User:Rich Farmbrough/Talk Archive 3

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[edit] Disambiguation pages (sticky)

I noticed that you've done some disambiguation on [[British]] and others. I've been trying to do this as well. Any possibility of starting a project to do it? You can reply to this section. Thanks, Alphax τεχ 09:47, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

How would you envisage this working? Rich Farmbrough 11:24, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Ok, people check Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links (and the more updated one) and Category:Disambiguation for things to disambiguate. Where there is a clear alternative for a link target (eg. United States vs. America), it is inserted; where there is not, it is discussed. I realise the difficulty in maintaining such a thing, but ultimately, links to disambiguation pages lead to 2 pages being loaded per link followed - increasing server load and slowing down Wikipedia. Alphax τεχ 09:18, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps we need a Wikipedia:Disambiguation queries page. OTOh the people who are best placed to decide will be the regular editors of the page, if any. Rich Farmbrough 13:37, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The hardest part is determining which disambiguation pages have the most incoming links - best determined by database dumps. In some disambiguation cases it's difficult to decide which alternative is best suited, so we need language & grammer experts working this (I'm neither). I wonder if we should post an expression of interest to the Village Pump or mailing list... Alphax τεχ 15:56, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm statting the diambiguation links from a database dump. Rich Farmbrough 19:35, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Cool! Where will you put them? Alphax τεχ 04:14, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Offline reports/This is one of the most linked to disambiguation pages Note that these sub-pages don't seem to update the main page unless it's edited. This could be due to using the Paris caches. Same could apply to the "You have new messages" Rich Farmbrough 10:14, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Have you seen Template:Purge? Or my monobook.js and monobook.css (copied from ABCD's? Anyway, good to see the list updated again. How often will the script be run? Alphax τεχ 12:37, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It takes a few minutes of user time to do it, so whenever I notice the databse has been updated I will run it. Rich Farmbrough 16:47, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Time to reset the indent level... Now to rope in more people to help... Alphax τεχ 07:31, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

New database dump being d/l'd as we speak. Rich Farmbrough 15:57, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Cool... do you know of any other people that would regularly check these? I was wondering how long it would take to de-populate the incoming links. Alphax τεχ 00:22, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Page updated now. Rich Farmbrough 11:00, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Hey! The page was moved and is now part of Template:Active Wiki Fixup Projects. Good job! Alphax τεχ 12:13, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
BTW an new list is now uploaded. Rich Farmbrough 10:44, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
Neat. Alphax τεχ 05:48, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] David Farmbrough

Not sure that the second link to [[Winchmore Hill] is needed as it's linked in an earlier instance. User:DavidFarmbrough 11 Apr 2005 17:22 (BST)

I guess you're right. Rich Farmbrough 16:37, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
And if you use <nowiki></nowiki> you can express wiki construct unwikily.Rich Farmbrough

[edit] Justin Canha and the Google Test

Hello, Rich. I just saw your justification to not speedy delete the Justin canha article, in the article's history page. Responding to my speedy deletion reason: "This is an article about someone with less than 500 hits on Google" , you said (sic): "Google hits do not a speedy deletion make".

Are we abolishing the Google Test?

Among other reasons to do a Google Test there is: ...to decide whether a person is famous enough to have an article or is just making the page because of vanity

--Abu Badali 17:15, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

Firstly The Google test has always been and very likely always will remain an imperfect tool used to produce a general gauge of notability. It is not and should never be considered definitive.
Secondly notability or lack thereof is not a reason for speedy deletion neither is vanity. Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion
I agree that Justin Canha almost certainly “should” be speedied, but under the current policy it needs to go to VfD. Rich Farmbrough 19:24, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)


[edit] VFD

Just one more thing, Google Test was really voted for deletion. But the result was keep. --Abu Badali 17:23, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hello.

Hello--Crestville 18:17, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Hello yourself :) Rich Farmbrough 15:26, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Hey, cheers!  :)--Crestville 22:17, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Persia

I notice you've been disambiguating links to Persia into Iran. Thanks, but please be aware that that article deals only with the country that's occupied that area since 1935, when the international community first began referring to it as Iran. Instances of Persia in more historical contexts--for instance, in ancient Roman, ancient Greek or Muslim history articles--should really be disambiguated to Persian Empire. Binabik80 03:23, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I was also going to comment that this is probably a bad idea. Most of the the changes I checked should really be disambigged to Persian Empire. It is similar to linking to [[Ancient Egypt|Egypt]] rather than [[Egypt]]. -- Solipsist 06:34, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I see you were reacting to the list at Wikipedia:Offline_reports/This_is_one_of_the_most_linked_to_disambiguation_pages. The fact that there are nearly 1500 Persia links, suggests that there could be an alternative solution, such as moving the current Persia to Persia (disambiguation) and making Persia a redirect to Persian Empire. However, there is already extensive discussion at Talk:Persia, which shows it is not a trivial issue. -- Solipsist 07:06, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The problem with Persia is that the discussion, and the page itself, indicate that Iran is the correct disambig. There is a seperate page for Persian Empire, and I have changed a number of links from [[Persia]]n empire to [[Persian Empire]]. Iran includes a link to History of Iran which is also redirected from History of Persia. I'll leave it alone for now, and see what the discssion on talk:Persia brings forth. Rich Farmbrough 16:41, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
A number of the links you've made to Iran are clearly more appropriately made to Persian Empire, especially considering they are talking about events of 1,500-2,500 years ago. I've fixed some of them. As for History of Iran, the majority of it is on the 20th century, and the section on the older history notes that the main article is Persian Empire. I've fixed that re-direct to point to the article that actually has the information in it. Jayjg (talk) 04:14, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Shoot, I got involved today with the project and have had the same problems, including someone who was miffed with my edits following behinf me and reverting everything I did. I think maybe we need to have a more general topis Persia, which could cover (and link to) the ancient empire, the modern Iran, and the cultural articles.General Leppy
Hello. Please don't forget to provide an edit summary. Thanks, and happy editing.

bbx 01:20, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Trouble at Wiktionary

There is a user on Wiktionary that is outta control and he must be stopped. Will you ban Bobtail since you are an adminstrator and on Wiktionary, protect "Template:Hellenicindex" and "Template:Englishindex" to avoid vandalisms. Pumpie, 21:12 (UTC), Apr 23, 2005

[edit] Islamofascism VfD

Could you please explain the reasoning behind this decision? BrandonYusufToropov 20:01, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, and for the suggestions on future edits. I'm partisan, I know, but it seemed to me that the "merge/redirect" + "delete" constituency was a working majority, and that it constituted something of a mandate for change. Could it have gone the other way, do you think? BrandonYusufToropov

Not sure how harmless it is, given the depth of anti-Muslim sentiment in the US and elsewhere, and the tendency of people to point to things like encyclopedia entries as evidence for the legitimacy of ideas that might otherwise be considered extremist and unacceptable. BrandonYusufToropov 22:00, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I see your point. Thanks again for the ideas on editing. It seems to me it should be a much shorter article if it remains. BrandonYusufToropov 22:50, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bergen

[edit] Germans vs Germany links

On several articles related to Czech Republic you changed link from Germans (as people) to Germany (as country). For example in Jihlava article the people link would be better - it is about events hundreds years ago when no state existed (and the people were identified more as Saxons, Bavarians etc than Germans). Pavel Vozenilek 10:29, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, you are right. An article of its own would be needed for complete coverage. Pavel Vozenilek 10:56, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Al Qaeda dates

Yeah, my first impulse was to revert, then I thought, well some of these seem kosher so I'll try editing... but then I saw you'd edited a date inside a link, at which point I figured I'd just revert. :) --Golbez 16:48, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bot? (Nobot)

No I'm not using a bot. See User:Rich_Farmbrough.

Are you using a bot? [1] seems rather odd ([[September 11, 2001 attacks|[[11 September]]]] really won't work, honest). Please note that running a bot without prior permission is a Bad Thing, most especially so when you don't even leave an edit summary

James F. (talk) 10:06, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Nor does one of the changes in this edit of Hansie Cronje. Well intentioned, but wrong. The template sorts out the linking, so it displays as "As of [[1 January]], 2005" -- ALoan (Talk) 18:17, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
this diff rather Rich Farmbrough 08:32 7 June 2006 (UTC).

Glad to sort out the Kissinger link; looks like there are problems on similar pages. Are you using a bot? Mackensen (talk) 18:20, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

No, no bot. Search and replace, then checking the diff. I was editing the Kissinger one when you fixed it. Rich Farmbrough 19:32, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Linking dates in references

I've noticed you're linking dates in references (e.g. here). I'm not sure if this is helpful - it just creates blue text that nobody will ever click on. Is your purpose to force the wiki to use local date settings? JFW | T@lk 21:17, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Indeed per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Dates Rich Farmbrough 21:27, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

And why are you switching month and day order, when the MOS does not suggest it, and the actual articles linked to have the opposite format to the one you are switching to? Jayjg (talk) 22:59, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Because it looks the same. [[17 october]] [[2003]] renders as 17 October 2003 wheras [[October 17]] [[2003]] renders as October 17, 2003. rgds, Rich Farmbrough 23:06, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't get it. Why switch October 17, 2003 to 17 October 2003? Jayjg (talk) 23:11, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Let me be a lttle clearer. I make no effort to keep the original order becasue it doesn't matter. I am using search and replace to make the change. However, now you mention it there is one advantage, from time to time I have to revert a change, which is simple, more infrequently I part revert, manually. This would be easier with the same order, so thanks, I'll probably do that. Rich Farmbrough 23:22, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, it's not much clearer; why is it easier?

Because in the case in point I would edit "[[May 31]]" to "May 31" if I decided a change was wrong - less keystrokes and less chance of error. (E.G. date in a link, a direct quote, a template which imposes wikifying of dates, a URL.) (Except of course that in the case in point the date order wsn't changed anyway)

Also, don't you think the original authors had something in mind when they used that order?

Not in the vast majority of cases. Any more than they have something in mind when they say Anemia or Anaemia. When the layout is more important than the content, then the change should not be made, as in the examples above, or a proper name. When the idea is to refer to a period of time, then it is good that the users can see it in their desired format.

And finally, since the articles inevitably linked to say October 17, why not just link there? Jayjg (talk) 23:30, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Neither format will be a redirect, so what does it matter? Rich Farmbrough 23:47, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

It's disconcerting, for one thing, and Wikipedia policy generally encourages leaving alternatives like this in the form created by the original author. It's much the same for English/American spellings. Jayjg (talk) 23:56, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't see why it's disconcerting, since it's invisible, still never mind, with the changes I talked about I'll be doing what you want anyway. The example of Anemia/Aneamia was chosen to illustrate just such a point, generally it would be left alone, but in the article Anemia it's been regularised - it's not a big deal. Cheers, Rich Farmbrough 08:45, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

The MOS does not actually suggest linking dates in references. Also, the dates in references often follow a specific format (year, month, day) that is not actually dependant on locale (see Pubmed entries, such as PMID 15908442). May I ask you to not link dates in references. JFW | T@lk 10:22, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What????

"... volume 31, September 1989" means that the September 1989 issue of a journal is a part of volume 31 of that journal. It is absurd to link that to 31 September, even if (or perhaps especially if) the month of September had 31 days. Michael Hardy 22:20, 26 May 2005 (UTC)