User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2012 February

Template:Cleanup broken
Your recent edits to Template:Cleanup broke something. Even the view of the template on its documentation page is now screwed up. I suggest you revert to 15:43, 27 December 2011‎ until you can figure out what went wrong. &mdash; QuicksilverT @ 17:34, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

AN discussion
I've started a discussion at WP:AN. Fram (talk) 13:12, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of New Age Diamonds


A tag has been placed on New Age Diamonds requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be about an organization or company, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is important or significant: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, such articles may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, contest the deletion by clicking on the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion". Doing so will take you to the talk page where you will find a pre-formatted place for you to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. You can also visit the page's talk page directly to give your reasons, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, you can contact one of these administrators to request that the administrator userfy the page or email a copy to you. Drmies (talk) 01:40, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Formal organization ( revised and updated)
A revised version of WP:Formal organization is proposed for inclusion in the article Wikipedia and a RfC is posted. It is found here. Can you kindly take a look at this request for comment?

Thank you in advance. Brews ohare (talk) 17:39, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

951K edits
Even with automated tools... that... is a large number. I have seen your work over a long time (far longer than Shajure has existed), and you do good stuff... and lots of it. I know you don't do it for a random thank-you... but thank you nevertheless.Shajure (talk) 14:38, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Appreciated - positive feedback helps enormously. Rich Farmbrough, 14:57, 25 January 2012 (UTC).

Date in bad documentation
I noticed you removed the date from Bad documentation. It used to work when the template was still using Ambox. When it was changed to use Ombox, to avoid the template loop I asked you about above (nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more say no more), that functionality was lost. I added it back in the old-fashioned way, as you can see e.g. on Template:Infobox ukcave. Debresser (talk) 02:30, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I think this is OK now. Rich Farmbrough, 14:07, 2 January 2012 (UTC).


 * I think so too. Now, what about the template loop (see section above)? Debresser (talk) 16:52, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

A New Year for the DNB, and launch of "volume of the month"
See WT:WP DNB for a collaboration that I'm in the course of setting up. Everyone who signed up to the WikiProject for the Dictionary of National Biography is being notified, while there is still time to alter the way of working if need be. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:27, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Template:DNB JMR
You created a page at Template/DNB JMR. I moved it to Template:DNB JMR under the impression that it was your original intention? ... disco spinster   talk  03:04, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

ANI notice
A discussion regarding your edits can be found at WP:ANI. Fram (talk) 13:39, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

African revolution
I've recreated African revolution as a dab after a sort of inconclusive RFD verdict; however I've been a bit more concise than you suggested (I've just linked to events specifically referred to as revolutions, rather than uprisings, coups, etc) so you might want to take a look and flesh it out a bit. – hysteria18 (talk) 18:22, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It looks pretty good. I added pointers to a couple of lists under See also. Rich Farmbrough, 00:53, 26 January 2012 (UTC).

555-Crazy-1234
Check this diff! mob contained a mobile telephone number! -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:26, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
 *  Rich Farmbrough, 22:28, 10 February 2012 (UTC).

Template:Rescue
Could you handle restoring the history and talk page of Rescue as was done with Expand? I asked Ironholds about it, but he is swamped with other community stuff right now and doesn't have time to work on it. --Tothwolf (talk) 03:50, 11 February 2012 (UTC) ✅Rich Farmbrough, 10:56, 13 February 2012 (UTC).

The Signpost: 16 January 2012

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Status update: Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 46
Template:. *

Edits by:
 * 1) Rich Farmbrough at 21:44, 16 January 2012 (UTC).
 * 2) Madman at 21:09, 20 January 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Madman at 21:09, 20 January 2012 (UTC). Last edit by me at 21:44, 16 January 2012 (UTC). Last edit by anyone was by Madman at 21:09, 20 January 2012 (UTC). Bottom edit was by Slakr at 21:09, 20 January 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 21:21, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Rich Farmbrough, 22:47, 21 January 2012 (UTC).

Blackford County
Hello Rich. I noticed you recently ran the AWB on Blackford County, Indiana, making some minor cleanups. Bots are currently beyond my ability, but can be especially helpful fixing my en–dash problem. Could you please run the same AWB on the Blackford County Courthouse article? TwoScars (talk) 21:41, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Of course. Rich Farmbrough, 21:57, 21 January 2012 (UTC).

The Signpost: 23 January 2012

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The Great Arkansas Barnstar

 * My pleasure! Rich Farmbrough, 17:06, 2 January 2012 (UTC).

A barnstar for you!

 * Thanks! Rich Farmbrough, 01:33, 25 January 2012 (UTC).

Category:Wikipedia articles with citations needing edition
Hi, a month ago, you created Category:Wikipedia articles with citations needing edition. It's currently empty and there is no indication what template fills it. Is the category actually used by some template or not? If it is, I think the category page should link to that template. If it's not used, I think it should be deleted. User&lt;Svick&gt;.Talk; 18:28, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ Rich Farmbrough, 20:06, 4 February 2012 (UTC).

UnHelpful Pixie Bot
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Order_of_battle_for_the_battle_in_Berlin&action=historysubmit&diff=475652899&oldid=475649910 Fix cleanup tag - typo in month Feruary => January. Feruary 2012 => January 2012] -- PBS (talk) 22:44, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, fixed, changed from Hamming to Levenshtein. Though I miss my old AWB regexs... Rich Farmbrough, 23:51, 7 February 2012 (UTC).

The Signpost: 06 February 2012

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Out of Interest
I noted your delisting of the RfC/U after it was already relisted. I actually went to Tarc's userpage and asked him to explain himself.

He never did answer my question and basically told me to, uh, "sit down, put a cork in it".

Needless to say, I believe this is one of those occasions where my response was justified. CycloneGU (talk) 00:39, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Unexplained template move
Hi there. Could you please assist me in reverting a template move done by an editor without first seeking community consensus? I've tried to revert the move, but somehow I must have done it wrong. Here is the template: Template:Infobox African Movie Academy Awards Thank you. Amsaim (talk) 17:43, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I think you did the move back correctly. I'm not sure quite why you moved it back, a template that can be used on hundreds of pages is better than a template that can only be used on a handful. Rich Farmbrough, 17:48, 27 January 2012 (UTC).


 * see Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_January_27, and I am contesting the speedy deletion of the generic template, since it is under discussion. Frietjes (talk) 17:57, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * This is what you ought to have done in the first place: sending the template to tfd to get community consensus first. thank you. Amsaim (talk) 17:59, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It's "Bold, Revert, Discuss", so it's all good. Rich Farmbrough, 11:45, 28 January 2012 (UTC).

TMZ
Although I agree that TMZ.com is not largely to be considered a reliable source for controversial statements about the biographies of living persons, I must point out that, in cases such as that of Sam the koala), TMZ.com can be considered a reliable source for statements like "TMZ.com officially apologized for having made hurtful statements". DS (talk) 13:12, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Of course. Rich Farmbrough, 13:31, 14 February 2012 (UTC).

Date templates
In this edit your AWB again added a date template without any intrinsic cause. Please Stop That! Debresser (talk) 15:43, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * So if someone were to add a reference with a different date style, that would be a good thing? Rich Farmbrough, 16:28, 26 November 2011 (UTC).


 * Шn my understanding, these templates are first and foremost for the date formats as they are used in the text of the article itself. And even then, and regardless of that, if there is no intrinsic reason for an article to use a certain date format (e.g. an article about an English township should use dmy, and an article about a Canadian province mdy), I don't think incidental usage of a certain type of date format should be used as an indicator. Perhaps if there were five instances, e.g., all in the same date format, that would qualify as more than incidental usage. Has this been discussed somewhere? Debresser (talk) 22:53, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually Canadian usage varies even more widely than American (our Canadian colleagues have told us), although there seems to be a surprising consistency in the WP articles. In terms of difference between ref dates and content dates there is a red-herring in that when wee were writing the MoS we did not want to prohibit (preferably uniform) 1999-12-31 date style in references. On a later discussion proposing that all access dates be in that style, at least two otherwise intelligent editors swore blind that they were incapable of understanding dates in that format, until they were explained to them - otherwise I would have backed that proposal to the hilt. In terms of first usage there is no de minimus requirement, and nor should there be one, it would result in (even more) endless squabbling ("yes there were x dmy dates. but only because you converted my x-1 mdy and one ymd").  If there is a good reason to change (which is really only "national ties") it should just be changed with a suitable edit summary. Extensive discussions on date styles will be found in the archive of MoSNUM talk. Rich Farmbrough, 13:13, 27 November 2011 (UTC).


 * So here you are, saying the same thing as I do. So then why did you add a date format when there was no good reason? Pray tell. Debresser (talk) 14:59, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm saying that the reason for accepting different date formats in refs is to allow (DMY, YMD) and (MDY,YMD) not (DMY,MDY) or (MDY,DMY). Rich Farmbrough, 15:04, 27 November 2011 (UTC).


 * I see. But that still doesn't resolve our argument. Should a date format template be added in a case where 1. there is no substantial reason to prefer one date format over the other, and 2. the only practical uniformity is in references, while the article itself does not have any dates? Debresser (talk) 13:30, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * &lt;I haven't forgotten this, I'm just hoping to get the messy threads put to bed fairly soon> Rich Farmbrough, 00:16, 8 December 2011 (UTC).


 * I read that before. :) Debresser (talk) 22:44, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
 * OK the principle is one of broken symmetry. Once a style is established it should not be thoughtlessly changed. There could be various criteria for "established", however there is no reason I can see over and above a complete cromulence with one or other style. Making more complex rules would, to my mind, be counter-productive. Rich Farmbrough, 19:32, 28 December 2011 (UTC).


 * That sounds reasonable. But you should also take into account that once the bot tagged an article as using this style or the other, all coming editors will be expected to adhere to this style. Therefore I think that the bot should be reluctant in tagging articles, and tag them only in the most clear of cases. Date formatting used in citation templates does not count as such, IMHO. Debresser (talk) 20:06, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I think this is a plae where we just have different opinions.Rich Farmbrough, 15:08, 16 February 2012 (UTC).

Re:Stats
Okay, I've been studying Perl, and today I finally took a crack at the script you sent me:

It's a command with the syntax

You use, because that's the module where " " is.

The " " lines set literal variables to the values provided.

is a looping command, and in this case works on the default variable. The default here appears to be each successive entry in the list specified.

The angle brackets  turn the script into a command that is executable from the command prompt in the same way that a Unix command is.

In the loop, you substitute all spaces for underscores, to make the entries work in URLs.

Then you print the current entry to the screen, but  would have done the same thing.

You follow that with pulling in the output from toolserver. For example http://stats.grok.se/en/201109/Outline_of_geography. In the same operation, you assign the output to the variable.

Then you employ the bind operator to specify a pattern (regular expression) match from toolserver's output (taking the match from the content of the  variable), for the purpose of using the automatic match variable. The  matches digits and the   means one or more of them in a row.

Then you assign the matched string to  using a cumulative numeric assignment operator. Because it's a numeric operator, Perl automatically strips out the non-numerical stuff from the string (well, not quite, the stuff on the left of the numbers is set to zero, while the stuff on the right is dropped).

Basically, you've scraped the monthly page views from toolserver's output.

Then you print that value to the screen and advance to a new line.

And the loop repeats on the next item in the list.

When the loop is done, you repeat the final total at the end.

I'm ready for my next one. Please send me another simple but useful Wikipedia-related script. The Transhumanist 01:48, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

P.S.: Thank you for the Strawberry recommendation. It works fine.

P.P.S.: is there a collection of perl scripts on Wikipedia somewhere?


 * Good work. The angle brackets actually take next line of input.  If you ran this without the list file, the script would take input from the command line, one item at a time. The input from the angle brackets is automatically assigned to $_.  (As you can see, perl does a lot of stuff automatically for us.) I'll ferret around for something tomorrow, and see what I can find.


 * I'm not sure if there's much simple perl floating around, perhaps we should start a library. But there are quite a few bots, Anomie's code is rather beautiful, if a little obscure. Rich Farmbrough, 02:32, 9 December 2011 (UTC).


 * In fact a little challenge:
 * get the stats for the previous year for one page
 * output the data in a format suitable for a wiki-page - using a by-month table and a year total on the right.
 * do the same for a list of pages
 * We could build this into a little bot.
 * Rich Farmbrough, 02:36, 9 December 2011 (UTC).


 * Yes, I'm intersted.


 * On a similar vein, a script or bot that I have great need for is one that builds a chart (similar to this) of subjects, with columns showing comparitively the monthly traffic for outline, portal, and category corresponding to each subject listed. It could take input from a list similar to the script you sent me.


 * Is that something you'd be interested in helping to create? The Transhumanist 03:50, 9 December 2011 (UTC)


 * OF course, that is where we started, wasn't it? Rich Farmbrough, 11:12, 9 December 2011 (UTC).


 * What's the plan? To pass code back and forth, or wiki-develop it on a project page? The Transhumanist 00:45, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 December 2011

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The Signpost: 02 January 2012

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Request for Interview Regarding Wikipedia Bots
Greetings-

My name is Randall Livingstone, and I am a graduate student at the University of Oregon, currently collecting data for my dissertation on Wikipedia editors who create and use bots and assisted editing tools, as well as editors involved in the initial and/or ongoing creation of bot policies on Wikipedia. As a member of the bot community and bot operator, I would very much like to interview you for the project at a time and in a method that is most convenient for you (Gchat, another IM client, Skype, email, telephone, etc.). I am completely flexible and can work with your schedule. The interview will take approximately 30-45 minutes.

My dissertation project has been approved both by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the University of Oregon, and by the Research Committee at the Wikimedia Foundation. You can find more information on the project on my meta page.

Please let me know if you have any questions, and I look forward to hearing from you to set up a time to chat. Thank you very much.

Randall Livingstone, School of Journalism & Communication, University of Oregon

UOJComm (talk) 04:10, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 09 January 2012

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Less asked
As to the issues in a section above:
 * 1) Do you have a solution for the template loop problem of Ambox? It has been suggested to remove the auto-documentation feature if this issue can't be resolved. Please see Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Article_message_boxes.
 * 2) Fix now can use both "substcheck" and "subst". I replaced most instances of "substcheck" by "subst". Could you check whether I missed any, and then remove the "substcheck" parameter from Fix? Debresser (talk) 03:36, 15 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for doing the first. I am hoping you will take the time to do the second as well. Debresser (talk) 16:23, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you for doing that also. Please feel free to comment on Template_talk:Fix. Debresser (talk) 00:07, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Article Feedback Tool
Hey guys; apologies for the belated nature of this notification; as you can probably imagine, the whole blackout thing kinda messed with our timetables :P. Just a quick reminder that we've got an office hours session tomorrow at 19:00 in #wikimedia-office, where we'll be discussing the results of the hand-coding and previewing some new changes. Hope to see you there :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:47, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Your AWB edit to 1996–97 Birmingham City F.C. season
Hello. This edit removed the names of templates Fb rbr footer and Fb rs footer from calls to those templates, leaving the article in a bit of a mess. On a lesser point, it also added a date parameter to those template calls. I thought this parameter was only used if no source (s=) parameter is present; am I mistaken? I've undone the edit. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:02, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The first is a mystery which I'm investigating (also checking for other cases - none so far.). As to the second, it's just a matter of simplicity to give these templates dates regardless, if there is a source then the date is ignored. Rich Farmbrough, 13:42, 20 January 2012 (UTC).


 * And you've removed those template names again with this edit to 2008–09 Birmingham City F.C. season... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:18, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, fixed. Thanks again. Rich Farmbrough, 15:24, 22 January 2012 (UTC).

Ted Nelson
PixieBot is flagging a dead link on Ted Nelson. The link isn't dead -- at least not when I've checked it. I reverted, and PixieBot reverted my change. MarkBernstein (talk) 18:07, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is reapplying a date to the . The was added by an IP, see history. I reverted the IP.  Rich Farmbrough, 18:11, 20 January 2012 (UTC).

Wikipedia:Peer review for Pope John Paul II
Hi Rich, I was wondering whether you'd be interested in this? Kind Regards -- Marek. 69  talk  02:57, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I added a couple of comments and made a couple of changes.  Rich Farmbrough, 00:54, 26 January 2012 (UTC).

Just a heads up...
Hey, you might want to figure out why Smackbot did this, as there is a big possibility that it has done other edits similar to this, messing up a lot of pages in the process. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 16:48, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The underlying cause was resolved at the time. Someone futzed with a redirect. It is possible to do a retroactive search, but it will take some time. Rich Farmbrough, 12:15, 24 January 2012 (UTC).


 * Ok 60,000 of the maximum window of 160,000 edits are checked. So far only a handful of affected, all fixed now. Rich Farmbrough, 19:48, 28 January 2012 (UTC).


 * This is a great example of a bot operator taking responsibility for their edits. Good work. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:07, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * All done. Rich Farmbrough, 00:29, 8 February 2012 (UTC).

office hours
Another notification, guys; Article Feedback Tool office hours on Friday at 19:00 UTC in #wikimedia-office :). If you can't attend, drop me a note and I'll send you the logs when we're done. We're also thinking of moving it to thursday at a later time: say, 22:00 UTC. Speak up if that'd appeal more :) Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 January 2012

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Template:multiple issues
A while back a placed a request on Template talk:Multiple issues that hasn't received any feedback. The request was that the linkrot issue of multiple issues be changed to resemble template:linkrot in including a link to the reftool. As someone who has worked on this complicated template could you comment on my request? RJFJR (talk) 17:21, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ Rich Farmbrough, 20:33, 2 February 2012 (UTC).


 * Thank you. RJFJR (talk) 00:12, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Femto for WikiProject Christianity
Hi Rich! Been a while since you setup WPConservatism with Femto--and it's working marvelously btw. WP:CHRISTIANITY has been without a RecentChanges update since SQLBot went inactive in 2008 WikiProject Christianity/Watchlist (OK to change the title). I forget whether Femto uses a template or a category. Anyway we don't have a cat for all articles (although easy enough to modify the template). The template is WikiProject Christianity. If you could setup Femto for us that would be great!!! – Lionel (talk) 11:03, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * 'Tis done. Rich Farmbrough, 18:27, 4 February 2012 (UTC).


 * Thanks Rich for the fast work. It is always a pleasure and a delight working with you. You are one of the most valuable editors we have on Wikipedia. – Lionel (talk) 23:46, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll second the thank you (perhaps, as it's WP:CHRISTIANITY, an "amen" would be more apropos). &bull; Astynax talk 00:24, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm getting a warm glow inside. Rich Farmbrough, 00:25, 5 February 2012 (UTC).


 * With any luck, it isn't heartburn. Anyway, although some may consider this a bit over the top, I think it is called for.


 * Thanks for that! Rich Farmbrough, 00:37, 14 February 2012 (UTC).

Attribution required
As was explained to you a number of times (e.g. in Administrators' noticeboard/Archive227 and the subsequent Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography/Archive 2, your copies from DNB, assuming they are not copyright violations (see the end of the discussion you started at Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems), need to be correctly attributed, i.e. indicating that the DNB is not only the source for the information, but the actual source for the text. This can easily be done by using the "vb" parameter with the Template:Cite DNB, or by changing to the DNB template, as shown here. Plagiarism has more info on this. Please also take care with your links, which often go to the wrong article or a disambiguation page, and please remove the DNB drafts category once the articles are in the mainspace. Fram (talk) 09:29, 9 February 2012 (UTC) Rich Farmbrough, 14:14, 13 February 2012 (UTC).
 * "As was explained to you a number of times" - this is rude.
 * "assuming they are not copyright violations" - I am perfectly aware of the discussion I started, and we had discussed DNB there. It's a shame that the templates which would have allowed rapid assessment of where there might be copyright problems in DNB articles were deleted, but it is not surprising that you supported this stupidity, since I created the templates and you have repeatedly either deleted or attempted to delete what I create.
 * The drafts category was requested, but since the great Fram wants it deleted who are we to argue?
 * There is really no need for you to come here and issue detailed instructions to another editor. Had you simply pointed out the "vb" parameter, then you might have come across as helpful. As it is you come across as arrogant, confrontational and didactic.


 * If an experienced editor is well aware of problems with his articles but doesn't do anything to address them, it becomes necessary to be more blunt and more explicit in the instructions he needs to follow. I used to think that gentle reminders were sufficient, but with you they don't seem to be. I don't really care how you perceive my posts any more, as long as they get the job done. Can you indicate how and when the "drafts" category was requested? It's a bad idea, we don't put "drafts" in the mainspace, drafts are for userspace or projectspace. As for the DNB templates; you didn't use them on the earlier articles you created, they were unused when deleted. I only try to delete the errors you create, not the good things. Fram (talk) 09:28, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * It is a foolish person indeed who does not care how he is perceived. Despite my enormous patience with you, you do not win back any of the respect you have squandered by behaving in an uncivilised way.  This results in what you say being relegated to the lowest priority.
 * And the DNB templates were used on earlier articles I created, as usual you wasted a lot of good work, and created more unnecessary effort.
 * You are wrong about drafts. All articles are drafts. Development in user pages is an option.  Also projectspace is a bad word to use, since it may refer to the project i.e. the encyclopaedia.

Rich Farmbrough, 11:06, 15 February 2012 (UTC).

Proposal to split Park51 to Ground Zero controversy
Hi. You're receiving this message because you recently edited Park51. Ed Poor has proposing splitting that off part of that article to create Ground Zero controversy. We're discussing it on the talk page here and would appreciate your feedback. Raul654 (talk) 23:47, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thought this already happened. Rich Farmbrough, 10:56, 13 February 2012 (UTC).

Removal of TMZ
Can you stop utilizing automated tool to remove the source. You are adding a cn tag where it is not needed. Tb hotch .™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions.  21:15, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes I know. I was going back to that item. Thanks for changing it anyway. Rich Farmbrough, 21:18, 13 February 2012 (UTC).

The Act of Settlement 1701 (O.S. 1700)
I thank you very much for your help indeed. I am still relatively quite new in all of this. 213.249.218.39 (talk) 00:21, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
 * You are welcome. Only one of the "Use X English" templates is needed, it is effectively a note to avoid mixing varieties on the same article - thinks like "colour", "honour", "sulfur" etc. Rich Farmbrough, 00:43, 14 February 2012 (UTC).

MSU Interview
Dear Rich Farmbrough,

My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, where it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.

So a few things about the interviews:
 * Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
 * Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
 * All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
 * All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
 * The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.

Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead.

If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.

Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) 07:26, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Young June Sah --Yjune.sah (talk) 03:46, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Talkback
Dougweller (talk) 17:39, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

—David Levy —David Levy 20:21, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Watch
Hi Rich. Might you have a look at this and please advise? Watch and User_talk:The_Magnificent_Clean-keeper. Bests. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 16:18, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Well it looks ok, I think you have established that it is not a random book about watches, so there should be no problems. I guess you could have given the other editor a while to reply (BRD), but I see no harm right now. Rich Farmbrough, 17:17, 17 February 2012 (UTC).


 * Thanks so very much, Rich. Bests. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 21:59, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Foxconn
Hi Rich. User:206.180.101.2 continues to remove the same sourced information from the Foxconn article. Might you look into it? Bests. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 17:09, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Left a note. Clearly the article is a little contentious. Rich Farmbrough, 19:39, 23 February 2012 (UTC).


 * Thanks very much, Rich. It is a (contentious) complicated issue in general but it's been getting a lot of coverage here in the States. Bests. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 20:04, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

- - - Hi Rich. Other anonymous users are doing it now, like User:76.188.129.97. I don't know exactly can be done. Semi-Protect from anons? Dunno. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 01:33, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Rich. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 02:26, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Your timestamp.
How is it you are manipulating your timestamp? Does your signature end with  and you sign with  ?— cyberpower  ( Chat )( WP Edits: 517,697,904 ) 18:28, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I sign with " ~". Rich Farmbrough, 22:02, 19 February 2012 (UTC).


 * What manipulates the timestamp?— cyberpower ( Chat )( WP Edits: 517,764,060 ) 01:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Rich Farmbrough,,   (UTC).


 * Rich Farmbrough, 01:30, 20 February 2012 (UTC).


 * Thanks.— cyberpower ( Chat )( WP Edits: 517,765,199 ) 01:34, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

ANI note
Hi Rich--I left a response to your note on ANI, "Continued legal threats by blocked user". Thanks, Drmies (talk) 04:05, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Template:Commons+cat listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Template:Commons+cat. Since you had some involvement with the Template:Commons+cat redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). MGA73 (talk) 12:29, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Crappy DNB articles
You are still creating crappy DNB articles by script, instead of manually. The problematic character of these creations has been discussed before, but for some reason you still use the same script to create these (but then again, even after you had been blocked for these, you wanted to create them by bot, so it seems obvious that you don't see any major flaws in this script...). The rules you use for adding bluelinks are pretty useless, e.g. Thomas Bedingfield (1593?-1661) links to sentences, the name of the subject, disambiguation pages (including "Thomas"), ... Note that your link in the Cite DNB template doesn't work (due to the "?"). Other articles lack all categories (also an old problem), copy the poor transcriptions from Wikisource without any improvements (e.g. Charles Beckingham "He died 19 February 1780-31"), and have poor layout (see e.g. Thomas Bedford (fl.1650), which obviously had not any human oversight after it was script-created, as evidenced by the first lines' italicization, and the link to Baxter Bedford, which in reality is about Baxter and Bedford, not one person or entity).

Another old problem is your creation of articles from the DNB, for which already an article existed. E.g. John Danckerts already existed as Johan Danckerts, and Henry Danckerts as Hendrick Danckerts. Fram (talk) 13:27, 27 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi Rich, I noticed you are progressing nicely with the DNB articles. Thanks for implementing the changes I suggested in my previous message. I was looking at Thomas Bedford (fl.1650) and it seems like you haven't go around to copy-editing this one yet....

This sort of message might actually keep me reading to the end. I don't know why you think rudeness is the way to approach other people - perhaps it works for you in you personal life, it doesn't work on Wikipedia. Rich Farmbrough, 13:46, 27 February 2012 (UTC).


 * I'll not start lying just to get you to read messages. You are not "progressing nicely", and have not implemented many changes: you no longer add articles to the clearly incorrect living people cat, and you are finally correctly attributing these articles; but the other errors had been pointed out by me as well, and are still in those articles. I didn't know that you should be treated as a little child and be patronized. It doesn't seem like you had gone around to really copy-editing any of them yet, despite the claims in the edit summaries. E.g. Lawrence Bedeman was created and "copyedited" the 17th, i.e. 10 days ago: it has the incorrect name in the infobox and first line ("or" or "Or" are not part of the name), no categories, links to many disambiguation pages (he is a supporter of Wycliffe? Which one? Probably John Wycliffe; similarly, John Aston should be replaced by John Aston (preacher), and Lifton by Lifton, Devon), redlinks for which we have an article (Archbishop Courtney is William Courtenay, Acts and Monuments' is The Acts and Monuments, would have worked without the extra ' at the end of the redlink), missing links for which we have an article (Foxe is John Foxe), and poor transcription ("Fasiculi" should be "Fasciculi"). I have no idea why you keep on creating such poor quality articles, and are not going to applaud you for them. If you perceive my realism as rude, then tough luck, but repeating the same errors over and over again may perhaps work in your personal life, but not on Wikipedia. Fram (talk) 14:32, 27 February 2012 (UTC)


 * And before creating or copyediting articles, perhaps you can do a check to see if we have articles on these persons already (a problem I pointed out above, and which wa also indicated in earlier discussions). You just spent time on Thomas Bedingfield (1593?-1661), but we already had Thomas Bedingfield (judge) on the same person. Fram (talk) 14:37, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I am aware. The articles need merging it is on my list. And I have created links from several thousand WS articles to their corresponding WP articles, this hazard is in the nature of the work. I love your approach to mergeing - replace one article with a redirect, 'tis done. Rich Farmbrough, 14:43, 27 February 2012 (UTC).


 * No one stops you from using the history of the redirect to merge anything you want to merge. But please don't "merge" like you did with Johan Danckerts, where you replaced an approximate date of birth from a more recent source with one from over 100 years old. You should only add info that is better, not make an article worse. Fram (talk) 14:51, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

RIP to the "incomplete" template
The incomplete template (see discussion Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_January_22) will likely go away soon. Would it make since to run a bot on the articles it's tagged to and:
 * if it has an old date, remove it
 * if it's in a section, replace it with the Expand section tag
 * if it's over a list, replace it with the Expand list tag
 * other tasks...

Is that practical? Who might have a bot that could handle that?  Sparkie82 ( t • c ) 20:36, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh.. great. Expand was deleted partly on the grounds that "incomplete" was available. Rich Farmbrough, 20:38, 3 February 2012 (UTC).


 * They're both toast now -- with about a half-dozen more of those expansion-type templates ready to walk the green mile. So, does it make since to run a bot on those articles? What have you done to articles in the past when transcluded templates were deleted?  Sparkie82 ( t • c ) 02:54, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes it's one way of doing it. Rich Farmbrough, 20:12, 4 February 2012 (UTC).


 * Incidentally it is not "toast" until the TfD is closed, and even then there might be a DRV. Rich Farmbrough, 20:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC).

WikiProject Georgia (U.S. state)
Hello, I want to add the Recent changes for WikiProject Georgia (U.S. state) to monitor all articles automatically updated by a bot. Thanks. JJ98 (Talk / Contributions)  08:17, 14 February 2012 (UTC) [X] copied from User talk:Femto Bot by Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 08:28, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ Rich Farmbrough, 13:38, 14 February 2012 (UTC).

Thanks :)


 Mistress Selina Kyle  ( Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉ )  has given you a cup of tea, for taking the time to weather a dispute. Thanks for staying calm and civil! Tea promotes WikiLove and hopefully this has made your day ever so slightly better.

Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a tea, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or someone putting up with some stick at this time. Enjoy!

Spread the lovely, warm, refreshing goodness of tea by adding {{subst:wikitea2}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

-- Mistress Selina Kyle  ( Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉ )  07:58, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Follow up
Hi Rich Farmbrough, thanks for helping out with the Gopal Krishan article. However, you will notice that the exact same two images were readded today by a new user whose only contributions are to "Gopal Krishan" and "Vichitra veena". This is quite obviously the same user you warned under a new account, no? Best wishes Hekerui (talk) 18:53, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Probably, the images themselves are at commons though. Rich Farmbrough, 22:29, 15 February 2012 (UTC).

Rand, Paul listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Rand, Paul. Since you had some involvement with the Rand, Paul redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). – hysteria18 (talk) 17:34, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ Rich Farmbrough, 19:39, 23 February 2012 (UTC).

DRV notice
You participated in the discussion at Administrators' noticeboard, which occured following the closure of Templates for discussion/Log/2012 January 24. Be advised that I have opened Deletion review/Log/2012 February 27.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:32, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Article Feedback Tool - notes and office hours
Hey guys! Another month, another newsletter.

First off - the first bits of AFT5 are now deployed. As of early last week, the various different designs are deployed on 0.1 percent of articles, for a certain "bucket" of randomly-assigned readers. With the data flooding in from these, we were able to generate a big pool of comments for editors to categorise as "useful" or "not useful". This information will be used to work out which form is the "best" form, producing the most useful feedback and the least junk. Hopefully we'll have the data for you by the end of the week; I can't thank the editors who volunteered to hand-code enough; we wouldn't be where we are now without you.

All this useful information means we can move on to finalising the tool, and so we're holding an extra-important office hours session on Friday, 6th January at 19:00 UTC in #wikimedia-office. If you can't make it, drop me a note and I'll be happy to provide logs so you can see what went on - if you can make it, but will turn up late, bear in mind that I'll be hanging around until 23:00 UTC to deal with latecomers :).

Things we'll be discussing include:
 * The design of the feedback page, which will display all the feedback gathered through whichever form comes out on top.
 * An expansion of the pool of articles which have AFT5 displayed, from 0.1 percent to 0.3 (which is what we were going to do initially anyway)
 * An upcoming Request for Comment that will cover (amongst other things) who can access various features in the tool, such as the "hide" button.

If you can't make it to the session, all this stuff will be displayed on the talkpage soon after, so no worries ;). Hope to see you all there! Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 04:50, 2 January 2012 (UTC)