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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by DuncanCrary (talk | contribs) at 20:49, 9 February 2011 (→SmackBot - New Citations for Peter Allen Golden entry: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


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About bots and categories - clarify request

Conversation - actions required.

I brought this up at wp:ani but it's not that relevant. (Fine details of sort are important, but not my main point, I think we can live with any alphabetical ordering - especially when cat contents tend to group similar items anyway..). The issue is that your bot (and others?) appears to be acting only on recent or new pages (based on experience). It would be reassuring to know that this bot or another bot is applying the changes systematically starting at Aardvark and working up to Xylophone..

Does the bot do that ?, and if not can there be one please (I think I explained why at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Minor_technical_question). Just mark this section "done" if the issue is definitely already addressed, and a solution exists and has been implemented. Thanks.Sf5xeplus (talk) 16:21, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well - yes and no. I have a BRFA for diacritics in biographies, and I have done all those pages. I did have a plan to do exactly what you suggest - and not just for diacritics - and for the excellent reason that starting at Aardvark means not breaking any ordering as you go through (if I remember correctly) but there was one extremely vociferous critic that sapped the energy out of the whole thing - believe it or not you can't change a space on WP without someone objecting - possibly me! However: what would be possible, if a little hard, would be to do it on a category by category basis: automatically identifying categories where an "out of order" (lets call it an O3) occurs and correcting all members. And of course setting default sorts for pages with diacritics only would also probably be acceptable. Rich Farmbrough, 16:39, 1 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
ok thanks. I'll be back (or get Yobot to fix it) if a similar problem occurs; now I've mentioned the probably of that becomes infinitely unlikely. Problem not resolved, but probably solved.
As for systematic bot A to Z diacritic work - maybe wait a bit and suggest again. I can supply +1 !vote.Sf5xeplus (talk) 17:00, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Italic titles

Conversation - actions required.

Back in July you were a model of efficiency using AWB to strip out {{Italic title}}. Just curious - not to seem demanding, I hope - would your technical abilities and/or old-school industry be sufficient to the job of restoring those templates where removed, in the wake of this discussion? Wareh (talk) 01:59, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Was it as recently as July? And I can't remember being very thorough about it although I try.
Not to restore, specifically (although it wouldn't be that hard), but to install for, for example, all ships, novels or whatever the consensus is.
Incidentally it would have been good to have been involved in the discussion - you may have missed that I was replacing or proposing, at one point (maybe back in 2009), more specific templates - I forget the names but effectively {{Novel title}} or similar. This allows policy to flip-flop without having to edit a zillion articles. I was also installing "Italic title" (I proposed a specific name for that I think) on taxon pages, the temptation of projects to build the formatting into infoboxes is very large - I see the ships are going down that channel? - but misguided because 1. not all articles will have the infobox 2. it then becomes very difficult to use the infobox without italics 3. it is not clear from the page source how an "effect" is achieved - newbarrier. Rich Farmbrough, 07:27, 3 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Topic specific templates also allow automatic processing of standard exceptions for example "HMS Midgard" instead of "HMS Midgard" if that is needed. Rich Farmbrough, 07:52, 3 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
The connection to you only just occurred to me as I manually changed a couple of articles on books whose italic titles you had removed. I'm sorry if this news of the discussions was not timely (and I did in fact know nothing about your previous template proposals), but I hope even this belated information about the change in policy may be useful in the hands of someone who clearly knows a lot about templates, automatic processes, etc. I take it you are suggesting that {{Italic title}} could perhaps be routinely added according to categories, e.g. Category:Books by date. The problem is that even "books" is too narrow: Category:Works by author and Category:Works by date are really only slightly too broad, but they include a lot of non-"books" (by WP category) whose titles should be italicized in running text. Most everything in Category:Ancient Greek works by author and Category:Philosophical works by author (areas near and dear to me) should be italicized, but I suspect many of them are not categorized as WP "books." So, if more specific templates were to be developed, I'd suggest that {{Novel title}} is way too narrow: even {{Book title}} has coverage issues for the relevant range of works.
You've already lost me with some of the technical issues you raise, but book titles (more or less) are where I'd really love to see automated changes in equal or greater volume to the previous italic-removals. Do you see a good chance of achieving that?
Here's what may be the most practical idea I can come up with. If the article title appears in the lead '''''Like this''''', isn't that the best criterion for applying {{Italic title}} (or DISPLAYTITLE for longer titles that break that template)? This seems to me to apply perfectly the new policy at WP:AT, which is simply, "Use italics when italics would be used in running text."
If you think that's a useful avenue, perhaps you can take it to WP:AT or the appropriate technical forum where such things get implemented? Or I can at your suggestion: but I am very inexperienced on the technical side. Wareh (talk) 15:01, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • No criticism was intended. Yes I miss lots of discussions, and end up "sighing" some of the time - but I really couldn't keep up with them all anyway - this one seems to have come to an acceptable conclusion, although I'm not sure I agree with it, I have always found this issue tricky, and, of course non-critical (unlike invisible capitals in template names <joke />).
  • The ' ' ' ' ' idea is great - cuts to the chase - in would include ' ' too, since that probably means that the bolding was forgotten.
  • It would probably be suitable for a WP:BRFA - I have a bit of a backlog there right now.
Rich Farmbrough, 15:18, 3 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
I'm glad that sounds useful--it really only occurred to me in the course of replying to you here. So does "backlog" mean you think you'll pursue that eventually, or would it make more sense for me to go to somewhere like WP:BOTREQ, and if so, with or without stopping by Wikipedia talk:Article titles first? (The policy at WP:AT is plain enough, but I don't want to step on any toes in initiating action on that scale.) Sorry if this is asking for too much hand-holding, but I'm only slowly learning the ropes of all this behind-the-scenes work. Wareh (talk) 15:47, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No it's fine, I'll get a BRFA in presently. I'm just trying to streamline the way I deal with it - although the average response time of the BAG is long. Rich Farmbrough, 16:06, 3 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
I'll drop you a note when it's there, and you can mention it at other venues to gain input. Rich Farmbrough, 16:07, 3 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Thanks. You are a true Wikipedia public servant! Wareh (talk) 13:57, 4 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Railway

Conversation - actions required.

Hi, did you correct those Burmese infobox errors afterwards? Can you move all of the Gare de... in Category:Railway stations in France categories to ...... railway station. There is consensus to do so at WP:Trains. They should be in english.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:34, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

E.g Gare de Colmar should be Colmar railway station.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:35, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See #Burma .. let me know. Yes that's not hard, when I get back about 5pm I'll get on to it.
category:Paris Métro should not be a sub cat of Paris railway stations as this puts rolling stock into a station category. Rich Farmbrough, 13:03, 6 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Gare Aero d'Montparnasse

OK Gare de, Gare du and Gare d' I take it are fine to move, how about:

? Rich Farmbrough, 13:08, 6 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Mmm I'd go with:

List here. Rich Farmbrough, 17:57, 6 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Hang on a moment - I'm new to this but can't find the consensus for change described above. (Yes I tend to favour the Gare de .. title obviously.)
Don't look at Category:Railway stations in Germany either :) . Lot's of stuff like Mannheim Hauptbahnhof.
Particularly there is an objection to things like Gare d'Avignon TGV are in fairly common use in English, as are others. I'm worried that if you bot this it will make a mess eg consider Gare du Nord.Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:16, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Look on the talk page - specifically Manheim Hauptbahnhof and Gare du Nord are mentioned as exceptions. I don't think even if I was "botting it" I could affect the BBC pages... Or perhaps you mean the content of pages? There is no intent to do a search and replace (As far as I know.) Rich Farmbrough, 18:31, 6 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Yes funny - I linked to the BBC to show an example of common usage.Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:38, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd also suggest (can that be demand) that the ones moved be moved back. This Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Trains#Railway_stations discussion hasn't really established a consensus for such a big change. Also despite being an English word too, I don't feel that 'maritime' is the correct English translation, possibly 'marine' is better, but fundamentally its usage is specific to the name - a literal translation probably won't make much sense. Although not English the French names satisfy Wikipedia:Article_titles#Deciding_an_article_title, especially recognisability. This definitely seems to have been an error in your judgement in honesty.Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:27, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Of course you can Revert (using "undo" - not roll-back if you have that) - then go and Discuss - its part of the BRD cycle, although with a month elapsed form the discussion, it's not that bold. Just drop me a note to let me know which bits if any you revert - or if you wish discuss then revert if necessary. Rich Farmbrough, 19:05, 6 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
I might have but as I'm not objecting to the other changes they exceptions with "Maritime" would seem out of place. There seems to be a few examples in english of the usage that's been proposed/changed ("xxx maritime station"), I'm not sure if "xxx harbour station" or "xxx port station" is better or worse. Must do more research before acting.Sf5xeplus (talk) 19:16, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note Just to make it clear - I've changed my position (on naming) from object to neutral - you can ignore the above.Sf5xeplus (talk) 19:50, 6 October 2010 (UTC) (Thanks for the note: RF.)[reply]

Will try to get back to this today or tomorrow. Rich Farmbrough, 11:52, 8 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

More

Anyway far be it for me to stand in the way of progress - if the station name is simply "gare de xxx" then I don't object to "xxx station" etc. I'm not sure about the ones with "maritime" in.

However you did get the capitalisation wrong, its railway station (lower case) eg King's Cross station. (ok so some USA stations use Railroad Station with caps, but that's for another day). Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:51, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes that is what was suggested, and normally I love WP's "down" style, and regularly take Dr Blofeld out the back and threaten him with his own sharks for using capitals in things like "Splurgle District". However thinking about it for a moment will reveal that it is not that simple. If the name is "Gare d'" then Station is part of the name. Though I argue elsewhere that, for example Kingston University is also Kingston university, so "downing" is a fairly safe operation, where as "upping" is not (Manchester universities <> Manchester Universities for example), in this case I think the cap is justified. I am open to persuasion however, more: if you can get consensus from WP T on either style I will go with that quite happily . I would indeed personally prefer just "Station" or "station", since to my ear "Railway" is the default. Other varieties of English, however, may vary. Rich Farmbrough, 19:01, 6 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Category:Railway stations in Belgium could be an example of precedence - 1/2 of it speaks French of a sort (or maybe that's wrong too). As an additional capitalisation of gare is not always done (except at the beginning of a sentence) eg [1] [2], also http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=+site:www.lemonde.fr+le+monde+gare Le Monde uses lower case if not leading a sentence. eg [3] No idea what the official French ministry of spelling and culture position is on this controversy.Sf5xeplus (talk) 19:13, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's interesting. I am, sadly, an expert in neither Walloon (as I remarked earlier today, funnily enough) or railway stations, although there is a fascination about abandoned underground stations that probably speaks to either a deep character flaw, or to much "Quatermass" as a child. (Hobbs End I think? OR was that the good Doctor?) The place for discussion is is most likely the WikiProject. You can cut and paste this wholesale if you wish. Rich Farmbrough, 19:18, 6 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Or maybe I should take your opinion, my doubts, and the talk page suggestion as consensus for lower case? IDK. I'l think on't. Rich Farmbrough, 19:19, 6 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
I've left a note at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Trains#Capitalisation_of_french_railway_stations and on Blofeld's page too. I can let you know (though I've suggested others post here since I'm fairly certain this is a non-controversial thing already decided). I can let you know. the reason I'm hassling you about this is because I'm under the impression that you have 'thousands' of station articles to name change..? maybe that's not the caseSf5xeplus (talk) 19:34, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. It's about 400 - see the list I mentioned. I was planning on creating redirects to the Gare du Nord articles - an of course anyone could move back specific items. Oh and yes, re: Le Monde, French capitalisation differs from ours for proper nouns (e.g. Académie française) but that's about as far as my knowledge takes me. Rich Farmbrough, 19:49, 6 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

There seemed to be no objection to moving the pages to lower casing e.g Rouen railway station. These really should be moved as Gare means nothing to most non French speakers. I personally prefer the Railway Station capitalised but consensus at WP:Trains seems to be lower casing. "railway" station is necessary as "station could refer to bus station, tram/cable car station or even a scientific research station.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:41, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the notes, will try to get back to this today or tomorrow. Rich Farmbrough, 11:52, 8 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Printworthy

Conversation - actions required.

It occurs to me that any redirect that is categorised (Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects) excluding those which only have categories which are subcats of Category:Wikipedia redirects should always be printworthy redirects (Template:R printworthy)..

Any chance of a bot for that?? Sf5xeplus (talk) 14:05, 9 October 2010 (UTC):[reply]

Yes, but probably better to either ensure Category:Unprintworthy redirects is in the appropriate redirect templates, and the rest would be printworthy by default? Rich Farmbrough, 14:08, 9 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Maybe - in an earlier life I might have created various unprintable redirects (spelling and caps variations) that I haven't got on a watchlist and don't remember.. I haven't done that for years since I learnt better.
Following on with the logic - a bot could "printworthy" all mainspace categorised redirects, and "not-printworthy" all other redirects not already having "printworthy". A few printworthy redirects might get missed but that's a user problem.. The final sauce would be to have a bot to tag "printworthy" any "unprintworthy" redirects if they are subsequently categorised in the 'mainspace'.
That would categorise all redirects, with only minor printworthy omissions - the omissions could be manually caught by categorising with "bot categorised unprintworthy" - giving a much more easily human-checked list of possible bot errors. Once done maintenance should be minimal.. Hope springs eternal.Sf5xeplus (talk) 14:28, 9 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I think there is something to that. I just changed 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection: The Best of Rob Zombie to unprintworthy, it was the second one I looked at - and quite bottable. Rich Farmbrough, 14:51, 9 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

SmackBot duplicate tags feature request

Conversation - actions required.

Sorry if this is not the place to leave this, but this is mostly a feature request I think. In this diff, it would be nice if SmackBot would notice that there are duplicate tags and remove the duplicated tags. Would this be easy to implement? Devourer09 (t·c) 16:25, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how hard it would be, it depends on scope, I suspect that the main difficulty would be dividing the list up into remove and don't remove, dfor example, multiple Expand section, or multiple Citation needed tags are legitimate (but not adjoining). Simpler might be to limit it to tag knots, in which case it would be fairly easy. I'll submit a BRFA. Rich Farmbrough, 16:31, 12 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
BRFA submitted and in trial. Rich Farmbrough, 02:12, 16 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Minor issues

Snoqualmie, Washington

Someone has messed with the Snoqualmie, Washington Page - the "Location" has trash in it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.136.218.242 (talk) 20:50, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

DNB

I've left a comment at WT:WP DNB#Bot_building about the new Magnus Manske tool in the area (Magnus put it together in a couple of hours after the meetup). I've never been exactly sure about the merits of importing text from Wikisource other than in an article: but I think the merits would be improved by a number of possible "added value" steps. One of those would be to take into account the output of this tool, and only import articles for the project to work on which come up as "none found" with that matching tool. I.e. remove or sort according to what the tool finds, which can be (a) no match, (b) very plausible match, (c) inconclusive run with numerous candidates none of which is a great fit, (d) > 50 hits. There is actually a good argument for first doing that sorting into four. The case (d) is one either for human intervention, or for another layer of matching attempt. Case (b) is the sort of stuff I'm going by hand, and invites work expanding stubs and adding the ext lk back. So anyway case (a) is the most fruitful at this point for an import.

And what else? Imported text should be topped-and-tailed in some way to make it more useful (will need a lead section, should finish with reference using {{cite DNB}} and attribution using {{DNB}}, both filled in with wstitle=[name as on WS, no suffix]). There is actually a lot of scope for stripping out parts of the article too: certainly the [references at end in small] sections, and with more intelligence much of the inline refs between parentheses. NB the use of small caps within parentheses for author names, which should be a clue.

Charles Matthews (talk) 13:18, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Risk list bot

Conversation - actions required.

I would love to see the BLP risk list turned into an ongoing bot. We could manage it as an ongoing queue by having the bot keep all the previous hits with context in a local file or DB on the backend.

For example:

After this hit, "riskbot" would keep this in a local file or db, and then would filter it out of subsequent runs, context included. That way if the affair gets added back in with slightly different context, we'd get another warning. It would take all the "new hits" and append them on the bottom of the running queue page. As people check the hits, they'd remove them from the page. It's O(n^2) on the number of hits, but scrubbing one set of lines with another is pretty inexpensive, since it's just simple equality. Let me know what you think. Gigs (talk) 01:13, 30 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's worth doing I think. The time consuming part at the moment is actually accessing all the articles, thought they are mostly small. There's ways to optiminze this away however. Rich Farmbrough, 01:45, 31 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Bibliographies

This is just a personal opinion, mind you. Like I said, I am, rather slowly, assembling bibliographies of the various geographical areas of the earth. As they would deal with things like the local flora, fauna, people, culture, and the like, they could also serve as the basis for things like, for instance, Bibliography of South American military history, which would be a selection of books about the military history of that area drawn from the bibliographies of the main states/regions themselves.

That will not however include such things as the sciences, or philosophy, or the major religions, and certainly not off-world topics like astronomy. They would probably need to be created entirely separately.

My own basic choice would be to maybe have others create bibliographies for the sciences, business, and other topics that don't have clear geographic ties.

I would think the items to be included would best include separate books/works on the topic that have been reviewed by academic journals and other reputable specialist magazines, and/or included in books or articles of bibliography of that topic.

There are obviously questions regarding how long to make these bibliographies, and that's a separate matter entirely. The bibliography of physics, like the bibliography of Christianity, would be potentially endless. For such broad topics, maybe the best way to proceed would be to look at the various extant reference works, like encyclopedias, that deal with the topics, and to start include only those works which are included in the bibliographies of the articles in those encyclopedias. That would be a start, anyway. John Carter (talk) 17:15, 7 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The bibliography of physics should probably include some well known wide ranging texts, Weidner and Sells, Richards, Wier, Zehrs and Zemansky I think are two, the vade meca of various fields, seminal works, and key references (Handbook of Physical Data?) and cross references to detailed, bibliographies of mechanics, relativity, gravitation, string theory, etc... Rich Farmbrough, 12:57, 9 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Ask Fred, and Ed. Rich Farmbrough, 22:26, 19th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).
Conversation - actions required.

Hey Rich,

If you have the time, would you mind doing another search of the dump, as you did at User:Rich Farmbrough/temp14? I've run through that last list. (20 articles which I can't do on my own are all that's left.)

A couple things different this time: no article exclusions (I will simply have AWB ignore anything within templates, unless you can pre-parse those at your end), plus a couple extra characters we missed last time. (If you can search for pure diacritics, that would be even better; otherwise I've noticed some more common combos, such as β̞ i̯ u̯ e̯ o̯, plus another character, ‹ˁ› that is commonly mistaken for IPA ‹ˤ›.)

Thanks, — kwami (talk) 07:13, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, silly me. That worked fine. We missed β̞ last time, though, and if individual diacritics aren't possible, i̯ u̯ e̯ o̯ will probably turn up a good number of hits. — kwami (talk) 06:04, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm doing my own search of the IPA letters (the first block in your search), so never mind about doing them again. However, AWB won't work w ˥ ˦ ˧ ˨ ˩ ꜛ ꜜ, which you included in that block last time. There are also a few new ones you didn't include and AWB wont' cover, if you can add them: ꜞꜝ ↗↘‖˕˔‿ and t͜ . Plus, of course, any diacritics, which AWB search doesn't handle well.
Thanks!! — kwami (talk) 18:54, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note to self

Need to check on enzymes. Rich Farmbrough, 10:39, 18 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Burma

Hi. What's the chances of you being able to use your tools to help with dabbing for Burmese settlements. Check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Burma (Myanmar)/Township templates and User:Dr. Blofeld/Burma#Repeated places names...♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:57, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What I'll do first is draw up all of the templates. Once that is done Abok should be linked inside two different township templates when currently it is just Abok and so. Most of them do not even have dab pages...Once I've drawn up the templates hopefully you will be able to read the what links here and run something... example:Ahlaw. Perhaps you have something which will be able to read the ... Township links and generate dab pages like Ahlaw with Ahlaw Paungbyin and Ahlaw, Tamu linked. Bets thought to wait until I've created all the templates so the links can easily be accessed in the what links here.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:09, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What I envisage is a script which reads .... Township , e.g Ahlaw being linked in the template named Tamu Township and extracts the name and dabs them e.g as Ahlaw, Tamu. It would need to generate pages and also correct the existing links in the templates. Might need BAG approval. I've also proposed it to Plastikspork. Perhaps you could contact him and decide the best way to do it. Meanwhile I'll continue making the templates after I've stubbed some of the few missing township articles for Bago region..♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:30, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Norway

Hi Rich. A while back I began adding infoboxes to Norwegian villages, mostly unreferenced stubs lying around from 2006 which were created by Punkmorten (Geshicte). Given that he won't so much as make the tiniest edit to Norwegian geo articles these days, somebody has to do it.Basically it just adding an infobox with the location info county etc and a pin map like Kjelvik. I was wondering if you could copy the that infobox and use some sort of script to add infoboxes (and copy the coordinates from the bototm of the page into the infoboxes to the rest of the villages by county of the Category:Populated places in Norway. So far I've done Finnmark and Sog. Browse Category:Villages in Akershus for starters for example.. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:57, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What's troubling you Rich? I also need your help with User:Dr. Blofeld/Country year templates.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:42, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Villages, North Cyprus

Hello, I wondered if I could ask you for help? Some time ago someone started a stub for all the villages of North Cyprus. The problem is that they used the Greek names, which are today historical (they have not been used since the war in 1974). Today the Turkish names are used. Hence, as I understand it, according to WP:NAME (see the discussion on Gdańsk vs Danzig) the Turkish names should be used in the articles (Please correct me if I'm wrong).

I have started moving some of the villages of the Kyrenia District -however, it takes for ages for me to do so. I would very much appreciate some help. Thanks, Guestworker (talk) 01:56, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is there evidence that the Turkish names are used in the English speaking world? Rich Farmbrough, 19:21, 30 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Hi, you can look at any guide-book in English of "North Cyprus" or "Northern Cyprus" (Books which are published in the English speaking world) and you will see the the Turkish names are used. Thanks, Guestworker (talk) 06:53, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Wikipedia:Database reports/Unlisted stub types

I like what you did with this report on the stub templates. Can it be updated? Can a similar report be run for the Categories? Finally, could these be automatically set to update, say, once a month? or even once a quarter? Dawynn (talk) 20:30, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's pretty much what I planned, if they are going to be maintained. However it looked like there were other lists doing a similar job that had not been attended to for a significant period of time. Rich Farmbrough, 17:49, 8 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Note there is a report for "Uncategorized Stub types" too [[6]]. Rich Farmbrough, 05:24, 9 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Revive Wildbot?

A few folks would love to see someone revive and/or take over Wildbot. You've been mentioned a couple times: [7] [8] Up for it? --W☯W t/c 20:25, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of townlands of County Cork

I note that you've tried to slim down the above page a bit. I took the matter of size to WikiProject Ireland but they didn't seem particularly interested! As you have been around Wikipedia a fair bit (apparently you've got a few thousands edits under your belt), I wondered if you had any ideas on how to make the article accessible to Joe Bloggs. Would splitting it up into List of townlands of County Cork, A–E etc. be acceptable? What's the point in having a page which 80% of readers won't be able to access? Thanks. —Half Price 20:42, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Splitting by barony would make more sense. Rich Farmbrough, 23:31, 19 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Yes, though significantly more troublesome. OK, thanks. —Half Price 11:23, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Except that I already did it.... Rich Farmbrough, 11:25, 20 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Yes, sorry, it isn't hard at all! —Half Price 16:07, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox wine region

Being f Fixed. BTW, hundreds of users have used the wrong infobox on UK school pages (maybe other countries too, I haven't looked yet). Do you know of a quick fix that retains the data? I can't use AWB on my computers. Cheers. --Kudpung (talk) 00:57, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oh? Which template? I thought that there was a resolved discussion which ended up unifying the school (educational institution) infoboxes. Yes I have a fix for this sort of thing. Rich Farmbrough, 06:38, 31 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]
There is no cohesion at the schools project of the kind you get with a project like wine for example where there is a standardised template and a regular group of dedicated members who monitor the quality of the articles and intervenes where necessary. School articles are each and every one written by SPA, none of them read the guidelines, and in the same way as many new editors think every new article needs a new cat for it, they think every school type or school district needs a custom infobox. The end effect is that we have 39 different infoboxes out there where all we need are three: one for US Schools, one for UK schools, one for Oz schools, and a generic one for the est of the world. A big team has just recently improved the programme functions of the UK Schools infobox, and I've had a list made at Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/UK schools using wrong infoboxes of nearly 400 schools that are using the wrong one. I started to work through the list manually but I felt that this could somehow be automated as I am currently running the schools project pretty much single handed. Any ideas you have would be greatly appreciated. --Kudpung (talk) 07:14, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am pretty sure I replaced all except the UK/Oz ones a couple of years back. And at that time both were completely replaceable with the main infobox - I actually did a trial replacement of each, without loosing any fields. We flatter ourselves that "Ofsted" or "DFES number" is somehow special. Rich Farmbrough, 09:18, 31 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Hi Rich. Yes, you're right about the DfES and Ofsted fields, but if it was that long ago I guess the 370 on this list are more recent. They have either used deprecated boxes, or copied ones from other school articles. --Kudpung (talk) 19:12, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Removing noinclude tags

Why are you removing noinclude tags: [9]? These year pages are transcluded in higher level articles, and your removal royal screws up the entire chain. 68.35.24.151 (talk) 22:25, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for explaining, I was told there was no current purpose. Onlyinclude is a better directive for this purpose. Rich Farmbrough, 22:54, 1 January 2011 (UTC).[reply]
I agree. It should be a straightforward task to take all the "year" articles and flip the logic. Even better would be to add a comment next to it as well, so people don't inadvertently remove it. I know I have done the same before in season episode list articles which were being transcluded in another article. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 23:25, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Project Stamford

I've taken up your invite to join, and hope I can do something helpful. But it seems to me there are clever people than me about.

R.J.Penhey (wikipedian RJPe (talk · contribs) might be a useful addition, although he might not want to get involved, judging by what he has said elsewhere. But his own research expertise is far superior to mine [10]

The obvious person to write about Stamford Castle would be David Roffe. But I can't see that he is a wikipedian, unless you know differently. [11] --Robert EA Harvey (talk) 10:24, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Femto Bot 4

Hi Rich. There don't seem to be any examples of Femto Bot having pinged bag members for this task. Would it be possible to get that done? Possibly on that request itself (hence me commenting here and not there), or by just briefly moving the time down to a couple of hours. If so, I'm happy to okay another trial, but for that particular function. - Kingpin13 (talk) 15:03, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ok I'll have a look at the code, I was kinda reluctant to enable it even during the trial. Rich Farmbrough, 15:05, 5 January 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Well another thing I was going to mention was the times it waits. Basically, any chance of changing your waiting periods to at least 1 week to start off with, since that's what's suggested at BRfA, and seems more realistic than one/two days (alternatively you could write something slightly more complex to get the number of open BRfAs and base the time off that (if there are more BRfAs give BAG more time)). The other thing that needs to be discussed is having the bot turn on tasks once they are approved. How secure is this, could a user pretend to be a BAG member and get the bot to start before it's actually been approved? - Kingpin13 (talk) 15:08, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Yes time is a moot point. I'll have to think about it. With 12 "active" members BRFAs should be hit fairly quickly, though.
  2. Hm yes they could, but they'd fool me too. Rich Farmbrough, 15:26, 5 January 2011 (UTC).[reply]
1) But of course, when it comes to BAG "active" really does need quotation marks =p. Well either 7 days or based on the number of open requests would be my suggestions. Also, how is the member to message selected? Have you done anything about looking at BAG members who previously commented? 2) Personally, I still think this bit needs to be semi-automated, even just have a pop-up box saying "[request] is about to be [started/trialled], the last person to edit the request was [user]. Continue?". - Kingpin13 (talk) 15:37, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well the code to run the trials is still in early stages too. Probably I need to write some new "stop" code since I was relying on AWB built in feature mostly. Rich Farmbrough, 15:39, 5 January 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Okay, feel free to give me a poke once you're happy with the code. Especially that for the BAG pinging function (also I'm still interested about how you select which BAG member to message, hopefully you aren't messaging the same one the first time every time. Would also be good if you at least started with a BAG member who's already familiar with the BRfA (you could just steal that from AnomieBOT's report)). Just to quickly wrap up for now, here's what I feel should to be done -
  • Consider increasing time before a request is considered stale.
  • Take a look at some different methods for which order BAG members are messaged in.
  • Write up code for the auto-start of tasks, with some form of manual approval (I agree with H3llkn0wz on this, I'm not comfortable with it being fully automated). Best, - Kingpin13 (talk) 22:43, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 17 January 2011

United States settlements

Hi. I was wondering if you could run something which adds a pushpin map to every infobox by state. I did start doing it manually previously and removed the census maps but I got sidetracked because of objections to the removal of the census maps. However if you were to keep the census maps and to add the pushpin maps this should be fine. Minot, North Dakota for instance. The majority of the articles have the shoddy census maps in them which mostly leaves you really having to look hard where the place actually is in the state. let alone America. Eventually the pin maps will have the US state inserts so you can see where in America it is. Of course I've proposed we have the option like on French wikipedia for clickable maps but nothing is happening there.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:09, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Any thoughts?♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:29, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I did one. May not really suited for AWB because of the complex logic (which I'm not sure of yet) - what other parameters are needed for the pushpin map to work? Rich Farmbrough, 19:35, 19th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).
I was assuming "coordinates_region" needs to be defined. Rich Farmbrough, 19:36, 19th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).

Note

  • The AUTOMOBILE magazine, August 1983.

The Signpost: 24 January 2011

ISO 3166 templates

There are 5895 templates in Category:ISO 3166 code from name templates, 4060 in Category:ISO 3166 name from code templates, 245 in Category:ISO 3166 name from code country templates, and 1868 in Category:ISO 3166 code from name country templates, or in total some 12,000 templates you created over 6 months ago. At first glance, none of these is used anywhere. Can you indicate whether and where these are used (and if so, which categories of these are and which aren't), or if they aren't used, why they shouldn't be deleted (per WP:TFD, "Reasons to delete a template 3. The template is not used, either directly or by template substitution (the latter cannot be concluded from the absence of backlinks), and has no likelihood of being used") Fram (talk) 12:50, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes there is a likelihood of these being used as they are designed particularly for infoboxes, where I intend to use them. Rich Farmbrough, 13:31, 26th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).
Could you give an actual example for each of the four groups of where and how you intend someday to use them? Fram (talk) 13:34, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm trying to think of examples where people would prefer to type "ISO 3166 code Hungary Veszprém City" instead of just HU-VM, or if it has to be templated anyway, why it would be easier to have 12000 separate templates than one (or four, or at most one per country) like with Template:CountryAbbr, which actually is in widespread use. Fram (talk) 14:04, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have nominated the lot at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2011 January 27. Fram (talk) 15:19, 27 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 January 2011

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SmackBot 43

Template: A user has requested the attention of a member of the Bot Approvals Group. Once assistance has been rendered, please deactivate this tag by replacing it with {{t|BAG assistance needed}}. . *

Edits by:

Last edit by BAGGER was by Tim1357 at 03:04, 18 January 2011 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 13:22, 1 January 2011 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by [[User:|User:]] at 03:04, 18 January 2011 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Rich Farmbrough at 06:19, 2 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 06:49, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Spaces in section headers

Spaces in section headers should not be changed en masse. They may be made consistent within an article, but they should not be changed from the version with spaces to the one without (or vice versa). You did this here, here and here. The same happened here, where you also add the Persondata parameters out of order. And you still haven't provided teh requested evidence of bot approval for this task, which otherwise is a violation of bot policy. Fram (talk) 15:19, 2 February 2011 (UTC) [X] copied from User talk:SmackBot by Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 15:20, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

User answered by email. Rich Farmbrough, 15:26, 2 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Since you have not provided any evidence of your claim that this bot task is approved (not here and not by mail, which is not the best way to address such things anyway), despite four requests by me to do so, I have blocked the bot. Please don't restart the "Correct cap in header and/or general fixes." or anything similar before you have shown some evidence that this has approval. I have no objection to you unblocking the bot solely to continue with the "build p605" edits, which hve approval and don't seem to be problematic (or at least have a much lower error rate, and a much higher benefit rate). Fram (talk) 15:36, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The number of requests is irrelevant, I am not here to run around after your little tantrums,much as you would like it. Rich Farmbrough, 16:00, 2 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Rich Farmbrough: you may bot unblock your own bot, so I have reblocked accordingly. Please sort this issue out in civil discussion. To request review of the block you may post at WP:AN but you may not unblock it yourself, as that is tantamount to self-unblocking. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:10, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
what part of I have no objection to you unblocking the bot solely to continue with the "build p605" edits,' didn't you read? Rich Farmbrough, 16:15, 2 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
You didn't say that would continue solely with those edits, so the situation was not resolved. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:24, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK I'm sure we'll satisfy the milk monitor with some documentation sooner or later. Rich Farmbrough, 16:27, 2 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Well the task has been running since some time in 2006, but I haven't found the authorisation yet (this was back when things were a lot more informal) I have searched through the archives I can find. Rich Farmbrough, 20:49, 2 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Guys this is silly to block a good bot for removing useless spacers in the headers. I know that the argument about spaces or no spaces is an old and subjective argument but I personally agree with this edit when its done with other things. I don't think we should be removing them as a sole edit but if we are there doing other things like adding persondata then we should get rid of them (a nd change image to File while where there). These spaces are a waste of space and harddrive space even being there. They are ugly when viewing the article in edit mode and make it more difficult to view the article when you have spaces around everything. If yuo don't like the bot or don't want it to edit and want to create your then just say so but to continue to block this bot for these silly stupid reasons is just wrong. --Kumioko (talk) 20:58, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, I would say 5 years unopposed for a task (except for one guy who thinks "mixed martial arts" is a proper noun) pretty much counts as consensus. Rich Farmbrough, 22:56, 2 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

The block was for a variety of reasons, not just for "removing useless spacers in the headers". It was for running an unapproved task (until evidence of the contrary has been provided), with edits that violate bot policy (WP:BOTPOL#Spell-checking), contained errors (using the same parameter in Persondata twice with a different value) and inconsistencies (again in persondata, moving parameters out of order for no reason, and changing the capitalisation of one of the parameters while leaving the others with another capitalisation), and finally also removed spaces from headers even when all the headers in the article were in the same style, which is the kind of edit no bot or AWB user (or basically any user, even manually) is supposed to make per WP:MOS. Bots shouldn't be used to implement some personal layout preference to a large number of articles, when such preference is not supported by a clear policy or guideline, and has no benefits whatsoever. Fram (talk) 08:09, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, your AWB edits need more careful consideration as well, two errore and two dubious edits in four edits is a bit high... There is no reason, when a parameter is used twice to remove the one parameter that is in the right place, and to keep the one that is placed out of order[12]. You did the same here, but have at the same time made the capitalization of the parameters inconsistent. On to the actual errors: here you removed the actual full date of birth from the Persondata, and kept the one that only had the year (and was positioned incorrectly of course, and which has now been capitalized differently as well), and here you removed the correctly placed and capitalized one, and not only kept the one out of order, but changed the parameter name to something non-existent. Four AWB edits, none of them an improvement to the Persondata, two of them actually making things worse, none of them reverted or corrected. Fram (talk) 08:43, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well you are wrong as usual. Rich Farmbrough, 09:45, 3 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Care to explain how? Did you not remove the full birthdate from Graham Watt, and did you not include an incorrectly named parameter in Kutraleeswaran? Or are you just making things up, like when you stated after the reblock by MSGJ "what part of I have no objection to you unblocking the bot solely to continue with the "build p605" edits,' didn't you read?", even though SmackBot did not restrict itself to build p605 edits but mostly restarted the task that got it blocked in the first place? If you want to be trusted and to convince me (or probably most other people) that I am wrong, you'll have to provide more than just an empty denial. Fram (talk) 09:52, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In Barry Trail a duplicate field is removed. Improvement.
In Alessandro Riguccini a duplicate field is removed. Improvement.
Rich Farmbrough, 10:02, 3 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
So because two things which I didn't complain about are improvements, pointing out the other things that happened in the same edits and which made it worse or were actual errors are "wrong"? Very Orwellian, but not actually helpful or correct of course. Fram (talk) 10:14, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And while your current AWB edits don't have the errors of the first four anymore, they still decapitalize the parameters they fill in for no good reason (note that the standard, as described at the template and Wikipedia:Persondata, are capitalized parameter names). Fram (talk) 09:56, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Standard parameter names are lower case. This template was imported form the German Wikipedia without due care and attention. The docmentation has not kept up. Rich Farmbrough, 10:02, 3 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Sorry but I have to agree with Fram in some parts. I see two problems in introducing lowercase parameters in Persondata:
  1. people not using the latest AWB's snapshot will get confused introducing errors because of this inconsistency.
  2. the vast majority prefers uppercase parameters for this one. Rjw's bot and AWB use uppercase characters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:05, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You are right that earlier AWB's had problems, but that is now resolved - the UPPERCASE parameters are an anomoly. And it is only because of AWB (which effectively RJW's bot is too) that there are so many persondata set up. Rich Farmbrough, 10:11, 3 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
I would actually make it a GF to change these to lowercase. Rich Farmbrough, 10:17, 3 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
I find it completely unnecessary to force the code change for that. All capitals are easier to find and make clear that this template is an exceptional on-visible template. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:19, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I also agree that, for the purpose of the person data template, using uppercase for the template parameters would be better. --Kumioko (talk) 16:28, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So, Rich, can you please try to gain some consensus for what you are doing? Maybe you think you are making easier for people to read but I and many other think you don't. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:25, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure we can do something. Rich Farmbrough, 13:27, 4 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Similarly, I believe that there is no consensus for the moment to replace "references" with "reflist" (like here). Fram (talk) 13:49, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think I have to show consensus for every edit I make. Rich Farmbrough, 14:17, 4 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
AWB rules? "# Don't do anything controversial with it. If there is a chance that the edits you are considering might be controversial, consider soliciting comment at the village pump or appropriate WikiProject before proceeding." Considering that there recently have been ANI discussions and Village pump discussions over these changes (not by you, but the same replacement), they clearly are controversial. In general, yes, evety AWB edit should be an edit for which a consensus exists, tacit our outspoken. This change (and the persondata one, and the spaces in section headers one) have no such consensus and are otherwise inconsequential (things don't work better after these changes), so why not just skip them? Fram (talk) 14:40, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Any reason why you are still changing the capitalization of Persondata from upper- to lowercase? Even ignoring the cases where you add new persondata in lowercase, there are still ones like [13], [14] and [15] where the rest of the edit is improving the article, but for some reason the capitalization is changed as well. Fram (talk) 09:53, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree. This has to stop unless consensus is reached. I 'll start a discussion in Persondata. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:49, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia_talk:Persondata#Uppercase_parameters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:55, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:London Gazette Index

That looks like it was a lot of hard work. Very Useful. Well Done. --DavidCane (talk) 22:06, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree but I wouldn't be surprised if one of Rich's fans doesn't come back and say he's link farming or that its unencycloipedic. --Kumioko (talk) 22:29, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks David. Chuckle @ Kumioko.. I still have to chase the London Gazette for certain missing issues. Rich Farmbrough, 22:52, 2 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Problem in Dowdy–Ficklen Stadium article

Hi Rich. Could you have a look at this? I added some links to the Dowdy–Ficklen Stadium article which I thought were appropriate to the article and this other editor (User:PGPirate), without discussion, keeps taking them out calling them either firstly "linkspam" or secondly "vandalism" -- neither of which I've ever engaged in in my six years editing Wikipedia. Cf. this attempt to discuss it also. --- Wikiklrsc (talk)

Thanks, Rich, very much for adding some civility to this matter. In no way had I or will I ever add "linkspam" or "vandalism" to any article. I had been researching another topic, on the manufacture process of the new scoreboard for this stadium, and in doing so, found some relevant links about the actual stadium. There seems to have been some confusion about the ranking of this new scoreboard, etc. So the information I found on another related topic whilst researching, I thought relevant to this article on the stadium. A comment made by User:PGPirate quoting "So stop putting your spam on the article" just isn't either the true case or useful or even civil. Thanks for your kindest help and attention. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 00:01, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

SmackBot: spacing before stub tags

Last month, the stubs guideline was edited so that it now recommends adding only one line, not two, before stub tags. I recall that, at one time, SmackBot performed these types of edits as part of gen-fixes; I am not sure if that is still the case but, in case it is, I wanted to let you know of the change. Best, -- Black Falcon (talk) 19:53, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Black Falcon, that's weird. Because the text was there for two years and it was changed as minor edit. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:28, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I am not that surprised because I have noticed that 2 spaces now seems to be a little too much, and put it down to the DEFAULTSORT, persondata, and other new gubbins, but it could be that the css fix that we wanted years back has finally gone live. But I hadn't seen anything about it anywhere. Rich Farmbrough, 21:52, 4 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Rich Farmbrough, 09:11, 2 September 2009 (UTC).

This page shows that 2 blank lines are needed to have the desired spaceing. One and zero are the same as we said in the referenced discussion (referenced in the change to the docs). Rich Farmbrough, 22:01, 4 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Only thing we should change is to count the DEFAULTSORT as not interrupting the blank line count. Rich Farmbrough, 22:05, 4 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
After the guideline was changed, I made an AWB request at WP:AWB/FR#One blank line before stub templates. If you disagree with the change to the guidelines, you should make your point here before AWB is changed. McLerristarr | Mclay1 05:11, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Poke

Hey RF, Just leaving a note here reminding you to take a look at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SmackBot 40. Thanks! -- Tim1357 talk 05:04, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

SmackBot

Why is my article being deleted? I was hoping for more contributors to flesh it out which is why I made it so sparse. SuperSaiyaMan (talk) 20:10, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 20:40, 5 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (season 2 finale)

Hello, I was looking over the Star Wars Pages and noticed someone put a Speedy Deletion Tag on Star Wars: The Clone Wars (season 2 finale). could you look over this.174.29.90.139 (talk) 02:09, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy was already declined. Rich Farmbrough, 03:27, 7 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

pop culture section in Guadalajara

I see youve eliminated about all of the pop culture section in the article. I tried eliminating it entirely (its nothing but trivia) but it got put back. Lets hope your edits stick. Ill do what I can.Thelmadatter (talk) 03:12, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Persondata shouldn't follow defaultsort blindly

It looks as if AWb (or your version of it) is following the defaultsort to fill in the persondata, even when the defaultsort is completely different from the article title (because of a move, an error, or whatever reason). I would think that the article title should get preference over the defaultsort, or else that you should skip page with such discrepancies. E.g. [16] and [17]. Fram (talk) 09:53, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes and no. AWB is not as smart as it should be, in particular cases I override it, - Roman numerals get reinstated for example - and there are other cases where it should use slightly different rules for persondata than for DEFAULTSORT, which I can't recall at the moment, but meant to log a bug over. On the other hand if the DEFAULTSORT is set by human editors, why should a script presume it is wrong? Maybe this is a discussion you could have at the AWB pages, you can quote me there. On the third hand, since no actual use for {{Persondata}} has been defined, any discussion about it is a little moot. Rich Farmbrough, 10:07, 7 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Thanks, now at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Persondata shouldn't follow defaultsort blindly. Fram (talk) 10:38, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, adding or deleting templates isn't minor according to WP:MINOR. I suppose this applies even to templates with no actual use... -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:00, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. Fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 14:12, 7 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

The Contribution Team cordially invites you to Imperial College London

All Hail The Muffin Nor does it taste nice... 09:54, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination for deletion of Template:Related template

Template:Related template has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. -DePiep (talk) 13:15, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Eugene Masonic Cemetery article

Thanks for requesting a citation. I don't have a hard copy of the necessary book at hand right now but am taking steps to provide the information required. Thanks also for adding a couple of links to other articles, if indeed you were the person who did that.

CRBW (talk) 16:31, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly I was probably neither of the above people. User:LordVetinari is the one to thank. Rich Farmbrough, 16:34, 7 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

The Signpost: 7 February 2011

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SmackBot 40

Template:  Approved.. *

Edits by:

  1. Rich Farmbrough at 19:41, 1 November 2010 (UTC).
  2. Gigs at 02:44, 2 November 2010 (UTC).
  3. Rich Farmbrough at 09:18, 3 November 2010 (UTC).
  4. Rich Farmbrough at 07:02, 5 November 2010 (UTC).
  5. Gigs at 13:21, 5 November 2010 (UTC).
  6. Rich Farmbrough at 13:38, 5 November 2010 (UTC).
  7. EdoDodo at 11:06, 4 December 2010 (UTC).
  8. Jarry1250 at 11:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC).
  9. Tim1357 at 02:09, 8 February 2011 (UTC).
  10. Tim1357 at 02:09, 8 February 2011 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Tim1357 at 02:09, 8 February 2011 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 13:38, 5 November 2010 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Tim1357 at 02:09, 8 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Bottom edit was by Tim1357 at 02:09, 8 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 02:35, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

SmackBot task 40

Nice task, some minor problems. In some instances, the sort added to a category (mainly location-based ones) is not the best one: while e.g. here this is solved perfectly, in cases like this, this, this or this the sort added to one of the categories is not the correct one, since it is redundant to the cat (England vs. English, Dominican, ...). Finally, a capitalization error here (new instead of New). Fram (talk) 08:02, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I contemplated making it a little smarter by pulling semi-specific matches like "England" but figured that this was going too far. However the "Southeast Asian Games" example is probably worth replicating. Rich Farmbrough, 08:07, 8 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Thanks. I note that you are working on or have corrected some other problems as well (year in science articles), so I'll let you get on with this without further interruptions. Fram (talk) 08:54, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your edit

Hey! Just wanted you to know that your edit to 2009 Esiliiga made a mess in the standings table. Pelmeen10 14:28, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that, I found the error inthe regular expression, but he ultimate cause is still a mystery. Rich Farmbrough, 16:08, 8 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Hope Abbey article

I see that you left several warnings on the revised Hope Abbey article. These are obviously boiler plate, but I found them patronizingly insulting, which appears to be contrary to the established Wikipedia policy of treating newbies with restraint. Let me ask, as gently as I can, what cleanup you had in mind. The edits I've made were precisely to clean up an inferior previous article. Though I confess to being new to the Wikipedia community, I've had many years of experience writing and editing, yet I don't have a clue what you want to see cleaned up, and you have left no hints.

CRBW 17:16, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

checkY Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 21:57, 8 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Capitalising templates

I am missing something here. For a long time now you have been making, and are still making, mass automated edits capitalising templates. I thought this was just a matter of personal preference, making no operation difference to Wikipedia at all. But if this was the case then you wouldn't be wasting all these computer resources on such an unpleasant exercise, since it would look like you just wanted to show content editors who don't share your personal preference that you can use an automated tool to bulldoze and control them. So, please would you let me know what this is really about. Then I can see the light and start happily capitalizing templates too. Thanks. --Epipelagic (talk) 00:34, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I take it you are referring to the article Swarm behaviour? In which case it "is about" readability and consistency. {{Externalimage}} is an un-spaced template name, and barely readable, whereas its target is {{External media}}, the space making it more readable. Rich Farmbrough, 00:55, 9 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]

SmackBot - New Citations for Peter Allen Golden entry

Hi.

I'm new to Wikipedia. Please forgive me if I'm making some newbie mistakes. I saw that you felt the Peter Allen Golden entry needed more reliable third party sources and fewer primary sources. I have now added a dozen reliable third party sources, including The Worrall Community Newspapers, The Times Union (Albany), The Associated Press (in The New York Times), Independent Media Review Analysis, Israel Behind The News, The Daily News (New York), The Record (Troy), Publishers Weekly, Commentary (magazine), The Jerusalem Report and the New York State Bar Association. Please let me know if this satisfies you. And again, I'm new to Wikipedia so forgive me if I haven't followed the proper protocol. Any other advice you can give would be appreciated.

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