User talk:MSGJ/2023

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Happy New Year, MSGJ!

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

Moops T 05:12, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

"The House of the Dead (vide game)" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect The House of the Dead (vide game) and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 January 2 § The House of the Dead (vide game) until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Regards, SONIC678 19:41, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Andrew Mumford

Hello. I hope you are fine. Ordinarily I would agree with you, but the only evidence that he's a fellow is from his own CV. Could you please look again at this issue. Thanks. Best wishes, George Custer's Sabre (talk) 10:13, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes I noticed that. But to survive A7, it only has to make a credible claim of importance. So if you don't think it is true, then AfD would be the appropriate process. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:14, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Please do not change user pages unless absolutely necessary

You just changed one of my sandbox pages to include an Authority control template (User:Eewilson/New England Botanical Society), which should not have occurred. Is this a bot you are running? – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 22:12, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

No bot, this was made by myself. I am updating the syntax for the template. Why should it have not occured? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:17, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Well, because it wasn't in there in the first place. Why would we have authority control in user pages? Categories and such are commented out. Is authority control somehow different? It seems even common courtesy would be to let me know on my talk page and give me the option of doing it myself if it is required. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 22:21, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
It was there in the first place! I changed
{{Authority control|VIAF=152337746|LCCN=n81072770|WORLDCATID=lccn-n81072770|GND=5214941-9|NKC=kn20100106008}}
to
{{Authority control|qid=Q55829215}}
which is the same information but in the preferred format by getting data from New England Botanical Club (Q55829215) on Wikidata — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:27, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Well I'll be damned. You're right. I should have had that commented out. Well, in that case, thank you? :) – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 22:31, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
So, it's acceptable to have authority control in a user space article? – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 22:33, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
It's fine to leave these templates in your userspace but adding the qid keeps them up-to-date with the data on Wikidata, and one day the named parameters will not work anymore, so I was trying to help ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:34, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
And you did! :) Thank you, Martin. What I was thinking was that you hopped in and put something there that wasn't there. I wonder why I had it there in the first place? Well, I commented it out. I plan to finish that article... eventually. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 22:36, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Authority control

Hello, MSGJ,

I don't really understand what authority control is all about but I do tag empty categories on a daily basis and right now we have a lot of empty categories on this subject as you can see in Category:AC with n elements. Since categories usually become empty when they held one article and that article is deleted, it's unusual to have a number of categories on the same subject suddenly become empty at the same time unless an editor has taken on a recategorization project. I see a bit of information that this might be the case on the talk page of Authority control but since I saw you were very active there, I just wanted to check in with you and make sure that this was an intentional emptying and not the work of one enthusiastic editor (which is more often the case).

I hope you are having a good weekend (it is very rainy here in the NW U.S.) and that 2023 is starting off for you on a good note. Liz Read! Talk! 20:57, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the note Liz. It was intentional as these tracking categories are not being used for any active task now. It has since been questioned by another editor at Template talk:Authority control so depending on the discussion I may end up restoring these! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:39, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Circling back here today, thank you for the response. Do you play on keeping Category:AC with 0 elements? Because, as I'm sure you know, categories are used to organize content and having only one category on a subject is not typically done unless we have a habit of keeping a certain category across a lot of different parent categories (like people born in a certain year or football players from a certain country). It's worth keeping this one if it will be useful to other editors but if you are no longer categorizing pages by element number, it might be worth the effort to have a bot remove this category from the 124,844 pages it's used on if it doesn't serve a useful function. We are continually working against overcategorization with some articles (although it looks like this is a hidden category). Thanks! Liz Read! Talk! 00:39, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
Hi liz, that category is gradually emptying but it's taking longer because its so large! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 03:04, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Wikidata, {Authority control}

Follow up to User talk:P64#LAC. I will have a question or three. First I see that the default display of EN.wikipedia articles has changed. After some exploration at top right I find interwiki links for DE.wikipedia and so on, but no interwiki link to Wikidata (crucial for me). I find my own talk page and Contributions. At top left I find article Contents list. I miss What links here? (useful to me) and maybe others. --P64 (talk) 14:02, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

I guess you are using the new skin. You should find the "Wikidata item" link in the toolbar on the left side, but you may have to scroll to the top of the page to see the toolbar? "What links here" is in the same place (on my browser/skin) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:53, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious
Four years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:44, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Definition of height of a lighthouse

Hi, can you please clarify for me the definition of height that is to apply to the Wikidata property height for a lighthouse. Looking at some of the citations and local sources here in NZ, it seems to be the industry convention that the height refers to the total height from the base of the tower to the top of the lantern. See: [1]. This would also help to explain why Maritime New Zealand quotes the tower height of the Puysegur Point lighthouse as 5 metres [2], when from the photograph, you can see that the "tower" itself is a small concrete foundation [3]. However, if there is a different definition for the height of the tower in Wikidata I will try to be consistent. Thanks, Marshelec (talk) 21:12, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi Marshelec! I have always assumed it was the total height of the whole building (including base, tower, lantern) from the ground. In your example I'm not sure that antenna would count, but the lantern is certainly part of the building. Of course we have a seperate property for focal height (P2923) which I think is well understood to be the height of the actual light above mean sea level. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:16, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, I am continuing to make progress with developing the article. Today I found fascinating video about the lighthouse that you might enjoy: [4]. Seeing this video was helpful (even though I have been fortunate to visit this remote site myself a couple of years ago). The video has prompted me to search for some additional sources on several topics, and especially to write up a summary of the climate. I might try to get this article to GA standard, but there is still a fair way to go. I do have a further question. The video clearly shows that the current light uses a modern rotating beacon installed within the old lantern house. The fresnel lenses installed when they replaced the lighthouse in 1942-43 are no longer in service. Presumably I just remove the lenses property data from Wikidata, so that it represents the current state ? Marshelec (talk) 07:37, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
The best way is to add a qualifier for end time (P582) to the statement, and then add another statement with qualifier start time (P580) with the new value. It's generally best not to remove statements. Great work with the article, I'll come and check it out! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:08, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Quality assessment work group

This proposal seems almost certain to get approved. I will close the discussion after 7 days, tomorrow morning my time. We need a project organization and discussion pages to move it through to implementation. Probably there should be a temporary wikiproject to coordinate this. I could start that. Aspects I can see include:

  • Code, test and implement changes to {{WikiProject banner shell}}
  • Code, test and implement changes to {{WPBannerMeta}} (including support for inactive projects)
  • Set up a list of opt-out projects, and invite all projects to add to the list. We may want some evidence of discussion.
  • Design and develop a bot to move assessments up from wikiproject banners to {{WikiProject banner shell}}
  • Deal with all the unexpected issues that will come up

I have done a fair amount of template editing, but think there are other editors much better qualified than me to do the changes. {{WPBannerMeta}} is quite complex. I am happy to help out with other aspects, but are you interested in taking the lead for this next phase? Aymatth2 (talk) 13:53, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

We have already started discussing at Template talk:WikiProject banner shell :) That seemed the most appropriate place. I am working on WPBannerMeta, and I've asked Qwerfjkl to take the lead on the changes needed on WPBS. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:56, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Ok. Good. The reason I was thinking of starting a wikiproject is that some discussions (e.g. bot, opt-out) could get quite large and may be better on pages of their own. Maybe that would be overkill though. When I close the proposal I will point to Template talk:WikiProject banner shell. Aymatth2 (talk) 15:04, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Let's see how it goes for now. I've started using level 2 headers on that page because I think discussion will need it. I am now starting to question the whole architecture of the system, as you will see from recent posts. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:46, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Have I forgotten anything?

Hi. I've been a bit scattered recently; I may have lost track of things. Have I neglected to reply to anything, regarding Template talk:Authority control? How is the reboot/cleanup process going? Would my feedback be helpful? – Scyrme (talk) 01:23, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi Scyrme, I think we are on top of everything. To be honest, I'm starting to feel that my development of this template is reaching an end as we've tackled most of the big issues. Unless you can think of anything else? There's just that loose end of how to represent multiple ids by showing the name, but I'm ready to drop that if there is further opposition to the idea.
By the way, I am gradually clearing out Category:Pages using authority control with parameters and my hope is that one day we will be able to turn off local parameters altogether. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:57, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

The redirect Template:Editnotices/page/Template:Wikia/list has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 February 23 § Template:Editnotices/page/Template:Wikia/list until a consensus is reached. NmWTfs85lXusaybq (talk) 09:12, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia redirects, {Authority control}

Follow up to User talk:P64#LAC (its 2023-01-19 continuation):
Does Wikidata now welcome people items for subjects of English Wikipedia redirects who are not covered by a Wikipedia article in any language? Heavy use of template {authority control} in my user space dates from my creation and curation of many EN.wiki Redirects from people, such as the first 200 Redirects to joint biographies. --P64 (talk) 19:22, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

... I see that you have done some work in this class recently, about the same time you wrote to me (linked above). For instance 2022-11-17:

What is the current status of this migration project?
For me to try soon: Does this work on Jerry West provide adequate template for me to follow? --P64 (talk) 19:55, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Done. Answer: No, I don't know how at Wikidata to add a link to EN.wiki redirect with badge: intentional sitelink to redirect. --P64 (talk) 21:00, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
Does this question relate to Victor Appleton II? I have created Victor Appleton II (Q116879187) and you can try to add the sitelink and redirect badge if you wish — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:53, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
Victor Appleton II is one instance. There I have now migrated to Wikidata all of the parameter values that I gathered at VIAF early today, Thursday here. So that EN.wiki redirect has been fixed.
I have created many people items at Wikidata. Now I know how to link EN.wiki redirects with badge: intentional sitelink to redirect, using the faint badge icon that appeared for me at Victor Appleton II early this hour. Thanks. I am out of time today, and maybe this month. --P64 (talk) 01:51, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
Have you noticed the quickstatements link (multi-coloured arrow) which appears when parameters are present? Might save you some time — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:57, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
Yes, Wikidata contains many notable people who do not yet have a Wikipedia article. And if an item does not yet exist, then you should please create it. The standard for inclusion is "refers to an instance of a clearly identifiable conceptual or material entity that can be described using serious and publicly available references." Obviously, any potential subject for a Wikipedia article would meet this rather low bar. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:47, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

A speedy deletion request

Hello MSGJ,

Thanks for your help on the CSD G6 request on Template:Editnotices/You should notify any user that you discuss.

Template:Editnotices/Notcensored (nudity) is another bundle of template redirects to be speedily deleted under the same criteria, which is left over from moving an editnotice created at the wrong title. Please help me delete it. NmWTfs85lXusaybq (talk) 15:41, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Categories

Hello, MSGJ,

For some reason, some categories you recently created are showing up on Wikipedia:Database reports/Empty categories even they have an Empty Category tag on them. Sometimes this has led me to add a second Empty Cat tag but it looks kind of ridiculous to have a duplicate tag. Any ideas? Liz Read! Talk! 01:19, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

A tag has been placed on Category:Articles with conflicting quality ratings indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself. Liz Read! Talk! 04:22, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Living people and WikiProject banner shell

Hello :-) I fixed your edit at Talk:Daniyal Aziz [5]. (I saw it because I'm following what happens with the new way to tag WikiProjects....) Christian75 (talk) 10:20, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! Yes I'm tentatively trying the new system to make sure it all works as intended :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:32, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Regarding WikiProject India talk page banner template on a redirect

Hi MSGJ,

You made a recent edit to a redirect class article, States of India.

As WikiProject banner templates are present on the talk page of many redirects in many WikiProjects, I would appreciate your reasoning behind this edit. Ashwin Baindur (User:AshLin) (talk) 11:03, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

As I explained in the edit summary, these banners should be on the talk page Talk:States of India not the content page States of India — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:04, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Hello, it seems you were the last to edit the Module:Sports rbr table and right now the module seems to be broken and is producing error messages in the pages that use it. If at all possible, could you please fix the issue if you know how? Thank you. Listen1st (talk) 14:18, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I have reverted that change and commented on the talk page — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:22, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
Thank you! Listen1st (talk) 14:33, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Assessment formats

Hi there, MSGJ, and thanks for your work on assessments. I see that when assessing Dorian Rhea Debussy you added a quality rating to the BS intro as "{{WikiProject banner shell|class=C|..." While this is permissible, it has the effect of removing the quality ratings from the wikiprojects which follow and can initiate downstream problems. I would therefore suggest that instead you add appropriate ratings to each wikiproject if they are not already there. An introduction of "{{WPBS|blp=yes|" is of course welcome. Happy editing!--Ipigott (talk) 09:39, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

@Ipigott: please see Template:WikiProject banner shell/doc#Project-independent quality assessments for why my action was correct — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:07, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for your explanations. I've been looking into this more carefully and it appears to be working better than I suspected. If I run into further problems, I'll let you know. I agree that including a quality rating in the banner shell is much easier than adding individual values but I'm not sure how well this will work for projects such as Military history, Aviation and Ships which require special treatment. I'll let you know if I come across any specific problems.--Ipigott (talk) 06:02, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Barnstar

The Template Barnstar
For maintaining the Authority control template. Grimes2 (talk) 19:13, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
Thank you! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:43, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

How is it going with the banner shell project? Anything I can do to help move it along? Aymatth2 (talk) 14:40, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Should have time to devote in the next week, hopefully! I might need some help testing, will let you know — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:31, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. I suppose this has been waiting for many years, but it is hard not to feel impatient. Aymatth2 (talk) 21:12, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
We're getting there. Module:WikiProject quality assessment passes all my tests. Please check Module talk:WikiProject quality assessment/testcases and also Template talk:WikiProject banner shell/testcases, Template talk:WikiProject banner shell/test1 and Template talk:WikiProject banner shell/test2. Let me know if you see anything untoward.
I haven't started work on the standalone version of the banner shell yet, but I think that could be stage 2, because there shouldn't be of those in the wild. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:52, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
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igdt 2601:204:ED80:1130:75A5:F0D2:4F67:5A39 (talk) 11:56, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Forum-shopping accusation

Hi MSGJ — I'm not fully sure if you read to the bottom of my nomination where I wrote about the previous discussion, but if I were forum shopping, why would I have actively brought that up as context? I replied to you with some further explanation about the impetus and I'd appreciate if you could strike your accusation in light of that. Best, {{u|Sdkb}}talk 15:11, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Identifier Categories

Hello, MSGJ,

Some of your recently created categories are showing up on Wikipedia:Database reports/Empty categories but they are marked that they shouldn't be tagged as empty categories. Do you know why this "Empty Category tag" isn't working? Is there a problem with the template? I've run into this before and had to place an addition {{emptycat}} tag on the category which, frankly, looks a little ridiculous. Any ideas? Or maybe you could just put some pages in the categories and they would no longer be empty. Thanks. Liz Read! Talk! 01:34, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Consensus for removal of class?

Hello. I just noticed this edit of yours to Template:WikiProject Albums removed the functionality for "class=future" in the template, which several articles still use(d). Has there been consensus somewhere to deprecate this class? Nobody has recently expressed opposition to this that I'm aware of. I'm not seeing anything immediately apparent. Ss112 23:52, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi there. We are implementing project-independent quality ratings which was strongly supported in a recent discussion. Your project was notified on this change in April, and the message was archived without response — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:19, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Inquiry

Hello, thank you for fulfilling my protected edit request on User:Versageek/Talk/Archive/1. I was not expecting the protection lowing, but thank you, and I'll go back and clear the other lower priority WP:LINT errors that remain later today. Would the same user's archives 2, 3, and 4 be possible for lowering as well? They also have tidy font errors that I'm eying fixing and hadn't made PE requests for yet (I was trying to stagger requests so I wasn't overwhelming any user). If they are not subject to lowering, that's fine too. Zinnober9 (talk) 16:13, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Authority control/sandbox2

Template:Authority control/sandbox2 has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Q𝟤𝟪 21:03, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

WikiProject templates cleanup

Hey, when will there be a bot run to remove the |class= (and I'm assuming also |auto=) parameters from the WikiProject templates? Gonnym (talk) 12:28, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Not sure. You can bring this up at Template talk:WikiProject banner shell but I think there are a few details to sort out first — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:27, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Hello, MSGJ,

I thought I'd let you know that this category has been tagged for CSD C1 deletion. I'm not sure if this is part of your "identifier" categories clean-up or whether you'd like to keep it as an empty category. Thank you. Liz Read! Talk! 19:17, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

It was decided to remove this one, so deletion is in order. Thanks for checking :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:27, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
Okay, thanks for letting me know. This is why I like to post talk page notices when I tag pages for deletion, just in case a category has been mistakenly emptied. Liz Read! Talk! 01:32, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Your email

There are just no words to express my gratitude to you, Martin, for your help and support over the years. You were there for me at my 2015 bid, and over the years I have learned so much from you! Now, I'm in my mid 70s, and while thanks to you and others I've learned from, I deeply respect the tools and those who have them, I'm really too old to go through that again. Will always be deeply touched by your suggestion, though. You are truly one of the greatest people I've ever known. Thank you so very much for wanting to do this. It's a high like no other!  Paine  17:55, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Unused documentation pages appearing

Hey, did you change anything with how {{WPBannerMeta}} calls the documentation sub page? Pages like Template:WikiProject Commonwealth/doc have now become unused (appeared on the unused report) but I don't see any edit at Template:WikiProject Commonwealth that could have changed that. Gonnym (talk) 21:14, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that was me. The auto documentation is a long-term project but I have re-added the transclusion of local doc pages if |DOC=custom — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:28, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Image link in the banner?

In this conversion, we lost |image-link=, which made the image a clickable link to the project. Is there a way to restore that functionality? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:08, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes ppossibly, but not sure if this is something that should be encouraged. The link to the image is usually required for attribution purposes. Can you give me an example of how it was used? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:28, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
For example, in {{WIR-00-2023}}, there's |image-link=Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Meetup/252. Clicking on the icon would (ideally) take people to the meetup page. It's not quite a critical feature, since there's still the same link in the text, but it was something that was lost in the conversion. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:44, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, File:1day1woman.png requires attribution under its licence, so the link to the image page is needed. A similar question was asked in 2016 — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:57, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
Alright, no biggie. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 08:57, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Edit warring report

Template:Edit warring report has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:24, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

WIR Test

Hello MSGJ, that test was meant as an opportunity for you to show how your idea of grouping wrappers in one banner would look in situ. I honestly think your solution, if implemented as I understand it (i.e., without the need to erase/merge all of the wrappers), would quite possibly calm everyone down and solve the problem. Worth a try? Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 20:50, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
PS: Another example one could use would be Talk:Maria Cristina Didero (which I just cleaned-up following your example on Talk:Cheryl McKissack Daniel). If you leave the WIR tag were it is and integrate other wrappers into it, how would that work? I am genuinely curious about this and would much like to help find a solution. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 21:09, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Would you have any problem with me mass tagging all of the relevant templates with a TfD notice? — Qwerfjkltalk 11:41, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Surely that is not necessary? All the members of the project are aware of the discussion now. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:51, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
From Ipigott, commenting on the TfD: I see that WIR-00-2021 is one of the few templates which specifically carries a message that it is a candidate for merging while nearly all the others cited as causing problems do not. This all provides a very warped view of the apparent intention to merge all the WIR article talk page templates. If this is indeed the intention, then merger messages should be placed on each and every template so that contributors who have used them or who intend to create or expand article talk pages can be alerted. Up to now, those members who have taken part is this discussion have come along mainly as a result of items on the main WIR talk page. If those proposing a merge seriously intend to cover all WIR article tags, then it seems to me that the current proposal should be withdrawn.— Qwerfjkltalk 13:01, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Questions re: WP Women in Green template adjustments

Hi Martin -- I help coordinate WikiProject Women in Green (WiG), and I've just been checking out some of the changes you've made to the WiG talk page templates today. It sounds like you're aiming to improve simplicity of use (which is great, thanks). Can you briefly explain the changes to me and what they mean for future templates? Do I still need to create a new template for each WiG event, or can I somehow just adapt the current core template? (I'm a neophyte and still learning when it comes to creating templates.) I would appreciate it if you could also leave a quick explanation on the talk page of Women in Green -- these templates are widely used, and project participants should be notified if usage procedures have been changed. Best, Alanna the Brave (talk) 01:03, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

This wrecked the categorization of Category:All WikiProject Women in Green pages. Please restore it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:29, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
Hello, MSGJ,
Why did you empty Category:All WikiProject Women in Green pages? According to the category update, you removed all of the articles from this category. Liz Read! Talk! 04:14, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
Headbomb, Liz: I've actually fixed the categorisation. In many cases (e.g. [6]) the categories were being wrongly suppressed and now they are working. All articles are categorised under Category:WikiProject Women in Green articles. Of course I did not intend to break anything so if the "All" category is needed then of course I will re-add it. I will follow up at the template talk page. Thanks! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:28, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
Update: Category:All WikiProject Women in Green pages is now populated again — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:19, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
Alanna: firstly what a fantastic project you have there and it looks like you are doing a great job of coordinating things. I have written some documentation at Template:WIG/doc and also left a few comments at Template talk:WIG. I'm quite happy to leave a pointer at the project talk too. If there are any queries then I am watching the template talk page. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:44, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Infobox golfer/ranking

Template:Infobox golfer/ranking has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:24, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Working with WikiProjects

I appreciate the challenges in getting members of a WikiProject interested in engaging with proposals to alter the templates they use. Nonetheless, in the end, there isn't much point in getting an external consensus for change if the project isn't interested in using the result. It's only going succeed when the WikiProject itself decides what changes it wants to make happen, including any workflow accommodations they feel are reasonable. isaacl (talk) 00:15, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Error in Template:WP1.0

Hi MSGJ; Template:WP1.0 gets an error for duplicate "ASSESSMENT_LINK" and "MAIN_CAT" parms. It's affecting about 14,000 pages in Category:Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls. I don't understand the template's coding, but in looking at the diff, could it be related to the removed "}}" at old line 38? Thanks in advance. Davemck (talk) 16:33, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks I think I've fixed those now — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:38, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Vital article categories

Hi MSGJ, could you point to what happened to the Vital Article categories that led to this edit? I'm reasonably sure I used that category to clean up the unassessed vital articles. Are they now gathered elsewhere? Thanks, CMD (talk) 16:53, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi CMD. Short answer: yes they are now gathered at Category:Unassessed vital articles. Long answer: we have been exploring alternative ways to present the information in this template and for it to take up less room on the page. As a temporary measure it has been converted to use {{WPBM}} so that it will collapse properly when inside {{WPBS}}. In order to do this the categories needed to have the standard naming scheme, which has now happened. In the longer term the plan is to integrate this template directly into WPBS, but details are still being discussed. Hope this helps. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:29, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
Thanks! I don't fully follow the mechanics, but it sounds like the functionality is maintained. Perhaps redirects from the old categories might help? I'll leave it to your know how, best, CMD (talk) 14:41, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

A tag has been placed on Category:WikiProject Ecuador portal selections indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. Liz Read! Talk! 00:49, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Hello, MSGJ,
On another category question, is there a good reason to empty Category:All Wikipedia vital articles so that it is deleted? Thanks. Liz Read! Talk! 00:53, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
All of those are good to delete I think. Thanks Liz — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:16, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Greetings, MSGJ,

Upd: 23 July. The page was nominated to deletion. Not healthy action, can you advice or vote on the deletion discussion page? many thx! btw, it's frustrating much — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paranoya23 (talkcontribs) 16:22, 23 July 2023 (UTC) This is a request to review the page about censorship organisation NetReputation (PR firm). I have tried 2 months ago, then 3 guys helped me to improve it. Please no delay because they will delete this from the Internet and people never will know the trust about operations this Florida-related firm. Also, thx anyone for an experience, cause I learned WP:ORGCRIT. GL HFParanoya23 (talk) 08:34, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Query about "identifiers"

Hello, MSGJ,

I think I came to your talk page before to ask about "identifiers" and tonight a lot more identifier categories showed up on Special:UnusedCategories. Is it okay to tag these CSD C1? That's how I normally handle empty categories. Just let me know. Thanks. Liz Read! Talk! 05:35, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi Liz, I think they were temporarily rendered unused during a transition I made yesterday but they should all clear out of that list once the job queue catches up. Thanks for checking — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:54, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
Oh, good, I'm glad I checked! Thanks. Liz Read! Talk! 17:41, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
So, if you look at Special:UnusedCategories, you'll still see dozens and dozens of empty identifier categories. Do you still expect these to be full soon? Thanks. Liz Read! Talk! 05:40, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
Still interested in your opinion here. Do I remove the "Empty Category" tags from these pages and tag them for CSD C1 speedy deletion or will these eventually be filled again? If you don't know, is there a noticeboard I should go to or another editor or admin that I should ask? Just looking for direction here. Many thanks for any guidance. Liz Read! Talk! 01:24, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
I really don't understand why they are still listed in there. They are tracking categories and will only populate if someone does something wrong. They should all be transcluding the {{Possibly empty category}} template which should exclude them from Special:UnusedCategories ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:49, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Category:22nd-century solar eclipses has been nominated for merging

Category:22nd-century solar eclipses has been nominated for merging. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. –LaundryPizza03 (d) 00:54, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Question from BearBoat63 (15:05, 3 August 2023)

Greetings! I am interested in creating a bio page for myself. My new business is gaining a lot of notoriety and I'd like to be established before any incorrect information gets published. How best to go about it? Thank you sincerely! Barry --BearBoat63 (talk) 15:05, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi BearBoat63, we would ask you not to write an article about yourself or your business. If they are notable then someone else will write it one day. You can read WP:COI and WP:COIE for more details — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:17, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

WikiProject Years

Something in your recent edits to the modules for wikiproject template banners has had the effect of generating a whole bunch of redlinked nonsense categories at Special:WantedCategories, like the following:

Obviously these have to be fixed, but since the error is coming from Javascript code in the modules rather than the wikiproject templates themselves, I can't fix them. Could you take a stab at looking into where the error is and fixing it? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 14:02, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I will get these fixed asap — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:57, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
I think that should be fixed now — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:42, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
Yep. Looks like most of them are empty now; the one that still isn't was the one with a few thousand articles, so that's probably just the job queue updating slowly. Thanks! Bearcat (talk) 19:58, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:IPAc-en/core

Template:IPAc-en/core has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:13, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Your access to AWB may be temporarily removed

Hello Msgj! This message is to inform you that due to editing inactivity, your access to AutoWikiBrowser may be temporarily removed. If you do not resume editing within the next week, your username will be removed from the CheckPage. This is purely for routine maintenance and is not indicative of wrongdoing on your part. You may regain access at any time by simply requesting it at WP:PERM/AWB. Thank you! MusikBot II talk 17:20, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

WikiProject banner unknown parameter preview message

Hey, there is a small bug with the change you made to how unknown parameters are handled with the WikiProject banners. Preview Talk:Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, you'll see that the WikiProject error is missing the name of the template (which is important) and in general, the default message (the one Template:WikiProject Florida is using) is better imo. Gonnym (talk) 16:52, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

I've updated the preview message - does that look better? Feel free to tweak it further. By the way I was wanting to ask you: what is the purpose of the following code (found in Template:WikiProject Florida and many other templates):
<span class="error" style="display:none">HIDDEN ERROR: Usage of "_VALUE_" is not recognized</span>
— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:13, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
BTW you can test this by previewing User talk:MSGJ/Sandbox/4 — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:17, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
I'm not really sure. @Harryboyles added it so I think I added it to the Film or TV project just to be consistent with the others, but I haven't really checked it. In other templates (non-WikiProject ones), I don't use that piece of code. Gonnym (talk) 19:11, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
I can't exactly remember whether I added that some years back in or just copied that bit of code from a template (but it was originally added by someone else). It could have taken inspiration from Help:CS1_errors#Error_and_maintenance_messages - that by default maintenance messages for CS1 reference issues are hidden, but if particular editors wanted to view the error messages in rendered pages, they could alter their user CSS to display the error just for themselves. This is separate from the preview error message, which would display for all users, but only when they are previewing edits. Harryboyles 13:28, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
Error is much better, thanks! Gonnym (talk) 19:12, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
I've noticed that my new code does not currently detect defined but blank parameters, but I think Harryboyles' code did that. Which is better? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:37, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
I don't see the difference. Do you have an example? Gonnym (talk) 11:23, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Unused WPBannerMeta templates

Hey, do you know if any of the following templates are needed? They are all appearing on the unused template report.

Gonnym (talk) 11:32, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Some of this was covered last year and still applies now. -- WOSlinker (talk) 12:00, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Question from FunHailey (22:05, 14 August 2023)

Hello! Zi Jony What does Asia do for traditional Culture --FunHailey (talk) 22:05, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:IPAc-en/audio

Template:IPAc-en/audio has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:27, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I've noticed that if a banner has a parameter without a pipe, for example {{{note2}}} then the parameter checking feature does not work with that parameter. Could you have a look? -- WOSlinker (talk) 07:59, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

That is correct - the pipe character acts as the delimiter. Is there any reason why the pipe should not always be present? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:39, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
I had updated Template:WikiProject California but there were a couple of parameters that were missing the pipe, which was causing an issue. -- WOSlinker (talk) 06:59, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
Is it better to update the regex on the parameter check or just add the missing pipes? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:05, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
I did a search for missing pipes yesterday and updated a couple. -- WOSlinker (talk) 21:22, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Module:WikiProject quality assessment

Module:WikiProject quality assessment has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. * Pppery * it has begun... 17:09, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Sandbox Module:WikiProject banner

We currently have 164,614 transclusions of the WikiProject banner sandbox module; given that the sandbox is currently in sync with live, I assume that was a mistake? DFlhb (talk) 17:56, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Certainly was, thanks for informing — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:44, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Question from OperHausBlu on Draft:EllyHunterSmith (08:26, 5 September 2023)

Hello there I was just trying to create the page of Elly Hunter Smith as a reference from a linked page where she is mentioned. Maybe I added too little information. Thanks very much --OperHausBlu (talk) 08:26, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I am unable to find any edits related to this person, so I can't really comment — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:38, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Populated by Wikidata

Template:Populated by Wikidata has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:20, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Outlook

FYI I have made a move request for an article that was previously requested in 2019, see Talk:Outlook on the web. 148.252.129.141 (talk) 16:06, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

"Has it been through the Council's approval process?"

Can I ask how it works, because I'm a newbie when it comes to stuff like creating WikiProjects like this. — VAUGHAN J. (TALK) 13:51, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals. It's a non-compulsory (but highly recommended) way of gauging interest in potential projects — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:32, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Errors in Template:WikiProject Women writers

Hi Martin. Template:WikiProject Women writers has duplicate parm errors for "note 1" and "NOTE_1_CAT". They currently affect about 51K pages on Category:Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls. Davemck (talk) 15:18, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I've fixed it. -- WOSlinker (talk) 15:49, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:28, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Hello, MSGJ,

Do you expect this empty category to be filled with categories or articles soon? Liz Read! Talk! 16:56, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

If you don't want this category tagged for CSD C1 speedy deletion, please place an {{emptycat}} tag on it and any categories you create that might go empty at times. Thank you. Liz Read! Talk! 21:59, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Version 1.0 vital articles by quality

A tag has been placed on Category:Version 1.0 vital articles by quality indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. Liz Read! Talk! 00:48, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

WikiProject United States

I updated Template:WikiProject United States/sandbox so that it didn't use hooks/cats anymore but it's got too many expensive parser functions now. -- WOSlinker (talk) 08:28, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

I think I know how to sort that. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:28, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
I've sorted that issue, and I've also made a start on removing categories which don't exist — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:21, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
Deployed it — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:27, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Question from Hassan sheko (18:33, 20 September 2023)

مرحبا ازاي اعمل فيديو بدون استخدام وجهي --Hassan sheko (talk) 18:33, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Question from Electrasypete (15:24, 19 September 2023)

Hello -- I am the recent author of a biography for the band Electrasy - and we'd like to create a page for the book. Is that something we can do? Thanks. --Electrasypete (talk) 15:24, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

@Electrasypete: hi! We would prefer you not to write articles about subjects in which you have a conflict of interest. You can write about other subjects, or use the articles for creation process. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:09, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Request

Hi! I'm user from ru-wiki. I request to delete my userpage. Userpages may be removed without reasons. Thank you. — Андрей Козлов 123 talk-ctbr 16:32, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Seems to have been done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:10, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Question from Moses David Avi (10:23, 19 September 2023)

Please i want to know more about the Wikipedia, how to create my biography and upload my picture --Moses David Avi (talk) 10:23, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Hello Moses David Avi. Please do not write about yourself on Wikipedia. See WP:COI for more details. It would be good to write about another subject, so let me know if I can help you with that — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:11, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Question from RAP Tycoon lehipi u96 on Draft:RAP Tycoon lehipi-u96 (07:55, 9 September 2023)

Hiii I don't how a biography for artist RAP Tycoon lehipi-u96 --RAP Tycoon lehipi u96 (talk) 07:55, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Sorry I don't understand what you are asking — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:13, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Question from 1236now (15:11, 21 September 2023)

I want to publish my mother-in-laws article about her artwork Draft: Sallie Ellington Middleton what do i do --1236now (talk) 15:11, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) 1236now, you can submit your draft for review by placing {{subst:submit}} at the top of the page. CLYDE TALK TO ME/STUFF DONE 19:48, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
However, please keep in mind WP:CoI. You are strongly discouraged to write about things you have a connection to. CLYDE TALK TO ME/STUFF DONE 19:52, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi! Several days ago you made an edit to Template:WikiProject Australian Roads that used parameters that were already on that page (note 2 and three associated parameters). This causes the template – and the 1800 or so articles that use it – to appear at Category:Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls. There are a few editors, including me, who check this category page periodically to correct articles with duplicate parameters, but apparently none of us know how to do it correctly for the template you edited, or have the confidence to attempt it, because it has stayed that way for several days. Can you fix the duplication? Thanks. Ira Leviton (talk) 14:44, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

@MSGJ: just correctly signing the above post as they left me the same message on my talk page by mistake. Fork99 (talk) 15:00, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
I have no idea if either message above would've notified you of a new message on your talk page since the first one wasn't originally signed, while my message apparently shouldn't notify you as I edited outside of my own comment according to Help:Notifications. Hopefully this one will send you a ping! Or maybe the other two did send you one? Let me know how it works haha Fork99 (talk) 15:11, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
Thanks both. I got pings for all three messages, and I think I've fixed the duplicate parameter issue — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:55, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

A tag has been placed on Category:WikiProject banner templates not based on WPBannerMeta indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. Liz Read! Talk! 21:19, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Gosh you're quick! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:20, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

I created a bunch of categories like these, and I saw you tagged them for C1. I created them to stop the categories clogging up WantedCategories if they were ever filled, and to complete the categorisation scheme.
If there's a reason they shouldn't exist, you can delete them now per G7. — Qwerfjkltalk 15:29, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Since converting that template to use the meta, I don't think any of those will ever be populated. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:38, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
So where would the pages that would be in that category go? — Qwerfjkltalk 19:47, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
Good question. So I think NA-class should cover these. Talk:River valley is an example of a vital redirect but it doesn't seem to do the intersection of class and topic. It was a very bloated template and I tried to simplify it as much as I could, do enable its merging with WPBS. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:55, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Hello, MSGJ,

I'm not sure what you are doing here. You changed this to a category redirect but it isn't an empty category. Will you be removing the categories that it currently contains? Because redirect categories should not have any contents. Thank you for seeing to this. Liz Read! Talk! 15:54, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Hello, again, MSGJ,
I see you have been reviewing some administrative categories, untagging them and cleaning them out. If you ever find yourself in need of a project to work on, I checked once and I believe that there are over 20,000 categories that have some version of {{emptycat}} template on them. We typically use that template on WikiProject categories that are sometimes empty but I have wondered whether any "normal" categories had this tag placed on them because the category creator didn't want to see them deleted even though they are, technically, empty categories. If you could run a query and find any content-related categories that are mistagged, that would be a helpful, cleaning the house, project. Just a suggestion as I see you doing similar work recently. Thank you. Liz Read! Talk! 20:30, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Question from PlotTheClaw (20:41, 6 October 2023)

Hey! My account is new to the site... I just have questions about how do experienced editors find articles to successfully edit? --PlotTheClaw (talk) 20:41, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi there. It might be best if you contribute to articles that are within your interest, knowledge or experience. Do you have any particular interests? Otherwise you can use Special:Random to find a random page - keep pressing it until something interesting comes up. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:49, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Question from Shamshoddinsayedauranganad (18:49, 16 October 2023)

I wnat to create my page. --Shamshoddinsayedauranganad (talk) 18:49, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

WikiProject categories

Hello, MSGJ,

We have tens of thousands of empty assessment categories from WikiProjects. We do not ordinarily delete them as empty categories unless a WikiProject goes inactive or, more likely, defunct and then all of the assessment categories empty out. So, I can not figure on what basis you are removing the Empty Category tag ("Do not delete even if this category is empty") on some of them so that they get tagged for CSD C1 speedy deletion. What is your selection process? Why do, for example, some empty SIA WikiProject categories have their Empty Category tag removed while others do not? Are you basing this on the specific WikiProject? Do you have some way of knowing that these categories will always be empty? I just want to understand your thinking process so that your decisions on these categories is understandable to me because right now it isn't.

Another example, I added Category:SIA-Class Weather articles to some categories because if you use the tool that shows what pages have been added or removed from categories, there are lots of pages that have been added to that category (through tags) that don't show up in that category for some reason. So, I added the category manually because the indication is that pages like Talk:List of storms named Graham should be in that category but they aren't shown as being in the category. Then, you remove all of these categories that I added even though they state that they are Set Index Articles. I don't understand. Thank you, in advance, for any explanations you can provide. Liz Read! Talk! 17:54, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Hey @Liz, based on Template talk:WikiProject banner shell#Moving ahead with project-independent quality ratings and earlier discussions, MSGJ notified WikiProjects about removing the non-standard categories. The projects which didn't object had their banner updated which caused these categories to be permanently empty. This is just regular clean up of unused categories. If you think a specific category should have been kept, that is a different issue. Gonnym (talk) 19:12, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Question from Djspookxmane (22:25, 18 October 2023)

How do I make a article about myself I am a upcoming artist and would like to have a lil bit of a background on here --Djspookxmane (talk) 22:25, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Question from Dr. Gary S. Laco (01:53, 20 October 2023)

Hello Pichemist and MSGJ, Appreciate having you both as mentors. Thank you, Gary --Dr. Gary S. Laco (talk) 01:53, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Weather Class mask

How will the changes you made affect our recent deprecation of A-class? We disabled A-class from being available for use in the class mask following a RfC. Will this stay the case? Noah, AATalk 21:45, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi Noah. Currently A-class is on the standard scale although there is quite a lot of discussion going on about this at Wikipedia:Content assessment so I'm not sure what's going to happen. There is a proposal for a project-wide A-class review process. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:49, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:WikiProject Tokusatsu/doc

Template:WikiProject Tokusatsu/doc has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Gonnym (talk) 12:25, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Script errors

what is the fix for the Lua error in Module:WikiProject_banner at line 435: bad argument #2 to 'gsub' (string/function/table expected). in Talk:Vancouver? Frietjes (talk) 21:29, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

looks like a large blow up in Category:Pages with script errors Frietjes (talk) 21:30, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
seems like you fixed it here, thank you. Frietjes (talk) 21:35, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
Not doing well today so I think I'll stop now! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:44, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

A tag has been placed on Category:Inactive banners using Template:Inactive WikiProject banner indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. Liz Read! Talk! 01:06, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Quality assessment

After your change to Template:Quality assessment, we suddenly have transclusions of Template:WPBannerMeta/hooks/numerical ratings, which was deleted back in 2022. Should we just remove this from Template:Quality assessment? Also, it looks like Template:WPBannerMeta/templatepage/deduceimportance still has one transclusion. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 14:32, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks - I've resolved those two — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:40, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

MAIN_TEXT missing

Hello MSGJ, since you replaced "WPBannerMeta" with "#invoke:WikiProject banner" the MAIN_TEXT is not displayed anymore. Could you please fix this? Thanks, ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 20:01, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

That is a defunct WikiProject and the MAIN_TEXT is not supposed to display. (It didn't display before my change either.) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:45, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for your prompt reply, and sorry about putting the blame on you, then. It did display when I put it there, but that was many years ago, and there have been other changes since. But allow me one question: Where do you get the information that “MAIN_TEXT is not supposed to display”? I don't see that on Template:WPBannerMeta. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 21:42, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
For an inactive project, the text is changed to "This article is within the scope of WikiProject XXX, a project which is currently considered to be inactive/defunct." It has been this way for many years, because the banner takes a minimum amount of space on the page. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:46, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
Thanks again for your prompt reply. I don't know when that was changed and by whom, but regardless: If other editors take the effort of writing a MAIN_TEXT, it's not nice to carelessly trash that without any notice. I don't know if you were involved in that decision, I'm only writing this because you're so strongly defending it. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 22:13, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
SebastianHelm: You might find some reasoning by searching template talk page history. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:16, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
Template talk:Inactive WikiProject banner would be more informative perhaps. The current behaviour dates back to November 2009! The idea is that you can leave the MAIN_TEXT (and all other parameters) in place, and then if the project ever gets resurrected, they will be used again — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:46, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
Thanks to both of you, and especially for the explanation, Martin. It's good to see where you're coming from. I still think (a) naming a text that's only used in certain cases “MAIN_TEXT” is somewhat misleading and (b) in an ideal world there should be a way to override an automatic text which doesn't fit all situations. But there are certainly bigger fish to fry here. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 21:35, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Question from Tierravolcana on User talk:MSGJ (00:40, 31 October 2023)

Presentaciòn; Ejemplo, referencia --Tierravolcana (talk) 00:40, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Check for clobbered parameters

I see you removed Module:Check for clobbered parameters from WikiProject Dance here. could you show me where this is tracked in Module:WikiProject banner? thank you. Frietjes (talk) 15:16, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Sorry I'm not familiar with a "clobbered" parameter. It's the unknown parameters that are checked. Do you need the other check too? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:04, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
yes, this is an orthogonal check, checking to see if someone uses both |needs-image= and |needs-photo= for example. Frietjes (talk) 22:46, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
Okay I will add it back now. Is there a particular reason why you added it to this template? I hope it will not be necessary to add it to all banner templates, unless it can be done automatically by the module. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:43, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Just noting that this module is giving the following error in {{WikiProject Women in Green}}: Lua error in Module:WikiProject_banner/templatepage at line 667: bad argument #1 to 'format' (string expected, got nil). Previewing the template page with this version of the module seems to be fine. — MaterialWorks 09:49, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. Checking now ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:36, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
 Fixed — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:42, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
Thank you! — MaterialWorks 12:43, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from Breaton1 on Thundercat (musician) (22:47, 1 November 2023)

hello mentor --Breaton1 (talk) 22:47, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Hello mentee! Let me know if I can help at all — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:23, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Custom importance templates

In both Template:WikiProject Cricket/importance and Template:WikiProject Teylers/importance the custom category has been deleted. How do we replace this template with the default code? Gonnym (talk) 14:05, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

You can just remove the IMPORTANCE_SCALE parameter. I've done it on Teylers — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:22, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks! I just noticed that while Template:WikiProject Cricket/importance shows only those categories, the project does indeed have custom importance categories like Category:C-Class cricket articles of Unknown-importance‎ so I guess it is used, even though it has no talk page transclusions. Gonnym (talk) 15:34, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
Template:WikiProject Cricket/importance is not in use currently. The other ones are populated by the quality-importance-intersection (QII) code — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:38, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

I assume if I close this it will need manual work to implement it? — Qwerfjkltalk 19:46, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

I was hoping that CfD had some bot(s) that could help with this process. Otherwise I don't mind giving a hand ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:27, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
I assumed it was populated by {{Vital article}}. I can take care of the renaming. — Qwerfjkltalk 14:31, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
I have the code ready in Template:Vital article/sandbox to populate the new category names — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:34, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
I was about to close it, but @Plastikspork beat me to it. I assume they will implement the closure. — Qwerfjkltalk 14:37, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
Qwerfjkl: Yes, I will finish moving the categories if someone could update the {{vital article}} code, we won't need to keep category redirects. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 14:50, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks both! I have deployed the new code and it seems to be working well. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:34, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from LindenOhman (16:55, 4 November 2023)

How do I add or delete an image? --LindenOhman (talk) 16:55, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Do you mean add an existing image to an article, or to upload a new image? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:35, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from Hermes advertising (14:32, 5 November 2023)

details how to write the block for my --Hermes advertising (talk) 14:32, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Hello, Martin,

You tagged most, but not all empty Future-Class categories. Did you mean to tag them all CSD C1? How did you pick out the ones you tagged? Thanks. Liz Read! Talk! 00:33, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi Liz,
Some of them are still in use. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:43, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
Longer answer: there are a few projects that are still using their own custom quality scales. These are tracked in Category:WikiProjects using a non-standard quality scale and you can see their custom masks in Category:Custom class masks of WikiProject banners. Out of those, the highways, Indian roads, Australian roads, Canadian roads, etc. projects use the Future-class. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:38, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

I see from the edit history that you have worked on this template before. The Vital Articles Level 5 Society and Social Sciences section was split into 3 different sublists a while ago, but the template was never updated to allow a "| subpage =" parameter for the 3 social sciences sublists like there are for the other sublists. If you can fix this it would be helpful. Thanks. Rreagan007 (talk) 22:32, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

How's that looking now? You might need to go round and add |subpage= parameters. Am I right in thinking that this affects only the link on the banner? The categorisation into Category:Wikipedia level-5 vital articles in Society has not changed. By the way, we are changing the way this template works, see Wikipedia talk:Vital articles#List of vital articles. Would be great to have more people involved because this is the opportunity to make further improvements. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:06, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for updating the template. One thing that isn't working quite right is that the link in the template that should be going to the Social studies subpage is actually going to the Politics and economics subpage. And honestly the Vital articles maintenance categories are kind of a hot mess. I've been trying to fix some of them the best I can, but there's a lot wrong and doing it manually is going to take a very long time. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:24, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
That should be fixed now. I think it might be best if the category names matched the list names. We can certainly sort out a lot of the mess when we do the template merge — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:41, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
Yeah that's probably a good idea. There's a lot of room for improvement with the Vital Articles talk page template. Rreagan007 (talk) 21:57, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Reply requested

Hello, MSGJ. Please check your email; you've got mail!
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Re: Class

Thanks for letting me know with updating the class at the banner shell, it's been a force of habit using the rater script. Noted to use the banner shell. – The Grid (talk) 13:41, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Rater is supposed to be getting updated, but I'm not convinced it's working properly yet with the new system — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:52, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Yeah that's what I read as well, the script hasn't been updated since last year. – The Grid (talk) 17:22, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Opt out

Hello, I am trying to work out what needs to be done to opt out of the banner shell changes, so that the class is kept in the project banner and displayed against the project as well as in the banner shell. Thanks. Keith D (talk) 20:43, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi Keith, can I ask what project is this and have you discussed with them? There is only a need to do this if you have chosen to use a different scale to the standard scale described at WP:Content assessment — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:57, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
No, it is as I said to keep the rating in the project banner line, and not have it removed from the display against the project. As I the one that does all the rating and admin I would get no response from members. Keith D (talk) 21:38, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
There was a big discussion and the community decided not to display the rating in each banner because it is redundant. Please see WP:PIQA for more details and a link to the discussion. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:44, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I see you considered this as "not an article". There seems to be some confusion with Redirect but this looks like an article to me.--Ipigott (talk) 16:59, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Vanda Valyi (without the accent on the "a") is a redirect, which is the one I changed — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:20, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
Sorry about that. And thanks.--Ipigott (talk) 19:25, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, Martin, for checking some of my "conflict" edits. After my exchange with Rosiestep, you'll see I have removed my BS assessments, particularly as Stub, on a number of "women" articles, restoring the earlier individual ratings. I think I've now dealt with all the women listed in the conflict category. It's not always an easy matter to resolve these and I will be far more wary of making use of the banner shell assignments in future. There also seems to me to be a strong case for revising, or even just deleting, the BS ratings when contributors make later individual assessments based on Ores or Rater. Maybe the situation will improve as we gain more experience with the new approach.--Ipigott (talk) 17:17, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your help with those! In the not too distant future, I can foresee that the functionality to add |class= to separate banners will be removed completely, so the only way to rate articles will be via the banner shell. That should simplify things immensely — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:23, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
It'll be nice when the process limits the editor to rate articles only via the banner shell. Do you know who is working on that and the expected date of deployment, MSGJ? --Rosiestep (talk) 07:23, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from ITM.jeavizCETmar (16:52, 18 November 2023)

can change userbname --ITM.jeavizCETmar (talk) 16:52, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

@ITM.jeaviezCETmar 189.248.154.112 (talk) 16:53, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Query

Hello, MSGJ,

We've had quite a number of Wikipedia:Version 1.0 categories come through Empty Categories and be deleted. Category:Version 1.0 articles by importance and Category:Version 1.0 articles by quality are basically full of empty categories but Category:Wikipedia 1.0 assessments is fully used. What do you think should happen with these empty categories? Tag them or just let them be? Thanks. Liz Read! Talk! 21:26, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

I think they were populated by Template:WP1.0 which is now deleted. So should be okay to delete those — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:49, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi there. You reverted the edit I made a couple of hours ago on Ekaterina Vasileva's talkpage where I (a) updated her ratings on 3 WikiProjects and (b) added an 4th WikiProject. Your edit summary was: "if possible please could you update the rating in the banner shell template, rather than adding to each separate banner?"

  1. Why I did what I did (and will continue doing), is that I use User:Evad37/rater to review/edit WikiProjects. Rater is accessed while on the article page, from the Tools menu (e.g., I don't have to click on the talkpage). It doesn't appear to me that I can use Rater, AND, change the rating in the banner shell template. Do you happen to know if it's possible? If it isn't and "updating the rating in the banner shell template" is important to you, maybe connect with Evad37 about that?
  2. Please re-add WikiProject Russia on Vasileva's talkpage.
  3. Lastly, and most significantly, it appears to me that what you are doing assumes that all WikiProjects will rate class in the same way, e.g., if it's B-class for WP:WPWW then, it's B-class for all other WikiProject. But that's not accurate. For example, WP:MILHIST requires an editor to complete a review form before rating an article as B-class; other WikiProjects don't have this requirement. WP:MILHIST has an A-class rating; I don't know any other WikiProjects that also use it.

Thanks. -- Rosiestep (talk) 17:04, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi there. I have re-added Russia, didn't spot that one. I believe there is some discussion going on about Rater but the main problem is that Evad37 is not very active now. If no one is willing or able to update the script then editors might need to stop using it. Regarding point 3, yes that is exactly what WP:PIQA is all about, and strongly supported by the community. The MilHist project has decided to opt out, so their ratings will remain independent for now. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:20, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. I'm not sure what "strongly supported by the community" means, as I'm a veteran community member and I was unaware of the convo at WP:PIQA until now... so there are probably others in the same boat. Certainly, there was no consideration for how much extra work (extra clicks; extra time) will be required if editors are forced to stop using Rater. Nonetheless, I'll try to be compliant with what you're addressing here.
P.S. on Talk:Ida Magli, you deleted WikiProject Italy and WikiProject Women's History. --Rosiestep (talk) 19:35, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
I put them back immediately to demonstrate how the edit should be done. Yes, there are still a few people who are not aware, but it was probably the first unanimous discussion I have ever seen on Wikipedia! Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:37, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
@Rosiestep I am one of the probably others in the same boat and I am rather concerned that this Village Pump discussion was not advertised to all the active Wikiprojects as this will be a site wide change (every single wikipedia article being affected). As a semi-active maintainer of the quality assessment for WikiProject Singapore, I am rather surprised at this also but let it go. I am also not sure how 40+ supports (a rough count of the number of supports) without the wider community's knowledge constituted the Wikipedia community expressed strong support for article quality assessments which are independent of WikiProjects.
@MSGJ
A better edit summary is definitely needed and I was just being made aware of this bot request. While I understand that Projects can choose to opt-out of this system by adding the parameter , this will require Wikiprojects to request their templates being edited and I have no idea how long the request will require etc.
To put it simply,
  • I am slightly annoyed that a site wide change affecting all Wikiprojects and none of the Wikiprojects are being notified.
  • Currently auto opt-out is only for projects who have more complicated assessment.
  • Opting out is made harder for those projects who wants to opt out. Opting out requires a consensus within the Wikiproject members and then with the consensus, a request to edit template is needed. This takes time and certainly will be slower than the approval of a bot request.
JASWE (talk) 03:52, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
@Justanothersgwikieditor, I believe you overestimate how quickly bot tasks are approved. — Qwerfjkltalk 17:18, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
All projects were informed about it in April 2023, please check your talk archives. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:29, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Yes, all projects informed post approval of the discussion in April. It was not a notification to discuss the proposal. It was a notification 2 months after the discussion had closed. To clarify my comment about "I am slightly annoyed that a site wide change affecting all Wikiprojects and none of the Wikiprojects are being notified", I do not see this proposal/discussion being advertised to Wikiprojects for discussion despite Wikiprojects being affected. JASWE (talk) 03:18, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Problems with banner shell ratings

Hi there, MSGJ, and thanks for displaying the Angel of the North on your user page. I originally come for that part of the world myself although I have lived abroad for the past 60 years. I really appreciate all the valuable work you are doing on article assessments but am rather taken aback by the instructions you have given me over the past couple of days. While I am happy to give my assessment of an article in the banner shell, I am not sure whether it is always permissible to dispense with other individual ratings as you seem to suggest, although in most cases I would agree. If it is indeed the case that a banner shell assessment should override previous ratings, would it not be a good idea to automate this? And if you are able to pick up these discrepancies so quickly, perhaps you have a tool to display them. Maybe it would be useful to share it or adapt it to provide a warning at the time of editing.--Ipigott (talk) 20:58, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi Ian, I am just working through Category:Articles with conflicting quality ratings to remove all the discrepancies. Yes, the idea is that all projects will use the same rating, unless they have opted out (e.g. military history) in which case their ratings should be left intact. This is what WP:PIQA is all about. Would be great if you can lend a hand, regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:34, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, Martin. There's quite a long list behind that category. I'm pretty busy at the moment but I'll try to help out a bit, especially in connection with biographies of women. It looks to me as if it would be useful to have a bot deal with all this. Every day I check the talk pages of many articles about women and see that even in recent articles, many editors continue to add individual ratings - so the problem is likely to continue. What happens if MilHist is included without a rating? Does the BS rating also apply or is the rating left empty? I believe I have come across MilHist ratings of Stub and Start based on the BS but I may be wrong. In any case, their assessment stats show that all articles have been rated.--Ipigott (talk) 06:27, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
Currently opt-out projects do not inherit the class from the banner shell. There have been a couple of suggestions to that effect, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea. Would also be tricky to code because what if the shell class is one which the custom scale does not support? Anyway would be good to get your thoughts at Template talk:WikiProject banner shell if you want to take it forward. Yes there is supposed to be a bot doing these, but it seems to be stalled. Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:54, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
I think I'll leave that to you, Martin. I'm pretty tied up with all kinds of other stuff. Please let me know if there's any progress with the bot or any other significant changes.--Ipigott (talk) 11:23, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
@Ipigott:, regarding [7], just to note that MilHist ratings should not be removed as they have opted out of PIQA and so do not inherit from the banner shell. I've fixed this one. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:51, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

WikiProject banner categories

Currently, for Task 26, I'm using these categories to determine which templates are wikiproject banners:

  1. Category:WikiProject banners without quality assessment
  2. Category:WikiProject banners with quality assessment
  3. Category:WikiProject banner templates
  4. Category:Inactive WikiProject banners

For each category I get all pages that are directly in the category (i.e. ignoring subcategories).
I'd just like to check these account for all wikiprojects. I've already had several errors because of this. — Qwerfjkltalk 17:03, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't think the 3rd one is needed because it is a parent category and doesn't contain any project banner templates directly — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:53, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from Petruse Felator (16:36, 21 November 2023)

Can I edit any false information on Wekippida? --Petruse Felator (talk) 16:36, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

@Petruse Felator: sure. It is best if you can cite a source when correcting any information. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:54, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from Ser Seannie (21:26, 25 November 2023)

How to introduce myself --Ser Seannie (talk) 21:26, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi, what do you mean? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:48, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

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A tag has been placed on Category:Wikipedia vital articles with an incorrect link indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. Liz Read! Talk! 20:48, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Removal of needs-rjl in Template:WikiProject Australian Roads

Hi, your change here seems to have removed `needs-rjl` from Template:WikiProject Australian Roads. This has broken and hence caused the deletion of the helper category in Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian Roads that shows all roads without a junction list: Category:WikiProject Australian Roads articles without a road junction list.

Was the deletion an oversight or intended on your part, and if it was intentional, what mechanism did you intend to replace `needs-rjl` with? DrRespect (talk) 12:49, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi. I don't recall but will check when I get home. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:37, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
You are right, my apologies. I've added it back to Template:WikiProject Australian Roads/sandbox and simplified the code a bit. Does that look okay? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:20, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
Code looks good to me, so I've deployed it. Please let me know if you see anything untoward — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:13, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
Looks good, thank you for the speedy fix. DrRespect (talk) 12:36, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Q about recent edit.

Q for you re this edit [8]. There are suddenly a bunch of US road articles that are displaying as "Disamg" class, despite having correct parameters in the rating template. See Talk:Interstate 70 and Talk:Interstate 10 as examples. Could this change be the cause? I know enough about template coding to be dangerous. But this edit is the closest I can find to a logical explanation as to why several pages are suddenly displaying with the wrong class. Any assistance you could provide would be greatly appreciated. Dave (talk) 03:26, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I will investigate shortly why these are being identified as dab pages — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:29, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Hi Dave. Disambiguation pages are detected automatically by Module:Disambiguation by looking for certain templates on the article. In this case {{dab}} was present, even though it was commented out. I have removed it and the problem goes away. I'm not sure I understand the comment "This allows users with popups to "disambiguate" links to this page in a semi-automatic manner". Do you know anything about that? We could possibly upgrade the module to ignore things which are commented out, but that might prove tricky. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:04, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
If keeping the comments is a necessity, there exists Module:Wikitext Parsing.PrepareText(), which should fix the issue here by allowing normally un-processed text to be removed. Aidan9382 (talk) 08:24, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks Aidan. I may drop a suggestion on Module talk:Disambiguation but I don't really see why these articles should be tricking popups into thinking they are dab pages when they are not. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:34, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for investigating this. I tried and was running out of hair to pull trying to find the cause of the problem. I have no idea what that disambiguate comment means. If I had to guess it's been there for years and was likely a workaround for older template coding and is no longer relevant. However, that's just a guess. Thanks again. Dave (talk) 18:23, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from Mman314 (21:31, 3 December 2023)

Hi I have a question I moved my sandbox draft to the mainspace but it says this template is not to be used in the article space do you know what I could do to fix this? thanks --Mman314 (talk) 21:31, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

I have removed that template for you — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:35, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

apology

for the bits and pieces that came and went from this talk page I eventually resolved re an internal change to Rater - thanks for the advice in your edit summary... pity it wasnt easily known ages ago... we are fortunate to have the creator or Rater on hand here in West Oz JarrahTree 14:07, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

No need to apologise. A lot of editors are still getting used to the new system! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:06, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
The weirdest aspect is if a project is designated as low importance, the sub project appears to be allocated that same value - the level of change is beyond getting used to - initially it was bewildering to see what had happened JarrahTree 11:29, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
All your recent edits look perfect. Not sure what you mean about importance? That shouldn't have any effect on the quality rating. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:34, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

B-class checklist

Since you've removed them from templates for all projects now many talk pages have them as unrecognized parameters. Are we supposed to just comment them out? Remove them? What's advised? PARAKANYAA (talk) 16:01, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I have just been removing them, but there is no "correct" way that has been discussed or decided — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:35, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi, your edits to this template have emptied all the maintenance categories and they have been nominated for speedy deletion. I've seen no announcement on project talk pages if this was the intention. I assume rolling back your changes would re-populate the categories. Pinging User:Liz as the speedy nominator. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 08:22, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi, please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation#Determining the future of B-checklists where your project was asked to participate in the discussion. The conclusion was to remove all B-class checklists by default. If your project really wants to continue using it, then we should be able to find a workaround. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:26, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
I see aviation editors did join the discussion and opposed the change. 20 years of work will be lost as it's not practical to re-assess circa 70,000 articles. What will happen to the templates on talk pages, bot deletion? Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 08:35, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
Who is going to rewrite Template:WikiProject Aviation/doc? Massive changes like this need careful transition. Madness, it really is. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 08:53, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
Shall I come and discuss the options at the project talk page? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:13, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Could you advise on how to deal with those listed in Category:Unassessed WikiProject Women articles. I thought it was sufficient to add disamb for the class but apparently not.--Ipigott (talk) 08:41, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi Ian. Chiyo is a set index article, which is not the same as a disambiguation page, although the distinction can become somewhat blurry. These tend to be treated as List-class rather than Disambig-class. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:55, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll use list.--Ipigott (talk) 14:29, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
I must say I'm really surprised at all the names previously classed disamb which are now appearing as unassessed. They've been OK for years and now suddenly need attention. The problem seems to result from an empty banner shell line being automatically introduced with no editing record. Maybe the best solution is simply to remove it. (I've just been working on the Swedish names Eriksson, Dahlin and Borg (surname) and see that Wrede and Eklund are now also listed as unassessed. And see also Dano-Swedish War.) I think someone should look at this more carefully. What about all the xtools listings by user? Is it really the case that all the disambs should now become List?--Ipigott (talk) 10:43, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
I have opened a discussion at WT:Content assessment — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:45, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
I've already responded on that page but as you seem to be a key player in the move to banner shell, perhaps you could simply help to reverse the recent action which led to a host of new disamb unassessments. Changes affecting such a huge number of articles should be taken on the basis of wide consultation. I note you said it was "unintentional". It should therefore be discontinued before it raises more negative reactions. I was one of those to welcome the developments in regard to the extension of BS to class assessment and have tried to help things along but I'm now beginning to have my doubts. (cc: Rosiestep).--Ipigott (talk) 13:51, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
If you don't mind, could we wait for a day or two until consensus is clear? If I revert now, then we will simply be sweeping the issue under the carpet and no one will notice. I think having the discussion is valuable, and could result in a clarification of what SIA vs dab actually means, and whether that distinction is helpful — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:59, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Disambig WP Sweden articles

Hi Martin. I am confused about why not all disambig WP Sweden articles are considered to be unassessed. Most of the Category:Disambig-Class Sweden articles are considered assessed but those in Category:Unassessed Sweden articles are also disambig. Can you explain this discrepancy and what action needs to be taken? The same is true from WP Italy: see Category:Disambig-Class Italy articles vs Category:Unassessed Italy articles. If I could understand the logic behind this, I could perhaps help things along. For the unassessed article Carin, I discovered that by including class Disambig for WP Anthroponymy it disappeared from the unassessed listing. Do all talk pages containing Anthroponymy now have to have a class rating? This did not used to be necessary and Carin did not appear in earlier lists of unassessed articles.--Ipigott (talk) 09:13, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

I tried to explain this before; sorry if it was unclear. These unassessed categories will empty themselves but it takes time as the job queue catches up. I can't say how long it will take, but no further action is needed by you. If you want to force them to move, you can make a null edit to the page (edit and save without making any changes). — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:21, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. Now I understand what you mean. An edit without any change will be sufficient to eliminate them. Sorry to have been so slow on the uptake. I've already been able to tidy up some wikiprojects where there are only a handful of unassessed articles. As for the rest, I'll just wait for the job queue to catch up. Thanks for all your help with this. You seem to have initiated a workable approach, at least for the time being. Just one last question: For new articles, is it now permissible to use class Disambig in the banner shell intro or should it be kept empty? I see that Acqua pazza and many others seem to be recognized as assessed disambiguation projects with an empty banner shell, as do others with no banner shell but with individual wikiprojects Disambiguation and/or Anthroponymy. Maybe you could point to an example which you think is correctly presented.--Ipigott (talk) 12:02, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Archive navigation

Template:Archive navigation has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page.  — SMcCandlish ¢ 😼  12:59, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Email

Hi Martin – in case it was again filtered, there is another response from me to your email. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 09:42, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, will reply shortly! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:51, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Latest reply has been emailed to you, Martin. Thanks again! P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 21:15, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Another email awaits your reply, Martin. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 19:45, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Template:WPSHIPS

See this discussion - more talk page template problems.Nigel Ish (talk) 13:02, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Seems to have been answered, but let me know if I can help further. I don't characterise this as a "problem" as it was intentional and in line with community consensus — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:51, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I've reverted your blanking of the above category and others, which were subsequently nominated for speedy deletion because you removed the "do not delete even if empty" template. Has there been a discussion on cleaning up these categories? If not, there should be a CfD before they're deleted. MClay1 (talk) 10:39, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes this is the result of a discussion and a long effort in cleaning up these categories — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:38, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
MSGJ, MClay1 has untagged all of the categories I CSD C1 tagged in Category:Wikipedia vital articles in Art by class and the subcategories in Category:Wikipedia vital articles in Life (along with a few other random categories). I know you're in the process of cleaning up the vital articles categories but I don't want to edit war about this. We also have run into problems with Aviation categories that have been tagged being untagged like Category:Aviation articles needing attention to grammar. But they keep showing up as empty categories to tag. You can look at User:Liz/CSD log#December 2023 and see the pink categories that are now blue links. Suggestions? Liz Read! Talk! 02:22, 10 December 2023 (UTC)
I wasn't aware of the discussion taking place. I found them because I received an automatic message because I created one of the categories. It didn't seem appropriate to me to empty them then tag them for speedy deletion, but I don't have an issue with deleting them if that's the consensus. I'm not sure though how much involvement there's been in the discussion – as I said, I didn't know the discussion existed and I made one of the categories. MClay1 (talk) 04:00, 10 December 2023 (UTC)
Hi Liz: those aviation categories are back in use as a result of a request from the WikiProject. I am hoping MClay1 will self-revert his/her edits on the vital categories, now that the reasons have been explained — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:52, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I think you created this template. Could you have a look at it and remove the unnecessary (and ugly) bolding that it produces in List of learned societies? As an aside, I'm not a big fan of content directly sourced to Wikidata, because their sourcing requirements are inferior to ours and also any vandalism will go undetected here. Anyway, I'd appreciate if you could have a look at that bolding issue. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 13:36, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

You can use the class plainrowheaders — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:46, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. That should perhaps be added to the doc. --Randykitty (talk) 13:58, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
Yep, good idea. Can I just say that I don't agree with WP:WTAF, in most cases? For example, there was an editor who was trying to write a stub article for every dam in Japan, and it was agreed that this was undesirable and it would be better to put the information into a list. So I spent a long time creating articles like List of dams in Oita Prefecture as an alternative. I do hope you are not going to delete all the entries without articles? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:21, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
It's something WP Academic Journals does standard for, e.g., lists of academic journals. Too many publishers sneak in their own journals, even when not notable. And that's a general problem with lists, of course: entries for non-notable subjects. --Randykitty (talk) 15:52, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
I can see that is a convenient means of enforcing standards on a list. But I still think that the notability requirement for inclusion in a list should be lower than for a standalone article. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:56, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Question from Navya4568 (01:53, 13 December 2023)

Hello MSGJ,

Nice to meet you. I edited few wikipedia articles long time ago. I recently saw few articles in Wikipedia and felt I can contribute. Joined again. I am more into Indian Culture, Food, Arts, etc and I am doing research on how they are shaping up in different parts of the world. What can be the easiest way to find wikipedia articles on them and check the content for errors, edits, etc.

Thanks, Navya. --Navya4568 (talk) 01:53, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi Navya, welcome. You could look in the articles and subcategories of Category:Indian culture to see if anything sparks your interest? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:03, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Question from M.Athar2122 (14:18, 14 December 2023)

how can i add link of my website --M.Athar2122 (talk) 14:18, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

No thank you! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:04, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Question from HuckFinn89 (08:46, 15 December 2023)

I've previously posted 100% legit facts followed by multiple, varied support articles, which are removed by random people for disagreeing. Facts are facts. What can I do? --HuckFinn89 (talk) 08:46, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Presumably these edits were made before creating your account. If you tell me which article it was, I might be able to advise further. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:51, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I think this page should be placed under pending changes protection. Unlike other highly viewed semiprotected projectspace pages, this one needs to be substantially updated (namely with cross-platform instructions), and we could use help from IP editors in that regard. Mach61 (talk) 19:54, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Sure, we could try it. Are you willing to help patrol the changes? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:53, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
Yes Mach61 (talk) 12:23, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history

Your recent edits to {{WikiProject Military history}} have left a cluster of redlinked assessment categories at Special:WantedCategories. It doesn't seem all that likely that they would be wanted if they didn't already exist, but I don't want to just revert your edits arbitrarily to make them go away — so could you take a look at them to figure out whether they're warranted or not, and either create them if they're wanted or fix the template code to kibosh them if they're not?

Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 15:38, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I'll sort this when I get a chance — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:51, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Hello! Thank you for addressing the mistake I made while re-assessing the page: I actually didn't even realize that all of the rates had gone up to B, because I was just focusing on the "Importance" parameters...

I'll definitely pay more attention next time around! Oltrepier (talk) 18:46, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

No worries. Rater seems to produce these unexpected results sometimes. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:54, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Question from StrangeGoose (16:39, 16 December 2023)

Hello, So i changed the listing of people who worked on a video game to include various artists and programmers who were credited in the game's End Credits but not on Wikipedia. It was reverted and i was asked to provide a citation but I am unsure how to go about that since it is in the game itself. --StrangeGoose (talk) 16:39, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Is is included anywhere else, e.g. on the website? Otherwise, you could see if Template:Cite video game would help produce a citation — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:56, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Listing of draft articles as unassessed

Sorry to bother you once again, Martin, but I have just noticed that today for the first time draft articles in WP Italy are now being listed as unassessed. See here. Do you happen to know if this is intentional and if so, why? You will see they are not listed under Category:Unassessed Italy articles (but that's logical as they're drafts, not articles).--Ipigott (talk) 12:12, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't have an explanation for that, but I can do some digging ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:26, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Do you think it would be necessary to similarly do this in other, non-mainspace talk pages? Presumably they will also need to have WPBS added and the classes merged. This isn't quite in the scope of task #26, but it might be a reasonable follow-up task. — Qwerfjkltalk 18:09, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that would be helpful, thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:25, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Hey MSGJ. Just reaching out about this revert you did. Sorry about that, I stumbled upon the article from WP:FLC and I use the gadget that displays an assessment of the article (which showed as start). I used Rater to change this, not realizing that a banner class was set. Sorry about the misunderstanding, I do know better, but I thought it was just misclassified. Hopefully someone will update Rater soon to include the banner shell changes you've been working on. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:01, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, we are waiting for an update on rater for some time now! Thanks for your message — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:02, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

if only

I am very tired, and hot from my local climate - to separate the various issues is beyond me, I will get back some other time. I have not the capacity to explain on or off wiki why, have a great christmas etc.JarrahTree 09:53, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Take it easy, and get back in touch when you feel ready — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:03, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
I am not doing the requested change as it appears something has broken rater... no comment per WP:agf JarrahTree 01:48, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
Not too sure when it happened, very confusing - but it appears to be working again in some articles but not in others...

JarrahTree 12:48, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Crime and USA

The Crime and USA WikiProjects seem to occupy a goodly majority of Category:Pages using WikiProject banner shell with duplicate banner templates. I feel like there was a bot task that was supposed to deal with that, but if there isn't, can you think of a reason not to make one? I've done a ton of these so it should be fairly straight-forward, but I thought I'd get your opinion. I'll subscribe so no need to ping. Primefac (talk) 02:00, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

I asked for that and no one responded. It was after two template task force merges a few months ago which is why the number is so high. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:20, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
Ah, that would be why it seemed familiar (it's fairly recent). It looks like the description of the issue falls within the purview of my bot, so I should be able to set something up and hopefully get that sorted. Thanks PARAKANYAA for the info. Primefac (talk) 12:04, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
The bot did great and knocked out a large portion of the duplicates before it suddenly stopped for some reason. The only problem I see is that it doesn't seem to have worked on any page that was tagged with both Organized crime and Serial killer: in those cases it only did one. PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:42, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

A solstice greeting

❄️ Happy holidays! ❄️

Hi MSGJ! I'd like to wish you a splendid solstice season as we wrap up the year. Here is an artwork, made individually for you, to celebrate. I always appreciate your technical work! Take care, and thanks for all you do to make Wikipedia better!
Cheers,
{{u|Sdkb}}talk
Solstice Celebration for MSGJ, 2023, DALL·E 3. (View full series) Note: The vibes are winter solsticey. If you're in the southern hemisphere, oops, apologies.
Solstice Celebration for MSGJ, 2023, DALL·E 3.
Note: The vibes are winter solsticey. If you're in the southern hemisphere, oops, apologies.

{{u|Sdkb}}talk 06:49, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks @Sdkb and the same to you! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:31, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Deleted templates which are still used by Module:WikiProject banner

Hello. I'm contacting you since you are the last editor on Module:WikiProject banner/templatepage.

I have been trying to export Module:WikiProject banner to ku.wikipedia bu these two templates are deleted as cleanup after this discussion was closed by @User:Gonnym. The templates are used by Module:WikiProject banner/config#L-284 as well as Module:WikiProject banner/templatepage. I wasn't sure where to ask this since it is both uncontroversial and challenging a deletion review. Could you undelete this or should I make a request at somewhere? Balyozxane (talk) 15:00, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Seems like you are busy. I posted the request at Wikipedia:Requests_for_undeletion#Template:WPBannerMeta/templatepage/qualheader. Happy Holidays! Balyozxane (talk) 16:14, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
I've commented there — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:05, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks

... for correcting the mistake I left with the banner shell at Talk:Mining and Energy Union. Not quite sure what happened there, as I use the WP:RATER tool, I think the tool preassessed as start, which I changed to C, but still I should have checked the result more closely. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 21:57, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Just noticed this seems to be a recurrning problem with Rater (if your talk page is anything to go by!) ... I'll pay (much) closer attention to this. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 22:42, 29 December 2023 (UTC)