User talk:Cyde/Archive015

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[edit] Protected redirects in Wikipedia space

IMO, there should be some way to keep track of which pages are protected, even if we don't currently see unprotecting them as necessary. As far as I know, there is currently no way to query the list of pages directly on the software, and one developer also stated that this is probably not something that could be implemented (because of the db structure meta:Talk:API#Protected pages). And of course we generally left Wikipedia pages unprotected, so I don't see why the same shouldn't apply to redirects in general. Tizio 11:35, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't be worried about losing track of protected pages. It's impossible. The protection status of a page is stored as a field in the database. Yes, you can't do it over the web, but it wouldn't be that hard to put together the appropriate MySQL select statement to get a list of fully protected pages. --Cyde Weys 23:58, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I know that the protection status is recorded in the db. The problem is how we know which pages are protected in order to evaluate a possible unprotection. One can query the db, but that requires downloading at least the dump of the meta:Page table and possibly of the mw:Logging table. Tizio 16:04, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] another child wikipedians category

Hi, Category:12 year old Wikipedians was created on 14:44, 3 January 2007 by User:M.Hassan-uz-Zaman, the only member of the category. I think this qualifies as a speedy delete as a recreation of Category:Child Wikipedians but in light of Wikipedia:Deletion review/Category:Child Wikipedians I thought I should notify some more experienced wikipedians know. John Vandenberg 01:19, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Esperanza

Cyde, if me and User:Carcharoth came up with a list of pages that we'd probably like to review and potentially restore, as protected redirects with only the history available, would you be prepared to give it the once over and take it from there? Appreciate this mess is getting long and convoluted, but anything to put it to bed. I'm not interested in touching anything explicitly membership or governance related. Steve block Talk 16:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Cyde, sorry to bug you, but I have the other closing admins' outline approval, any chance you can drop me a line? We have a list of how Mailer saw it as being closed at User:Carcharoth/Esperanza MfD review/Classification. I'm happy to pull the donkey work on this, but I think it's going to have to be suggested at the deletion review otherwise it might look like an undermining of process yet again. Appreciate a response. Steve block Talk 09:44, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Wow .... that's quite the list of pages they had going there. I didn't realize it was that big. Looking over all of it, I'm really not seeing any incentive to undelete stuff, especially the governance stuff. Just let it die in peace; don't try to exhume the remains and put them up for public examination. But I don't care about Esperanza enough anymore to get involved one way or the other. --Cyde Weys 14:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

How should I leave a reference. So far (Algae; History of Phycology etc) I have entered references in the text and listed them at the end. But there is more to it than this; [1] London.

Is that how one does it? How will it appear in the text? and how will it be listed at the end of the text (article) in alphabetic order? How do I do this please?. Osborne 16:19, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Please provide me a link to your unsuccessful attempts thus far and I will fix them. Then, you can look at the fixes I made and hopefully learn by example. This is probably the easiest way to handle teaching references. --Cyde Weys 16:57, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] List of articles related to scientific skepticism

Interested in weighing in here? Thanks! Levine2112 22:11, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Not particularly. I'm conflicted. --Cyde Weys 14:59, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cydebot category renaming bug?

It looks like Cydebot is sometimes having trouble renaming categories. For example, see the newly created Category:Members of Kiss. The symptom is that it's sometimes leaving Category:Categories for speedy renaming or Category:Categories for renaming and Category:CfD 2007-01 in the newly created category. At least this is better than the old drinibot bug, which would sometimes propagate the entire cfr tag into the new category.

There were a few other examples I've already fixed, such as Category:Genesis (band) songs and Category:Genesis (band) members. -- Prove It (talk)

Alright, I figured out what's happening. The problem seems to come up in dual-layer CFDs, that is, when one category is moved, and then sub-categories are moved. The way pyWiki handles categories it reshuffles them into a list at the bottom, so after the parent category is handled, all of the CFD maintenance categories are shuffled outside of the CFD comment tags on the sub-categories, and then when the bot comes through there, it only removes what was between the tags, not the reshuffled maintenance categories. I'll go see if the -inplace parameter is working. --Cyde Weys 15:03, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Looks like -inplace still has a small bug in it, I'll look at fixing it, then I'll enable it on Cydebot. --Cyde Weys 17:02, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User block

Hi, I came across an IP address Special:Contributions/204.184.20.231 that seems to be used consistently for vandalism. I've been searching around Wikipedia for what to do/who to notify; I know you've blocked a user indefinitely in the past, and was wondering if you could help? Thanks. TAnthony 16:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. A one year block should stop the vandalism for awhile. --Cyde Weys 16:44, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank YOU for taking care of it so fast; I just came across another one: Special:Contributions/216.17.5.203. I'm not patrolling Wikipedia for them or anything, but I've got articles like Lancelot and Medusa on my watchlist, which seem to get vandalized a lot. Please let me know if I'm being a pain. Thanks again. TAnthony 18:06, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh, it's not a problem at all, I never mind taking the time to block a vandal, because it is helping Wikipedia so very much. And actually, there are a whole group of people who do patrol Wikipedia looking for vandals, and their work is very much appreciated, so don't say you're not doing it as if it were a bad thing! And finally, in the future, if you're having vandal problems, it's best to report them at WP:AIV rather than to any one admin. I could go days within logging in, and nothing would be done about your vandal, but if it's posted to AIV, it's going to be looked at much sooner, because many, many people regularly check that page. --Cyde Weys 18:13, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for your bot

Hello, Cyde,

Is it possible for you to order your bot to replace every single instance of Image:Coat of arms of Portugal.png with Image:COA of Portugal.svg? There are simply too many articles, talk pages, categories and the whole WP:PORTUGAL linking to the old file, and it's tedious to manually change everything.--Saoshyant talk / contribs (I don't like Wikipedophiles) 18:42, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Hahah, thanks for fixing the formatting. I had just noticed I accidentally splattered the images here, instead of linking to them, and as I headed to fix it, you already had it covered :) --Saoshyant talk / contribs (I don't like Wikipedophiles) 18:47, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Working on it now. By sheer luck, you came to exactly the right person for this task. Turns out I'm the guy who wrote image.py for pyWikipediaBot. --Cyde Weys 18:59, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Well that was fun. I actually had to code up a new command-line option for the bot, -loose, because it was missing the uses of the image as a template parameter passed to {{click}}. --Cyde Weys 19:34, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

You have my thanks.--Saoshyant talk / contribs (please join WP:PORTUGAL or WP:SPOKEN) 14:29, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IRC

Unblock me from #wikipedia please... I was blocked as a joke when I jokingly changed my nick to Willy on Wheels, now I can't get in. ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 21:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

IRC business is best handled on-IRC. This doesn't really have any relevance on-wiki. --Cyde Weys 21:39, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I was banned from #wikipedia, couldn't use it. But I'm OK now, never mind. ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 21:51, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] DownDaRoad

Hi Cyde, I left a news messege here because the other editor is using it as a stick to blacken my name. I really hope you can help. regards--Vintagekits 12:16, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Cyde, Any update with this mate?--Vintagekits 00:08, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi Cyde, I left another messege here, regards --Vintagekits 13:02, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Any update with this Cyde, I would really like to clear my name and the DownDaRoad account. cheers--Vintagekits 02:29, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

What part of "DownDaRoad is blocked indefinitely" and "you are limited to one account" do you not understand? You're starting to worry me with this insistence on being able to use multiple accounts, especially unidentified ones. Please just stick to one account like everyone else. --Cyde Weys 04:24, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Firstly I have been perfectly civils towards you so I would appriciate you treat me in the same manner. Why would it worry you if I had two accounts that were clearly marked as being owned by me "Vintagekits". I want to use one for sports and one for politics. As far as I know that is perfectly acceptable practice on Wiki. As I initially said I did not canvas with the other account so I see no reason why it should have an indefinate block. I know it is probably a hassle for you to even have to look at this again but I would appriciate if you could see it from my point of view. regards --Vintagekits 14:03, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi mate, have you had a chance to get round to looking at this again? cheers--Vintagekits 22:33, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned the matter is closed. --Cyde Weys 23:05, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Why? I didnt not cross edit, I did not push a point of view, I did not canvas and I sent the messege to equal numbers of opposing views. Therefore using an alternate account on that basis is within wiki rules. Why wont you allow me to use that account?--Vintagekits 23:07, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Any update with this or is there anywhere else I can go to find someone who actually cares?--Vintagekits 22:59, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your bot

Has your bot been approved to update User:Cyde/List of candidates for speedy deletion every five minutes, User:Cyde/List of requests for unblock every hour, User:Cyde/List of old proposed deletions, and User:Cyde/List of current proposed deletions? —Mets501 (talk) 22:49, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:BAG is aware of these new activities, yes. I'm still trying to figure out the optimal time interval to update them on, but only every five minutes isn't of the slightest concern from a performance standpoint. --Cyde Weys 22:54, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Who from the Bot Approval's Group have you notified? —Mets501 (talk) 22:55, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Betacommand. --Cyde Weys 22:58, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Can I ask what the concern is over? The code to update each separate page is literally a single line long, and it only edits within my own userspace, so there's no risk whatsoever of causing any harm to anything. The only possible problem I can think of would be the refresh rate, but that of course is something that can be further fleshed out. --Cyde Weys 23:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Cyde, with all due respect as you're a well-established editor and a great bot programmer and operator, the problem is that you feel like you are exempt from the normal bot approvals process. Even people in the bot approvals group have to get their bots approved for each task, not just the first time. I fully trust that you would never do anything wrong with a bot and I know you have good judgment, but things really have to be done the right way. I recommend you follow the correct procedure outlined at WP:BRFA for this and each further task; it's not a lot of work, and will avoid a whole lot of trouble. —Mets501 (talk) 23:14, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Sigh ... okay okay, I'll go through the process, consider this a test run to make sure that it runs without malfunction and that it is technically feasible. --Cyde Weys 23:18, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your understanding. —Mets501 (talk) 23:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Done: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Cydebot 2. --Cyde Weys 23:30, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Awww man... What am I going to be outraged about now, dammit?
1) Thanks for doing it the "normal" way, and
B) I'm keen as mustard on the idea of using bots for data perperation, and this may actually get me off my arse enough to use my python powers for good (wiki) instead of evil (work) for a change.
Although I'm sure you stinky bot-boys spurn interlopers and throw things at them or something.
brenneman 23:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bad IP

Cyde, Would you please take a look at this Special:Contributions/User:209.212.22.37? It looks like a long pattern of non-constuctive behavior. If you agree, can you please consider a permanent block? --After Midnight 0001 05:06, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disemvowelling

Okay, I see you've been up to some disemvowelling. Are you making an homage to PZ Myers, or does this have more ancient roots in dealing with comments on talk pages? Anyway, the process of disemvowelment seems highly insulting and very unlikely to bring about any positive response, so I would respectfully ask that you please stop doing it. If you don't like someone's comment, either ignore it or remove it wholesale, but chopping it up into little unintelligible pieces is not going to help anything. Also, I noticed that you seemed to be doing the disemvowelling manually. That's what programming languages are for, man! Here's a little line of Perl that would do it for you: $str =~ s/[aeiouy]//gi Regards, Cyde Weys 16:25, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

It has roots in seeing it on a (your?) talk page a while back and stealing the idea. But it did prompt me to read up on PZ Myers, so it's a good thing. As for the perl, thanks, but here is the sum of my programming knowledge:
10 PRINT "BOOBIES"
20 GOTO 10
RUN
... so it's maybe not that useful. But you're right, disemvowelling is probably quite rude (even given the context). I won't do it again. Proto::► 16:33, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for understanding. I didn't realize I was the source of it :-O I should mind my words. Anyways, here is the complete Perl one-liner you can use for disemvowelment (although its use is not recommended on-wiki). All you need is to have Perl installed and type this at the command line, and it will echo everything you type into it back at you sans vowels: perl -ple 's/[aeiouy]//gi' Isn't programming great? --Cyde Weys 16:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry ... still means nothing to me - I think I must be a Luddite. Next time (hypothetically, of course) I would've pasted into Word and done it that way. That's as technical as I get. Proto::► 16:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I thought it was User:Calton who pioneered disemvowelment on talkpages, but of course I'm a newbie here and he might have had predecessors. As for the program, sorry, but it is unacceptably both over- and under-inclusive: It would change "yes" to "s" (failing to recognize when "y" is functioning as a consonant) but change "how" to "hw" (failing to recognize when "w" is functioning as a vowel-like). This sort of quick-and-dirty, half-hearted approach is not the sort of quality programming I've come to expect from Cyde Weys—no wonder your bots are being scrutinized! Regards, Newyorkbrad 16:47, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
It was, and he was soundly warned against doing it back when someone finally had the gumption to complain. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:49, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Thaaat's beeeeecauuuuseee IiinShaaneee haaaas waaaay tooo maaanyyy voooweels iiin hiis niiick. dvdrw 18:01, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
My dilemma when writing nglsh without vowels are the words "you" and "I" for which I use the character "j". What would you do Newyorkbrad? I prefer the term Nglsh to disemvoweling though. dvdrw 18:06, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
You're right Brad, it isn't perfect. But to make it perfect would require a lot more than a simple one-liner. I was going for maximum vowel assassination, so I chose to take out all ys; even if you don't know Perl, you should be able to figure out how to modify it slightly so that the ys stay intact. And since when could w be a vowel? That's the first I've ever heard of such a thing. --Cyde Weys 18:22, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
See w. Consider the example I gave, "how": in "house", there is no doubt that the "ou" diphthong consists of two vowels, so the "ow" responsible for the same sound must consist of a vowel or vowel-acting combination as well. Newyorkbrad 18:26, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Alright, even the computer un-savviest should be able to handle this. It even has an option to make Brad happy. --Cyde Weys 18:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Referred to User:Mets501 for evaluation. :) Newyorkbrad 19:01, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Idea for new feature on User:Cydebot

I have an idea: whenever the bot updates, put, in the edit summary, the number of articles/users currently in the field. It would really help for administrators to see "oh my, there are 16 people waiting for unblock" or "355 speedy deletion articles". Otherwise, looking at the diffs might not help. Just an idea. Patstuarttalk|edits 02:19, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Newyorkbrad's RfA

àCyde, I wanted to thank you for your support !vote in my RfA which closed this morning. I appreciate your confidence in me and look forward to serving the community. As for your comment on my talkpage, I'm not necessarily convinced that deletion will be the most fun aspect of being an administrator, but chacun à son goût. Best regards, Newyorkbrad 17:25, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Assistance Is Needed, Please

Hi,

I posted 141.154.10.193 on the WP:AIV board, but the vandalism continues. It is sneaky at best. I am reverting all the vandalism made, but I need some help.

Thanks!....SVRTVDude 21:31, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] pearls of wisdom

y/aeiou//d. hth. 66.92.170.227 00:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] newbie admin question

Where can I find a list of those pages that admins should add to their (our :) ) watchlists? Newyorkbrad 01:28, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Huh, I don't know if there is such a list. A lot of the XFDs use different subpages for each day, so watchlisting won't help you much there. Just add WP:AN, WP:ANI (though I'm sure you have both already), the other AN subpages (like 3RR), the Village Pumps, and lots of policy pages. If you're worried about having enough work to do, there's always WP:AFD. --Cyde Weys 01:30, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks ... actually, I was thinking of the new pages that you created the other day. Newyorkbrad 01:33, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Ah, well then, yes, there's those four pages, as well as lots of stuff done by Dragons flight, like this AFD summary, category tracker, and RFA summary. --Cyde Weys 01:37, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm obviously not communicating effectively tonight. :( I'm looking for the names of "those four pages." I didn't write them down the other night and the discussion must have been archived. Thanks very much. (If I've misunderstood something again, please respond via e-mail to prevent further newbie admin embarrassment.) Newyorkbrad 01:51, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh, Brad, you have so much to learn! First of all, here's a way to track down everything in a user's userspace: Special:Allpages/User:Cyde. As an admin, you'll definitely be using this. From that list you can see the four bot-updated lists I created. Also, you could just look at my userpage; they're linked prominently from there as well. --Cyde Weys 02:28, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
You may wish to use Special:Allpages/User:Cyde/ which will order the list a bit. KillerChihuahua?!? 14:20, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bot Question

I've added a question at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Cydebot 2. Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 05:28, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blocked as an open proxy

If I attempt to edit without being logged in I receive a message that Cyde (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves • rights) has blocked by ip address 66.243.196.131 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • WHOIS • RDNS • trace • RBLs • http • block user • block log) has been blocked as an open proxy. I live in a small community which is served by a small rotating pool of ip addresses in that range. Perhaps one of my neighbors is a vandal, but I doubt the particular address I am using now is an open proxy. Fred Bauder 14:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I have checked the edits. Other than the one on July 6, which is not vandalism, they are mine. Fred Bauder 14:21, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hi, Question

Could this edit [1] be regarded as trolling? And then in particular this:

The very fact that some Irish editors are so passionate about imposing this name new invention testifies to the severe political brainwashing some people have been subjected to since the 18th century. The correct phrase (British Isles) is merely disliked (or detested) by some small-minded bigots who seethe and froth at any notion of a connection with 'Britishness' that they become too blind to see the term in its correct context. They confuse it with the modern national description, or citizenship.

Quite a few people on here dislike the term, and the subject itself is hotly debated. Whats your objective opinion? Thanks Billtheking 19:24, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your awnser Billtheking 15:07, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IRC, again

I swear the chanop for #wikipedia is Satan incarnated. Please unblock me... ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 17:49, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you're a little bit unclear on the concept ... for one, there's no single "chanop" of #wikipedia, there are dozens, and two, a lot of them are my friends, and calling them Satan in a request for help doesn't make for a good request for help. --Cyde Weys 22:13, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vintagekits wiggling to get DownDaRoad restored

Cyde, Vintagekits is making false claims about his banned sockpuppet DownDaRoad[here], not least that you gave him "no explanation" as to why you indefinantly blocked it. Logoistic 18:29, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

It should be restored, I didnt break any rules.--Vintagekits 18:30, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
this is where I am refering to when I said no explanation was given.--Vintagekits 18:33, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
But you were aware that explanation was given in the main thread, yet you made such a claim anyway to boost your case. Logoistic 19:31, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
As you know and have been told on countless occasions, the only time any reason that was given was before I was even made aware of all this, and once I had explained full no explanation was given.--Vintagekits 19:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
You see, you can't just go making stuff up to boost your claim - you have only mentioned this in the on CJ King's page, not "on countless occasions". In any case, if you are still unaware, please direct your attention to [2]. Logoistic 19:52, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
You are basically just a wikistalker (90% of your posts are in relation to me). I will await Cyde to resond.--Vintagekits 20:13, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I am sorry you have to use that term, but I am concerned that the edits you have made are not constructive to Wikipedia, and have a concern that this may continue in future edits. Logoistic 20:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I have over 3,000 edits and almost 100 new articles created - what have you done except stalk me?--Vintagekits 20:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Administrators noticeboard/Incidents#User:IMTHEWORLDSGREATEST

I've just been reading the posts you made to the above page and I'm not entirely happy at what you wrote. Before I start, I would like to add that this is not a personal attack and I would not like it to come across that way at all. Could you please clarify what you meant by this statement; 'Anyone stupid enough to not realize that that is vandalism and is unwelcome here shouldn't be editing anyway'. I was not in anyway condoning his actions, I was just expressing my opinion that a final warning should have been given. I do not feel that it is appropriate to suggest that I shouldn't be editing because I have tried to help another user. I accepted the consensus that was gained on the page and I just wanted to get my point across. I do not believe I acted irrationally and I was just trying to do a good faith edit. An explanation would be much appreciated RyanPostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 01:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry that my comments were unclear. I was not referring to you; I was referring to the vandal. The point I was making was that it is obvious to everyone that writing stuff like "take it up the ass" and "loves anal sex" is vandalism and is unwelcome, hence, it is unnecessary to warn people about it before blocking. My flippant (and misinterpretable) remark was that any vandal who is stupid enough to not realize that this kind of stuff on Wikipedia is inappropriate (i.e. the kind of person who might need a warning) should be blocked anyway, because they are too stupid to be able to contribute to writing the encyclopedia. --Cyde Weys 02:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for replying to that. It just sounded like you wanted me to stop editing! Obviously we had our wires crossed. Glad we got it sorted, I do agree that vandals should be blocked from editing, and to be honest upon reflection it was probably right this time - Must have just had my 'super lenient hat' on last night! Anyway, thanks again for clearing it up, regards RyanPostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 08:42, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ED trolling

Forgive me if I seem intrusive, but I went to Encyclopedia Dramatica (much to my disgust) earlier today and it seems that they've posted what they claim to be your e-mail addresses on your "article". I've been wanting to see that troll haven of a website shut down ever since I first encountered it, but now I think that they're really going too far. I think this could provide grounds for you to file a lawsuit against the site owners or perhaps someone could get in contact with their webhost and have the site shut down. I'm also creating a page where other users who have had their privacy violated by those losers can associate and we can coordinate an effort to have that site shut down.--Azer Red Si? 00:47, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Admin. Antics @ "Category:Jewish-American businesspeople"

Hello -- you may recall that in mid-December 2006 you and many others voted to undeleted "Category:Jewish-American businesspeople" which had been unjustly and swiftly deleted by a rogue administrator in early December 2006; proper debate/voting was not done and huge amounts of data was lost when this category was deleted, many of the people in that category losing their Jewish identity entirely because of this. This particular unjust category deletion happened in early December 2006, see: [3].

This unjust category deletion was later rectified when you along with others overwhelmingly voted to overturn the deletion and relist the category, see: [4]. However, at this time neither admins. nor others bothered to begin re-adding the names that had been lost/merged when the category was originally deleted.

However, the category was not immediately recreated -- it wasn't relisted until many-many days after it had been voted back in to existence, and I had to bug User:RobertG in order to get it relisted, see: [5]. Also, since that category's former data had already been entirely merged in to "Category:American businesspeople" it effectively meant that in order to rebuild the unjustly deleted category the people that had built it up over many months had to start from scratch since a list of the former names in the category were never provided so that users could re-add them. The category nor a list of the names that were formerly in it is no longer available, or this info is only accessible by admins.

Finally, even though the category deletion was properly overturned by you and others, it was renominated for deletion AGAIN on the 10 of January 2007 (only days after it had been recreated) -- it was then deleted 17 January 2007, with NONE of the people that had formerly voted to relist the category voting this time around; see: [6].

I am wondering if there is anything that can be done about this? Are you able to obtain a list of the names that were formerly in the category, or are only admins. able to do that? Can you or someone else try to have the category relisted? Is there a way to undelete the category again, given that it was deleted BOTH TIMES under rather dubious circumstances, with those that voted to undelete it the first time not even knowing to vote the second time or even that it had been renominated for deletion?

Thanks for any info/help that you can provide. --172.161.68.238 15:20, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yu-Gi-Oh GX images

Why did you delete the images? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Goldendoggy (talk • contribs) 16:43, 29 January 2007 (UTC).

The whole point of Wikipedia is to make a freely redistributable encyclopedia. If we were going to be strict about it, no images that aren't under free licenses would be allowed at all (and indeed, on other Wikipedias, such as most of the foreign language ones, this is the case). However, here at the English Wikipedia, we do allow exemptions under fair use when it demonstrably improves the quality of the encyclopedia. For instance, this image is copyrighted, but we have detailed fair use exemption explanations on the image page. I did not find anything like this on the Yu-Gi-Oh image description pages, nor do I think a credible claim under fair use can be made as they were simply being used as decoration for episode listings rather than being analyzed critically; thus, I deleted them under our Fair use criteria policy. --Cyde Weys 17:36, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Read this now!

User_talk:Masky#No_more_owning I added a comment to your silly post about a silly template and category. Masky (Talk | contribs) 20:20, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

There is still vandalism on the Elephant page. It might be best to revert back to "15:39, 27 January 2007 Reboty" This is the vandalism that was missed "Is believed to have been created by Stephen Tyrone Colbert."

[edit] Trolling and accusations thereof

I appreciate your diligence, but I suggest that you consider the circumstances and whether or not your injecting yourself into the relevant discussion is constructive or destructive. In this case, while I'm certain your intention was positive, the attempt at intervention was not only unnecessary, but potentially counterproductive. Thanks for using a little more consideration and patience in passing judgment in such matters in the future. Cheers, Tomertalk 09:33, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

No no no, you clearly don't get it. Don't call other users trolls, period. I wasn't looking for an excuse or deflection. --Cyde Weys 15:42, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Cyde, please don't leave aggressive warnings for other admins. I think Tomer's comment was slightly tongue in cheek anyway. But regardless, leaving a warning just makes things worse. SlimVirgin (talk) 15:59, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, leaving a warning is a bit of a courtesy. Otherwise, he's going to be very indignant when he ends up blocked and he "wasn't warned". This way, he knows he's doing something wrong, and he can take measures to correct his words before he suffers administrative actions. --Cyde Weys 20:41, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

And just to clarify, neither I, nor the person being called a troll, nor most people I would suspect, would see anything "tongue in cheek" about this allegation of trolling. Please don't rush to defend the people making inappropriate comments, but rather, accept that this will be a more productive editing environment when we don't have people throwing around accusations of trolling willy-nilly. We've all repeatedly seen how unproductive and damaging it is, and I'm not going to stand for any of it anymore. --Cyde Weys 20:46, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:DownDaRoad

I really need to discuss you blocking this account with you please. Can you let me know when you have five minutes so I can put my side of the story across as your blocking of that account is constantly being used against me to discredit my contributions. I believe that if you look at WP:CANVAS you will see that my use of the alternate user name was acceptable under that policy as because it was "Accepted due to - Limited posting AND Neutral AND Bipartisan"

If you look at the contributions you will see that approximately 50 messages. All of the messages were the same like this which is neutral in tone and content.

Finally the bipartisan issue half I sent the message to users who should a history of having differing views on the subject, if you look at there contributions this can be borne out and the proof is in the pudding - some of the people I sent it so disagreed and some agreed with the proposal. See here for the vote.

I am happy to have a tag put on the User:DownDaRoad user page to state that I own it but the away it stands now make me look terrible and sinister, my reason for using a different editor name to to this one were entirely genuine as I did not want the people I sent the message to to be swayed by my vote and to see it with fresh eyes. Let me know if I can help you with this in ANY way.

Note that the first batch of users that the user contacted were pro-republican. The user ignored the message that I left [7] to stop canvassing. No reply was given to it. In fact, this was then deleted at a future date by Vintagekits [8], yet the other message from another user was not. Furthermore, the user edited the mediation page as if they were a seperate editor [9]. Vintagekits says that they simply 'forgot' they were still logged in with that account, yet made no effort to inform people that it was actually Vintagekits. Also, it does support Vintagekits' view that 'Volunteer' is a rank as the exact edit states that "you can hold two ranks [...] Volunteer [...or] Quatermaster General". DownDaRoad also edited other articles relating to Vintagekits interests, including the Provisional Irish Republican Army [10] (which Vintagekits also edited), Sinn Fein [11], and The Troubles in Crossmaglen [12]. Vintagekits had no reason not to perform these edits under the Vintagekits account. I strongly oppose this kind of wiggling, and I would also like some admin to take a look at the disruptive history of the user, which I can provide a rich history of links. Logoistic 00:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Adding wikilinks hardly comprises "cross editing" - each time I request this you turn this into a war before Cyde gets a chance to even look at it. We have both said our piece now let Cyde look into it both we add anything else.--Vintagekits 01:01, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Logoistic 01:03, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bot permissions

What do I need to do to get permission to run speedy_delete.py and other functions using the pywikipedia framework? Do I need further permissions if I change the source code? Should I create a separate account for running the bot where admin powers are not needed. At this point, I'm not sure exactly what I'll do with the bot, since, as I said at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship a few minutes ago, I'm more productive without the bot than with it.-gadfium 01:57, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

You don't need any permission to run speedy_delete.py, as it does not automate any on-wiki actions, merely makes them faster to do. Every bit of human discretion is still used. You will need bot permission to run most of the other stuff in the pyWikipediaBot framework, however, as a lot of that is at least semi-automated. As for changing the source code, well, it depends on what you change it to do, of course. If your changes are potentially useful to others, you are highly encouraged to "pay back" the pyWiki devs as it were by making your changes available (you know, the whole open source model). Yes, you should create a separate account for running other bot stuff, but this won't work with speedy_delete.py, because everything it does requires administrator privileges. If you're more productive without the bot than with it, then it's not for you! --Cyde Weys 02:12, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I firmly subscribe to the open source model, so any change I make will certainly be returned. The bot does complain at the moment "*** Your username is not listed on Wikipedia:Bots." Should I just ignore this (or comment out the code which produces it), or would it be better form to get my account listed?
I like the idea of using a bot, even if speedy deletion isn't the purpose for which I will run it. I've created an account for running it from: User:gadbot. I presume that I should use test.wikipedia.org to test any code changes that I make, and then get them approved before running the modified bot on en.wikipedia.org. Can I run any function of pywikipedia from this account without getting specific approval, or can I get blanket approval to run the unmodified framework from this account. I'd like to be able to run the existing code as I try to understand it.
It will probably be some time before I try making modifications to it. Once I'm ready, I'll look at [13] to see what changes are requested.-gadfium 02:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

It should be pointed out, there's two completely different issues here. One issue is the development of pyWikipediaBot, which is largely unfettered with unnecessary process, and you are of course welcome to help. You can find the community in #pywikipediabot on FreeNode or on the SourceForge mailing list. As for running a bot on en-wiki: unfortunately this is a bit more annoying than it should be. You're going to have to ask permission over at WP:BFRA and go through various levels of rigamarole. --Cyde Weys 03:42, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

but obviously without the extremely annoying processes to get a bot flag, we could easily have bots running around that destroy everything. Jaenop 05:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and the bot has evolved tremendously in less than a day. I wrote it at around noon, and within twelve hours it had already been significantly improved by another developer who had a lot of good ideas of his own to add. --Cyde Weys 05:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RVBOT

(I also sent this message to Tawker) I would like to create a clone of anti-vandalbot. Known as RVBOT. I have already set up the account. But created no scripts or made any edits. Could you create RVBOT for me? Retiono Virginian 16:57, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Why have you ignored my message. (Tawker done the same thing) I find this very rude and offensive. I have a suggestion, an idea, and I wish to dicuss it, yet you act like I never put this message on your page. Retiono Virginian 18:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Calm down a bit; it's only been two days since you left your message. You shouldn't get offended. As for the bot: AVB is currently having some technical difficulties itself, and we are working on fixing it. By the way, the minimum requirements for hosting a copy of AntiVandalBot would be a 10Mbit/s connection (both ways), Linux, MySQL, Python, and some miscellaneous Python libraries. That's if we needed to host a clone. I'm not sure that we do. --Cyde Weys 18:57, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I've had the RVBOT userpages deleted as the account is being shutdown. I couldn't manage a bot. I think making contributions myself is my main target now. Retiono Virginian 20:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Non admin AfD closing

Hi. I am aware of some talk that non admins can close AfDs per WP:SNOW. Is this correct? If so, would you think that Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2007_January_31#Bottle_soccer is an appropriate candidate? Note, I'm not planning on doing this just now... just checking my antennae are working and I'm understanding the process. Final question, where are the instructions listed on what to do when closing the AfD? Many thanks. Yours developingly, --Dweller 17:33, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... have I got this slightly wrong, ie that AfD is indeed a SNOW deletion, but non admins can only do Speedy Keep of AfDs? --Dweller 17:41, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't particularly have anything to do with WP:SNOW. Non-admins cannot close any debate whose consensus is delete, of course, because they lack the necessary tools Non-admins can, however, close debates whose consensuses are clear keeps. It's the controversial AFD debates that should be left to admins (or highly trusted non-admins) to close. --Cyde Weys 17:59, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Understood. Are there instructions on how to close (clear keeps)? Do you agree that the one I pointed to was a speedy delete? I'm training my antennae. --Dweller 22:07, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that one would definitely be a speedy delete. I only need to read the first sentence to know this: "Bottle soccer was first developed by a bunch of riverhead highschool cross country runners looking for a way to have fun before practice started." As for how to close keeps, you close the discussion with the templates {{afd top}} and {{afd bottom}} (which should be substed). You also leave a comment explaining in which way the discussion was decided. Then you remove the AFD template from the article and leave some template on its talk page (I'm not sure which) saying that it had been kept by AFD. --Cyde Weys 22:22, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Ashton gooding

Although you deleted the regular wikipedia page, I did move the info to the guy's userpage. Is that okay? <3Clamster 17:42, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Nope, in general doing this isn't a good idea. I've taken the liberty of deleting it, because he claimed to want "to blog my life on wikipedia in third person, so stay tuned!" Wikipedia isn't a blog. --Cyde Weys 17:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I wasn't sure. I know sometimes people do accidentaly make userpages on regular pages, but since he did mention blogging, I figured I should ask. <3Clamster 17:55, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notice

Thanks for the note - sorry - I missed my target and hit you by mistake! Brookie :) - a will o' the wisp ! (Whisper...) 17:45, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IRC, again, again

Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. I got banned from #wikipedia for no apparent reason. One minute, I'm talking peacefully, and then WHAM! I'm banned. Help me, please. ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 21:44, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

If you keep getting banned so often, maybe, just maybe, you deserve it? Look, I'm not a go-to guy for #wikipedia. I barely ever use it or read it. You'll have to go to the active chanops for help. --Cyde Weys 22:19, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I only got banned twice. And the active chanops seem to think I'm some kind of delinquent (bumm13 refused to believe that I had just gotten IRC on the first day I had it, and told me to "get the fuck out of his way"). ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 22:34, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, chances are you did something to piss of the chanops. If you really weren't pissing anybody off, you need to talk to one of the chanops that don't have a problem with you. Jaenop 05:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I find it incredibly hard to believe that some of those chanops even have Wikipedia accounts. They act so...un-Wikipedian. ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 12:53, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

No, seriously, Cyde. ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 13:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moonites

I had no clue I couldn't post images on here that were from a public source like Yahoo.com. That's why I reposted the image with Yahoo.com as the source. I had no clue it was posted on another site, but isn't that a little extreme to say you are going to ban someone from editting because they make a mistake like that? Again, from your previous conversations with other users on Wikipedia, you seem to be a pretty tough on the rules and regulations, which is good because this is a encyclopedia, but if I was posting a picture, how can I know it's not been posted some where else unless I took the photo directly off a camera. Again, I had no clue that the Err image was on another site, but to directly block me from editing on a page that allows everyone to make changes is a little extreme isn't it? Again, I send this message in good faith and not arguing you for your job, I thought when I was editing the article, that Err was not posted in the article and I thought it was relvent that everyone knew that there was two different moonites. Again, please let me know how I can know if the image is copyrighted so I don't have another violation to the policy. What's the difference between what is public and able to post and what is not and not allowed on the server. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 2-Bar Quack (talk • contribs) 18:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC). I also took off the whole posting since the image was taken down, kind of pointless to have the text up too just to keep you aware.

Yahoo.com is not a public source. I don't know where you got that idea. Everything Yahoo does is (c) Yahoo and many not be reused by anyone else without express permission, which I am sure you did not obtain. The rules of uploading images on Wikipedia are very strict: in nearly all circumstances you cannot just upload something you find on the Internet. The only exception is when the photo is released under a free content license such as GFDL or CC-by-sa (which some photos on Flickr are). You can also upload photographs that you have taken yourself, but you must release them under a free content license or else they will be deleted. For more information, see Wikipedia:Copyrights. --Cyde Weys 20:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I got one more question kind of related to what you said. I posted new pictures on my own user page that had images I took at the Cavs game. I took these images but they are at the Q and at the Cavs game, am I still the person that owns the rights to the photos or are they the NBA's or are they Dan Gilberts(owner of the Cavs with other shareholders). I always thought that websites like Yahoo were public websites because of the news and info, I did not know that I could get a copyright violation for that, now that I know, I will be more careful what I post on here, but could you please let me know the question that I asked above. I loaded the images because I took the pictures and they were first posted on my domain name that I run. When i posted them, I put them as released to public, is this correct or no? --—Preceding unsigned comment added by 2-Bar Quack (talk • contribs)

As for the images you took at the Cavs game, I cannot say for sure, but I think you are safe. Now, they may have a policy banning public photography (in fact, they probably do), and had they caught you taking the pictures you'd be in some trouble, but I don't think this carries over into copyright concerns. Then again, I am not a lawyer, so do not take this as legal advice. And by the way, you should sign your comments with ~~~~. Thanks. --Cyde Weys 21:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, I got the camera at the game so they definetly don't care if you take pictures, plus my pictures were on the floor at the game(VIP seats). That's why I was curious because I didn't want to post more of the images from the game then someone thinks that they are copyrighted images because I was the one that took the images. You can clearely see this at my userpage. So until a complaint happens, I'll just have to be careful with what I post on here. ```2-Bar Quack```

[edit] Divisive userboxes

The issue is still being discussed. You have no right to protect my userpage. People have "I support Israel" userboxes. How is mine inappropriate? Embargo 19:05, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

There's a huge difference between supporting one nation and supporting armed resistance against that nation. Although, really, we shouldn't have any political statements in userspace, so I'd frown on the Israel thing too, just not by as much. --Cyde Weys 20:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Smiley

Can I ask why you are deleting this out of process? The TfD is not yet over and I see plenty of keep comments there. --Majorly (o rly?) 16:01, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

It had already been done before and ended up deleted. No reason to retread the same stale debates. Plus, the way this one was implemented, with a huge switch statement, was absolutely hideous, and makes it impossible to replace with substitution. --Cyde Weys 19:34, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Spname

Why was Template:Spname deleted? I would just like to know. On the deletion log, "Huh?!" was left. What was wrong with it? How was it so much worse than other userboxes out there?Orin LincolnÆ 00:25, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

"Template:Spname" isn't a userbox though. Maybe "Template:User spname" might be one, though it really should be in user, rather than template, space. --Cyde Weys 19:06, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, well I moved it to User:Orin^soren/Userboxes/Spname. That puts it under the "User" namespace as opposed to the "Template" namespace. Write on my talk page if you have any problems with that. OrinLincoln | TalkContributions 19:16, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

That's fine. It's not controversial or anything, and it's in userspace, so I shan't be touching it further. Thanks for understanding. --Cyde Weys 19:25, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AntiVandalBot

Why has AntiVandalBot not been reverting for a long time? I see no notice of a problem on its userpage. --TeckWizParlate Contribs@ 21:50, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Technical difficulties. --Cyde Weys 22:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deleting CSD's

Okay, well, you've got me doing some deleting of CSD's, along with a number of other people, so that's a good thing, although the efficacy of the intensifiers in your wording decreases with each use.

Technical question: Of course I check the page history before doing a deletion. But sometimes when I take the time to check the history, all that is there is the creation of the page, and then the application of the speedy tag. It's probably more trouble than it's worth, but would there be any way to code so that the application of a tag doesn't count as a new version for the purpose of advising whether there is a page history or not? Regards, Newyorkbrad 00:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I dunno, that's kind of complicated. What counts as a page history? Frequently it will take someone multiple tries to get it right anyway. How are you determining if there is a page history without pressing the history tab anyway? As for intensifiers, there are entire vast realms of profanity that I have not even stepped foot into yet. --Cyde Weys 01:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

It says that there is a page history, so I check it. If my suggestion were doable, it wouldn't say there was a page history if there were only two contributions (the original page creation and then the tag). But this won't be implemented until you suggest creating an admin-bot to do it, whereupon Werdna will hard-code it overnight. Regards, Newyorkbrad 01:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
What says there is a page history? I'm not understanding what you're talking about. As far as I can tell, the history tab is always blue, so nothing is ever going to tell you there's no page history until you click through to see it. --Cyde Weys 02:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Go to CSD and pick any article. On my screen, at least, there will be two blue mentions of the history, one of which says "Warning: The page you are about to delete has a history: Page history" and the second is the regular mention of the history. Now go to Special:Newpages and find an article that was just created, so it only has one edit. The "Warning" sentence (which was very useful to me as a newbie admin to stop me from deleting a recently vandalized but otherwise good article) won't be there. That's what I'm referring to. Newyorkbrad 02:37, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Ah, gotcha. I don't really see a good way to remedy this, though. --Cyde Weys 03:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Maybe it could say "this page has a history of X revisions". If X equals two, you know you don't have to click on it. >Radiant< 15:07, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
  • This is a good idea. It doesn't seem like it would be too hard to implement. Want to talk to Werdna about it? It'd have to be introduced as a MediaWiki patch, of course, which is not my area of expertise. --Cyde Weys 15:09, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I've dropped him a line. >Radiant< 15:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WGO exists

If you lived in the Ilam, Avonhead or Burnside areas in Christchurch, New Zealand you would know of the Westgrove OGs and their activities. Stop trying to delete the page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 125.238.149.192 (talk) 03:54, 5 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Novels newsletter : Issue IX - February 2007

The February 2007 issue of the Novels WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

Delivered by grafikbot 16:40, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IRC. Dead serious.

As much as you want to remain neutral and suppose that Bumm13 is a "good guy", you're humouring yourself. He's actually a jerk, and apparently gets his kicks from banning me and knowing I can't do jack about it. If you don't believe me, read this. I'm actually quoting from the time I discovered that, for the first time in two weeks, I could go on #wikipedia.

<Flameviper> Hello?
<Flameviper> OMG, I can post on #wikipedia again!
<bumm13> Flameviper: I can fix that :)
<Flameviper> What?
[INFO] You have been banned from #wikipedia.

Seriously, this guy doesn't know when to stop being a bully. Because if he pulled that shit on the real Wikipedia, he'd get desysopped in a second's time. I'm sick of being shoved around on IRC. I'm a user, too. I contribute to Wikipedia, just like anyone else. And I deserve some respect, from him and you. Good day, sir. ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 19:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Here, let me present the unedited version of the logs. Then maybe you can see what the problem is.

<Flameviper> Hey Bumm!
<Flameviper> Oh, yah. Me is unbanned.
<bumm13> Flameviper: we can fix that ;p
<Flameviper> Sorry to ruin your conversation, but OMG LOL WTF ROFL BBQ WOOT PWNED!!!!!
*** ChanServ sets mode: +o bumm13

--Cyde Weys 23:15, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

There's not much of a difference. Saying that string of abbreviations once wasn't extremely disruptive enough to warrant a ban. I say that kind of stuff all the time, and nothing happens, and nobody cares. Bumm had a vendetta to carry out, which was conveniently facilitated by an extremely minor offense. It's like a police officer shooting to kill when pulling someone over for a traffic ticket, just because they don't like that person. ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 23:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, no, I don't think being banned from an IRC channel is analogous to getting shot to death by a cop. If anything, being banned from an IRC channel is analogous to a citation given from a police officer. You've clearly been causing problems in that channel for awhile now, and I don't why in the world you would immediately go back to causing problems as soon as you were let back in. You need to get some common sense. You were previously banned for disruptive behavior. So why would you immediately continue that disruptive behavior, thus reinstating the ban, and then go on to start blaming other people, when it was really your own fault for not controlling your own behavior?

As for "Saying that stuff all the time, and nothing happens, and nobody cares" — well guess what, obviously things do happen, and people do care. Nobody likes someone who's being obnoxious, which you've basically admitted to. Just because (most of the time) other people are polite enough or mature enough to ignore it or excuse it doesn't mean that it's acceptable. Just knock it off. --Cyde Weys 00:27, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I say things like "shitting dicknipples" all the time on #freenode-social, and I change the topics in #illogicopedia, but nobody cares. Do you know why? Because they don't have a vendetta against me. And the joy of being unbanned after not being able to go on for a week being suddenly released in a spurt of happiness is barely comparable to "disruptive behaviour". ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 00:45, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Why don't you go ahead and ask the people on #freenode-social and #illogicopedia if they really appreciate your behavior? Just because you aren't getting punished for something doesn't mean that it's acceptable, or that people don't think you're an ass for doing it. --Cyde Weys 00:51, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
That's beside the point. The point is that I got banned from #wikipedia for an incredibly flimsy reason, and oh, did I mention that the banning chanop has an incredibly massive vendetta against me? Coincidence? I think not. ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 00:55, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
No, it's not beside the point at all. It is the point. Nobody who's acting reasonably has any problem with getting banned from #wikipedia. You've been acting unreasonably. There is no vendetta; you're just being obnoxious. Nobody wants someone around who's spewing nonsense like "Sorry to ruin your conversation, but OMG LOL WTF ROFL BBQ WOOT PWNED!!!!!" or "shitting dicknipples". If it wasn't bumm13 banning you it'd be someone else (perhaps me, if I actually read that channel more often). --Cyde Weys 00:59, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
What was the happiest moment in your life, Cyde? ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 01:03, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to pretend that you didn't say that and give you a second chance to say something productive. --Cyde Weys 05:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Philwelch

Hello,

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Philwelch. Please add any evidence you may wish the arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Philwelch/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Philwelch/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Thatcher131 12:25, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] #

Hi Cyde. I came to your userpage to find that expired-prod tracker and I noticed that you mention your user id number. I registered It is hammertime as a sock yesterday so as to test block it, and it was around 3,400,000 or something - so you might want to update your userpage. Picaroon 01:14, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the update, but ... it is a wiki, you know :-P Cyde Weys 02:08, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Automation

How about having a bot delete prods that have been tagged wtih {{prod2a}}? Two people have reviewed it (assuming that the prooder didn't add that 2a). Hbdragon88 03:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Nope, no can do. There's no way to guarantee that seeing a {{prod2a}} on a page actually means that it is a valid deletion. It is always going to be the case that admin attention is necessary at the very last step to make sure that the deletion is valid. --Cyde Weys 03:13, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course your bot could create additional list pages showing subsets of the lists it currently makes. Prod2a templated articles could be one such sublist. NoSeptember 18:15, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AWB CFD stuff

I was using the AWB default one ;-) Ok, I'll fix it right now. For the bot, I'm still trying to fully understand pywikipedia. I'll play with it this weekend and then I'll consider submitting a bot request ;-) Happy Editing by Snowolf(talk) on 17:47, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Israel userbox stuff

My page in now unprotected after a week. I will do as the administrators suggested on the notice board, and change the userbox to "This user supports resistance against Israeli hostilities." Embargo 19:44, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit]  !

The Surreal Barnstar
Cyde Weys, I award you the Surreal Barnstar in apprechiation of you always adding the special flavor to Wikipedia. Keep it up! Kamope · talk · contributions 00:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Wheeeee, what for? --Cyde Weys 02:57, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Maybe the light-red signature brightens everyone's day.. with flavor. :/ Cowman109Talk 03:44, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't think that makes things surreal, though. --Cyde Weys 04:29, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Undeletion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:Heroes_s01e01.jpg ed g2s • talk 15:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

You failed to follow policy and procedure for the reason you claimed to delete them. I will undelete the remaining images later unless you do it yourself. Cburnett 17:52, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I have undeleted them. If you wish to delete them then you need to follow procedure. Cburnett 18:05, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Did you not see the latest message from a member of the Board? These are not valid fair use claims. And it's highly recommended that you stop wheel-warring and use the proper procedures like DRV instead. --Cyde Weys 17:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes and I read it. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Wrong interpretation. You still failed to follow procedure for the reason you claimed to delete them. Cburnett 18:04, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

If procedure wasn't followed for deletion, it seems perfectly reasonable to reverse that action and for you to do it following procedure, which will allow for discussion and reaching of consensus whether they violate fair use or not. Please don't unilaterally delete images without allowing input from other editors. Thanks. --Milo H Minderbinder 18:19, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

This is weird. Would it have been in-process if Cyde had put "G12" in the deletion summary? Now that they're undeleted, does the forty-eight hour clock for images that fail WP:FUC restart, and if not, can they now be deleted "in process"? If so, does it restart every time someone undeletes them, and if so, does someone deleting them forty-seven hours after mean that they're wheel-warring, but forty-nine hours would mean that they aren't? I think that there's a probably a sociological study in here somewhere. Look, in all seriousness, it's ridiculous to apply our deletion process designed for free content to media that we have no license to republish. This stuff shouldn't ever have been treated the same way, and it certainly shouldn't be now. There's never going to be "consensus" that these screenshots decorating lists of episodes aren't okay, because there are a lot of en: users who don't care about free content, the Foundation's mission, etc., and just want to decorate their lists. That doesn't mean that we should treat this as anything other than a cleanup job. Do we really need someone from the Foundation to specifically say "Screenshots decorating lists of episodes, or presented only in article infoboxes without any purpose beyond identification is not okay" before getting on with the it? Or would it only be okay if User:Brad Patrick personally singed off on each deletion? All of that said, Cyde, the thing to do here is probably to tackle the problem from the other end. Instead of starting the cleanup job with all of the mechanisms that protect content in place, the smarter thing would probably be to edit our processes to specifically not protect unfree content. This stuff shouldn't be "undeleted for failing to be deleted according to sub-paragraph 3 of article G of volume 2 of WP:CSD", taken to DRV, etc. As was said, quite a while ago now and well before the announcement, the rule is "When in doubt, delete". en:'s policy pages need to reflect that. Jkelly 21:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

It would have been in-process if he had provided notification, which doesn't seem to have happened. If he wants to delete again, I assume the "48 hour clock" starts when he posts a notification. And I don't agree that the images deleted were simply decorative and served no illustrated purpose - that's a judgement call and one that shouldn't be made singlehandedly by an admin, otherwise it becomes an WP:IDONTLIKEIT hammer. --Milo H Minderbinder 21:32, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Also, these episodes were used on the episode articles as well, not just the LOE article. Cburnett 03:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I'm on Digg!

(I never know whether to reply on my talk page or the user who left me a comment...)

Yup. Saw it, signed up for Digg (I hadn't before), stuck a couple of comments in there. Nifty picture. If anyone ever made such a commercial, I'd be up for it. Even though my desktop of choice is OS X... -- Jay Maynard 22:13, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bot problem with moving categories

Hey. Your bot has been listing dates/times instead of the names of editors when moving categories. diff. --- RockMFR 01:16, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice. Looks like some change was made on MediaWiki recently that's broken how pyWikipediaBot handles this stuff. I'll look into it. --Cyde Weys 01:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AVB

Just curious, why has User:AntiVandalBot stopped running? —METS501 (talk) 19:25, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Technical difficulties. Might want to ask Tawker in private for more details. Short version is, something changed with MediaWiki (or maybe the query interface) and the bot no longer functions, and none of us have the time to fix it. --Cyde Weys 19:34, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'll email Tawker. Thanks for letting me know. —METS501 (talk) 19:36, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of Linux Software category

I am a regular contributer to articles regarding the linux operating system. i have only just noticed that you have deleted the Linux software category. I have read the discussion on Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 January 20 but unfortunately I did not realise this discussion was taking place until it was too late. I strongly believe that removing this category is a mistake. The reason why this is a mistake is that if you are a linux user it is immensely useful to use the Linux software category to find software which you can run on linux instead of trawling through thousands of pieces of software which will only run on windows. It was suggested on Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 January 20 that the Linux software category be changed to Unix/POSIX software. This is is much better idea then just deleting in the Linux software category. Also there is the following Operating system software categories which I do not have a problem with: Category:BeOS software, Category:BSD software, Category:Mac OS X software, Category:Mac OS software, Category:Palm OS software, Category:Unix software, Category:Pocket PC software, Category:Solaris software and Category:Windows software, So why should we delete Category:Linux software? I am very keen to resolve this issue. --Benjaminevans82 00:18, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval#Cydebot

Posted you a question there: What happens if a vandal page moves a good page to a 'bad' name? Regards, Ben Aveling 02:07, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Greetings

You're in Alberta and a Pegleg?! Xiner (talk, email) 03:37, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, this message had no context. I was just going through the Stuy alumni user cat and came across your name. Never talked to you before I believe, but heard of you/your bot often. Didn't know you went to Stuy. Xiner (talk, email) 03:49, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Nope, I didn't go to Stuy. I just have a lot of userboxes at User:Cyde/testboxen that probably threw you off (actually, that was every single userbox at the time that I made the page. I was making a statement). --Cyde Weys 17:15, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This is a automated to all bot operators

Please take a few moments and fill in the data for your bot on Wikipedia:Bots/Status Thank you Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 19:52, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pacer Stacktrain

Hi Cyde! I see that you nominated the article Pacer Stacktrain for speedy deletion. Could you mark it as needing improvement instead? Pacer Stacktrain has had a large influence on transportation with it's double-stack rail services. Also, it's parent company, Pacer International, is a Fortune 1000 company. Thanks. Synesthetic 04:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually I didn't mark it for speedy deletion; User:Resolute did. It looks like it doesn't qualify for speedy deletion, however, as someone else has now removed the speedy tags. --Cyde Weys 17:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of Linux Software category

I am not sure if you have read my entry on this talk page regarding the deletion of the linux software category. You have left a message on this talk page after I left the original message so you have been online and on wikipedia since I sent it. I am very keen to resolve the issus quickly and I would appreciate you cooperation. --Benjaminevans82 15:33, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm just the guy who ran the bot to delete the category. I didn't make the decision myself. You might want to talk to the guy who closed the CFD, or take it to Deletion review. I'm a Linux guy myself and the only reason I see that this category was deleted was because it was slightly ambiguous, but that should be fixed by clarification, not deletion. --Cyde Weys 16:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for getting back to me. I will follow it up. If we decide to re-classify the category can you run your bot for the new category? --Benjaminevans82 18:42, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you would want Cydebot to do? I'd need a list of human-identified pages that should go into the new category, but at that point, it's probably easier just to create the category with human work. --Cyde Weys 18:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
There probably shouldn't be a "linux software" category since almost no software we use on linux is actually linux specific. Nexenta isn't Linux, it's the GNU userspace setup like Ubuntu + solaric libc + solaris kernel ... what would you put in "linux software" that won't run on gnusolaris? --Gmaxwell 19:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Helen Fisher (anthropologist)

Hi, I see that Helen Fisher is on your speedy list. I'm guessing that it got there by a bot action? The tag was added by an anon, and is clearly a mistake. Can you fix the issue? Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 08:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

It's already been removed automatically. The list just has a (up to 5 minute) lag compared to the category. --Cyde Weys 17:41, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WCCA Category deletion

Question - Can your bot undo what it has removed? the Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards has been restored from deletion after review, and has a good chance to become a real article again. If that occurs, the discussion at the CFD for the WCCA is dramatically changed, and the category does have a real place in Wikipedia again. Just curious.

If your bot can't undo, do you have at least a log of this one so that it can at least be manually restored? Timmccloud 19:37, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

The log of everything that was removed from that category will be in Cydebot's contribs. Just save a list in case the article is restored and the category is to repopulated. As long as I have the list, it'll be very easy to rebuild the category. --Cyde Weys 19:44, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bots' source code

I'm interested in trying bot programming. I know VB, but I don't know how to get it to interface with the web, and WP in particular. Do you know of any bots that are a) written in VB, and b) open source, that I can learn from? David Mestel(Talk) 20:10, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Nope, I'm not aware of any bots written in Visual Basic. I'd just recommend using pyWikipediaBot. I didn't know Python either, but in hindsight, it was a lot easier learning Python than trying to make an entire framework from scratch in a language I was more familiar with. --Cyde Weys 21:21, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cydebot and "cast and crew" categories

Hi, Cyde. I noticed that Cydebot is taking care of the "so-and-so actors" categories, which is great, but there's one area in which it's being indiscriminate and a bit of manual work is needed: when the category being deleted was "so-and-so cast and crew". Right now, Joss Whedon is listed under Category:Buffy the Vampire Slayer cast members and Category:Firefly (TV series) cast members. Although he did have cameos in those shows, it's pretty clear that he was listed as part of the "crew" part of those series. I'm not sure what the precedent is for "Category: so-and-so crew", but any of the categories that were "cast and crew" should probably be divided into two rather than simply moved over. Thanks. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:27, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Quick, go to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working and remove any of the uncompleted entries that seem to be doing the wrong move. --Cyde Weys 03:38, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Too late — it looks like the affected categories have already been moved. The ones that need clean-up are Category:Babylon 5 cast members and Category:Farscape cast members. (I'd have assumed that Category:Battlestar Galactica cast members would also need clean-up, since it used to be a "cast and crew" category, but it looks like that was an empty category: anyway, it is now.)
I've taken care of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Crusade categories. If I have time later, and if nobody else does it, I'll try to clean up the Babylon 5 one too, since I know a little about that show — but I don't know much about Farscape, so it would take more time for me to sort out who's cast and who's crew. If nobody else takes care of it, I suppose I can do it in a day or two, but if it's something that your bot can help with that would be great too. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Babylon 5 and Farscape cleaned up too. I think those are all the categories that used to be "cast and crew". —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:18, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your work. --Cyde Weys 15:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I respectfully request that you restore Category:Battlestar Galactica (1978) cast and Category:Battlestar Galactica (2004) cast, as, according to the recent CfD, they were named appropriately. These categories have been renamed twice in less than a month due to frivolous wikiprocedure. Enough is enough. Thank you. --BlueSquadronRaven 09:18, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think "cast members" is a better phrase to use on the category names than "cast". Is there any particular reason you think it has to be cast other than that they've been moved around a lot lately? If that's your only objection ... well, moving them back would be moving them around even more. --Cyde Weys 15:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
They were renamed to "cast" the first time due to a previous CfD, and now, after the most recent CfD, cast was the wording proposed by the closing admin, so cast members, really, was superfluous. Unless you can point me to a guideline or other consensus discussion about the naming, please reverse your attempt at unilateral uniformity. --BlueSquadronRaven 21:04, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
The category system applies across the entire encyclopedia. It has to be uniform. We can't have people on various parts of the encyclopedia picking and choosing the particulars of how they want things. --Cyde Weys 21:23, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Again, then, where was the discussion and consensus on naming? It wasn't here. Indeed, you were the one who moved "actors" to "cast" according to the original CfD. The categories did not need to be moved from cast in the first place. --BlueSquadronRaven 21:34, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Funny, I've never even seen that page before. I suspect that, in practice, category naming conventions are established through WP:CFD, and not so much by the explicit naming conventions pages. --Cyde Weys 22:46, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
And in both recent CfDs for the category, the agreed wording in any and all discussion leaning towards it was simply "cast". Please revert the categories. --BlueSquadronRaven 08:44, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I prefer cast over cast members. But Cyde is right, consistency is important. Unless we're prepared to try to persuade people to change all such categories, we go with with cast members. Regards, Ben Aveling 08:55, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I would have loved to have seen even the attempt at persuasion, but there was none. Hardly any discussion, either. This was unilateral, bordering on disruptive as some of the categories have now been renamed multiple times. --BlueSquadronRaven 09:04, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I just hope you aren't accusing me of doing any of those things. After all, I just ran my bot on what was listed at WP:CFDW. I didn't personally make the decision to go with "cast members" over "cast", and I can see the argument for both ways. --Cyde Weys 16:03, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Who made the decision then? --BlueSquadronRaven 17:53, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
It would appear to be Radiant, which is shown on the exact CFD that you linked above. Also, see this edit. --Cyde Weys 18:46, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

deindent

Cyde, assuming we got agreement at CFD to rename all "cast member" templates to "cast", how much effort would it take to enact the change? Regards, Ben Aveling 09:42, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, it would take a lot of bot effort, but not so much human effort. And, I assure you, the bots don't feel a thing, even when ordered to do the most tedious of tasks. --Cyde Weys 16:03, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cydebot making a mess of noinclude and includeonly tags

Your bot really screws up noinclude and includeonly tags when moving categories. There are a significant number of errors in its template space edits. --- RockMFR 05:45, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, Template:Cvgproj is one of them. --Pizzahut2 17:15, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Hrmm, yes, pyWikipediaBot does try to rearrange all of the categories to the bottom, which works fine for articles, not so much for templates. I did write the -inplace option specifically to change categories in place (like how AWB does it) rather than rearranging them, and I suppose this should be used on templates. So I have an idea: how about if I modify pyWikipediaBot to automatically choose its mode depending on namespace? I.e. if it's in the template namespace, use -inplace rather than shuffling category rearranging? Does this sound good? I think it should fix the errors. --Cyde Weys 18:08, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Could you go ahead and fix up Template:Game-screenshot and Template:Cvgproj? They are protected so I can't change them. --- RockMFR 18:49, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Fixed. Is there anything else? What do you feel about the -inplace idea? --Cyde Weys 18:56, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
The inplace idea is definitely good. Would it be possible to extend it to include templates AND any page with noinclude or includeonly tags? --- RockMFR 19:05, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cydebot's cat changes...to CVG->VG catagory renames

Not all of the changes are straight shortenings. Probably a good number of them have some other structural change going on with their name to accommodate the name change. The new name was identified on each specific page. For instance, [Category:20th century computer and video games] was noted to change to [Category:Category:20th century BC in video games] based on convention seen in other category listings of this type. I have the list if someone wants it for feeding this bot before a big mess occurs. BcRIPster 06:39, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

"20th century BC"? Sure you didn't mean 20th century AD? Anyway, I don't think that's necessary. It's obvious to everyone which century we're talking about here, as videogames clearly didn't exist four millennia ago. Besides, the widespread standard for years seems to be to that the year is AD unless specified otherwise. Can you show me the rest of this list (not the AD stuff) so I can get a better feel for the other changes you're talking about? --Cyde Weys 18:11, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, AD. Sorry for that type-o. Anyways, this pass on the year catagories is a mess :( This was a very nuanced change that I planned would have to be managed by hand. Here is what the expected outcome should have looked like, and was specified via each individual Catagory page on the notice. Thank-you for the help, but I'm sure this could have gone right the first pass. User_talk:BcRIPster#Originally_suggested_final_naming_from_CVG-.3EVG_transition BcRIPster 20:17, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cast and crew

Perhaps your bot could help in sticking {{Actors by series}} on all subcategories of Category:Actors by television series? >Radiant< 09:42, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Odd behavior with a rfd

Hi cyde, I opened an RFD at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Paul_Roundhill And i noticed that ElizabethQ edited errors (which they subsequently edited out) into my spelling and has never made any edits other than on the AFD. I suspect they might be either the person who the article is about, or a sockpuppet of the original author of the article maybe? Or possibly it is the person who the article is about that wrote it and made the ElizabethQ user. Thanks, Reubensutton 12:41, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Automated message to bot owners

As a result of discussion on the village pump and mailing list, bots are now allowed to edit up to 15 times per minute. The following is the new text regarding bot edit rates from Wikipedia:Bot Policy:

Until new bots are accepted they should wait 30-60 seconds between edits, so as to not clog the recent changes list and user watchlists. After being accepted and a bureaucrat has marked them as a bot, they can edit at a much faster pace. Bots doing non-urgent tasks should edit approximately once every ten seconds, while bots who would benefit from faster editing may edit approximately once every every four seconds.

Also, to eliminate the need to spam the bot talk pages, please add Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard to your watchlist. Future messages which affect bot owners will be posted there. Thank you. --Mets501 00:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Downy Woodpecker weirdness

(Ignore this, please - I'm a moron and I misread the history - wasn't Cydebot that did the edit. 'Card 01:55, 22 February 2007 (UTC) )

I'm trying to understand what Cydebot did on the Downy Woodpecker entry. Would you mind taking a look at it? It appears to have simply tacked the full text of a copyrighted article (http://www.hww.ca/hww2.asp?id=39) at the bottom of the existing page, without formatting or editing. 'Card 01:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bot idea

I just noticed how good your list User:Cyde/List of candidates for speedy deletion is to keep track of slowness in our "speedy" deletion system. For example, this diff of 500 edits shows that several images survived for more than 36 hours in the speedy category. I guess most of the items that stay for so long sren't easy to decide "speedily" and should go through some other process instead. Or it might simply be that since the backlog is never cleared, some items don't get looked at and survive / stay undecided for a very long time.

Anyway, here's my feature request: Could you either (a) sort the list by how long items have been in the speedy category (probably the cl_timestamp or whatever it's called) or at least (b) make a subsection for items that have been on the list for more than 24 hours? Anything that could help us track with time better than looking at old diffs would be great. Happy coding / editing / etc., Kusma (討論) 10:06, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Improper Administrative Actions

There is an admin named Khoikhoi that disagrees with the discussion page majority on whether or not a particular article should be moved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Reggaeton

A contributor asked for facts which support why the page should not be moved, and those facts were provided. Rather than allow users to see these new facts, KhoiKhoi has decided to simply delete them with no explanation and has blocked the talk page in an attempt to prevent others from restoring them. Its irrelevant as to whether or not its a contributor with a screen name or an anonymous IP, the fact is that evidence was provided, and it was immediately deleted. I'm not sure where to report Adminstrators for actions unbecoming of Wikipedia's TOS, so I was hoping maybe you would have some insight, thanks. 68.155.86.174 02:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for renaming category

Your bot corrected the style of the title of the Category:Iron and Steel mills. I have made a suggestion for a further renaming on its talk page. Could you please look at this? I do not know how to find out who originally created the category, in order to ask him (or I would have contacted that person. Peterkingiron 23:10, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User ID

How do you find out what your User ID is? -23PatPeter*∞ 20:20, 25 February 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by PatPeter (talk • contribs) 20:20, 25 February 2007 (UTC).

Just click "my preferences". --Cyde Weys 01:08, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Surnames

As you seem not to be responding to discussion left on your "bot" page, but instead continuing to do what you're doing, I will repost here.

Hello, regarding your removals of the Chinese surname categories, those articles need to have the names of the individuals placed in the lists of individuals in each surname article--a condition of the agreement made when the categories were deleted. By doing what you're doing, you're unfortunately making that impossible. This is yet another case where doing it by hand is infinitely better than in an automated manner. Go in and retrace all of the removals you've done, take the person's name, and add it in the lists of notable individuals in each surname article. Thank you for this. Badagnani 04:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Date of birth unknown

Why are you now removing "Date of birth unknown" cats without going in and putting in the proper cats ("Year of birth missing")? Any normal, responsible, conscientious Wikipedian would do so, and you are not exempt. Please go back and do this by hand, as you should have done in the first place. Not to do so is disrespectful to the community and to knowledge in general. Badagnani 04:42, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

You're much more likely to get a positive response if you don't imply that the people you are speaking too are not "normal, responsible, conscientious". --Cyde Weys 05:05, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, don't address the question of what you did wrong, nor admit any responsibility, because the editor posting on your page appeared impatient. It's a time-honored technique. You've been here a long time and you know that removing such a cat without replacing it with the proper one, in a lightning-fast, computerized manner wasn't the right thing to do. No matter whether I expressed annoyance or not (I am still annoyed), you do need to do the right thing, for our encyclopedia's, and knowledge's sake. Badagnani 06:04, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

No, I responded in such a way because I'm not the person you should be yelling at, and you haven't even done the research on how CFD actually works to know it. Here's a hint. --Cyde Weys 20:12, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy deletion

For some reason your userpage User:Cyde/testboxen is marked for speedy deletion. I assume it's just a side effect of one of the tags on that page, but I can't see where. I figure if you wanted it deleted, you could do it yourself. Maybe something the bot did in its latest edit? Kafziel Talk 18:55, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Province of Pavia

The script screwed up, but it wasn't it's fault, there was an error in the original nomination. I already left a message for User:Mayumashu, but I thought I'd cc you as well, since you might get asked about it. It just does what it's told, but we told it the wrong thing.


Here's what I sent to Mayumushu...

[edit] Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_February_15#People_by_Italian_provinces

It looks like there was an error in the original nomination, and as a result the natives of the Province of Pavia got added to the Category:People from the Province of Parma. I guess you'll have to sort them out by hand. It's not too bad, there's only 37 of them. -- Prove It (talk) 04:28, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


If you go through Cydebot's contribs you'll easily be able to pick out the entire list of pages that he edited. So someone can go through by hand and fix things up without actually knowing anything about Pavia. --Cyde Weys 05:21, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re. your comment on my "oppose" vote at Featured Sound nominations

Dear Cyde, I write in reply to your comment on my "oppose" vote at the Featured Sound nomination for Shostakovich's Prelude XXI. The commments were:

Oppose, though technically very well played, I have worries about featuring classical music unless it is played by a famous artist/orchestra, or is considered "the" recording of choice. Witty lama 04:18, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

SBy that logic, shouldn't you be opposing all featured article candidates because they weren't written by professional encyclopedists? Methinks you misunderstand what Wikipedia actually is. --Cyde Weys 17:42, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

My reasoning for my oppose vote is based on the fundamental difference between a media file (in this case, an audio file) and an article on Wikipedia. Whilst an article can be edited mercilessly a sound file can not. I would never write, as you suggest, a simmilar thing with regard to an article as that is entirely contradictory to the wiki concept. However in the case of audio recording, especially one of classical music, there CAN be a "difinitive" performance (or at least one very close to it) and that recording is effectively unalterable. Unlike editing an article, editing a recording (beyond simply "cleaning" the sound) would destroy the authenticity of it. Where articles (and to an extent photos) are a work in progress (even once they have achieved FA status), Featured Sounds cannot be "improved" except by recording a more accurate/clearer version. In the case of Classical music, there is such a wealth of good quality recordings that to feature a recording that was not considered definitive would mistake the difference between a FA and a FS.

Do you understand my reasoning for my "oppose" vote now? Witty lama 15:29, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I suppose I understand your reasoning, but still do not agree with it. There are a wealth of good quality definitive recordings out there, but we can't use any of them, because they're not freely licensed. So we have to do the best that we can with our own work. "Featured sounds" isn't about featuring sounds on a global level, it's about featuring the best sounds we have on Wikipedia. Your qualifications would basically suggest that nothing could become a featured sound, because only professional stuff could make it (which could never be on Wikipedia in the first place), thus the Featured Sounds process is pointless. Incidentally, the sound file we had this argument over ended up being a casualty of copyright. --Cyde Weys 15:46, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unprotection of 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

Hi Cyde. I noticed you unprotected this article before the informal mediation process for the dispute completed. Unfortunately, it appears the edit wars have started right back up. Any chance you can re-protect the page until the mediation completes at least? Cheers. — George Saliba [talk] 00:27, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Can you explain where the informal mediation process was going on? Was it just the talk page, or somewhere else? --Cyde Weys 01:04, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I've reviewed it a bit more ... this really isn't that big (in the grand scheme of edit wars), and it can be handled without necessitating full protection of the page. I'm going to be a lot more active on the article's talk page now to help sort these issues out. --Cyde Weys 01:13, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Great! We can use all the help we can get. The mediation process is going on here. It's being conducted by Anthony cfc. Unfortunately it's been a bit difficult to get everyone's input on the issue, but I'm hopeful that the issue is finally drawing to close, and I believe we're near consensus on one of the proposed compromises. Cheers. — George Saliba [talk] 01:35, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Cyde/List of old proposed deletions

Hi Cyde. I'm really liking User:Cyde/List of old proposed deletions, but I wonder if you could program your bot to add talk page links in case one of us admins who use it leaves one behind while deleting pages? Picaroon 02:15, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow, thank you, that is an excellent idea, and I'm kind of annoyed at myself for not thinking of it. I'll try to get it implemented soon. --Cyde Weys 02:36, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. --Cyde Weys 03:06, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Better late than never?

I just remembered that when I first discovered the "joys" of AfD, I was pretty ignorant of the relevant policy. I got into a debate with you over one AfD and was being kind of pushy and later made a snide remark. Anyway, I'm sorry. —Dgiest c 03:16, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Unless you can provide a diff, you don't even have anything to apologize about, because I don't remember it one whit :-) Cyde Weys 03:19, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

In the interest of harmony, I think I'll decline to remind you. —Dgiest c 03:27, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not "endemic" birds--please stop!

Hi. I noticed you or your bot recategorized Lazuli Bunting, Band-tailed Pigeon, and Pygmy Nuthatch to Endemic Birds of Western Mexico and Endemic Birds of Central Mexico. These birds are found in the named regions but by no means endemic to them. If you're doing more, please stop! Then we can figure out what the best way to correct these mistakes is. —JerryFriedman 04:36, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like the category name should be changed to something else? This change should be discussed at WP:CFD; it looks like they missed this finer point the last time. --Cyde Weys 04:43, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I suggested it, and I hope I explained the fine point. Thanks for your cooperation and for telling me where to bring it up. &mdashJerryFriedman 05:07, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cydebot

Hey ... I noticed on your list of speedy deletion candidates that edits are showing up as you instead of Cydebot. I just thought I would let you know in case this was not intended and the bot's login got switched accidentally. --BigDT 05:37, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Whoa, thanks for pointing that out. Obviously I didn't intend for this to happen. --Cyde Weys 05:48, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Essjay controversy

Good evening (GMT time); further to your calls for Essjay to surrender his positions, I would like to inform you User:Essjay has retired from Wikimedia projects and has been removed of Administrator, Bureaucrat, CheckUser and Oversight rights on all projects.

His bots have been blocked, and his ArbCom position surrendered.

anthonycfc [talk] 03:51, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandal

Thanks for that. It does bring up an interesting question, if the number given had been accurate would that constitute vandalism? JoshuaZ 06:54, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I really don't think that a vandalism counter is a good idea per WP:DENY. It just encourages them, it serves no real use beyond meaningless trivia, and you have to keep track of it and waste a bunch of edits just updating the counter. --Cyde Weys 06:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Technical Question

I'm not sure where to ask this question, but could you check the X-wing's article history and see why my contributions to it are not showing? My contributions says I edited it and the changes to the article have been implemented but I don't know why its not coming up in the history logs. If this is the wrong place to ask, please direct to where I might find assistance. Thank you. Ripberger 21:25, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

It looks like the changes are showing up now. Sometimes Wikimedia's servers have some caching problems, and even though the changes are committed, they take a little bit to appear on the article. --Cyde Weys 21:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I see them now. Thanks. Ripberger 22:33, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Novels WikiProject Newsletter: Issue X - March 2007

The March 2007 issue of the Novels WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

This is an automated delivery by grafikbot 19:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:MFD

Cyde, an mfd nomination you created Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Autograph books, but never transcluded was added to MFD by another editor. When you have a moment would you stop by and comment as to weather or not you want to support that nomination anymore? Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 05:39, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the update, and my aplogogies for not assuming better faith about the listing errors. — xaosflux Talk 13:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, it wasn't really a listing error. I was drafting it back in January, and then just sort of forgot about it (hence why some of the links turned red over time). I have no prejudice against it being revived at this moment and being run for real, however. --Cyde Weys 16:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cydebot

Why is this bot not doing the tracking work (such as CSD) anymore? NoSeptember 17:03, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this to my attention; it might have taken me awhile to notice it on my own. Someone modified the category library in pyWikipedia and they broke something. I've committed a bugfix. --Cyde Weys 17:17, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, it ran for a day and a half and stopped again. I guess it doesn't take much to stop it ;). NoSeptember 19:19, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Ugh, lemme take a look at it again. This is very strange. Every time I update pyWikipediaBot, it seems, something gets broken. --Cyde Weys 19:47, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Cyde/Don't be a fucking douchebag

You might want to have a look here. ⋆Zamkudi⋆(talk)⋆ 08:31, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Hahaha, nice work. And yes, I'd rather appreciate it if 1ne didn't try to censor humor in my userspace. This is a valid counterpoint to WP:DICK. --Cyde Weys 19:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User talk:Cyde/List of requests for unblock

I've left you a message there; if you could respond, it would be appreciated. Thanks. Part Deux 21:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject updates

  • I have done some updating to the WP:SCN, added some new articles, added a "to do" list to the top of the project, and fixed up some categories and assessment stuff. I suggest we should all pick one article at a time, or at most two, to work on bringing up to Featured Article status. You could give input on the project's talk page... Smee 21:38, 9 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Userboxes/Faith

Dear Cyde

I have recently become a Wikipedian. I see that at 00:34 on 8 March you deleted the discussion page Wikipedia talk:Userboxes/Faith because it had been orphaned.

On about 20 February I created the Userboxes/Faith gallery, and other Wikipedians have helped me to build it up to include userboxes for Baha'is, Buddhists, many denominations of Christian, Hindus, Muslims, Jains, various non-religious viewpoints (agnostic, atheist, Bright, deist, humanist etc.), Pagans of various faiths, Satanists, Shintoists, Sikhs, Taoists, Voodooists and Zoroastrians. I also created its discussion page on which I explained what I was trying to do, suggested some principles and invited other users to contribute both more userboxes and contributions to the discussion.

Now I find that all the userboxes that I and other Wikipedians added have been removed. The edit history of the Userboxes/Faith gallery from before 8 March seems also to have been removed. All my edits of the Userboxes/Faith gallery have been removed from my personal list of Wikipedia edits (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Motacilla).

The contents of Userboxes/Faith gallery have been replaced with few userboxes all but one of which are for Judaism, orthodox Judaism and the Kaballah. All but one of these edits appear to have been made by a user called Java7837. Java7837's editing seems to constitute vandalism.

The only other userbox is one for Brights added by Roberth Edberg. I do not believe that Roberth Edberg has done any damage to the Userboxes/Faith gallery.

The Wikipedia/Vandalism page says that if I believe a page has been vandalised I should restore it and choose the appropriate warning template to ask the vandal to stop. I do not know how to restore the page: its history is missing and I have no record of all the userboxes it contained or where I found them.

The missing edit history also makes me fear that Java7837 knows much more than I do about how to change things on Wikipedia. I do not want him to wage an edit war against me and I am afraid of attracting an attack on my own userpage!

Please advise me: what should be done and should I be the person to do it? Motacilla 22:30, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I guess this is before your time, so let me tell you a little story ...

A long time ago there was a huge fight over userboxes. Really huge. Ridiculously huge. In hindsight, it's hard to believe that such a huge battle could be fought over such a triviality, but there it is. Some people, like me, wanted to delete all userboxes. Other people wanted to keep all userboxes, including ones like "This user is a pedophile" or "This user is a Nazi". A compromise was reached. Any userboxes that were potentially divisive or inflammatory could not be kept as templates. Some of the less extreme ones (e.g. "This user is a Christian") were moved into userspace, where they reside to this day. Some of the more extreme ones, like "This user is a Nazi" were deleted and banned from ever being recreated.

Wikipedia:Userboxes is a central official (because it's in Wikipedia: space) repository of userboxes, and as such, it should only contain templated userboxes within its listings. It should not contain userboxes that are stored as user subpages because they would be deleted if they were created as templates, like the religion boxes. Hence why I have deleted Wikipedia:Userboxes/Faith. It is simply not appropriate to have it under the official listing because it concerns matters that are divisive/inflammatory (God only knows how many people have been killed in the name of religion, for example). Here on Wikipedia, we all edit with WP:NPOV in mind. We don't say, "I'm editing Wikipedia as a Christian", oh no. It's "I'm editing Wikipedia as a Wikipedian." It is for this reason that userboxes that proclaim a possible biased mindset are heavily discouraged, but not necessarily banned (except in template space).

Does that clear it up for you? --Cyde Weys 22:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Cyde

Thank you for briefly reminding me of the history and controversy of userboxes. I sympathise with your preference to have no userboxes at all, or at least to cull them.

However, I use userboxes to show what subjects interest me, in case I might edit articles in those subjects. When I added userboxes to my userpage I was delighted to find that I was automatically added to numerous interest groups. Until then I didn't even know that Wikipedia had interest groups! I have also discovered WikiProjects by seeing the userboxes for some of them. As a result I have now chosen to join two WikiProjects. Both of these things have helped me to find my way around. :-)

Your comments raise questions. I am new here: what is "userspace" and how can a Wikipedian find userboxes in it? Galleries help me to find userboxes to describe my ethnicity, interests in biology, history etc., all of which may be relevant to articles to which I may contribute. Are not faith/non-faith userboxes equally relevant to editing articles on religion and non-religion?

I use userboxes to state some of my knowledge and interests, not any partisanship. Surely if a Wikipedian is biased it will be their contributions rather than their userboxes that will reveal this?

I intended the Userboxes/Faith gallery to be scrupulously inclusive and neutral. It also turned into an intriguing way to see how users self-describe their beliefs or non-beliefs. Does not the lack of a Faith gallery increase the risk that users will "reinvent the wheel"? For example I think I counted four different userboxes all expressing atheism.

After the gallery's deletion, Java7837 replaced it with a small gallery of items confined to one version of one religion. Some were huge items that do not look like proper userboxes. Some made aggressive moral proclamations in huge letters. The gallery resembled his own partisan religious blog. I see no message from you on Java7837's userpage taking him to task about this.

Is not "divisive/inflammatory" a provocative description of people's faiths? Sorry Cyde, I find your aside lacks an NPOV. I find that it is unhealthy power that kills: religion is just one of the tools that such power exploits as a pretext for killing. What religions, however many centuries long their history, ever killed as many millions as atheist Stalinisim and Nazism killed in just 20 years? But I still included atheism and non-religion in the Faith gallery, and I hope that I treated them equally and neutrally.

The Userboxes/Food gallery contains a profusion of userboxes that are purely for fun, rather than relevance to any culinary articles to which a user might contribute. This could also be said of many (but not all) of the userboxes in the Userboxes/Games and Userboxes/Interests galleries, for example. Hundreds of non-serious userboxes are allowed galleries, but those for religion and non-religion are not. Now that is "divisive/inflammatory"!

Cyde, I'm not sure he doesn't have a point that at least you could have userfied the userboxes. They certainly don't qualify as T1 speedy deletion; the compromise specifically allowed people to put userboxes in their userspace (I also have noticed that you're an avid proponent of being allowed to have offensive things in the userspace). Perhaps you could undelete them and put them and userfy them. Patstuarttalk·edits 23:59, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The userboxes already were userfied. All that I deleted was a subpage of Wikipedia:Userboxes linking to all of them. --Cyde Weys 00:11, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cyde vs. CydeBot

Sorry to intrude but it appears that your robot is running with your account instead of the CydeBot account. Seemed unusual so I thought I'd drop you a note. —Wknight94 (talk) 15:14, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. Someone changed something with pyWikipediaBot a little while ago and everything has been screwy since. --Cyde Weys 01:41, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fiction charaters by power cats

Just a small heads up: the March 7 CfD went to Deletion Review right after it closed. The end result of that was that the CfD re-opened on the March 14 listings.

You may want to undo your bot deletes.

— J Greb 17:44, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, the consensus so far reached is that in favor of keeping all the mentioned categories up for deletion. Since the debate is now archival, it looks like the final result is "keep". Unless there is administrator intervention that neutralizes a good portion of the keep votes (with the proper reasoning and clarification required for such), then the categories won't go anywhere. Indeed, it would be best to undo all the deletes for the moment, likely for a while. There might be renaming or mergers taking place and it would be good to have the categories intact as they were in order to proceed with these. Sage of Ice 20:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I specifically put a note at the top of that list on the Working page, asking for a delay while this discussion could be worked out. Could you put these back, please?--Mike Selinker 22:21, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
You do know that page is bot-processed, right? Bots can't read and interpret English. If there's a problem with some listings on CFDW, you need to actually remove them; anything listed on there is "good to go". As for fixing stuff, get me a list of the relevant categories and which pages should belong in them, and I can run the bot. --Cyde Weys 01:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I was unaware that there wasn't a human step of saying "start here." Sounds like we could use a holding pen somewhere other than that page when disputes arise. Cydebot's edits from "06:13, March 14, 2007 (hist) (diff) m Alucard (Hellsing) (Robot - Removing category Fictional characters with the power to manipulate darkness or shadow per CFD at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 March 7.)" to "06:36, March 14, 2007 (hist) (diff) m Wonder Woman (Robot - Removing category Fictional empaths per CFD at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 March 7.)" should be reverted. Also your own account's "9:37, March 14, 2007 (hist) (diff) m Ultra Boy (Robot - Removing category DC Comics characters who can move at superhuman speeds per CFD at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 March 7.)" to "06:43, March 14, 2007 (hist) (diff) m Allen the Alien (Robot - Removing category Fictional characters with the power to fly per CFD at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 March 7.) (top) [rollback]". The category list is at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 March 14#Fictional characters by power.--Mike Selinker 04:34, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
That's a poor excuse Cyde. If the bot is acting in manners that are counter to proper Wikipedia conduct, then it should be disabled. Monitor its actions and make sure to verify that it's doing a proper job. The CFD page can't just be altered willy-nilly by non-admins, so it is you guys who have to make sure that everything is in order. Don't wait until the damage is done and then rely on the other editors to solve the issue. If you're going to blame the bot instead of accepting the responsibility, then at least take the initiative to fix things sooner. I don't mean to bash, but the CFD page fluctuates too much to be automated. Sage of Ice 22:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
If incorrect listings are being placed on the WP:CFDW page, you need to be criticizing the people who put them there, not me. It's pointless trying to chastise me. Everyone who handles the WP:CFDW page does it the same way: what's on there gets processed. If it shouldn't be processed, it shouldn't be on there. --Cyde Weys 22:57, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
That's understood, I just naturally assumed that everyone who handled that page worked together to make sure that things were kept in order so as to avoid events such as this taking place. I'm not criticizing you for what happened, mistakes happen all the time. I also don't blame you for what happened, it would be foolish to put all the weight on one person. I'm mainly just bothered by the fact that you didn't take it upon yourself to correct this sooner, since you're the only one who can do so effectively. I also get naturally irked when someone doesn't admit to a mistake and instead passes the blame onto something/someone else; they don't have to be at fault to make a mistake. Understand that I really have nothing against you, as I have no rational reason to. I'm just wanting this all to get concluded as soon as possible. Sage of Ice 00:39, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


Cyde, can't you just run the bot in reverse so it puts all the cats back? --Piemanmoo 06:48, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
When you get into a car accident, can't you just run your car in reverse and put all of the pieces back together? --Cyde Weys 20:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Look, since your bot account (and yours) deleted all the catagories from individual pages, it'll be easy to see which catagories go where. So can't you just make the bot do the same thing in reverse, putting back the catagories one at a time? Information on wikipedia is never lost, since there's always a history of it. Just revert all of the changes you made to those individual sites, and it shouldn't take much more effort than to do the damage in the first place
I realize the task of destruction is infinitley easier than the tak of creation, but that's unless you know exactly how something was destroyed, and you can easily undo the changes to it just as fast. so your screwup doesn't have to be permanent--Piemanmoo 05:32, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Qmwnebrvtcyxuz

Your comment would be appreciated at AN about Qmwnebrvtcyxuz (talk · contribs) who you warned a week and a half back about contributing positively to Wikipedia vs. using it as a social network. Metros232 21:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Semi-protected

As you can see, you were getting pounded by vandal using an ISP's dial-up pool. Instead of blocking the entire ISP's range, I semi-protected both your Talk page and your User page. -- Gogo Dodo 09:30, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Not to mention several user accounts creating attack pages. See my deletion log for details. VegaDark 10:01, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bot

Cyde - do you think you could set up your bot NOT to say I commited vandalism and revert me when I edit this page: Wikipedia:Requested_templates/Uncategorized. It's uncategorized because it needs to be categorized, which I did, but then it reverted me, so I had to remove it again, I'd really appreciate it.Daniel()Folsom |\T/|\C/|\U/|(Can you help me with my signature?) 14:00, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:UW future?

Hi, Sorry for the blatant spam, but you have yourself down as active at WikiProject user warnings WP:UW. There is a discussion on going here that might be of interest to you about the future of this project. There are two strawpolls on the talk pages and the second one is about the future of the WP:UW project. Now we have the end in sight we are looking at wrapping up the project and merging it with Template messages/User talk namespace WP:UTM and creating a one stop shop for all userspace template issue. As you are or have been active on this project we feel you may have some input on this issue, and would like you to visit the discussion and give any thoughts you may have on the matter. Cheers Khukri 10:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Signature

Hi,Thanks for your attempt to keep wikipedia clean, but it's good idea to inform me to correct my signature and then delete the wrong template.--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 07:11, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category: Prominent Anglicans

I don't understand how I got left out of the discussion about removing this category. I really wanted to change it to Anglican Clergy or something like that. Anglicans includes all kinds of people who just happen to be Anglican. I feel a bit blind-sided, though maybe I unwatched it by mistake. InkQuill 00:27, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Divisive Userbox

Hello. I seem to remember dealing with you on this type of thing in the past, so I thought that I would ask you about this. If I should take it somewhere else, please just let me know. Should this be speedily deleted as a divisive userbox? --After Midnight 0001 22:55, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I've deleted it and its related category. This was clearly a misuse of Wikipedia. Also, its creator spammed the talk page of the article Internet troll with it; any time crap content is encouraging people to misuse article talk pages, it needs to be deleted. I really hate all of these solicitations to try and get a "popular" userbox by having other people use it. And Category:Trolls, which I deleted, could actually be a valid encyclopedic category, so no way am I going to let it be polluted with navel-gazing, trolling nonsense. --Cyde Weys 03:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Userbox code

Hey Cyde! Thank you for making that wonderful usrebox generator. I tested the tool and got some box codes, may I modify them and make new userboxes? Or do I have make attribution somewhere? Wooyi 16:59, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Sure, go right ahead. In case it's not made explicitly clear, I believe any of the output of that generator to be public domain. The code itself is licensed under the GPL. --Cyde Weys 19:38, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mediation Cabal

I posted something on Mediation Cabal about this. It can be found here. A man against the world 22:59, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

The mediation page is full of his personal attack toward you, I've messaged him not to do so. Wooyi 23:33, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New policy proposal discussion

Hello Cyde! I have proposed a policy Wikipedia:Readability#Policy_proposal, you are welcome to join the discussion here. Thank you! Wooyi 23:24, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AntiVandalBot Ignore List?

Hey, Good work with your Bot =)

Is there an 'ignore' list for AntiVandalBot?

As ive noticed it has a few times reverted edits on our AWB sandbox (Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Sandbox), which has meant the user has to revert it again, which can get quite annoying, especially when someone is trying with AWB

Cheers


Reedy Boy 21:06, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I've added it (on IRC, and will do on wiki in a sec) :) Martinp23 21:14, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Never mind - already on Wiki list. MartinBot shouldn't be reverting to that page, nor should AVB (when online). Martinp23 21:18, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Cheers - Makes our life a bit easier =) Reedy Boy 21:20, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Wikipedians by number of edits

I was wondering what you thought about the subcategories of Category:Wikipedians by number of edits, seeing as you closed an old CFD debate as delete all for a similar set of categories, and as far as I know no deletion review ever took place to re-allow these types of categories. The debate was a long time ago, however. VegaDark 10:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I would go through and delete them, but that would take a bit of time, and I really don't care enough to consider that time well spent. It's not something that can be done by bot: there are includeonlys with complex syntax all over the place that requires it be done manually. Grrrr. --Cyde Weys 13:34, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can Cydebot help with a CFD close?

Hello Cyde. At WP:CFD/W there's a request to rename Category:Underpopulated Music categories to Category:Underpopulated music categories. The category comes from a {{popcat}} template. I could do it with AWB, but there are 200-odd subcategories to change and it would take a long time. All that's needed it to replace {{popcat|Underpopulated Music categories}} with {{popcat|Underpopulated music categories}}. Could Cydebot handle this? It would be a big help! Angus McLellan (Talk) 13:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I did this with AFB, but there are still some non-standard but probably bot-able CFD closes that Cydebot's help with would be much appreciated. We are looking to move templates from article pages to talk pages for "source" templates (Category:Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Category:Based on Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, etc). I know how to do this with AWB, but it would be a huge job. I suppose I could always ask for a bot flag, but I'm not so keen on that (if you have a bot, even it's only auto-AWB, people will come asking for stuff). Angus McLellan (Talk) 18:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Special picture

I have always been fascinated by the image of the Falkirk Wheel, but still, if you forget to put it back and leave the "special" one there for a few extra days, I won't mind. LOL --After Midnight 0001 02:12, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Gerry Anderson

Hi Cyde,

Recently, Cydebot made a change that implemented Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 March 11#Category:Gerry Anderson.

If I am reading Radiant's statement correctly, he wanted the category moved to Category:Supermarionation. Instead, Cydebot moved the category to Category:Century 21 Productions.

--Kevinkor2 16:23, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No more sig categories?

[14]

Good idea. But since I invented mine before the rule was inserted, I want mine grandfathered in. :P --tjstrf talk 22:26, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism on Wikipedia:Introduction

About a year ago, Tawkerbot2 started monitoring Wikipedia:Introduction, and it did a great job of keeping the top two lines intact. See my original request explaining the requirements User talk:Tawker/Apr06#Vandalism on Wikipedia:Introduction

AntiVandalbot was at one time also monitoring this page, but now it is not. Can you have it start monitoring the page again? Or, if it is not too much trouble, extract out the code for a seperate bot to monitor this page (and possibly Wikipedia:Introduction 2 and Wikipedia:Introduction 3).

As a reminder the first two lines of Wikipedia:Introduction should be:

{{Please leave this line alone}}
<!-- Feel free to change the text below this line. No profanity, please. -->

Thx in adv --Trödel 14:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Admin bots

I just wanted to comment on your post to betacommand's ARBCOM case. Last time we had an admin bot up for RFA it almost passed, and I think it would have passed had Werdna not made the mediawiki improvement. The key concerns I saw on that RFA were, one the fact the bot was closed source, and two, it was not made clear on any additional tasks that the bot would run. Should it be one adminbot per task, or multiple tasks to the one bot that gets approved. Personally I would prefer the former rather then the later, but I do think that the community will accept a properly done adminbot. Just make it open source (nobody but sysops can run it anyway), and promise that you will go back again for a new tasking. But again based on that RFA, adminbots should be able to pass it if they are done right. (please comment on my talk) —— Eagle101 Need help? 16:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

By new tasking I mean if you get community agreement to run task X, don't try to run a new task Y that is totally different then the one that the community accepted, but a task Z that is very similar, (perhaps just a new category or whatever) should be able to go through BAG. —— Eagle101 Need help? 16:48, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you

I accept. Danny 00:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Would it be possible to...

...set Cydebot to listify Category:Wikipedians looking for help? I really like the other listified category pages because I can see updates in my watchlist. It would be a convenience if this category were also listified. It only occasionally has a few Wikipedians in it, but response time would be a lot quicker. Would it be possible? And would you be willing to do it? I'd certainly appreciate it. --Iamunknown 01:37, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

No problem. See User:Cyde/List of requests for help. --Cyde Weys 03:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much! --Iamunknown 18:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Betacommand

I read your statement about adminbots, and I have to say I agree with the gist of it. I have nothing against adminbots, as long as they are approved by the bot approvals process, and cause no harm, and are not a server strain.

By the way, your Cydebot does some good work, I am glad such a bot exists.... it is very helpful. --SunStar Net talk 18:31, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Did you mean to do this?

Did you mean to remove the discussion about whether or not this reference desk question should be there, or were you intending to trim the question itself? Friday (talk) 22:08, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I meant to blank what I blanked. It started off as an improper reference desk question, which was removed, and then turned into a meta discussion, which doesn't belong on the main page, but rather the talk page. If you really think anything productive can come out of that, I suppose you could copy it over to the talk page. --Cyde Weys 22:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, it was on the talk page, but really either way that edit summary was dead nuts.—eric 23:02, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Huh, so it was on the talk page. --Cyde Weys 23:12, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
'Dead nuts', 'dead nuts on', 'dead nuts on target', etc. imply accuracy, and are similar to 'dead on', 'bang on', or 'spot on' (if you are British). What i tried to say above is that—although you were aiming for the main page but hit hit the talk page instead—your edit summary of "going nowhere" was a keen and accurate description of the current state of the reference desk discussions.—eric 00:08, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I think we're miscommunicating. For what it's worth, the question and responses are still there on the ref desk, see the above link. So, if you meant to remove them, you did not accomplish this. Friday (talk) 23:44, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we're miscommunicating, I think I mistook the talk page for the actual reference desk and then proceeded to blank something under false pretenses. --Cyde Weys 00:05, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Eh, mistakes happen. I put the stuff back on the talk page, no harm done. If you're interested in helping keep the ref desk on track as a useful resource for verifiable information (and honestly, I have mixed feelings on whether or not I could recommend this activity to anyone else), please do keep an eye out and do similar trims in the future if you see things going off track. I'm certainly willing to give reasonable editors wider latitude on the ref desk than in article space, but there are some contributors there who use it as a platform for off-color jokes and soapboxing. Friday (talk) 00:18, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How we looking now?

Seems to fit? -Mask? 22:49, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Without making any statement on the formatting of the signature, yes, it's much better now that it doesn't have an image. --Cyde Weys 04:59, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cydebot category listification bug

Memorandum to the community at large: the functionality of Cydebot that periodically listifies certain maintenance categories is currently experiencing some issues. Unfortunately, I'm very busy at the moment and I don't have the time to debug it right now, so I've simply shut it down. I'm just posting this notice as an proactive explanation. --Cyde Weys 04:57, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Novels WikiProject Newsletter: Issue XI - April 2007

The April 2007 issue of the Novels WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

Delivered by Grafikbot 11:13, 6 April 2007 (UTC)