User talk:Tom.Reding/Archive 3

Reporting vandalism of a page you edited validly
Hello! I have very recently signed up for wikipedia, but have been an extremely regular user since childhood.

I have found wikipedia to be quite the excellent resource for spiritual purposes, given the large amount of work and resources.

You have edited a a page on buddhism called 'Sahaja' some time ago. The page has since been vandalized by some individual with some inane garbage. It is an extremely significant article about an ancient tradition of buddhism, and its vandalizement by some idiotic individual may be preventing many individuals from reaching extremely valuable knowledge.

I do not really understand how to revert a page back to its previous edit. Many others and I would definitely be most obliged if you could revert the page back to your edit at the soonest.

Thank you in advance, and for the many contributions you have made in your long presence as an active wikipedia user, benefiting users like me. BlancMasque (talk) 07:39, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Special:Diff/783872507
Hello, what was the purpose of such edits? 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 18:40, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * see Template:Redirect category shell/doc.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for being one of Wikipedia's top medical contributors!

 * please help translate this message into your local language via meta

Thanks again :-) --  Doc James  along with the rest of the team at Wiki Project Med Foundation 18:35, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Discogobio dienbieni


The article Discogobio dienbieni has been proposed for deletion&#32;because of the following concern: "Only 1 source. Possible not notable for an article."

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion.

Why are you reverting my corrections at my own page?
Hi, Mr. Tom Reding, I am the owner of my Wikipedia page under my name Aleksander Vezuli. What is the problem?




 * 1) You do not own that nor any other page.
 * 2) Per Special:History/Aleksandër Vezuli,  reverted your recent COI edits.
 * Please discuss this on a more appropriate talk page.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:44, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Navseasoncats with centuries below decade/sandbox
Hey, mind taking a look at Module:Navseasoncats with centuries below decade/sandbox. I've made it work for decadesBelowYear and tested it on a few pages which passed. --Gonnym (talk) 13:19, 15 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I was planning on overhauling Module:Navseasoncats with centuries below decade after/during Luafication of Template:Navseasoncats with decades below year in the nearish future. This may or may not include tweaks to the main Module:Navseasoncats to make these interact better/more generally (which I won't know until I start going down that rabbit hole). Any solution to these stacked navs should also be made to accommodate Category:1760s establishments in the Province of Quebec (1763–1791) type cats, which neither live nor the sandbox yet do.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:11, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I see, ok. Looking at the code, that category issue does not seem to reside in the sub-module. "nextTierDateCategory" returns "18th-century establishments in the Province of Quebec (1763–1791)" (which seems to be the correct category), and this is what it passes to Navseasoncats through the expandTemplate. --Gonnym (talk) 14:25, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

"National population register" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect National population register. Since you had some involvement with the National population register redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Italawar (talk) 15:34, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Life-cycle cost analysis
Hello Tom,

It appears that you changed my information on the Life-cycle cost analysis page. Please undo. You made it completely opposite of the point of the article. The point is that the more expensive roof with the 35 year life expectancy is cheaper in the long run. That's the point of Life-cycle cost analysis. The cheapest roof @ $14,000 will need to be roofed twice plus the $4,000 cost of detaching and re-attaching the PV panels, in affect making it a $32,000 life-cycle cost.

The more expensive roof is the winner in this scenario. I will add to this page since it is not clear.

Thank you.

Jon Vaughn 760-533-5090Jon Tomas Vaughn (talk) 01:26, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

"VW" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect VW. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 May 25 until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Logo fixer (talk) 15:08, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Proposal to delete category "Czech companies established in 1989"
Please see my proposal to delete or upmerge the category you amended Category:Czech companies established in 1989 Hugo999 (talk) 12:39, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Union Of Knives: New article
Hi there, I've just started a new article for Union of Knives. As you have helped with corrections to the Baby Chaos article in the past, please could I ask your thoughts on this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Union_Of_Knives Any helpful suggestions or corrections welcome, I know the references aren't displayed as well as they could be but I don't know how to do this right, especially for printed articles. Many thanks VPeck (talk) 21:08, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

About a WP:AWB edit of yours
Hi, just letting you know that I'm partially reverting this edit of yours, as it uses "Aimen" as a proper noun (the name of a character), one that happens to be particularly common in Pakistan (e.g. actress Aiman Khan). While I haven't gone through your contributions to see if this issue may have occurred elsewhere, I just wanted to ask that you make sure a "typo" is indeed a typo before having it corrected, and note that you are responsible for the effects of any edits made via AWB. M Imtiaz (talk · contribs) 22:45, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
 * ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 22:39, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

T236729 “Genfixes removes comma from quoted date”
Dear Tom.Reading. I refer to Phabricator T236729 "Genfixes removes comma from quoted date", which you kindly created on 28 Oct 2019 in reaction to edits you made and then reverted on the article "Margaret Magennis, Viscountess Iveagh" using AWB Genfixes. From time to time people still edit date formats in the quotations I add. I recently had an incident with someone who refuses to revert. So I looked up what is going on with T236729. The answer is: not much. Its status is "Open, Needs Triage". Is this sheer backlog? Is there anything I could do? With many thanks, Johannes Schade (talk) 17:58, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * yep, it's all backlog since maintenance & upgrades are all volunteer driven. The simplest thing to do in the meantime is add  to the top of the page, and perhaps   next to it for reference.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:26, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Wikidata IDs
Hi; I noticed that you added the Wikidata ID to the taxon bar in the article Clythrocerus, which was already displaying Wikidata information because of the Wikidata sitelink to the article. In this sort of situation I've developed the habit of actually removing the Wikidata ID from the Wikipedia article so as to avoid the possibility of a conflict; but seeing you do otherwise makes me worry that I'm doing the wrong thing. Is there a policy or guideline or just general practice that encourages reciprocal links like this from Wikipedia back to Wikidata? Thanks, -- ▸₷ truthious Ⓑ andersnatch ◂ 05:04, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Sometimes taxa are recognised as different names by different authorities, but Wikidata only allows a one-to-one correspondence between Wikidata items and Wikipedia articles. Adding multiple Wikidata ids to the taxonbar allows people to find further information on other sites that use different names. In this case there is only one id at the moment, but hardcoding means changes at Wikidata don't remove information without an editor action. For instance, say the genus was merged into another genus and Wikidata was changed to reflect this, we would still want the taxonbar to link to sources using Clythrocerus as well those using the merged genus name. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 07:13, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Ah! Thank you for taking the time to explain, Jts1882. -- ▸₷ truthious Ⓑ andersnatch ◂ 07:37, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

CFD for neologisms categories
Some of the categories, which you have created or edited are proposed for renaming. You are invited to join the discussion at. —⁠andrybak (talk) 02:02, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

"NFT Ventures" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect NFT Ventures. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 October 6 until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:50, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Template:Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition
Hi Tom, I saw your edit on the Classical period about "last-author-amp=y/yes" and I'm wondering if you know how to resolve all the error messages on Template:Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition that seem to be about something similar? Best - Aza24 (talk) 00:42, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:56, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Cite format
Cleavage (breasts) has a very large citation formatting problem. Care to lend a hand? Aditya (talk • contribs) 01:25, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:53, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Wow.  Aditya (talk • contribs) 16:28, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Update to name-list-style=amp
When these updates aren't done by a bot, they can't be filtered out of my watchlist (as far as I know), which is then flooded so I'm likely to miss significant changes. Can you handle these updates differently? Peter coxhead (talk) 08:37, 11 October 2020 (UTC)


 * I was AFWiki for the past few months, but managed to come back (for better or worse) right before a substantial Module:Citation/CS1 update yesterday. I thought I'd clean up my favorite niches instead of looking WP-wide. From my cursory investigation, it looks like a small, but non-trivial, % of pages transcluding Taxonbar now contain one of these deprecated citation parameter errors (I'm updating almost all of them less editors & ignore-isbn-error). I'll spread a wider net of pages.
 * is there a monk task in the works to handle these, or is the plan to farm the work out to the gnomes?  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:53, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
 * for what it's worth, on my watchlist filters (which filter in, as opposed to out; the word "filter" to me is arbitrary unless qualified, which is my only quibble with the display; anyway...), I just checked the following "contribution quality predictions":
 * May have problems
 * Likely have problems
 * Very likely have problems
 * and my edits disappeared. "Very likely good" (the only contribution-quality remaining unchecked) is "highly accurate at finding almost all problem-free edits.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:19, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
 * is intended for last-author-amp. Not enough of ignore-isbn-error to bot so I expect that, no-one-beating-me-to-it, I'll hack an awb script to spin through.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:43, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Tom.Reding, edits fall foul of WP:AWBRULES no. 4 because all you have done is replace a perfectly-valid parameter, i.e. 1 with an alias for that same parameter, i.e. 1 - there is zero effect on the rendered page. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 10:52, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
 * incorrect; see the associated error messages prior to my edit.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  10:56, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
 * "Deprecated" does not mean "you must remove it forthwith", it means "don't use it in future, and if you are editing the article for any legitimate reason, you should also fix the deprecated content". -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 11:59, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
 * It's still an error.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:04, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I must admit that I, too, was annoyed to find my watchlist rendered almost totally useless these last few days by Tom Redding's miniscule and seemingly pointless parameter replacements which then mask out more significant edits that might have been made. Nick Moyes (talk) 16:12, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I must admit that I, too, was annoyed to find my watchlist rendered almost totally useless these last few days by Tom Redding's miniscule and seemingly pointless parameter replacements which then mask out more significant edits that might have been made. Nick Moyes (talk) 16:12, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Jonn Poker
Hi, I was wondering if you could check the page “Jonn poker Internet personality” and see if you think could be worthy of Wikipedia? Astro1995 (talk) 19:48, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

CS1
Hi! I noticed you have been doing a lot of cleaning of the CS1 errors. As I myself was recently given access to JWB, I have been trying to help as well, mostly to practice using JWB. I have a concern, however, I fixed more 1500 pages over about a day and a half and when I went back to check the category again, the number of tagged pages increased from around 10,000 to over 13,000. I am wondering, then, should we program a bot to take care of this and request it for approval? It seems like a great candidate for a bot. The edits can be fully automated, once I turned off the regex spell checking, there is no real need to proofread and the pages as it is easy to write regex to only fix the template problems. I don't know how many more hours should be spent by people working on it if it just keeps expanding beyond our control. Please let me know what you think, thanks! Footlessmouse (talk) 16:02, 15 October 2020 (UTC)


 * the reason (currently @ 17,822) keeps rising is that the updated CS1 module code is only rerun when a page is edited or purged, which is kinder on the servers than rushing through every page. Yes, there is a bot that has been pending even a glace by the WP:BAG for 11 days now since October 4. It would not be unusual to take weeks until it's finally approved, which is why I choose to take small bites out of the category each day.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  17:10, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

On the topic of CS1 errors, 'name-list-style=true' results in one; the value for the parameter needs to be 'amp' instead. So rather than 'last-author-amp=true' becoming 'name-list-style=true', it should be 'name-list-style=amp'. I mention it because I noticed this edit and a few others. Perhaps one day they'll stop mucking about with the citation templates. One can hope. Cheers, BlackcurrantTea (talk) 07:34, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:13, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Hello, it's this again: 'name-list-style=yes' as here and here results in the page being added to Category:CS1 errors: invalid parameter value. Please change them to a valid value. Thanks. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 13:08, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅, thank you. Fixed all instances, 14 of which were mine.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:53, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks! BlackcurrantTea (talk) 13:56, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Jungle Cat
Hi, Why did you revert my mark that I added that it also lives in Israel? If for a political reason I will go full length to fight against you. Wikipedia shoudn't be political. I added a fact. Please unrevert it or I will take it to higher grounds. Tt100 (talk) 21:54, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
 * This comment is so wrong for so many reasons:
 * First and foremost, Tom didn't revert the edit. It was another editor.
 * Your change was unsourced. Wikipedia follows reliable sources and the given source says Palestine. Palestine is the geographical region including Israel (the wikilinked on Palestine mentions Israel in the first sentence). Without a more specific source there is no way of knowing if the cat is found in Israel or the West Bank.
 * Making threats to other users is frowned upon on Wikipedia. You should assume good faith (WP:AGF).
 * If you have a reliable source for more detail on the distribution you can add the information along with the source. Alternatively you could discuss it first on the article talk page. (Talk:Jungle cat).—  Jts1882 &#124; talk 07:40, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I strongly endorse 's comments. : the political edit was yours, replacing a sourced geographical region widely used in the context of animal and plant distributions by a term applying only to one country in that region. If you had followed the link you removed, you would have seen the reason it was used. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:18, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Turns out this a very long & slow edit war, so I've applied uw-ew to their talk page with 4 relevant diffs.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:39, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I didn't intend to threat anyone, I'm just tired of changes due to political reasons. If you read my post again you would understand (I sate that load and clear). My first edit was not fully correct and I acknowledged that, but my 2nd edit was correct (without deleting others content) and it was also reverted and that is what made me angry. Regarding a source, I will add one, nonetheless in all the other languages and especially in Hebrew it states that the Jungle Cat is a resident of the Israeli Fauna. Before deleting stuff automatically one can check, this is what I would expect from a formidable user. Tt100 (talk) 12:48, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you
Thank you for your helpful contributions to Superman vs. Spider-Man XXX: An Axel Braun Parody, what do you think of recent improvements to the article? Right cite (talk) 01:52, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Moving short descriptions
Hi, your edits, such as this one, often move short descriptions down from their proper position at the very top of the page. That's where they should always be, according to the MOS. Could you amend your script to avoid that please? MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:24, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * thank you - I did not realize I was running an older version of AWB. The newest version moves it to the right place. I'll go back through my edits to correct where necessary.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  17:33, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Ah, that's interesting to know. I'll have to check whether JWB that I sometimes use on my Mac also needs updating. MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:36, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I am a fan of your gnome work, but I think that this edit violates AWB rule 4 (no change to the rendered page). Be careful out there. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:36, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * thanks for looking out. It does change the rendered page though, by swapping the order of the SD & the For text, and I'm only doubling back on my own edits for now. There might be a special user preference for showing/hiding SDs IIRC.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  20:43, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't see a change in the rendering (I have the SD gadget turned on); for me, the SD always renders at the top, regardless of where it appears in the wikitext. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:47, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Interesting - I certainly do.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  21:09, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

My error on National Party (Ireland, 2016)
Hi Tom. I made some substantial edits to National Party (Ireland, 2016} earlier, but one of those was a bad edit that eliminated a lot of material incorrectly. I think I may have had a couple of different tabs open and edited in the wrong one. I'm going to revert to an earlier version and rework my edits, but thought I'd give you a heads-up in case it's flagged that your subsequent edit gets reverted. I'll restore those changes too. Regards, Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 22:19, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * thanks, I'll rerun my script on the page later anyway, in case that's easier for you than having to manually redo my changes.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  22:24, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Super-Kamiokande
Hi Tom, I was just reading through the Super-Kamiokande article and noticed that most of the images could do with improving. I'll probably just remake them with higher resolution but they might benefit from additional changes. Since I'm not entirely familiar with Super-K I looked in the article history to find possible collaborators and your username stood out. I'll make a start tonight or tomorrow and let you know when I've uploaded anything. Any feedback would be appreciated. nagualdesign 17:02, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * thanks for reaching out, but my interest in Super-K has been mostly gnomish. I'll send it though my usual scripts again though, and perhaps a read-through eventually.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  17:08, 14 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Okay, no worries. I'll still let you know when I've uploaded anything, since 2 heads are usually better than 1. I was wondering, if I replace any non-free images such as File:Pp-chain and CNO chain.jpg will it be safe to overwrite them and remove the non-free image rationale (and request that the previous version be deleted), or do you think I should upload them separately? Considering how basic that diagram is I doubt that a new version would be subject to copyright restrictions, though I'm no expert. nagualdesign 18:13, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Would you be able to help me decipher some text? I'm trying to recreate the small, blue equations in the left half of File:Pp-chain and CNO chain.jpg but I'm really struggling. <b style="color:#000">nagual</b><b style="color:#ABAB9D">design</b></b> 17:13, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't have access to ScienceDirect anymore, but I can ask some colleagues.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  17:27, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
 * If you can get me a copy of the original image, even though it's only slightly larger I think it will have far less compression artifacts. Thank you in advance. <b style="font:1.3em/1em Trebuchet MS;letter-spacing:-0.07em"><b style="color:#000">nagual</b><b style="color:#ABAB9D">design</b></b> 17:33, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Good news! I've found a clear source of information about the Super-Kamiokande pp-chain and CNO cycle: (ref). <b style="font:1.3em/1em Trebuchet MS;letter-spacing:-0.07em"><b style="color:#000">nagual</b><b style="color:#ABAB9D">design</b></b> 23:17, 16 December 2020 (UTC)


 * ✅ I've uploaded a new image and I'd appreciate it if you could double check my work against that reference image. Cheers. One down, several more to go... <b style="font:1.3em/1em Trebuchet MS;letter-spacing:-0.07em"><b style="color:#000">nagual</b><b style="color:#ABAB9D">design</b></b> 01:17, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

AWB problems
Hey Tom, looks like your AWB settings need a look given the category add on this edit Le Deluge (talk) 18:18, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

author-link
Hi, Diff. Do you know why it is adding author-link, is this a general fix? It seems like wikilinking an author in the author field is acceptable and in fact the norm. -- Green  C  15:17, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
 * author wikilinks belong in author-link and not author; see Template:Cite web/doc. My code is doing that, not WP:GenFixes.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:25, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, I see the docs are unambiguous on that point. A rough search shows about 65k articles, not too bad. Good luck on this task. I wonder if it was discussed anywhere as I can certainly see some editors not doing it for 1) lack of education and 2) lack of understanding why to do it and 3) extra load to add a new parameter. --  Green  C  15:40, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Colin Larkin
Hi Tom I've been receiving about 10 zillion emails from Wiki - I guess I must be copied in from way back. They all seem to be relating to you and "author link"?

I presume I don't have to worry or do anything - as it looks like the text reads the same?

Let me know if I should do anything, otherwise ignore this and have a good Christmas, regards Colin Larkin (talk) 10:04, 17 December 2020 (UTC)


 * nothing to worry about, just a WP:Gnome hard at work :)  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:32, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Duplicate parameters warning
Hi,

this edit breaks a citation because it tries to add an author link to the same citation twice for first and last names (which are, in this case, not used correctly). Please fix your tooling to accommodate for this, and figure out what the right thing to do with the ref in question is. Thanks. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:37, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
 * will do. It appears to be a very rare exception.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:48, 17 December 2020 (UTC)


 * No problem. Thanks for the acknowledgement. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:51, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand this edit
You created an author-link parameter here that doesn't seem to link to anything. I assume this is an error caused by the multiple authors named in the previous field. BD2412 T 18:09, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
 * thanks; yes, it looks like that page anchor does not exist. I think I'll steer clear of those for now, and possibly do a removal run of invalid (and maybe even valid?) same-page author-anchors in the future.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:52, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks. There are bound to be a few oddities in a task of this size, and overall you are doing a great job with this. Cheers! BD2412  T 20:01, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Capitalizing templates
Hi, I've noticed that you've made a point of capitalizing specific templates that were previously in lowercase, presumably from previous editors. Examples of this include "Short description" and "Reflist". I'm curious to know why it would be important to have these templates capitalized. I was under the impression that they are not case sensitive. Wondering if there's information I'm missing, thanks. Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 00:30, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * correct; templates are not first-letter-case-sensitive. I piggyback some cosmetic first-letter-capitalization on more substantial edits since it tends to match the capitalization at the top and bottom of articles, i.e.,  ,  , DEFAULTSORT,  , etc.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:01, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Change
Hello. Isn't it better to use easier to add and shorter links? Eurohunter (talk) 10:13, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!
May Holidays bring fun and prosperity to you and your loved ones. Merry Christmas to you.RAJIVVASUDEV (talk) 14:50, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

AWB changes
Merry Christmas and season's greetings. I have noticed that you have been running an AWB script against multiple articles. Thanks! Could you please throw the Canada article on your list to give it the same treatment? Walter Görlitz (talk) 08:09, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:18, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Just out of interest
You did not sleep to make edits? 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 12:05, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Hard to remember 3 years ago, but yeah.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:33, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Tom.Reding!
<div style="border: 3px solid #FFD700; background-color: #FFFAF0; padding:0.2em 0.4em; height:auto; min-height:173px; border-radius:1em; box-shadow: 0.1em 0.1em 0.5em rgba(0,0,0,0.75);" class="plainlinks">

Happy New Year! Tom.Reding, Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.

𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 11:17, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

TFD
Heat without light, especially after I asked you not to continue in this vein. Please consider removal. --Izno (talk) 21:16, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Seems pretty bright to me; and their misinterpretation of the discussion, as in previous discussions, conveniently seems to end up in their favor several times (i.e. RR's response & even your own @ "seems a misreading"). This is developing into a pattern. However, I won't pursue it further there.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:44, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Help with discography?
Hi Tom, Good work on all your edits. I am reaching out because I am new and do not know how to edit but need to add and link my discography in wiki. Could you email me for the details? Thank you --Fac.Notitia (talk) 23:29, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
 * someone at the WP:TeaHouse can help.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:30, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Charlie Kunz
I noticed you have edited this page recently, I have a 1950s photo that I could add to the page but uncertain how to do it. Could you help? WessexAnne (talk) 12:18, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
 * someone at the WP:TeaHouse can help.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:30, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Reuesting to creat a page for Sepoydhura tea estate/garden
Sepoydhura tea estate (talk) 08:58, 19 January 2021 (UTC) Dear sir/mam, Its wondering and some sort of dishearting in not getting lists about a place I lives in, I.e.Sepoydhura tea estate/garden. It would be very happy moment for us if I get my place also lists and gets in wikipedia. So, I therefore request you to kindly look into it and hope that of getting to know about Sepoydhura tea estate now then Sepoydhura tea estate (talk) 08:58, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for your efforts

 * :)  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:40, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Gelato
Do you want Fidel Castro to come to the United States and ban cannabis in ALL 50 STATES? Of course, not. The gelato (cannabis) article was just approved but it is ONLY A STUB. Please make it good article or Fidel may come knocking. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LotteryGeek (talk • contribs) 03:29, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

CWGC IDs
Hello. I recently came across Category:Wikipedia articles with CWGC identifiers (which you created) and got from there to the discussion here. I once tried to start a far-too ambitious project to identify and tidy up pages using CWGC links, which can be seen here. Would you have any advice on the best way to re-start something like that, maybe using the category that was created a few months ago? I did once try to use Wikidata to generate a list as well, but I remember finding that a bit complicated. Maybe it is easier than I remember? Carcharoth (talk) 05:30, 27 January 2021 (UTC)


 * you can use this search to find all en.wiki Wikidata items using . I'm getting closer to parity now; shouldn't take too long.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:24, 27 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you, that is 1991 articles. The total on my list from 2018 was 3407, but that would be because I included links to cemeteries (and memorials, same type of link at their end). That uses Template:CWGC cemetery, which is P1920 over on wikidata (sorry, I forget how to link more neatly). When I click on 'uses', I get something similar to the query - is that the same sort of thing? Anyway, I guess what I am asking is whether things are set up similarly for the cemetery ID as well, or if that is a bit less 'tidy'. BTW, what do you mean when you say you are getting things "closer to parity"? I might be able to help, and for future work, it needs to be kept in mind that the CWGC IDs are often used on pages that don't match with the article name - by which I mean the CWGC ID for person A might be used on the Wikipedia page for that person's mother or father, if their son (usually son) or other relative was killed and is commemorated. That is the sort of thing I've been meaning to get back to for a while, but haven't had enough time lately. Cemeteries also get mentioned on, for example, the pages of the architects who designed them, or in the town where they are, if they are too small to have their own article. I guess what I am trying to ask is: (a) is it possible to distinguish between uses where the article is the actual person or cemetery, and uses where they are not; and (b) can wikidata help tease out the relationship when it is something different (e.g. son, nephew, brother, husband, grandson, designer/architect, location, and so on). And some people without articles will be associated with a particular memorial (some memorials have tens of thousands of names), so that sort of list could eventually be done by a wikidata query, I think. Or is that sort of thing still best done manually? (I am quite happy to go through a list of 1000s of names and match things up). Oh, and categories as well - there are some very distinct categories (various sportspeople, cemeteries divided up by countries), mostly done by lists and categories, but can wikidata help there? (If this discussion is better somewhere else, please move it.) Carcharoth (talk) 12:58, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Briefly (I maybe had too many questions above), what did you mean by "closer to parity"? Am still trying to work out what that means. I have managed to work out that some articles have just the CWGC ID added by the Authority Control template and don't have them from Template:CWGC, so how can I work out which ones are which? Carcharoth (talk) 03:55, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * yeah, the larger the wall of text, the farther down it goes on my to-read list. Brevity is key.
 * "Closer to parity" means bringing the count of those 2 things closer together, in this case the # of WD QIDs with (~1990) vs. the # of pages in  (at the start it was ~500). The remaining 3 (1990-1987 = 3) I think are redirects, on which Authority control doesn't belong.
 * In terms of distinguishing "accurate" CWGC IDs from "inaccurate" ones, I don't know, and probably requires some visual inspection. It might be automatable to some extent by someone with enough interest in the topic, and experience with HTML scraping via AWB or other software, but also could be very tedious. seems to have added a significant fraction of these IDs to WD (I spot checked a couple randomly), maybe they can provide some help and/or input?   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:53, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Noted re: brevity. I have the interest in the topic (I don't find it tedious, I just need to have the time to do it in bits gradually). It is the technical side I need help with now and again. Let's see if someone pops up that can help, or if I can put something together that is less wall-of-text and easier to be understood. Carcharoth (talk) 16:27, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Notice
There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The discussion is about the topic Francis Schonken edit-warring. Thank you. Graham 87 15:32, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Precious
You are recipient no. 2523 of Precious, a prize of QAI. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:49, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * thank you very much, I'm honored :)   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  21:32, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I hope you don't mind that it's the prize of the cabal of the outcast ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:35, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Today, we have a DYK about Wilhelm Knabe, who stood up for future with the striking school children when he was in his 90s, - a model, - see here. - Thank you for your position in the arb case request, - I feel I have to stay away, but there are conversations further down on the page, in case of interest, - in a nutshell: "... will not improve kindness, nor any article". - Yesterday, I made sure on a hike that the flowers are actually blooming ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:31, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Can you explain why it's "wrong" to place template italic title at the bottom of an article? I guess it's only confusing to a new editor at the top. I have been told infobox coding there is confusing, but think the other is more of a mystery. I bet you can make me understand. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:25, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm going off of instructions @ Template:Italic title (which I agree with ). Since the title is at the top of the page, it makes the most sense for Italic title to be somewhere there, too. If Italic title is at the bottom, it should be outside of the -block (something I've been focusing on recently), like DISPLAYTITLE. DISPLAYTITLE is different, though, in that the lowest instance of that magic word is the one that matters, so I don't move DISPLAYTITLE up. Hope that helps!   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:37, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I am probably somewhat deaf, but don't see the difference between displaytitle and italic title. Both concern the title, both will in most cases never need to be edited once established, so I see no good reason for them to occupy space at the beginning which everybody sees who clicks "edit". I am also new to the term nav block. I can see that title-related templates shouldn't be mixed with navigation boxes. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:53, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Italic title is a special case of DISPLAYTITLE. DISPLAYTITLE lets you do anything you want with a title, including, but not limited to, italics. Yes, once correctly set, neither of them need to be updated.
 * I have section editing turned on in my preferences (I've forgotten whether or not that is/was the default), so I only look at the part of the page that's relevant to edit. I just looked at a page while not logged in, in a different browser I rarely use, and it showed " [edit] " buttons next to each section, so that appears to be the default now.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:15, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * All accepted, only I was not precise enough. I understand the difference of displaytitle and italic title, but not why you would have the former at the bottom, and the latter on top. I understand editing sections, but when some newbie clicks on "edit" in the top line (for the whole article, much more likely for someone unfamiliar to do), they will arrive at the code for italic title: why do that to them? Example Pour le piano. They may not even know what italic means for us. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:27, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * There are occasions when, for example, and en.wiki article about an author will have which automatically adjusts the article title rendering to use italics.  In the olden days, the only way to disable the automatic italics was to place a   magic word somewhere  the infobox (last control setting wins); the magic word would override the automatic italics.  Many infobox templates now provide some sort of mechanism to disable italic article title (italic title in ) or some such so   isn't needed as often.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:51, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you, getting closer, I think. I know displaytitle from the 200 or so Bach cantatas such as BWV 1, and I known infobox opera which renders the page title italic without anything else in the 1,500+ opera articles with infobox. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:59, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

"Fixes" to taxonbar parameters
Hi, the apparent need to fix the taxonbars at Haworthiopsis coarctata‎ and others is because the Wikidata items were messed up, not because our articles were wrong. I've fixed Wikidata for this taxon, but look at the taxonbar at, e.g., Haworthiopsis attenuata‎ – the correct QID has been made a redirect to the synonym, which has been mangled. I've asked Succu at Wikidata if there's an easy way to correct these wrong edits over there; it took me too long to fix and. So if you see more new issues like this, it's better to leave the taxonbar alone for now. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:52, 8 February 2021 (UTC)


 * ok. Luckily, there were only 3 other pages in that I swapped the order to:
 * Cyrtochiloides ochmatochila
 * Meganthropus
 * Felicioliva kaleontina
 * in case they're involved with this same issue.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:02, 8 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I've checked and these three are all correct swaps. I think it's just a few Haworthia/Haworthiopsis Wikidata items that were affected. (The underlying cause is the insistence by Wikidata that items like are called "instance of taxon" when we know that they are instances of taxon name. An editor over there with little experience of taxonomy has, not unreasonably, tried to merge synonyms for the same taxon.) Peter coxhead (talk) 11:45, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

ACArt
Hi, can you please skip adding "authority control" to pages that have the ACArt template? Template:ACArt is a tailored authority control template for art-related articles. In the future, it is likely that other such templates will emerge as well. Fram (talk) 15:04, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * yes; I was not aware of ACArt and will remove recently added Authority controls as needed.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:10, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, no problem! Fram (talk) 15:14, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * By the way, why did you stop using your bot for this task? 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 21:13, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
 * because I'm running outside the request parameters and need to keep an eye on it.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  21:27, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Aren't you now adding it to biographical articles? 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 18:39, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Yup.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  18:52, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
 * What is outside the request parameters in this case? 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 18:54, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
 * No appropriate Infobox, and/or more aggressive/comprehensive WP:SECTIONORDER fixing than WP:GenFixes, and/or more template standardization.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  21:13, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

LMDC
Hi! Quick question for you on this edit. I see with the pedestrian bridge that it removed unnecessary underscores, but what's the first change w/r/t Power at Ground Zero? Not disagreeing, just can't tell what it is and curious. Thanks      <b style="font-family: Verdana; color: #6633FF;">StarM</b> 17:43, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
 * WP:Dumb quotes. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 17:46, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
 * ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 17:57, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you both. Clearly I need new glasses as I totally missed that. Have a great day.      <b style="font-family: Verdana; color: #6633FF;">StarM</b> 17:58, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!
I see we both have OCD. I had no choice but to give you this barnstar. Scorpions13256 (talk) 23:27, 13 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you, .  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  04:21, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

"FNZA (identifier)" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect FNZA (identifier). The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 15 until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. — Godsy (TALK<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;"> CONT ) 19:38, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Help with an edit?
Greetings Tom - it looks as if you did an edit on a page late last year and we would like to see if you could help with another edit there. My Aunt passed away a month ago and we would like to update this in her Wikipedia page, though I'm not sure as to how to do this. Would you consider helping with this? Her name is Liane Winter and she passed on January 17th 2021. I have a copy of her obituary notice if you require to see this. Her family would very much appreciate your assistance. Thank you, Tracyannfl (talk) 20:16, 15 February 2021 (UTC)Tracy


 * I have updated Liane Winter.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  20:52, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you kindly Tracyannfl (talk) 18:44, 16 February 2021 (UTC)Tracyannfl

Donough MacCarthy, 4th Earl of Clancarty
Dear Tom.Reding. Thanks for adding an authority control to the article "Donough MacCarthy, 4th Earl of Clancarty". However, you had Genfixes on and removed commas out of dates in quotations. You know well: Phabricator task T236729 “Genfixes removes comma from quoted date”. Please repair. Best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 08:18, 21 February 2021 (UTC)


 * ✅ - indeed; I also added due to the number of occurrences (not a typo might suffice otherwise).   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:46, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Authority controls
Hey there — thanks for adding authority control tags to several of my articles, appreciated! (I really should look into them so I know what they are...) Cheers, :) --DoubleGrazing (talk) 21:22, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Script error
I'm not sure what happened in this edit, but it moved the References section into the middle of a citation template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:35, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Arbitration Case Opened
You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Arbitration/Requests/Case/RexxS. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Arbitration/Requests/Case/RexxS/Evidence. Please add your evidence by March 13, 2021, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Arbitration/Requests/Case/RexxS/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, SQL <sup style="font-size: 5pt;color:#999">Query me!  04:53, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Reason for revert
May I ask to explain the revert? --MassimoDellaPena (talk) 11:38, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
 * already reverted.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:41, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Please mark addition of authority control as a minor edit
Can you please mark your edits that only add authority control as minor edits? Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 23:49, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Broken templates
Hi Tom, I'm not sure what happened, but it looks like AWB broke two templates in this edit on March 9. It changed "Air Force" to "Air force" in both, breaking them. I've never used AWB, so I have no idea about reporting errors, but I wanted to let you know about this one. Thanks. BilCat (talk) 08:20, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
 * There are more broken articles for to fix in this list. They should be quick work with AWB. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:02, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you both. I've gone through my recent 25k edits as well just in case to find other variants.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:42, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
 * no others found.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:55, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the quick fix. Thinking of all possible variants of a find-and-replace string is a big challenge. Gotta break a few eggs to make a nice omelet! – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:59, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Authority control, ports and wikidata
Any chance you could show me how you select port articles to have Authority control added to them? Fob.schools (talk) 13:57, 17 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I don't look for port articles specifically, and I'm using my own tools/code with the API since the other available tools are...inadequate.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:35, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks Tom - I did notice that your contributions were much wider than ports. But that IS an area I know a bit about, and would be interested in doing some work on. Its a RESTful api? Could you even share a typical/example query? I am really confused about Authority control, as the template seems extremely clever. Most templates take parameters, but this one seems to do some background querying to pull out the references from (Wikidata?) and display them on the article.
 * I guess what I don't understand is how you know that a particular article has suitable data in WD. Do you ever get it wrong for any reason? Fob.schools (talk) 15:22, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * mw:API:Properties has the appropriate documentation, but example queries I use are:
 * and looping through all properties listed @ Template:Authority control. This is guaranteed to find all relevant AC IDs for a WP article.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:01, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * and looping through all properties listed @ Template:Authority control. This is guaranteed to find all relevant AC IDs for a WP article.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:01, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * and looping through all properties listed @ Template:Authority control. This is guaranteed to find all relevant AC IDs for a WP article.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:01, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

WP:VPR#RfC: make Template:Authority control more reader-friendly
@ Village pump (proposals) (for reference). ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 16:00, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Roger Hall
Dear Tom.Reding. Could you help please. My most recent book was published in November. It is referenced no 23 on my Wiki entry, and mentioned in the last paragraph. It contains a chapter on Roger Hall and several illustrations of his work. He is quoted and mentioned throughout the book, and he was a significant artist. I cannot add a reference to my book as the Wiki Police will cite self promotion or COI. I wonder if you could take the time to add this reference to your original article? My reference is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Larkin - thank you Colin Larkin (talk) 13:58, 19 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm no COI policy expert, but what I gather from WP:COI is ~ if you disclose your COI (both on your user page and in the COI'd edit summaries on Roger Hall (artist) (there are 4 Roger Halls)), and your edits are infrequent & follow all other WP policies, it should be ok. And if you get reverted, let it be and make your case on the appropriate talk page. I see from the edit history that is essentially the sole editor of that page and that they are still active from 6 years ago. Hurray.  could you fulfill Colin's request? Colin, you might want to provide Philafrenzy some sort of access to relevant parts of the book, if they don't already have it.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  00:10, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Colin asked the same question on my talk and I replied that self-cite was the relevant policy so I think Colin could probably do it himself. Philafrenzy (talk) 00:25, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you both I will get my son to do it he is Muso805, just in case somebody objects.Colin Larkin (talk) 08:43, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Super Mario Galaxy
Your input would be of value on the talk page for Super Mario Galaxy, where I have raised a discussion regarding the inclusion of "U R MR GAY" with reliable sources. As you have made significant contributions to the article, your perspective seems relevant. Waxworker (talk) 16:50, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Why capitals?
on things like refbegin and quote? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 19:53, 20 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I piggyback some cosmetic first-letter-capitalization on more substantial edits since that matches the capitalization at the top and bottom of articles, i.e.,  ,  , DEFAULTSORT,  , etc.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  00:45, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Rather you than me, it seems a waste of time. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 00:54, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * What a pal.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  10:51, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

WP:V
"Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step" - if that's not clear enough, I'll spell it out for you: You may not add unsourced materials that was removed without a citation, and the 'citation needed' tag is just a recommendation. Don't attempt to override policy with some essay. Kenosha Forever (talk) 02:21, 24 March 2021 (UTC)


 * that's why your addition of  to Wojtek (bear) was correct, but your removal of it and the associated text a week later, was not.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  02:26, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
 * That is not what the above quote says. Putting the tag is optional, I didn't have to do it, I could have simply removed the unsourced material. I gave it a chance, no one bothered to engage - out it goes, because WP:V is a core policy, and WP:NODEADLINE is just someone's opinion. . How long to you thing that tag should be leftin ? The previous discussion, which did not result in a source, is over 10 years old. Kenosha Forever (talk) 02:39, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
 * like you said, "editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references".
 * There is a huge backlog of unsourced statements back to February 2007 (it used to go back further, but there were & are editors who work on this sort of thing), so if it's not a WP:BLP violation, or something similarly egregious, there is WP:NODEADLINE. So instead of angrily removing information from an article that's been there since its first major revision in 2007 (this is related, but a separate matter I'll get to later), why not do some research on it?  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  03:23, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I did do research on it, and couldn't find any sources that said it was specifically a "Syrian" brown bear. That's what led to me note it on the talk page and to the tag. Kenosha Forever (talk) 14:15, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
 * But it looks like someone was able to find some sources now, so we're good. Kenosha Forever (talk) 14:18, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Basshunter videography
Hello. What is the point in adding author-link besides more redudant code? Eurohunter (talk) 22:33, 26 March 2021 (UTC)


 * see Template:Cite web author-link & WP:COinS.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  00:49, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Incorrectly used 'Vandalism'
If I am blocked by Wikipedia, for your use of the incorrect term, 'Vandalism' for an undesired 'good-faith' (their term, not mine) edit, contravenes Wikipedia guidelines. Should IP block occur, is the recrimination to be levelled back at you, as such, if successful, it will be you that ends up blocked, not me.


 * Seems kinda vandalism+BLP+OR+unreferenced+unencyclopedic to me. You also introduced unbalanced single and double quotes. I agree with .  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  10:36, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

seems kinda 'slander'. I agree with legal dictionaries. Charged; Convicted; (defence not permitted) No appellate process.

seems kinda 'McCarthy'

P.S. Thanks at least for responding Tom, a far better response than I got from Twitter...

(a) Account got suspended, but didn't break a rule, (b) Enquired why then, got no response. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8004:12C1:8EDE:13C5:2D62:591D:B8D6 (talk) 15:58, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

What is authority control?
Hi, I'v seen you've been adding this to a number of pages. What is it, exactly? What purpose does it serve? (not being critical; inquiring mind wants to know.  :) ) Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 01:45, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
 * See Authority control. Cheers! BD2412  T 02:29, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 19:33, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Breaks
So I was always under the impression that  and   did the exact same thing. Is this no longer the case, or should I just not be using  within infoboxes or other templates? I saw that my use of  had to be removed from several infoboxes, and I'd like to know what I should be avoiding so I don't create lint errors. Hog Farm Talk 15:36, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
 * you can keep using both AFAIK (with a preference for the self-closing , hopefully, lest you have a desire in keeping delinting gnomes employed). Template-wise, many infobox fields accept breaks - can you provide diffs to those removed?   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:47, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
 * this is what caught my attention. Not really a removal, just adding the closing bracket and some other genfixes, mainly related to the usage of templates with lowercase leading characters vs. uppercase.  I greatly appreciate those who fix my unintentional lint errors, and I don't want to create additional errors. Hog Farm Talk 17:04, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Using to create lists is probably not the correct way to make lists.  See  particularly at MOS:NOBR.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:17, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
 * ahh - let me refer you to above. Relatively speaking, self-closing html tags is definitely more important than that selective capitalization (but both are pretty low on an absolute scale).   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  17:31, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I'll try to keep in mind both (but no promises I'll get both right every time). Hog Farm Talk 17:44, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Getting Wikidata to appear in Wikipedia article
Hi, Tom.Reding. The Wikipedia article On Weights and Measures does not have a Wikidata bar (Authority control) showing its Identifiers. Since I am obviously unfamiliar with the process of adding Identifiers to the Wikidata page for "On Weights and Measures," which appears here, a cursory review shows the following WorldCat Identities: - which happens to be the Syriac translation of Epiphanius' "On Weights and Measures";  - which title, "De mensuris et ponderibus," is the Latin equivalent given for the Armenian translation of Epiphanius' "On Weights and Measures." Both OCLC indentifiers refer to Epiphanius' work "On Weights and Measures," which he originally compiled in Greek. Under the Wikidata Identifier for the National Library of Israel J9U ID (P8189) I have searched the holdings of that library and I notice where it lists their system identification number for this work as 990030511370205171, which you can access here. I'm not sure if all this is helpful. There must also be a Greek-language publication of the original work. See, for example, Sebastian P. Brock, “Epiphanius of Salamis,” in Epiphanius of Salamis, edited by Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay. The extant Greek manuscript of Epiphanius' "On Weights and Measures" is now preserved at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University in the UK, as shown here. Hope this helps.Davidbena (talk) 03:42, 8 April 2021 (UTC)


 * here is why isn't used by Authority control. Please use OCLC instead.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:04, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks!Davidbena (talk) 13:24, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * , I added the OCLC template to the page On Weights and Measures, but, still, I see no OCLC bar showing the identifiers. Is there something else that I must do? Please advise.Davidbena (talk) 13:40, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Editing Wikipedia Page
Hello Tom, I'm Ben, I'm working with Birthright Israel and we would like to edit our Wikipedia page with updated informations but I can't find a way to do it. I saw you were the last person to edit it.

Could you help me doing that (or maybe explain me how to proceed).

Thanks for your help, Regards

Ben


 * Birthright Israel is under WP:Extended confirmed protection, which is "granted automatically to registered users with at least 30 days tenure and 500 edits", and "Users can request edits to an extended confirmed-protected page by proposing them on its talk page, using the template if necessary to gain attention.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:11, 8 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your help, I posted a first update on the talk page of Birthright Israel for the introduction part, could you tell me if it's good this way? It's my first update, thanks for your understanding
 * Ben
 * Ben
 * Ben


 * I trust someone there will review the request in due time. If not, I'll take a look. Also, don't forget to sign your talk page posts with " ".  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:08, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Drop it
Please keep your personal attacks to yourself. This is uncalled for. The editor "creating" that talk page is someone I'm in a dispute with (actually a block evading sockpuppet, the SPI is open), who simply creates that page for the lulz. If you try to berate people and drag up their history, at least be sure that you get the facts surrounding a situation before doing so. Fram (talk) 11:22, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
 * looks to me like you're badgering them. Regardless, the correct action would've been to tag the talk page (of an article you created, no less) instead of speedying. Take a chill pill, man, and think about your actions, instead of...not.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:28, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Okay, you clearly have no intention to look objectively at the situation and just use it to get back at me, noted. Fram (talk) 11:30, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
 * That is objectively funny.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:32, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

oops...
to this citation.

isbn13 fixes noted with pleasure.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:13, 11 April 2021 (UTC)


 * while I didn't introduce any problems, I did only fixed half of them - last & first were both wikilinked, which there is no maintenance cat for. Could you have the module check for these without much overhead? I bet there is a large, but manageable number of them out there (i.e. nowhere near the number of singly-wikilinked authors & editors).  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  20:11, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I suppose that it is possible to do that. This search, which times out and is only looking for &lt;name>, suggests that doubly-linked author names don't happen all that often.  At the moment, I can't think of any reason why first (and the equivalents for other name parameters) should ever be wikilinked.  We have author-link to link first / last pairs and the documentation for first explicitly says don't wikilink so it would seem that the module should emit an error message when any first name parameter is wikilinked.
 * If I decide to do anything about this, I will discuss it at Help talk:Citation Style 1.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 21:49, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 21:49, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

authorlink= count?
A week ago, you posted to Help Talk:CS1 that you estimated authorlink at about 30K uses (in article space, I presume). I have done a bunch of cleanup edits, mostly intersecting with, since then, and I'm curious if you can provide an updated estimate, or a link to a search that you use to get this number.

I have also mapped authorlink to author-link in a dozen or so wrapper templates, which should reduce the number of pages placed in by authorlink. If you see wrapper templates that do not make this conversion automatically, let me know. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:38, 13 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I'll post them here for easy mutual reuse. When I originally counted 309k on 9 Nov 2020, I just used basic  type searches where # =  . I chose not to use the   qualifier b/c that made the searches more prone to timing out (especially the lower # ones) at a much lower result count, and since I figured the number of non-CS1 offending templates would be a near/trivial component of the originally-discovered non-hyphenated offenders.


 * 1) author1link + authorlink1 + authorlink = 197 + 16,737 + 83,376 = 100,310
 * 2) author2link + authorlink2 = 228 + 12,201 = 12,429
 * 3) author3link + authorlink3 = 49 + 1,618 = 1,667
 * 4) author4link + authorlink4 = 5 + 584 = 589
 * 5) author5link + authorlink5 = 3 + 307 = 310
 * Total = 115,305
 * Splitting up the searches helped prevent timeouts as well, and there were no timeouts above (but I had to rerun  3–4x before it went to completion). I'm not sure how I got a 30k total last week. There might have been a timeout or 2 that I didn't try to redo... Still a great improvement from 309k though!   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:51, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I might've forgotten to search for the "authorlink" variant (83,376 above). Subtracting that from the total gives 31,929. Yet another reason to have these searches spelled out somewhere.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  16:01, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's still better than 300K, but it would be nice to have Monkbot running on the results of these queries. I have been overlapping searches like this with other error/maint categories to limit the number of false positives, like this search that includes the new "discouraged parameter" category. That category hasn't filled up yet, so the count is too low, but it can help avoid wrapper templates that use authorlink without causing an error. I have also used petscan queries to find articles that need some other fix besides the parameter fix, and either working on those lists myself or feeding them to Citation Bot. (here is a similar insource query that I will be feeding to Citation Bot) – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:45, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I notice that there is a very long tail (authorlink30, 15 results) as well.... (authorlink6/7/8/9, 399 results; authorlinknn, at least 104 results) – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:54, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Between my Authority control & general cleanup endeavors, I can frequently (~65% of the time) find something non-cosmetically wrong with pages I haven't touched yet. I'm piggybacking most hyphenations as well (access-date selectively, based on an arbitrarily fluctuating disregard for my emotional well-being).  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  17:06, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Another useful source of authorlinkn parameter usages is the monthly parameter data reports generated by the Template Data headers on template documentation pages, like this one for Cite journal. They are generated based on a database dump from the first of the month and are created about a week later, so they get out of date, but they can work better than a search if nobody has worked through them yet. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:56, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

after ~4 months: Total = 115,867  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:51, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) author1link + authorlink1 + authorlink = 215 + 16,919 + 83,605 = 100,739
 * 2) author2link + authorlink2 = 248 + 12,319 = 12,567
 * 3) author3link + authorlink3 = 51 + 1,624 = 1,675
 * 4) author4link + authorlink4 = 5 + 581 = 586
 * 5) author5link + authorlink5 = 1 + 299 = 300

Authority control for minor items
While I'm certainly supportive of linking to authority control where it's useful, I'm not sure how useful it is for items like minor railway stations, so I wanted to see why you've found them worth adding. Take for example Southborough station (MBTA). It has two links: a VIAF page that contains nothing but links to Wikidata and a non-human-readable DNB page, and a Worldcat link that 404s. That doesn't seem to have the value to readers that we would demand of an equally-sized navbox; anyone who would find that VIAF page useful already knows that the link is on Wikidata. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 01:44, 15 April 2021 (UTC)


 * there appears to be something wrong with &  links - a few random pages all 404, suggesting they probably all 404. This is either b/c there's something wrong with the OCLC SRW/SRU servers, or the WorldCat-LCCN/VIAF link formats have changed in some way. Normal, non-derived, WorldCat links  aren't experiencing this problem, but my guess is still that it's the former.
 * If you don't think a particular link is useful, you can suppress it via a blank parameter like so VIAF.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  02:45, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Borderline personalization
We have a history, and I know you maintain grudges, but if you have an issue with me as an editor, there are numerous venues where you can work that out. The place to do it is not supposed to be the talkpage of an article. Further, claiming that my volunteer editorial work at this website is "intentional orphaning" is a borderline personal attack. jps (talk) 12:33, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * your recent edit history suggests otherwise - that you are trying to orphan Earth Similarity Index, again, and thus WP:NOTHERE. If you want, WP:AfD.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:35, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * If that's what you think, you need to talk about it somewhere other than on Talk:Earth Similarity Index, because that's manifestly not what I am doing. jps (talk) 13:18, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * well, in your recent edits I quickly find:
 * 9 edits like this to Keplers, KOIs, and K2s
 * 2 like this to Gliese objects,
 * removal from List of equations
 * removal from Habitable exoplanet
 * removal from Earth analog
 * removal from Earth Similarity Index
 * removal from Earth mass
 * and topped off with this.
 * How is all this not orphaning & not-WP:NOTHERE again?  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:24, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Do you really think I'm "not here" to improve the encyclopedia? What, exactly, do you think I'm here for? I'm just a troll trying to orphan pages? Like, I don't understand how the WP:NOTHERE applies.

But I'll try my best to WP:AGF here and explain what I've been writing on lots of the other pages: ESI is an obscure idea at best and WP:UNDUE WP:FRINGE at worst. Reliable sources which discuss the Earth's Mass do not mention ESI, so WP:ONEWAY definitely applies. And for all the exoplanets listed, there are not reliable sources which list the ESI for the planet. That's precisely the issue. I'm not sure why you won't deal with this substantively, but it sure feels like this is just overly personalized at this point.

jps (talk) 14:27, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Accessdate
Please stop changing "accessdate" to "access-date" (or any of the other disputed hyphenaizations). See e.g. here. This is not a standard AWB genfix, so presumably something you have purposefully added as a replacement in your AWB run. Unnecessary, disputed changes with no actual effect on the rendered page should not be made using AWB (or any method actually), no matter if the edit otherwise was substantial or not. If I'm mistaken and this is a default AWB change, then please correct me so I can take it up at the AWB talk pages. Fram (talk) 13:00, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Huh?  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:07, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * If my post is unclear, then please elaborate a bit on which parts are confusing or unintelligible. Fram (talk) 13:12, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Where is it said not to change accessdate to access-date alongside substantial edits?  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:15, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

See WP:ANI. Fram (talk) 13:19, 22 April 2021 (UTC)


 * So, nowhere?  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:24, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The discussion is now at WP:ANI, but anyway; the two parameters are aliases, both acceptable, and are not in the AWB replacement list because they shouldn't be replaced (in either direction). This is standard practice all over enwiki, to avoid fruitless edit wars (or else I could make the reverse change on all pages where I change e.g. authority control to acart, or another substantial edit). It's the same reason that you shouldn't change citation methods, or whitespace in headers, or ... If both versions are acceptable, just leave them well alone. Fram (talk) 13:33, 22 April 2021 (UTC)


 * And some of us choose to standardize template redirects, à la WP:AWB/TR or with our personal code/settings; access-date is similar.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:41, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Uh, no. AWB/TR (or what you probably mean; WP:AWB/RTP) is a fixed list of acceptable replacements. Parameters which work, and which are not included in that list, should not be replaced. That's why we have that list, to avoid these discussions. You were part of the accessdate RfC, you know that it ended with a consensus against this standardization. Overruling this consensus by mass-changing it through thousands of AWB edits is not acceptable. Fram (talk) 13:46, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

A reminder about the main AWB rules, especially #3: "Do not make controversial edits with it. Seek consensus for changes that could be controversial at the appropriate venue; village pump, WikiProject, etc. "Being bold" is not a justification for mass editing lacking demonstrable consensus. If challenged, the onus is on the AWB operator to demonstrate or achieve consensus for changes they wish to make on a large scale." Fram (talk) 13:47, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Wait, so am I making irrelevant, inconsequential edits, or bold, controversial edits?
 * Also, the RfC ended with consensus against deprecation, which I don't have the power to do.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:59, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * You are making mass edits lacking demonstrable consensus (for the parameternames aspect), and which are controversial (as can be judged from the RfC and other discussions). Fram (talk) 14:04, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, "controversial" to a vocal minority that disagrees with every close.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:07, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

"MSDOSSYS.STS" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect MSDOSSYS.STS. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 April 22 until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Crash48 (talk) 18:17, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Broken edits on Mattia Binotto
I appreciate you cleaning up things with AWB but clearly whatever you're editing in this revision breaks the EngvarB template, do you see this on your end? FozzieHey (talk) 15:20, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I do (did) in this version. There was a hidden 0-width character "﻿" at the start of the template prior to my editing, whose removal fixed the error.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:28, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, did this not show up in the AWB preview window? FozzieHey (talk) 15:30, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
 * inserted a U+FEFF ZERO WIDTH NO-BREAK SPACE between the second  and the   of EngvarB.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:34, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Somehow, it made its way into my replace, and I've no idea how.
 * Searching through recent edits now. Luckily, it was a new rule.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  16:21, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

World Cat identity
Hi Tom, the link you posted at Piz da la Margna doesn't seem to work. Cheers, Ericoides (talk) 19:49, 27 April 2021 (UTC)


 * it looks like the same problem as above @ is happening. I checked a few days ago and they were working.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  20:02, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Not to be confused with ...
Hi Tom.Reding, I believe you are the right person for this query. What does one do with "not to be confused with xxx" 'redirects' when the target term likely to be confused with, is redirected to something else? For example, Gramineae and Graminea are very similar words and people looking it up might not know the exact spelling or might easily mistype it, so it makes sense to place "not to be confused with xxx" alerts on each. Easily done with Graminea — not to be confused with gramineae. However, what do we do for the other way round? Gramineae redirects to Poaceae, so those who reach the page by looking up poaceae directly might be puzzled seeing a message about graminea. Do we have a conventional workaround for this? Thanks for any light you might shed. Rui &#39;&#39;Gabriel&#39;&#39; Correia (talk) 21:54, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
 * since Poaceae has "Gramineae" in its opening sentence, and the article Graminea exists, I don't see an issue with having at the top of Poaceae.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  00:47, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * @Rui Gabriel Correia Redirect seems to be what you are looking for. User:1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk)  14:26, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Tom.Reding and 1234qwer1234qwer4. Much appreciated. Rui &#39;&#39;Gabriel&#39;&#39; Correia (talk) 10:19, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * @Rui Gabriel Correia In this case, Redirect-distinguish seems to fit best. I've changed it in the article. User:1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk)  19:15, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Brilliant, ! I tried combining the two by using piping within the template, but after many attempts with multiple variations, nothing worked. This is indeed perfect. Thank you. Rui &#39;&#39;Gabriel&#39;&#39; Correia (talk) 05:51, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

KLAR
The VIAF you added to KLAR (the radio station) appears to be for some sort of German music group that not even dewiki has an article for. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 16:40, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Introducing myself
Hello Tom.Reding,

Nice to e-meet you. As you will see from my personal page, I am the Executive Assistant to the CEO at Lekela, a renewable power generation company operating in Africa. I’ve been appointed the in-house Wikipedian in residence to help ensure that information about Lekela is factual, fair, and balanced, in line with Wikipedia standards and guidelines.

I have noticed that you appear to be interested in energy/renewables-related pages such as Iberdrola Renovables, Vestas, IRENA, and the general ‘Renewable energy in Africa’ page.

As someone interested in Africa and energy, Lekela has many wind projects in Africa that aren’t mentioned on Wikipedia but that could be captured in a company-focused page. I obviously cannot set up this page as that would break the Wikipedia rules, but do let me know if you would be interested in doing this.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best, Jas --Jas at Lekela (talk) 15:17, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

ANI notice
There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Fram (talk) 13:56, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Re.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  17:49, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Newark NJ Fire Dept Page
Hi, this is Doriden, I am contacting you because of this anonymous user based in Florida that keeps on vandalizing the Newark Fire Department Wikipedia page. All day today back and forth, wrote to him twice on talk page but continues doing it. How can he be blocked? I am asking for your assistance because it looks like you have a lot of experience with Wikipedia. Thank you, Doriden Doriden (talk) 21:27, 12 May 2021 (UTC)


 * it appears that you are manually reverting the IP over several edits. You can instead select the relevant edit in the edit history and click 'undo' (much faster & easier to do). Their edits also look more 'disruptive' than 'vandalism'. Regardless, after your multiple warnings, and other users reverts, I've reported IP to WP:AIV via WP:Twinkle, which you might find incredibly useful in these circumstances.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  22:00, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting it for me, I'm not too computer savvy. Appreciate your response. Doriden (talk) 22:03, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

BTW, where is the undo button or icon? Doriden (talk) 22:11, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
 * or "undo" in any history window. If you have permission to edit the page, you should find it. Adjust the radio buttons on the left the affect the relevant edits.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  10:12, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Doriden (talk) 11:09, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * slight correction: the undo button only undoes 1 edit (I rarely use it and assumed it worked the same as "Compare selected revisions"). To undo multiple edits, use the radio buttons in the history window, then click on "Compare selected revisions" at the top. Double-check the diff, and if you're satisfied, click "restore this version" on the left side.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:24, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * For further help please ask at the WP:Teahouse.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:26, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm working from a mobile device and I don't know if it has them features. I'll try it, thanks again,  Doriden  Doriden (talk) 11:39, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Newark NJ Fire Department Wikipedia page
He just did it again. Disruptive editing. Please help me. Thanks, Doriden Doriden (talk) 15:24, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Newark NJ fire dept Wikipedia page
He did it again. Can we get him blocked at least temporarily? Doriden (talk) 21:17, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Newark NJ fire dept Wikipedia page
Can you please help me by reporting him, I have talked to him more than five times and he keeps up with the disruptive editing. I would greatly appreciate your help. I really don't know how to do this reporting and I am on a mobile device. Thanks, Doriden Doriden (talk) 21:51, 18 May 2021 (UTC)


 * please don't spam my talk page. Like I said, for further help please ask at the WP:Teahouse. I submitted the page to WP:Requests for page protection, via WP:Twinkle, which you are able to use.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  22:46, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Category:Northern Ireland MLAs 2016–2017
could you fix the script error that you added to this category? Frietjes (talk) 15:44, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
 * ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 00:57, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Akane Yamaguchi
Hello. Help copy edit. Thank you. Vnosm (talk) 12:46, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Opportunism
Hi, I would like to ask about a paragraph you wrote on the page about Opportunism. This is the paragraph:

It is often difficult for an outsider to understand why an action or an idea is (or is not) "opportunist", because the outsider lacks the whole context, or the true intention behind it.

Who did you mean by the outsider? The opportunist or the people who are not opportunistic?

Thank you for your answer. Kaktus7202 (talk) 01:18, 26 May 2021 (UTC)


 * using WikiBlame, I found that was added in 2014 by a now-blocked editor.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  01:26, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

I can know understand it a little better. Thanks. Kaktus7202 (talk) 01:31, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Newark NJ fire dept Wikipedia page
Tom, this is Doriden, the page Protection of the Newark NJ fire dept Wikipedia page was reversed by a BOT and a half hour later that ip address from Florida did it again with disruptive editing. I warned him once again. Can we get him blocked at least temporarily for disruptive editing? Thank you, Doriden Doriden (talk) 19:02, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I've described to you above how to deal with this. Now it's your turn.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:06, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying but it is extremely difficult to do it from a mobile device. Once or twice when I made a edit that was "questionable" wiki users crawled out of the woodwork to admonish me, and this guy is getting away with all this nonsense. Two hours after the BOT removed the page Protection he pounced on it, this non-static ip from St.Petersburg Florida. OK. Thanks anyway Doriden (talk) 19:26, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Authority control in non-biographical articles
Hi. I've noticed your edits for some time, and generally they don't seem to be disputed, but I'm wondering whether there has been discussion and explicit consensus in support of adding authority control templates to non-biographical articles? I couldn't find anything other than the 2012 RfC. --Paul_012 (talk) 07:09, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
 * all ID proposals & discussions are @ Template talk:Authority control.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:19, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Authority control + Vital articles?
Noticed you're a driving force for authority control additions. Don't know if you follow a specific pattern, but thinking it'd be nice to focus on Vital articles lacking this, since these are, after all, vital. FYI, Vital has five levels, starting at the ten most vital, then top 100, top 1000, top 10k, and top 50k. Hyperbolick (talk) 09:14, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ for all VAs I could find soon after your message.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  03:36, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Ones still not having it (eg Dream yoga) would be ones which no such authorities, then? Hyperbolick (talk) 06:14, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * yes, for the most part, or they were vital'd after my compilation. I decided to skip pages with Microsoft Academic as the only ID (100~150 pages, perhaps), as that service is being discontinued at the end of this year. You can request more IDs @ Template talk:Authority control. There are also some non-Latin titles I need to check too, but only a dozen or so.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:51, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Page broken
Just want to let you know that your edit broke the page styling. I fixed it but I suggest you to preview the page after adding authority control. <span style="font-family:system-ui,Inter,-apple-system,YuGothic,sans-serif;background-color:#f3f3fe;padding:2px 5px;border-radius:3px;white-space:nowrap">Northern Moonlight | ほっこう  06:07, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
 * bug report filed.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  10:19, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Only 1 preexisting similar(ish) case found in my 25k most recent edits.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:11, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Authority Control edits moving Commonscat templates to odd places in articles
A recent round of Authority Control edits which you made caused an unexpected problem. On articles such as Unterbözberg, Mettembert and Suscévaz it moved the Commons Category template above the References section and stuck it under the header of the text section above the References section. Of the 4 articles I checked, this happened 3 times.Tobyc75 (talk) 11:38, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
 * that's where it should be, per Template:Commons category/doc.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:40, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Actually, these should be at the top of the last section; preferably, this is the External links section, but if this is missing it may be at the top of the See Also or the References section. It should not be moved at the top of the last "text" section, which is what you are doing here. See MOS:LAYOUTEL. Fram (talk) 12:55, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Since the above pages have references with columns, and the Commons category don't contain left, according to the red X's, I should move commons up. The text immediately below that says don't move commons up. I think this wording can be improved.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:14, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Except that it's not putting it under External links or something like that. It's inserting it into what ever section is above, regardless of what that section is. This means you have a random commons cat template in the middle of text.Tobyc75 (talk) 13:48, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
 * when I was writing my code, I think I was going off of Template:Commons/doc (based on the name, I figured was the 'root' template, though I never compared transclusions counts), which had the much stricter instruction of "❌ Do not place this template in a section containing columns.", meaning my code was correct. However, I assumed Template:Commons category/doc was the same, but it is (was) not, and it doesn't make sense for them to be different. Since Commons category is currently transcluded on 800k pages, 12.5x more than Commons, it becomes to de facto consensus, so I've updated Template:Commons/doc to reflect that.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:47, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Newark NJ fire dept Wikipedia page
He's back again, this time from a Miami  ip address. He just pounced on the Newark NJ fire dept Wikipedia page Doriden (talk) 18:27, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

You've got mail
Srshanta (talk) 07:42, 24 June 2021 (UTC)


 * please read Help:Your first article & ask any questions at the WP:Teahouse.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:54, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

can you create his Wikipedia. I will provide you his all information and news source and Google knowledge panel source Srshanta (talk) 16:04, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

"en.wikipedia.org" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect En.wikipedia.org. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 June 24 until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 18:05, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Authority control on redirects
Hi! Curious about this edit. How does it help the reader learn more about Cuthbertson as they'll just end up on the business school's page. Not disagreeing, just a little confused. Thanks for any insight. Star  Mississippi  13:08, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * when redirected, there is a link to the redirecting page. If the reader clicks on that page, they will see the additional links, which are different from the target.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:14, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Makes sense. Is there somewhere that explains it that could be linked for those of us less familiar with authority control & wikidata? Star   Mississippi  13:43, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * WP:Authority control comes to mind.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:57, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

If you do not desist from using automated editing to add a template specifically designed to direct people off-wiki to redirect pages, the next stop for me is ANI. There appears to be no consensus for such a pointless task nor bot approval for it. To clarify your response above - you only see the redirect link back to the redirect if you click on the redirect through the on-wiki search rather than the bigger more prominent article link in the search results to the left of it. In all other situations you will not see or land on the redirect page, and the idea that someone will click on a redirect link (which most of the time they wont see) then click through a template just to find a musicbrains ID is utterly idiotic. Stop now, or the next step is I ask for you to be forcibly stopped. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:07, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * please read WP:Authority control.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  18:51, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Unless that's a link to a bot request where you specifically lay out that you are adding a template to redirects, I am uninterested. Stop now. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:56, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * why? If you don't like it, please exhibit consensus and change WP:Authority control. WP:ANI is a last resort, of course.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:00, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * While I don't want to get in the middle of this, I would like to make a helpful suggestion. There are a large number (over 70,000) redirects tagged as R with possibilities, indicating that an editor believes that a separate article can be written on the topic of that redirect. To the extent that redirects are being tagged, I think it would be helpful to focus on these first, as these are the ones for which authority control information is likely to be most useful. I would also think, however, that it would generally be best to add the template to live articles before adding it to redirects. I see no problem with having the template on a redirect page. We tag and categorize redirects with redirect templates all the time. BD2412  T 19:17, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Since you have declined to stop your unapproved mass-editing, and reverted the challanges I have made. This is now at ANI. Consider yourself notified. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:32, 16 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Regardless of whether the template really allows these edits or not, there is a distinct possibility that this kind of editing violates the WP:MEATBOT policy and requires approval by WP:BAG. I strongly suggest you desist from making further edits until the discussion currently held at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents has finished. Otherwise, you risk being blocked to force you to stop which is not in anyone's interest really. After all, there is no pressing need for adding this template en masse, so you can just wait for consensus to develop before making further edits. Regards So  Why  11:03, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
 * fair enough, mostly. Re: WP:MEATBOT: I'm approving every edit, and not "sacrific[ing] quality in the pursuit of speed or quantity". I'll point out that I'm also correcting page layout per WP:REDIRECT & Template:Redirect category shell/doc & formatting as I go. I edit over many days, and other admins (above) have shown no qualms. One un/mis-informed editor screaming at windmills doesn't make windmills disruptive (though they could be construed as disruptive from a Luddite POV, to extend the metaphor).  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:43, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Making up to ten edits a minute means probably less than 2-3 seconds to review the edit, seeing as saving and loading times need to be taken into account as well. A MEATBOT violation is thus a possibility. Whether or not this is the case, is for the community to decide. My note was just meant to remind you to await the result of the discussion and that not doing so can be sanctioned as disruptive editing. I have no personal opinion on the matter at hand. Regards So  Why  12:26, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Fortunately, #REDIRECTs are small, load extremely quickly, the diffs are 1-5 lines tall and mostly whitespace, all making checking extremely quick & easy. I could have doubled my speed without sacrificing accuracy, if I wanted to maximally tax my attention, but I decided my sanity was more important.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:39, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I completely agree with Tom on this point. An experienced AWB user who knows what the diff should look like could, in a straightforward task like this, do several edits per second without sacrificing accuracy. BD2412  T 20:08, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Taxonbar
Hey there, I want to add taxonbar in articles (on cz wiki) using AWB but I don't know how to do it with parameter from and specific ID (like you did here). Did you use some specific command? Thank you for your answer RiniX (talk) 20:31, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I use the MW API to get the QID of a WP page, e.g. Lion, using:
 * In AWB's C# module, I use, where   &   are locally defined string variables (  contains the above API call), and regex the HTML for the QID. Someone above @ User talk:Tom.Reding/Archive 3 asked a similar question, which you might also find useful.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  23:42, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
 * In AWB's C# module, I use, where   &   are locally defined string variables (  contains the above API call), and regex the HTML for the QID. Someone above @ User talk:Tom.Reding/Archive 3 asked a similar question, which you might also find useful.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  23:42, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

References need to be removed
RE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Van_Kampen#References

Hello, the first three references have broken links and need to be removed, thank you. Mhandels (talk) 01:43, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz work identifiers
Hello, Tom,

You can't move a category page or place a category redirect on a category page without reassigning the new category to all of the pages within the old category. So please reassign all of the pages in the old category to the new one or I'll move the category page back to retain the page history. I'll check back in a few days and see if this has been done. Thank you. Liz <sup style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: #006400;">Read! Talk! 20:26, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * of course. There are ~1.3M categorized pages for the job queue to work through, so a few days might not be enough. In a few days, I'll start null editing any stubborn old categories not yet processed by then. Let me know you prefer this done sooner.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  20:35, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * In the meantime, I'll be monitoring/clearing .  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  21:31, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Why do you capitalise template names?
Why do do you spend so much time using Wikipedia resources endlessly overriding other people's personal preferences by capitalising all the templates in articles? Is it just some satisfaction you get, knowing that you leave in your wake endless trails of needlessly discomforted users. Or is there something else that is actually positive about this behaviour? I know it's trivial to raise the point, but your actions also seem trivial. Except that they seem designed to leave other users feeling a bit down, and that is not really a trivial matter. Is that how you see your role on Wikipedia? Do you really see this as something positive? Have I got this wrong? — Epipelagic (talk) 05:13, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I piggyback some cosmetic first-letter-capitalization on more substantial edits since that matches the capitalization at the top and bottom of articles, or the surrounding text, i.e.,  ,   & other section headings, DEFAULTSORT,  , etc., if that template is at the beginning of the line. Otherwise, and for stub, citation, and protection templates, I don't touch them.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:55, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * You also seem to capitalise the navigation templates. Does this achieve anything apart from slightly (but persistently) discomforting other users with minor (but opposite) personal preferences? — Epipelagic (talk) 18:03, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * yes, since those fulfill the above criteria.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  18:17, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * But what do those criteria "fulfill" apart from the personal satisfaction of overriding minor personal preferences of other users with your own personal preferences. — Epipelagic (talk) 18:28, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * unfortunately, I think yours is the minority view. For example, I have consensus from WP:Tree of life @ WT:TOL/Archive 48. Do you have consensus for your preference? That isn't to say, you shouldn't edit how you want (feel free to continue as you were), but perhaps you should lower your level of WP:OWNership to accommodate most editors' preferences.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  18:47, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I am referring most specifically to navigation templates. You say you "have consensus from WP:Tree of life" and point to a discussion about some specialist templates confined to that project. But there is no mention there at all, let alone agreement, about capitalising the names of any templates. You say you "think" my view is a minority view, but you offer no evidence that is the case. Moreover, consensus should never be blindly equated with whether a view is a majority view. That would lead to the authoritarian suppression of reasonable differences. Please shine your closing comment about "your level of WP:OWNership" back upon yourself. I am not the one taking ownership of anything here. I'm merely trying to soften some unnecessary ownership you are already taking and inflicting on others. — Epipelagic (talk) 20:24, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * if you can't provide a link to consensus for your argument, then please don't bother responding. "Canonical titles" is the operative phrase in that discussion. Furthermore, soon after that discussion, I edited ~10,000 pages while performing such capitalization (Taxonbar is a nav box, and was 1/2 of the intersecting criteria), and then several times that in the following months prior to archiving, and you will find no objections. I took, and I take no ownership in these edits, as I am simply reflecting consensus. Should it change, I'll change with it.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  21:00, 1 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Are you saying your use of the phrase "canonical titles" was an obscurantist ploy you used to shield your real intention, which was to capitalise all the templates? Are you claiming the Tree of Life Project understood the intent of your lack of clarity and still gave you a consensus. Even if that were the case (and I don't believe it was), it is merely a consensus from one project about their own templates. It is not a consensus from the Wikipedia community, which is what you need here if you want to claim legitimacy for what you are doing. However, you seem have dug in, and in a way that leaves no room for compromise. So there it is. I'll leave you with it. — Epipelagic (talk) 21:48, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Authority control again
Is there a reason you're adding authority control to articles again? I thought you said at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1072#User_Tom.Reding_operating_an_unapproved_WP:MEATBOT_to_perform_useless_tasks. the ANI] that you were going to stop? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:53, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * On redirects, yes.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:20, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think so. I'll let speak for himself, but it seemed clear to me that the objections were about all your MEATBOT runs in this regard (particularly on anything other than BLPs, but even those without approval for yourself). It also seemed clear to me that you understood this, given that you stopped the AC edits, and then started Taxonbar, and then stopped those after those were pointed out, and then went quiet for a while (for the rest of the month you made no such AC MEATBOT edits ); now it seems you resumed them a few weeks after the ANI was archived, based on the assurances you gave there. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:26, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Since you're more interested in my edit history (I'm flattered, by the way) than substance, please see the progenitor discussion above @ .  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:31, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It was detailed at the subsequent ANI that the problem was broader than redirects, other editors agreed, 's comments suggest that the concern was about this editing behaviour and not 'just redirects', and your editing history at the time shows that you understood these concerns and were stopping. You've now resumed the exact same activities after scrutiny died down. They have no broad consensus support, evidenced opposition, and are in clear violation of the Bot policy.My question is whether you are going to stop this editing or not, and furthermore what steps you will take to reverse these edits? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:17, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Why yes, and there were other comments as well in the discussion, displayed fully, above @.
 * You've now resumed the exact same activities: wrong.
 * I've stopped adding AC to #REDIRECTs, and
 * it's impossible for me to replicate that editing speed, since I'm not adding AC to #REDIRECTs.
 * ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 15:04, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

ANI
I don't feel this is going to be resolved here, so:

There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Tom.Reding's_use_of_an_unapproved_WP:MEATBOT_to_do_contested_mass-editing_tasks_(again). Thank you. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:23, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Re.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:30, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Authority control boxes
Hi, I'm sorry to bother you, but I have very low technical skills. I've tried to follow the discussion on the Talk page for the Authority control box, and I'm baffled. Is it possible to set the default for the Authority control box to "collapse", or not? The categories you've created suggest that it is possible to collapse it? Am I reading that right? If so, how? The box on one page I'm dealing with doesn't seem to have any way to set it to collapse as default, just a "hide" option, which closes it until the next time I go to that page. I would very much appreciate an option to set default-collapse, just like other templates, but I can't tell from the discussion if that is an option? Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 05:02, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * tracking categories were created based on Template:Authority control/doc, which I think you'll find more useful than my response to @ template talk. I have not extensively tested the collapsed/expanded/autocollapse parts of the code (at first glance & sandbox testing of the tracking cats, everything seemed fin), since I didn't write them. I don't have the time to look into it now, but if you're still having problems after reading the /doc, let me know and I'll check it out later.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  10:48, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Reply-link officially superseded by DiscussionTools
Hi! Reply-link has officially been superseded by DiscussionTools, which you can install using the "Discussion tools" checkbox under. DiscussionTools, developed by the WMF's Editing Team, is faster and has more features than reply-link, and it wouldn't make sense for me to keep developing reply-link. I think the Editing Team is doing amazing work, and look forward to what they can do in the future. Thank you for using reply-link over the years! Enterprisey (talk!) 06:11, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Compliments on your userboxes

 * I saw your userboxes and I think it's really cool. But how can I create userboxes like that? HighStone06 (talk) 11:15, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
 * you can see at User:UBX/Authority control, for example, how to make one, and call it via, but first see if someone else hasn't already made what you want to make @ Userboxes/Galleries, and read through Userboxes.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:35, 8 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Okay thank you for the info. HighStone06 (talk) 11:37, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Moving templates using AWB
Hello, thank you for your help with Taxonbars. Do you think I could ask you one more time? I need to move one template in the article (on CZ Wiki), precisely move template "Translated page" a few lines above External links (basically something like this). Is there some simple command in AWB or it's better to use a script? I was searching all night but couldn't find a solution how to move a template with all data in it. Thank you RiniX (talk) 07:21, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
 * there's no easy way to do that accurately & reliably (it can be done quickly & poorly, but that isn't the goal). I have a large # of AWB regex rules & C# code to do so reliably on 1000s of pages across many subject areas & article qualities. If all of the page are in the same subject area, though, then it's likely that they have a similar layout, and you won't have to make many, nor very complicated, rules. The broader in scope you want to go, the more exceptions you need to handle, and the more complicated your rules get, and it's not something you do all at once, but piecemeal. I've found that trying to identify the largest # of similar pages in a list, and creating rules for those first, is the most rewarding and the fastest approach.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:46, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

RexxS arbitration
The memory of SlimVirgin is pictured again today, in the context of my dangerous thoughts about arbcom. I mentioned you here. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:08, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Earth symbol
The Earth symbol doesn't not display for you because you're on Chrome, but because you don't have adequate fonts installed. Meanwhile, your version displays as the wrong symbol for those of us who do have adequate fonts. The Earth symbol doesn't have a "white rim" in it, as Unicode maintains is correct for the circled plus, rather, the cross bars connect to the rim. — kwami (talk) 19:31, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
 * so what? A slightly-wrong symbol is better than an absolutely-wrong symbol.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:54, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that by this logic, just about any special character could be deleted, on the grounds that it will appear as an "absolutely-wrong symbol" to those lacking the font. I'm not very convinced.
 * But I've changed it to REarth, which at least combines the advantages of being visible to everyone and correct. Double sharp (talk) 20:00, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

But you didn't replace an absolutely wrong symbol with a slightly wrong symbol, you replaced a correct symbol with a wrong symbol. You're basically saying it would be OK to spell English "Anguish" because it sounds similar and so is only slightly wrong, and better slightly wrong because your keyboard is missing the letter 'E'. — kwami (talk) 20:23, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Wait, let me get this right: you were an astronomy grad student, and you don't know what the symbol for the Earth is? You've got OCD but aren't interested in getting things right? — kwami (talk) 20:25, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
 * how myopic of you; accessibility trumps any personal desire for standardization (yours included). If my browser isn't showing anything resembling an Earth symbol, then others aren't either.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  02:11, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * So let's spell Russian with look-alike Latin and Greek letters, because some ppl might not have a Cyrillic font installed. I'm sorry, but if you purposefully introduce errors into WP, then you're engaged in vandalism, even if you're unable to see it. — kwami (talk) 02:15, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

BTW, I believe WP has started providing web fonts so that articles and symbols are displayed for those who don't have font support. But I don't know anything about that or where we'd go to get the Earth symbol added. — kwami (talk) 02:32, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!
Season's greetings and Merry Christmas to you and your family. Have a wonderful holiday season. Cheers! RV (talk) 11:32, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Trevor Baxendale proposed for deletion.
Hello there. I happened to notice that an article you had contributed to, Trevor Baxendale, has been proposed for deletion owing to lack of sources. I wondered if you might like to help rescue it. --Cedderstk 21:11, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

edit title Aliasghar Mojarrad article
hello

The title of this athlete's article is wrong Should be changed to Aliasghar Mojarad

Can you do that? Amiir.masterr (talk) 07:44, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:30, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Incorrect edit
Hi Tom.Reading,

Please could you undo your edit:

13:55, 18 January 2021‎ Tom.Reding talk contribs‎ m 9,048 bytes +1‎  →‎Local opposition: Fix 1 auth/ed/transl punctuation; WP:GenFixes on undothank Tag: AWB

In this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Festival

There are two authors of the article in the References who are 'Rafael Vilchez' and 'E. P.'

The 'Y' is Spanish which translates as 'and'

'Y' is not an initial and so should not have a period mark after it. It should read:

Rafael Vilchez Y E. P.

Not:

Rafael Vilchez Y. E. P.

With thanks.
 * , part of the problem is that two authors' names were stored in one author parameter. I have separated them. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:26, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Update IOSCO facts
Hi there!

I was looking the IOSCO article and see that some info is outdated and needs an update. For example, IOSCO’s Secretary General is now Martin Moloney (since sept 2021). The Spanish and English versions don’t match.

If you need help updating this info please let me know.

Regards, Ángel 47.60.38.83 (talk) 18:25, 25 January 2022 (UTC)


 * You could've just edited the page yourself, especially since I've no interest in doing so.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:59, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Precious anniversary
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:06, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Article confirmation
Hello Tom.Reding,

I am the volonteering Wikipedia contributor and I want your assistance for the check-up of the article has been created by me.

Below I am leaving the link for the article, and I look forward to get your response of action soon.

Thank you for you assistance -Film contributor

User:Film contributor/Colorless dreams Film contributor (talk) 12:56, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:12, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I appreciate it. But it is still not visible on English Wikipedia Film contributor (talk) 14:31, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. I just copied the ready article in my user page that you have checked up. I guess now it is OK. Thank you so much Film contributor (talk) 18:52, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Article confirmation
Greetings Tom.Reding, After your previous assistance, my article is now available on Wikipedia, it is confirmed. And that inspired me, now I wrote more articles which are exist in other languages, but they are not confirmed yet. Can you please check them out for confirmation this time too?

Thank you very much I appreciate it -Film Contributor

Film contributor (talk) 16:17, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Ayub Shahobiddinov
 * Inkuzart
 * Lola Zunnunova
 * Utkirbek Kakhorov


 * ✅ ~ I went through the above pages and found no significant corrections.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:00, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Request
Hi Tom.Reding, a couple of months ago you helpfully made an adjustment to the Module:Category described in year to add lichens. Since then, I've been populating the categories, and plan to continue doing so, as part of a long-term project to make article for all lichen species (especially those published after 2000). I was wondering if there would be a simple way to have the total number of articles in the subcategories displayed on the "Lichens described in the xxth century" page? I ask because every couple of weeks I manually add up these subcategory numbers to keep track of my progress, and I realised that there's probably a simpler way to do this that I'm not aware of. I think a "total articles" count would probably be useful for all of the "Module:Category described in year" iterations. Is this desirable/doable? Esculenta (talk) 20:31, 22 February 2022 (UTC)


 * if you have WP:AWB, you can set "Source" to "Category (recursive)", and set as "" your search category. Currently, this returns 1925 results: 1709 articles + 216 subcategories. There's no way to do this on-the-fly on the category page itself, that I know of, but you can use either of these 2 PetScan links: with and without autorun (it takes a few minutes to run).  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:40, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Notifications
Hello, Tom,

I apologize for overwhelming your talk page with notices but I feel obliged to inform editors when a page they have created has been tagged for deletion. And it looks like you created the majority of categories in Category:User pages with authority control information which were recently emptied (see discussion on Template talk:Authority control).

There is no need for you to do anything, if the categories remain empty for a week, they will be deleted. Of course, feel free to remove these notices from your talk page when you return to edit Wikipedia so you can see more urgent messages. And thank you for all of your work with templates! Liz <sup style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: #006400;">Read! Talk! 20:10, 25 February 2022 (UTC)


 * well, good thing I'm not that busy! No problem. I created them simply to follow the existing pattern of tracking categories that existed prior to when I began being interested in Authority control. I have no use nor interest in them, and, if no one else does either, then I'm glad to see them emptied.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  22:18, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Help!
Hello, I hope you are well. Please review Mehran Ghafourian's draft. I made some changes. If the article is rejected again, write the reason. Thanks for your following up Amir ghpro (talk) 19:36, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

How can I fix “Grace City”
I added a history section. You removed it. What do I need to do to fix it? Thanks, Konroy Konroyb (talk) 20:37, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Cardiff Arms Park
You have previously edited Cardiff Arms Park. An editor has decided to split the article (yet again). I would like to know your view on the new edit....see Talk:Cardiff_Arms_Park. Seth Whales  talk  20:11, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Happy Holidays!
<div style="border-style:solid; border-color:#FF4646; background-color:#F6F0F7; border-width:2px; text-align:left; padding:7px; border-radius:1em; box-shadow: 0.1em 0.1em 0.5em rgba(0,0,0,0.75);;" class="plainlinks">Happy Holidays text.png Tom.Reding: Enjoy the holiday season&#32;and winter solstice if it's occurring in your area of the world, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, RV (talk) 01:42, 24 December 2022 (UTC) Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

Precious anniversary
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:33, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Wiknic location
Hi Tom.Reding! Looking forward to hopefully seeing you at Sunday's wiknic. At Wikipedia_talk:Meetup/DC/Wiknic_2023 I raised a question about location — I'll copy it here for convenience but if you could answer at that talk page that'd be really helpful. Thank you!

KevinL ( aka L235 · t · c) 04:31, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

FYI
Please don't do this, the line feeds break the infobox in this specific setup. Thanks. Zinnober9 (talk) 02:14, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Script errors
what is the fix for the red errors in Category:1863–64 in association football? looks like a large blow up in Category:Pages with script errors. Frietjes (talk) 21:31, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * , and all 56 affected categories null-edited to purge.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  21:50, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

"Televisions"
Hi,

I've noticed that the redirect page "Televisions" points to "Television". In every case that I checked, it's actually being used as the plural of "Television set", which is understandable, since television as a medium isn't normally pluralised. I'm bringing the matter to you because you were the last person to edit the redirect page, and because I'm inexperienced in these matters. Any thoughts? Jean-de-Nivelle (talk) 19:29, 2 November 2023 (UTC)


 * I see your point, but I quickly found List of Nokia products, where televisions currently, and appropriately, links to Television, not Television set, given the immediately preceding text "Nokia divested itself of the industries listed below to focus solely on telecommunications."
 * There are 85 links to televisions, that I've redirected to the newly created WP:Disambiguation page Televisions (disambiguation), with a bias towards Television set. I haven't done much disambiguation in a while, in fact since long before Dab solver went down, but WP:WPCleaner seems to be the de facto replacement, if you want to go through some or all of the 85 links to correctly resolve them.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  20:51, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I think in the case of "List of Nokia products" the appropriate target is actually "Television sets": the section gives a list of industries and products that Nokia is no longer involved with. It was previously a manufacturer of television sets, not a player in the television industry. If it had been, the appropriate link would have been "Television", not "Televisions".
 * I don't think disambiguation is the right way to go: I think the best solution would be to make "Televisions" a redirect to "Television set" since that's the context in which it's being used. I'm happy to check all the pages that link to "Televisions" and make any necessary fixes. Jean-de-Nivelle (talk) 21:21, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
 * "totally unnecessary", even given the conversation here? If not to Televisions (disambiguation), Televisions should be #R'd to Television set.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  22:06, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I've no strong opinion about what the target of televisions should be. It is customary for plural forms to redirect to the singular, but this may be an exception. However, the disambiguation set-up was totally unnecessary. If it is changed to redirect to television set, there should be a hatnote added there to older ≠ wiser 01:38, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

I have sent you a note about a page you started
Hello, Tom.Reding. Thank you for your work on List of minor planets: 626001–627000. User:Herpetogenesis, while examining this page as a part of our page curation process, had the following comments:

To reply, leave a comment here and begin it with. Please remember to sign your reply with ~. (Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

HᴇʀᴘᴇᴛᴏGᴇɴᴇꜱɪꜱ (talk) 18:30, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

The Coronary Stenting and the DES Pages - A merger proposal.

 * Drug-eluting stent
 * Coronary stent

Both articles are now about cardiac stenting - and PCI. I took the DES article on as a personal project and it has been fleshed out to include PCI and I have also attempted to follow best practices in the layout and structure for a GA type of article.

I am exploring how to merge the articles, they are so very similar but the DES article is I think a child of the CS article.

Just testing the waters - I think they can be rolled into one document - within the GA framework as described on the DES article tp.

Your name was on one or the other articles, and you are an experienced editor - so just politely reaching out.

Thoughts, ideas, how to?

Dr. BeingObjective (talk) 14:47, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
 * if the Venn diagram of DES vs. coronary stents shows considerable overlap, then merging probably makes sense, but that's about as far as my interest will take me. I see you've reached out to, who will be much more useful than I am. I might swing by later, after the dust settles, for page and ref cleanup though...  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:09, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, I am working with Maxim M., he has been very patient and thoughtful offering guidance and links for me to read, the GA effort and proposal came from him.
 * As a total newbie - I just wanted to contribute and bring the article up to date - many comments seemed to have stalled out in 2009.
 * Any clean ups and such would be appreciated, I think the DES article is now 'static' so if your get the time/interest - any help/collaboration is appreciated.
 * Given the shear number of PCI/Stenting procedures performed in the US and EU, I think this an important article and the DES article seemed a little abandoned.
 * To be honest - I initially wanted to change only the design criteria section - and then my interest became broader - naturally scope creep can occur - but I do not really think so - if the two articles are combined - I think this makes so much sense, 90 percent of stents used are now DES - Maxim gave me a proposed GA framework - and it made sense to me.
 * I could not discuss DES design thinking without PCI - and modern DES offerings are really one integrated medical device. 20 years ago this was not always the case.
 * Thanks BeingObjective (talk) 15:35, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Editor experience invitation
Hi Tom.Reding :) I'm looking for people to interview here. Feel free to pass if you're not interested. Clovermoss 🍀  (talk) 10:09, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you
I was wondering why had dropped by about 1,000 since I last checked it, then I saw Special:Diff/1188437036! Thanks for adding that - I have little to no experience in the subject area; but, on the face of it, it makes sense to me to separate the non-Wikidata-linked minor planet redirects to (as you’ve done). Now to do some more work on fixing some unlinked Wikidata redirects

All the best, <sup style="letter-spacing:-.1em;color:#737373;font-family:monospace">user: A smart kitten <sub style="color:#b842b8;font-family:monospace">meow  17:19, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

WP:TREE cleanup: would it be feasible to check whether Wikispecies or Commons have pages for a taxon? <span class="anchor" id="WPTC++">
At Asthenotricha amblycoma, you added a blank line after the taxobox, which I had asked for at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life/Archive_48. The other part of your edit was putting Commons and Wikispecies before Reflist, which I had not understood to be one of your proposed WP:TREE cleanup. There are many WP:TREE articles with templates for Commons or Wikispecies links that do not have corresponding pages on Commons or Wikispecies.

Would it be feasible for you to check whether Commons/Wikispecies pages exist in your WP:TREE cleanup efforts and remove the interwiki link templates when the pages do not exist rather than just reshuffling where the templates are placed? Plantdrew (talk) 03:30, 6 December 2023 (UTC)


 * I eventually stumbled across pages with Commons, Commons category, Commons and category, Wikispecies, etc. in other parts of the page (all over, really) that interfered with bullets #2, #3, #5, #12, #13, and #16, so I decided to add those templates to the etc. portion of #2, to move them to their correct locations.
 * I could certainly check whether sister-wiki pages exist, but there's some grey area there. Like for Asthenotricha amblycoma, the only commons search results is for c:Category:Asthenotricha, but not c:Category:Asthenotricha amblycoma (strange that it shows up as blue here) - though presumably that's still helpful to show? Would it be better to only remove the templates if "There were no results matching the query", like for the wikidata search for Asthenotricha amblycoma? However, after whichever templates are removed, is someone going to recheck these pages for non-null search results, and put the appropriate templates back, at regular intervals? My thinking right now is that it's better to have an easily accessible search link to quickly confirm/deny existence (and find whatever related pages the search results return) than to have none at all.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:13, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I had thought that Commons and Wikispecies link templates belonged in an external links section, not above references per Manual_of_Style/Layout and Wikimedia_sister_projects.
 * There are far more English Wikipedia articles where there IS a Wikispecies page but no Wikispecies in the article than there are Wikipedia articles with OUT a corresponding Wikispecies page but with a Wikispecies leading to no search results. So yeah, nobody is checking for non-null search results and putting templates in place at regular intervals. The fact that that isn't being done isn't something that seems to me to be an argument for having interwiki templates leading to null search results.
 * I would like to see links to Commons and Wikispecies made available in mobile view via Wikidata. Commons and Wikispecies links via Wikidata exist in desktop view, as do links to Wikipedia articles in other languages. In mobile view, other language links are available, but not Commons or Wikispecies. Adding the links to mobile view seems like a better long term solution than managing templates like Wikispecies and Commons. Plantdrew (talk) 17:58, 6 December 2023 (UTC)


 * they typically belong at the top of the last section of the page, which is usually the EL section, but Do not make a section whose sole content is box-type templates, so on small pages with no, or an empty, EL, the templates end up at the top of the references section.
 * I'm ok with looking for and removing just the null-result Wikispecies.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  18:24, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Template:Back to top
I don't know if you've spotted that Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 December 3 was procedurally closed a few days ago in favour of a TfD you indicated you'd be opening, but it doesn't appear you've done that yet. Thryduulf (talk) 12:57, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
 * thanks for the reminder. It's on my todo list, albeit low priority.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:01, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I've decided to just move Astro back to top to Back to top2 to avoid all the fuss.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  00:16, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Confusing edits
Why are yo making changes like this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_621&diff=0&oldid=920463840? ―Justin ( koa v f ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:39, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * to burn the oldest, 10+ year haystacks of still-DMY pages, to allow myself and other editors to more easily find the needles that have since diverged, like what's now left in & .   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  10:28, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm confused: how is that a problem? I don't see what's in need to fixing. ―Justin ( koa v f ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:30, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * for example, Simojärvi & 45 other pages from Jan 2012 use YMD dates, The Tree of Hands has an MDY in the wikitext, and the rest either have no DMY, involve dates before 1000, have some sort of garbage littering 1 or more of the various birth, death, age templates, or use them to create an MDY, either via y or by default, depending on the template.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:08, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, but how is it better to have all of these in just one category that is all "DMY dates from December 2023"? Why do you change the dates of when the template was applied? ―Justin ( koa v f ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 11:13, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * because that's what it's for. Per Template:Use dmy dates/doc, "Use the parameter"  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:21, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, let me change this subheading from "confusing" to "perfectly sensible" and thank you. ―Justin ( koa v f ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 11:23, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * "… and fixed any found." But the edit Koavf pointed to, and many, many more, didn't need any fixes. Why can't those articles be left unchanged? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:22, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Because the documentation says to update the date when it was checked. If you disagree with the template documentation, Template talk:Use dmy dates is the right venue. I recommend that you check the archives of that talk page. It looks like the most recent discussion of this issue was held in 2019. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:38, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * It seems I misunderstand what 'and' means. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:18, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * "Zero" is a possible value of "any". The wording in the template documentation could probably be improved. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:50, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

MEATBOT
Please stop engaging in WP:MEATBOT edits like this and this, that make no practical changes to the article from the readers's perspective and fix no actual broken code from the editors' perspective. There is no point whatsovever to twiddling with the "Use [xxx] dates" template's date-stamp when no dates' formats were corrected, nor replacing template redirects with the actual template name. All this does is annoyingly hit people's watchlists with pointless changes and waste all our time examining them. This problem is we have MEATBOT. It is permissible to make non-destructive but not actually helpful twiddles of this sort only if they are made in the course of other changes in the same edit that are actually substantive. (e.g. this was fine since it subtantively fixed a MOS:DASH error in the course of making twiddles that were otherwise not objectively useful). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:05, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

→  Dawnseeker2000  04:47, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not "sacrifice[ing] quality in the pursuit of speed or quantity"; I'm doing the exact opposite, checking each edit that is itself checking hundreds of templates to be in their correct location as per WP:MOS/Layout. I decided to start at the shallow end of the "Use [xxx] dates" templates pool, with pages with relatively few, or 0, of these mistakes. Even so, I'm watching for frequent unintended results that need to be accounted for. I suppose I could make a WP:BOTREQ for the pages with 0 other fixes, and they will likely be addressed by other editors by the time it gets approved, so 6 in one hand vs. half a dozen in the other.
 * Re: "substantive" - the edits are substantive because, if nothing else, they update a tracking category.
 * Re: "and fix no actual broken code from the editors' perspective" - the point of confirming that a page still follows an old date format (see right above @ ), is to allow editors to easily find the pages that do need date fixes.
 * But I'll address pages with more complex fixes to avoid confusion.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  00:34, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * But I'll address pages with more complex fixes to avoid confusion. Thank you. If the edit in question does something that is actually necessary for WP:P&G compliance, repairs an actual technical error, or improves the content for readers, then no one is going to object. As for the other bits: sacrifice[ing] quality in the pursuit of speed or quantity is not the only criterion. In particular, bot-like editing is by definition editing that is like that of a bot, and bots are not permitted to make such non-substantive changes (by themselves) per WP:COSMETICBOT. If you think you've discovered a loophole, you have not. (Various editors going around making trivial and costmetic edits of this sort have been topic-banned or blocked when they don't stop. It's not like I just made this up out of nowhere. I had to change my own cleanup-editing habits to compensate as a result, because I used to do stuff about the same as what you are doing.) There is no reason to update the tracking category if nothing at the article has changed; there is absolutely nothing wrong with an article that has  in it remaining in the Oct. 2018 category, if none of the dates in it were non-compliant. So, that is non-substantive. The fact that editors might like some kind of distingishing between two categories of articles (or articles that could be separately categorized by some criterion but are not yet), based on some formatting in them, is not a matter of broken code or other errors in the page code. That sounds like you are looking for some other kind of tool or process, and one might need to be created (e.g. automated analysis of date usage in an article and adding a tracking category when one is found to have a mix of date styles). But it is not a reason to go around changing hundreds or thousands of articles in ways that affect neither readers nor any editors other than you.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:02, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * the edits aren't cosmetic, as they fulfill bullet #3, though I see how someone not interested in them might deem them trivial.
 * Re: "affect neither readers nor any editors other than you" - other editors I see operating in this space are &, which I believe I am assisting. If I'm not being helpful, please let me know.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:26, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Recent, relevant edits regarding 's misinterpretations of WP:MEATBOT & WP:COSMETICBOT: 1, 2.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:21, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Incredible progress we've made there in the last few days. Much appreciated. I've been working on that since July 2019. Crazy, right? I have a bunch of AWB settings files that I've been using in that space. The goal is to look at some of those articles that haven't been audited in some time and run Ohconfucius's module on them. I've modified it and the settings files to accomplish several tasks at once. It's only when I've exhausted all opportunities that I manually run the stand-alone MOS:NUM script (now actually testing a version that was modified by DavidBrooks). Dawnseeker2000  05:21, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * One more thing: I would be interested in seeing the outcome of an RfA (if the interested parties want to take it to that level). My interest would be in seeing if there's a better way of handling the date format categorization and tagging. I'd definitely participate as I've been working on date format auditing for a few years. Tagging folks that have commented on this in the last few days: @Jonesey95, @InfiniteNexus, @Legoktm, @Headbomb, @Anomie, @Primefac, @Trialpears, and @SMcCandlish, as well as @Ohconfucius for their overwhelming work in this space. Dawnseeker2000  23:59, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * @DavidBrooks (one more developer that's been helping refine AWB and the MOS:NUMDATES set of scripts.) Dawnseeker2000  00:02, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * my talk page is definitely not the place for so such a large discussion, though I would certainly participate in or at least follow it.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  00:08, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I assume that meant WP:RFC not WP:RFA. It be addressed that way, I suppose, but I think that the community response would be "this is already covered by WP:MEATBOT and by the instruction to human editors in WP:COSMETICBOT, and by WP:COSMETIC and by WP:FLOODING and by WP:SPECUSE". In short, no one cares if these edits, which neither improve the output for readers nor fix an editor-facing code problem, are done  in the same edit, but they are viewed as disruptive bot-like behavior when pursued as a purpose in and of themselves across a large number of articles, because the pound the watchlists of innumerable editors and waste their time examinging this pointless trivia for substantive issues that might need addressing. If this still isn't clear somehow, consider: "the community deems [costmetic edits] to not be worth making in bulk, even though those edits might change the output HTML or readable text in subtle ways" from WP:COSMETICBOT; and this from WP:FLOODING: "flooding or cluttering ... is one of the main reasons for the existence of WP:COSMETICBOT. The bot flag is designed to reduce the impact of flooding on Special:RecentChanges and Special:Watchlist, but will never completely eliminate it. Meat bots [i.e. human editors working in a bot-like manner] do not have access to such a flag." This necessarily means that meat-bot editors like Tom.Reding need to stop making these kinds of changes without also doing something useful (to others than themselves) in the same edit, because none of us have any way to suppress their flood of twiddling edits in either our watchlists or in RecentChanges.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:50, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't entirely follow the rambling text above, but maybe Template talk:Use dmy dates is the best place to have a discussion about that template, with an additional note at Template talk:Use mdy dates pointing to that discussion. A concise statement of the problem and a proposed solution would be useful. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:31, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Let's vacate Tom's space and head over to the DMY template:


 * Thank you for your work with the scripts, Tom. <b style="color:darkgreen">Tony</b> (talk)  00:44, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Leptospermum revision

 * Moved to be more visible to more knowledgeable editors.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:35, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

AWB square bracket mismatch
Hi, just to say I noticed your recent AWB edit to Leaf by Niggle; which changed: Are the regexes you're using taking these possiblities into account? Could be worth running a replacement on  to use !(, Square bracket open, or better yet Bracket, for clarity, instead? -- Yodin T 15:55, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
 * which renders as: [ sub-creation]; to:
 * which renders as: [ sub-creation
 * which renders as: [ sub-creation
 * which renders as: [ sub-creation
 * that was actually a WP:GenFix that I thought was legitimately removing an extra bracket. Thanks for pointing that out, and the suggestion.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  16:04, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Ah! Ok, will raise it there; thanks for all your work on this 👍 -- Yodin T 16:10, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Happy New Year
Came across your page, looking forward to learning more about Wiki & edits. Cheers. IraPSilversmith (talk) 22:32, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Date template updates
Hi Tom - I've seen a few edits where you've (and from other people as well) updated the date stamp in templates like this one. What's the point of that? I'd think we'd want the opposite, as if to say, "this article has used DMY format since 20xx, so longstanding consensus is for it to remain that way". But I'm guessing since I've seen others doing it as well, there's a reason for it that I haven't thought of. Cheers, Parsecboy (talk) 12:44, 5 January 2024 (UTC)


 * per Use dmy dates & mdy documentation, it is the last time the page has been checked to comply, or made to recomply, with the chosen date format. See Template talk:Use dmy dates for discussion.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:51, 5 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Ha, I hadn't even thought to check the template documentation - makes sense. Thanks! Parsecboy (talk) 12:52, 5 January 2024 (UTC)