User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2006Dec

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[edit] Error but not obvioisly bad enough to stop Smackbot for.

See [1]. There are two issues here 1) I'm not sure it should be subbing in talk space 2) it certainly shouldn't be subbing in when it has nowikis around it. JoshuaZ 07:51, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 07:54 1 December 2006 (GMT).
I've rolled back a few more that I saw in the bots recent contribs. All with the nowiki template around them. JoshuaZ 07:56, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks again. Should avoid nowikis now. Rich Farmbrough, 07:57 1 December 2006 (GMT).
Note that some of them may have the nowikis slightly farther away from the template in question such as this one. JoshuaZ 07:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, looking at some of the recent ones I had to revert (I've only looked at a small fraction of its edits) it may make sense to only do it on talk pages if the tag is in the header. (see for example [2] ). Last comment about your bot. I promise. JoshuaZ 08:03, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. All live transclusions should get something done to them so that they eventually get human attention, even if that is to "nowiki" them. And I think all the nowiki's are being avoided, that example would be just before I made the change. Your comments are most welcome, as they have improved what's being done. Rich Farmbrough, 09:27 1 December 2006 (GMT).

There was an edit made to Talk:Gaussian integral at 7:59 GMT today that broke both these rules (talk space and nowiki). That is, after your comment at 7:57; dunno if you've fixed it since. Cheers, Lunch 22:35, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, in future I'll only be looking at pages where the template is invoked so less likely to be a problem, but I will test to see if theres a bug, or just a timing or other mistake by me. Rich Farmbrough, 22:52 1 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Date linking

Hi. I wondered if you would be interested in contributing to User talk:Guinnog/date linking? --Guinnog 18:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Subst tags

Sorry, I was told 2 weeks ago by another editor to use the subst tag to reduce strain on the servers and prevent blanking of the tag. Would you be so kind as to point me towards a resource that explains when and when not to use them? Cheers. L0b0t 21:18, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Always use it for prod and afd, or they won't work properly. Wikipedia:Template substitution explains the pros and cons, reasons to subst and not, and gives lists of "always, sometimes and never". Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 21:24 1 December 2006 (GMT).
Thanks, I will learn it and follow it in future. Cheers. L0b0t 21:35, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ISSN link question

Please see my entry at Talk:International_Standard_Serial_Number; I'm hoping you can figure out a fix! :-) I was getting ready to fix some ISSNs and ISBNs, and now realize I have a headache, and better not do so now. Regards, Keesiewonder 14:25, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

See my response on the above talk page for a temporary ISSN checker you can use. EdJohnston 18:19, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Excellent! Somehow, I knew you'd come up with something. Thank you! Keesiewonder 22:34, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Smackbot and {{notability}} / {{importance}}

You chose an unfortunate moment to start date-tagging these; per this discussion, I'd been back-sorting these by month of original tagging, and had it down to a remainder, almost all from November... which have now been tagged as December, which will now be rather large by the time the month is out. Perhaps I should have mentioned this earlier... Alai 17:06, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I've just done something similar for "unreferenced", although more rough and ready (I missed the nuance of cl_timestamp). We could move all the dec category to nov fairly simply, what do you think? Rich Farmbrough, 19:37 2 December 2006 (GMT).
P.S. Annoying that the dump has failed yet again. Rich Farmbrough, 19:39 2 December 2006 (GMT).
I didn't think of using the timestamp myself, until Radiant suggested it. I was thinking of something along those lines: but don't do them all, I have a list of the category contents from early-ish on Dec 1st, I'll use that. Alai 19:41, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for doing APUG. Rich Farmbrough, 19:46 2 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Peanuts on popular culture

Thanks for your prompt follow-up on the glitch, and your advice on this article. I removed the unreferenced tag and gave my reasons. Someone put it back and gave his or her reasons. Good enough! At least it no longer exists in am informational vacuum. Have a great day! Karen | Talk | contribs 23:21, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{admin}}

Please take a look at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#WP:LA. Cheers, NoSeptember 08:16, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Importance Template

Thanks![3] I thought it should take a date field, but I couldn't remember the syntax and {{importance}} doesn't specify how. I'll have to remember that one. -- JLaTondre 15:26, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

My pleasure, but don't worry, various bots date such monthly maintenance templates. Rich Farmbrough, 15:28 3 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] ISBNs and the SmackBot

Please take a look at this edit: It breaks the info box for Discworld. I don't know if you should exception it or if you can write the code to see it as not an ISBN to fix. Thanks, Dimitrii 02:14, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Health Wiki Research

A colleague and I are conducting a study on health wikis. We are looking at how wikis co-construct health information and create communities. We noticed that you are a frequent contributor to Wikipedia on health topics.

Please consider taking our survey here.

This research will help wikipedia and other wikis understand how health information is co-created and used.

We are from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The project was approved by our university research committee and members of the Wikipedia Foundation.

Thanks, --Sharlene Thompson 18:04, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Research Project Results

The results from my research project are available User:Nonplus/survey. Nonplus 13:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 13:40 5 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Signpost updated for December 4th.

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[edit] Linking years when the day/month is present

I see you fixed my date formatting at Christopher Spencer (author) from [[May 25]] 1969 to [[May 25]] [[1969]]. I thought wikilinking the year was always optional, but I've discovered I was wrong. Has it always been like that, or has it changed? Regards, Mr Stephen 15:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Certainly for a very long time. It is of course only a guideline. Rich Farmbrough, 15:06 5 December 2006 (GMT).
Thanks for the information. Memo to self: read the MOS again. Regards, Mr Stephen 16:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Formatting

Hi Rich. I'm wondering why you reformat edits, specifically by removing the spacing in headings. -- Fyslee 17:11, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Just how I (and a lot of editors) prefer it. Rich Farmbrough, 22:32 5 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Minor Smackbot problem

In this edit on Washington State Route 240, obviously the word Reference should have been capitalized, and I have no preference for the placement of the stub category -- but in moving it to the bottom, you added an extra line of whitespace. Reverted here.

Like I said... it's a very minor Smackbot problem. ;-) -- NORTH talk 00:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. This is standard WP:AWB behaviour if "general fixes" is selected, presumably for readability of the wikisource. As you say, very minor one way or the other. Rich Farmbrough, 09:45 9 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Your move of Oregon Superintendent of Public Instruction for capitalization

Just double checking, since the applicable MOS article states:

When referring to a specific office, generally use uppercase: "The British Prime Minister is Tony Blair."

It then waffles by adding that other manuals indicate lower case in the absence of the article, "the," and does not seem to contemplate the use of the title of an elected official as the title of an article at all.

So, I looked for guidance by titles of correlary articles elsewhere in Wikipedia (e.g., California Superintendent of Public Instruction), and styled accordingly.

I'm new enough at this that I am certainly not making a protest. I am just wondering if there an amplified version of the MOS somewhere that might address this issue more fully, so that I can avoid titling articles in a manner which requires such moves in the future. -- J-M Jgilhousen 10:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

You may very well be right. I wasn't asking for a revert, simply clarification. I am attempting to at least appear educable. You know, old dogs, etc. -- J-M Jgilhousen 10:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pacific Western University

Was this an AWB edit? Either way, it's not wise to perform such edits on protected pages, particularly those protected as Office Actions. Chick Bowen 23:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, just saw that you'd posted about this on the talk page first. Even though you got no response from Danny there, I'd still say in future it would be best to avoid such edits. Chick Bowen 23:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, common sense says that it's OK to make the edit, paranoia says don't. WP runs on a bit of both! But PWU was the only article on the whole of WP with an undated tag of that kind, so as the change was non-substantive I went ahead. However it does leave the situation with these Office actions as very unsatisfactory, even if understandable to some extent. Rich Farmbrough, 23:17 6 December 2006 (GMT).
I understand what you mean about paranoia, but my thinking is that the best way to avoid debate about what counts as a substantive edit is not to edit them at all. Yes, I agree that the whole situation is unsatisfactory, but there seems to be an agreement (one that Danny has enforced rather strenuously) that WP:Office is the only policy to which IAR doesn't apply. I meant my comment originally solely as advice, though, take it or leave it. Chick Bowen 23:29, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, taken in that spirit. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 23:37 6 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Template parameters, named vs. ordinal

Hi, be careful with these. Some use "date=" and some use {{{1}}} and some are undated. While it would proabably be good to make them all "date=" it would need to be planned carefully. Your recent changes to Template:Unreferencedsect threw hundreds of articles out of their dated categories. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 14:58 7 December 2006 (GMT).

Ok. Thanks for catching that. Are named parameters generally favored over ordinal ones? While it is a bit more work for the user, named parameters will allow for easier modification to the template (an important thing in a wiki), and don't cause problems with meta-templates which take multiple parameters, like {{tlx}} and {{tlrow}}. Hmm. -- PatrickFisher 15:06, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
The answer is, as usual, "it depends". But with these cleanup templates a number of bots add the date parameter, so the extra work is negligable. And having the bots do it means you don't get things like "Devember" as I typed earlier today, or more subtley "december"- lower case "d". Also if you add a named parameter to a template and it is unused, it doesn't matter, as you hint above. Rich Farmbrough, 15:17 7 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Countess de Castiglione

Hi

I was just wondering why this article may need a "cleanup"...

Thx for answering

Sincerily Paris75000 21:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I didn't tag it, merely dated the tag. However Ihave attempted to cleanup links, dates, capitalisation etc. Have a look. Rich Farmbrough, 21:40 8 December 2006 (GMT).


Thx, best greetings, Bye Paris75000 21:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Doing something about the ridiculous date autoformatting/linking mess

Dear Rich—you may be interested in putting your name to, or at least commenting on this new push to get the developers to create a parallel syntax that separates autoformatting and linking functions. IMV, it would go a long way towards fixing the untidy blueing of trivial chronological items, and would probably calm the nastiness between the anti- and pro-linking factions in the project. The proposal is to retain the existing function, to reduce the risk of objection from pro-linkers. Tony 14:37, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, left out the link:

Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#A_new_parallel_syntax_for_autoformatting_dates —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tony1 (talk • contribs) 14:50, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] SmackBot and Linkless/Orphan tag

I see that SmackBot is currently changing {{linkless-date}} to {{orphan}}. Given that Template:Orphan redirects to Template:Linkless, wouldn't it be more consistent to change it to {{linkless}}?

Yours for nitty-gritty details.... --Alvestrand 19:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Would be nice to be consistent. Where should the debate be held? --Alvestrand 21:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:All articles lacking sources

I asked for the rationale for this category at Template talk:Unreferenced#Category:All articles lacking sources. Seeing that you created the category, I thought that you would probably be able to answer my question. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 02:57, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I've answered at Template talk:Unreferenced#Category:All articles lacking sources. Rich Farmbrough, 21:55 10 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] The List

Hey Rich,

On the list you have User:Template namespace initialisation script listed as a regular user. Isn't this a bot? Firsfron of Ronchester 05:15, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, how strange... Rich Farmbrough, 11:28 10 December 2006 (GMT).
Ah User:Portal namespace initialisation script is flagged as a bot, but not User:Template namespace initialisation script. Mystery solved. I have manually changed it. Rich Farmbrough, 11:40 10 December 2006 (GMT).
See also [4] Rich Farmbrough, 11:43 10 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Can u help

Rich, it is probably unfortunate for u sometimes looking like someone who knows wiki procedure, but here's a query. (It may be outside yr ambit, but who to ask?) I made a very dumb edit referring to Russian "looting" of the BMW factory, (what was i thinking? aaaargh!), in a Cossack motorcycle article in the early hours one night. Because of my involvement, I'm a bit close to it to be safe talking to this guy that has made this post on the MotorcyclingProject discussion page. (IP address only). Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Motorcycling#Vandalism by POV and misinformation I do not want to do the wrong thing here. Seasalt 13:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you have any advice on dealing with this? Is this sort of post permitted? Seasalt 13:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, you could take it as a personal attack, or lack of [{WP:AGF]]. Or, if you can manage it, leave it alone. As an uninvolved party assuming good faith, it is clear to me from that talk page that your intentions were honorable, and that the IP has overreacted a bit, and not quite managed to calm down. Bottom line, the article is fixed, no-one is likely to think the worse of you (apart from the anon, possibly, whcih you can't do much about), forget it and move on. Rich Farmbrough, 14:01 8 December 2006 (GMT).
Special:Contributions/203.206.103.188 has now registered as Special:Contributions/M-72 and has continued his argument. He looks like a stayer. There are no admins or third parties who limit this? He seems to have good Russian motorcycle knowledge, looking at his posts so far, but WP:AGF does not seem to register. You will possibly be exasperated with me for asking, but if he is going to persist it is going to be very difficult. Seasalt 13:15, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Rich. Just seeing a couple of posts made me feel better anyway. If I am lucky, he will read the Five Pillars, and ease up. Much appreciated. Seasalt 11:39, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rest

[edit] Have a rest

The Xing aknowledges your hard work, and offers you a rest in his garden.

The Xing 19:15, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anon IP

Personal attacks have no place on Wikipedia, and you will get blocked in short order if you persist with them. Rich Farmbrough, 20:13 10 December 2006 (GMT).

I believe, by showing up in my talk page, you are referring to NetSnipe's remarks to me of 'fucking care' and 'you are paranoid', right? And if not, why not? 81.131.101.50 20:16, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ISBN vs. AWP

Hi Rich, I'm a relative new player who has a high interest in authors, book cataloging, ISBN tracking and such. I happened to go by the Margaret Truman page a bit ago and noticed that the ISBN groups on her page were messed up. I have researched and installed the ISBN data onto a number of author pages and living with a retired librarian I think I have a pretty good understanding of this system. In looking at the history on the Truman page I saw that you had done some formatting of the ISBN's using AWP. I just looked at the page on AP and just briefly reviewed it. I also have a copy of the work that I did on that page originally. My first (and only, at this point) is that AWP doesn't like ISBN. It has misaligned the ISBN structure on the Truman page. Please review the ISBN page on Wiki. Currently there is a 10 digit layout consisting of the following: X-XXX-XXXXX-X In 2007 it expands to 13 digits of X-XXX-XXXXXXXX-X. Both systems use a 4 block group. The main change is the expansion of the third block. I don't understand what AWP did but in some cases it changed the size of the 2nd data block and even eliminated the dashes. The main problem that I see is that the publishing industry has jumped the gun and started putting the 13 digit assignments in their new books but their structure is all over the spectrum and one publisher even created a five block data structure. For the time being, I would recommend taking a "wait and see" approach. You cannot rely on LoC (Library of Congress) since they use a straight number string with no dashes. The Wiki standard for ISBN states that a post-2007 ISBN might be four OR five data blocks. Additionally, there is no requirement for a publisher to assign an ISBN to a book or display it, HOWEVER, Bookstoreswill only deal with books bearing an ISBN. Isn't that just precious? And then there is the EAN barcode. I will re-correct the Truman page but I thought I'd let you know about this issue. Have a great day. 66.242.209.79 22:28, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello Rich and Ekotkie. I disagree with User:Ekotkie's recent changes to Margaret Truman, and I'm concerned he believes the publisher code is always 3 digits long. I replied at more length on his talk page [5]. EdJohnston 20:31, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry

Sorry, I realized too late that I wasn't logged on for my last msg. Ekotkie 22:30, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] date-links

Rich—I agree entirely with your comments in their own frame, but I'm very concerned that adding any detail beyond the current minimalist approach will sink the push with the developers. I even hope that they don't get back to us and ask for input on these, because that will invite a huge debate on their patch, and possibly capsize the request.

This is a fear that I've acquired from reading the previous attempt at Bugzilla, and from comments by MattWrigth et al. Keeping it minimalist also, in a way, empowers the developers, which is my strategy. Make it easy for them and make them feel in control.

Since whatever change they make should be relatively easy for them, technically, my strategy would be to go with it and make another request for improving the functionality down the track, when people have seen that "hey, it can be changed; it can be better". Further changes won't mean undoing much, I'm thinking.

What do you think?

Tony 00:31, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

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[edit] Greeting, fellow bot operator

I see that you are listed as a fellow bot operator. I have been regorganising the wikipedia bot help pages to try and provide more information for those who want to learn how to create a bot or have quesitons relating to how to run a bot on wikipedia (more nuts-and-bolts than the existing policy page, which deals with what you are allowed to do, not how you would go about doing it). I've made a start at Wikipedia:Creating_a_bot but could do with any feedback at all. I could do with any programming-language specific information that you can provide as well as any suggestions for improving the article. I'm leaving this same message with 5 other bot operators, to encourage them to pass on the knowledge we have learned developing our bots to the "next generation" of wikipedia bot-builders! Cheers - PocklingtonDan 15:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Glad you liked the look of PockBot. Unfortunately, it seems someone might have blocked it at the moment, its having difficulty writing its results to wikipedia despite its code remaining unchanged. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by PocklingtonDan (talk • contribs) 17:08, 12 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] bug in PocKleanBot

It shouldn't have written more than once. Dammit, a bug. Please feel free to block until I can fix this. - PocklingtonDan 19:44, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No hurry for this

You might like to consider replacing: "You should use this section to discuss possible resolution of the problem and achieve consensus for action. Only when there is a consensus that the article is now cleaned up should you then de-list it by deleting the cleanup tag from the article, this causes the article to drop off the monthly cleanup-needed list page." with: "You can use this section to discuss possible resolution of the problem and achieve consensus for action. When there is a consensus that the article is cleaned up please remove the cleanup tag from the article."

Main reason, asking and offering instead of instructing, some wpians are very sensitive... Also no need to explain what the tag does, they probably either understand in a broad way, or don't care about the details. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 20:01 12 December 2006 (GMT).

Thanks, done now. I have also found and fixed the bug that made it able to write twice tot he same user's tlak page, it was due to an earlier change when I went from pringting the templates to subst:ing them - PocklingtonDan 20:20, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hi Dan

Don't be downhearted. Rich Farmbrough, 21:01 12 December 2006 (GMT).

Thank you, but I have withdrawn the bot, it's too much hassle! - PocklingtonDan 08:32, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WPCD

Hi Richard. Any chance you could run smackbot over http://2007-wikipedia-cd-selection.fixedreference.org/wp/index/alpha.htm and see if you can pick up any obvious recent added grafiti? --BozMo talk 17:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Mainly to check and get rid of obscenities (or tell me if they are part of an article) plus signature grafiti ;eqokgnw;evn type. --BozMo talk 18:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

OK thanks. I was given a bad steer then! --BozMo talk 21:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

Or more strictly references. There is a system that means the references (footnotes, whatever) can be entered in the text body, and show up together where <references /> is entered. So to edit the references just edit the whole article if it's short. Or clcik on the ^ next to the ref in question, whcih will take you to the place it occurs in the article. There is another system where the text is at the end, but it's used less now. Rich Farmbrough, 19:40 13 December 2006 (GMT).

Hi Rich, I dabbled a bit tonight with that ^ business and it worked like a dream. Wish I had known that earlier as I would have wiped out a few more faulty ISBN's I am puzzled a bit by the fact that in some cases, doing a full page edit doesn't always give you the data for reference items. I will stick with this other way when I need it. Thanks for the tip. BTW, did you use a bot to run that ISBN check in the first place? Did it install those "too long/too short templates? Nice touch. Going cross-eyed doing on-screen hunts for those templates. Lots of work ahead.Ekotkie 07:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Hi Ed, yes I used my bot account User:SmackBot. I started out removing ":" from "ISBN:" and it snowballed. I've just improved the regular expressions to label checksum errors, so I'm doing another run. (Previously I could only label the article as a whole.) I'm considering migrating ISBNs to 13 digits, but I know there would be a lot of disagreement about such a move. Rich Farmbrough, 09:23 14 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Update on previous findings about published-invalid ISBNs

Hello Rich. I felt that your Talk page deserved to have the latest info about published-invalid ISBNs. Rather than make edits to your archive page for 5 Sept 2006, here are some previous items, copied over and updated with new info.

2-10-4. Jack Farrell, 'North American Steam Locomotives: the Berkshire and Texas Types'. The ISBN originally given in WP was 91-571-3151-2, which is invalid. It seems most likely to be a copying error, rather than published invalid. (Can't be sure without seeing a physical copy of the book). I updated the WP article with the correct ISBN, 0-915713-15-2.

A Certain Woman, by Areo Takishima, published 1978. Now marked in WP as 'No ISBN available'. Originally published with ISBN 0680082377, which is invalid. The Library of Congress still has it entered under the bad ISBN and even finds it by that number using an ISBN search.

I'saka language lists 'I'saka grammar' by Mark Donohoe and Lila San Roque, published in 2004. Now marked as 'No ISBN available'. WP originally gave the ISBN 0-85883-554-4, which is invalid. No replacement for the bad ISBN is currently available. LOC lists the book in its catalog, but does not given an ISBN for it, and MARC offset 020 is an empty field.

Ahmad al-Alawi lists a book by Johan Cartigny, 'Cheikh Al Alawi. Documents et temoignages.' Listed in the Univ of Michigan catalog with ISBN 0290529021, which is invalid. Now marked as 'No ISBN available'.

Ajahn Sobin S. Namto lists a book called 'Insight meditation: practical steps to ultimate truth'. The WP editor who created the page says ISBN 947-8357-85-6 is printed in the book, which is invalid. Now marked as 'No ISBN available'. Comment left in Talk page.

Rose: A color of darkness, by Amon Liner. Published with the invalid ISBN 0-932112-09-2 printed in the book. Since then it has been re-issued with a valid ISBN, namely 0-932112-09-9. The WP article has been updated with the new number.

A Google search for the phrase 'Cancelled ISBN' also comes up with this hit: [6], which cites the book Andrew Wilton, 'Journey through the Alps', with 'cancelled ISBN' 3856347756. This book is found in the LOC but with no ISBN listed.

I had previously surmised that the Library of Congress was actually attempting to track good and bad ISBNs for the same book, using the terminology 'cancelled ISBN', but the records I have kept are not good enough to document any actual cases. Certainly the LOC do not seem to filter out bad ISBNs when you search, and in some cases they still deliver book records under their original bad ISBN, which is something that booksinprint.com and abebooks.com admirably refuse to do. Those libraries and services that overtly flag bad ISBNs are truly the most customer-friendly long-term, because not knowing you have a bad ISBN is just storing up trouble for the future. Unfortunately worldcat.org won't flag a bad ISBN and just tells you the book is not found. You still need to use isbn.org/converterpub.asp in case of doubt. EdJohnston 03:06, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

This is a trivial edit to delay Werdnabot's archiving of the bad ISBNs from your Talk page for a few more days! I suppose I could go ahead and start maintaining my own list of bad ISBNs as a sub-page, or even put it in Wikipedia space. EdJohnston 18:01, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Most copied to Category talk:Articles with invalid ISBNs . Rich Farmbrough, 12:55 14 December 2006 (GMT).
Thanks for finding a good place for the info! EdJohnston 16:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ISBN page

Do you mind if I go through your list of duff ISBNs and strike out/delete those which have already been done? I was proposing in the first place to split it into more manageable sections. If you're intending to update it any time soon, would it be better if I waited for you? TIA HAND —Phil | Talk 17:27, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Go for it, but not if it's too much work, the new run will identify bad checksums in the article. Rich Farmbrough, 19:59 14 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Extra job for Smackbot

Apropos of the above, I notice that Smackbot has been doing a sterling job formatting ISBNs with proper hyphenation. However, I don't think the poor dear is noticing a rather annoying (and to me rather disturbing) bodge which seems to have sprouted up. There is at least one user who seems to think that  [[Special:Booksources/0441008534|ISBN 0-441-00853-4]]  is better than simply  ISBN 0-441-00853-4 , and Smackbot doesn't seem to notice this. I have checked with Tim Starling who seems to think there is no danger of the magic word ceasing to work any time soon. I was wondering whether Smackbot could be persuaded to remove the annoying extra layer of crud as part of its work? In the meantime, would you be amenable to sharing the AWB specs you are using for the ISBN stuff, which look to be pretty awesome. TIA HAND —Phil | Talk 17:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Answered on user talkp page, essentially saying yes. Rich Farmbrough, 13:12 15 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Delete some bad ISBNs as an experiment?

Rich, do you think User:Shantavira's suggestion might have some merit? (from [7]). The invalid ISBNs might simply be deleted, with an appropriate comment. We could try that out, for a sample of 20 bad ISBNs from the list, and see if the regular editors are moved to do something reasonable in response? There is a hidden benefit, that bad ISBNs are probably more common in less-used references that may not be all that important in Wikipedia. Of course, data is needed to prove this is wise. What do you think? EdJohnston 22:26, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Commented on the cat talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 09:36 15 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Bot double insertion of ISBN check template

See this edit on Overseas Chinese, inserted a {{Please check ISBN}} when one was already there. Thanks cab 00:29, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll need to smarten this up a bit. Rich Farmbrough, 09:35 15 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] A couple of ISBNs which appear to be valid

SmackBot has tagged a couple of ISBN's in articles on my watchlist in the last few hours which appear to be valid. See Robert Muldoon and Moeraki. I can find these books in the National Library of New Zealand (via Special:Booksources) and in other New Zealand libraries using this ISBN. Is it possible that not all ISBN's adhere to the checksum rules that SmackBot is using?-gadfium 00:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Discussion at User_talk:Gadfium.

[edit] SmackBot edit of Flow-based programming (FBP)

FBP has (had) 4 sections all referring to other technologies which all have articles in Wikipedia, e.g. Jackson Structured Programming (JSP). I had titled each section with an article reference. SmackBot removed the square brackets, so now I have to change the wording a bit to work the article references back in, e.g. change "This methodology" to "The Jackson Structured Programming methodology". a) This seems unnecessary, although I don't mind doing it if it is really necessary, but b) People don't really like me making changes to this article as I am the inventor, so there is a risk of WP:COI, etc. Do you have recommendations? Thanks. Jpaulm 03:18, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The reason you should avoid links in headers is that it creates problems linking to sections e.g. Flow-based programming#concepts. However I have reverted that particular change. Rich Farmbrough, 08:06 15 December 2006 (GMT).
The best way is probably to use the {{main}} template instead of putting links in the section header: see Flow-based programming now. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 09:01, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Or possibly {{details}} Rich Farmbrough, 09:55 15 December 2006 (GMT).

Thanks, everyone! That's very pretty! I wasn't aware of the {{main}} template. Thanks for your help! Jpaulm 15:11, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] technical request

Rich—Thanks for your support on this matter, which means a lot from someone who's way up there in that list of who's done the most edits. I agree with your concerns about date-ranges and the blessed comma, but let's see if we can KISS (keep it simple, stupid) for the moment. We may be in a better possition to lobby for further changes subsequently. Image:Smile.png Tony 03:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Yep, more than happy with that. Rich Farmbrough, 13:11 15 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] SmackBot edit to quadratic programming

A recent edit by SmackBot was just to insert a single space between the interwiki language links and a stub tag (and nothing else). If you can, please change the bot's behavior so that it doesn't make such trivial edits. Thanks, Lunch 02:47, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, this shouldn't have happened, and I will try not to let it happen again. Rich Farmbrough, 08:24 15 December 2006 (GMT).

Okey dokey. No problem. Lunch 16:48, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mergeinto broken by your bot

This edit to One-form broke a mergeinto tag. -- David Woolley 17:23, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, it's likely this was manually assisted mistyping. Rich Farmbrough, 10:09 16 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Fundamental Analysis

All the ratios you put in the discussion page at fundamental analysis are all at financial ratios. There is a link on the page already Retail Investor 02:32, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I noticed there were some ratios, but the reason I put the info there was that the place I moved it from was redirected there, with the old article left in place. Generally this represents an unfinished merge, and it is important under GFDL to attribute work. If this wasn't merged into the FA article, and is of no use elsewhere (unless it was copied there) then remove it from the talk page by all means. Rich Farmbrough, 10:09 16 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] ISBN

Hi, According to Amazon.co.uk it is 0-7110-2521-5. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Portrait-Cheshire-Lines-Committee-Dyckhoff/dp/0711025215 Rgds, Rich Farmbrough, 15:22 16 December 2006 (GMT).

Rich. I've checked again. Either Amazon are wrong (could it be?) or it is a misprint in the book. Best wishes. Peter I. Vardy 15:26, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Hi Peter, very occaisionally the book has the wrong number on it. See Category talk:Articles with invalid ISBNs. this wuld appear to be one of those. Rich Farmbrough, 17:57 16 December 2006 (GMT).
Rich. You're right again! Fascinating. I'm pretty new to Wikipedia and learn a lot every day. Happy Christmas. Peter I. Vardy 22:58, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ISBN formatting use

Hi Rich Farmbrough. I often come across articles with an edit by your trusty bot which reformats ISBNs, for example, from 0871141027 to 0-87114-102-7:

… SmackBot (Talk | contribs) (ISBN formatting/gen fixes using AWB)

It appears to make little difference to the WikiMedia magic ISBN keyword. Is there value in reformatting the number? — EncMstr 20:06, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

ISBNs should be thirteen characters long until the end of 2006 - according to the standard: nine digits, three dashes or spaces and one check digit than can be a digit or X. However wiki magic that makes ISBNs linkable will not work with spaces so we have to use the dash or close the characters up. Therefore I remove ":"s between the "ISBN" and the "number", and hyphenate the ISBN according to the rules published by the International ISBN Agency[8]. This means
  1. Wikimagic will now work
  2. The ISBN is correctly formatted
  3. language area and publisher can be told from the ISBN together with other hints.
At the same time I flag any invalid ISBNs, there are currently over 1600 articles in this category. Rich Farmbrough, 20:30 16 December 2006 (GMT).
You mean *ten* characters long, right? EdJohnston 03:52, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
No, I'm counting the seperators... Rich Farmbrough, 10:56 18 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] where does smackbot get its dash(es)?

i notice i've been wasting your bot's time when i can't find the fully formated isbns, that is dashed into language publisher etc. i add them when i can, but often i have to use a library cat that leaves them out. how does smackbot find the full isbns? (can check here for reply)  ⇒ bsnowball  11:28, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

The rules can be found here: http://www.isbn-international.org/en/identifiers/List-of-Ranges.pdf. But it's fine to leave it for the bot to fix as well. Rgds, Rich Farmbrough, 12:27 17 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Cathedrals

Thank you for leaving messages re inadequate ISBNs. I've fixed the problems.

--Amandajm 11:50, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Excellent! Rich Farmbrough, 12:29 17 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Smackbot makes typos?

I was quite entertained by this. Smackbot tried to leave a template on a page, but typo'd the template name: diff. I have fixed this one, but I hope it isn't making more.. Telsa (talk) 20:51, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Luckily that was the only one. Probably me typing. Thanks for letting me know. Rich Farmbrough, 22:46 17 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] slamming the lack of botbrain

hey Rich - I hope you know I didn't mean you when I called your bot "brainless" (John Lennon edit summary). I was just being grumpy, because it removed some wikilinks ffrom a heading that I had been trying to preserve. But apparently links in headers are frowned on, and if it isn't your bot it'll be some other bot, so I gave up and incorporated the link into the text which, I have to admit, is probably better anyway. I am sure you have a brain. It's the bot's that I was questioning. (Hey, I'm happier if bots don't have brains - that's entirely too scary to contemplate.) No offense taken, I hope, because none was meant. Tvoz 03:46, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

No problem. Rich Farmbrough, 09:51 18 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] New form for ISBNs?

I've noticed that SmackBot is changing the way the Isbns are listed. Is there a new form? The Isbns I have included in articles are (I thought) properly formatted (see diffs here: [9]

just curious and thanks. Jeffpw 09:37, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Jeff, the hyphens in ISBNs are not in a fixed pattern, but vary according to the way greater or smaller parts of the range are assigned to different publishers, and indeed different "lanuguage areas". See the ISBN article for more deatils or http://www.isbn-international.org/en/identifiers/List-of-Ranges.pdf for the full hyphenation rules. Rgds, Rich Farmbrough, 09:57 18 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Smack Bot

Hi - I'm trying to work how you write a bot. Would you give me the code for the above bot so I can fiddle? What language is it written in? Triangle e 11:53, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

The software I use is WP:AWB in C# - source and executables on sourcefourge. Some of the XML configuration files I wrote are available at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Settings in regular expressions. Other frameworks available include pywikipedia in Python, and various bots published in perl. See also Wikipedia:Creating_a_bot and WP:BOT. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 12:05 18 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Blocking SharedIPEDUs

Please use {{schoolblock}} as your reason for blocking school IPs. Do not use "repeated vandalism" as your reason since it only confounds other users on the same IP address and we get a lot of complaints sent to unblock-en-l from confused staff members. I'd appreciate it if you'd undo all your recent blocks and fix the block reason. Thanks. --  Netsnipe  ►  14:30, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

You could also take the effort to spellcheck your messages if you're not going to use standard blocking templates such as {{test5}} {{test7}} and {{anonblock}}. This example comes across as a bit unprofessional. --  Netsnipe  ►  14:37, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, I hadn't seen anonblock before - I was going to make one, or have standard way of inserting the message. The only problem with anonblock is that it says "currently" disabled - this will become out of date. Rich Farmbrough, 15:44 18 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] using new nobots template but not opt-in - acceptable?

Thank you for your comments during PocKleanBot's recent bot RFA. I'm (manually! no spamming! :-P ) contacting the bot operators and admins who commented on the bot's RFA to find out what their position would be to running the bot obeying the new nobots template but not using opt-in. Would this be acceptable to you or not? I think the nobots template is a great idea and I wish it had been introduced years ago and was more widespread. The only problem I can see running the bot this way is that there's going to be a whole lot of people out there who haven't heard of the nobots template and a few of those more violently opposed to bots adding a message to their tlak page will doubtless get irate just like last time. I would be interested in hearing your comments. - PocklingtonDan 15:25, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:Pco

OK, she's withdrawn her legal threat, or says she has; wanna unblock her? (I generally don't reverse another admin's actions without consulting.) --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 18:18, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Already done by Jossi, message left last night. Rich Farmbrough, 09:19 19 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Thanks

Thanks, Rich! In terms of who else has been fixing the ISBNs, JesseW comes to mind. He also created the useful Template:OCLC, and has recommended worldcat use. Ekotkie has been helping recently, even after we jumped on him for his first ISBN correction. RainbowCrane started helping in late August after your previous ISBN run and did quite a few, but he's not edited since 19 Oct and I'm afraid he may have left WP. Kevin Breitenstein did a lot of ISBN fixes. I may have overlooked other people who also helped. EdJohnston 02:52, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


Likewise; thanks for noticing Rich.! John Vandenberg 03:30, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

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[edit] SmackBot

In one of its ISBN checking sweeps, I see smackbot is putting isbn followed by the corrected number. In some cases where the isbn is in a template this leads repetition of the word isbn, see for example [10]. (It might be easier to fix the template, let me know ;))Tim! 08:14, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

It would be preferable to change the templates, as it would create consistencey both with normal text and most other templates. I already differentiate between Isbn= and isbn=, which is not ideal - these are all traps for future editors. Will you change the template? Incidentally ISBN magic won't accept spaces (although they are valid delimiters - you can see the reason). Rich Farmbrough, 09:31 19 December 2006 (GMT).
OK the developers have made a liar of me, ISBN will accept spaces now, I think this will cause "breakage" due to run on (ISBN 1 123 123141 17/12/2006 for example) but is theoretically good. Rich Farmbrough, 09:34 19 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] About the end of summer

I did some book articles, and the Template:Cite book (edit talk links history) was finicky about taking the dashes (as in wouldn't at all), not to mention the new ISBN13 instead of the soon to be done away with ISBN10. About then, the system software was supposed to start accepting the ISBN13's. Is this an additional update? Are you aware of this template and do you know whether the sub-template for the ISBN within is now taking what I see your talk is filled with comments and questions about. (I ran across an answer you gave here which raised the question.) Thanks -- I'm playing catch up-- had some RL crunch time. // FrankB 08:20, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Cordell, Bruce R.; Jeff Grubb, David Yu (September 2001). Manual of the Planes. Wizards of the Coast. ISBN 798-0-7869-1850-8. 

looks ok? Rich Farmbrough, 10:12 19 December 2006 (GMT).

  • Yeah, thanks-- I jes knew it wasn't ca. end of summer. Pardon the Brain fart. Up too late I guess--I could and should have just tested it myself. // FrankB 15:33, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
    • OH MY! LOL Me thimnks me D&D library is a bit dated--imagine that, being 25+ years old. The sad part, I didn't even see a title I recognize in the template
         ~;-(

          Wonder what I can get on ebay taking bids. Nawh! Be worth even more in another 25! // FrankB 15:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
      • People are collecting now - not so much the mainstream stuff, but 1st ed Deities, original, and some other stuff. I recently sold my diplomacy and chat magazines. Rich Farmbrough, 19:00 19 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Marfan Syndrome Article Graffiti Attacks

I have reviewed the history of changes on the Marfan Syndrome article over the past few weeks and have noticed an occasional graffito is written into the article. The vandals perpetrating these attacks usually do it without logging in, thus leaving no contributor trace. I recommend that whenever any of the responsibly acting contributors log in to do some more editing, first look at the most recent edit. If it is an anonymous edit, just revert the article to the previous edit before doing more edits. Leeirons 13:41, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Curious

Hi Rich, Everytime I feel like I'm making headway on ISBN's, more errors show up....((Sigh)) I have been running across a statement "Calculated check digit (X) doesn't match" In a couple cases, when I find the title and ISBN, they are in agreement with what is already there. My sources are Abebooks. Many times I will plug the ISBN into the "search for" and it will error out but I have had some that don't. This gets a bit time consuming with a number of windows opened up. For the most part if the number checks out I cancel the template and press on. That has only happened 3-4 times. I normally can spot the error. Thoughts?? I am tempted to set those aside. I have also found a couple titles that listed 13 digit ISBN's. I have loaded them in lieu of the 10. I don't know who else may be doing this but I don't want to get cross-wise with a process or future step. Any problems with this??Ekotkie 00:49, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I moved this from your userpage, I figured it was left there by mistake. Cheers KOS | talk 20:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Kos Rich Farmbrough, 23:26 19 December 2006 (GMT).
And my thanks also. I think I was drinking too much coffee and the word "discussion" didn't looked like "User talk". Rich, I can assure you that I only remove templates on those ISBN's that I have corrected. If I can't fix it/find it, I leave it. I was just remarking to myself the other days about how I couldn't seem to get out of the "A's".....haha Abebooks has even been good about finding some of the foreign ones. Some care must be taken since some titles do not appear there exactly as someone has put on a Wiki page. Thanks to many page creators who do leave a good trail of data. It has aided me to a great degree to ensure I am posting even the right version of a book. Rich, the award you have bestowed was way too kind. You need to give one to your Bot. And kindly ask the Bot to slow down a tad......Ekotkie 01:34, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] isbn-check .de support for ISBN-13 is imminent

See Tomas Schild's comment EdJohnston 00:39, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 425 Greatest Books of All Time

As requested by Smackbot, notability has been added. Can template now be removed? Thanks. Pepso 11:50, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, of course. But SmackBot doesn't add the tags, merely dates them. MakeRocketGoNow added the tag. Rich Farmbrough, 14:55 20 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Cleanup

I assume that this robot tagging has to do with eo

To me was truncated. However I can perhaps partially reply: my bot is not generally tagging articles it is mainly dating existing tags to help with the cleanup effort. If that doesn't answer your partly asked question, please drop the rest of the question off at may talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 11:01 20 December 2006 (GMT).
Briefly, it's not clear to me what, if anything, needs to be cleaned up in Nomina Anatomica. Btarski 19:57, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jack Hobbs article ISBN

The bot has flagged an ISBN in a reference in this article as invalid because it only has 9 digits. I took the ISBN from the publication data page of the book, which was published in the UK in 1969. Now it may not be an ISBN at all, as it didn't say that it was, but it certainly looked like one. I see that ISBNs had only begun to be used in the UK a couple of years before, so is it possible that they had not yet acquired the current format? One possiblity is that simply inserting a zero at the start of the number would make it valid, but doing this would be a guess on my part. It might be better simply to delete it. Any thoughts? Thanks. JH 10:46, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

You are right in every important respect. I have added the 0 and removed the tag. It is safe to do this for UK and some US books between about 1968 and 1972, I think. You can test on http://www.isbn-check .com/, or usually find the book on Amazon, Abebooks, Libray of Congress etc. by clicking on the ISBN. Best wishes, Rich Farmbrough, 11:09 20 December 2006 (GMT).
Thsnks for your help. JH 18:09, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arthur M Young

Hi Rich. Strange one. The above was noted for ISBN correction.(understatement, it had 7 ISBN errors) The bot picked on one title, "The Bell Notes", BUT the page author listed three ISBN's for this entry based on reprints. The bot did not select which one was bad. I have only found one of the references in a correct condition. I can re-write that book reference to reflect the correct entry that I found but kind of hate to do that since only one of three is in error. I can only assume that the page author wanted to give as much reference data as possible. I have noticed that the bot does not always list the faulty ISBN in the template. This info is handy as I can compare the new data against a version of the bad data and see if it was merely an issue of a leading or trailing number that got dropped. In cases where it is not given I typically drop my new data into a blank spot so I can compare.(extra steps) Sometimes there is a radical difference between the bad ISBN and the new data I have found. Correctness, of course, is the order of the day.

Is there some way to indicate when a reviewer has looked at an entry and been unable to resolve a solution. I have no idea how many people are looking at the incorrect ISBN listings. It seems like many could be plowing over the same ground. Have a great dayEkotkie 19:15, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Another example. Arthur Rostron. There is a book listed by author Walter Lord. The book came out in 1955 yet it has an ISBN. Oh, there are reprints of this book that do have ISBN's but the date shouldn't be 1955. EdJohnson recommended using the latest data and I tend to agree but shouldn't that decision come from the page originator? If we follow that idea, we must be assured that a reviewer does, in fact, change/add the date used. There may be something in the 1955 book that didn't get carried through to one that does have an ISBN. Maybe not. I have spent extra time trying to match up dates (where given) with the actual book. Maybe, we should just give the ISBN and also list the associated date.
Rich, the comment location I was hoping for was to put it on the page of CAT INVALID right next to the page title. I don't see how to access that data and am not sure of an appropriate code to put in that area. Putting it in the template will still waste time for folks.Ekotkie 03:12, 21 December 2006 (UTC)Oops...I was logged offEkotkie 03:12, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

It's hard to give a general answer, but A Night to Remember is a popular book that must have sold 50 zillion copies. Also the two articles involved don't have any page references into the book, so it's unlikely they would care if you replace the old ISBN with the number of a current edition. If it was a rare scholarly book, perhaps it would make a difference. EdJohnston 04:32, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CAT:INVALID

Due to overwhelming popular demand, there is now a shortcut: CAT:INVALID -> Category:Articles with invalid ISBNs. Of course you can type 'cat:invalid' for convenience. Since so many people are fixing ISBNs now, they'll want this :-). EdJohnston 19:23, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mea culpa...

...and many thanks for the tip! Robertissimo 11:06, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reference/s

Re.above plural. Thanks for reassuring me that it was contentious, sometime. I created the page only recently (my first) and did read it on a help page somewhere, not MoS, as you rightly point out. Is there somewhere to advise of inconsistency (yet another) in ref/cite/footnote help pages. Or have I just done so!? Note; to my mind singular is correct and latter 'accepted error' but not worried about it. Do hope citing is improved on wiki, I wasted a lot of time chasing my tail on help pages Best wishes for season Fred.e 16:16, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ISBN - What are you talking about???

  ISBN
  Hi, the first ISBN in the "works" section seems invalid. Are you able to check it? Rich
  Farmbrough 19:02 20 December 2006 (UTC).
  • I have no idea what ARTICLE you are talking about? Can you be more specific? --Ludvikus 20:22, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Corrected as follows:

   * Ovladenie vremenem
   [ed.] Michael Hagemeister
   (Munchen: O. Sager, 1983)
   ISBN 3-87690-231-2  (& not ISBN 3-87690-232-1)

Yours truly, --Ludvikus 22:09, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Benito Mussolini

I've had a look at the April suggestion that this was a copyvio, and it seems to be true. Can we pass belated thanks back to the person who spotted this? Rich Farmbrough, 19:08 21 December 2006 (GMT).

Oh boy, that's crazy. I'll see what I can do. I'm not a OTRS person now, so I'll have to contact someone else to do it. -- Zanimum 21:05, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ISBN Lyman School for Boys

I note that your BOT keeps changing the format of ISBN numbers for some unknown reason, leaving them in an inconsistent state. Could you please tell me what you think the "Correct" format of an ISBN is? Here is an example:
^ a b Miller, Jerome G. (1991). Last One Over the Wall. Ohio State University Press. ISBN 0-8142-0758-8.
^ a b c d e Johnson, Richard B. (2006). Abominable Firebug. iUniverse. ISBN 0-595-38667-9.

They used to be

0-8142-0758-8
0-5953-8667-0
n-nnnn-nnnn-n

Thanks ---LymanSchool 13:19, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

If I may interject, you seem to have the mistaken impression that the number of digits between hyphens should be fixed. That is not how the standard works, and for a good reason. A major publisher will need many more numbers for its books than a small publisher. Also, there are more small publishers than large ones. If the standard assigned equal ranges to each, it wouldn't work. So, the publisher with number 595 is a moderately large publisher, and gets a block of 5-digit numbers to distinguish their books; and the publisher with number 8142 is a moderately small publisher, and gets a block of 4-digit numbers. But wait, there's more. That leading "0" indicates an English-language publication, of which there are an enormous number. More general, we have a country code, with small countries that publish few works having a large code number leaving less room for publisher and item numbers.
Our ISBN article explains a little, and links to an official site that explains in detail. If you want to check the hyphenation, feed the digits to one of the on-line ISBN converters. You will find that "0-5953-8667-0" has an erroneous check digit (the final "0" should be a "9"), and that it should be hypenated as "0-595-38667-9". --KSmrqT 12:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Smackbot and uncategorized tag

Smackbot recently tagged The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy as being uncategorized. The article, however, was already in a (stub) category. Was this edit intentional? Simões (talk/contribs) 18:29, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi, ideally it should have added {{uncatstub}}. But, yes, it is intentional. Rich Farmbrough, 00:38 23 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] ISBN querie on Guy Middleton Page

. The ISBN printed on both the cover and the publishing data page of the book is as stated, 0-06-093507-3. I agree that the check digit appears to be 8, but shouldn't the printed number be given? We do not know if the error is in the base number or the check digit. The listing in Amazon gives the same number as in the book.

Excuse me while I jump in here. I just looked at the title and ISBN for this book and I made two minor corrections. In checking the ISBN in Abebooks I found that this is one of thse things that gets updated. Your listed ISBN is against "edition #14 and was put out in 2001" so I added those two points. Were you aware that there is a 2003 edition out (and maybe more)? I think your ISBN is ok.Ekotkie 03:27, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

The copy I have is the 2001 edition, which also gives ISSN of 1066-2712.

DonJay 20:06, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem was actually the other book "The Film Encyclopedia by Ephraim Katz - Published by Collins - ISBN "0-06-074214-0"": Here the ISBN had the check digit from the 13 digit ISBN. I've put the 13 digit one in. Rich Farmbrough, 08:11 23 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] ISBN hyphens

I noticed that SmackBot put hpyphens into ISBNs on History of rail transport in Great Britain to 1830m which is all well and good. However, I'm intigued as to how they are placed.... four ISBNs were changed from to no hyphens to 0-7153-7603-9, 1-898937-42-7, 0-434-98083-8 and 1-84033-077-5 respectively - four different ways of grouping the digits. Is there any deeper significance to the different ways of grouping? Tompw (talk) 22:38, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Yep, the second group of numbers represents the publisher, the system is designed for smaller publishers to get longer ID's (later in the numeric range - say beginning with 7,8 or 9), there are more of these (because they are allowed to be longer) but correspondingly less actual numbers - which is OK because they'll publish fewer books. See ISBN for more detail. Really big publishers (Penguin, Oxford, Cambridge) have the ids 00 to 19. Rich Farmbrough, 08:15 23 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Oops

Hi Rich, I just edited a bunch of "B's" and I wasn't logged in. Sorry.... I have started leaving (cannot find xxxx) statements in the B section. I hope to go back and do the same in the "A's" I finally caught up with that speedy little bot....Ekotkie 03:07, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bot run

OK, the run is done. Why don't you consider making a new area of review and start it by moving all the "A's"left on the current invalid file. I have checked and no new "A's" have shown up. I am now into the "B's". Happy holiday Ekotkie 18:42, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh-oh....all of the A's have changed color back to true blue instead of haze blue (If someone has looked at an item) Any idea why that happened? How can we keep track of our progress?
Would you please put the Invalid ISBN Counter on that page just like the one you are using here on your page?Ekotkie 20:17, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Library of Congress can't find the 13 digit ISBNs

Rich, the Smackbot robot changed the 10 digit ISBNs to 13 digit ISBNs in UK Dispersion Modelling Bureau and in Unit Operations of Chemical Engineering. As a result, one could no longer click on the ISBNs and then look them up in the Library of Congress or other libraries ... whereas one could do that with the 10 digit ISBNs. I don't know how many other articles have had the same change made by the robot. (I reverted the changes made in the above two articles).

That defeats the purpose of including the ISBNs in the book citation template. Please stop the robot from changing to the 13 digit ISBN's until a solution is found to this problem. - mbeychok 18:50, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd concur with this - ten digit ISBNs don't become magically obsolete in a week, they just become superceded, but most of the resources will still expect ISBN-10s. Leaving aside the touchy issue of retroactively renumbering sources, this really doesn't seem to give us much practical benefit other than looking modern... Shimgray | talk | 19:00, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I've blocked the bot for now as this conversion seems to be registering multiple complaints. Dragons flight 19:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

See also: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#The_Smackbot_robot_is_making_ISBN_changes_that_are_no_good. Dragons flight 20:40, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for the barnstar.

I'm on a hiatus from Wikipedia at the momement, generally due to my belief that we here at WP just have too many edits per second per reviewer, but I am happy about my ISBN/OCLC work, so thanks for the recognition. Your ISBN bot work has been certainly useful, too. JesseW, the juggling janitor 08:00, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Traffic

Hi, I have an idea to increase traffic to Wikipedia significantly. Many people are now using Wikipedia as a search engine. Wikipedia's searching has a snag which needs some good coding. There are perhaps more than 1 million misspelled searches being made every day... how do i know? I don't, it could be much more than one million, you find out. My idea, which has probably been thought of before is to supply a - Did you mean Such as Such? - by matching misspelled words and terms to their most relevant article. At present this is in place suggestion for terminology sorting based on relevancy, but not for misspellings. Please let me know what you think, and if you could assist with proposing it. Thanks. frummer 00:52, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

no, i think we need to get rid of redirects. There are a few reasons why. About the server load, whose the man to ask on that? About the algorithm, we can talk more about it once we know, there would be a trail period, i think. Another idea is to integrate a dropdown in the search field so as to enable searches in wikicommons, wiktionary etc in two clicks, similar to ie7's. frummer 09:26, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
? frummer 07:43, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Homelessness article and possible promotion again ?

Hi Rich. Happy Holidays ! I had a question about an addition by an anonymous editor who has posted the material before and it was taken out due to promotional reasons. The user, User: 71.231.50.116 added a section in the Homelessness article on "Ending Homelessness". It might be a promo for the organisation. Thoughts ? The user has been warned already and the material taken out. User talk:71.231.50.116. Best Wishes and Happy Christmas ! --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc 19:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC) (talk)

Thanks Rich ! Merry Christmas ! --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc 14:07, 25 December 2006 (UTC) (talk

[edit] SmackBot ISBN edits

I've seen several cases where SmackBot found errors in ISBN numbers. In the article it leaves a message "please check ISBN ... too short". For the edit summary, it leaves "ISBN formatting/gen fixes using AWB)". If it is leaving a "please check", I think it would be better to leave a more descriptive edit summary, such as "please check ISBN", so a person will know to look at it. (I fixed a few today.) Bubba73 (talk), 23:35, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi, well done fixing ISBNs. Good idea about the edit summary, I will think about it before the next run. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 16:05 27 December 2006 (GMT).