being annoying, but where I have to put \| *koordenatuak *= *

and | dn = $1 | mn = $2 | N = $3 | de = $4 | me = $5 | W = $6, in normal settings, advanced settings or template subtitution? It doesn't work to me. --An13sa (talk) 12:51, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Normal settings. You need to tick the box saying regex. Rich Farmbrough, 13:01, 4 September 2009 (UTC).
 * I'm sure it will work now, but if you have a simple task like this I am happy to set my bot to do it for you. Rich Farmbrough, 13:02, 4 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Finally, it works!!! I have tried doing some and it works, but it too much work. If you want to do it, all you have to do is change these things in the infoboxes.

FROM {{Espainiako udalerri infotaula TO {{Espainiako hiri infotaula
 * koordenatuak = {{koord|x|y|z|A|x|y|z|B|type:city|izena=%%title%%}} (sometimes {{koord|x|y|A|x|y|B|type:city|izena=%%title%%}}
 * webgunea =
 * kokapena = filename.png
 * dn = x | mn = y | sn = z | N = A | de = x | me = y | se = z | W = B
 * web =
 * kokapena = kokapenmapa

All you have to do is change the words hiri for udalerri, web for webgunea, the coordinates and in kokapena parameter eliminate the file and add kokapenmapa. That's all. If you do it I will the administrators you are doing that work. In the Basque Wikipedia we would be really grateful if you could do that.--An13sa (talk) 14:26, 4 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Hm what about | koordenatuak = {{koord|42|10|41|N|1|44|56|W|region:ES_type:city(9.545)|display=inline,title}}
 * Or | koordenatuak = 42°44′5"I, 2°44′50"M
 * Rich Farmbrough, 18:45, 4 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Or | koordenatuak = -
 * Rich Farmbrough, 18:45, 4 September 2009 (UTC).

OK looks sound. Rich Farmbrough, 19:01, 4 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Could you give me the code for  | koordenatuak = {{koord|42|10|41|N|1|44|56|W|region:ES_type:city(9.545)|display=inline,title}} , | koordenatuak = 42°44′5"I, 2°44′50"M and replace | kokapena = filename.png with | kokapena = kokapenmapa. From now on I will do it by myself. Thank you for all the help.--An13sa (talk) 09:13, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Romanian communes
Hi. I need to add an infobox and reference to all of the Romanian commune articles. I was wondering what you could do with AWB? See this for instance.Maybe you could add an infobox without the info and a References {reflist} into each one so I can come back later and add things in it?  Himalayan   20:59, 4 September 2009 (UTC) Thanks. You should bring up the issue with User:Ezhiki. I did disapprove of the fact tags on every parameter as it would involve a great deal of work to cite every article. Ezhiki has his reasons for having a seperate template because of the wide range of types of settlements etc that Russia has.... Himalayan   13:14, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Lifetime
Thanks for letting me know. I was following by example, not always a wise move. Cheers,  florrie  11:47, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Requested SmackBot feature
In the future, if your lovely robut sees a naked merge tag (e.g. or , all by itself like that), could it remove it instead of adding a date? Also, it would be just lovely if your bot could also maintain merge tag consistency across articles. For example, if X had, but Y did not have , SmackBot would tag Y. @harej 12:59, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Hm, the first one is easy to do and sounds sensible, there is an alternative which is to categorize them into category:Articles for merging with no partner. The second sounds sensible, is hard, but should not be done. This could be used a as a back door to vandalise semi-protected articles.  Rich Farmbrough, 16:09, 5 September 2009 (UTC).

Lifetime template
So do I understand correctly that you advocate using the template only for biography stubs, and always use the defaultsort template plus birth year and death year or living person categories?Mgreason (talk) 17:32, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I would say use "subst:ltm" instead of "lifetime" to save typing. Rich Farmbrough, 20:30, 5 September 2009 (UTC).

Template edits
Hello! You frequently edit templates (sometimes multiple times in rapid succession) without providing edit summaries. This can make it difficult to determine what you've changed and why. Can you please at least use an edit summary for the first edit to each template? Thank you. —David Levy 16:54, 5 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks again! That's quite helpful.  —David Levy 17:30, 5 September 2009 (UTC)


 * You are welcome. Post facto edit comments would be useful for me. Rich Farmbrough, 17:37, 5 September 2009 (UTC).

AWB breakage – interwikis
Bug in AWB at has meant you and maybe others have borked some interwikis e.g. here. I have fixed at so please SVN-update or proceed with caution until a new snapshot is out. It seems to affect articles with multiple link FAs. Thanks Rjwilmsi  11:24, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Template talk:Nuevointernallinks
Hi, is there any chance you could restore Template talk:Nuevointernallinks as I am trying to understand this discussion where it is referenced? If you can't, just a gist of the arguments given would do? thanks, ascidian  | talk-to-me  12:04, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the quick reply/response! ascidian  | talk-to-me  13:18, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Merge templates and DMCA
I'd say Template:Merge, Template:Merging, Template:Multiplemergefrom and Template:Afd-mergefrom should have used DMC instead of DMCA, since these templates can be used - and sometimes are used - not only on articles. The latter is meant specifically for talkpages, according to its documentation. What do you say? Debresser (talk) 19:48, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * As I said the merge family are a little more complicated,. Rich Farmbrough, 09:45, 4 September 2009 (UTC).
 * I feel I am up to it, technically. But I need some wise words, to set me on the right track. That is why I am asking. Debresser (talk) 10:01, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok. I'll do as I see fit. Did you notice that MiszaBot III archived my proposed changes to those maintenance templates? I worked hard on them. If you don't plan to implement them, please let me know. Debresser (talk) 16:24, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes I noticed. I had to wind the archive down to 3 days, and even then I had to archive stuff manually. I'll not forget them. Rich Farmbrough, 16:29, 6 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Thank you. Now as to those merge templates: Could you please change DMCA to DMC in Template:Merge (no includeonly tags are needed in this case, because they are already there).
 * I saw you fixed Template:Merging, and Template:Afd-mergefrom. Thanks.
 * Template:Multiplemergefrom, Template:Mergefrom-category, Template:Mergesection, Template:Mergesections and Template:Mergefrom-multiple are now a redirect to Template:Mergefrom. Template:Mergeto-multiple to Template:Mergeto. Template:Merge-multiple, Template:Merge-multiple-to, and Template:Mergetomultiple-with to Template:Merge. I suppose that was done with consensus. Anyway, SmackBot should know about that. I'll do the others myself, or post proposed changes here. BTW, I changed the old, redirected templates to DMC, just in case somebody will ever restore them. Debresser (talk) 16:35, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Mergefrom/Mergeto
In Template:Mergefrom, please change |#default= }} to |#default=

And the same in Template:Mergeto

No includeonly tags are needed, because they are already there. And please remove the incorrect semi-protection template inTemplate:Mergefrom. Debresser (talk) 16:39, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

When you have done all the templates I wrote you about here, we shall have finished standarising all maintenance templates. Debresser (talk) 17:22, 6 September 2009 (UTC) Rich Farmbrough, 20:29, 18 September 2009 (UTC).

Date conversions
Are you able to continue with date conversion, please? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:27, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes,Ii have a few things to sort out first. Rich Farmbrough, 16:25, 6 September 2009 (UTC).
 * OK. Anything I can help with? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 23:44, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Template:Broken ref/doc
Rich,

On 29 August you placed three DEFAULTSORT values, "T", on the Subject page, two at 19:43 (your time) and one at 20:08 (your time). As these were trivial values, in the logical meaning of the word, they were eliminated by Debresser a little over five hours later.

On 30 August Smackbot added a DEFAULTSORT value of "Template:Broken Ref/Doc. That caused a conflict with a previous value and caused the page to appear on Category:Pages with DEFAULTSORT conflicts so I deleted it twenty-two hours later.  Sixteen hours after that Smackbot readded the conflicting DEFAULTSORT value and caused the page to appear on Category:Pages with DEFAULTSORT conflicts so I deleted it eight hours later.  Six minutes after that Smackbot readded the conflicting DEFAULTSORT value and caused the page to appear on Category:Pages with DEFAULTSORT conflicts.  I give up.

Somewhere on the page there is a template that creates a DEFAULTSORT value that is the name of the page. I do not have the time, expertise or the will to find it. As your bot has created the conflict, would you be so kind as to determine which template is setting the incorrect DEFAULTSORT value and fix that?

I am a little bit concerned that Smackbot may have created other inappropriate DEFAULTSORT values on pages that had no DEFAULTSORT value before. I am trying to ignore that concern as that would mean that I would have to check every contribution that Smackbot has made. Yes, I do care that much.

Thanks for you support. JimCubb (talk) 05:54, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The normal practice is to sort templates to the Greek letter Tau in categories where they are ancillary rather than true members. One tau was for template, one for the documentation, and one to override the value set by the other template. The page is fixed, if someone wants it sorted differently they need to change it properly, or errors will recur.  I would carry on ignoring  that concern as checking 2.5 million edits might take a while. Rich Farmbrough, 06:27, 6 September 2009 (UTC).

Thank you for your stand on personal responsibility for your bot's errors. JimCubb (talk) 02:58, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeunesbarbara (talk • contribs) 21:21, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 02:06, 7 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 02:06, 7 September 2009 (UTC).

-- aa:User talk:Rich Farmbrough af:User talk:Rich Farmbrough ang:User talk:Rich Farmbrough da:User talk:Rich Farmbrough

si:User talk:Rich Farmbrough simple:User talk:Rich Farmbrough fr:User talk:Rich Farmbrough ga:User talk:Rich Farmbrough lt:User talk:Rich Farmbrough de:User talk:Rich Farmbrough es:User talk:Rich Farmbrough eu:User talk:Rich Farmbrough eo:User talk:Rich Farmbrough fr:User talk:Rich Farmbrough hi:User talk:Rich Farmbrough hr:User talk:Rich Farmbrough is:User talk:Rich Farmbrough it:User talk:Rich Farmbrough ja:User talk:Rich Farmbrough csb:User talk:Rich Farmbrough la:User talk:Rich Farmbrough na:User talk:Rich Farmbrough nl:User talk:Rich Farmbrough no:User talk:Rich Farmbrough pl:User talk:Rich Farmbrough ro:User talk:Rich Farmbrough ru:User talk:Rich Farmbrough stq:User talk:Rich Farmbrough sk:User talk:Rich Farmbrough sr:User talk:Rich Farmbrough sv:User talk:Rich Farmbrough tt:User talk:Rich Farmbrough tr:User talk:Rich Farmbrough uk:User talk:Rich Farmbrough

Template:Orphan
I didn't know about your edits to Template:Orphan. Making it use DMCA went well, with a little help from Aervanath. Then you changed it to "from". Have you had any reactions about that? I could imagine bot-owners getting into trouble. Debresser (talk) 13:10, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Tdeprecated
Template:Tdeprecated

Debresser (talk) 13:49, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

PD-user
Template:PD-user

Debresser (talk) 13:56, 7 September 2009 (UTC) Rich Farmbrough, 20:45, 18 September 2009 (UTC).

Discussion at VP/M
In case you are interested: Village pump (miscellaneous). Thanks. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 14:11, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

FYI
I am sure you are more or less aware of this discussion, but it has intensified after your last edit. Template_talk:BLP_unsourced Debresser (talk) 15:54, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

smack bot
Hi thanks for your note.

> This edit was two weeks ago. If you read the top of the talk > page you will see that it should be stopped if there is > current ongoing problem. Otherwise just use my talk page.

Exactly, if it is converting 'July 3rd' and 'April 2nd' to 'July 3' and 'April 2' everywhere in a automated fashion, that would seem to constitute an ongoing problem, wouldn't it? I guess I don't understand.

> Secondly if you look at the user page you will see that the > name is not intended tobe interpreted that way or indeed any > way except a light hearted play on words. I am sorry you a > grievously offended by it, but no doubt you will recover, > no one else seems to have taken it that way. It is not > possible to rename users with over 50,000 edits (or thereabouts) > without devleoper intervention, and Smackbot has made > significantly more than that. Thanks for the suggestion though.

I think part of the issue is that I am not a Wikipedia expert. I am not even sure if this is the right way to carry on a conversation with you, by editing this page. Even though I have been editing pages and creating pages on Wikipedia for 5 years, I do it very infrequently and am pretty much a newbie. That being said, I find the culture on Wikipedia to be extremely hostile to newbies and watching some automated program called a 'SmackBot' make questionable changes makes newbies feel less than welcome at Wikipedia. I don't know how to 'look at the user page' so I'm sure I missed the light-hearted comment. I can understand that it is hard for you to change the name now. I guess I am just venting that I find Wikipedia such an unfriendly, unwelcoming place.

> Thirdly it is useful if you can actually link the article name and also > sign your posts to talk pages.

I will try to do that. I thought I did sign, as I just learned that entering Mckennagene (talk) 18:05, 4 September 2009 (UTC) is supposed to sign my name. I guess it didn't.

> Fouthly I understand your point about the use of ordinal suffixes, > I wll investigate the matter in regard to the phrase "July 4th holiday" > although I thnk there is already an exception for this. SmackBot is > unlikley to revisit that article, but yo ucan drop me a note on my > talk page if you have problems there or anywhere else.

Sounds good, until then I'll safe-guard my ordinals on any pages I make.

Mckennagene (talk) 18:05, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Hey thanks for editing Creepers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LtMuldoon (talk • contribs) 18:45, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Geography of Moldova
HI, I noticed that Category:Geography of Moldova has been flooded inappropriately with loads of communes even though they have specific categories of their own. Could you remove the category using AWB from the commune articles? Himalayan   16:41, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Aha, I think the culprit was Moldova-geo-stub, it was categorizing all articles with the generic geography cat.. It should be OK once it resets, we'll see then.. Himalayan   16:45, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Capitalisation guidelines for templates
You refer to one here. Can you point me to them please? Many thanks in advance,   Roger Davies  talk 18:38, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the swift and informative reply :)  Roger Davies  talk 18:56, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Minor request
Could you please null-edit all 5 pages (2 images, 1 user talk and 2 templates) in Category:Wikipedia pages with incorrect protection templates. And Template:Cfd, Template:Cfc2, Template:Cfr2, Template:Cfr, Template:Cfm and Template:Cfd2 also. Thanks a lot. Debresser (talk) 12:13, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Debresser (talk) 13:09, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Question
I have another question. A lot of these templates use

Can that be changed to ?

The reason I want to do this is to avoid categorisation of the templates themselves and their docpages (or any other pages where these templates may be used for illustrative purposes).

Do I have to add the "|" at the end, like this: ? Debresser (talk) 13:05, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Hm, the | at the end is not necessary I think for an if-closing }}, but it helps to make it clear that that is what they are. And yes the namespace test is better. Rich Farmbrough, 13:18, 8 September 2009 (UTC).


 * Thanks. I'll be about it, then. Debresser (talk) 13:33, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I did all I could, but there are 3 of them that are editprotected: Template:Cfm, Template:Cfd, Template:Cfr. Please study this edit I made to a similar template for all the other small things. Just keep in mind to change "speedy renaming" to "merging", "deletion" and "renaming" respectively. Debresser (talk) 15:38, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

FMI
That stands for "For My Information". Do you know who is fixing some 50 articles a day in Category:Pages with broken reference names? It must be a bot, or someone spending at least 4-6 hours on this, or someone who is not serious about it and just deletes the broken references. Since AnomieBOT is still oficially out of the running here, I wonder who this is. Debresser (talk) 08:58, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I did a run within the last few week or so that corrected some obvious errors like \ref instead of /ref. That's all I am aware of.  Rich Farmbrough, 09:02, 8 September 2009 (UTC).


 * Thanks. But that's not it. It seems to go down by about 50 a day. Starting from over 900. So it is something more systematical than a one-time run. BTW, are you now convinced that you can incorporate <\ref> -> and -> in your AWB and bot? Debresser (talk) 09:07, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Time saver. This gives the edit that a given ref name was added. It's a one off (there will be some more entries when the run finishes) - it takes an age to run, and is pretty 'ad-hoc' - caveat emptor applies. Rich Farmbrough, 15:44, 8 September 2009 (UTC).


 * Thanks. I was frankly planning to wait a little to see if whoever it is will keep up the good work. Then I was going to do the remaining ones. Your list will be of immense use then. Debresser (talk) 15:49, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * If you have time you might want to pick out the high profile articles Elvis Presley, family of Barack Obama and HIV spring to mind. Rich Farmbrough, 15:58, 8 September 2009 (UTC).


 * I hardly have time to find you editprotected templates to fix. Not to mention that I neglect my reading... But I'll do those 3. Debresser (talk) 16:05, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I started with the Elvis Presley one. The information you give is incorrect... Debresser (talk) 17:02, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * OK. Falk anf Falk is a mystery. I fixed that one. RS I haven't looked. Rich Farmbrough, 17:15, 8 September 2009 (UTC).


 * I saw you fixed both now. And correctly fixed them. Debresser (talk) 19:40, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Lifetime
I've been placing the lifetime template, which I now see you are removing in some cases. Can you explain the duplication you're referring to? Thanks! Frank |  talk  15:36, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes in this case the category "Living people" was duplicated.  There are a bunch of problems with "lifetime" - but the main ones are that it hides category information and DEFAUTLSORT values. It does however save time typing: you can get the same effect by using 1901 . Rich Farmbrough, 15:49, 8 September 2009 (UTC).
 * I'm not sure I understand what you mean by duplicated...can you provide an example? I thought it was a pretty neat template when I discovered it and I routinely replace two or three lines by using it. (The subst is not quite the same because it disconnects from the template.) Frank  |  talk  16:14, 8 September 2009 (UTC) I'm watching here.

Sure - that was an example: Category:American humanitarians Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:American pro-life activists Category:American Roman Catholics Category:American Roman Catholic politicians Category:German Americans Category:Arnold Schwarzenegger Category:Democratic Party (United States) politicians Category:Democratic Party (United States) vice presidential nominees Category:Disability rights activists Category:German-American military personnel Category:Illinois Democrats Category:Illinois lawyers Category:Kennedy family Category:Living people <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Category living people  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Category:Maryland Democrats Category:New York lawyers Category:Nonprofit executives Category:Peace Corps directors Category:People from Carroll County, Maryland Category:People from Chicago, Illinois Category:People from Connecticut Category:People from Potomac, Maryland Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:Recipients of the Purple Heart medal Category:Scroll and Key Category:Shriver family Category:Special Olympics Category:United States ambassadors to France Category:United States Navy officers Category:United States presidential candidates, 1976 Category:Washington, D.C. Democrats Category:Washington, D.C. lawyers Category:Yale Law School alumni Category:Yale University alumni {lifetime|1915||Shriver, Sargent}}   <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Category living people  ("||" means that here) <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<


 * Rich Farmbrough, 16:22, 8 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Wouldn't it have just been simpler to remove the directly-placed category rather than the template? Frank  |  talk  17:18, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I would need to look for the template having a second parameter empty and the first parameter not having certain values to know that I could remove it. Even then as I said this template has a lot of problems associated with it.  For example if I want to check if a person is in cat 1987 births by looking at the page source, I need to analyse the template. More so for Cat:People with missing birth dates (living).  For example {lifetime|1221||Bloggs, Fred}}  will be categorised as a living person.  For example {lifetime||Bloggs, fred} classifies him in [Cat:Bloggs, Fred deaths].  For example someone adding a DEFAULTSORT and getting a conflict might not realise, or be able to find out that the conflict is with {lifetime}.   Basically it hides stuff from humans and machines, and while both can be educated about the template, there is a continuous intake of new ones. Therefore the only wise use is as a substed template to save typing. Rich Farmbrough, 17:32, 8 September 2009 (UTC).
 * I'm not sure I agree with that assessment of the situation. Was there a discussion about this prior to making these wholesale, automated changes? (I'm a big fan of templates and I kind of think we can do better with them than without.) Frank  |  talk  19:11, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I am also a massive fan of templates, and spend most of my time working with them - see Asbox usedon over 1 million pages, and the cleanup templates. There are however somethings they are not good at, and per WP:CAT, project categories (as opposed to maintenance categories) is one of those things.  The template simply provides no benefits except a. saving typing (which it only does being used on a new (ish) article) and b. reducing the line count of the wiki-source by two.  i understand when  you have used it a lot it is second nature, but there are whole categories of errors arising form use and misuse of this template. And the discussion on  the template's talk page - even back to when it was created as a subst template, has constantly swung back to it being substed.  Rich Farmbrough, 19:18, 8 September 2009 (UTC).

To support the replacement of Lifetime I have to repeat the following arguments:
 * categories as "year of birth missing", "living people" etc. don't even appear and are hiding in an "||" expression within a template,
 * categories should be place at the bottom of the articles as is and not hidden, to help editors to locate them
 * many bots and programs are having problems with Lifetime, (editors can't edit categories using HotCat, bots can't identity and/or move/modify categories)
 * because of the use of Lifetime the categories have to be rendered by the servers every time
 * and probably more. -- 19:38, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, I see what you're saying. I'm resistant but I realize that doesn't make me right. :-) The lifetime construct just struck me as being so...elegant. Oh well. I could discuss your points, but reality has a way of trumping theory, so...I suppose I have to grudgingly admit I "get it". Frank  |  talk  19:41, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * No more than a week after Category:Pages with DEFAULTSORT conflicts was created, late last November, I began work on the pages in the category. I rarely had a problem finding the source of the conflict, whether it was a sort parameter in an imported infobox, a value in BD, or a value in lifetime.  While there is no way that I know of to verify this, I believe that I am the only person who has worked on the pages in that category.  I began while the category was being populated and while I was working on it I could account for the change in the population numbers.  (Although I did have to drastically re-define the word to call the work I did there "fun", I certainly learned a lot more than I dreamed there was to know.)
 * I agree with Frank that lifetime is elegant. I am greatly in favor of multi-purpose tools.  This template (and this discussion should be on the template's talk page for a lot of reasons) assigns a year of birth category, a year of death category and a sort value for the page.  I also agree that there is a misuse of the template, I have never seen an example but Rich has and has provided links.  I think that the misuse issue should be addressed through education rather than elimination of the template.
 * A larger problem is that there are approximately 43,000 Biography articles with no sort value on the article page. That is the lowest the population of Category:Biography articles without listas parameter has ever been after a listas bot run.  (Listas bot basically copies the sort value of the article into the listas of the WPBiog banner.)  Attempts by bots to concoct a sort value for an article have been less that satisfactory.  Some of the bots were programmed by people who did not understand the guidelines for sort values.
 * I see no good reason for the somewhat kludgy ((tl|DEFAULTSORT}} and its accompanying category tags to coexist with lifetime but maybe I am missing something.
 * JimCubb (talk) 20:53, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I think I understand your example. Do you mean that Ambassador Shriver was listed twice in Category:Living People?  (I am tempted to restore the lifetime briefly to see what happens.)  If so, the category tag should be deleted.  If not, what is the problem?
 * JimCubb (talk) 21:07, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * When he dies, someone goes in and deletes the "living persons" category, and adds "2099 deaths"  ( I am wishing him a long life).  This doesn't do what they expect.  That is an example of the problem. Rich Farmbrough, 21:25, 8 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Well, the idea would be that if there is no living persons category, they would just fill in the appropriate parameter in the lifetime template. That's why I thought it was so elegant. But if the absence of a value for the death year (where the word LIVING would fit) causes problems, that's apparently an issue. Maybe the template can be fixed (by someone other than me)? Frank  |  talk  23:44, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Settings/lifetime
FYI, this is placing itself at the head of Category:Living people, surely an unintended side-effect. Studerby (talk) 16:37, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Ty, fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 17:34, 8 September 2009 (UTC).

Citation style
Template:Citation style sorts into Category:Wikipedia references cleanup. According to the documentation, this should be a dated category, but at the moment it isn't. I see two good reasons to make it dated: 1. because there are over 1500 articles there. 2. to allow for a small reorganisation of the category inside its tree. I you agree, I'd be happy to start with it, possibly asking for help if there were to be too much undated templates on pages. What is your opinion? Debresser (talk) 19:47, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I started. You are welcome to have a look. Now it is a matter of waiting, and creating categories. Debresser (talk) 21:17, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

FYI
Templates_for_deletion/Log/2009_September_2


 * I saw your opinion. It actually edit-conflicted with mine. This discussion prompted me to devote some thought to a matter that has crossed my mind upon occasion. Why do we have such similar categories as Category:Articles needing additional references, Category:Articles lacking sources, and Category:Articles with unsourced statements. What do you say we merge them? IMHO Category:Articles with unsourced statements is the preferable name. Debresser (talk) 21:48, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Hm, they are different. With un-sourced statements you have specific things you need to cite which may suit some editors more than "additional references" - heck I could probably turn up a cite for a statement I didn't understand, but picking those that need citing in an article on phonolgy might be more of a challenge. But if you want to propose them for merger, go ahead. I was looking, by the way, to have the verb "to be" in the category names, "Articles to be expanded" is positive statement about what we are going to do, "Articles needing expansion" sounds like a lament on the state of WP. Rich Farmbrough, 22:09, 8 September 2009 (UTC).


 * I think category names should describe a present situation rather than give hopes that all too often turn out to be false. Debresser (talk) 22:17, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

The purpose of categorising these articles? It is not for the sake of it, it is so that they may be improved. They are categorised in order "to be referenced". If they were merely deficient but we had no plans to do anything about it, we would let them languish. Rich Farmbrough, 22:21, 8 September 2009 (UTC).


 * I understand, but such remains my opinion. BTW, you can visit Categories for discussion/Log/2009 September 8 for the merge proposal. Debresser (talk) 22:39, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

'Uses Infobox settlement' template
Could you check my code for adding categories, in Uses Infobox settlement, please? I adapted it from elsewhere, and am not sure it's right. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 09:21, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks ok, but I added a belt and braces, and made a minor tidy. Rich Farmbrough, 09:28, 9 September 2009 (UTC).
 * That was quick! Thank you. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 09:31, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot at Hindi Wiki
Hi Rich, Is it possible to add a new functionality to the SmackBot. We need to tag all stub articles with a template declaring it stub. Can we do it automatically. Also, its time that SmackBot resumes the previous job on Hindi Wiki. Thanks Gunjan (talk) 04:15, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll look into it, as a one-off run. Let me see if there is a fresh database dump. Rich Farmbrough, 21:53, 9 September 2009 (UTC).

Tingri
Any idea why the infobox for Tingri (town) isn't showing? I can't see why it won't display the map and image etc. Himalayan   14:42, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I fixed most of it, after a painful amount of wrnagling (the white space in the blanks wasn't using regular spaces), but there's now a warning which I can't solve. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:26, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I knew it had to be a funny case because I couldn't find what was wrong myself! Himalayan   11:23, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Missing "|" sign. Rich Farmbrough, 11:26, 10 September 2009 (UTC).

Templates
Will you be doing any more of the templates today? Did you enter the redirects I mentioned in ? Debresser (talk) 10:31, 9 September 2009 (UTC)


 * You made a small mistake in Unreferenced, including the docpage twice. Debresser (talk) 11:55, 9 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, OTOH I picked up an error in one of them... Rich Farmbrough, 19:35, 9 September 2009 (UTC).


 * OTON? Please illuminate this moron... Debresser (talk) 20:09, 9 September 2009 (UTC)


 * OTOH On the other hand. Rich Farmbrough, 20:12, 9 September 2009 (UTC).


 * You really did? I'm sure if it were anything serious, you'd write me about it, or say so on your archive. For instructional purposes. I would welcome that. Debresser (talk) 20:24, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

It's not serious:

}}

Just need to open the template delimiter before the second DMCA. Rich Farmbrough, 20:30, 9 September 2009 (UTC).


 * Oh yeah... the template delimiter. That must have been some limit! Debresser (talk) 23:25, 9 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, After having a look at the archive, I understood what you meant. Thanks. BTW, did you fix that double doc thing yet? Debresser (talk) 23:28, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes though having tow lots of documentation might be a good idea? Encourage poepel to read it... OK maybe not. Rich Farmbrough, 11:29, 10 September 2009 (UTC).


 * :) One of the things I do regularly is making minor changes to documentation pages, help pages, and wikipedia pages to forewarn the mistakes I see people make most. Debresser (talk) 14:08, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

RE: Fact
II think you're saying that SmackBot is a little crufty, but that it doesn't really matter as of the fact that it works well enough. That's right I think, I mean it doesn't really messes the page up, but my point is, is that it messes the article code up.

You see, a date is displayed twice, whereas displaying a date only once would suffice and it would be redundant to do not. But I see your point, it doesn't matter that much because it hardly any harm to the articles. All I'm saying is that whenever you find yourself in the mood to improve your bot's code, it wouldn't be a bad idea to consider fixing this minor cruft. It might save the Wikipedia servers a little CPU cycles, hehe. ^^ Resilldoux (talk) 17:02, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, but what do I to with

And there are hundreds of templates, some of which can take something in parameter 1. Rich Farmbrough, 17:20, 9 September 2009 (UTC).

BRAVO: Once again, you are now the first as the most-edited Wikipedian in the English Wikipedia!!!
Hi Rich Farmbrough, Kudos and Congrats!!! I just want to declare that you are now the second-time overall champion for such title: You have succeeded User:Rjwilmsi plus the highest in all 748 Wikimedia Wikis! YOU CAME BACK! Wwooohhooo!! :) 202.190.153.69 (talk) 17:10, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, guess I have been rather busy. Rich Farmbrough, 17:23, 9 September 2009 (UTC).
 * We say Mazel tov! to that. Debresser (talk) 18:38, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Infobox Grand Prix race report
I couldn't get this to work (I really do need a training course on template syntax!). Can you help, please? I'm trying to add a date field which will take, instead of the current arrangement, so that I can then make the template emit an event microformat. Cheers! Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:44, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_Grand_Prix_race_report/sandbox Rich Farmbrough, 18:49, 9 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Many thanks; but as you can see from Template: Infobox Grand Prix race report/testcases there is a problem, in that the year is still being displayed in the old field, after I change the date entry. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 19:35, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Try that. Rich Farmbrough, 20:23, 9 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Perfect, thank you, I've done all the necessary changes, including documentation, and changed some live articles. I've also added the template to the to-do list. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:23, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_August_17
I don't know if you have noticed (it has been some time since the original nomination) but the above cfd has finally been closed. These categories have been listed at WP:CFD/W/M for manual upmerging. I've cleared a few so far, but the more hands to the pumps the quicker it will be sorted out, so if you feel like popping along and lending a hand then that would be great.

Best wishes,   X damr  talk 23:20, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Belated apologies
Hi Rich - just wanted to belatedly apologise for how heated discussion got about asbox. I'm still not a huge fan of it, but just wanted to say that there was nothing personal in the arguments we had over it - just a difference of opinion - and I'm sorry that things got as heated as they did. Grutness...wha?  08:00, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Eglise Gutiérrez
Hi, I saw your edits there. Could you keep an eye on Special:Contributions/67.164.56.77 and Special:Contributions/Bbilgili - undoubtedly the same editor given their edit pattern and style of writing. I've left numerous explanations and ultimately warnings on User talk:67.164.56.77, User talk:Bbilgili and on my own talk page to no avail. Sigh! Voceditenore (talk) 12:08, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

User:I love fenians
I see you blocked User:Papist Hunter under the user name policy. He has registered the above user name and is using it to edit war on Derry. Regards, Justin talk 13:06, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * No worries, I only alerted you because of the user name. I steer clear of editing Irish articles for that very reasons.  Regards, Justin talk 13:20, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Protection templates
There are 40 transclusions of Template:Hprotected, which is now a redirect to Pp-template. Since they are all editprotected (I checked and only 1 wasn't protected), would you be willing to change them?

In general, I was thinking of making you a list of redirected protection templates, so that SmackBot could do the redirects in its general fixes. Would you agree to that? Debresser (talk) 10:52, 9 September 2009 (UTC)


 * SmackBot is not an admin, so it can't. But looking a the templates... seems we only need about 4 now. Rich Farmbrough, 17:25, 9 September 2009 (UTC).


 * Why do you want to change them? Rich Farmbrough, 17:34, 9 September 2009 (UTC).


 * See Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Hprotected that there are 40 of them. I wanted to eliminate the use of all those old protection templates and perhaps even delete them. But I am starting to doubt whether that would be much appreciated. I personally find it an unholy mess. And people use them the whole time where they shouldn't. Debresser (talk) 18:30, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Do you have an opinion on this? Debresser (talk) 19:00, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * BTW, why don't you apply for adminship for SmackBot? I for one would think that a good idea. Debresser (talk) 19:01, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, I misunderstood you. In Protection templates we have over 10 protection templates, not 4. Debresser (talk) 20:11, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes 4 was an underestimate. But there are still a few too many. Like you say a bit of a mess. Rich Farmbrough, 20:29, 9 September 2009 (UTC).

Please see that there is only 1 transclusion of Pp-semi-template left. Would you take the honor of changing it to Pp-template, please.

Do you think there is something good that can be done, now that I removed 600+ instances of Pp-semi-template? Do you want a list of all protection templates redirects? SmackBot could change all the non-full protected ones, like semi-protection and move-protection. Debresser (talk) 14:13, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Hmm, transcluded Template:Pp-protect, which doesn't exist. It doesn't have any more incoming links, so I'm assuming that was the only edit that did that?  Amalthea  15:53, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I was just going to the what-links-here page... but it's all good.  Rich Farmbrough, 16:02, 10 September 2009 (UTC).

Thanks for that. And I was very and pleasantly surprised to see you changed the Hprotected ones. There are 5 more transclusions left, outside article namespace, see. Debresser (talk) 16:47, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

FYI 2
Two proposals of mine. At Help_talk:Cite_errors and at Template_talk:Cite_web. Debresser (talk) 22:56, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Deadend and Wikify
Hi Rich, everything in the "Deadend" template seems to be included in the "Wikify" one, so I wonder why you add them both to articles like ELWAT? It seems to clutter these stub articles unnecessarily. PamD (talk) 20:04, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Please Be Careful With Chinese Names
Rich,

Last weekend over 13,000 items were added to Category:Biography articles without listas parameter. I have just finished fixing part of the "Z" pages. Of the fifteen pages that I fixed three had DEFAULTSORT values on the article page that either you (Zhu Guangya and Zhu Qichen) or Smackbot (Zhao Zhiqian) during this month. Each was wrong. I have corrected them.

Please glance over your recent contributions and check to make certain that other biographies of persons with East Asian names are sorted correctly. The most common in my experience are people from China, Korea and Vietnam.

Thank you.
 * JimCubb (talk) 20:32, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Harriet the Spy
Any particular reason why you chose to copyedit this addition rather than just removing it? There's no consensus for it, and the article is only just off semiprotection because IPs keep re-adding it regardless. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:51, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Reminder
Standing at the beginning of the weekend (in my case the holy Shabbath day), I'd like to remind you of open issues/things to do:


 * 1) Template:Skymine has been deleted.
 * 2) Code for Template:Notability, Template:PD-user and Template:Tdeprecated on User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough/Archive/2009Sep.
 * 3) User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough/Archive/2009Sep with a list of redirects for SmackBot and minor edits to Template:Mergefrom and Template:Mergeto.
 * 4) Minor changes to Template:Cfm, Template:Cfd and Template:Cfr on User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough.
 * 5) The question in User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough, whether there is anything to be gained from all that. And five transclusions in Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Hprotected.
 * 6) Do you have a solution for the problem in User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough (which is actually a general problem).

Debresser (talk) 12:22, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Insterio
Thanks for carrying out the request for deleted content on my user talk page. I was away from the computer, and had only just seen it. Happy editing, --Patar knight - chat/contributions 17:30, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Uncategorised stub
Your last edit to Uncategorized stub changed DMC to DMCA. I think that was a mistake.Debresser (talk) 00:13, 13 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for you reply. You are right, of course, and I got mixed up. Debresser (talk) 06:34, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Re:Hindi Wiki
Hi Rich, Thanks for your reply. Here are answers to your questions
 * 1) Maybe one or two sentences( not more than 100 characters). We can follow the guidelines similar to English wiki.
 * 2) There are following type of strings for existing stub articles.
 * 3) and any template with a word आधार in it.
 * 4) For redirect we use the same english string of #REDIRECTarticle name
 * 5) Disambiguation page can be distinguished by string
 * 1) For redirect we use the same english string of #REDIRECTarticle name
 * 2) Disambiguation page can be distinguished by string

Regards, Gunjan (talk) 05:34, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

As of
I fixed the As of template. I had left a superfluous "]]". I tested it, making a Template:As of test, and it works. Debresser (talk) 07:38, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Talkback
BTW, see Template talk:Talkback. Debresser (talk) 12:53, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

As you can see from clicking this Talkback template, using "#" will not work. I thought it did, but was mistaken. I have already undone your addition to Template:Talkback/doc. BTW, did you notice that small question of mine there in User talk:Debresser? Debresser (talk) 15:13, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Request to move page
Can you move List of municipalities of Algeria to Communes of Algeria. That is the official english term they are always referred to as "Communes". Himalayan   12:50, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

New dated templates

 * Template:Law unref Debresser (talk) 13:19, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Template:Cite plot points Debresser (talk) 13:35, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Template:Unlinked references Debresser (talk) 13:39, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough, 14:00, 13 September 2009 (UTC).


 * Template:Primarysourcesepisode Debresser (talk) 14:11, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Template:Disputed-inline

That's it so far. Debresser (talk) 14:18, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Tammanies page
Hi Rich-

Thanks for your cleaning up of the Tammanies page. I am very new to all this (and kind of intimidated) so I appreciate your contribution.

I don't imaging this is the preferred or street legal way to be communicating with you. How should I do it?

Also, is there a good concise cheat sheet for the correct style for referencing books and scholarly papers? The cheat sheet I have found does not really address those things very completely.

Thanks again for your help. It is much appreciated.

JPFay —Preceding unsigned comment added by JPFay (talk • contribs) 11:47, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks for cleaning out Category:Wikipedia references cleanup. I see you added all undated ones to September 2009. And then there were the few cases where the category was added directly. Debresser (talk) 22:40, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for you changes on the The Meadows at Castle Rock. I am a new user still trying to learn all this. At first people were flagging me and trying to delete my page left and right. You are the first person who was actually helpful. Themeadows 04:45, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Changes to cite templates
On Hope Lange SmackBot removed the ".pp" and ".p" from the page parameter in cite journal. It was "pages = pp. 4, 32-33", your change " pages = 4, 32-33".


 * Before: "The Radio Hat". Radio Electronics 20 (9): pp. 4, 32-33. June 1949.
 * After: "The Radio Hat". Radio Electronics 20 (9): 4, 32-33. June 1949.

The page parameter behaves differently in different cite templates. Cite news automatically inserts "pp." for the pages parameter and "p." for the page parameter. The cite journal requires the manual insertion of ".pp" or ".p". See Template:Cite_journal -- SWTPC6800 (talk) 03:24, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Busy
I see SmackBot has his hands full because of the Template:As of. Frankly, the obvious source of the problem is the irregular form of the date: not, but. Debresser (talk) 11:20, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Reminder and Citation style
First of all I'd like to remind you that there are a few editprotected templates waiting for implemention of various improvements, as summarised in. But what I wanted to ask you, is about Citation style. Since that template is added without any indication of the precise problem that needs improvement in the citation style, how would you propose to "fix' these articles and come to a point where the tag can be removed? Debresser (talk) 15:58, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Environment & Energy Publishing
I'm suspicious of this article, because it reads like a pr release and many of the edits are from a ip address, 64.178.14.226. I'm not that well-versed in how to run this down, but I did check the whois for the ip and it appears to be a business because it is registered to XO Communications, which is "one of the nation’s largest communications service providers focused exclusively on businesses, government, and carrier and wholesale service providers..."

I am familiar w. this publishing concern and it does not always offer unbiased, fact-based reports, but rather opinion masquerading as fact.Beth Wellington (talk) 14:45, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Rich. I think the deletion of "reported objectively" much improves things.--Beth Wellington (talk) 22:30, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot
I think there is a problem with citationstyle and its conversion to articleissues Please look as this diff and compare the list of categories for before and after the change. Thanks.-- Birgitte SB  15:53, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Changing "see also" headings
Hi Rich. I noticed SmackBot is changing from one style to another in the case of see also headings, as here. I understand the rationale for changing "External Link" to "External links" and tasks of that nature, but it shouldn't be correcting where there is no error, and this is contentious. Regards, Skomorokh  17:33, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * See Rich Farmbrough, 13:42, 15 September 2009 (UTC).

smackbot & lifetime
Why did (does?) smackbot change lifetime into defaultsort/births/deaths? (example) Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 13:28, 14 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The trouble with the lifetime template is that the information in it is partially hidden, so it gets duplicated - see for example Herbert Winslow, or any of a couple of thousand other examples where there is (or was) a lifetime and one of the categories it generates or a DEFAULTSORT. This in turn leads to articles with inconsistent categories and conflicting DEFAULTSORTs. The benefit is that it is quicker to type, for setting up new articles, especially many of them.  There is a subst only version "ltm" that can be used for this, 1909 of course it is one keystroke longer! Best regards, Rich Farmbrough, 17:19, 14 September 2009 (UTC).


 * Dammit! How can you argue with someone who makes reasonable well argued statements you agree with!!
 * (Yeah, I guess so. Fair enough. Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 12:45, 15 September 2009 (UTC))


 * ✅ Answered on user's talk page. 08:26, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot - Lifetime to DEFAULTSORT
Please can you point me to the discussion where consensus was reached for SmackBot to replace {Lifetime} with DEFAULTSORT, YoB and YoD categories, as it did on Jim Backus? – ukexpat (talk) 13:55, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I asked a similar question last week and I won't say I saw consensus, but on the other hand, it doesn't appear to be unilateral. I felt (feel) there should be a better answer but I'm not qualified to point it out and I can't be sure it actually exists. Frank  |  talk  14:08, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The discussions at Template talk:Lifetime over the last two years are in favour of substing the template, and indeed it was initially intended to be subst only, to provide a faster way of entering data. Rich Farmbrough, 09:10, 15 September 2009 (UTC).


 * I don't see a consensus for wholesale replacement as Smackbot is doing. I think this needs wider review and consensus. Is your bot approved to do this anyway? – ukexpat (talk) 21:27, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * i see your critique of Lifetime "The trouble with the lifetime template is that the information in it is partially hidden, so it gets duplicated", wouldn't be easier to fix it, than crawl through its usage? Pohick2 (talk) 00:24, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes it is approved. Rich Farmbrough, 09:43, 16 September 2009 (UTC).

Journal dab
I noticed that many of the disambiguation have been made like AIDS to AIDS (journal). It should have been to AIDS. Others have been made like Science to Science (journal), when it should have been Science. It that possible to fix? Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 18:16, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Fixed, and some 200 other cases. Rich Farmbrough, 15:10, 15 September 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot: category links
Rich, the bot is now making edits like this that add the text to articles, which incorrectly places these articles in Category:Births. The correct category link would be Category:Year of birth missing
 * Or indeed Category:Year of birth missing (living people). Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 12:18, 15 September 2009 (UTC).

Wikilinks in subheads
Is the removal of internal links in subheads as in here a feature or a bug? I couldn't find a definite statement, so just wondering. Thanks. Barte (talk) 14:58, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * It's a feature (of WP:AWB general fixes), links in headings (WP:HEAD) cause accessibility problems. Rich Farmbrough, 15:09, 15 September 2009 (UTC).
 * I learned something....thanks for the clarification. Barte (talk) 17:20, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Lifetime to DEFAULTSORT
I know you have probably answered this before, but can you clarify this for me. I now Lifetime includes DEFAULTSORT and that people like the Lifetime better. Ositadinma (talk) 21:11, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * So all articles with Lifetime should be changed over th DEFAULTSORT like your bot is doing? Ositadinma (talk) 21:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * See above. – ukexpat (talk) 21:28, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes indeed. Rich Farmbrough, 09:44, 16 September 2009 (UTC).

Gustaf Fröding
The Gustaf Fröding article contains poetry. The verses are separated by a break. SmackBot eliminates those breaks, which gives the article a poor appearance and makes it harder to read. Would it be possible to leave the breaks in? Paul Anderson Pfa (talk) 21:44, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 08:22, 16 September 2009 (UTC).

Thanks! Paul Anderson Pfa (talk) 19:00, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Why manually change Lifetime template?
While I am unsure as to why the Defaultsort and Births / Deaths categories are any better than the Lifetime template, I am utterly baffled as to why you would need to be making these changes manually when there are bots that already appear to take care of this. Why bother? Alansohn (talk) 01:20, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Basically it allows me to look for possible improvements, gotchas and generally be at one with the bot, to grok the fullness of it's edits. There are also certain page that need to be done manually.  Rich Farmbrough, 01:26, 16 September 2009 (UTC).

Lagrangian point & Templates
Hi, for some reason the Template:L1, etc appears to be breaking up the Lagrangian point page - could you take a look? --George100 (talk) 04:49, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Busy
I know you must be very busy with lifetime and answering questions about it, but still... Could you change a few more of the editprotected templates? There aren't that many left. And have you added the two templates in to SB? Debresser (talk) 06:52, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Please can you explain what you have done to, and why it was not discussed. It seems that you have removed the template in favour of a series of less functional templates that it was intended to have replaced as soon as I had time to conduct a more thorough bug check on it. -- G W … 08:36, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

500 card game Refimprove
Dear friend, is the Refimprove tag on 500 card game already removable ? Thanks Krenakarore (talk) 13:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for fixes on Jim Neversink
Thanks! -- Skara B  17:49, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Capitalisation mismatch between CHECKLINKS and SmackBot
There seems to be a mismatch between CHECKLINKS and that used by User:SmackBot, namely Checklinks uses lowercase spelling of template names, while SmackBot capitalises the first letter.

For example, in 2008 TC3, I first made this Checklinks edit which added "dead link" (lower case "d") and then later, SmackBot capitalised it (to "Dead link"). Also, dead link's Usage has lower case in its examples.

Is it possible to make the two bots use the same capitalisation? It would reduce the number of edits in articles' histories and also reduce the number of watchlist entries. -84user (talk) 20:15, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Well actually it should not make much difference to the number of edits, you will see in that edit - "Dead link|reason=even when subscribed it redirects to http://www.slooh.com/membership_letter.php/2008-tc3-a-serendipitous-event/ which makes no mention of TC3, also archive.org stopped archiving slooh in 2007; a google for Tavi Greiner finds several blogs, but not one on TC3; http://astrocast.tv/blog/?cat=865 only goes back to June 2009|date=September 2009 - the bold part is the raison d'etre of the edit. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 21:00, 16 September 2009 (UTC).

Right, I see now. So SmackBot takes the opportunity to fix other templates while it has an edit session open? I guess that makes sense. So should I ask Checklinks to use "Dead link" instead of "dead link", so that any diffs will be at least shorter? I now see this as not all that important in any case. Thanks for the explanation. -84user (talk) 21:57, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes that is the effect. There's more detail in my FAQ. Rich Farmbrough, 22:02, 16 September 2009 (UTC).

Isn't there?
Category:All articles with topics of unclear notability
 * No it's a soft redirect. I just made it hidden while it depopulates. Rich Farmbrough, 21:01, 16 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Oh. And what makes you think it will depopulate? Debresser (talk) 21:04, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Uh.. well it was only populated by Notability. Rich Farmbrough, 21:22, 16 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Very sly. Debresser (talk) 22:12, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Might as well delete it... Debresser (talk) 06:48, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm, it's a soft redirect for a reason, I guess. Rich Farmbrough, 06:50, 17 September 2009 (UTC).

sorry
I looks like another instance where AWB recommended Europeaninzing a non European name...

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 01:53, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Re: Lifetime
Thanks for your note. Since I've seen defaultsort being replaced by the lifetime template on so many articles, I was under the impression that was the current standard. I'll hold off on replacing it for the time being.  Pinkadelica ♣  07:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Date de-linking
Hi Rich; I noticed in the past day or so that you've been using AWB to delink some ISO dates. I thought it would be a good idea to let you know about this RFA, where mass delinking of dates using AWB, scripts, bots, etc. was prohibited for 6 months beginning 14 June. Probably good to know to hold off on doing them for awhile. Good Ol’factory (talk) 03:31, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you can ignore what I've said above—I was a bit behind the times. I've been informed that the Arbitration Committee has approved a mass-delinking bot, so the restriction no longer applies. Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:38, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Watch for xx/xx/xxx in URLs
Some links were broken here. — LOL T/C 01:15, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah! I always try to check for that sort of stuff. Thanks for catching it. Rich Farmbrough, 01:20, 18 September 2009 (UTC).

Geopedia.si
Hi Rich! I have been referred to you by User:Himalayan Explorer. Since June 2009, the Slovenian geographic information system geopedia.si is also available in English. If you have some spare time, would you please run the AWB and update links to the English version of geopedia.si like it has been done for Log pod Mangartom (diff) or Arčoni (diff)? The articles to be updated are mainly located in Category:Cities, towns and villages in Slovenia. Some of them have already been corrected. Thanks a lot. --Eleassar my talk 09:15, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Need help for renaming my subpage
Hi Rich Farmbrough, I need your help for renaming one of my subpages. I first created User:JuventusGamer/navigator to make my own navigator for use on my user page, but then decided to rename the page to User:JuventusGamer/User page because with the new name I'm able to make a design for my user page and edit it anytime and then put link on my user page to show immediately the changes I have made to the page design. Do you think this is a good idea and can help me with this? Thanks. JuventusGamer (talk) 11:33, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

your opinion please...
I have asked for opinions as to whether it would be appropriate for me to move this article to my rough work in my user space. Since you were one of the five other people who made an edit to it I'd appreciate your opinion as to whether the other edits rise to the level of being considered "intellecutal content".

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 13:56, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Need help for taging two images and one article for deletion
Hey Rich, thanks for your help on renaming my subpage. Now I have another question for you: since I know a little about deletion guidelines, policies, and all that, could you help me with those. I have uploaded this image but its not used in any article since I uploaded a better version of it:  which is currently used in article Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… Pt. II. Could you help me with tagging it for deletion?

Also I have created this article Holy Are You, but I want to nominate it for deletion along with its image. Could you help me with this one too? Thanks a lot. JuventusGamer (talk) 15:10, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Question about CSD & redirects
You recently said in an RfD comment that Halting redirects and Colonization/redirects were candidates for speedy (assumedly under WP:CSD). Could you clarify two things:
 * Would you say that most redirects with "redirect" in their titles would also be candidates for speedy?
 * Is this a matter of policy, or more of a personal opinion?

Based on your responses, I might propose that we add text at RfD concerning such redirects (possibly add this text to CSD also...). Thanks for your input. —Zach425 talk / contribs 17:37, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Italic titles
Just so you know, only genus and lower (subgenus, species, subspecies, etc.) names are italicized, subfamilies names are not. If you already knew this and that was just a mistake, then ignore this. :) Rocket000 (talk) 19:07, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

mergeto template
Hi, can you take another look at the change you made today to Mergeto as articles including this template are showing some switch code since the change. See for example Bradford Northern (speedway). Keith D (talk) 21:59, 18 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I second the motion. Today I found several articles with the "mergeto" template containing this stuff:
 * 1. switch:
 * Help|Help talk|Portal|Portal talk|Wikipedia|Wikipedia talk= |Category|Category talk|Image|Image talk|MediaWiki|MediaWiki talk|Template|Template talk|User|User talk= |#default=
 * This just started happening today. At Template talk:Mergeto someone is saying this was caused by an edit to one of the templates done today by Rich Farmbrough. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:05, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
 * 1. switch:
 * Help|Help talk|Portal|Portal talk|Wikipedia|Wikipedia talk= |Category|Category talk|Image|Image talk|MediaWiki|MediaWiki talk|Template|Template talk|User|User talk= |#default=
 * This just started happening today. At Template talk:Mergeto someone is saying this was caused by an edit to one of the templates done today by Rich Farmbrough. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:05, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
 * This just started happening today. At Template talk:Mergeto someone is saying this was caused by an edit to one of the templates done today by Rich Farmbrough. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:05, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
 * This just started happening today. At Template talk:Mergeto someone is saying this was caused by an edit to one of the templates done today by Rich Farmbrough. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:05, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I reverted. Rich Farmbrough, 22:38, 18 September 2009 (UTC). {{resolved}}

Question
Hi Rich, You helped me a couple years ago, when I was new to Wikipedia, and I'm the "slow but steady wins the race" kind.. meaning, I'm slow --nah, I'm stupid with computers. I like your list of stuff that sat TOO long! I'm really not familiar with NYC, but do some things on this page--> seem strange or, out of place? :--Leahtwosaints (talk) 04:18, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Template reflist
You remember the template Templaterefsection which you renamed to Template reference list?

Today I saw that template had been transcluded in articles. Partly those were real pastes by author who apparently didn't know what they were doing. Part was because those articles transcluded templates where Templaterefsection had been added without a noinclude tag.

I saw that four pages redirect to Reflist. One of them, Refs, was used on some 60+ templates, and I changed them all to Template reference list.

There are some according to AWB there are 886 instances of Templaterefsection and 873 of Template reference section. But how can I find the templates with Reflist? With AWB that won't work, because AWB can count only till 25000. And the first 25000 don't include any templates. I tried with a search for special page "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Reflist&namespace=10&limit=100&from=23443716&back=22699043&hideredirs=1&hidelinks=1" or "WhatLinksHere/Template:Reflist&namespace=10&limit=100&from=23443716&back=22699043&hideredirs=1&hidelinks=1" but that didn't work. Debresser (talk) 19:51, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Works for me: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Reflist&namespace=10&limit=5000 Rich Farmbrough, 20:38, 10 September 2009 (UTC).


 * That's what you think. But if you try it, you will notice that all templates using Templaterefsection and Template reference list are also listed (since those two templates indeed include Reflist). Debresser (talk) 22:44, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Rich Farmbrough, 21:56, 12 September 2009 (UTC).
 * But the question was, how can we know inclusions of Reflist itself? In first degree, so to speak. Debresser (talk) 16:15, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Diff the lists. But why would you want to? Presumably not to expend a lot of effort 'replacing'' them? Rich Farmbrough, 21:07, 19 September 2009 (UTC).

Overzealous bot?
Three "citation needed" tags were placed in one paragraph, in the Robert H. Schuller article. There was a link at the end of that paragraph which gave the source of all the statements questioned. I take it the bot doesn't have the capability of reading the already sourced article? Of course, I removed those three tags, since all statements in that paragraph were already sourced. Please don't punish the little bot.... really not his fault.... EditorASC (talk) 13:08, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed, the tags were placed in the previous edit by another editor, SB merely changed them to the preferred name and dated them. Rich Farmbrough, 17:05, 14 September 2009 (UTC).


 * Thanks much for that info. I wasn't sure how that bot worked.


 * While we are on the subject of citation tags, the situation in that particular case seems to be a rather strained application of the citation having to be entered immediately after each quotation. Since the paragraph is not very large, and there are four quotations in it, all of which come from the same article, I thought it sufficient and less pedantically ostentatious, to put only the one citation source link at the end of the paragraph.  But, the other editor insisted the same citation source had to be in that paragraph, four times.  He is technically correct, according to the citation rules pages.  However, I think maybe that rule should be relaxed a little and made a bit more flexible, to accommodate such a situation as that one. Frankly, I think the paragraph looks rather silly, the way it is now, with the same citation link number inserted 4 times, in that short paragraph.  It would make it easier for the average reader to read, if there was only one citation link number at the end of that  paragraph.  All the quotes would still be properly sourced that way.


 * So, my question is: Can rules like that be modified so as to allow for such a situation, or are they all cast in hard concrete forever? Thanks,  EditorASC (talk) 07:57, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes it's a wiki - you may want to raise it on the CITE talk page. Moreover I think they are guidelines not rules, and I was under the impression that they did allow paragraph citing, although I haven't read them for some time. Rich Farmbrough, 08:18, 15 September 2009 (UTC).

I put a "Lack of Inline Citations" template on Muscovite Manorialism because there are no inline citations. SmackBot just took it away - why? Paul S (talk) 16:23, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh wait, I see, it's been moved to the bottom of the article. Fair enough. Nevermind. Paul S (talk) 16:24, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Datefixes
I fixed all articles in Category:Articles with invalid date parameter in template. Almost all of them had to do with the As of template. There is onearticle I couldn't do, because it is editprotected: Albert Pujols. And there is Zico, which I want you to have a look at yourself, because it might indicate a problem in the template. Debresser (talk) 12:13, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Good work. Can't see "as of" in Zico. Fixed the other. Rich Farmbrough, 15:37, 16 September 2009 (UTC).
 * The problem there wasn't "as of", but anoter template. It is fixed now. Debresser (talk) 15:55, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * See the fix. Don't you think that there in a problem in the template? Debresser (talk) 15:56, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Well yes and no. This is like defaultsort conflicts and broken refs, it puts a clear message in the categories of what is wrong. Suppressing the category when it doesn't exist hides from most editors that they have a problem. Sure there's a good chance that a gnome or bot will clean it up.  Rich Farmbrough, 20:06, 16 September 2009 (UTC).
 * I thnk it is more than that. The template should have know that since there is no code  that that was not a date parameter but something else to be ignored. Debresser (talk) 20:58, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * AH no. There are two templates on that page, one had date= . Rich Farmbrough, 16:52, 19 September 2009 (UTC).

Editing of HTML Comments
This edit changed some text that had been commented out to not be commented out anymore. That's probably pretty dangerous. (Ended up being harmless in this case, was detected once another Bot added a Biography flag to a page that wasn't a biography.) SnowFire (talk) 21:56, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Modifying program code
I noticed that Smackbot modified Frink in such a way that it turned a working program into an invalid one (by removing the underscore in an identifier (potential_energy). You may want to make it not modify the user-visible portion of text in an indented (code) block.  It's fine if it changes the underlying links, but it's probably dangerous to have it change program code for any language.  (Unless it's RTFM for that language and knows what it's doing. And in that case I want to hire it. :) ) --Eliasen (talk) 06:49, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Rosh Hashanah
Don't feel like making me a nice Rosh Hashanah present and doing all the remaining editprotected templates? Debresser (talk) 11:54, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Done I think. Rich Farmbrough, 16:53, 19 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Indeed. Almost. You forgot the three related templates in Reminder#4. Debresser (talk) 18:11, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Robot assisted editing toolols and Europeanized listas parameters...
I am still trying to figure out why robot assisted editing tools are recommending the Europeanization of the sort order of non-European names, like these instances.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 19:02, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
 * IN this case Khalid is a widely used name in the west. The same applies to Omar. In fact the distinction between family name last (Arabic, and the Middle East, most of Europe, Africa, the Americas, Australia, India etc.)  and other naming systems is very blurred.  It's a shame we don't have the full name for all these people. Rich Farmbrough, 19:10, 20 September 2009 (UTC).

AfD nomination of Roy Eugene Davis
An article that you have been involved in editing, Roy Eugene Davis, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Articles for deletion/. Thank you.Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. B.Wind (talk) 20:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot
The Dan Andersson Wikipedia article contains a poem. SmackBot removed the breaks between the verses. I restored them. Sorry to bother you again. Paul Anderson Pfa (talk) 05:37, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Navah Perlman
Hi Rich Farmbrough! I would appreciate your comments on the deletion of this article (Articles for deletion/Navah Perlman). Many thanks.--Karljoos (talk) 09:16, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Tdeprecated
Could you please return the nowiki tags to Tdeprecated. It is making a template loop now. Mind you, no reason to revert the DMC part, just the nowiki's. Debresser (talk) 21:32, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

✅ Good idea. Debresser (talk) 21:39, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Beau Dommage
Could you adjust your script so it will stop trying to do this? It's a band, not a person! Circeus (talk) 16:35, 21 September 2009 (UTC) Thanks for the note, I have added the correct listas. Rich Farmbrough, 16:37, 21 September 2009 (UTC).

poetically conservative
See a partial response at Talk:Rokujō family. --Bejnar (talk) 18:08, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

New category
I saw you made changes to Very long and Category:Articles that may be too long. I have added them to our lists of dated monthly categories and DMC with templates. Debresser (talk) 19:58, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Greek
Believe me that if it had been an other editor making Template:Namespace Greek, I'd have proposed it for deletion... This is really completely unnecessary. If any sorting needs to be done, as we do in certain error categories, sorting all non-articles/articletalkpages under tau is enough. Debresser (talk) 11:03, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Possible conflict-of-interest
Hello, Rich. I was looking at the recent changes and came across the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center article, which has been edited very heavily by Debra.lyon over the course of this month. It seems she knows a lot on the subject, so I decided to do some checking online, and came across the following: http://www.dc3.mil/dc3/dc3ContactFx.php As Ms. Lyon works for the DC3, is it not a conflict-of-interest for her to be editing this article? ---  RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive' 15:03, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply. ---  RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive' 17:22, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Half merges
BTW, I fixed all ten pages in Category:Articles for merging with no partner. Debresser (talk) 20:08, 22 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Could you spell out the message, please? It must be a piece of cake after a few joints, but alas, I am a bad Dutchman, and don't smoke. (Nor do I drink beer, or like football.) Debresser (talk) 20:15, 22 September 2009 (UTC)


 * No, that's fine. You're just English. Peculiar sense of humor. Even for a fellow European. Debresser (talk) 20:20, 22 September 2009 (UTC)


 * BTW, I have added Category:Articles for merging with no partner to my select group of categories to check daily. Debresser (talk) 11:10, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Grasse article
I noticed that a number of edits were removed from the Grasse article and that one of your AWB edits capitalised "lien" to "Lien" amongst other things. The rest were good edits and I was wondering if there was a way of setting up AWB to check for "lien url=" to detect other such errors in articles that have come from fr-Wikipedia. Regards -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 20:56, 22 September 2009 (UTC)


 * No way to detect all templates from all other languages! These specific ones you mentioned showed up in an error category because they don't work here in the English Wikipedia, and I fixed them. Debresser (talk) 00:04, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Small Request
Hi Rich, I'm aware you might be fairly busy right now but I would like to ask a small favor of you. At the ACC interface my login id is that of my old Wikipedia name: EricV89. I since changed my name on Wikipedia but the name didn't change on the ACC. I tried to register again with this name: A3RO but it said my e-mail address was already in use. Could you perhaps change the user name of "EricV89" on the ACC to "A3RO" - or if you could delete that account so I can start fresh with this name. I'd appreciate it much. Thanks. -- A3RO (mailbox)  23:41, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Per my user page, I understand. I figured any admin could change the name on the RAC interface 'cause they were the ones who granted the rights in the first place. I left a note with one of the RAC admins; I tried to find one most recently activate, some of then last logged onto the interface months ago. Thanks for your help. Happy editing! -- A3RO (mailbox)  23:48, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I was trying to make a Doppelgänger account of "AERO" to prevent imitation of mine, but it was already created. However, the last edit of only a couple edits were made in 2003. Can you provide me the information on how I go about getting this acct. deleted? Of it that's at all possible? -- A3RO (mailbox)  23:58, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

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Urgent help
Why is Template:Technicaltest not adding a category to talkpages, but instead the word "Talk"? Debresser (talk) 02:28, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


 * No, it's the second one. I changed it, and that changed the output. Debresser (talk) 02:37, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


 * BTW, please tell me what you think of the change I made to Technical so far. Unbelievable, how Category:Items to be merged got into Template:Technical, isn't it. Debresser (talk) 02:39, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I solved it, and changed Technical seriously. Debresser (talk) 04:03, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Nice thing, this Mbox. Interesting what you would mean by "considerably". "A bit" is about 40% with you. Debresser (talk) 10:41, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Capital letter
Please have a look what I tried to do in Template:Technical and Template:The artipage. Must be a piece of cake for you. Debresser (talk) 11:10, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, I wasn't that far off. But it still doesn't work. On the documentation page it should say "The article"/"the article". And it is "This page"/this page". Debresser (talk) 12:07, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

In real articles it works fine. Just the demospace doesn't work the way I'd have expected. Which code is better in Template:Technical, the most recent one, or the previous one? Debresser (talk) 12:12, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Which version is (more) correct though,  or  ? Debresser (talk) 13:06, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

If you have the time to spare
If you have the time to spare, perhaps you could have a look at Category:Wikipedia pages with incorrect protection templates. There are three images that need a null-edit. And one image to be merged, but the guys have cold feet from the idea of merging an image. BTW, that one image was one of your "half merges". Debresser (talk) 15:56, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. But I did not understand why you just removed the merge template. Didn't you see the strong consensus on the talkpage for a merge? Debresser (talk) 17:05, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The problem is that files can't just be merged or even redirected. So it comes down to replacing some 600+ instances of one by the other. Debresser (talk) 20:15, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Somebody deleted the file, because there is an identical file on Commons. Doesn't ring a bell with me, but seems to work. Debresser (talk) 12:27, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Believe it or not
Today I have opened an account on another wiki. And have been elevated to Admin and Bureaucrat.

I shall have to learn a lot. Debresser (talk) 18:53, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

You did what ?! Debresser (talk) 10:56, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Substed a template. Trying to rescue an article from Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded. Rich Farmbrough, 12:39, 24 September 2009 (UTC).

My stalker, SmackBot, cannot cope with new wikitext markup
The syntax of the &lt;references&gt; tag recently changed, allowing it to contain &lt;ref&gt; elements. Unfortunately, SmackBot copes quite badly with this. Note that it incorrectly inserts a reflist in front of the tag. There are moves afoot to fix reflist (or, better yet, simply add the necessary CSS functionality to directly), but currently reflist is not a direct drop-in equivalent for. It also tries to re-order the &lt;ref&gt; elements that are within the element. This is wrong for two reasons. First, it damages deliberate choices of ordering. Note the original groupings of the &lt;ref&gt; elements by publication (<tt>BBC1</tt> to <tt>BBC5</tt>, for example) in order to simplify maintenance. Second, it re-orders for no good reason. There's reason for re-ordering the &lt;ref&gt; elements outside of, because it places the numerical superscript cross-links in numerical order. But &lt;ref&gt; elements within a don't generate these superscripted links in the first place. I hope that you can fix SmackBot to account for the new syntax, and that my perennial stalker will be restored to proper operation in short order. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 02:22, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * edit
 * resulting damage
 * What SmackBot is getting wrong

Plutonium Star
Hi,

I have given you Plutonium Star for your contributions and for your long stay with WP.

Cheers, Lamro (talk) 12:35, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow! Plutonium! Is that safe? Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 12:37, 24 September 2009 (UTC).


 * For not walking out on us, that's to say? Nu, also a good reason for giving awards. :) Debresser (talk) 13:35, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Riddle
Do you know what is wrong with 2009 in Australian FTA television? Debresser (talk) 12:53, 24 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Using after the name of the new template? Debresser (talk) 19:28, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * the second pipe should have been (was, maybe I broke it) literal - maybe ! would be better than the nowiks. Rich Farmbrough, 20:36, 24 September 2009 (UTC).
 * The nowiki's were in the template, and when I wrote you about the transfer to DMC, I left them out. So it is my fault. What is "K&R"? "Kill and run"? Debresser (talk) 21:49, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually not! The nowiki's were there, but inside the pre tags they are not rendered. You probably copied straight from the talkpage, not bothering to enter edit mode, and that is when they got lost. Debresser (talk) 21:54, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

K&R will point you to Indent_style among other good places. Rich Farmbrough, 21:52, 24 September 2009 (UTC).

Serious bug. Be aware.
Check this bug report. I use the latest version of AWB which randomly replaces a page with the entire content of another one. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:12, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Aw man, I thought they fixed this one... Are you using the latest SVN? –<b style="font-family:verdana; color:black;">xeno</b><sup style="color:black;">talk 23:14, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Not the very latest. I believe mine/SB's do not have this regression. I'm on 5388, SB on 5386. Rich Farmbrough, 23:24, 24 September 2009 (UTC).
 * I am on 5438 but another problem: 5459 which fixes some of the problems, was not correctly built! The one found in here is not the actual 5459. We have to wait until tomorrow for Reedy to re-upload it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:41, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded
Alex Bakharev (talk) 01:46, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Infoboxes
Summary of what remains to be done to finish Template:Infobox French commune.
 * 1) Check SB has finished ✅
 * 2) dab Lorraine and Auvergne, Île-de-France (région), Île-de-France, Limosin, Centre ✅
 * 3) population formatting ✅
 * 4) elevation formatting ✅
 * 5) Dual co-ordinates exception - how to find them ? lat long perhaps.
 * 6) Deprecate "taille" ✅and fix it up
 * 7) Deprecate hectares✅
 * 8) Deprecate lat long
 * 9) Re-run original query to see if any are left without infoboxes ✅ reduced to 62 for specialist intervention
 * 10) Check all infoboxes renamed ✅ (need to do again)
 * 11) Check Category:French commune articles using deprecated parameters is empty, also Category:France articles requiring maintenance
 * 12) Tidy up template and template docs.
 * Rich Farmbrough, 03:18, 25 September 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot: Fixing refs and so destroying the reflist
Hi, this bot fixed a to Reflist , destroying the inline citations from the new style. Please try to fix it. I noted this in this article. Sebastian scha. (talk) 06:05, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I already filed an AWB bug for this, and have temporarily set skip on the maintenance categories run. Let me know if you see it again. Thanks! Rich Farmbrough, 11:24, 24 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Happened again: .↔<span style="font:bold 11px Verdana,sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font:9px Verdana,sans-serif; color:#000;">talk 17:27, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Request
Could you set a bot to changing all transclusions of Filmr to Film cover fur? No need to change any parameters, since the templates are compatible (in the Filmr -> Film cover fur direction). I can do this with AWB, but am a little tired of it. There are some 300 of them. Debresser (talk) 22:05, 24 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I replied on my talkpage. That I don't understand the problem. Debresser (talk) 22:50, 24 September 2009 (UTC)


 * You guessed right, see this edit. Can you explain that to the bot also? All the more reason now not to do it by hand. Debresser (talk) 23:06, 24 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The fix to Template:Filmr works. After I fixed a typo. Tomorrow I'll spend some time on it, because I want to get rid of that template. Debresser (talk) 02:52, 25 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I decided to leave things as is. Filmr is essentially Non-free media, which is essentially File other, while Film cover fur is further removed from those basic templates. Debresser (talk) 09:47, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I was surprised to uncover this. Debresser (talk) 01:45, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Items to be merged
I have been working a little on Category:Items to be merged. I have fixed all files (remember I asked you to help out with one), and am working on the templates. Although I am not going to do all of them. Just the unambiguous and easy ones. As a result I have made some mergers, and have brought some templates to wp:tfd. Did you know there is no template to nominate templates for merging? I wrote about this on Wikipedia_talk:Templates_for_deletion. Debresser (talk) 22:17, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes I guess if they are simple they are just redirected or transcluded, otherwise they go to TfD. Which reminds me I  nominated 200 = cats fro deletion and said I'd help up-mergeing them. Rich Farmbrough, 22:21, 24 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Usually, some real merging needs to be done. Did you see what I wrote there? Would you believe there is no Template:Tfm (as such)? Debresser (talk) 22:27, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes. Rich Farmbrough, 22:28, 24 September 2009 (UTC).

I have done all 110 categories in Category:Items to be merged also, leaving 47 to bring to Cfd. The others I decided for myself. And nobody can say that was wrong, because there was no official Cfd discussion. Or any discussion whatsoever, for that matter. Debresser (talk) 13:59, 25 September 2009 (UTC)


 * If there will be no (negative) reactions any time soon on tfd, I'll make a Tfm template. Debresser (talk) 10:25, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Bergen op Zoom

 * Could you check the map in this article? Something's wrong and I am unfamiliar with these tags. Thanks. --Crusio (talk) 22:59, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes, some need coordinates. They should have had them already, again shows how much work needs doing on them. Himalayan   10:43, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Hey I'm not sure why you self reverted Zwolle, that has coordinates! Thanks anyway10:51, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Don't worry I'll try to sort out the coordinates.. How many did you do? Himalayan   10:56, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I self reverted a bunch then I realised that it was better to wait until I was awake. I did maybe 80 or 90. What about concerns over the 2 locator maps? Where will you get the co-ords from? I have a massive database of co-ordinates from the US governeent, but the are only accurate to within about 1 minute generally. Rich Farmbrough, 12:55, 26 September 2009 (UTC).

I've fixed those already and will sort it out. German wiki coordinates. These articles should have coordinates anyway... Don't worry I'm fixing the ones you did last night. Only got betwene 23:43 and 23:53 left to finish... Himalayan   12:58, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Phew! I've fixed everyone of them now you started yesterday I restored your self reverts too and fixed all those too. They should definately have coordinates anyway. Most of them are both towns and municipalities so should have the national maps. Not sure about the municipal maps being set at 280px. Personally I think they should be set at default size the same width as the national map..

Later I have another request, to add a References reflist section in the Romanian communes articles starting with Arad County and Brazii through to z and then communes of the rest of the counties that don't as yet have them. You see as I gradually add ifnoboxes myself then the references will display and I won't have to keep typing it in everytime at the bottom! But do as many of the Dutch ones as you can, sometimes I'll get around to adding infoboxes to the villages too.. Himalayan   14:23, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Nope they should all be listed in those sub categories. The villages can wait till a later date as most of them as far as I'm aware don't have infoboxes or if they do don't have coordinates. Himalayan   14:26, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Mmm well all the towns and villages are listed under Category:Cities, towns and villages in the Netherlands. Your typical village article looks like Eelderwolde. I don't know if the infoboxes on Dutch wiki are that useful, they don't have the national locator maps and we should be using infobox settlement...The ones that do have maps which you just have no idea where they are, check out Delfstrahuizen but no coordinates in the box, again... Himalayan   14:30, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh, OK. If you can find a way of transferring them from Dutch wiki and converting into infobox settlement which has some data and a map this would be great. Just let me know what you have done once you have done it so I can keep track... Ideally all of the towns and villages in those cats would have a standard infobox and data too... Himalayan   14:37, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Can you delete the sub cats which are now empty of Category:Villages in Greece. thanks, Himalayan   21:19, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Talkback template
Some more thinking has lead to the following proposal. Debresser (talk) 02:38, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Netherlands
HI, if you arne't too busy with France I was wondering if you could use AWB to add anational locator map to all places in the Netherlands currently using infobox settlement like this. They should all have national locators but at present only have the municipal maps. Himalayan   19:44, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * A large number of these has an error message now: Expression error: Missing operand for *%; And many already had a differnt locator map included already: eg Bolsward Boarnsterhim. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:47, 26 September 2009 (UTC)


 * All Dutch municipalities already have suitable locator maps! Another national map is just overkill and makes the info box needlessly long and cluttered. Is this really necessary? Anyway, I will generate some discussion on this on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Netherlands. -- <b style="color:#199199;">P 1 9 9</b> • TALK 12:42, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Rankers Point Coaching Institute Indore
Respected, need your help. Article Rankers Point Coaching Institute Indore; I had nominated it for deletion. because this article is of one private coaching class in Indore ,apart from this it disobeys many policies of wikipedia, & also discussed the matter in Articles for deletion/Rankers Point Coaching Institute Indore .Now this User:Wikindia24x7 has undone my nomination for deletion telling that he has wikified the Article, but when i reviewed it, i cant find any good addition. so i reverted his edits & nominated the article again for deletion. While in background this user used up different IP address to add new edit in main article Rankers Point Coaching Institute Indore saying it has added up reference. but not an matter of concern. In Articles for deletion/Rankers Point Coaching Institute Indore last edit "Do Not Delete-I have provided proper citations and tags.and this is top result of Search Engine.please i beg you.thanks. - User:Wikindia24x7" Done by http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikindia24x7&action=edit&redlink=1 possibly User:Wikindia24x7 I have no issue with this user but just look at his user talk page. Kindly guide us & help on all matters discussed above ...Thanks.(    Abu Torsam    09:15, 28 September 2009 (UTC))

Dutch localities and infoboxes
Hi, wouldn't Infobox settlement be a more appropriate infobox to use? Mjroots (talk) 13:29, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

An AWB thing?
Hey Rich, from time to time, I've noticed various articles on more-or-less recent generations getting stuck in Category:Living people. The latest is Baby Boomer, from this edit of yours. I'm assuming that this is being driven by the birth cats in the article, and is an AWB thing. If that's the case, any chance we can make AWB smarter? Perhaps trigger on the non-standard sort key; in other words, ignore articles with birth cat keys outside of A-Z, or something like? There are (so far) few enough of these cases that manual cleanup hasn't been a problem so far, but I'm anxious to avoid a wiki-snowballing of the issue. Studerby (talk) 14:24, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, and such a fix would presumably stop the absurd DEFAULTSORT key, "Boomer, Baby", yes...? Studerby (talk) 14:31, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Delinking ISO dates
(apologies if this question has been raised here before)

I noticed over the past few days that you've been using AWB to do mass delinking of ISO-style dates in references. I agree that this kind of linking is ugly and unnecessary, but from what I remember of the big date delinking poll several months ago, wasn't there a consensus against doing mass date delinkings? (I don't remember all the details, so maybe there were different conclusions for ISO dates than for others.) <b class="Unicode">r ʨ anaɢ</b> talk/contribs 14:52, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, sounds good; thanks for the clarification. Is it also ok to delink written-out dates within prose, or can we only delink ISO dates in references for now? <b class="Unicode">r ʨ anaɢ</b> talk/contribs 15:07, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Dates
Hi. I've been involved in a discussion about date formats which is now taking place at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). A couple of comments vis-a-vis the bot that you are using for cleanup. It is my view (at least) that the current language in the MOS does not permit use of the YYYY-MM-DD format in references (though the bot is applying it in references); the MOS says at :

"YYYY-MM-DD style dates (1976-05-31) are uncommon in English prose, and should not be used within sentences. However, they may be useful in long lists and tables for conciseness. (If the only purpose why they are used in a particular table is ease of comparison, consider using 1 November 2008.) Because some perceive dates in that style to be in conformance with the current ISO 8601 standard, that format should never be used for a date that is not in the (proleptic) Gregorian calendar, nor for any year outside the range 1583 through 9999.')."

And it certainly does not mandate it). That could change, as the issue is under discussion, but the clear majority of those who have spoken so far also appear to be against its use in references.  One matter that has confused things is the extent to which it is (against policy, I would argue) used now in footnotes -- I've made the point that that may not reflect preferences of Wikipedia editors, as your bot has been busy turning references into that format.  I wanted to apprise you of the situation both because it may interest you, it may impact your desire to let the bot continue to make such changes (until the policy clearly allows for it), and of course you may wish to correct any misstatements I've made or otherwise contribute.  Many thanks.--Epeefleche (talk) 06:46, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * If it's true that SmackBot is converting dates in footnotes to YYYY-MM-DD, I very much hope it can be stopped immediately. Some of us are busy doing the exact opposite! YYYY-MM-DD in citations is largely an accidental by-product of date delinking; it was never intended to appear thus to the reader. -- Alarics (talk) 10:18, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Glad to learn that rumour was untrue. The discussion about YYYY-DD-MM in footnotes has been going on most recently at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers) and Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers) and also at VPP. -- Alarics (talk) 11:34, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * At Sam Fuld for example I saw two bots changing dates to YYYY-MM-DD format just this month (both SmackBot and YoBot ... see and ).  I believe I've seen a great number of such revisions by bots to YYYY-MM-DD as well, though I could not say that those were the only bots doing it.--Epeefleche (talk) 02:15, 28 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I looked at the examples provided by Epeefleche. At first I wasn't too concerned; it was just changing a terrible date format to a bad date format. It all depends on how much competence I wanted to assume on the part of the bot programmer. All the examples I could find had a day number greater than 12; if I was generous, I could suppose this was because the programmer didn't attempt to reformat dates if the month-day order could be ambiguous, as when the day number is 12 or lower. And after all, if we're talking about an access date, we know it has to be sometime after the emergence of the world wide web, so "07" couldn't possibly mean 1907.


 * But then I noticed it was changing the date parameter, not just the accessdate parameter. The year in the date parameter could very well be ambiguous as to what century was intended; even if it was viewed online, it could be a scan of an old document. So there is every posibility that the bot(s) is/are falsifying information.


 * I would prefer that any answer to my comment be placed on this page. --Jc3s5h (talk) 02:52, 28 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Just a few related small side comments to Jc3s5h to communicate my feelings (which could of course be wrong) about your above comment that: "it was just changing a terrible date format to a bad date format."


 * First, I'm happy to go with whatever the community decides. I say this as someone who has spent a large percentage of my time on baseball articles.  And who recognizes that the official date format of MLB.com, which is responsible for much of the fodder for US baseball articles, is 1/12/09.  (Same w/the NFL, etc.)  And who has seen by google search that that is in fact the format that is most found in googled articles.  (Hopefully a bot will take care of the necessary revisions).


 * Second, the difference between the "terrible" and the "bad" date formats is, I would submit, exagerated. If it even exists at all.  In fact, it may be the reverse of what you have posited.


 * The reason is that (I would submit, without any hard data to support me) only a tiny percentage of readers in general (though a high percentage of readers in this discussion) know that the rule is that there cannot be a "YYYY-DD-MM" format. I'm fairly well read and well travelled (over 40 countries), and I had no idea until reading up on it this month.


 * Those whose knowledge on this point is the same as mine used to be (the vast majority of readers, I would think) would suffer from the same uncertainty in looking at a date such as 2000-01-02 as someone reading 1/2/09 would suffer. More, perhaps.  Because an American looking at a UK article on Queen Elizabeth for example, and familiar with the DD-MM-YYYY UK convention, would be more likely to assume the wrong date (than they would if they were faced with a date written as 1/2/09).--Epeefleche (talk) 06:52, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I will reply to Epeefleche's comment on his/her talk page. --Jc3s5h (talk) 18:09, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

OK point by point (but not necessarily in the same order):
 * no
 * yes
 * It is outstandingly obvious
 * I disagree
 * Rich Farmbrough, 11:42, 28 September 2009 (UTC).


 * I am offended by your cavalier attitude toward your bots creating falsehoods and your refusal to communicate on this issue. --Jc3s5h (talk) 17:28, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok lets take it one step at a time, after re-installing our sense of humour. Rich Farmbrough, 17:34, 28 September 2009 (UTC).

Some years ago I went through the whole of Wikipedia by hand fixing all dates in xx/xx/xxxx format.


 * 1) Pseudo-ISO dates (and similar formats (YYYY MM DD)) are used very widely, not just in computing.  They are to me incredibly obvious in their encoding since they are pure big-endian.
 * 2) Middle-endian dates are strange, but if I was reading NBA weekly I would probably not turn a hair.
 * 3) Giving someone a date in a "strange" format is relatively harmless compared with giving them a false friend.
 * 4) Dates left in articles in the format  04/05/06 risk being converted by humans to the wrong month.
 * 5) If someone enters a date a century old without disambiguating it, they have entered the false information.
 * 6) The problem with the AWB auto-changes is 2-fold, but with respect not any of the folds above:
 * 7) They don't fix any of the dates that are ambiguous
 * 8) They remove hints on how to fix ambiguous dates

That said they less dates in this format the better, as it discourages people from adding more with the same format.

I will raise an AWB bug asking for this feature to be turned off or improved.


 * Rich Farmbrough, 17:47, 28 September 2009 (UTC).


 * Turning the AWB feature would be an acceptable step in the right direction. "Improving" it could be good or bad, depending on the improvement. Perhaps you could provide a link so those interested can follow the progress of the bug.


 * By "they remove hints on how to fix ambiguous dates" I take it you mean that if I saw, in a citation format, "date = 1/2/50 | accessdate = 1/31/04" I could infer the former means 1950-01-02, but if I saw "date = 1/2/50 | accessdate = 2004-01-31" I would not be able to make any inference about the date parameter, right?


 * If a Wikipedia editor writes "1/30/09" and means 1909-01-30, the editor's writing is poor, but a human reader at least has a hint that an unusual interpretation may be necessary. Converting the date to "2009-01-30" changes poor writing into a flat-out falsehood. --Jc3s5h (talk) 18:04, 28 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs
 * I would read "1/30/09" as 2009. By extending your argument maybe the writer mean 2001/30/09? how much should we second-guess him? Perhaps they mistyped a 9 for a 6?
 * Rich Farmbrough, 18:18, 28 September 2009 (UTC).
 * If the publication date was January 30, 1909, and the editor was writing in the first year Wikipedia existed (2001), the date would have been correct when written. If you had read the article in 2001, you surely would have interpreted the date as January 30, 1909, because although publication sometimes are available a month or two before their official publication dates, they are never available nine years before the official publication date.
 * Thanks for the link. Also thanks for writing "pseudo-ISO", and thus recognizing pitfalls which fortunately have a vanishingly small chance of applying to dates with two-digit years. --Jc3s5h (talk) 18:49, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * To me, all this just goes to underline even more that ALL all-numerical dates are, at least potentially, ambiguous to somebody or other, and should therefore be avoided entirely. Pseudo-ISO dates might be to some people "incredibly obvious in their encoding since they are pure big-endian", but that clearly isn't obvious to all readers. -- Alarics (talk) 19:20, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Hear, hear. Debresser (talk) 22:38, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * What Alarics said. And (I have difficulty parsing the above) does Richard now agree (he had previously told me I was wrong) that SmackBot has been changing some dates to the YYYY-MM-DD format in footnotes?  That was the issue that kicked off this discussion.  Many thanks.--Epeefleche (talk) 00:26, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Filter 240
Still using this? Prodego <sup style="color:darkgreen;">talk  22:50, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 22:58, 28 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Ah great, thank you. Prodego  <sup style="color:darkgreen;">talk  23:57, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Pages with missing references list
I noticed that sometimes there is an update to User:SmackBot/References Log that does not involve Category:Pages with missing references list. How can I know when SmackBot has fixed what it could of that page specifically? Debresser (talk) 03:20, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

So how come sometimes I see the a registration in the log, and almost no change in the category? While the articles could be fixed. As has been proven now, by going down from 87 to 26. Debresser (talk) 03:34, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

More Holland
Yeah a lot of the infoboxes which you think have coordinates actually have them in decimal not DMS so the maps continue to produce errors. That problem needs to be sorted out. Good work with the trasferring infoboxes. In due course they will need pin maps/coordinates too, Himalayan   11:12, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Heemskerk
Hi, the locator map you added in the Heemskerk article doesn't seem to wrok. Could you take an other look. Thank you. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 11:34, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Polynesia
Any reason why you've added a map of mainland France to somewhere over 10,000 miles away Rangiroa (commune)? Himalayan   13:32, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, anyone that far away must be lost, and really needs a map. Rich Farmbrough, 13:35, 29 September 2009 (UTC).
 * SRSLY it's the default map for the template. Rich Farmbrough, 13:40, 29 September 2009 (UTC).

Facts in the infobox
Hi, Rich!

With all due respect, I had to revert this edit of yours. The way WP:REF is worded, sources are to be provided to support any statements which are "challenged or [are] likely to be challenged", among other things. Every single line in Infobox Russian inhabited locality that adds fact to all unsourced statements is indeed likely to be challenged if no source is provided. The documentation of the fact itself repeats that same requirement almost verbatim ("[a]ll direct quotations, statistics, and facts whose accuracy might be challenged require citations"). Those facts which are patently obvious or are extremely easy to verify (like the official website or the federal subject) do not request citations by default (although those lines can still be referenced, if an editor so chooses).

Taking into consideration your previous concern that the fact tags this template adds are undated (a concern which, by the way, I have not forgotten about, and which bothers myself as well), may I assume that you don't have a problem with requesting citations as much as you do with the fact that they are not properly dated? Hopefully, you understand that making sure that formatting the citations tags is not as important as having them where they are absolutely necessary in the first place (as per WP:REF), but I, in turn, understand, how dating these tags properly facilitates maintenance. I should admit, adding dates to these default tags seemed a trivial task to me at first. After mucking around for a while this morning, I understood that I was gravely mistaken&mdash;after all, if it were easy, the fact template would have been designed to date itself automatically without having editors to do that manually every time a tag is added! There's a reason why your bot goes around through the undated tags and adds dates to them. That, in turn, got me thinking&mdash;there's gotta be a better way!

I do have one idea which occurred to me today, and which, if successful, should both take care of the problem with "my" infobox and reduce the workload of the bot. Of course, I would appreciate your input regarding that idea&mdash;it seems workable to me, but you undoubtedly have more experience in that area and may know reasons to rightfully shoot this idea on sight :)

So, here's the gist. Instead of requiring the editors to add "date=" to every fact (and having to run the bot to add it for them when they forget), how about re-designing fact in such a way that it would add the current month/year automatically if one is not provided? The current month/year could be stored in Template:Fact/date or suchlike location, and if one is to add fact without a date parameter to any page, it would substitute that month/year to fill out the "date=" part automatically. The bot could then update Template:Fact/date once a month. This simplifies things for the editors, and reduces the load on Wikimedia servers by drastically reducing the bot workload... dare I say trillion-fold? :)

All in all, I would appreciate any comments you might have. I am just as interested in making things work (properly!) as you are. Thanks much for your time and attention!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:11, September 15, 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll definitely take a look at the football template and get back to you on that; thanks for the pointer. By the way, Infobox Russian inhabited locality does not generate a fact tag when there are no data to attach it to.  Also, the area and the population (the most recent, at least; Census number is referenced automatically as there is only one source where that number can be taken from) in that infobox can be referenced just as any other factoid&mdash;could you, please, clarify what you mean by saying it's not possible to tag them?
 * Regarding the fact templates all having the current date (were the autodating to be implemented), that's a good point, but I don't see it as a problem all that much. What your bot is basically doing is adding the current date to undated fact tags anyway; regardless of when those tags were actually added, right?  Implementing autodating would do exact same thing, all at once, and it's only going to be a one-time surge (from then on, all undated fact tags would have proper dates due to automation).  Any tags that had previously been dated by editors or by the bot would remain unchanged.  Am I misunderstanding something here?  Thanks again.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:44, September 15, 2009 (UTC)
 * But that's the whole point of having the current date on a separate page and then updating that page every month. The fact tag would substitute the value on that subpage as the value of the "date=" parameter (so the tag added in September would show "September" in perpetuity).  Come October, the bot would change the subpage to read "October 2009", so the new tags would be autodated October, and the older tags would remain unaffected.  Does that make sense?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:18, September 15, 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah, I keep forgetting that the substitution does not carry over, and gets expanded right after the page is saved, sorry. Anyway, the date can still be hardcoded into the fact tag (to be used as default when no date is supplied by the editor), and cn could be updated by a bot every month to make sure that date is current.  Still beats having to hunt down every instance of undated cite tags.  Would something like that be implementable?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:23, September 15, 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for bearing with me, Rich. I think the realization of the impossibility of the implementation is slowly starting to sink in :(  Self-substituting templates would indeed be most helpful in this case.  I guess all I can say at this point is "so much for that idea".  Oh well.
 * This brings me to my other point, though. What is your position on the importance of dating the fact tags?  The way I see it, the purpose of WP:REF is to make sure that all statements are referenced, and those which are not referenced are either tagged or removed.  Dating the fact tags is, of course, helpful in maintenance, as well as in identifying long expired unsourced statements which should probably be removed, but this is not something our core policies specify as a "must-do".  If statements in infoboxes (not necessarily just in this one) can't be traced back to the text (which, I should add, they often can't be), surely we must take care to tag them accordingly?  Otherwise, why ask referencing anything at all?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:58, September 15, 2009 (UTC)
 * You are quite right that tagging every single statement is pointless, because the mere lack of reference would suffice. That, however, is not what WP:REF asks for.  WP:REF asks to tag every single statement that is "challenged or can potentially be challenged".  It is, of course, a rather broad definition still, but WP:REF also says that statements which are patently obvious or well-known ("Moon orbits the Earth", for example) do not need to be either referenced or tagged.  You don't seem to disagree with that and reserve tagging to statements where reasonable grounds for asking references exist.  Now, let me ask you this: when looking at Infobox Russian inhabited locality, do you see any parameters for which asking a reference is unreasonable?  When I was designing that infobox, I identified the following fields as those which probably don't need to be referenced: coordinates, flag/coat of arms, federal subject (in jurisdiction of which the place is located), and the official website.  Coordinates can be verified by using one of the many map services we are linking to, the flag and the coat of arms are images which we don't normally reference (if there is an accompanying article, the references would be available there anyway), the federal subject is pretty obvious from the coordinates, and a website is a website&mdash;one can check its merits on one's own.  The last two can, however, still be referenced if one so desires (I myself usually do), but a fact tag won't show up if they are left unreferenced.  Everything else (administrative data, municipal data, stats, foundation date, previous names, postal/dialing code) is very much questionable when unsourced.  That's the sole reason why I didn't think of the fact tags being left undated as of much of a problem&mdash;it's untagged and unsourced data that bother me the most!
 * By the way, I personally very rarely skip the references when working on the articles about places in Russia. I, however, am not the one responsible for the absolute majority of the infoboxes currently placed.  We've got some "serial infoboxers", if you will, who'd copy-paste a box across dozens of articles, sometimes forgetting to change something as basic as the name of a place.  If forceful showing of the "citation needed" tags discourages them from doing that, or if it encourages them to actually go through and find the sources, I see it only as a benefit.  And of course I make a point to go through the unreferenced articles in the area I am working on and to supply the actual references (Novosibirsk is one example).
 * I understand that your concern is choking of the unsourced/undated articles cat with thousands of articles because of this infobox. That, however, is not something I believe will happen.  There are about 150,000 populated places in Russia, but only ~1,000 or so are cities/towns.  Most of those cities/towns were using Infobox Russian city, which the new infobox has now replaced.  The majority of unsourced statements come directly from the articles which used the old infobox.  The old infobox had plenty of parameters which showed up whether they were filled out or not, so naturally people tended to fill them out (often with garbage, I might add).  With the new infobox, there is only one required field; everything else can be safely omitted.  If one is to add a box only with the name of the place, its federal subject, and the coordinates, there isn't going to be any "citation needed" tags generated as a result.  I just don't see the undated category continuing to grow indefinitely; what you are observing is chiefly the result of migration of one template.  Does that make you feel any better?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:00, September 15, 2009 (UTC)

Another 'bright idea' of mine
OK, I know you've poo-pooed my original idea for software reasons, so how about this one. Suppose we add a "factdate" parameter directly to Infobox Russian inhabited locality. That date would be the one to be used for the citation tags when those citation tags are invoked. I realize that 99% of people are not going to fill it out on their own, but if this infobox is to be added to your bot run, then the bot could add "factdate=" to the infobox in exact same manner it does it now with the "date=" for the cn template. I know it's far from an elegant solution, but it is something that works, solves both your problem (overpopulation of the undated unsourced category) and mine (unsourced facts should be tagged), and does not require much effort to implement. Would that be doable?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:20, September 15, 2009 (UTC)
 * It can be called "date", too. Other "date" fields in the infobox are "holiday", "adm_data_as_of", "mun_data_as_of", "area_as_of", "pop_latest_date", "established_date", "current_cat_date", "prev_name1_date" (1 through 5), and "abolished_date", but we can document a parameter called "date" proper as the date on which the infobox is being filled out.  I only suggested "factdate" because it's more descriptive; "date" proper works just as well.
 * As for the references, yes, each field that is supposed to be referenced has an equivalent field for the reference, which is the same name plus "_ref" (e.g., federal_subject vs. federal_subject_ref, pop_latest vs pop_latest_ref, etc.).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:39, September 15, 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks a bunch! If I happen to think of a more elegant solution, I will most certainly run it by you.  Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:54, September 15, 2009 (UTC)

Infobox follow-up
Actually, it would be more helpful if the bot wouldn't change the redirects. Redirects such as Infobox Russian city are planned to be converted to wrappers later on, so the "inhabited locality" core wouldn't need to be called directly. Can that be arranged?

Also, why not add the "date=" tag at the same time? Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:33, September 16, 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I'm not very good with regex expressions. Why not just specify templates which contain "Russian inhabited locality/city/town/etc." (basically, all redirects that point to the template) and then add "|date=month year" right before the closing curlies?  Why do you need to list every possible parameter in the regex?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:01, September 16, 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I get your point. Is there anything I can help with?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:01, September 16, 2009 (UTC)

Categories and merges
I finished bringing all categories with merge templates to wp:cfd. So there should be now more categories in Category:Items to be merged. To prevent incorrect tagging of categories with regular merge templates (as opposed to the specific templates at wp:cfd), I made a proposal at Template_talk:Mergefrom. See the tested versions on Template:Mergeto/sandbox. I'd appreciate it if you could update the three merge templates Merge, Mergeto, Mergefrom. Debresser (talk) 14:18, 29 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Rich? Debresser (talk) 07:12, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. Debresser (talk) 15:28, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Trun, Orne
SmackBot changed a few fields here. I don't mind the change, but would be happy if I knew what is the preferred use, since I made recently and  whiich wraps it so as to copy paste the Hungarian infobox without needing to change the fields. The latter can stay as it is, but the former I will change to use the preferred names if I know what they are (the doc at is bloody useless). SimonTrew (talk) 14:18, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Infobox Hungarian settlement should be deleted. We alreayd have infobox settlement in thousands of articles. I know because I created half of them and MJCdetroit used his bot to add them Himalayan   14:36, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I've placed  and  up for deletion. I would recommend requesitng a bot to transfer infoboxes not creating a seperate infobox just because France does. I'm certain the info could be transferred and converted to infobox settlement. Himalayan   14:50, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * To my way of thinking  is temporary, and no cause for concern.    is .  Rich Farmbrough, 14:52, 29 September 2009 (UTC).

Mmm, well when I looked at it initially I was concerned that it would be used to undo and replace the hard work I andMJCdetroit did a while back in adding standard infoboxes. If the template is used to only copy infoboxes directly from Hungarian wiki and they will be replaced later then it isn't so bad. But I would say getting a bot to transfer it first time would be much more efficient. Besides which, Romanian wikipedia is notoriously bad in terms of accuracy, Romanians on here such as User:Dahn have said this and I have experienced it myself when finding info about Romanian communes. The data on Romanian wiki is often false and a mess. I don't know if Hungarian wiki is the same but I would exercise extreme caution in copying data and info from these wikipedias. It would be better to use infobox settlement and then use a reliable population source to reference the data, like I'm doing with Romanian communes at present. Himalayan   14:59, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * It is theoretically, but I have done 101 of the Nederland infoboxes and there are still undocumented "features" to take into account. there will need to be a second pass to de-duplicate various maps and images, even so. Rich Farmbrough, 15:02, 29 September 2009 (UTC).

Netherlands and German wikipedia are generally the most reliable of wikipedias so you transferring data from infoboxes on Dutch wikipedia should be fine. My experience with Romanian wikipedia though makes me concerned about Hungarian wikipedia which is of a similar sort of level of development I believe and I would be careful in regards to Hungary. With the Netherlands though, although you have transferred the infoboxes a huge amount of manual work will be needed to fix the Dutch links of settlement hierarcy and to replace the coordinates and location map Netherlands like this. Himalayan   15:08, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Infobox settlement should support the different co-ordinate formats - that's a bit of a nightmare - would be so much easier of we had the real string functions. As far as the hierarchy goes it's simply a question of creating the right redirects.  Rich Farmbrough, 15:12, 29 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Also see this. Rich Farmbrough, 15:14, 29 September 2009 (UTC).


 * As far as deleting infobox Hungarian settlement etc, that would be fine if Infobox Settlement actually worked. But it is a right bastard, it tries to be too clever for example it wants numeric values for area and population but the documentation does not say so. The wrapping templates yeah you can call them temporary if you want. Basic software engineering: Everything can be solved by another layer of indirection. So you want everyone to use Infobox Settlement but it is not good enough. There are 101 fields half of which do not work. Or I can wrap it and make an infobox that works but I can just slam in the text and It Just Works (TM). That means for the thousand or so Hungarian articles we are starting on, doing about one a day, we can just slam in the infobox and It Just Works. And if I need to change it, I change the template, once, not the article. Or, look at other articles that use class=geobox and lay it out as a table themselves. I think you are moving in the wrong direction if you insist everyone uses Infobox settlement and the others are deprecated and yet Infobox settlement does not work properly. It also fucks up on coordinates in a big way, between decimal and sexagesimal coordinates. That needs fixed, particularly it does not like if you put north or east. SimonTrew (talk) 15:15, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I am incline to agree that Geoboxes are good. Also modularisation would really help - as we did at Article issues. Trouble is Settlement grew like Topsy, rather than being thought through, although clearly a lot of good work has gone into it.  Rich Farmbrough, 15:22, 29 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Converting Simon should be relatively straightforward, provide me an example of where you believe infobox settlement doesn't work and I'll see what I can do. Usually it is a simple error like coordinate type. Himalayan   15:32, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Walcheren doesn't display COROP. Rich Farmbrough, 15:43, 29 September 2009 (UTC).

Because the |postal_code_type       = was missing from the first one so it affected the display of the second one and confused it, also the first post code section was featured below the second one further up..  Himalayan   16:28, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Thansk. But as Simon says this shows the template is not robust. I fixed up a whole bunch of errors. None of them a big deal. Rich Farmbrough, 16:42, 29 September 2009 (UTC).

It isn't perfect, you're right, but minor faults can almost always be sorted out. The only places where I see otherwise redundant infoboxes in having use if if the information given in the tmeplate is so specialised that it requires at least least 5 added fields in the blank spaces to draw it up so it probably best having its own template which is specifically designed. Unfortunately most of the people who create such templates only do so out of minor minsunderstandings and difficulties which they turn into something like making sweeping statements that "they don't work". The difference are very minor between what Simon currently has to offer and the template used in 99% of other articles. If he wanted to copy infoboxes from Hungairan wikipedia I'd support that on a temporary nasis as long as there is an editor such as yourself converting to a standard english template later. What I don't want is a huge mess created which disrupts the consistency of the thousands of places we've already edited and cleaned up just because of a minor problem one editor had with the template. Himalayan   19:13, 29 September 2009 (UTC)


 * But hang on Himalayan, this took me bloody ages to get the coordinates working. |if you look at the history of those articles you will see about fifty changes to get the coords working. And everything you try it doesn't want to know. And it has a real hump if you do decimal degrees and then have minutes and seconds. Oh and it would like east and north. Oh then it won't like them. So y ou put it quite correcltly as lat_m lat_d lat_s (which I know is well overprecise but that is different story) and IT DOES NOT WORK. And you go to the documentation and it does not tell you anything about how it wants it. I found by trial and error that PUTTING A SPACE IN THE FIELD MEANS IT DOES NOT WORK. So I presume that it uses underneath and that it is very fussy about spaces. This is all well and good but it DOES NOT SAY SO. So a humble editor like me lovingly slaps the coordinates in, manually or with copy paste, and then wonders why his town suddenly is in the middle of russia at 49.49 North 49.49 east. (The article I edited happened to be at 49.49 north, 17.49 east. So I had to test which 49 it was getting wrong.)


 * I am more more willing to improve the doc at Infobox settlement. But without that doc, it is not surprising that people wrap it to make their own. And it is not just the French. See, for example, the talk at Template_Talk:Convert where it was suggested I look at the Australian Infobox.


 * The problem with the Infobox Settlement is that it does not disclose if it is going to do the pretty printing and conversions, or if it is not. It directs one to Windsor, Ontario for examples that are not there in the article at all. No doubt they were five years ago, but they are not now. So, the documentation is absolutely shit. Rich me and you can sort that out and I am more than happy to help and give you the light of my experience. The template is good, the documentation is crap.


 * My sincere best wishes SimonTrew (talk) 12:38, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Boskoop edit
Hi, I reverted this edit. I don't know much about this infobox, but it broke something. Garion96 (talk) 19:10, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * No problem. It just needs co-ordinates.

Délegyháza needs fixing as does all of the Hungarian templates you added... Himalayan   19:22, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I would strongly suggest we request a bot to transfer info like Kotniski did with the Czech Republic. This is creating a huge number of errors. Himalayan   19:30, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * There's only 230 of them. Rich Farmbrough, 19:33, 29 September 2009 (UTC).

As far as I'm aware you've haven't transferred population figures and density. That means extra work will have to be done later just to transfer this. If they are converted to english and a standard infobox later this is fine as a erapper template, but I think you are making unnecessary work to do later. It is still far better to do what Kotbot did and copy them directly but into english straight off using a bot like this. Himalayan   20:12, 29 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Density is semi-deprecated, but I think manual is the plan for population at the moment. Of course I could screen scrape it. Rich Farmbrough, 20:14, 29 September 2009 (UTC).

The problem is if I am to add the population manually I will have to overide your hungarian language infoboxes and replace them. You say there are only 230 that this template will be used in? Himalayan   20:21, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * 226 as far as I can see.  List.  The Hungarian infobox takes a field population_total I think - better not replace thm until I can deal with the fields listed here.  You can find the population figures here, with references. Rich Farmbrough, 22:09, 29 September 2009 (UTC).


 * Hang on. Someone here is going too quickly and just rest and let me tell you. The population figures come from the Hungarian Central Statistical Office, as does the area. The denist is then worked out from that, by simple division, to two decimal places.


 * The Hungarian equivalent articles have a sub-article that gives those figures, which is transcluded. I decided, rightly or wrongly, possibly both, that it was too much effort to put that on editors, so I added fields to Hungarian infobox settlement (wot I wrote, it is not the same one as in the archives from years ago) so you add the KSH code, like a French INSEE code, and it refs that. It does not work properly cos as far as I can tell you can't transclude inside a http ref. But it is best, I thnk, to let it stand. I certainly want to improve the ref but more information is better, I think.


 * Infobox Hungarian settlement takes population_total and refs it and with area does the division for population density. I am quite happy to remove that if you think it is too much. BUT IT WORKS. And saves a huge amount of time when translating. And I am not the only person to use it, and have been thanked on my user talk page for makuing it. The Template:Magyar település infobox also IT JUST WORKS. It simply maps Hungarian names to English names. All documented, all  have test cases, all works. Now when Infobox settlement is documented properly and has test cases, e.g. what it buggers up with coordinates (I got 49N 49E out of it the other day for a Hungarian article at somewhere that happened to be 49.49 north 19.49 east) then if it can document its peculiar and perverse behaviour on that, rather than my simple templates that actually work and do a practical job, then I will be more inclined to say they are useless. In the mean time, NO they do the job they were designed to do, and do it bloody well. Fix Infobox settlement (and I will more than happy help or show you where help is needed) before buggering up editors' practical work that is making the encyclopaedia better.

I dunno where you get 226 uses from. Since I only made it a couple of weeks ago, and I only know of one article that uses it beyond those I have done, I doubnt Template:Infobox settlement has that used. If it does, either I have fixed something that was broken, or it was a red link before. I so doubt that 226, or you are talking about a different thing. My sincere best wishes SimonTrew (talk) 00:21, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

If you copy the population and reference it I am fine with this providing at a later date they are replaced with standard. What I was concerned with was that Simon planned on overwriting every Hungarian article previously worked on and standardised for the sake of Hungary having its own settlement template. Do you understand? I'll ask Plastikfork to deprecate it in a few weeks. Himalayan  10:20, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Hungarian infobox templates
Hi rich I put my reply on my user talk page. If you would prefer it here, please feel free to move it (just let me know you have!)  SimonTrew (talk) 22:52, 29 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Rich, the problem is twofold really. The Magyar etc I can see an easy point that it is not English, it is er Hungarian. The idea here is you can cut and paste from Hungarian Wikipédia to English and It Just Works. And indeed it does. You do one minor correction for numbers and It Just Works. Considering that most of the Hungarian places are stubs not translated at all, every little helps. I know this is not perfect, but it takes me and User:Monkap about half a day to get each article done, and there are two thousand to go. I totally appreciate the concern, but I think on balance it is helpful to have them.


 * As you can see, I am not exactly keeping quiet on them, I made a new category and linked it all up and asked on Convert and so forth. The  I guess is the one  you are worrying about. That is a simple translation, and only has those cases, I researched and asked others whether it may be 20,000 more but no, it is just those. I do appreciate that it should be English the whole point is that it is to translate Hungarian (Magyar) to English.


 * At, for example, NUTS of Hungary I have put in the Hungarian names for places because, er, on the map pictures they are in Hungarian, so the table makes little sense without the Hungarian names. I know this is not ideal, and I have downloaded the maps and will make plain English versions of them. But in the mean time it is better, I think, at least to let the text relate to the map.


 * As for the Template:Magyar település infobox, this is obviously to translate the text. The idea is basically to stop people having to add data that is available elsewhere (and to add it inconsistently). So the names deliberately are those that are used on Hungarian Wikipedia. This happens on Australian and French infoboxes too (see [[Template Talk:Convert where I asked advice over this). The Hungarian articles of course are only in metric so we need to do conversions etc too, which it magically does.


 * It works. If you remove it, you make the encyclopaedia worse. If you keep it, I make it better.

My very best wishes and thank you for everything you do, I know you are trying to make it better too. SimonTrew (talk) 23:43, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

You did an excellent job cleaning up what you did in adding the Hungarian templates might I say. Better than I had anticipated.. Himalayan   11:18, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

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SmackBot
I'm new to wikipedia, and have not been able to figure out how to include references and external links onto my article. Any help you can give me would be much appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Journalist0012 (talk • contribs) 04:17, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Example edits made. Rich Farmbrough, 14:25, 30 September 2009 (UTC).

Algeria
Hi. I was wondering if you could use AWB to stub sort Category:Algeria geography stubs like this. I've done Adrar province but it is probably best done using AWB. Probably best to go through the templates which show districts and communes at WikiProject Algeria/Provincial templates using the new stub tags made at WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals/2009/September scroll down a bit and you'll see them. For some provinces as yet we only have a few articles so the task is probably not big as we have a lot of missing articles on districts and communes. I thought stub sorting by province would be needed if they are all covered at a later date as more provinces beomce viable for their own categories. As yet they all remain stub categories as Algeria geography stubs until some provinces become viable or we perhaps find a way to split Algeria regionally like Southern Algerian geography stubs for instance. Himalayan  11:07, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Here are the tags. You can delete these later from your talk page... Himalayan   11:10, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

OK thanks for doing that. Let me know when you sorted it all. Regards. Himalayan   16:01, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Notification
I have redirected Template:Section rewrite and Template:Sectionrewrite to Template:Cleanup-rewrite. Debresser (talk) 11:45, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I have cleaned out Category:Deprecated templates. You will appreciate that I have searched for all the original dates of deprecation. Also notice the creation of a new subcategory, a cleanout of Category:Deprecated citation templates where somebody had been adding templates he considered unneeded, the nomination of a few templates on wp:tfd, removal of transclusions of several deprecated templates, and general fixes along the way (like this series of edits to convert Coor to Coord). Debresser (talk) 14:08, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
 * well, good stuff. Rich Farmbrough, 14:11, 30 September 2009 (UTC).

Talkback
you are quite right of course and intelligent and wise and good faith brilliant editor. I just need your advice about the best way to proceed. SimonTrew (talk) 12:24, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Request
Hi! I saw your name on the recent changes page. Please block this user for 3RR. Thank you. Oda Mari (talk) 14:30, 30 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I read your message. Thank you. Happy editing! Oda Mari (talk) 14:44, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Is there a bot that...
... replaces hard-coded units with their templated conversion versions? I've just re-written space debris and there's a bunch of units. Going through by hand would take a while so maybe there's a way to automate? Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:06, 29 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Haven't applied for an FA lately? :-) Yes, there's lots and lots of people who claim other people are in this group. The intersection with reality might be zero, but... Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:14, 29 September 2009 (UTC)


 * See at or if you dare at WP:MOSNUM. Because an editor's judgment is needed to decide the precision and so forth, it is probably uproductive for a bot to do this. SimonTrew (talk) 16:28, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Question
Rich, what does  in templates do? That if I write  then ...? Debresser (talk) 15:41, 30 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I do not understand a thing. Perhaps you could explain me with an example. From Mergeto e.g. And why doesn't Merge have it, then? Debresser (talk) 15:50, 30 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I understand. And Mbox has a demospace parameter, I bet. Debresser (talk) 16:09, 30 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Please have a look at Template:Mergeto/sandbox. At the end I have an idea how to unite all three merge templates. Feel free to improve. Debresser (talk) 16:09, 30 September 2009 (UTC)


 * In this case editors would continue to use the same templates as up to now. The redirects would do the job. Would this code work (including the passing of the "direction" parameter from the redirects)? Debresser (talk) 16:22, 30 September 2009 (UTC)


 * And putting the "direction" parameter in front of #REDIRECT won't work either? Debresser (talk) 16:32, 30 September 2009 (UTC)


 * In that case let's forget about it. Debresser (talk) 16:43, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Templates for deletion nomination of Template:Auto isbn
Template:Auto isbn has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. <b style="color:#3773A5;">Cyber</b> cobra (talk) 21:51, 30 September 2009 (UTC)