Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 03:18, 9 December 2008

Future of bot delinking

If you can spare the time your input would be welcome here.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 00:49, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• In fact, with apologies I'm dumping the whole discussion on you (see below), as it was way off topic for MOSNUM. I hope you don't mind hosting it on your talk page, or else moving it to somewhere more appropriate. Thanks, --Kotniski (talk) 10:11, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Very interesting

Link you posted at ANI. Did you have a hand in drafting it? Tiamut 14:40, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

No, I didn't help draft it. I have been a victim of Wild West admins that 'block first and ask questions later' and I am supportive of ensuring that the powerful are supervised. Lightmouse (talk) 14:46, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure I'm not the only admin who's looked on with some bewilderment at the way you've been treated in general for trying to improve the encyclopaedia. Orderinchaos 02:55, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry to here that. I have the same feeling about my experience here. Check my block log (4 3RR blocks from over a year ago). Three of those were due to reports filed by one now vanished editor who was edit-warring with me at the time and faced no sanctions himself. The last one was due to a 3RR report that I filed against an editor that has since been banned for being a sockpuppet. I was blocked for reverting his edits twice. Anyway, it's a very interesting proposal. I'd like to help however I can. Tiamut 11:53, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Feel free to drop Tony a supporting comment on the adminwatch page. Lightmouse (talk) 11:55, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I need to write examples of obvious and not-so-obvious cases to standardise decision-making; perhaps these might provide ideas. Tony (talk) 01:20, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Edmonton municipal election, 1963

This is the sixth time that you've made that edit, and this is the fourth time I've come to your talk page asking you to stop making it. I am at a loss as to how to proceed. Suggestions? Sarcasticidealist (talk) 20:12, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Why wouldn't these edits constitute edit warring? Tennis expert (talk) 10:50, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Tennis expert, how could something so trivial in such a trivial article constitute edit warring. Lightmouse puts so much effort and skill into improving articles that it would be obscenely out of balance to call this "edit warring". I'm thinking of listing the article for deletion. How is it notable? Tony (talk) 15:14, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

In case nobody has noticed, the whole category of 97 articles is owned by User:Sarcasticidealist. That kind of explains why he is being so very defensive. Ohconfucius (talk) 15:45, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Break out the torches and pitchforks! Hilarious. Just because an editor contributes heavily to a specific category of article doesn't mean they're trying to own them. Maybe try some WP:AGF? Not everyone is a date-link supporting fiend and your lack of civility is troubling. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:03, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Where does the edit warring policy exempt so-called "trivial" edits from its prohibition? What makes this edit warring even worse is that Lightmouse is using AWB to edit war, often making several edits per minute. He should refresh himself about the AWB rules of use. Tennis expert (talk) 07:43, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

The issue here is that the figures being converted are part of a direct quote, which is extremely difficult to justify. Lightmouse, I would most strongly suggest that you find a way to detect <blockquote>, {{cquote}} and similar quoting systems, and make absolutely no changes to anything inside them. In this situation, Sarcasticidealist does appear to simply be preserving the integrity of the article, not edit warring. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 23:28, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Indeed; I think Lightmouse realises this. For the huge improvement that he makes in the project, these occasional false-positives a small price to pay. Locke Cole, you might consider trying a friendly, non-belligerent approach. You might be surprised at the pay-off, even with people who have a different take on dates and linking. Tony (talk) 02:12, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

"riendly, non-belligerent approach"? Ironic advice, indeed, from someone threatening a POINTY AFD, wouldn't you think? — Bellhalla (talk) 15:47, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

That's certainly true, but if such detection is possible, then that is yet another group which loses their vocal opposition to his activities. If it is possible to reduce false positives (and in this case, it shouldn't be hard), then by all means, do so. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 03:22, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Huntster, you don't happen to know the magic string that would enable such avoidance by a script, do you? Tony (talk) 09:50, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Nope, but I don't program bots. It should be as simple as an If-then-else type thing...If <blockquote> exists, then stop, etc etc. There are plenty of bot operators around that can answer such questions. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 10:07, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

A few points:

• I have no strong views on date delinking, and don't really follow the debate. Accordingly, I have no views on Lightmouse's activities on that front, and view this as a totally separate issue.
• Bots are going to generate false positives. I get that, and have said as much in my previous messages to Lightmouse. I'm not asking for false positives to get eliminated; I'm just asking them to be limited to one per article. Once Lightmouse makes a mistake on one article, he should take some sort of measure to make sure that that mistake isn't repeated. I don't think that's unreasonable.
• With regards to the charges of OWNership, I don't think they're fair. I wrote those articles early in my Misplaced Pages career, before I knew much about the relevant style conventions. A lot of them have had edits made since that improve the articles, and I've had no complaints. I complain only when an editor repeats the same patently inappropriate edits six times on the same article.
• I don't think this is edit-warring; Lightmouse has acknowledged in the past that this particular edit isn't appropriate, so I'm basically reverting it with his consent. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 16:03, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Sarcasticidealist, I am sorry to have added a conversion in round brackets (parentheses). I agree that quotes should be treated differently from normal text and there are various methods (square brackets, footnotes, rephrasing to avoid the quoted unit, etc). The edit was done using AWB and in AWB it is technically simply to exclude a page that contains term 'blockquote'. I may have to do that but to date, I have not done so. That may seem strange but it is for the following reasons:

Firstly it will prevent valid edits being made to non-quote parts of articles. Secondly, there are many types of false positive. For the 'principle editor' of an article, it is a big annoyance. In this case, it has happened six times and that is even worse. Each false positive has a slightly different rate of incidence, a slightly different effect on the reader, and a slightly different volume of the complaint. Each mechanism to avoid a type of false positive comes at a different cost and a different success rate. A janitorial editor that wishes to avoid false positives can accumulate, like coral, so many different mechanisms that the efficiency/effort ratio reduces drastically. So the human inclination is to focus on false positive avoidance mechanisms that are most statistically worthwhile. That is not an excuse for regarding any false positive as acceptable, but it is an explanation of the reality that faces any editor that does half a million edits.

Both the AWB code and the monobook script will not add a conversion where there is already a conversion in square brackets. That is a very common practice for quotes with many advantages and is what I recommend. It would solve it. Lightmouse (talk) 11:51, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Using AWB to make controversial edits

Why are you continuing to use AWB to make controversial edits, e.g., date delinking? Tennis expert (talk) 19:30, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Why are you meddling in other people's business asking annoying questions about oft-discussed issues when you are not even active on Misplaced Pages? Dabomb87 (talk) 22:26, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

"Other people's business," huh? Wow, that's an unusual perspective about Misplaced Pages. Tennis expert (talk) 23:26, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Good point. Rephrased my comment. You like? Dabomb87 (talk) 02:05, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

To answer the stupid question with a stupid answer: it's a damned site easier than delinking articles manually one at a time. ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 03:18, 9 December 2008 (UTC)