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This user is one of the 400 most active English Wikipedians of all time.

Help

Can you help me edit this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/List_of_theatrical_film_production_companies to follow the same format as the distributors page, http://en.wikipedia.org/List_of_Theatrical_Film_Companies? It is a lot of work and I would appreciate your help.

WikiCup 2010 June newsletter

We're half way through 2010, and the end of the WikiCup is in sight! Round 3 is over, and we're down to our final 16. Our pool winners were Ian Rose (submissions) (A), Sturmvogel_66 (submissions) (B, and the round's overall leader), ThinkBlue (submissions) (C) Casliber (submissions) and TonyTheTiger (submissions) (D, joint), but, with the scores reset, everything is to play for in our last pooled round. The pools will be up before midnight tonight, and have been selected randomly by J Milburn. This will be the toughest round yet, and so, as ever, anything you worry may not receive the necessary attention before the end of the round (such as outstanding GA or FA nominations) is welcome at Misplaced Pages:WikiCup/Reviews, and please remember to continue offering reviews yourself where possible. As always, the judges are available to contact via email, IRC or their talk pages, and general discussion about the Cup is welcome on the WikiCup talk page.

Though unaffiliated with the WikiCup, July sees the third Great Misplaced Pages Dramaout- a project with not dissimilar goals to the WikiCup. Everyone is welcome to take part and do their bit to contribute to the encyclopedia itself.

If you're interested in the scores for the last round of the Cup, please take a look at Misplaced Pages:WikiCup/History/2010/Round 3 and Misplaced Pages:WikiCup/History/2010/Full/Round 3. Our thanks go to Stone (submissions) for compiling these. As was predicted, Group C ended up the "Group of Death", with 670 points required for second place, and, therefore, automatic promotion. This round will probably be even tougher- again, the top two from each of the two groups will make it through, while the twelve remaining participants will compete for four wildcard places- good luck everyone! If you wish to start receiving or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Misplaced Pages:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn, Fox and The ed17

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WikiCup 2013 March newsletter

We are halfway through round two. Pool A sees the strongest competition, with five out of eight of its competitors scoring over 100, and Pool H is lagging, with half of its competitors yet to score. WikiCup veterans lead overall; Pool A's Sturmvogel_66 (submissions) (2010's winner) leads overall, with poolmate Miyagawa (submissions) (a finalist in 2011 and 2012) not far behind. Pool F's Casliber (submissions) (a finalist in 2010, 2011 and 2012) is in third. The top two scorers in each pool, as well as the next highest 16 scorers overall, will progress to round three at the end of April.

Today has seen a number of Easter-themed did you knows from WikiCup participants, and March has seen collaboration from contestants with WikiWomen's History Month. It's great to see the WikiCup being used as a locus of collaboration; if you know of any collaborative efforts going on, or want to start anything up, please feel free to use the WikiCup talk page to help find interested editors. As well as fostering collaboration, we're also seeing the Cup encouraging the improvement of high-importance articles through the bonus point system. Highlights from the last month include GAs on physicist Niels Bohr ( Hawkeye7 (submissions)), on the European hare ( Cwmhiraeth (submissions)), on the constellation Circinus ( Keilana (submissions) and Casliber (submissions)) and on the Third Epistle of John ( Cerebellum (submissions)). All of these subjects were covered on at least 50 Wikipedias at the beginning of the year and, subsequently, each contribution was awarded at least three times as many points as normal.

Wikipedians who enjoy friendly competition may be interested in participating in April's wikification drive. While wikifying an article is typically not considered "significant work" such that it can be claimed for WikiCup points, such gnomish work is often invaluable in keeping articles in shape, and is typically very helpful for new writers who may not be familiar with formatting norms.

A quick reminder: now, submission pages will need only a link to the article and a link to the nomination page, or, in the case of good article reviews, a link to the review only. See your submissions' page for details. This will hopefully make updating submission pages a little less tedious. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Misplaced Pages:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Misplaced Pages talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Misplaced Pages:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) J Milburn (talk) 22:53, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

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Question about cleanup process

Hi TJ Spyke, I noticed that you've been cleaning up numerous articles today and I was curious how you were doing it. Is it all by hand or do you use a program? Specifically I'm curious how you check the wikilinks. Are you testing each one individually or is there a tool you have that highlights all redirects? -Thibbs (talk) 21:07, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I use WPCleaner to check articles, but there are some edits that can't be made with it (like spellchecking, typos, etc.), so I then manually edit it after (essentially, I copy and paste the results from WPCleaner, then continue editing the article). TJ Spyke 21:11, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

OK thanks. Is WPCleaner something that you can download from a Wikimedia site/affiliate or should I just Google it if I want to find it? -Thibbs (talk) 21:14, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Here you go: Misplaced Pages:WPCleaner. TJ Spyke 21:15, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Great, cheers. -Thibbs (talk) 22:56, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

• Hi, I'm sorry to say I've reverted your edit at the Derby Stallion article yet again. The links that you are "fixing" are indeed redirect links. And per WP:NOTBROKEN, redirects within an article are not supposed to be changed so that they point to the target article instead. There are a number of reasons why this is harmful to Misplaced Pages and they're clearly spelled out under WP:NOTBROKEN. This has become a problem in the past with users accidentally abusing the Navigation popup tool to "fix" redirects as you're doing and the result was this page. This is actually the reason I was asking above what tool you were using. I was curious to see what other tools were being subjected to this kind of abuse. The WPCleaner talk page is filled with comments regarding users mistakenly "fixing" redirects (e.g. 1, 2, 3, and many more in the archives from 2008 and earlier).
  The thing is... I've already explained all of this to you in the past (see e.g. 1 and 2). And I know you are aware of this issue because you have already received a final warning on the subject. So I really don't see how what you are doing could be considered good faith editing. Your editing is contrary to the guidelines and you have been repeatedly told this and warned to stop. Normally I'd suggest trying to get the guidelines changed before carrying on in this way, but in this case from your block log it's clear to me that you've consciously decided to change matters unilaterally rather than by seeking consensus. For this reason I've requested administrative action. -Thibbs (talk) 00:25, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Wow, you did not read NOTBROKEN correctly at all. I have not been making the kinds of edits that got me into trouble before, I have been careful to only makes ones that follow the guidelines. I am sorry that you are not a good editor and dont like others making articles better, but stop vandalizing pages by reverting good edits. I am hesitant to give you a warning, but I will. Frankly, its people like you who are driving editors away from Misplaced Pages and preventing so many articles from being improved. Go away. TJ Spyke 00:49, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't react like this to new editors. I react this way to editors who have been editing here for 7-odd years and are among the top 400 most prolific editors and who have received a shocking number of warnings and frank blocks including an indef block. You obviously know better than to persist in these games but yet you continue. AGF only extends so far. You clearly have no regard for community guidelines founded on consensus and are only interested in your own editorial decisions. I'm sorry that you decided to take this route. It was a very poor decision on your part. -Thibbs (talk) 01:54, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Actually, this change to Derby Stallion (series) is full of unhelpful changes as per WP:NOTBROKEN. Amalthea 09:36, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Wow, I see no unhelpful edits. I will not pretend 100% of my edits have been helpful, but ask any average editor and that change is nothing but helpful. And frankly, you shouldnt drive away good editors since fewer and fewer people are editing Misplaced Pages now. I also notice that I only get hounded when I mass edit articles, I dont get harassed when I only edit a few articles a day. TJ Spyke 20:59, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

"It is likewise unhelpful to edit visible links for no reason other than to avoid redirects." Amalthea 22:32, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

A great majority of your NOTBROKEN violations are harmful actually. Try actually reading the guideline. You might be surprised to discover that there are at least six explicitly listed reasons not to change (bypass) redirects. One obvious one is that you are whitewashing usage stats - an activity that is at best completely pointless. But more often it's not completely harmless. It's directly harmful because it obscures the need for new articles on topics that aren't covered and it hides more appropriate and thus needed page-moves.

How on earth could these violations be "nothing but helpful"? I can't think of a single way that they help. Correcting incorrect titles or misspelled words or redirect like that is one thing, but how does it help anybody if you change ] to ] (to take a random example from the Derby Stallion article)? It hides the fact that there is no article on horse breaking - a clearly distinct concept from horse training and it reduces the likelihood that anyone will write an article on horse breaking. In what world does that help in any way whatsoever? At very best it's a completely pointless time-wasting activity. And it's one that you have been warned over and over and over again to stop. Does the consensus of your fellow editor on this issue really matter so little to you that you are unwilling to put an end to this distinctly non-helpful activity? Does the possibility that you may get blocked for a 24th (!!!) time mean nothing to you? I hope I'm not overreacting here, but I find your conduct in this one trivial editorial area to be truly incomprehensible. -Thibbs (talk) 00:47, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I have been careful to avoid those types of link changes. How is changing "Playstation 3" to "PlayStation 3" doing any harm? There is never gonna be a "Playstation 3" article, ever. And in that Derby Stallion article, changing "PlayStation" to "PlayStation (console)" IS directly helpful and needed because the latter refers to the game system called PlayStation and the former refers to the general product line. Or changing links to "Famicom" to be "Nintendo Entertainment System|Famicom", there will never be a separate Famicom article because it's just the Japanese name of the NES. Sometimes I make mistakes (like with the horse breaking one), but I see it as vandalism when editors revert the whole edit instead of just specific link changes they see as bad. TJ Spyke 15:20, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Look I recognize that apart from this one issue (and I guess the 3RR stuff from your past that I think you've mostly stopped now) you are a good editor. And I also recognize that you're human and that you may make mistakes. But seeing as how you've made so many many mistakes in this one particular area I would seriously recommend avoiding it altogether. Just skimming the cleanups you've performed since you were last unblocked, it's apparent that the large majority of the redirect "fixes" you performed were potentially harmful. And a tiny minority of them are helpful in any way.

Is there a reason you feel compelled to change the redirects? I assume it's not just to boost your edit count, right? But is it just because it looks ugly on WPCleaner? Or do you really think that this is somehow helpful? If you do think it is helpful then have you considered making the case to change the guidelines at WP:NOTBROKEN? Because there are only 2 listed exceptions to that guideline currently. I wouldn't say that this is a complete list of all good exceptions, though. Your example of changing "Playstation 3" to "PlayStation 3", for instance, seems to me to be correcting a misspelling (or really a mis-capitalization). And I think that this is helpful and that it should be listed as an exception to WP:NOTBROKEN.

Why don't you and I try to come up with some exceptions that we could propose to the community together to improve the guidelines so that you're not constantly violating them? If you could come up with a reason why changing "video arcade" to "amusement arcade" or how changing "Famicom" to "Nintendo Entertainment System" or how changing "Dragon Quest" to "Dragon Warrior" helps in any way then you could certainly make that suggestion as well. This would be a much much better way of approaching the problem than just ignoring everyone's warnings and getting banned over and over, don't you think? I'd be willing to help draft some proposed changes if you're willing to engage with me and explain why you feel compelled to violate this guideline. -Thibbs (talk) 16:05, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

That sounds good to me (and withe something like the Dragon Quest, it's because the series name in English was Dragon Warrior before the the Dragon Quest VIII. Amusement arcade and video arcade are essentially interchangeable terms like "pop" and "soda". As for Famicom, aren't we supposed to use English names of products if that is the best known name? Famicom is just the Japanese name of the NES, so I would think other WP policies supported changing them to NES). I've never bothered trying to have NOTBROKEN changed because I know from experience how hard it can be to have policies on Misplaced Pages changed. Maybe later today or something we can start working on this together to propose changes that seem like common sense to most people. TJ Spyke 16:20, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm encouraged by your attitude. I think we should discuss this thoroughly between us here before proposing anything so that we're clear in our arguments. It's OK if we disagree too, since we can propose changes individually to be accepted piecemeal rather than only as a single package. Anyway here are my thoughts on what you've said just above:

Like the term "video arcade", the other two are also examples of synonymous terms: Dragon Warrior is the North American term whereas the English term is actually Dragon Quest (the same is true for all European countries and Japan actually); Famicom is the original Japanese name for the NES. According to NOTBROKEN (point 6), the use of a synonymous redirect term provides useful information relating to usage of the term which can be considered as evidence for renaming the article. By systematically changing these links to the current non-redirect title, you are manipulating the usage statistics. As an example: it might be that the term "Dragon Quest" is better known than "Dragon Warrior", but because you'd have changed all of the "Dragon Quest" redirects into "Dragon Warrior," you would have eradicated this information and we would get a false impression that "Dragon Warrior" was the most commonly used term when in reality it was only the most commonly used because the statistics had been manipulated. If you don't like that example, try imagining the reverse. Imagine someone who called the game "Dragon Quest" trying to make the case that the article should be renamed. So first he would change all the links to redirects and then point to the incoming links as evidence that everyone calls it Dragon Quest. You can see how that would be a problem, right? I think what NOTBROKEN is saying is that it's safest if we rely on the real usage statistics by refraining from changing synonymous terms. They are synonyms, after all, so the meaning is identical, right?

But I think you might have a point if your central concern was consistency. There have been large discussions in the past regarding whether or not Misplaced Pages should preferentially use the term "Sega Genesis" or "Master Drive" for example. I'm sure the same could exist for terms from popular consumer products like "Famicom/NES" or "Dragon Quest/Warrior" as well. If there has been a community discussion where one term was decided as the preferred term then I think you could make the case that perhaps it would be a good idea to use a single term in the interest of consistency. Does that sound like it might be the core of your argument for these words? Or do you instead find a problem with NOTBROKEN's argument based on the dangers of manipulating usage statistics?

Another redirect dodge I was hoping you could explain is when you changed "Run and gun (video game)" to "Shoot 'em up#Run and gun" and "Metroidvania" to "Platform game#Platform-adventure_games". These redirects seem to directly conflict with NOTBROKEN's argument that "Shortcuts or redirects to sections of articles ... should never be bypassed, as the section headings on the page may change over time Updating one redirect is far more efficient than updating dozens of piped links" (point 4; emphasis and ellipses added). So you you think this part of NOTBROKEN should be removed/altered, or were these edits intended as exceptions which we could add to the list of exceptions? -Thibbs (talk) 17:34, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi TJ Spyke. Just checking in again. What's happening now? Why has this conversation stalled? Have you had a chance to read what I just wrote above? I noticed that you've again resumed with the NOTBROKEN violations (swapping "United States of America" for "United States"). I don't think it's too much to ask that you completely refrain from this kind of edit until we've finished discussing our plans for how to present our argument at Misplaced Pages talk:Redirect. You are violating the guidelines when you make this kind of edit and you've been asked to stop over and over again. Please help me come up with some exceptions that we can present for consensus instead of just continuing to stubbornly violate the guidelines and hope that I'll go away. I won't. I really want to work with you here, but if I see it again I will bring it to AN/I. -Thibbs (talk) 18:33, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Um, I didnt do anything wrong with United States. It's the common name of the country and what everyone writes (hell, even the article uses the name) and I know that did NOT violate any rule. Frankly, saying that deleting two words so it uses the common name is wrong, is like saying you can't edit a article to fix a spelling mistake. Might as well freeze all editing. Did I somehow violate it in another article when I changed |Major League Baseball]] to ]? Anyways, i've been busy. But im free now. TJ Spyke 15:18, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Regarding Dragon Warrior/Quest, it is not true that Quest was common in European countries. The first game in the series even RELEASED in Europe was Dragon Warrior Monsters in 1999 (where it used "Warrior"), they didnt get another one until Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (which was when Square Enix FIRST used the "Quest" name outside of Japan). So considering that for almost 20 years the only English name of the series was "Warrior", it makes sense for the ones released with the Warrior name to use that. As for exceptions to NOTBROKEN:

• I think fixing spelling mistakes and capitalization (i.e. Playstation to PlayStation) are good ones that are not controversial.
• Hmmm, maybe switching some to the most common name can be OK (though within the right context)
• Sometimes things will never get an article. I.e. a character who appeared once on a TV show 20 years ago will probably never get an article as they are not notable enough, but they might have an entry in a article about characters from that show. Is it a problem to change a link to that section specifically?
• If a product is released under one name in most of the world, shouldn't it be OK to write that as the name? I.e. NES/Famicom. Famicom is the Japanese name of the system, but they are still the same system. Doesn't it make sense to change the links to NES? It's especially ridiculous when some articles say a game was released on the NES and Famicom (implying they are different).

Maybe others, but these are off the top of my head. TJ Spyke 15:32, 22 April 2013 (UTC)