Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 13:46, 27 February 2012

I will generally answer here. R.F. Warning: a therefore can become a wherefore (George Orwell)

Template:Mirror me

IMPORTANT. Due to the volume on this talk page I archive semi-manually, a 2 day archive time is not fast enough to keep it clear and is also too fast to allow me to deal with every thread completely. If you feel that a thread has been archived too soon please copy it back here and note that you have done so both on the thread both on archive and here. Thanks. RF

• This page has been viewed 383949 times. Plus one when I wrote this, plus you looking at it now.

From SignPost

Approximately 3% of editors account for 85% of contributions to the project, according to the statistician, and participation among this group has declined "even more sharply" than the active registered userbase in toto.

Funny that. Rich Farmbrough, 16:22, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

Unchallengeable take downs?

Rich, On the talk page for the proposed terms of use, you mention a takedown that is unchallengeable. While it's possible, I think it's more likely that it's a symptom of our bad communication about it or something (for which I would take responsibility). I don't think we have any that are unchallengeable right now. So, I want to write to ask if there's something I can clarify, or whether I'm missing something on my list? Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 01:14, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the matter has come up a couple of times, both on the Talk:Texas_Instruments_signing_key_controversy talk page of the article in question, and in the commentary to a recent (July) SignPost. The issue is that there only people who can issue a counter notice are the anonymous editors who originally posted the material. On most websites another person could post the material, wait for a challenge and respond to that. Here, since take-down has been implemented as an office action no one can repost the material without going against the office action (and in fact, even if they did, it would be removed by editors in support of the office action) therefore the material, which is freely published elsewhere, since the DMCA was challenged and the challenge not responded to, cannot be posted on Misplaced Pages. Effectively this makes Misplaced Pages the most censored forum for this information. Rich Farmbrough, 01:32, 11 September 2011 (UTC).

Interesting. My understanding from the legal team is that a DMCA takedown must be challenged by a party with legal standing, which would mean that it has to be someone who had posted the content. If we were to then suggest or passively allow someone else to post it, we would not be in full compliance. However, I'll confirm that. If that's the case, then we're in compliance with the regulations and others arguably are not. If it's an issue of interpretation, I'll find out why we're not more broad, but since Mr. Godwin structured those originally, I tend to think we're at the broadest level that he (and then Mr Brigham) felt was legally possible. But I'll get an answer and try to report back. Thanks for clarifying. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 05:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Birds summary

Ref: Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject_Birds#Repetitive_work

There are 3 lists:

• IUCN
• HBW (IBC)
• IOC

These can be used to ref montoypic genera.

Moreover the IUCN website has changed and the refs need updating. Rich Farmbrough, 20:33, 4 December 2011 (UTC).

Signpost and hlist

• Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/2011-11-21/Technology report#Horizontal lists have got class

fyi... Alarbus (talk) 12:05, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

• • Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 21:48, 21 November 2011 (UTC).
    

• • • You're welcome. Hope you can whack a lot of these a bot or script. fyi, Edokter added some cell padding, so the inline padding and div-tricks should all be simply cut, too. Alarbus (talk) 06:03, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Could you please check this?

Hi Rich Farmbrough. As an experienced admin, I kindly ask you to check these edits of user MarshallBagramyan. (, , ) That clearly seems like edit war to me. While the source insists that this incident has happened and was the main reason behind these clashes, MarshallBagramyan clearly wants to erase this fact. Could you please help me in this, as I am very reluctant to engage any edit war against him. Regards, --Verman1 (talk) 07:52, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Forum shopping. You already reported this at WP:ANI --Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:46, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually I think it was User:MarshallBagramyan who did that. Rich Farmbrough, 14:38, 8 December 2011 (UTC).

I'll let him off then. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:44, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I have had a brief look, and certainly there is a slow motion edit war going on, involving a number of editors. I suspect I can guess their nationalities by their edits. I don't see an urgent need for action, so I'm going to think about this a little more. Rich Farmbrough, 15:12, 8 December 2011 (UTC).

There is some mediation going on at not sure if this could be wrapped up with that, or if it would sabotage the process. Rich Farmbrough, 21:03, 8 December 2011 (UTC).

Hi Rich. As you have some previous experience about the topic, could you please check this out and leave some comment about what you are thinking about? Some admins are trying to ban me for the things that I have not done. --Verman1 (talk) 06:32, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Request for help

I have a few Ambox and Fix related issues that I'd appreciate help with, if you have time, and if you have no reason to not want to interfere, of course.

• There is still a problem with template loops, see Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Article_message_boxes#Template_loop.
• Should there be a temporary category added to {{Fix}} to locate all templates that use the substcheck parameter, or are there other ways to do this? That is, simply said, how to locate those template that use the substcheck parameter?
• Also, I'd be happy if you'd have an opinion whether it is a good suggestion to replace the substitution check of {{Fix}} by that one of {{Ambox}}, or at least, which basically comes down to the same, remove Category:Templates needing substitution checking, which I think is not practical. Debresser (talk) 21:14, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I commented on the template loops. The rest I'll have to look at. I did have an alternative method for subst:checking, but it was pretty much obviated by AMALTHEA's self-substituting tricks. Rich Farmbrough, 00:10, 11 December 2011 (UTC).

Thanks, I'll look at it right away. I have just had a long look at the way substitution checking works on Ambox and Fix, and am proud to say that I understand precisely how they work. Debresser (talk) 00:17, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood my before-last question, and have added a sentence to it, to make my intent more clear. Debresser (talk) 04:05, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Rich, I found the reason for the template loop, and I know what needs to be done to solve it, but don't know how to do that. I wrote there on the Ambox talkpage linked above. Can you have a look at it? Debresser (talk) 19:07, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Rich, the second and third question are now quite urgent... Debresser (talk) 14:53, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

You took care of the second today, thank you. The third is on Template_talk:Fix#Progress.Debresser (talk) 00:09, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Please

Please see the updated Request for help section. Debresser (talk) 17:29, 31 December 2011 (UTC) --

Article Feedback Tool - notes and office hours

Hey guys! Another month, another newsletter.

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

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

Things we'll be discussing include:

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

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

perl table construction script

I don't have a clue where to start.

I'd like the table to list subjects down the left, with columns for traffic on the right. One traffic column for the corresponding outline, category, and portal for comparison purposes.

And totals at the bottom of each column.

If you whip something up, I'm sure I could help refine it.

I look forward to any perl code you can throw at me. The Transhumanist 02:29, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

P.S.: Happy New Year!

OK so here's the (untested) basics in pseudo-perl. (There's two approaches, storing everything then making the table,or making the table line by line. Both have advantages, the latter is simpler.)

let us suppose we have a config file with the subject, outline, cats and portals listed thus:

Stamford,Outline of Stamford, Category:Stamford, Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Stamford

(We could just have the word "Stamford" - if we could be sure that all three entities follow the naming convention.)

print_headers...
while (<>){
    chomp;
    if (/^(*),(*),(*),(*)$/){ # Note: this could be also done with the split function, in a different way
       $name=$1;
       $outline=$2
       $cat=$3;
       $project=$4;
   }
   else{
       print "$_ does not match pattern; skipping.\n";
   }
   $outline_count=count($outline);
   $cat_count=count($outline);
   $project_count=count($project);
   print "\|$name\|\|$outline_count\|\|$cat_count\|\|$project_count\n\|-\n"; # make a line of the table....
   # keep track of the totals....
   $outline_total+=$outline_count;
   ...
}
print_footers....
sub count{
    # in some circumstances there would be error checking code here - what if the page doesn't exist,or the server is down?
    $url=shift;
    get the page...
    $count= find the number..
    return $count
}

Rich Farmbrough, 11:01, 3 January 2012 (UTC).

I'll see if I can figure out how it works. Thank you! The Transhumanist 21:24, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Data extraction & insertion

Let's say I have the wikicode file "Outline of Stamford" saved on my computer, and I want a program that goes through the outline, finds the first bulleted entry lacking an annotation, pulls the article from Misplaced Pages for the subject in the entry, extracts the first two sentences of the lead paragraph, then inserts those two sentences as the annotation for that entry, then repeats for the next missing entry, until the all the entries have annotations.

This would be very helpful, as it would save tons of manual cutting and pasting.

How would you go about doing that with perl?

The Transhumanist 22:05, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what "un-annotated" means but at a guess you could use something like:

while ($page =~ /\n\*\s*\)]*\]\]\s*\*/s ){
   $bulleted = $1;
   $entry =   get ($bulleted);
   $entry =~ s/.*?'''.*?'''//;
   $entry =~ s/(*.*.).*/$1/;
   $page =~ s/(\n\*\s*\\]\s*)\*/$1 $entry/;
}

here the handwaving is in the assumption that the Wikipeida articles are well-formed, and not exceptional. Rich Farmbrough, 22:27, 4 January 2012 (UTC).

You would need to get the source of the article. You need a module for that, which comes with examples. MediaWiki::API I think is the name. Rich Farmbrough, 23:33, 4 January 2012 (UTC).

Entries in outlines look like this:

• Architecture – art and science of designing buildings.
• Crafts – activities and hobbies that are related to making things with one's hands and skill.
• Drawing – visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. As a verb, it is the act of making marks on a surface so as to create an image, form or shape. As a noun, it is the image produced, or the visual art form itself.
• Film – also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects. The process of filmmaking has developed into an art form and industry.
• Painting – the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface (support base) with a brush or other objects. The term describes both the act and the result of the action.
• Photography
• Sculpture –

Concerning list entries, an annotation is a dashed comment.

The entries "Photography" and "Sculpture" above lack annotations. Would the program you wrote above home in on those and add an annotation for each?   The Transhumanist 03:41, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

It would pick up the first, fail on the second for two reasons: it would count the endash as an annotation, and there's no following list item. Rich Farmbrough, 11:13, 5 January 2012 (UTC).

Outline of Perl

Here's a new outline.

You could help us Perl newbies by adding anything you think would be helpful. The Transhumanist 19:21, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Article Feedback Tool - things to do

Hey guys! A couple of highly important things to do over the next few weeks:

• We've opened a Request for Comment on several of the most important aspects of the tool, including who should be able to hide inappropriate comments. It will remain open until 20 January; I encourage everyone with an interest to take part :).
• A second round of feedback categorisation will take place in a few weeks, so we can properly evaluate which design works the best and keeps all the junk out :P. All volunteers are welcome and desired; there may be foundation swag in it for you!

Regards, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:53, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Coord display parameter errors

I'm seeing a number of instances of {{Coord}} with two |display= parameters. Could your helpful pixie fix these, please? The rules would be:

• If |display=inline and |display=inline, use |display=inline
• If |display=title and |display=title, use |display=title
• If |display=inline and |display=title, use |display=inline,title
• If |display=inline and |display=inline,title, use |display=inline,title
• If |display=title and |display=inline,title, use |display=inline,title
• If |display=inline,title and |display=inline,title, use |display=inline,title

Any values other than "inline", "title" or "inline,title" should already throw an error message.

Note that |display=title,inline is a valid equivalent of |display=inline,title in all of the above.

If you need testcases, some, but not all, of the articles on User:MaxSem/Duplicate_primary have this problem.

Cheers, Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:14, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I fixed these up, where they had that problem. Rich Farmbrough, 18:42, 16 January 2012 (UTC).

Manually? Thank you, but it's likely to recur, hence the request that your Bot watch for such cases. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:45, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Using AWB - so I'm good to go again. I need to set up some bot infrastructure to support once-dumply tasks. Rich Farmbrough, 20:49, 16 January 2012 (UTC).

Running off MaxSem's list? Not sure he'll be recreating it regularly. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:07, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

No, running of the regular data dumps. Rich Farmbrough, 21:20, 16 January 2012 (UTC).
21:20, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

RIP to the "incomplete" template

The incomplete template (see discussion Misplaced Pages:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_January_22) will likely go away soon. Would it make since to run a bot on the articles it's tagged to and:

1. if it has an old date, remove it
2. if it's in a section, replace it with the Expand section tag
3. if it's over a list, replace it with the Expand list tag
4. other tasks...

Is that practical? Who might have a bot that could handle that? Sparkie82 (t•c) 20:36, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh.. great. Expand was deleted partly on the grounds that "incomplete" was available. Rich Farmbrough, 20:38, 3 February 2012 (UTC).

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

Yes it's one way of doing it. Rich Farmbrough, 20:12, 4 February 2012 (UTC).

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

Multiple issues template usage suggestion

I have started a discussion about making the Multiple issues template the new cleanup template here. Since you have edited this template several times in the past I thought you might have some insight into this idea. --Kumioko (talk) 20:33, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Georgia (U.S. state)

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

 Done Rich Farmbrough, 13:38, 14 February 2012 (UTC).

Re: Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Mackemfixer

Thanks! -- Luk 10:29, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Welcome. Rich Farmbrough, 13:32, 14 February 2012 (UTC).

Linguistic misunderstanding

I noticed your comment on the Invasions of the Rio de la Plata. You might be amused to know that I have just found out that Pretensión is the Spanish word for "Claim" so the heading that became a debate about a Point of View, "British pretentions", was almost certainly a linguistic misunderstanding and intended to be "British Claims". I would have found this out earlier but Google Translate needs the acute accent above the ó. :-) PS: thank you for sorting out the "sockpuppet". 86.4.27.128 but now: Argcontrib (talk) 12:40, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. That's pretty much the older meaning in English, just as a "pretender" to the throne was someone who claimed it, not someone who was playing make-believe. You're welcome. Rich Farmbrough, 13:30, 14 February 2012 (UTC).

PixieBot cn tags

It appears that your bot is adding a citation needed tag at the end of every sentence that is not already specifically referenced. See Is that your intent? Or is this a manual process with bot assistance?--Hjal (talk) 17:43, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Phew, nearly gave me myocardial infarction there. {{Cn}} is {{Citation needed}} - just less readable. Rich Farmbrough, 17:45, 14 February 2012 (UTC).

The Signpost: 13 February 2012

• Special report: Fundraising proposals spark a furore among the chapters

• News and notes: Foundation launches Legal and Community Advocacy department

• In the news: Scholars and spindoctors contend with the emergent wikiorder

• In focus: Skirmishes in the 'great sectarian war of the Internet'

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Stub Sorting

• Featured content: The best of the week

• Arbitration report: Betacommand 3 closed, proposed decision in Civility enforcement, AUSC candidates announced

• Technology report: January sees prototype new geodata API; but February looks to be a testing time for top developers

• Read this Signpost in full
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• Unsubscribe
• EdwardsBot (talk) 03:55, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks :)

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

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

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

--Mistress Selina Kyle 07:58, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Modern English Biography

In the discussion around the DNB, digitisation, and how money could usefully be spent: I have only just become aware of Frederic Boase and his MEB (see Talk:Frederic Boase/Temp for my new draft, given that the current page has copyvio-blight, but right now the history has facts like he was the brother of DNB author George Clement Boase). Anyway the MEB has a very low profile online, but is PD given that the final volume was 1921. Apparently much was close paraphrase of the DNB, but where it isn't, it grubbed up facts that were otherwise hard to get.

All in all, a worthy candidate for "where next" in the DNB direction. Charles Matthews (talk) 17:32, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. Rich Farmbrough, 21:12, 15 February 2012 (UTC).

Follow up

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

Probably, the images themselves are at commons though. Rich Farmbrough, 22:29, 15 February 2012 (UTC).

Removing {{Film tv US}}

Could you give a reason on why you are removing this template from articles? As the creator of template, I thought it was decent television counterpart to {{Film US}}. If you have a problem with the template existing take up in Misplaced Pages:Templates for discussion. You removing it from articles will not stop it from existing. QuasyBoy 00:29, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

George M. Cochran

Hey, Rich, I'm back. Hope you're well. How does one remove the before the first external link...Thanks! --Beth Wellington (talk) 00:54, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Just take the description (which will become clickable) into the . As long as there is a space between the url and the description it will work. Rich Farmbrough, 10:09, 16 February 2012 (UTC).

Stable version template

I just wanted to let you know that I tweaked the stable version template a little; I made it collapsible, and added a link to the template documentation.

Thanks, Falconus 14:43, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Ah, sounds good. Rich Farmbrough, 14:58, 16 February 2012 (UTC).

http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/pscbk/til_wikipedias_highest_editorial_honor_is_the/

I created that discussion today in TIL. Currently, it's 3 on the TIL page. Go tell everybody in the discussion you're the most BA MFer on Misplaced Pages :)

Thanks. I love rhodium, so crunchy. Rich Farmbrough, 20:55, 16 February 2012 (UTC).

The Redditors forgot SmackBot though..

Take a look The first two questions are the only ones that matter. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:09, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I guess in a month I get bufonite... Rich Farmbrough, 23:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC).
23:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

AFD/PROD notices

Hi Rich. Awhile back you got either an AFD or PROD notification, and it was during one of the template testing project's experiments. If you could go here and leave us some feedback about what you think about the new versions of the templates we tested, that would be very useful. We're specifically looking for info about whether the messages were more effective at communicating how people should participate in deletion processes as the author of the article. (You can also email me at swallingwikimedia.org if you want.) Thanks! Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 00:28, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks again for the comments Rich, it's uber helpful. If you want, I can keep you updated on any new developments... Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:59, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Template:Rescue

Terrible restore. You should know better. You do know better. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:53, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

What's the point in hiding history? Rich Farmbrough, 02:03, 17 February 2012 (UTC).

What does that even mean? After over 6,000 deletions, you're now opposed to the practice?

And what history? {{rescue}} wasn't {{qif}} or some other template with technical or historical value. It was exactly what you'd expect it to have been, with just as many edits. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:02, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Well I have always been opposed to hiding history, except where there are legal, moral or ethical concerns. The point is that I merely restored historical versions under the new text. I also corrected the new code so that it functioned properly. Both unexceptional actions.

I'm not sure why people are so angry about this, it in no way represents a victory, phyrric or otherwise for ARS. As far as I know the three people involved, Ironholds, Tothwolf and myself have never vouchsafed an opinion on ARS vs deletionists. I believe Ironholds was the closing admin?

As I remarked this is simply a piece of functionality the MediaWiki software should support, and anyone can utilise it, I would encourage them to do so, if they find it useful, until and unless it becomes native.

Rich Farmbrough, 12:29, 17 February 2012 (UTC).

{{rescue}} is a political tool. That's why your restoration was more than just a restoration.

Re-reading some of my comments here, they sound a bit harsher than I intended. I'm mostly just annoyed to see the template alive again (and back at TFD). :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 16:53, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

No worries. Rich Farmbrough, 16:54, 17 February 2012 (UTC).

Ref web

Is {{Ref web}} going anywhere? ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  17:15, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmm.. something I really should get back to. Rich Farmbrough, 22:01, 18 February 2012 (UTC).

TMZ...

...has often proven to be at least as or more reliable than the so-called "reliable" sources. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:38, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure. Mostly they are cited for stuff we really don't want to get wrong (and possibly shouldn't be including anyway) like divorce settlements and stalking court orders. Rich Farmbrough, 21:57, 18 February 2012 (UTC).

The encyclopedic value of their content is a whole separate issue from their reliability. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 22:29, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

J'agree Rich Farmbrough, 22:37, 18 February 2012 (UTC).

Missing dates of birth

Could your bot add Category:Date of birth missing or Category:Date of birth missing (living people) to articles where the infobox's |birth_date= only has a year, and the article is not in Category:Date of birth unknown, please?

It could also add the relevant "YYYY births" category, at the same time. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:25, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Personal view

The current build of the bot is placing templates on articles to say they have one source - obvious and no inline citations - obvious. It could be said that the bot goads people into action - but I jyst find it a bit depressing to think of those BLPs that we added a ref to, to now have these templates. IMO Victuallers (talk) 12:01, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

... er... no it's not? Rich Farmbrough, 12:49, 19 February 2012 (UTC).

You're a programmer?

Rich Farmbrough, I dropped by your page the other day on a completly different matter. I noticed that you're a programmer. I assume you work with the wikidatabase. I'm looking for two things:

1. a list of all 9000+ items contained within Category:WikiProject Canadian music articles
2. a report listing articles (from the above category) that is missing Category:Musical groups by year of establishment (for music groups only).

Maybe you can point me in the right direction if you can't help? Thanks very much. Argolin (talk) 15:08, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Download WP:AWB, use the list comparer (tools on the menu bar) to create the list of members of both categories. Hit compare.. well yoll have to futz a bit to get non-groups out of the list. Rich Farmbrough, 16:06, 19 February 2012 (UTC).

omg! The AWB is more than a simple edit tool? Thank-you very much. I'll look into signing up for it. How about item #1? I use my list of these articles to look for the intersect/nonintersect of other categories. Most recently, I took the articles from Category:Albums by artist, removed the albums, and compared it to my list. There are many, many album articles not linked to any project other than WP:Albums. Argolin (talk) 17:12, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

here is a list. Rich Farmbrough, 22:09, 19 February 2012 (UTC).

Thanks Rich Farmbrough I've signed up for access. It's something I've always meant to check out, but never got around to. It sounds like a great tool that will do a lot of what I'm looking for. For the other request that I pressed of you, please don't spend any more time on it. Unless you're done, I'll see what the AWB does first. I'm sure there must be a request a feature section in AWB. Thanks again Argolin (talk) 00:54, 20 February 2012 (UTC).

I was looking for a .csv or tab delimited dump of all items in Category:WikiProject Canadian music articles not recent changes: I've done most of them! In fact, I need the sandbox dump to be able to run live anytime I choose. I'm sure you know the "articles" in the cat name refers to all main namespace class articles. That's what I want all 9,076 of them as at 20 February 2012.

Yes the cat name is misleading, it contains (the talk pages of) more than just articles. There's currently 8191 articles listed here. What we need really is an ontological assessment of articles. Rich Farmbrough, 11:11, 20 February 2012 (UTC).

There are 9,081 items here Category:WikiProject Canadian music articles. You've removed all the non-article classes (and the "talk"). The problem is that I'm now unwilling to manually compile my database of Canadian music items by copying each page grouping 200 items (from the above cat). I always knew it was somewhat silly to do it that way but also knew that I would seek help. In the last month the project went from ~7k to 9k (mostly of music album articles). The project will baloon again after I add the song articles. Can you tweak your page to include all classes and have it point to the talk page? Thanks Argolin (talk) 07:10, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Please ignore the above request. I can get it myself with AWB! I'm already woking on a 600+ list of music group biographies without a year of establishment. I posted my question at the AWB help: it was answered pdq! I figured I have bothered you enough. You gave me that one final push to sign up for AWB (which I'm diggin'). Thanks again. Argolin (talk) 10:57, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Excellent. Tools make people more productive! Rich Farmbrough, 12:53, 24 February 2012 (UTC).

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Diff?

I know that you mentioned you added a different wording to {{cleanup}} in the last deletion debate and it was was "sadly reverted". Could you tell me which one?Curb Chain (talk) 06:29, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

This one. Rich Farmbrough, 13:44, 21 February 2012 (UTC).

Risale-i Nur article

Hello Rich, I saw you added some tags that says the language of the article is like a magazine article. I changed it a bit and removed the tag. I hope it worked out. If you want, you can check and see and give an idea in tha talk page of the article or to me.rinduzahid 17:07, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Good stuff, I don't think I added the tags though. Rich Farmbrough, 18:29, 23 February 2012 (UTC).

Rand, Paul listed at Redirects for discussion

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

 Done Rich Farmbrough, 19:39, 23 February 2012 (UTC).

Foxconn redux

Hi Rich. Foxconn is still dicey after semi-protection expired. User:76.188.129.97 got back in there. Best. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 00:43, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I re-jigged the section a little, since that sentence was a mess, and consolidated the facts into one detailed sentence. Shame there aren't better sources. Rich Farmbrough, 03:49, 26 February 2012 (UTC).

Thanks, Rich. It seems better off with your clear edits. Bests. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 05:38, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Template:Sister project link listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Template:Sister project link. Since you had some involvement with the Template:Sister project link redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). MGA73 (talk) 15:57, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Celebrity Rehab

Hi. Regarding your having removed the TMZ citation from the article, and replaced the statement that Michaele Salahi lacked an addition with the somewhat more euphemistic statement that she "did not meet the criteria", I took a closer look at the UPI source from which that latter, amended statement came from, and it also supports the statement that she lacked an addiction. It did indeed relate the statement from the network source that she did not meet the production's criteria, but only because it described what those criteria were beforehand:

The treatment program that 'Celebrity Rehab' documents is intended for individuals with serious substance abuse and addiction issues. Prior to the taping of the current season, producers were advised that Michaele Salahi met the criteria to be treated in this setting," VH1 said in a statement Tuesday. "However, professional assessments spanning from that time to the present, found that she did not meet such criteria.

Thus, there was no reason to remove that original point. Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 02:53, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Make the changes you think appropriate. I will just point out that the press release is either carefully worded or sloppily worded. It says "met the criteria to be treated in this setting" - this leaves open the possibility that either she had "serious substance abuse and addiction issues" but not ones that could be "treated in this setting" of that she had "substance abuse and addiction issues" of a less "serious" nature - as well as the possibility that she had no such issues. Rich Farmbrough, 03:02, 27 February 2012 (UTC).

Can you stop with the cosmetic changes please?

Can you stop with the cosmetic changes please? I find it annoying to have worse-than-pointless edits like this one constantly coming up on my watchlist. Hesperian 03:14, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

DRV notice

You participated in the discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard#WP:TFD deletions by admin User:Fastily, which occured following the closure of Misplaced Pages:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 January 24#Template:New York cities and mayors of 100.2C000 population. Be advised that I have opened Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2012 February 27#User:TonyTheTiger/New York cities and mayors of 100,000 population.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:32, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Crappy DNB articles

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

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

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

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

Unwanted DNB redirects

Even if you can manage to create decent articles from the DNB, we do not need "… (DNB00)" redirects. Please stop creating them. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 13:32, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

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