User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2008 October

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embolden title

In this edit[1] to Landmark Center (St. Paul) the bot did some general fixes but failed to embolden the title (which was needed). Other examples include Orono High School and Island Station Power Plant. Thanks for your efforts!--Appraiser (talk) 16:30, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

SmackBot bug

In cases where the article title is emboldened by a self-link, your bot has been removing the self-link, thus disemboldening the title rather than emboldening it (e.g. [2],[3].) Spacepotato (talk) 17:59, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

MM yes I'm asking the AWB devs to look at this bug, and them ore general one above. Rich Farmbrough, 18:01 2 October 2008 (UTC).

Incorrect Lifetime template moves

Smackbot's edit here, which moved the Lifetime template before the categories was reverted here. The Lifetime template Usage guideline states that the Lifetime templateshould be placed after the last category, not before them. Would you please instruct Smackbot to correctly handle this, and to revert any changes that were done in error. Thanks. Truthanado (talk) 01:55, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Useless smakbot edits

Are edits like this necessary? I thought these were discouraged as per here. 71.210.190.90 (talk) 02:10, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but hard to avoid altogether, for the reasons in my FaQ as well as the bugs discussed above. Rich Farmbrough, 20:26 3 October 2008 (UTC).

Template:Testafd

Hi Rich. Do you still have a need for Template:Testafd? If not, please list it for deletion. Thanks. -- Suntag ☼ 00:58, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Gone. Rich Farmbrough, 20:25 3 October 2008 (UTC).

Thanks. FYI, I found it while adding to Category:Articles for deletion templates. -- Suntag ☼ 13:46, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Dates

[4] It missed some full dates and a number of partial dates. See also WP:AN/I#SmackBot_changing_date_formatting_in_artlces_in_violation_of_MOS Gimmetrow 12:57, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Other cases being missed: [5] Gimmetrow 13:13, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 15:12 4 October 2008 (UTC).

Ray Parker, Jr. page

First, thank you for your edits. I take it that you are a common user who is familiar with this. I am a new user whose sources of updated information came from interviews shared with the public by Ray Parker, Jr. His original page sadly lacked updates as any musician should receive when new information becomes public so in gathering information about him and attempting to stay within Wikipedia guidelines, I have sources that I placed in however, there are still the warnings. Would you be kind enough to help me do what needs to be done in order for the page not to be deleted and it can stay 'verifiable'? Thank you

Cybdisco--Cybdisco (talk) 13:02, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Smackbot, and blank lines before stubs

I've noticed that (whilst making other edits) Smackbot is collapsing the blank lines before stubs (for example, this edit). This seems to go against the guidance at WP:STUB:

It is usually desirable to leave two blank lines between the first stub template and whatever precedes it.

And was wondering if this is a fault with the bot, or if there is a some other guidance that says "never have two blank lines" or something? -- ratarsed (talk) 09:33, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your message, SmackBot makes a number of changes that are available to all WP:AWB bots - in general these provide a number of non-controversial minor improvements.

The issue you raise is related to these, and has been discussed in the past [6]. I have left, or will leave, a message about your concerns on the WP:AWB pages.

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 09:49 5 October 2008 (UTC).

Monoicous

Monoicous Bot mis-linking problems have started again. A non-English speaker began interwiki linking the articles incorrectly (again), and the bots are proliferating the same old problem again. --EncycloPetey (talk) 10:42, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Repeated vandalism to Subsidized Housing article

Hi Rich. We need some help with this. User:68.40.143.123) continues to vandalise the Subsidized housing article and essentially it is turning into a revert war which is useless. Other editors and I remove his POV ramblings inserted into the article and he keeps re-inserting it with no discussion. Can we get some protection ? Thanks. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 17:19, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Rich, for your help on this. User:68.40.143.123 is not making coherent contributions to the article. Were he to have done so, there would be no issue. Bests. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 18:13, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Rich, right after the protection was lifted, the previous vandaliser (User:68.40.143.123) resumed battering the article with the same edits which were rejected before by many people. Help ? He has been warned and editors tried to converse with him but there is no hope. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 16:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Rich, I did read and add some books and articles by Professor Patrick Minford, as you mentioned. Thanks. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 01:44, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Merge Templates

Cheers. Need to watch my typing. (Rueful smile) Ka Faraq Gatri (talk) 15:35, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Edmond Dantès

Smackbot changed the correct spelling (Dantès) to an incorrect one (Dantes) of in a DEFAULTSORT tag for Edmond Dantès. Should it do that? --Ccady (talk) 14:32, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Just found the same issue with Gérard de Nerval --Ccady (talk) 14:36, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes it should. Otherwise Dantès, Edmond would be listed before Dantes, Andrew. Rich Farmbrough 14:43 5 October 2008 (UTC).

Isn't that a problem with the Wikipedia sorting on category pages? If Wikipedia does not change that, then I would think that it is more important to spell it right than to sort it right.--Ccady (talk) 22:26, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

But DEFAULTSORT is ONLY used for sorting, and nothing else. It was invented to work around the problem that Wikipedia sorting isn't correct in many cases, and the bug is hard enough to fix that other issues have taken priority ahead of it. Studerby (talk) 00:37, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Smackbot: sorting

Looks like Smackbot isn't handling all the issues around apostrophes correctly. A common case is a name "X'Y" (such as O'Reilly), that sorts as "Xy" (e.g. Oreilly). Smackbot is leaving the "Y" capitalized. I can't think of case where the "Y" shouldn't be lower case; in essence, we're simulated case in-sensitive sorting by forcing each word to have a capitalized first letter and an all lower remainder. Studerby (talk) 00:50, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'm planning another pass to deal with Rich Farmbrough, 02:43 6 October 2008 (UTC).

Smackbot and names with ' in them

The bot is changing names like "Queen's College", which is correct, to "Queens College", which is incorrect and will get up the noses of members of that College who are always careful to get it right. It did the same with "Woman's College". I can not see a reason for it and it is wrong. --Bduke (Discussion) 21:40, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

This is purely for the purposes of sort order. It will still appear under the article title in categories, but will be sorted as if it were titled as shown in DEFAULTSORT . For many articles in many categories it will make no difference but, for example if "Jo's Boys" were sorted by the title it would come before "John Dory". Rich Farmbrough, 14:38 6 October 2008 (UTC).

Exactly, as it should. --Bduke (Discussion) 21:09, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

SmackBot is tagging and breaking redirects

I have noticed that Smackbot has been breaking redirects by tagging them as stubs and orphans. Examples of this behavior are available here, here, and here. The redirects being tagged are of the form #REDIRECT:[[target]] and date from 2004, so this may be a case of Smackbot not recognizing an old redirect syntax. --Allen3 ^talk 13:44, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 14:17 7 October 2008 (UTC).

Virgin America

Virgin America Hello, I'd ask that you please not edit a page that is protected, as your recent edit in removing capitalization on the phrase 'Main Cabin' is incorrect formatting. 'Main Cabin' is the official name of the cabin per Virgin America, and therefore is a proper noun and must be capitalized. In my opinion, it is unfair to take advantage of a page protection when most users cannot make corrections to your edits. Regards, NcSchu_(Talk) 13:02, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. It's not "taking advantage" - there are over 1000 admins who can correct me, and you can leave a note here if I make a mistake and I will correct myself. If I was edit-warring on the page it would be "taking advantage". Rich Farmbrough, 15:33 7 October 2008 (UTC).

Yea you need to stop abusing your privileges with Virgin America or I am more than ready to alert other administrators to your actions! Consider yourself warned. 45Factoid44 (talk) 15:29, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh for heaven's sake, if it's a problem I'd self-revert, left a talk page note. Rich Farmbrough, 15:33 7 October 2008 (UTC).

P.S. Neither of you asked me to revert my edit, that was what was needed. Since you didn't I almost assumed that it had been done by someone else - I have reverted. Rich Farmbrough, 16:17 7 October 2008 (UTC).

Sorry, I was just trying to hint towards it, without yelling at you to revert or something. I just look at 1000 out of the millions of non-admin editors as a very small proportion of the editing population. NcSchu_(Talk) 18:41, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

OK. Don't tell anyone (:-) but most of those millions of accounts have never edited, and many are thought to be mass created vandals.Rich Farmbrough, 18:44 7 October 2008 (UTC).

AfD nomination of Texline Independent School District

An article that you have been involved in editing, Texline Independent School District, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Texline Independent School District. Thank you. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice? Whenaxis (talk) 23:03, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Clarify -> Confusing

Hi, just writing regarding the recent edit SmackBot made to PRINCE2. I added a 'Clarify' tag (inline), to which SmackBot correctly added a pipe and date, but it changed '{{Clarify}}' to '{{Confusing}}' which is not inline, leaving a banner in the middle of a paragraph. I've reverted 'Confusing' to 'Clarify' and left the pipe. Cheers, Millstream3 (talk) 09:58, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, and oh buggerit. Rich Farmbrough, 10:29 8 October 2008 (UTC).

The redirect was changed.. sigh. Rich Farmbrough, 10:32 8 October 2008 (UTC).

British dates

Incidentally these are not British dates, they are used by extensively in the UK and less extensively in the US (my estimates 85%-95% and 30-40% respectively).

Hi,

I don't think changing dates to British format (day, then month) automatically is a good idea, since it affects even pages that should go the other way, as was recently done in Project for the New American Century. Maybe the bot can somehow sense which way the dates go on a page it's editing, and stick with that one? Korny O'Near (talk) 16:33, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that's definitely broken. It is correctly removing the wikilinks, but it shouldn't be changing the order. e.g.:

• [[May 30]], [[2007]] → 30 May 2007

should be

• [[May 30]], [[2007]] → May 30, 2007

Also, this seems like dup work that at least one other bot is doing (but doing correctly). —Danorton (talk) 19:45, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

FYI, I just now fixed the damage to Project for the New American Century from the bot and manually did what the bot should have done. —Danorton (talk) 20:08, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Well that article did contain four international dates, calling it damage is going a bit strong. Rich Farmbrough, 22:51 6 October 2008 (UTC).

I fixed what I trust is the last 2 date errors that were related to the bot's edits in that article. Considering the amount of edits it has taken to make correct what the bot did, the term "damage" seems to be a valid use of the word. Don't be so defensive, Rich. Bots should help. When they don't, people have a right to complain. Truthanado (talk) 00:10, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

There's a revert button. Rich Farmbrough, 09:51 7 October 2008 (UTC).

For the record, there were over 100 dates in that article that were jumbled by the bot. Saying "there's a revert button" is like saying "just press delete" in response to spam. Such errors are disruptive and most article readers aren't editors. —Danorton (talk) 00:26, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

No it's not. One click on the revert button would have undone all those changes to dates whether there were 100 or 1000 of them. Rich Farmbrough, 08:49 9 October 2008 (UTC).

Nonetheless sorry to have put you to trouble, and your suggestion in the original post is appreciated. Rich Farmbrough, 08:57 9 October 2008 (UTC).

Dab pages

Just noticing that Smackbot has created a number of redirects over the last couple of days, in the format "XXXX (disambiguation)", which redirects to "XXXX". I was wondering if there's a particular project or initiative that this is in support of? Taking an interest only because dab clean up is a primary focus for me. Thanks! Mlaffs (talk) 02:36, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Totally-disputed-section in Math equations

SmackBot was stopped a few days ago with the complaint that it had inserted {{Totally-disputed-section}} templates into Math equations. The bot has since been restarted, but I don't see any evidence that this problem was addressed. —Danorton (talk) 18:06, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

It is probably best to direct follow up on this incident to Dicklyon (talk). —Danorton (talk) 18:56, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for the response, Rich. Is it fixed now? I also reported it for vandalism, for the heck of it. Dicklyon (talk) 20:02, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

It's fixed as I said on your talk page. Ptolemy's theorem was the only page affected by this somewhat obscure bug out of hundreds of thousands of edits where it was present. Note that AIV is for ongoing problems. Rich Farmbrough, 21:49 10 October 2008 (UTC).

SmackBot

Hi Rich - any reason why SmackBot is marking redirects as stubs? Grutness...wha? 23:44, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

SmackBot: An Airman's Letter to His Mother

An Airman's Letter to His Mother Hi, just want to point out that the bot erroneously changed the default sort for this article from "Airman's Letter to His Mother, An" to "Airmans Letter to His Mother, An", dropping the possessive apostrophe. [7] Ed Fitzgerald ^{t / c} 23:18, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

That's correct sorting. Apostrophe's aren't used in sorting. Studerby (talk) 00:50, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Why is it correct sorting? In many cases it is changing a name to something that is incorrect. --Bduke (Discussion) 01:10, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

What Studerby's saying is that the bot {{DEFAULTSORT}} modification doesn't affect how the name displays, only how it sorts in a list. But, as I point out below, it messes up the sorting, too. —Danorton (talk) 04:51, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

It's correct sorting for some things but it's not for many others. Consider this example list:

• Stephen's Academy
• Stephen's University
• Stephens School

Removing all apostrophes results in this incorrect ordering:

• Stephen's Academy
• Stephens School
• Stephen's University

Removing apostrophes puts things in the wrong natural order. The purpose is to remove things that don't affect natural order, but removing all apostrophes incorrectly affects the order.

"Stephen" (and "Stephen's") is a different name from and should appear before "Stephens".

The bot is doing the wrong thing. If it's following guidelines, stop the bot from doing that particular wrong thing while I fix the guidelines. —Danorton (talk) 04:36, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

How to treat apostrophes in sorting is conventional. Many reference publications, such as the online Encyclopedia Britannica, have chosen the convention that apostrophes are treated as if they are not there, when sorting article titles. (See for example that "Queens College" falls between "Queen's Chamber" and "Queen's Counsel" in their online index.)

The online Merriam-Webster dictionary has made a similar yet different choice, ignoring both apostrophes and spaces, as you can see for yourself.

Wikipedia has chosen the same sorting convention, to ignore apostrophes when sorting, but the only current mechanism to do this is an explicit sort key. In other words, the sort ordering you deem "incorrect" is correct.

The fact that ASCII-based sorting (or UTF-8-based sorting, which the wiki software uses) gives a different order is irrelevant. Studerby (talk) 16:51, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

You write: "Wikipedia has chosen the same sorting convention..." Where, exactly, does Wikipedia indicate that it has chosen this convention? (We should move this discussion there if the history there doesn't show that these specific issues were considered.) —Danorton (talk) 17:59, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Rich, these links might be helpful to point people at:

• Wikipedia:CAT#Category sorting (especially Wikipedia:CAT#Other specifics)
• Wikipedia:Categorization of people#Ordering names in a category.

Will drop a note off to the others who commented here. Carcharoth (talk) 15:44, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits

Hi Rich Farmbrough,

Greetings!

I just say your message here. Is it possible to generate a similar list for Malayalam wikipedia. http://ml.wikipedia.org/. --Shijualex (talk) 10:28, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I am looking forward to see that :) --Shijualex (talk) 17:37, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT and other biographical metadata

Hi there. I noticed a few days (weeks?) ago, your bot doing DEFAULTSORT stuff (and I commented above on the sorting stuff), but would you be interested in Wikipedia:Biographical metadata? In particular, if there is stuff I've missed, I'd be grateful if you could help expand it. There is also some discussion on the talk page. Also, are you aware of {{Lifetime}}, which has DEFAULTSORT filled in as a parameter? How does your bot handle that? Carcharoth (talk) 15:51, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

You put defaultsort in all biog articles? Hmph! Wish I'd known that. I've been moaning that lots of articles lacked defaultsort! :-) The merging is a no-brainer. How to do it and get people to adapt to a new system is harder. One thing I think is that editors should always have the option to just type in plain text. It can be a big barrier to editing if people hit "edit" and are faced with a mass of templates. Maybe someone will think of something. Carcharoth (talk) 00:04, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Hao Wang (academic) (disambiguation)

Why did SmackBot create a redirect under this name? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 13:23, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Gary Young edits

Hi Rich,

I made several edits to comply with your advertisement image that was placed.

Thanks for the feedback - I think the new edits I made make it more editorial in nature.

Thanks!

Rich Nelson —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ragesteel (talk • contribs) 14:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Rich - Could you take a look at the article again and see if it now qualifies for removal of that "advertisement" image. If it does not - please let me know what specifically I can do to make it more unbiased - I think it reads pretty well now -- your comments are appreciated -- thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ragesteel (talk • contribs) 15:22, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Pectus edits

Hey Rich,

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I looked at the page recently, and it looks good, but I haven't gone back in the history to check specifically what you or others have done so far. Thanks for your help. --Seth Goldin (talk) 21:41, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

AWB

Hey how come you;ve suddenly become so active again!!! Your edit count seemd to have stabilised on 175,000 for ages but now it seems you are using AWB to make 500 edits ever half hour. You'll be doubling that count pretty soon!! Blofeld of SPECTRE (talk) 00:28, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes. The reason I said was that everytime I patrolled the recent changes your name was appearing several times a minute!! Blofeld of SPECTRE (talk) 08:22, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Digital divide

Hello Rich. Recently, User:Aacarling made an edit to the Digital divide article putting in a "hall of fame" by Certiport for people who "help out with digital literacy". Certiport are a commercial company involved in selling certification exams. Is it proper to have that award in the article ? Also, that user has made Digital literacy sound a bit like an advert to Certiport ? If you would have a look that would be appreciated. Bests. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 23:30, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Rich, for your help as always. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 14:24, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Reducing Smackbot's load

Sometimes it seems like half the edits I see on my watchlist are from Smackbot, cleaning up after people. That's bothersome because it means that I have to look at the history to see the edit, and it increases the amount of edits that I have to scroll through in history (hiding minor edits is sometimes bad because people abuse it). At least one thing should be done: Smackbot should not need to capitalize fact to Fact. There's no reason for this to be case-sensitive. Further, I'm not sure these things even need to be dated, or that {{cn}} needs to be replaced. II | (t - c) 03:16, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

You can hide Bot edits. The reason that SB canonicalises templates is that there are hundreds of templates that need dating, an each may have many redirects. Furthermore the vatiants in syntax make things more complex still E.G. __: _ _Template _ _: _ Citation__ __needed SB is attracted to pages by there membership of a hidden undated category - such as "Category:Category needed" or "Articles with unreferenced statements". Once the tags are dated articles are in a dated category (see here for a liste). In general SB is unlikely to change capitalisation unless it is also dating a tag, see my FAQ for more on this. Rich Farmbrough, 14:04 16 October 2008 (UTC).

Changes on Munax

Thank you for editing the page about Munax. Would you please keep as much as possible of the original text, and keep it in it's original section, that would be great. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rick.nolan (talk • contribs) 13:10, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Something's fishy here. Rich Farmbrough did not edit the page at all. What are you trying to say? - CobaltBlueTony™ _talk 13:40, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

SmackBot did. Rich Farmbrough, 15:32 16 October 2008 (UTC).

SmackBot: R to disambiguation

See this edit. Here, a template link to {{R to disambiguation}} (which is a redirect) was already defined. +mt 14:40, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 15:20 16 October 2008 (UTC).

r to dab/disambiguation/disambiguation page

Hi, A whole lot of your edits have just appeared on my watchlist, being pages where I'd put {{R to disambiguation}} wrongly instead of {{R to disambiguation page}}. But looking now at your contribs list, and investigating, leads me to find that {{r to dab}} is all that I need to type as it redirects to the full version, so I'll type that minimal amount from now on when creating these redirects! Always something new to learn on WP. Cheers, PamD (talk) 16:01, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they're all fine. I'm only replacing them because there's only a few of the redirects, and I'm labelling a load of them, don't want to label them twice. Rich Farmbrough, 16:51 16 October 2008 (UTC).

Stubbed and orphaned

Hi. Your bot recently marked Sleep log as an orphan in category:stub. I agree, and I'm guilty. I stubbed and orphaned it a while back, in favor of Sleep diary, after discussion on someone-or-other's talk page. Very unprofessional, I know. Sleep log should be a redirect to Sleep diary, but I don't know how to do that without losing history. --Hordaland (talk) 16:49, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I simply replaced the text. The history of sleep diary should show where anything was merged in, and the history of sleep log is intact. Rich Farmbrough, 17:03 17 October 2008 (UTC).

"Simply", as in magically.  :-) Thanks very much! --Hordaland (talk) 11:16, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

SmaxkBot tagging redirect as stub

Shome mishtake? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:51, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Same thing here Basement12 (T.C) 11:54, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

And here. I'm going to ask for a temporary block. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:03, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

French commune infoboxes

Hi. We have a large back log of French commune articles to add the infoboxes from French wikipedia Status check. All that needs doing is copying the infobox directly from the French wikipedia equivalent. Please see Vulaines. All that needs doing for each article is cutting and pasting the infobox from French wiki into every article which must be bot compatible. So for Vulaines all it requires is pasting the infobox into it from here and pasting it into the english wiki article. COuld somebody please programme a bot or use some form of coding to help complete the task in hours rather than months? Blofeld of SPECTRE (talk) 11:48, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Redirect code change

This edit and other similar ones weren't necessary, as the redirect worked fine before. (See User:NE2/testing for a test with the colon.) --NE2 03:34, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes I know, but the unexpected colon trips up a number of pieces of software, including WP:AWB; simple to get rid of them. Rich Farmbrough, 03:37 19 October 2008 (UTC).

OK - I didn't realize it screwed with AWB (though that should probably be filed as a bug). I do wonder why you lowercased the "redirect". --NE2 03:38, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Sentence cased - doesn't really signify - guess I don't like SHOUTING. Yes it should be filed as a bug, I may have done - as the colon is a surprise, it broke at least one other piece of software. Rich Farmbrough, 03:43 19 October 2008 (UTC).

Assistance requested dealing with a new user

Rich - the other day I came across some editing problems created by a new user (User:Samanthadecanta), and have attempted to fix things. The situation was this - there previously was a page for "Darren Meade", an Irish soccer player. This new user insists that his name should be spelled "Darren Mead", so she just took over the existing Darren Meade page to create a bio for someone else (a bodybuilder) - wiping out the bio for the soccer player entirely. I made a DAB page at Darren Meade, restored the soccer player's bio at Darren Meade (soccer), and put the bodybuilder's page at Darren Meade (bodybuilder). I thought I should communicate with this new user to let her know why wiping out the old page was a bad idea, so I started a discussion on her talk page. Among other things, I'm trying to get the proper name for the soccer player straightened out. As you can see, I have cited a bunch of sources that confirm that the soccer player's name is "Darren Meade", and a search for "Darren Mead" only seemed to turn up references to an Australian Rules football player (who also has a WP entry). However, this user insists that she is right, and claims that she doesn't have to provide a citation to support her claim since I am not a paid employee of Wikipedia. So far, the only "source" she has provided that supports her claim is a Wikipedia entry at Meade (surname); her second link (to a newspaper article) is again referring to the Australian guy.

In any case, I'm trying to avoid "biting the newbie", but my suggestions to become familiar with standard Wikipedia procedure are clearly falling on deaf ears (since I lack "authority"). My concern isn't so much who's right or wrong regarding the name, but more the attitude - an apparent unwillingness to learn and follow standard WP policies and procedures, a closed mind when it comes to discussing a disagreement (it's simply "I'm right, no matter what sources prove otherwise"), and no interest in accepting suggestions or input from other users (unless they're "paid Wikipedia employess" with "authority") So perhaps a friendly suggestion or two from an admin might help. Thanks, Fbb_fan fbb_fan (talk) 04:25, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

edits on Dept Plant Sciences, Oxford

I saw you made some minor edits to the page I created for the Dept. Plant Sciences, Oxford. Thanks.

I wondered if you could help in making the page appear properly in the category page though as I notice it does not appear under 'P' but loose at the top of the category page? [[

Category:Departments_of_the_University_of_Oxford

]]

Any ideas - would love to know why.

earthtree (talk) 17:01, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

(Fixed)Rich Farmbrough, 19:27 21 October 2008 (UTC).

Redirect tags

The bot seems to be tagging some redirects which do have a redirect template, as here. It seems like it's because of the template's location. — TAnthony^Talk 19:21, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually it was a different circumstance - tags that had been added recently and weren't "R to disambi.." ones/ BUt fixed now anyway. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough 00:16 21 October 2008 (UTC).

SmackBot List of mystics

[8] on List of mystics looks like an error --Rumping (talk) 22:28, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

[9] too, so there may be more --Rumping (talk) 22:33, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

[10] [11] so there is a systematic problem. --Rumping (talk) 22:40, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I now think I know what is happening. If Smackbot comes across an article saying

#redirect [[:Category|Test pages]]

it changes it into

#redirect [[:Category|Test pages]] {{R to other namespace}}

but if it comes across

#redirect [[Category|Test pages]]

it changes it into

#redirect {{R to other namespace}}

 

[[Category|Test pages]]

which breaks the redirect badly. So it all depends on the colon before Category, which is desirable but not essential as its absence only leads to the article title being listed in the category it redirects to. --Rumping (talk) 22:59, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes you are right. But the colon before the category isn't necessarily desireable (so I can't just put them in) because sometimes you want to list the redirect: arguably you should then have an explicit cat as well. So the solution is simply turn off the minor fixes whic do this moving, and review the last 500 coross-space redirects of which only a small percentage will have categories. Thanks again for letting me know. Rich Farmbrough 00:15 21 October 2008 (UTC).

Date in infobox templates

Hi,

Did you get anywhere with the conversion of release/ foundation/ start dates in infoboxes, to use {{Start date}}? I've compiled a list of relevant templates at User:Pigsonthewing/to-do#Date conversions. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:38, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Nudge. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:40, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

SmackBot incorrect edits in the Help namespace

Based on recent contributions, it's tagging any redirects in the Help: namespace as {{R to other namespace}} even when they aren't. This could be an issue with the way most of the substantive contents are pushed from Meta, but I don't know for certain. I posted on the bot talk page to stop it, but I'm not going to be around, so feel free to restart without trying to reply to me, as long as the tagging issue is fixed. — Gavia immer (talk) 16:33, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Yep got it thanks. Easy to fix, just odd that it was picking up those redirects in the first place. Still it's a one-off run pretty much. Rich Farmbrough, 18:29 21 October 2008 (UTC).

Gotcha, thanks for the quick action. — Gavia immer (talk) 21:42, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

SmackBot namespace edits

What's happening with these edits? First one looks like an error, and the second a fix of the first edit, that introduces a separate syntax error.

BTW, file me under the list of people who find it odd that SB's changing the case of redirects, and indeed finds "sentence case" in that context rather odd in the first place. Alai (talk) 02:55, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

The first is a systemic error that affected a relatively small number of redirects: basically a small percentage of those that had a : in the title and weren;t cross namespace. The second is simply a manually overseen fix of the first, in this case intervention by me introduced a bug, which I picked up shortly afterwards. Scanning now for any more like this. Rich Farmbrough, 09:47 22 October 2008 (UTC).

SmackBot

malfunction. garbles text containing HTTP. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_HTTP_headers&diff=246864819&oldid=246445274 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.154.205.47 (talk) 10:46, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

SmackBot: Date maintenance tags and general fixes

SmackBot has now twice (one, two) changed the format of a bulleted list which extended over four paragraphs in the article Nigger. According to Help:List#Paragraphs in lists, using the HTML tags <p>…</p> is the only way to format such paragraphs in lists. Please modify SmackBot to allow such constructs. Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:52, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

SmackBot issue

Hi Rich, just noticed that SmackBot is interfering with links in merger tags, as seen here. I'm not sure why it is inserting the date into that tag, perhaps you could take a look at it. I did fix that page, but I don't know if it is doing that to all the merger tags or not. Cheers! Ariel♥Gold 00:22, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

User talk:Samanthadecanta

Rich - I've been attempting (with little success, I'm afraid) to help User talk:Samanthadecanta get her feet on the ground here. She's the one who was the primary editor of the "Darren Meade (bodybuilder)" page that was recently the subject of a AFD discussion. I believe you did a speedy delete on the page, but she recreated it, and User:Uncle G deleted it the second time. Anyway, on her talk page, she is now threatening legal action because of the perceived wrongs that have been committed against her. She is alleging religious persecution (believe it or not), and is also making allegations of a variety of inappropriate actions by other editors (which have no basis in reality, from what I can see in edit histories). Anyway, I'm starting to run out of ways to tactfully help her out, and I thought you might, as one of the alleged offending individuals, want to be aware of the threat for legal action. 71.233.6.118 (talk) 01:45, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't edit posts I made.

as you have done. Thanks, --------71.10.88.69 (talk) 02:21, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

This is needful: see {{fact}} and the categories associated with it. Rich Farmbrough, 02:49 23 October 2008 (UTC).

Ok, But still. I'm not going to add date=October 2008, because it's faster to just type fact. {{fact}} {{fact}} that was a test. to see if they do the same thing.03:25, 23 October 2008 (UTC)03:25, 23 October 2008 (UTC)03:25, 23 October 2008 (UTC)03:25, 23 October 2008 (UTC)03:25, 23 October 2008 (UTC)~ <<<It's only seeming to add the date for my sig, not my IP address

• I prefer it for you (everyone) just to add {{fact}} as I spend a fair amount of time fixing up mistyped dates etc. The robot makes our life easier which is good.
• If you go to "my preferences" and the misc tag you will see a bunch of check-boxes. If you check the bottom one "Show hidden categories" and press save you will see that the pages with these tags on are categorised according to the date.
• Signing - 3 4 and 5 tildes - ~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~ - leave name, name and date, and date respectively.

Rgds, Rich Farmbrough, 11:04 23 October 2008 (UTC).

SmackBot and shortcuts

I just noticed that your bot has started to edit the CAT: shortcuts. See for instance this edit. There are two odd things about those edits:

1: Your bot adds the template {{R to other namespace}}. At a first glance that might seem correct, but I think it is wrong. The "CAT:" prefix is the standard prefix for shortcuts to categories. But now that your bot adds the {{R to other namespace}} template to them they get added to the Category:Cross namespace redirects. That category helps us keep track of and find cross namespace redirects. One reason to keep track of them is that many of the cross namespace redirects are considered a problem and needs fixing. But the CAT: shortcuts are correct and don't need to be fixed. Thus if you fill up Category:Cross namespace redirects with them you just make it harder to see the redirects that really need handling in that category. But it is of course good that your bot finds other cross namespace redirects for us. Although I recommend not adding that template to the prefixes listed at Wikipedia:Shortcut#List of prefixes.

2: Your bot changes all upper-case #REDIRECT [[]] tags to lower-case #Redirect [[]] tags. Both works, but pretty much all documentation here at Wikipedia and at Meta shows that tag in upper-case. And the redirect insert buttons in the edit window also inserts it as all upper-case. So it is unnecessary and confusing to change it to lower-case, and it breaches tradition.

Those two things are of course only minor issues, really mostly just a matter of opinion. But I suggest you change your bot's behaviour.

--David Göthberg (talk) 11:51, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

1. Probably the best thing to do with these is move CAT:, WP: into a subcategory, membership to be transcluded by {{R from shortcut}}. This can be done automatically or manually.
2. I turned off sentence casing yesterday - putting REDIRECT instead , but found that most of the items were "redirect" - as you say it does not matter greatly, but I prefer as much WP-ease (template names, style on talk pages/documentation etc.) to be sentence case and full words as it creates a conducive environment for reducing the amount of work fixing article MoS problems. I may tweak this to only change lower-case to sentence case.

Thanks for your note. Rich Farmbrough, 12:01 23 October 2008 (UTC).

1: Oh, using a subcategory for the cross namespace shortcuts is a splendid idea! But note that the "WP:" prefix is an alias (abbreviation) for the "Wikipedia:" namespace, it is not a pseudo-namespaces that ends up in main space like the CAT: and MOS: prefixes. So they work differently. And a template (like for instance {{R from shortcut}}) can not automatically detect if a shortcut is a cross namespace shortcut, and it can not even detect if the page name starts with "CAT:" or "MOS:". So it can not automatically categorise accordingly. That has to be done by humans or a bot that adds the subcategory or a special template (or a parameter to a template) that in turn adds the subcategory.

2: Yeah, just a matter of opinion. And I don't have that much of an opinion on the matter.

--David Göthberg (talk) 12:29, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

WP: YEs I remembered that after I posted.. "template cannot.. detect" I can't keep up with which parser functions are implemented, but that sounds like a challenge! (To our template gurus - I hasten to add.) Rich Farmbrough, 12:34 23 October 2008 (UTC).

SmackBot

Can you review my edit on Angel Locsin. Thanks! Backmeupof2 (talk) 05:46, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Moving Template:Infobox German Location

I noticed you moved the {{Infobox German Location}} to {{Infobox German location}}. Now, I'm not terribly well versed in these things, but it seems to me the pages Template:Infobox_German_Location/doc and Template:Infobox German Location/Instructions also need to be moved. Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:53, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks done. Rich Farmbrough, 11:58 24 October 2008 (UTC).

SmackBot

You've made an error in this edit http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Publication&diff=247515709&oldid=247502345

You've changed the mergeto target to be the Talk page, and changed the discussion page to be a Talk:Talk: page.

I left a msg at the bot page first, sorry. Nurg (talk) 03:13, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

PS. I have fixed the error, but I think you need to check the bot's operation in cases like that. Nurg (talk) 03:25, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. It's absolutely right to stop the bot when this sort of stuff happens. I can restart any time, but fixing errors can be tedious. Rich Farmbrough, 03:48 25 October 2008 (UTC).

Fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 03:57 25 October 2008 (UTC).

Redirects

I've just come across Shin Min-a (actress) (disambiguation), and was wondering why SmackBot would create such a pointless redirect. I wasn't sure what the rationale was or whether this is part of a series of newly created redirects, so I wanted to check before I listed it at RfD. Regards. PC78 (talk) 13:25, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I've deleted it since the target isn't a dab page. Rich Farmbrough, 16:29 25 October 2008 (UTC).

Cheers! PC78 (talk) 16:31, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup templates

Thanks for your mentioning on my talk page, 23 Oct. 2008, that clean-up templates are, most often, best not substituted. On a rare occasion I might use the template result and edit it, where it doesn't quite fit. May I asked what occasioned your comment? --Bejnar (talk) 22:15, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

SmackBot removing a stub tag

Not sure what happened here. Was this stub tag meant to have been removed? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:23, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Template:Irrel

Wow. That's way back. :) I closed it as delete, got browbeaten by a few users and decided to relist it instead. It ended up being deleted the second go round. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 11:56, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Angel Locsin

Can you help me to put this image "Angel-Locsin.jpg" on Angel Locsin?, Thank you!. Traders 21 (talk) 08:33, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Your bot

Hello, Mr. Farmbrough. Regarding this edit, that your bot made, I think I've found a glitch in it. If I put in ~~~~~ instead of the date, it makes a second parameter, which doesn't quite work as Template:Fact only has one parameter.--Stereotyper (talk) 18:12, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

So 3 tides make just Name (71.10.88.69 (talk)), 4 makes name and date (71.10.88.69 (talk) 03:50, 24 October 2008 (UTC)), and 5 make name date and time (03:50, 24 October 2008 (UTC))? Correct?

Cleanup templates

Thanks re note. I keep being nagged by bots to use "subst", but I didn't understand where it is/isn't recommended (hence the accident with Norman Cota). Gordonofcartoon (talk) 14:12, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

SmackBot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wilcox_(Canadian_musician)

Dear Richard - you seem to have edited out historic, accurate, and previously posted information - including my album credits! Kosenrufu (talk) 18:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I think not. Rich Farmbrough, 21:58 30 October 2008 (UTC).