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==Welcomes== |
==Welcomes== |
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Hi Rich. Hope you've been well. Question. I recently ran into an editor who thought is quite rude that a vandal had been warned a number of times, and yet nobody had been kind enough to welcome him. If there is indeed anything to that view (I'm unsure), why don't we simply have a bot welcome everyone? It seems a waste of time for editors to do it. And if its a necessary step to get some editors to agree that blocks, etc. are appropriate, it seems like perfect bot work. Thoughts? And happy holidays.--[[User:Epeefleche|Epeefleche]] ([[User talk:Epeefleche|talk]]) 02:43, 16 December 2009 (UTC) |
Hi Rich. Hope you've been well. Question. I recently ran into an editor who thought is quite rude that a vandal had been warned a number of times, and yet nobody had been kind enough to welcome him. If there is indeed anything to that view (I'm unsure), why don't we simply have a bot welcome everyone? It seems a waste of time for editors to do it. And if its a necessary step to get some editors to agree that blocks, etc. are appropriate, it seems like perfect bot work. Thoughts? And happy holidays.--[[User:Epeefleche|Epeefleche]] ([[User talk:Epeefleche|talk]]) 02:43, 16 December 2009 (UTC) |
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== Links other than in articles == |
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I have noticed there are links to dates from various quarters of WP which may or may not have been considered for delinking as follows, for example: |
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*[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AWhatLinksHere&limit=5000&target=December+7&namespace=10 Templates] |
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*[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AWhatLinksHere&limit=5000&target=December+7&namespace=14 Categories] ([http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor&diff=331799397&oldid=328071723 e.g. Category:Attack on Pearl Harbor], which I delinked yesterday) |
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*[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AWhatLinksHere&limit=5000&target=December+7&namespace=6 Files] |
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*[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AWhatLinksHere&limit=5000&target=December+7&namespace=100 Portals] |
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Would you look into these, please? [[User:Ohconfucius|<span style="text-shadow:cyan 0.3em 0.3em 0.1em; class=texhtml">Ohconfucius</span>]] [[User talk:Ohconfucius|<sup>¡digame!</sup>]] 02:58, 16 December 2009 (UTC) |
Revision as of 02:59, 16 December 2009
Note: I will generally answer on your talk page (and usually copy here), and look for your responses here. If you see my answer here and it's not on your talk page, I'm either not happy with it (haven't finished writing it), or I forgot to copy it over. However I can't (borked watchlist among other reasons) watch your talk page (sorry), so reply here. R.F.
hi Richard, i have an editing questioned on the page for Engelbert, 8th Duke of Arenberg , an so called editor, yopie is going around round pages on Wikipedia removing links without due process of discussion, in most cases he has not written or contributed to the articles in question but seems to be policing the links on these pages can he do this, and is this right, and i have not contributed my myself concerning these links or articles they have been put there by the contributors in question, please would you reply to this as i find it quite amazing that certain editors seem to have the powers to overwrite anyone a bit of a dictatorship rather than a democracy, regards henry mcdowall. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.128.17 (talk) 14:17, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
FAQ
Please feel free to read my FAQ. R.F.
Full ArQuive
Alternatively browse my Talk Archive Index. R.F.
DMC - repeated request
Now that the new dating system of the various categories for discussion templates has been working fine for over a week, perhaps you would now agree to make the switch to DMC?
I have the templates ready for copy&paste on Template:Cfx/sandbox. I made a few very minor changes, as you can see in great detail in the history. (I mention it to you, so there should be no surprises). Debresser (talk) 16:53, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
- Also, after doing some further work, I'd like to ask you to delete Template:Consider listifying and the related redirect page Template:Consider Listifying, that is an unneeded, unused an never finished copy of Template:Listify. Debresser (talk) 17:51, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
- I made {{Cfc}} and {{Cfl}} and documentation, based on Cfr. You can find them in Template:Cfx/sandbox as well, and I tested them on Category:Jewish Americans to great satisfaction. Debresser (talk) 18:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
- That was a piece of cake: just replacing them in one template. Can you delete them, and their documentation and {{Cfc nomination}}, {{Cfl nomination}}, and {{Cfm nomination}} (and their capitalised redirects) that are used only by them? Why they were created in such a two-step way and not like I just did along the lines of Cfr, is one thing that completely eludes me. Anyway, they are not in use, nor have they ever been, see the WP:CFD instructions for nomination. Debresser (talk) 20:23, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Is that a yes, a no, a later, or a I want to have a look a them a few days before I do such a thing? Debresser (talk) 00:38, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- I haven't really been able to give it my attention yet. Rich Farmbrough, 08:30, 10 December 2009 (UTC).
- bump. Rich Farmbrough, 20:20, 12 December 2009 (UTC).
- I hope the bumps don't hurt. Debresser (talk) 13:27, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
{{inuse}}
tag
Does you respect the {{inuse}}
tag? I've never come a cropper because of it, but if it were easy it would seem to make sense for you not to make any changes to an article if it is marked inuse. As far as I have seen, this template does tend to be used for its intended purpose i.e. to warn other editors that lots of changes are likely to be made very soon, so their own edits may well conflict. I haven't seen this tag abused at all, no doubt your owner Rich Farmbrough has, but on the whole I think it would make sence for you to hold off while inuse. I'll check that template now for "what links here" to see if there are gross cases of abuse.
{{underconstruction}}
I think should not get the same special treatment.
Best wishes as always
S.
- Yeah, as of writing Category:Pages actively undergoing a major edit, which
{{inuse}}
puts articles into, has 17 members. So it seems it is not abused much. I'll check them in case one has been left by someone nodding, but on the whole I think it is safe to say inuse is not abused. Si Trew (talk) 05:12, 12 December 2009 (UTC) - I have seen {{Inuse}} left on pages, but obviously removed it, and I suspect everyone else does the same. AWB advises in manual mode to skip inuse pages, (This page has the "Inuse" tag, consider skipping it). Smackbot's main run has the checkbox "page is in use" ticked. I suspect the others do but I'm not gonna check them all right now. Actually SmackBot currently skips all pages, as putting a set of footnote superscripts in numerical order is a blockable offence. Rich Farmbrough, 05:26, 12 December 2009 (UTC).
- Well I changed a couple to
{{under construction}}
as they have been edited reasonably recently but are not inuse by the criteria on its doc page. I don't understand the relevance about footnotes, cos inuse is usually used at the top of the article, or section. I also don't understand what you mean about putting footnotes in numerical order being a blockable offence – I persobnally try, with multiple references, to have them run in numerical order, i.e. quote at first use. I doubt you mean that is blockable, so what do you mean?
- Well I changed a couple to
- Best wishes Si Trew (talk) 05:34, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
- User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough#SmackBot_.26_Refs Rich Farmbrough, 05:54, 12 December 2009 (UTC).
- Best wishes Si Trew (talk) 05:34, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
- Way to go, Rich. Tell me at my talk page "your battle is now the only article using
{{inuse}}
". Don't give me a clue which battle, would you: Yes it is a slip but are you being deliberately unhelpful because it sounds like it. And because you reply on other users' pages, not your own, nobody else can follow the conversation.
- Way to go, Rich. Tell me at my talk page "your battle is now the only article using
- Do you do it on purpose? Are you deliberately on a wind-up? Today I put documentation into {{tlx|ksh ref]] which I didn't make, but whoever did could not be bothered to document it. I also categorised it. I put See Also for
{{ksh 2008}}
and{{Infobox Hungarian settlement}}
, and crosslinked the others from there. I edited the two articles (Telekes and Sülysáp) that used KSH2008 so that they don't, and put them to Infobox Hungarian settlement. This afternoon Moo and I stuck in a good proportion of one of the battles, which is why it was legitimately marked as inuse. I also tidied up or created the doc at{{inuse}}
,{{underconstruction}}
, and{{newpage}}
. I've also moved work to commons, asked at PNT for a German translation I am not too happy about, and am putting together a new map in SVG format. In short, I have not been idle.
- Do you do it on purpose? Are you deliberately on a wind-up? Today I put documentation into {{tlx|ksh ref]] which I didn't make, but whoever did could not be bothered to document it. I also categorised it. I put See Also for
- I was just about to ask for speedy deletion of KSH2008 under A7 ot G6 when I read your message. There was good reason it was marked as inuse, because it was inuse. I think I changed it to underconstruction, but if I slipped, I will correct that.
No it is perfectly fine that that article was in-use. I was just pointing out that when I reviewed the use of in-use, the only good use was that one. The others were all labelled in-use when we looked yesterday adn only one had been edited since. Maybe we could make inuse smarter, so that a few hours after editing it replaces itself with under construction and after a few days deletes itself altogether. No maybe not.... Rich Farmbrough, 20:31, 12 December 2009 (UTC).
- Phew, thanks for that. I think I may still have inuse on one of them by mistake, cos we won't translate it for a few more hours yet, it will be at Káplona if anywhere so I will check to be sure.
- User:Monkap told me earlier that a lot of the coats of arms for places are now coming into commons and it looks like they are being uploaded en masse, e.g. at Abony and Nagykáta. Some articles I already used image_shield, which both
{{Infobox settlement}}
and{{Infobox Hungarian settlement}}
support. Some redlinks that I had put in are now blue links, grabbing the file from commons. The field in Hungarian WP is címer, in English it is image_shield. The uploader seems to have his wits about him, the form of the filename is "HUN placename COA.jpg". These were marked as not PD before, but on Commons they are marked very specifically with the laws saying they are public domain if they are Hungarian govt. properrty. I think this might be a nice job for your bot, it would be good to get these in if we could. I am not quite sure how far it has got now, as it happens I edited a Hungarian place starting with Z, but by sod's law it didn't have that stuff in it anyway.
- User:Monkap told me earlier that a lot of the coats of arms for places are now coming into commons and it looks like they are being uploaded en masse, e.g. at Abony and Nagykáta. Some articles I already used image_shield, which both
footnote ordering
In this edit the order of two footnotes were transposed. While this puts them in numeric sequence, it puts them in the wrong order to support the information in the paragraph. So why make the edit? -- PBS (talk) 08:14, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
- Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 17:45, 12 December 2009 (UTC).
Request on hold
Could you consider popping over here to respond to the request. Cheers, NJA (t/c) 11:05, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
- Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 17:45, 12 December 2009 (UTC).
I am looking for more help at the dermatology task force, particularly with our new Bolognia push 2009!? Perhaps you would you be able to help us? I could send you the login information for the Bolognia push if you are interested? ---kilbad (talk) 14:24, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
- Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 17:45, 12 December 2009 (UTC).
- Ok, I e-mailed you the login information. You can also find more information on how we are using that source at WP:DERM:MA. Thanks again for your help. ---kilbad (talk) 00:05, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Opinion requested
What do you think Rich? WT:Blocking IP addresses#Updates required? OrangeDog (τ • ε) 20:11, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
- Well the three hour block caused no reported problems. We need to determine clear the way to having these permanently soft-blocked. We should also check that the Cluebot address needs protection. Having said that these addresses are sensitive to hardblocks. Rich Farmbrough, 20:16, 12 December 2009 (UTC).
- And having them permanently soft blocked would safeguard against that. Rich Farmbrough, 20:18, 12 December 2009 (UTC).
Revision history of Maureen Cleave - FACTUAL ERROR, NO SOURCES FOR ANYTHING
I write on behalf of the subject of this entry and am struggling to make contact with anybody at Wikipedia but have neither the expertise nor time to read the endless geeky pages on how to do so. It seems obvious that the people who run Wikipedia do not want to be reached. So please don't take this personally - you simply happen to be the topmost name in the history file for the entry on Maureen Cleave.
Ever since this entry was created in 2006, as far as I can see, the opening paragraph has contained a fundamental inaccuracy which makes all the rest questionable. No source has been given for ANY of the info presented in this item either then or now. In the meantime a fake MySpace page has been created citing a version of the Wikipedia entry which includes a defamatory statement which is the subject of a complaint to MySpace.
Why don't you delete this entry, rather than publishing pure hearsay, which at some stage will leave Wikipedia open to the UK libel laws, if not already? I cannot understand how to trawl the entire history of this item, so appeal to your better judgment. Thanks. 12 Dec 2009. "217.155.200.241 (talk) 21:06, 12 December 2009 (UTC)"
- Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 21:20, 12 December 2009 (UTC).
Potential falsehoods by SmackBot
(copied from User talk:SmackBot/archive3) One of the tasks of SmackBot is to introduce {{start date}} and {{end date}} into infoboxes where they do not currently exist. These emit microformats, which are required to be in the ISO 8601 format and Gregorian calendar. How does the bot insure that the input dates are Gregorian dates in order to prevent falsely claiming the output dates are Gregorian, when in fact they might be in some other calendar? --Jc3s5h (talk) 22:13, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- A related task is introducing the {{birth date}} template into infoboxes. A falsehood was generated here where the microformat falsely proclaims that Alexander III of Scotland was born 4 September 1241 in the Gregorian calendar. I will correct this error momentarily. I would like to know how I can be sure SmackBot will not revisit the article and reintroduce the error. --Jc3s5h (talk) 23:19, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
(Reply copied from Editing User talk:Jc3s5h)
There is no way to ensure that the dates are Gregorian. However ISO 8601 does not apply to non-Gregorian dates. Rich Farmbrough, 23:51, 12 December 2009 (UTC).
- First, the {{Birth date}} and related templates claim to use the ISO 8601 format, so while Wikipedia in general is not governed by that spec, {{Birth date}} et al. are.
- Second, if a bot can't figure out how to do something right, it should do nothing. I suggest the bot not process any date before 1 March 1923, the date Greece changed from Julian to Gregorian. While a few other countries adopted the Gregorian calendar later, I strongly suspect they changed from a non-Western calendar. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:46, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
- Really you are going at this the wrong way around. If the wrong or unqualified date is given on n articles, is is no good to simply supress the emissions of hcard data on m articles. The solution is to correct the content, not hammer the presentation. Rich Farmbrough, 00:55, 13 December 2009 (UTC).
- You fail to see that the rules for writing a date in the typical American or Engish formats, such as "Alexander III of Scotland was born 4 September 1241" are different from the rules for writing a date within {{Birth date}} because, by convention, the reader is responsible for figuring out the calendar used for dates in typical American or English formats from context, while {{Birth date}} is specified to always use the Gregorian calendar. When the bot changes from typical format to the template, it potentially tells a lie. --Jc3s5h (talk) 01:45, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
- I am willing to do what I can to improve the article and correct articles that already have incorrect templates. See Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Help with custom module. --Jc3s5h (talk) 16:02, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
List of United States Presidents by military rank
The WP:AWB did a horrible job on the article when it attempted to remove links in headings on List of United States Presidents by military rank seen in the diff. Has been reverted, looks like this one needs to be done manually. — MrDolomite • Talk 06:59, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
- Yes I would say you are right. Rich Farmbrough, 07:01, 13 December 2009 (UTC).
Englebert
hi Richard, i have an editing questioned on the page for Engelbert, 8th Duke of Arenberg , an so called editor, yopie is going around round pages on Wikipedia removing links without due process of discussion, in most cases he has not written or contributed to the articles in question but seems to be policing the links on these pages can he do this, and is this right, and i have not contributed my myself concerning these links or articles they have been put there by the contributors in question, please would you reply to this as i find it quite amazing that certain editors seem to have the powers to overwrite anyone a bit of a dictatorship rather than a democracy, regards henry mcdowall. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.128.17 (talk) 14:16, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
- There is no "due process", comment left on User talk:Yopie's page, because of questions on what they are being replaced by. Rich Farmbrough, 22:42, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
Unreferenced BLP bot
Hey there I wanted your input on a bot that you requested (and i scripted) see discussion here Tim1357 (talk) 17:57, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Rich, following up to comments here, it was said that you were working on the category to reduce the amount. Out of curiosity, how in particular are you doing that? (It's kind of hard to see someone editing articles OUT of a category). Are you just having a bot follow Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Erik9bot_9 criteria? Wouldn't it be better to wait until the CFD is finished (I know I'm going to lose on the deletion question)? I've started a discussion at Category_talk:Articles_lacking_sources#Bot-created_category since that clearly is the best place to get the people most familiar on it. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:39, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 22:43, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
- Thanks. Just curious really and wanted to make sure it doesn't just continue ambiguously. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:37, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
Language and computer challenged plus..
(This might sound silly, and of minor importance, but I'll give it a try)...
- In edting biographical articles with a substantial number of other language Wikipedias listed on the side panel, many of us don't know what some of those language names are! When they see "Cesky", "Dansk", and in particular, language names in characters that aren't in the English alphabet, it isn't obvious what language it is. After editing for awhile now, I myself don't know what they all mean. I'd assume clicking on it would tell me, but you know, that's not the purpose of that. I think the ramifications are significant when looking perhaps to either cross-edit linguistically, (My first language is Brazilian Portuguese) OR to find the right editor to assist you. An example might be Japanese characters (what kind, for example?).. OK --- my point is, is it possible technologically speaking, to list the names of other language Wikipedias as they are, but perhaps set it up so that by passing a mouse over the name, we can see the language name on that famous left hand panel in English? It IS the English Wikipedia. Or maybe I'm wasting your time with this, but it would spare a lot of looking around and a lot of messages asking what's what. Like, "Bom Dia, en el Wikipedia se llama "Cesky"... era uma problema.." Do you see what I mean? Can anything be changed easily?
- I noticed a bot running which I'm pretty sure is yours (?) in the history of some of the articles, de-wikilinking dates of birth. Should I take this to mean all dates of birth at the introduction of each biographical article should not have wikilinks around them? Sad that I have to ask this, since nobody taught me how to edit here, and I see this in nearly every article's biography of musicians, which is the area where I work. However, if it's not WP policy to put those links around dates of birth outside the infoboxes, then I'll begin removing them. Sorry to leave all this here; I'm just a computer-challenged Wikignome with little editor contact and lots of questions. Thanks.--Leahtwosaints (talk) 10:12, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 23:30, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
- Thanks for clearing that up. For myself, I upload a lot of photos, and am often curious as to how other articles in different languages have come about photographs that are difficult to find, and after checking out a few, want to communicate with other editors about what I've found, and often don't know what language (usually the Slavic or Asian ones) to tell them the photo might be, or whatnot. This only applies to those uploaded only to a Wikipedia, not to Wikimedia Commons, obviously, but yeah, I think the mouse over thing would be nice.--Leahtwosaints (talk) 10:02, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Log of references runs
Could you explain this edit? When SmackBot is blocked, it is inappropriate for you to be running its tasks under your main account. The solution is to fix the bot. Please do not run any additional SmackBot tasks under your main account. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:27, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- He is manually helping me keeping an error category clean. No controversial edits should be involved. Why throw out the child with the badwater? Debresser (talk) 13:33, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- Those edits were not the ones for the error category; they were for edits such as [1] with edit summary "Add references section and/or general fixes. using Project:AWB", which correspond to the same bot task as SmackBot edits such as [2]. The issue is that the bot is blocked because it is broken, and the code needs to be fixed rather than just being run as-is on a different account. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:41, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes the error category can be found by doing a "what links here" from the log page. Rich Farmbrough, 14:46, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
The bot is not broken in respect of ordering references. There is no one that has actually said the bot reordering a reference was wrong, although a number have raised it all have either been satisfied once they knew it was not arbitrary or at worst said "someone might conceivably ... ". The other issue may have had more merit, but that is now resolved. Interestingly one of the reasons that issue was claimed to be important is that it stopped reference numbers from being strictly increasing - apparently this would cause academics to be unable to read the articles. This is a minor fix, like closing [] or {}, and is pretty uncontentious. Rich Farmbrough, 15:03, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
- Nothing has changed since last time: the bot should not be changing references to named references nor rearranging references. However, the bot has now been blocked two times since you originally agreed to fix it [3], based on complaints from two different users [4], [5]. After the first block, you said the problem was an "old version" running [6]. In the spirit of trust but verify, since the problem has occurred again, would you add a "version" to the edit summary the bot uses, so that it is clear whether the latest version is being used? Compare Special:Contributions/WP 1.0 bot.
- Also, as I pointed out before, I do not believe that SmackBot has an approval to remove stub tags from articles. That feature also needs to be disabled in the bot.
- Let me know when these things are accomplished, and I will unblock the bot ASAP. In the meantime, it would not be appropriate to run any of the bot's regular tasks on your main account. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:18, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- As I say technically it is not authorised to correct mismatched brackets. Why make life difficult? Rich Farmbrough, 15:21, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
- I agree: your bot does many unauthorized things. For things such as unmatched brackets, I don't worry about it. But for the references, I do. The simplest solution, and the easiest one with respect to the bot policy, would be to simply disable all unapproved tasks. But I am not worried about unmatched braces and I have not complained about them. There are solid reasons why a bot should not be changing and rearranging references, and why a bot should not be removing stub tags automatically. This is very different than the situation with unmatched braces. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:25, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- As I say technically it is not authorised to correct mismatched brackets. Why make life difficult? Rich Farmbrough, 15:21, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
Please note: if you do not stop the current AWB "add references section" run within 10 minutes, I will block this account from editing as well. I have already pointed out that running SmackBot jobs on this account, in order to avoid resolving the block of SmackBot, is inappropriate. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:27, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- Adding a references section is not what was considered problematic with SmackBot. That was naming references. Which was also unreasonable, if you ask me, but that is another matter. I fail to see the problem with adding a references section to articles that don't have one, practically as well as principally. Debresser (talk) 18:15, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- Agreed. However, once the bot is blocked, it needs to be fixed before the tasks are resumed. In this case, it would be very simple for Rich F. to fix the bot, by simply commenting out the problematic features. I do not understand his reluctance to do so, but I am ready to unblock ASAP once things are fixed, so the bot can get back to work. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:23, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
On a different SmackBot issue, I notice that Rich has not agreed to fix SmackBot so that it no longer marks up plain dates within infoboxes with the {{birth date}} family of templates. These templates require Gregorian dates, and the bot is incapable of deciding if the input date is or is not in the Gregorian calendar. I give notice that I will regard any further such changes as a knowingly reckless error, and will take whatever measures the Wikipedia community allows to stop SmackBot if this ever happens again.
A fix I would consider acceptable would be to not mark up any date with the {{birth date}} family of templates if the year is greater less than 1923 (the year Greece switched from Julian to Gregorian). --Jc3s5h (talk) 18:40, 14 December 2009 (UTC) revised 20:02 UT.
- He means, of course, less than. Rich Farmbrough, 19:15, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
- Now this is a case in point. This same user objected to moving stuff from xxxx-xx-xx to spelled out words on the basis that we did not know that the xxxx-xx-xx date was necessarily Georgian/Julian and is now saying that the uncertainty is acceptable in spelled out text , but not in xxxx-xx-xx format. This suggests the user is looking for problems. In the same way CBM is saying that editorial freedom is being taken away by re-arranging a set of simultaneous cites, yet with many hundreds of such re-arrangements not one has proved to be a problem. Yes it is possible that one day someone will have a convincing case where out-of-order superscripts are desirable. And it is possible that soemeone will have a case where http://http:// is actually wanted. But SB has left the latter almost certain error in an article to avoid changing the former also almost certain error. So far this affects a relatively small number of articles, partly because I put myself out and did separate runs for articles with and without refs, and partly because the grooming effect of AWB means that maybe 90% of those articles needed no fixes and a goodly percentage of the remainder only minor fixes.
- Why make WP worse for the sake of being right? Rich Farmbrough, 19:28, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
- I am unhappy with your attitude that bots should be used in situations where their edits may be wrong. If it ever comes to my attention that SmackBot has wrapped a Julian date with a member of the {{Birth date}} templates, (or has wrapped a Julian date with a member of the family of templates and failed to provide both kinds of dates within the template) you will be hearing from me in a wider forum. --Jc3s5h (talk) 20:07, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- Humans are used in the same way only more widely. I think you need to on the one hand qualify the use of the phrase "may be", and look at the context, and on the other understand a little more about the word "wrong". I have previously given the hypothetical example of of a bot that reverted 10 edits a day of which 9 were correct, and one was actionable libel. In this case the bot would be right to be wrong, even in the majority of cases. Conversely a bot that "corrected" the spelling of "flouride" and changed the person's name would be wrong to be right, even though that was only one mis-spelling created for 999 corrected. The entropy is such that the mis-spelling the persons name removes an amount of information exceeding the correction. Even if it were not so, the very real risk exists that the process will be run again this time correcting maybe 3 mispellings and creating one (assuming the correction of the correction has taken place) - the raw ratio less favourable, the information theoretic one becoming disastrous. Moreover the repeated change would fuel botophobia. That dispenses withthe philospohy.
- In the case of the microformats the approach needs to be a little more wide ranging:
- The methodology needs to be investigated to evaluate the possibility of building the microformat into the base templates rather than wrapper templates. This is one of the key reasons I have been holding off on this task.
- We need to publish a specification of the microformat we are using that specifically states what information is being presented and what the caveats are. For example we use co-ordinates from the American Government's database. We know these are inaccurate, and because of the conversion of units can present an impression of accuracy. Therefore they are "falsehoods". We are also an open source project, therefore there is no guarantee that any information is correct (even if we weren't there wouldn't be). We do not need to bind ourselves to hCard if we choose not to.
- The nature of the emitted data and the filtering of the data should be properly engineered and specified, to the extent that it is important.
- If necessary a task force should be set up to check every date on wikipedia and make sure it is clear what calender it is in.
- I am unhappy with your attitude that bots should be used in situations where their edits may be wrong. If it ever comes to my attention that SmackBot has wrapped a Julian date with a member of the {{Birth date}} templates, (or has wrapped a Julian date with a member of the family of templates and failed to provide both kinds of dates within the template) you will be hearing from me in a wider forum. --Jc3s5h (talk) 20:07, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- Apropos of ordering references. The problem is that there is no problem. A few people have commented that there could potentially be a problem. In hundreds, probably thousands, of re-arrangements to correct numerical order there have been a handful of enquiries, and three people have pointed out that it is conceivable that just possibly one day, it might happen in the fullness of time, given the right circumstances that this change might be a problem. For this I am supposed to either leave articles broken, in that and many other ways, go and bother the developers to remove a perfectly good fix, or familiarise myself with the code, acquire a C# compiler and maintain a fork of the source that behaves differently, gives different stack dumps/traces etc....
- What I have done in the past when there has been a real rather than imagined problem is simply turn off GFs and log a bug, or run GF's and scan for the problem if it is amenable. Neither solution is perfect, for a number of reasons, but I certainly don't think that logging a bug for a perfectly fine piece of code would go down very well.
- Rich Farmbrough, 20:49, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
Yes it is possible that one day someone will have a convincing case where out-of-order superscripts are desirable.
The reason what you call 'out-of-order superscripts' are sometimes desirable is that the first citation is the main/best source for the information, whilst the other citations are supplementary or provide other alternative/contradictory sources. Unfortunately your bot destroys the information provided by this ordering.--Toddy1 (talk) 20:56, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- Yes I clearly understand that. I could challenge whether it's a good way to provide information, even more strongly whether, say 2 articles using such a convention (and also happening to use a repeated ref) in a sea of a few thousand where the numbers are essentially random, in an ocean of over a million articles where they are monotone increasing, is a good method of signalling. However I would prefer to actually find a circumstance where there is a problem, then we can look for a solution. Rich Farmbrough, 21:07, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
- Your summary of what ought to be looked into with respect to birth and death dates is reasonable, with the understanding that the microformats currently in use are published by external organizations and it is not within the power of Wikipedia editors do redefine them. An item you didn't explicitly mention is that widespread changes by bots can lead people to incorrectly believe something is right just because the bot made it pervasive. One important item is not mentioned. There should be an evaluation of whether providing the microformats actually adds any noticeable value to Wikipedia, or at least that there is a good prospect that it will become valuable within the next several years. Indeed, if we don't know what people are usually using them for, we can't evaluate how accurate they need to be. I take no position on the value added by microformats in the context of birth and death dates. --Jc3s5h (talk) 21:55, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
There is no need to "log a bug." Simply change the code that you actually run, just as you would change any other piece of general software to fit a specific need. As someone who runs several bots, I can't accept the argument that it is too hard for a bot operator to edit the source code of their own bot. On the other hand, since the bot is approved to do specific tasks, while GFs are just an add-on, if you would prefer to turn off GFs instead of recompiling, that's up to you. But just commenting out these particular features seems like a better choice to me. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:15, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- In continuation of where I left this conversation, and in reply to CBM. I was under the impression that this bot runs its tasks separately. That is, it will not make a certain type of fix when it is busy with another type of fix. Rich, is this so? If so, why shouldn't Rich be allowed to use the bot, or at least his personal account, for doing any non-controversal fixes? Surely we can rely on him to refrain from doing controversial tasks till he fixed those parts of the code, if consensus wills that. Debresser (talk) 22:50, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- Yes you are right in a sense. That is each edit is done with the purpose of making a specific change, and 99.9% of them will make that change. However it has been customary to have general fixes turned on, and since some of SmackBot's tasks have been retrofitted as core AWB fixes (for example dating the main form of the top 8 or so maintenance templates) it can well be doing stuff that would come under other tasks. The fix that CBM is complaining about is a general fix however. Rich Farmbrough, 23:41, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
- You have cut directly to the heart of the problem. The bot does not do things separately. If it ran each task individually without doing anything but the task itself, this entire issue would not exist. However, as things are the bot sometimes edits articles with an edit summary for a particular task even when that task is not applicable to the article edited. I understand why this is, and I don't care about it as long as the extra tasks are uncontroversial. But, for example, here is a diff that is supposed to be for removing capitals from section headers, but which also includes reference rewriting (not reordering, but actually replacing a reference with a named reference). — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:04, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
The whole point of GFs is to get the maximum value from the edits. Debresser is right in the sense that the bot makes an edit with a purpose in mind and will not in general perform its other tasks, however it does, and pretty much always has performed GFs, which, due to the fact that AWB and SmackBot have grown up together , includes a lot of SB's functionality, for example dating Cite needed tags. This is a good thing since it cuts the number of edits, server load, network traffic, database size etc. However the pull between multifunction edits and many small edits has been obvious since day 1, SB's approach is clearly laid out on it's user page "Note, when Smackbot is using AWB, some of the general fixes options will usually be turned on, to get the most value from the edits. Hence most edit summaries say "and/or general fixes". Again usually, the motivating change will be made or none at all." Rich Farmbrough, 23:37, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
- So are you admitting that your bot does a mix of things that are approved and things are that not approved together? Second, are you willing to separate the tasks? The last bot operator I remember who played the "I cannot separate things so let me keeping doing what I can because it's so valuable" didn't work so well. I think the best thing to do is have SmackBot do everything but the conduct that's being disputed. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:46, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
- Actually I have started a conversation on getting a split of approved and non-approved GF's at WP:AWB. I simply don't think that maintaining my own version of AWB is the way to go, even if I had the C# experience and the desire and time. It also happens that I find the particular change in question a strange sticking point. Anyway with a little luck that is behind us now. Rich Farmbrough, 03:53, 15 December 2009 (UTC).
- So are you admitting that your bot does a mix of things that are approved and things are that not approved together? Second, are you willing to separate the tasks? The last bot operator I remember who played the "I cannot separate things so let me keeping doing what I can because it's so valuable" didn't work so well. I think the best thing to do is have SmackBot do everything but the conduct that's being disputed. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:46, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Actions have been thoroughly reviewed
Yes, Tedder again. You closed the ANI discussion with Actions have been thoroughly reviewed. This is incorrect: Tedder's protect has been thoroughly reviewed; no admin has commented on the propiety of breaking 3RR or or revert-before-protect. This is merely a note to you to indicate that I disagree with the wording of your close; I don't expect any action from you William M. Connolley (talk) 09:13, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters
I fixed 15 userpages in Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters. All of them had deprecated parameters inside the {{Cite video}} template as their only problem. It would make sense to try that on the remaining ones, if your bot is up to that. Debresser (talk) 11:26, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Welcomes
Hi Rich. Hope you've been well. Question. I recently ran into an editor who thought is quite rude that a vandal had been warned a number of times, and yet nobody had been kind enough to welcome him. If there is indeed anything to that view (I'm unsure), why don't we simply have a bot welcome everyone? It seems a waste of time for editors to do it. And if its a necessary step to get some editors to agree that blocks, etc. are appropriate, it seems like perfect bot work. Thoughts? And happy holidays.--Epeefleche (talk) 02:43, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
Links other than in articles
I have noticed there are links to dates from various quarters of WP which may or may not have been considered for delinking as follows, for example:
- Templates
- Categories (e.g. Category:Attack on Pearl Harbor, which I delinked yesterday)
- Files
- Portals
Would you look into these, please? Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:58, 16 December 2009 (UTC)