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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Ohconfucius (talk | contribs) at 01:43, 17 October 2012 (→Issue with "ALL dates to dmy" script: +). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Falun Gong 2 closed

An arbitration case regarding Falun Gong has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:

  1. Homunculus is banned from editing and/or discussing topics related to the Falun Gong movement and/or the persecution thereof, broadly construed, across all namespaces, for a period of one year.
  2. Ohconfucius is indefinitely banned from editing and/or discussing topics related to the Falun Gong movement and/or the persecution thereof, broadly construed, across all namespaces.
  3. At the discretion of any uninvolved administrator, editors may be placed on mandated external review for all articles relating to the Falun Gong movement and/or the persecution thereof, broadly construed. Editors on mandated external review must observe the following restrictions on editing within the designated subject area:
    1. Any major edit (defined as any edit that goes beyond simple and uncontroversial spelling, grammatical, and/or stylistic corrections to article content) must be proposed on the article's talk page. This proposal must be discussed by interested editors until a consensus to make the edit is formed.
    2. Once consensus has been reached in support of the edit, the proposal must be reviewed by an uninvolved editor for neutrality and verifiability of the information presented.
    3. When approval is received from the uninvolved editor, the editor subject to mandated external review may make the edit to the article. Violations of these restrictions may be reported to Arbitration Enforcement.
  4. Upon the expiry of the applicable ban, Homunculus is subject to mandated external review as outlined in remedy 4, with respect to articles relating to the Falun Gong movement and/or the persecution thereof, broadly construed.
  5. Should the applicable ban be lifted, Ohconfucius is subject to mandated external review as outlined in remedy 4, with respect to articles relating to the Falun Gong movement and/or the persecution thereof, broadly construed.
  6. Colipon is subject to mandated external review as outlined in remedy 4, with respect to articles relating to the Falun Gong movement and/or the persecution thereof, broadly construed.

For the Arbitration Committee, Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 14:34, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment on the case remedy for OC

Weird, just weird. Tony (talk) 15:42, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Wishing you well...

Hope you're finding happiness outside of Misplaced Pages. On a small note, if you do decide to come back to editing, the date delinking matter here was archived without you ever submitting a statement, so if you do decide to come back, you should contact the committee before returning to date edits, so we can mark that resolved. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 05:11, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

MfD nomination of User:Ohconfucius/essay/rant about Falun Gong pages

User:Ohconfucius/essay/rant about Falun Gong pages, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Ohconfucius/essay/rant about Falun Gong pages and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of User:Ohconfucius/essay/rant about Falun Gong pages during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 18:40, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I have withdrawn the nomination. I do however want it known that, on Saturday, I spent several hours trying to complete the second step of the MfD nomination, only to be told that there was a "timeout error" every time. After getting sufficiently frustrated by this failure of several hours duration, I contacted AlexandrDmitri here to do it for me and got no help there. I have never had such problems occur to me in the past, particularly when other editors seemed to not be experiencing the same problem, and, frankly, I am more than a little creeped out by the entire thing. I am not, and will not, assume that there was some sort of "greater force" involved, but, on the off-chance that there was, I wish to offer my profoundest apologies. I just hope the weirdness doesn't recur somewhere else. John Carter (talk) 15:26, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Recent events

The Purple Star The Purple Star
There are admittedly times in all of our lives which create extraordinary difficulties for all of us. Many of us have serious problems dealing with them. Few people would have the ability to at the same time fight for the greater good in an entirely voluntary effort to promote the dissemination of knowledge. You have left the project now because of your having to deal with extreme cases of both at once. It is always a bit depressing to see one of our own fall in battle for the greater good, but in your case we know that you have the potential to return, should you see fit. We all hope that the extreme situation in your personal life improves as well. That might make it easier for you to eventually return, if you choose to do so, but it would also mean that someone whom I believe we all respect and many of us admire will perhaps have the good life I think we all believe he deserves. John Carter (talk) 18:54, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Friendly notification regarding this week's Signpost

Hello. This is an automated message to tell you that, as it stands, you are set to be mentioned in this week's Arbitration Report (link). The report aims to inform readers of The Signpost about the proceedings of the Arbitration Committee in a non-partisan manner. Please review the draft article, and, if you have any concerns, feel free to leave them on the talkpage (transcluded in the Comments section directly below the main body of text), where they will be read by a member of the editorial team. Please only edit the article yourself in the case of grievous factual errors (making sure to note such changes in the comments section). Thank you. On behalf of The Signpost's editorial team, LivingBot (talk) 00:00, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

RfC on the spelling of Vietnamese names

  • RfC: Should the spelling of Vietnamese names follow the general usage of English-language reliable sources? Examples: Ngo Dinh Diem, Ho Chi Minh, and Saigon, or Ngô Đình Diệm, Hồ Chí Minh, and Sài Gòn. The RfC is here.

Invitation to discussion

You're invited to participate in the Misplaced Pages:Media copyright questions‎#Tank Man image; Tiananmen Square protests article discussion. Whether you're interested in the whole discussion or not, I want one last thing to confirm which is written at the bottom of the discussion about your old deleted upload of file:Goddessofdemocracy-400x600.jpg. Thank you. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 04:28, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

The Purple Barnstar

The Purple Barnstar
What?! You have been topic banned from the pages you love the most? To the point where you left Misplaced Pages? To be strictly honest, you were something of an inspiration for me to join Misplaced Pages. Looking back, I hardly edited Misplaced Pages until December 2011. And it was you, I believe, that I saw, who edited some article of the past, and inspired me of the Community behind Misplaced Pages and is just a bunch of ordinary people working together to create free, shared knowledge of the world. When I saw the ArbCom case, I was personally shocked. And more when I saw the outcome of it. Sure, you had some frustrations here, some difficulties there, but all in all, you were a great contributor to Misplaced Pages. Rejoin Misplaced Pages! And when the time comes, appeal to the Arbitration Committee. Convince them not that you were innocent, but that you accept their findings. Thanks for introducing me to a growing Community behind the largest encyclopedia in the world. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 21:57, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Although, if you do decide to leave Misplaced Pages forever, then I won't try to stop you again. Goodbye Ohconfucius. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 22:22, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Actually, I don't think for one moment that those are the pages he "loved most". I think he felt an obligation to deal with some errant, non-neutral editing, and became co-lateral damage. Tony (talk) 09:45, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
      • Just saw this comment. Trust me, I don't think anybody actually loves Falun Gong pages. Loathing, fear, disgust, and horror come to mind, but not love. He was however probably the single best contributor to that specific content, and I find it hard if not impossible to imagine that it will be possible to replace him on that content, or anywhere else. BTW, I was wondering whether anyone thinks it might be a good idea to stop the automatic archiving. I'd like to see at least the "Recent events" section I started stay visible on this page, so that the permanent "thank you" it implies is, probably, the most important and honestly most deserved thing that anyone coming to this page should see. John Carter (talk) 01:04, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
        I've added {{dnau}} to the recent events section, probably better than disabling archiving. --Mirokado (talk) 10:50, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks Michael. I appreciate it! --Ohconfucius 03:17, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

13 May incident

Hi. U moved the article May 13 incident to 13 May incident. English sources mainly use May 13. If you google 13 May incident, May 13 will come out. I think your rationale (to mirror Malaysian article) is not a good rationale. English and Malay grammar is different. I cant move it back cos of something. Mind moving it back? ќמшמφטтгמ 07:36, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Hi Kawaputra! Ohconfucius has retired, so I don't think you're going to receive assistance here. You may wish to consult Misplaced Pages:Requested moves instead. Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 17:17, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
Hi GB, thanks for responding. Yea, i thought of just giving it a shot. I'm too lazy of going through the requested move process, but i'll go do it one day. Thanks! ќמшמφטтгמ 01:33, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
The move is based on our own convention, plus the fact that Malaysia is a member of the British Commonwealth, and an English-speaking country that uses DMY dates. I don't know what sources you may be referring to, but a Gsearch shows a very significant proportion of '13 May incident' as well as some 'May 13 incident'. --Ohconfucius 03:12, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Hello

Honestly, I miss you, Ohconfucius. I hope you consider rejoining Misplaced Pages. You are an example for many in this project. Don't let a few bad apples ruin the great path you've paved here. If you ever decide to come back, shoot me a message. We all miss you. ComputerJA (talk) 23:53, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Small problem

Retired? You/smalleditor recently did this, which removed non-breaking spaces in violation of WP:DASH. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:06, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, the problem with those nbsp syntaxes is that they're unnecessary towards the start of the line, which is the case in both instances. Right up front in an article they can also turn newbie editors off, too. But I'm sure if OC returns he'll take note of this and consider whether to modify the script. Thank you for the feedback. Tony (talk) 10:12, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
It's not a big issue for me, but "&nbsp;" is rarely used in conjunction with dates despite the mention in MOSNUM, but more often in the context Justin mentions. I'll tweak the script. --Ohconfucius 03:15, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

August 2012

This account has been blocked indefinitely as a sock puppet that was created to violate Misplaced Pages policy. Note that multiple accounts are allowed, but using them for illegitimate reasons is not. If this account is not a sock puppet, and you would like to be unblocked, you may appeal this block by adding the text {{unblock|Your reason here ~~~~}} below, but you should read the guide to appealing blocks first. Jclemens (talk) 21:51, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
It's rather unfortunate that you decided to return to date-related editing without addressing the previous allegations of impropriety against you. You are expected to contact the committee via email (email is left enabled on this account) to start a discussion of how you plan to address those pending allegations. Jclemens (talk) 21:54, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
Jclemens, I'm struggling with the accusation that User:Ohconfucius is a sock—of whom? Does it involve his running of an alt account, User:Smalleditor. This was a declared account from the start. The accusation needs to clarify exactly what the problem is (this is a policy requirement). Does "without addressing the previous allegations of impropriety against you" refer to dateref complaints? Or that weird Falung Gong judgement you guys made? It's opaque to me.

OC does need to formally declare and guarantee a change in editing behaviour to avoid these dateref complaints (by one rather aggressive editor in particular). I encourage him to make such a declaration to the satisfaction of the committee. Tony (talk) 02:41, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Ohconfucius resumed editing as User:Smalleditor, a declared alternate account, and made a number of date related changes, without contacting the arbitration committee to discuss the previously unresolved complaints made to the committee about his editing in date-related areas. He was notified of the previous complaint, made an initial response but never substantially addressed the complaint before retiring, and my reminder of his obligation to do so before any return to date related editing still sits above on this page. While I think the block is quite regrettable, it is entirely of his own making. Jclemens (talk) 03:36, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
I don't disagree with what you say. It should have been much better managed, the whole thing (except that there were serious RL issues impinging on him ... while I urge you to take these into consideration, I know that they can't excuse all). My take is that OC is rather less interested than editors around him, including me, in his returning. But we've come to rely on his technical and other advice, a role that would be very hard to replace. I'm discussing the scenario with him by email. Tony (talk) 04:46, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
I regret this matter as well. I would contact him, but I have a feeling Tony might know him better, and I don't want any sort of impression of people "ganging up" on him, so I haven't and will not "gang up" on him regarding this. Jclemens, you know the details here a lot better than I do. While I agree he should have contacted ArbCom, I can also see how it might be possible that he wanted the stigma of the ArbCom ruling, indicating that he was somehow pro-PRC, to not follow him around from this point forward. I also note in your first comment on this thread that he should contact ArbCom, in fact, that he is "expected" to. Not knowing what Tony is finding out here, I assume that, if as I think it might be that notice slipped his mind, given the recent developments in his life. I think he kind of implied that was probably his thinking by indicating it is an alternate account, as opposed to trying to pass himself off as a new editor. I hope I don't seem to be putting words in his mouth, but if this were an honest attempt to come back under a different name, without the stigma of the ruling which seemed to be one of, if not the, primary reason for retirement, I hope that the ArbCom might be willing to maybe lift the ban, if he does contact you directly and deal with the pending complaint, which I think the evidence at least implies he might have forgotten the exact nature of? John Carter (talk) 00:34, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
Such a block is not punishment, it's a technical means to ensure that he will address the outstanding issues before continuing any date-related editing. I expect he will be unblocked presently and the previously suspended proceeding resumed. Jclemens (talk) 01:04, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
  • The template used wasn't ideal, but I get the message. I may come back in the future, but the Ohconfucius account will from now on make no further mainspace edits. --Ohconfucius 03:19, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Unblocked (August 2012)

The Arbitration Committee accepts your block appeal, and I have unblocked your account. The clarification proceedings which you left unanswered in June 2012 will be re-opened in the coming days, and your prompt, complete participation in that request is required if your account is to stay unblocked (and your alternative account is to be unblocked). If you have any questions, please contact any arbitrator or the mailing list. For the Arbitration Committee, AGK 07:33, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Suggestions for Sources script

Hi Ohconfucius - welcome back! I continue to enjoy using your scripts. While you were gone, I copied User:Ohconfucius/script/Sources.js to User:GoingBatty/script/Sources.js in order to make a few changes. Could you please consider making these changes in your script? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:30, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank YOU! Hope you'll be sticking around! GoingBatty (talk) 16:46, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
I have two more suggestions for your script based on the references at Rhythm Killers (e.g. |newspaper=]|publisher=]|location=New York), if you're interested:
  1. Delink the newspaper parameter (like you do for the work and publisher parameters)
  2. Remove the publisher and location parameters for well-known works
Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 15:38, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
One more suggestion for the script: change |publisher=Hollywood Reporter to |work=Hollywood Reporter (e.g. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (film)). Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:46, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:49, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
Pleased to be of assistance. -- Ohconfucius  02:52, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
Oh, and thank you for the "Rem publishers" script too! GoingBatty (talk) 01:16, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
(-: -- Ohconfucius  01:49, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi again! Interested in adding (The) Christian Science Monitor to your script? GoingBatty (talk) 18:33, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Works great - thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:33, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Motions regarding discretionary sanctions and Falun Gong 2

Pursuant to two motions voted on at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment, the following actions have been taken:

For the Arbitration Committee,
NW (Talk) 16:58, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Discuss this

False positive on date script for novel 11/22/63

Hi Ohconfucius! Are you still around? If so, could you please change your date fixing scripts to ignore the novel 11/22/63 (Try running your "ALL dates to mdy" script on Stephen King). Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 16:28, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the speedy response! Time to remove the Retired banner? GoingBatty (talk) 02:27, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
All in good time! -- Ohconfucius  02:28, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

?

Even to a cursory scan of the references the predominant format is pretty clear. Care to restore? Gimmetoo (talk) 02:28, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

  • I'm sorry?? The rest of the entire article is in dmy. It makes little sense that the body is in dmy and the refs are in mdy. Remembering we're not talking about ISO dates here, I believe such instances of dual formats are not compliant with MOSNUM. As to the use of dmy, there is consensus that US military articles take that format. -- Ohconfucius  02:37, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
    • The pub dates were "iso" style and there was no reason not to retain them. Gimmetoo (talk) 02:42, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
      • Last time I looked, that ref section had quite a few non-ISO dates. Just why is it that you want a proportion of ref date-formats—just because they're ISO—to hold sway over the notion of consistency both within the refs and throughout the whole article? It's also very confusing to newer editors to see a mess of formats within the edit-mode prose, which is what results. Tony (talk) 07:46, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Question about scripts

Hi Ohconfucius - glad to see you've officially unretired! I used your "Fix news sources" and "ALL dates to mdy" in this edit. While it made a few good changes, it also removed some extra spaces (e.g. "accessdate = April 5, 2012" to "accessdate =April 5, 2012"). Could you please look at the scripts to see if this could be fixed? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:20, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

  • Sure, what would you recommend the 'proper' treatment to be? In all honesty, I'm disinclined to fiddle with the script to treat this rather inconsequential issue, but I'm open to suggestions and will try and incorporate some such change on an 'non-urgent' basis. -- Ohconfucius  01:24, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
I only brought it up based on a message on my talk page. My suggestion would be to neither add nor remove spacing that has no impact to how the article is displayed. This makes it easier for people to focus on the meaningful edits made by users of your scripts. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:54, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, I do now see the advantage of not changing the space distribution because otherwise huge paragraphs show up in the diff where the one visible change, after a lot of comparing, is the space. As the script only changed spaces for some access dates only, I was able to find it and change it quickly. -- Ohconfucius  02:21, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
Thank you so much for your prompt service! GoingBatty (talk) 02:35, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Clarification request: Date delinking (September 2012)

Hi. Under the conditions of your unblock in August, the June 2012 clarification request about Date delinking has been re-opened today. Please respond to that thread when you are next online. Thank you. For the Arbitration Committee, AGK 20:24, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

keeping the peace

OC, I think at this stage you probably have to tell ArbCom you'll not edit ref dates. This is just causing too much trouble; your aim should be to have issues raised on your talk page rarely or never.

Your work is too valuable for me to stand by and watch this niggling continue. Tony (talk) 08:14, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Mass changes in Long March

Hi Ohconfucius, I was reading Long March and noticed a formatting error which led me to check the edit history. It seems to me that some of your changes may have been a little overzealous, especially with a fairly vague edit summary. Here are some of the issues I thought were dubious:

Change from {{zh}} to {{Chinese}}

Does the MOS actually recommend using an infobox over inline translations? The closest I could find was WP:LEADCLUTTER whose example of Genghis Khan showed a lead section with almost 20 translations. However, the cleaned up version of Genghis Khan still has a couple of translations in the lead section. In contrast, Long March has only 3. The translation infobox seems more likely to get lost among the other infoboxes than an inline translation is to cause disruption in the text.

At any rate, because {{Chinese}} is an infobox, it cannot be simply substituted for {{zh}} because it causes a line break. In the future, if you choose to replace {{zh}} with {{Chinese}}, please move the {{Chinese}} template invocation before the lead section where the other infoboxes are.

Image: to File:

MOS:IMAGES#Image_syntax and WP:NS#Aliases both indicate that Image: and File: are equivalent and interchangeable. Unless there is another guideline that indicates that File: is preferable over Image:, shouldn't the majority style within the article prevail? Especially since the Long March article was predominantly using Image: (14 of them, compared to only 1 File:).

Delinking of China

Why the removal of three links to China? (One in the lead section, one in the infobox, and one the Aftermath section as "People's Republic of China".) The Long March article has no other links to the China article.

Delinking of General Secretary

Although General Secretary is basically a disambiguation page, the link could have been improved to General Secretary of the Communist Party of China instead of being removed.

I'm sorry if I've come off as impolite, but other posts here seemed to indicate you might be using some kind of script to perform edits, so I wanted to address these issues in case this was occurring in an automated fashion. Maybe all the different changes could be broken up into multiple edits with more specific edit summaries on each one? I do appreciate the work you are doing, and I hope we can continue to improve Misplaced Pages together. --Laoris (talk) 18:03, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) - My guess is that the links to China were removed per WP:OVERLINK. GoingBatty (talk) 01:26, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
China is not normally linked. Did you have a more specific link in mind for each of these three cases? If not, every child of seven knows what China is. We try to ration links to those that are the most useful for readers. Tony (talk) 01:33, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, that makes sense. Would that also apply to the PRC link though, just because it leads to China? --Laoris (talk) 15:13, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your comments. I would respond as follows:
    1. articles on Chinese subjects are particularly prone to clutter, and the linguistic inline template used is often populated with up to five parameters that are of little use to the average English language reader. There is consensus that, where there are more than a small number of such parameters, they are ejected to an infobox.
    2. use of Image: vs File: isn't really a style matter. It's pretty inconsequential from most perspectives and I don't think we should be necessarily going with 'dominant format'. On the other hand, its continued use may be confusing for the uninitiated as all our image media now resides in locations denoted by 'File', it having been migrated some months ago from 'Image'.
    3. I do accept that removal of the PRC link may have been overdone, but I would still question why the specific article would need a link to the generic 'China' – a very well known entity, the linking of which isn't really of great use to a reader. Any reader is likely to want to focus on the Long March itself, or may have come from the 'China' article. The article could use a link, where appropriate to History of China or History of the Communist Party of China. 'People's Republic of China' redirects to China, so linking one instance is generally regarded as sufficient.
    4. You are correct that links to the 'General Secretary' disambiguation page could be more specific. That's indeed why it was removed. I often retrain such links, but did not do so on this occasion. I believe there are editors who use specific tools to perform such work and I would defer to their efforts. -- Ohconfucius  01:41, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Hi, I appreciate your taking time to respond to my unsolicited criticism :P I'll familiarize myself with the China-related MoS. But where the zh in-text template is replaced by the infobox template, I think it still needs to be moved out of the lead section so as not to cause a line break in the middle of the text. It makes sense that Image/File could be confusing and that linking directly to China would not be necessary. Thanks again for your reply and improving my understanding. --Laoris (talk) 15:13, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. I agree that change from the inline {{zh}} to {{Chinese}} ought to be accompanied systematically by a relocation of the template, and that I have been amiss in doing that. Regards, -- Ohconfucius  01:50, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Octopussy

I'm not sure why you've decided to retitle the book: it's been published as Octopussy and The Living Daylights since 1966, as it contains two short story titles, each of which are capitalised. Please check things properly before making a stack of other people jump through hoops. - SchroCat (^ • @) 06:25, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

No, it looks like the correct title of the book... - SchroCat (^ • @) 06:43, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Nice work

Wanted to commend you for this edit. -- James26 (talk) 10:17, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I noticed there were some minor glitches that I went back to sort out. -- Ohconfucius  01:14, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Score

I had to restore the broken link to the score in BWV 70, broken when applying Misplaced Pages formatting to the url of an external link, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:56, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Gerda, as I noted in my edit-summary, a standard external link and pipe are necessary until the template is fixed so that it accepts normal typography. I note that the target site uses an en dash, so it's really odd. Tony (talk) 12:20, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Your changes to George Harrison articles

Hi Ohconfucius. I see you've made a number of changes to Harrison articles I've recently taken to GA status (or someone else has on my behalf) − but can I ask why you've changed all instances of the word "retrieved" in web citations to "Retrieved"? I've deliberately not used Harvard system for referencing, purely on aesthetic grounds, and I can't see that there's any requirement to use it anyway; so, unlike in Harvard system, the word "retrieved" is not preceded by a full stop, meaning initial capital letter is incorrect. (Unless MoS states otherwise, does it?) I'll be reverting all to lower case, but please let me know if there's something I should be aware of about this issue. The frustrating thing is I've got to make all these changes manually, to avoid undoing whatever else you did on these pages ... This "(retrieved 6 October 2012)" approach is something I've imposed on every 1970−76-period Harrison article I've worked on − albums, singles, songs, Concert for BD, collaborations, guest appearances. So I'm a bit worried − just how many of these articles do I need to go through again?(!) Cheers, JG66 (talk) 13:24, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

  • The changes were made by script. The format and syntax were modelled after the way reference sections are rendered when using the most common citation templates – {{cite news}} and {{cite web}}; {{cite}} seems not to capitalise, but doesn't use parentheses. You are one of the few people I know who inserts citations manually. When I do that, I try to stick to syntax in {{cite web}} where 'Retrieved' is capitalised and preceded by a full-stop. Without being critical of you, I should mention that I am not aware of any citation template that puts access dates within parentheses.

    Articles often have a mix of citation templates, and article reviewers generally regard stylistic consistency as important. If the dates in the Harrison articles were uniformly "(retrieved )" before my visit, the access date should be uniformly (Retrieved ) afterwards, so I see little need to change them back merely for the sake of GA/FA. However, you mentioned it being your stylistic preference. So if you wish, I can put them all back to your preferred syntax quite quickly using search-and-replace – there's no need to waste much of your time on it. I would finish by apologising for the disruption/disturbance this has caused you. Just let me know what you would like me to do; if you want them changed back, please let me have your list of articles, and I will process them over the next few days. Regards, -- Ohconfucius  14:27, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, Ohconfucius, and for laying out your reasoning and the various examples so clearly. A month or two ago I did quite a bit of research on the citation templates issue, mainly for books, trying to find a template that suits my preferred, I suppose you might call it "running-on" style − i.e., commas linking the various elements rather than full stops, meaning minimum of capitalisation. I couldn't find anything suitable for books, but your {{cite}} suggestion should be very useful for web refs − thank you. And it's very gracious of you to offer, but in fact I've already gone through the Harrison album articles. Regards, and thanks for the education! − your thoroughness and attention to detail is much appreciated. JG66 (talk) 14:55, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect wording change ("accessed" to "Retrieved") in article text

Greetings. FYI: I see that you made some wording changes to the Webmail article (3 October 2012). Among the various edits were several instances of "accessed" being changed to "Retrieved" (I mean in the article text, not citations), and I reverted these. I'm fairly certain that, in these instances, the original text was correct, and I explained my reasons in the edit summary (6 October 2012). May I make a few suggestions?

  • Your edit summary did not give a reason for the wording changes other than to point to the Manual of Style, which provides no indication why this particular wording change would be needed. My suggestion is, when making wording changes that are not covered in the manual cited, provide additional information to explain the changes, so other editors know why it happened.
  • Your edit summary says "test". My suggestion is that, if it was a test, do not save changes to a live article; or, if it was not a test, then don't say "test" in the edit summary (as it may give the impression that a test went live accidentally).
  • It took me some time to discover that the changes may have been done by a script. Originally, from all appearances, it seemed that it had been done manually. My suggestion is that changes being done using a script be noted as "Script" or "Bot" in the edit summary and/or the username, to make it clear what happened. Otherwise, I don't see any way to know.
  • If there is any possibility that the script had similar effects on other articles as it did on Webmail (including both wording and capitalization issues), you might want to consider assessing whether there were any additional instances of adverse effects and how to address that.

Thanks for your consideration of my feedback. If some of this is due to a misunderstanding on my part (admittedly, I'm a relative newcomer), please clarify. -- HLachman (talk) 10:41, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

  • I appreciate your message. The change of 'accessed' to 'Retrieved' that I put through at 'Webmail' was indeed an error. Thanks for picking it up and correcting it. I will look through the edits from around that time to make sure there are no similar occurrences. There is no guidance in use of 'accessed' vs 'retrieved' in the MOS, but the change is meant to unify with overwhelming usage as determined by the family of {{citation}} templates.

    Also relating to the above, I am actually running test scripts which are actively being modified almost on a daily basis, and try to ensure bugs are removed before they get to the production version. In fact, I discovered the script bug soon afterwards, and its rules have been made more specific to avoid the false negative. -- Ohconfucius  02:41, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Ars Nova (theater)

Hey, Ohconfucius. Just a heads up that there's a conversation going on at Talk:Ars Nova (theater) concerning a recent edit of yours. Just letting you know in case you wanted to weigh in. :-) Thanks. RunnerOnIce (talk) 20:35, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Hyphenation

Hi. Your recent edit to Boeing 727 inconsistently changed some of the hyphens in phrases like "727-100" to dashes. I don't think that's correct. I guess your script was trying to correct page ranges in books or something? Also, I'm not convinced there's much benefit in editing pages just to rewrite dates in a different format, though fair enough if it's just for consistency with the majority format on that page. Remember that about 95% of the world writes dates day-month-year, both in short form (16-10-2012) and long form (16th October, 2012). Dricherby (talk) 09:53, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I've replaced the dashes with the original hyphens. Dricherby (talk) 10:02, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I think you are correct about the dominant date format in use universally, but here on WP, we abide by two rules: we eschew ordinal dates and any date form with dashes or slashes that is not consistent with ISO 8601 (see WP:MOSNUM). As to the dashes, I use the dashes script; would defer to an editor more experienced as to whether a dash or hyphen would be more appropriate. If you are correct that a hyphen should be used, then a change in the script would be necessary. -- Ohconfucius  10:04, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Issue with "ALL dates to dmy" script

Hi Ohconfucius - me again! When I run your "ALL dates to dmy" script on Felix Baumgartner, it changes a URL inside {{externalimage}}. Could you please let me know when this is fixed? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:31, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

  • presumably you are referring to the string '|image3='. Can you tell me what it gets changed to – because when I run the script, the url doesn't change it at all? It seems to be correctly protected when I run the protection function. In any event, it doesn't look like a string that should get transformed by the script. FYI, the relevant regex line in the script is (\]*])(.). -- Ohconfucius  00:14, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
It's getting changed to '|image3='. GoingBatty (talk) 00:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, that'll be the protection at work. I'll look at why it isn't being unprotected properly. -- Ohconfucius  00:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Update: so far, I loaded the production script, and protection seems to engage and disengage correctly; then I tried loading your entire vector script, and the same – no improper action. -- Ohconfucius  00:39, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm at a loss. I may have to do extensive testing with your settings. Tell me, does the script still change the url now, with the article in its current state? -- Ohconfucius  00:56, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, it still does, even after you fixed all the other dates. I also did a CTRL-R to ensure I have the latest version of the script loaded. GoingBatty (talk) 01:00, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Hmmm, it seems to be something local to your computer/set-up. I tried it on FF (latest versions) on the Mac (Lion) and Windoze XP, and the latest Chrome on Windoze, and all seem to operate properly. However, when I run it in IE (my version is 8.06), I get the error you report. Would it be reasonable to assume you are using IE on a Windoze box? -- Ohconfucius  01:34, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
You are correct - IE 8.0.7601.17514 on Windows 7. GoingBatty (talk) 01:38, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
OK, I don't know how to code for different browser/js versions, so I guess you will need to switch browsers for the script to behave 'properly'. Haha! ;-) Thanks for the interesting case. I guess I wasn't all that bad at trouble-shooting after all! :-) -- Ohconfucius  01:41, 17 October 2012 (UTC)