User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2007Oct

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[edit] SmackBots NewsFire edit

Resolved.

See the NewsFire diff. SmackBot has changed an "nocite" to an "unreferenced". I decided that the article did have a reference (being rather generous) and I just wanted the one statement to be marked as uncited. Bpringlemeir 23:24, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info, this is wrong, it should change it to "fact". Rich Farmbrough, 07:04 25 September 2007 (GMT).

[edit] SmackBot shouldn't be deleting double blank lines after templates anymore

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With the new article message boxes there is now a legitimate reason to have two blank lines after an {{ambox}} template, to keep its border rules from colliding with an infobox's. For example, see the before and after of the first change in this edit -- clearly it looks better when the lines don't collide. Can you keep SmackBot from deleting double blank lines after templates, please? ←BenB4 02:53, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. The page at Wikipedia:Article message boxes only uses double lines to prevent stacking, nonetheless your example is sound. I have raised it at AMB since there will be a significant number of cases where thsi needs to be considered, an the documentation may need to reflect. Rich Farmbrough, 08:05 25 September 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Jargon tag at Colonization of Trans-Neptunian Objects

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I removed smackbot's Jargon tag. The article looks good to me. Words that might be considered technical jargon are links to information in other articles. Might need to tune smackbot's algoryths or selection/threshold criteria a bit if possible. Lazyquasar 03:47, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: Colonization of Trans-Neptunian Objects Hi thanks for your message, SmackBot does not generally add tags, but merely dates those that are already there. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 07:11 25 September 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Vandalism

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Re "Norman L. Bowen" article, it appears to be vandalized with joke/spamm sort of stuff Sept 24 16:41. I've tried to revert it to SmackBot (your?) previous edit of 03:47, 19 August 2007, but it appears I have failed to correct the problem.

So a note to a human.

Thanks!

NO problem vandal edit undone. Rich Farmbrough, 07:07 25 September 2007 (GMT).

[edit] SmackBot edits to run-time analysis

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Thanks for coding this bot; I find it to be one of the most useful bots on WP. Recently, it made edits to run-time analysis, changing both {{{onesource}}} and {{{not verified}}} to {{{refimprove}}}. I'd suggest adding code to remove duplicate template headers. Groupthink 04:38, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. Rich Farmbrough, 07:10 25 September 2007 (GMT).
And if you're doing that, you might consider ordering them; I tend to like the look of most severe to least severe (red->orange->yellow). But that may be overkill... Whatever... Studerby 21:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Both are hard because it's all done with regular expressions. I would also have to have a regex to decide which of the two templates to keep by comparing dates. Rich Farmbrough, 21:24 25 September 2007 (GMT).

[edit] SmackBot

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  • Hello, just wanted to say that I have edited the Fredrik August Lidstromer-page, and I have added a lot of notes and thus erased all tendences of plausible COI. I would therefor be greatful if the "unsourced"- and "COI"-tags could be taken away. I have said so to user:JzG but he is now "retired" it claims on his talk-page. Could you assist me her? Thanks.Nike George 11:51, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
    No reason you can't remove these tags, if you really believe they no longer apply and no-one is contesting that. Rich Farmbrough, 12:17 25 September 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Moresources -> Refimprove

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Why is SmackBot changing transclusions of {{morereferences}} to {{Refimprove}}. This appears to be a pointless edit and completely unnecessary. --Farix (Talk) 13:58, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Farix, the reason is that the redirects to cleanup templates are in such a mess, and need sorting out. There are for example about 69 redirects to the three templates {{refimprove}}, {{unreferenced}} and {{fact}}, and {{nosources}} was completely different in nature than {{no source}} for example. I have deleted and changed a few unused redirects, but I hope we an reduce the number to a manageable level, by discussion on the talk pages of the main templates over the next few days. Rich Farmbrough, 14:07 25 September 2007 (GMT).
To me {{morereferences}} is simply more intuitive and much easier to remember then {{refimprove}}. And such redirects should never be removed or orphaned. --Farix (Talk) 14:14, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
What about {{Verfiy}}, {{wtf}} and {{unrefreenced}}? Rich Farmbrough, 14:27 25 September 2007 (GMT).
I don't use them enough to have an opinion. But it does worry me that {{Verfiy}} was deleted without going through WP:RfD first. --Farix (Talk) 14:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References sections

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Hi, regarding the neat SmackBot capability to add references sections, could you possibly exclude pages like Portal:Minnesota? Thanks if you have a minute to look. Again thanks for the feature. -Susanlesch 14:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

'Tis done. But look for those inaccessible superscripts... Rich Farmbrough, 14:24 25 September 2007 (GMT).
The Original Barnstar
To Rich Farmbrough and SmackBot. With thanks for a good idea. -Susanlesch 16:19, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] my bad

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Sorry, I had absolutely no idea I had posted a comment on your user page! :)

learnportuguese 20:51, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About Robert M. Hensel

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Dear Mr. Farmbrough,

I am writing in regards to information page I created here on Wikipedia about Robert M. Hensel. It seems everytime I try to put information pertaining to Robert M. Hensel it ends up being deleted by an editor. Mr. Hensel is a highly published poet & 2x world record holder and holds many accomplishments. Could you please support me by helping to prvent Robert M. Hensel from being deleted.

Thank You:) —Preceding unsigned comment added by IP (talk • contribs)

Hi, please sign in before leaving messages, and please sign your messages with ~~~~ which will be changed to a proper signature when you save your comment. See User talk:Wheelierecord and Talk:Robert_M._Hensel for my comments on this. Rich Farmbrough, 10:47 26 September 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Test and template subpages

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Hi Rich - just an idle query... I keep running across your test and template subpages while clearing stub categories - I realise you probably have a good reason for the pages, but it'd be helpful if they weren't in them all. What are you using them for, and are the pages likely to stay multiply stubbed? Grutness...wha? 23:57, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Exploring the possibilities.... and complexities of stub tags. They can be cleared down, np. Rich Farmbrough, 11:54 26 September 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Asbox

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Hi Rich - to be honest, I don't like it much at all! Similar ideas have been suggested frequentl;y in the past, but cause far more headaches for stub sorting than they are worth. I can understand the reason for suggesting an automated sorted stub variety like this, but it makes it far too easy for parallel, identical stub types to be set up, and reduces the ability to keep track of stub numbers (now done to a large extent via such things as whatlinkshere. It also, believe it or not, makes it too easy to create new stub types - there are reasons for setting hurdles in the way of new stub creation, not least of which the fact that for stubs to be really useful for editors, it's important to split out types of fairly reasonable sizes (WP:WSS tries to keep all stub categories at a size of between 60 and 800 stubs for that reason). Too many tiny categories, which might well be the result of an automated template like this, lead to far more work for editors hunting for articles to expand. The archives of Wikipedia talk:Stub and Wikipedia talk: WikiProject Stub sorting have quite a number of instances where something similar has been suggested. Hand sorting may be more of a chiore, but there are reasons for it. Grutness...wha? 00:40, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, sorry - I completely misinterpreted what was going on. A lot of the technical side of computing leaves me completely baffled, so once it's into this sort of programming I'm completely confused :) If it's for what you say, then it sounds like a good idea to me but (as i said), the technical side isn't something I'm strong on... I suggest you talk to people at Wikipedia talk: WikiProject Stub sorting about it, explaining what it's for. Hopefully it'll get a good reception - changing over large numbers of templates at one time has always been a problem, and if it stops me having to scouur "Newpages/templates" every day, it'll definitely be worthwhile! :) Grutness...wha? 00:36, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Signpost updated for September 24th, 2007.

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[edit] Portal:Earth sciences

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may i know why did you added references to the featured list there on the portal page. i mean it is not required there. what you could have done is that added the references in the list (i.e. main article). Sushant gupta 14:27, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I didn't add references, merely code to display those already there as superscripts. Of course you can remove the references and the what I added if you like. But leaving one of the two would be a mistake. Rich Farmbrough, 14:58 27 September 2007 (GMT).

[edit] New naming convention

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You requested I let you know of any major changes. Please see [1]. --Kbdank71 14:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks Rich Farmbrough, 20:22 27 September 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Hormonal imprinting

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You have left a note on "hormonal imprinting" about that the key word needs more references. I hope that you can consider, that the two references given are the first reference and a basic overview on the phenomenon from the person who described it. As more than 300 references are available about the the key word, I hope you understand the number of cited works. Thank you for your help and understanding. Kohlasz 20:09, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your message, SmackBot does not generally add tags, but merely dates those that are already there. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 20:21 27 September 2007 (GMT).

[edit] "Pilot asbox template."

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Given the early state of this proposal, that it's explicitly contrary to an existing guideline, and that there's an outstanding objection, I think a "pilot" is distinctly premature. Doing it on hundreds of stub templates is just ridiculous. Please stop, and ideally, revert. Alai 10:05, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

No problem I'm about done (except perhaps for four more in the East African politicians category). Rich Farmbrough, 12:10 28 September 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Re:Sig

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Oh, thanks! I'm in the school library and caught a moment. Forgot to close the bold tag. BTW, how'd you notice. YamakiriTC 09-28-2007•16:34:54 16:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What did you do to Template:Unverified?

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Melsaran (talk) 18:30, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Template:Unverified is now redirected to {{unreferenced}}, which is a simpler way of doing what it did before for main space. It is virtually unused, and is unused in Image space. Rich Farmbrough, 19:12 28 September 2007 (GMT).
For images with no source information I suggest you either use {{Nosource}} or one of its nine redirects:
  1. {{Unspecified}}
  2. {{Unknownsource}}
  3. {{Fairuseunknownsource}}
  4. {{Fuus}}
  5. {{Nosource}}
  6. {{No source since}}
  7. {{No source notified}}
  8. {{No info}}
  9. {{Nosources}}
Rich Farmbrough, 19:20 28 September 2007 (GMT).

[edit] RE: Cleanup templates

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Thanks for the date syntax tip, although I'm dumbfounded as to why you left it for me. I've been a little inactive this month and do not recall tagging anything for cleanup lately. Slysplace | talk 21:23, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

It is a little old... [2]. Acutally I would be interested in knowing where you got this syntax from, as I'm seeing a lot of it, and many of them have to be fixed by hand. Rgds, Rich Farmbrough, 21:27 26 September 2007 (GMT).
Not entirely sure, I must have clicked on 'Insert Tag' 'Cleanup' in AWB Which the latest version enters as {{cleanup|date={{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}}} although I use AWB 'TO CLEANUP' so how or why I would have selected to tag an article for cleanup is beyond even me. Or in a moment of ignorance I just pasted in {{cleanup|{{subst:August}} {{subst:2007}}}} as I have a habit (probably bad) of saving snippets of code to a text file for easy insertion into articles. If your seeing a lot of this by me I do apologize. I have reset AWB to the original default preferences just to be on the safe side. Slysplace | talk 19:03, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] re:cydebot

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How many bots have reached 1,000,000 edits? The Placebo Effect 19:37, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

One. Although SmackBot combined with me would also pass that mark - and I don't know about other projects, or cross project totals. Rich Farmbrough, 08:22 29 September 2007 (GMT).

[edit] SmackBot repositioning of stub templates

Resolved.

This is simply a general question of syntax and order as it has no real impact on the article itself. It will be easier to start with an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Soline&curid=2685570&diff=161112988&oldid=161033820 the original was:

{{Croatia-geo-stub}}
[[Category:Geography of Croatia]]

This was changed to:

[[Category:Geography of Croatia]]
{{Croatia-geo-stub}}

I generally have always put the stub templates first followed by the categories then followed by the langange links.

Is there a preferred method?

I like the work your bot is doing adding dates to the maintenance tags. How often does this bot run? I had manually edited several uncat tags which were less that 48 hours old which was probably a waste of my time as your bot works much faster.Dbiel (Talk) 17:56, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. The preferred order is:
  • Other cats
  • 2 blank lines if possible (I think this is still the case)
  • Stubs
  • 1 blank line
  • Interwikis

The reason for putting stubs after other cats, is that the stub categories are less important, so should be at the end of the list.

SmackBot's Date maintenance tags task runs most days when I am at home. If I am way for a few days it ususally catches up in one or two days. There are always some to be done manually, because of transclusions, subst:ing, new templates/redirects and strange syntax. Rich Farmbrough, 18:02 29 September 2007 (GMT).

Thanks for the reply. Keep up the good work Dbiel (Talk) 18:35, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infant baptism

Resolved.

In Infant baptism your bot has merely capitalized the word "fact" where the date was already given. "fact" works just as well as "Fact". An alteration merely from "f" to "F" wastes the time of anyone checking what change has been made. (At least, that is my opinion.) Lima 03:37, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes you are quite right. It should have dated a tag on the page. Note that you can suppress both bot edits and minor edits from both recent changes and watchlist. Rich Farmbrough, 10:43 30 September 2007 (GMT).

[edit] References section on portals

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Please see the history for Portal:Basketball/Selected article/September, 2007. In general, I don't think sticking a reference section in a portal is a good idea. Chances are that if there is a ref tag but no references section, then either (a) it should be removed, (b) it should be converted to a straight link, or (c) the page where the feature is transcluded has the references section. --B 21:53, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I go with (a) (since a ref is not necessarily a link) - in fact I would put it more strongly, it is a major gaffe to have an un-reachable footnote - but, see above sections, we're not including portals any more. Rich Farmbrough, 06:41 1 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Infant baptism and Virgin Birth

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In Infant baptism your bot has merely capitalized the word "fact" where the date was already given. "fact" works just as well as "Fact". An alteration merely from "f" to "F" wastes the time of anyone checking what change has been made. (At least, that is my opinion.) Lima 03:37, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes you are quite right. It should have dated a tag on the page. Note that you can suppress both bot edits and minor edits from both recent changes and watchlist. Rich Farmbrough, 10:43 30 September 2007 (GMT).
I see that your bot is still making the same minimal and to my mind absolutely unnecessary change in other articles too. While I appreciate your reply on my Talk page, I do not think your suggestion of turning off Watchlist visualization of bot changes is helpful: as far as I know, that would mean that I would fail to see an indication of any change made to the article before the bot change, if this happens to be the latest change.
There is absolutely no need to reply to this. I write only to draw your attention to what seems to me (perhaps not to others) a drawback in the present functioning of your bot (I never saw it do this before), not to engage in a discussion about it. Lima 10:29, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
NP. For anyone else reading this: it should be a rare event (<0.1%), in general, but having just taken on a new category, there may have been a few more than normal recently. Rich Farmbrough, 10:37 1 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Ahem, this could involve a megasearch

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Hey Rich! re: The three {{fact}} taggings in: this (Bot???) request.

  • Twould be nice if your summaries used the template NAME (i.e. {fact}) and included some focus to the request.
  • If this wasn't you in your alter-ego running AWB, then your bot seems to be keying in on the word 'experiment' in the text. Please confirm or deny!
  • Someone has cleared the second, and the first fact tag should be easy enough to run down, but the third cite request seems to be both contrary to common sense, and could be a difficult time sink (as it involves 4-5 years experience with the series, upto hundreds of thousands of posts on 1632 Tech Manual, and so forth) and is therefore asking for an awful lot of effort to confirm the self-evident concept that making an entire town an protagonist in time travel was an experiment. I know he's written about it somewhere, but recollection of where and when is missing.
  • In short, what exactly are you asking be confirmed in the third fact tag?

Hope you had a good summer! // FrankB 12:33, 1 October 2007 (UTC) Sorry -- cancel my last... you were just fixing up misapplied template 'dates' of this edit -- I shoulda backed up one more edit! Have a good week! // FrankB 12:37, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

NP Rich Farmbrough, 12:45 1 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] SmackBot

The article about Gigi Ugulava had one definitely wrong information about his work experience - he was not an executive director of Transparency International Georgia in 1999-2000 and could not have been because TI Georgia was only established in May 2000. I have just delited this line from his biography. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mari geo (talk • contribs) 13:57, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes it was me who did a lot of edits to the article "bans on ritual slaughter".

I practically rewrote the article, and it was reverted by Ron Nagle.

I am happy that at least my revisions are somewhere in the system.

The article is controversial in itself, and peppered with errors, some of them due to non-Jews tackling a Jewish subject (Jewish slaughter) and not having basic fundamental concepts.

Jewish custom and Jewish law are specific categories and are not interchangeable. To learn about this, you need a lesson in Jewish legal terms.

This is something like someone attempting calculus without basic arithmetic.

These errors signal the article as being written by non-Jews, as the use of "counter-revolutionary" and "revisionist" would indicate a communist using communist terminology.

Ron Nagle reverted the article, and suggested using it for reference bit by bit.

My patience is exhausted - and I cannot explain every change from the ground up. e.g. Why "Jewish Law" and not "Jewish custom"? To understand this, you need to know the structure of how current Jewish praxis (halakhah) is derived. There are four sources: 1) Law from the written Torah 2)Oral law by tradition from Moses codified in the Talmud 3) Custom (minhag) derived from customs and traditions. Occasionally a custom - like covering the head at all times becomes Law (din). Then there is Law derived from rabbinic decisions (din sheberaitha) like washing the hands.


Jewish kosher slaughter is not based on custom (minhag) but on Law (din) from the Written Law. The details are in the Oral Law passed down by word of mouth and finally, when it was feared it might be lost, codified and written down in the Torah, in Tractate Chulin.

The word *custom in the article should be changed to law.

Of course any rabbi would agree, but what the ... do the editors responsible in Wikipedia know about this, and how do I convince them that what I am saying is true when I am labelled as a well-known vandal?

It is physically impossible to explain, point for point to a non-Jew each and every item, and the structure it rests on. It would be like those bibles for understanding James Joyce's Ullyses. - a farthing is a quarter of a penny and there are twenty shillings consisting of twelve pence in one pound stirling or 240 pennies. etc etc.

In any case, the debate is covered in the literature outside Wikipedia, so let the Animal Activists set up their wooly and evasive arguments on Wikipedia and let the article remain a mess, as that signals the true nature of the input.

Any intelligent person can follow links and references and google and get the information for themselves elsewhere.

Meanwhile the Wiki article remains a hijacked site, where people who have not gone to college give source references that only go to News programs (BBC) and try to prove that bans on religious slaugher have been introduced in countries where they have not —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.73.17.190 (talk) 14:34, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FYI: books-by-isbn

At last, my request to have http://www.books-by-isbn.com/ removed from the spam blacklist succeeded. Enjoy. --KSmrqT 20:36, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Resolved.

[edit] Weird edit by your bot

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It removed a prod tag I had added to this article and the end of a sentence.diff.P4k 22:42, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Yep, prod was my mistake. Rich Farmbrough, 08:49 3 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Signpost updated for October 03, 2007

The Wikipedia Signpost
Volume 3, Issue 40 1 October 2007 About the Signpost
WikiWorld comic: "Buttered cat paradox" News and notes: Commons uploaders, Wikimania 2008/2009, milestones
Wikimedia in the News Features and admins
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News The Report on Lengthy Litigation
Archives  |  Newsroom  |  Tip Line  |  Single-Page View Shortcut : WP:POST
Automatically delivered by COBot 02:55, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shaant Hacikyan redirect?

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Just wondering why Shaant Hacikyan redirects to Cute Is What We Aim For? Benjiboi 09:55, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

And so he is. I thought someone was pulling a fast one but had no idea why or what/ Thank you! Benjiboi 10:10, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Princely states

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Thank you for your prompt response :) Green Giant 10:28, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SmackBot

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Don't you think the SmackBot's STOP button is a bit too big? What happens if someone accidentally left-clicked the STOP button?

88.105.98.46 15:56, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

They need to press save as well. And they need to be a registered user. Anyway, a atop is not generally a big deal. Several in one run can get irritating (if they're not justified). Rich Farmbrough, 15:58 3 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Ggobi article

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I received your message on the Ggobi article. I am currently gathering more sources. These new sources will be posted within the next couple weeks. Please do not delete the article. This is a work in progress and any feedback would be appreciated.Lynn08 16:36, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:Unit-attn

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Template:Unit-attn has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Rocket000 06:44, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please fix SmackBot

Your bot is changing [[U.S.]] links to [[United States|U.S.]] (example). This goes against the Manual of Style, particularly Wikipedia:Redirect#Do not change links to redirects that are not broken. Please correct the bot so it stops making changes like this one. 18.238.6.77 21:19, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Leonard N. Stern, again, sigh!

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Rich, I was going to write Wired about why the anonymous edit tool was not sufficient to root out corporate tampering with Wikipedia and went to look at the article above, which had again been truncated. I reverted it. But, additionally on the discussion page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kingbotk had added a libel warning. It is now categorized as having unsourced statements. could you check that out and let me know what to source or remove the category? Actually, I looked and the part I wrote on legal difficulties was sourced, which is the only part that kingbotk should be worried about. The other part should be documented by the previous editors. Thanks.

The anonymous user that tamper this time was:

  • 22:58, July 19, 2007 203.244.218.22

the subsequent truncation

  • 11:02, August 10, 2007 Dardorosso

was before the Kingbotk warning to the discussion page. Hope you had a nice summer. Cheers. --Beth Wellington 02:46, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Looking back the only noncorporate-speak entry besides the initial stub and my revision was by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JLaTondre. Maybe you could ask him for sources. I don't know where he got his stuff and Mr. Stern is on the periphery of my universe--I just wanted to make the section on his legal woes authoritative. P.S. what about the libel warning on the discussion page>--Beth Wellington 19:21, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SmackBot: USA to U.S.

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I noticed SmackBot was changing USA to U.S. and claiming "per MoS", but I checked the MoS and it seems both are suggested. Why is the bot switching from one recommended format to another? --MattWright (talk) 22:01, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Matt, people have been changing the MoS... <sigh> Rich Farmbrough, 09:55 5 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Strange SmackBot edit

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Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=False_memory&diff=162398790&oldid=161765347 - I don't know whether SmackBot still makes such edits, but let's just say, it shouldn't. -- John Smythe 04:48, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think SmackBot did that, and if it did, you didn't cite the diff where it happened, only the diff where you fixed an error and SmackBot had been the last editor. --MattWright (talk) 05:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
SB did this. Rich Farmbrough, 08:28 5 October 2007 (GMT).
You're right, obviously, a too-late-at-night brain glitch on my side; this edit was done by an IP [3]. My bad, sorry. -- John Smythe 16:43, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SmackBot

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I made a relevant addition under "comparison to other works" that was subsequently deleted by smackbot (I believe; this is the first time I've encountered it, so if I'm mistaken, I apologize). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.167.237.20 (talk) 09:33, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

No it was Ophios. [4] Rich Farmbrough, 09:56 5 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] "The Protocols" Template

Awarded to you for your great skill in fine tuning the looks of articles with lists (viz.: The Protocols of Zion). --Ludvikus 22:49, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Awarded to you for your great skill in fine tuning the looks of articles with lists (viz.: The Protocols of Zion). --Ludvikus 22:49, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Need your immediate help. Please read the first line(s) of the article. It's got some garbage caused by "REDIRECT". Can you fix the problem and remove the cleanup tag? Thanks. --Ludvikus 14:10, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

- Caused by the template. "The Protocols". Rich Farmbrough, 14:21 5 October 2007 (GMT).
Now it disappeared! What happened? --Ludvikus 15:07, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
You deserve an award of recognition for your fine copyediting work. Yours truly, --Ludvikus 22:49, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Awarded to you for your great skill in fine tuning the looks of articles with lists (viz.: The Protocols of Zion). --Ludvikus 22:49, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Awarded to you for your great skill in fine tuning the looks of articles with lists (viz.: The Protocols of Zion). --Ludvikus 22:49, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
<Blush> Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 08:11 6 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] I have reverted your move.

Hello, I have reverted your move for Big Brother (US), please before moving provide a reasoning why the page should be moved to Big Brother (U.S.) as this decision affects other Big Brother articles. Thanks ♪♫Alucard 16♫♪ 00:28, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

N.P. Rich Farmbrough, 08:14 6 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Jerome Hauer

There were some terrible, unsourced comments on Jerome Hauer page. I have gutted non-verifiable --except by dubiuosly worthy blogs-- from the Hauer article. Dogru144 21:21, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] US

I'm unsure of the history of whatever MOS used to say about how to format this item, but since I started hanging around MOS, it hasn't prescribed one set of usages and proscribed others. There are a few issues:

  • Why is one country privileged over others by having one particular formatting practice enforced (or even mentioned) in MOS? There's no equivalent section saying "No dots in UK". There's no dictum that you must write "People's Republic of China" rather than "China", or to refer to Taiwan or Tibet by the names the Chinese regime would prefer.
  • In most varieties of English outside North America, the dots are not used except in upper-case text, where the abbreviation would be the same as the personal pronoun "us". The rule about spelling out "the United States" when in the same sentence as the names of other countries is a nuance that Chicago, is it, recommends, but this is not practised consistently by Americans and is an unknown rule outside North America. Many Wikipedians might resent being told, or even urged, to "toe the line" with respect to an American practice that goes against what they are used to in real-life, and that has no logic to it. Many people are sensitive to American behaviour on the world stage, particularly over the past seven years, so this is not a good time to be enforcing the whims of a particular American practice against the practices of other English-speakers.
  • On a purely linguistic level, you dot es dot goes against what is now an almost universal practice of losing the dots in abbreviations, in all varieties of English. To many people, it looks cumbersome against that practice, whereas a few decades ago, people were so used to dotted abbreviations that it wasn't an issue.

Thus, I suggest that MOS remain silent on the issue, so that WPians may dot or not, and abbreviate or spell out regardless of the presence of the names of other countries in the sentence, provided consistency is maintained within each article. Tony (talk) 11:08, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Richard, I'm sorry to have been appearing to be heavy-handed over this dotting thing. In retrospect, I wish I'd first attempted to persuade you towards my view that loosening up a little about the dotting guidelines is realistic and linguistically desirable. I still want to persuade you. So are you totally pissed with me? If so, I'm sorry, and hope to make amends by engaging with your opinion. Tony (talk) 03:15, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
It's partly a "variety of English" issue, so I don't know how we can escape having both options. Many Americans will object to being told not to dot it (despite whatever diadvantages others might assert about their choice), and many other English-speakers will object to being told to dot it, when their variety of English uses the undotted version. As much as I'd much prefer to enforce the undotted, I accept that this is not acceptable to too many WPians. As long as each supplementary manual is consistent in its use of "US" or "U.S.", I don't see a problem. Same for articles. No one wants a huge back-compatibility problem.
The undotted versions of "am" and "pm" are widespread, especially outside the US. Again, it's partly a variety of English issue. Allowing the undotted option was agreed to by consensus some months ago; but there was no agreement to allow caps, whether dotted or undotted, and no agreement to allow them to be unspaced (12:30pm).
MOS is always going to experience push-and-pull WRT options. Sometimes it comes down on one side; sometimes it allows more than one option (consistently within an article). The lack of cohesion might be slightly apparent when you consult groups of related articles that have chosen a different option. But people can live with that, can't they, just as they might live with "Economics" in AmEng, and "Economic history" in BrEng (I'm just guessing for the sake of the example). MOS is, I think, about to generate consensus to allow either italics or quotation marks for "words as words". I have no wish to patrol what are probably more than half of WP's articles in which the "wrong" option is currently used. Again, internal consistency is what matters more, because it affects the reading experience very directly. Tony (talk) 11:00, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help me make a good article

Hello, my name is Isucheme and I am writing an article on the Churchill-Bernstein Equation for convection heat transfer. I would appreciate any feedback you could give to me. This article is in the rough draft stage.

Isucheme 01:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Have copy-edited. Rich Farmbrough, 12:53 9 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] SmackBot

Hey, I had to revert SmackBot's edits to this chart as it messed it up, I'm not sure exactly how the bot works but whatever it is, it made the chart not work. Regards. Epson291 08:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Have made the desired change, suppressing the rest. Will see if a bug needs to be filed for WP:AWB. Rich Farmbrough, 11:04 9 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Hooray for SmackBot

I just saw SmackBot doing an replacement of "[[Linear_classifier|linear classifiers]]" to "[[linear classifier]]s". I'd only seen him dating maintenance tags before, he's obviously a more complex piece of code than I had given him credit for. Good work! --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 12:50, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, SB runs mainly on the WP:AWB platform, which has many basic fixes built in. Rich Farmbrough, 12:52 9 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] SmackBot

I was glad to see SmackBot. I don't know much about Wikipedia or how to go about adding citations. Could you please add these citations to the article Neil Papiano. The other information in the article is correct, I just don't have a way to cite them at the moment.

Citation for Ida Cotton Children's Play Park - lazoo.org/pressroomarticle. Citation for Ruth Giolman Scholarship - socwk.utah.edu/students/financialaidscholarships.asp. Citation for Winifred Dyer Sholarship - http://elp.ed.utah.edu/financial.htm. Citation for Stanford Football & Baseball - Stanford University Athletics Department/Athletics Scholarships.

User talk:3rdEast 9 October 2007 —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 16:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I want to ask you two things

Resolved.

Hello I'm really not familiar with Wikipedia and I wanted to ask you something. On an article I wrote about the harpist Şirin Pancaroğlu, you said a reliable reference is needed. First of all I don't know how to add referances :), and secondly I took the biography from the harpist herself, isn't it reliable? This is the only English biography of her that exsists as her web site is under construction right now.

I also want to tell you something which is probably none of your concern but I feel I need to tell this to someone, someone working for wikipedia and is more familiar with such things. My actual intention was to put her biography on the Turkish Wikipedia, as I was suprised to see it wasn't already there; because she is a very valuable person and the primary harpist in Turkey. So I put it there, again it was the only proper biography of her in Turkish that exists, writen by her, she sends it to everyone that needs it to be put up on a website so the same thing is on a few other websites such as her record label's.

I was really confused when i saw it had disappeared a few minutes later, I put it again, yet it kept disappearing. It took me a few more minutes to realise there was an admin who kept deleting it. I spent some time to figure out how to write them, and told them I have permission from the artist to put up her biography on here, there is no reason to delete it. The reply I got was very rude and arrogant and really annoyed me. I wrote them back saying this is not the way to speak to a lady and still they ignored it...

They were telling me the biography is copyrighted and I can't put it there eventhough I have the permission of the person who wrote it. The thing is not copyrighted or anything, it really isn't. The only reason they were doing this is because they are given the power to do so, and probably find it amusing. This experiance has totally discouraged me from contuributing to the Turkish Wikipedia and even using it.

I just wanted to ask someone who knows these things better than I; "am I wrong?"

Thank you for spending your time reading this,

Öykü

  1. SmackBot merely dates templates: the one in question was added buy User:Denizz here.
  2. Copyright. Wikipedia:Copyrights explains this in more detail than I can. You will see that explicit permission is needed to upload copyright works - all works not in the public domain.
  3. References. If there is a reliable third party source (such as newspaper reviews of performances, orchestra webs sites, interviews) then these are preferable to the artist's own text, which can be a little biased. However if that is all there is cite that. See WP:CITE for more detail.
Rich Farmbrough, 14:49 10 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] SmackBot

Reference(s) and External link(s): Sorry, Rich, but I don't see the necessity of pluralizing headings that have only one entry (see Cape Grysbok)—GRM 20:31, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

This is correct per the external links guidelines. I did block temporarily as I initially believed it was incorrect, but have now unblocked. TigerShark 22:55, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Regex assistance needed

Hi Rich,

I recognized your name from a list of users who are regular expression programmers and was hoping that you can help me. What I want to do is to use the find and replace function in AWB to remove commas (or spaces) in numbers within parameters of an infobox template. For example, if the parameter |area= has a value entered of 102,003. I want to have AWB replace it with 102003. That way, calculations can be done on that raw formated number. Can you assist in creating a regular expression to do this? Thanks, —MJCdetroit 14:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

(\d),(\d\d\d) replace with $1$2 for one comma, probably get multiples as well, if not just repeat. Rich Farmbrough, 14:13 10 October 2007 (GMT).
Based on what you gave me and what little I know about regex, I came up with something like this for the AWB:Find: (some_parameter_name[\s\=\s|\=\s|\s\=|\=])(\d),(\d\d\d\.\d) Replace with$1$2$3. There are multiple variations of the "\d groups" to include 5 digit numbers with or without the decimal place, so on and so forth. In the one page that I did test it with, it did seem to work well. Thanks, —MJCdetroit 20:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Unless there are "," after the decimal point you could probably simplify with something like

(\s|\|)(paramtername1|parametername2|...)(\s*)=(\s*)(\d+)(,\d\d\d)+ => $1$2$3=$4$5$6

(Where the ... is not literal!)

This has the advantage of not matching, say, "pitcharea=" when you want "area=" and maintains the spacing before the edit, people sometimes (and Smack Bot for all the Album pages...) line up the "=" signs. Using a list of parameter names helps, in that changes you make then apply to them all, rather than having to work through a list in AWB's tiny font. Watch out for accidentally having "||" "(|" or "|)", these will match the empty string.

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 10:13 11 October 2007 (GMT).

Thanks. I didn't think to list of parameternames. I've been burning my eyes out trying to change each separate entry with that tiny print. I'll try that method out and let you know. —MJCdetroit 12:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Update: I moved the comma in between groups 5 and 6 and that seems to have done the trick. It looks like it is working perfectly. Check out my last few AWB contributions. —MJCdetroit 13:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Of course! Needs testing with numbers over 1E6. Rich Farmbrough, 13:48 11 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Very damaging edit by this bot; I've reverted

I pressed the "rollback" button on this edit. Recall your comments concerning the expression x2 + y3 versus x² + y3. Obviously the second alternative is very bad. Michael Hardy 21:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I have already raised a feature request, and turned off unicodify on SB's maintenance tag runs. Apologies for this cropping up again, although it looks like there ended up only being squares in that article. Rich Farmbrough, 13:21 11 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] SmackBot and DefaultSort

I just saw an edit where SmackBot moved the {{DEFAULTSORT}} magic word, but didn't remove any of the identical manual sorts. Here is the diff. This is opportunity for improvement. GRBerry 14:00, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

How curious. I will investigate. Rich Farmbrough, 14:52 10 October 2007 (GMT).
Ah this makes sense, although as you say it could be improved. Rich Farmbrough, 14:53 10 October 2007 (GMT).
Feature requuested from WP:AWB devs. Rich Farmbrough, 08:14 12 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] OR in Get (conflict) article

Thanks for the help on how to use tags (and I figure it was your bot that did it so this may be your first exposure to the topic). I'm pretty new to editing, although I've been reading Wikipedia for years. Any suggestions on appropriate steps regarding this User:Sagbliss character? Other editors have started to coach him/her but there's no acknowledgement of the misbehaviour. If I were to guess, he or she is using that article for a personal essay on the legal issues. It may even be one of claimants in a related trial. It's becoming more and more OR, and the dude even lashes out at edits like minor punctuation. Bruno23 16:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Get (conflict)...
Good trimming there. We'll see how it goes since it looks like some reverted Sagbliss' activities before you made your mods so the article was relatively clean by comparison. Bruno23 10:49, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Unreferenced" template change

Hi Rich, I'm not sure if you monitor template "unreferenced" or not, but there's discussion of changing it a bit, adding a "section" parameter and removing the description field. User:Jeepday said he thought you'd looked into doing some changes on the template, so I thought you might be interested in the topic. (Not necessarily to perform the changes; we're still discussing whether to make a change.)

As a brief summary, people seem to use the description field almost exclusively to add the word "section," and we want to add a section parameter for that explicitly, which will categorize the article differently. The category change would make {{unreferenced|section}} work the same way as {{unreferencedsection}}; kind of silly but that's how people use it!) I'll watch if you reply here, or you can add an opinion at Template_talk:Unreferenced#Section_parameter or Template_talk:Unreferenced#Section_parameter:_specific_proposal. Best regards, -Agyle 00:18, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stubs to bottom

Why your bot moves stubs templates to bottom? [5] --Emijrp 10:24, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

This is part of WP:AWB general fixes. The reason is that (a) we want a place we can find the stub templates, and (b) after the categories means the stub cats are listed at the end of the category list.Rich Farmbrough, 11:57 13 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] SmackBot ~ External link -> External links

Resolved.

SmackBot is changing External link to External links on articles that only have 1 link, shouldn't that read just External link still? See Lake Strom Thurmond and Lamar County, Georgia. --Mjrmtg 13:16, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this is deliberate per the external links guidelines. Thanks for letting me know. Rich Farmbrough, 15:27 13 October 2007 (GMT).
My mistake, didn't know there was a guideline on "External links" always being plural, seems silly to always be plural. --Mjrmtg 17:03, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


[edit] SmackBot and external links

This is probably minor but if there is only one link, why does SmackBot correct the title to external links? Simply south 22:05, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't notice discussion above. Simply south 22:07, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stub tag movement

Re this edit: I thought stub tags are supposed to go before the categories so the stub category will be listed first instead of last. Am I mistaken, or is the bot malfunctioning? --zenohockey 22:49, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

This is part of WP:AWB general fixes. The reason is that (a) we want a place we can find the stub templates, and (b) after the categories means the stub cats are listed at the end of the category list.Rich Farmbrough, 11:57 13 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Template:Orphan

Please remove 2 extra } from the template. -- Magioladitis 19:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. Someone's fixed this. Rich Farmbrough, 11:50 14 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] SmackBot

Hi there. I am Daniel Clark's dad. I was looking at his page and noticed it was rife with errors, all of which seem to have been created by this smackbot. I'm reasonably tech savvy but totally out of it when it comes to dealing with Wikipedia edits. But the original pages were much closer to the truth. E.g., middle names, relocated to Boca Raton, not California. Also, addition of younger brother Aaron Brown makes it sound like Aaron was in Zack Files and Strange Days, when in fact it was middle brother Rob. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.229.208.251 (talk) 02:47, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi, which Daniel Clark? Almost certainly you are misreading history, SB doesn't do that sort of stuff. Rich Farmbrough, 10:18 14 October 2007 (GMT).

I saw this change [6]. Two queries: SmackBot changed "External link" to "External links" even though there is only one; and it moved a template for no obvious reason. Neither is serious, but it is not obvious these are improvements.--Rumping 11:31, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi, see previous comments. Rich Farmbrough, 11:51 14 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] useless changes

What is this? [7] [8] --Emijrp 13:06, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

That second one shouldn't happen. Thanks I'll look into it. Rich Farmbrough, 13:08 14 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Edit query

I'm just curious now. How did you become the wikipedian with the most edits? Simply south 22:19, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Well various projects, tagging all the U.S. county maps GFDL was about 3-4000 edits, manually fixing half the album articles was thousands, testing out and refining SmackBot's fixes for the Rambot generated article was also thousands. Mainly lots of copy-editing to bring stuff in line with the WP:MoS. There's quite a bit of anti-vandal work there too. Rich Farmbrough, 07:59 15 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] SmackBot comment movement

Why does Smackbot move the category and Interwiki navigation comments? I've seen it do this before. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Monsey%2C_New_York&diff=164746590&oldid=164541089. Thanks, -- Avi 16:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:AWB moves the interwikis and categories (and stub templates) to the end of the article. It knows about some standard comments, which is why the categories comment ends up in the right place. I will drop a bug notification to get the other comment in this example dealt with. Rich Farmbrough, 17:36 15 October 2007 (GMT). 17:36, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. -- Avi 17:43, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Interstate 495 (New York)

I don't know if you're aware of this, but I did leave refernces to the allegedly "unreferenced" sections of Interstate 495 (New York). Perhaps not all of them, but I still left references. I had others, but somebody deleted them, and promised to make duplicates that never came. ----DanTD 20:54, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your message, SmackBot does not generally add tags, but merely dates those that are already there. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 22:55 15 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] ETH

You rolled back the reference and toned down the statement in the ETH intro, yet no comment on the talk page (where I had discussed the reason for the change), and you did it (as best as I can tell) logged in as a bot. Please comment. --Psm 17:29, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

No you are misreading the history of the page. Rich Farmbrough, 21:23 12 October 2007 (GMT).
Hm, ok, in which case apologies for the distraction. --Psm 00:48, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Ugh yeah you're right (smacks self). --Psm 18:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect of Rabbi ingram

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Rabbi ingram, by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Rabbi ingram is a redirect to a non-existent page (CSD R1).

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Rabbi ingram, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. CSDWarnBot 08:40, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Signpost updated for October 15th, 2007.

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[edit] Shain

Sorry about the template goof. Meanwhile, how about the question the template raises? -- Hoary 10:06, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please use accurate edit summaries

I am a little concerned that a user who makes as many edits as you do is not summarising them accurately.[9] [10]. The removal of leading and trailing spaces from section titles does not constitute a "copyedit": a copy edit changes the copy; excising spaces from markup makes no difference to the page rendering at all. It does, however, make the titles a little less clear to some other editors. (Although I, for one, consider clarity reduction to be a bad thing.) If you can give me a valid technical reason for these changes, I would be interested to know.

Summarising your changes as copyedits is also misleading, because it ignores the changes that actually were significant: the addition of a notability tag; and the removal of a Category needed category (since the one specified didn't actually exist) that would help draw attention to the article's need for improvement. These are important changes that should have been noted in the edit summary. By omitting them you have effectively started the deletion process and handicapped its chances of survival, and done so in a way that is less readily attributable. While I agree that the article does not properly assert its notability, questioning it should be done more openly. ObfuscatePenguin 14:14, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External links/references

Hi, I saw you added this

------------------------------------------------------------
 As per Wiki policy all external links should be in <ref> form.
 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Footnotes for a 
 discussion of different citation methods and how to generate 
 footnotes using the <ref>, </ref> and  <reference /> tags
-------------------------------------------------------------

to Edith Shain. This is certainly not the case for external links, and I don't believe there is a policy on footnote style, see the section "Converting citation styles". Rich Farmbrough, 08:23 16 October 2007 (GMT).


Really? My take on the guideline :

“ Some external links are welcome (see "What should be linked", below), but it is not Wikipedia's purpose to include a comprehensive list of external links related to each topic. No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justified. ... Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a Featured article. ”

Means that if a website has the same info as the wiki page then it shouldn't be included in the External Link. A Wikipedia article should NOT be a collection of links. -- Esemono 14:16, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I understand the guideline, but it says nothing about "<ref> form". Rich Farmbrough, 20:22 17 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] SmackBot and {{verify}}

Currently SmackBot is changing {{verify}} tags to {{Unreferenced}} tags. I believe that it should instead be changing them to dated {{refimprove}} tags, as this tag is more in line with the intent of the verify tag. Thank you. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 16:00, 16 October 2007 (UTC) Yes, you are perfectly correct. Thank you. Rich Farmbrough, 20:37 17 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Herman

Hello Rich, I am a new user to Wikipedia and I was wondering if you have any feedback for my article on Herman Parish. I appreciate and suggestions, constructive criticism, attention to formatting, etc.

Thanks!

Molly (user: Allgoodone) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Allgoodone (talk • contribs) 16:50, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chubs and Disambiguation

Greetings. Recently, on Tue 16 Oct, I constructed a disambiguation page for the various fish known as chubs. After having done so, I began to contemplate whether that page and the current Chub page might be better named. I posted a discussion on the Chub page but it's not yet received any comment. I noticed from the article's revision history that you had made one or more contributions to the page. Consequently, I thought I might profit from your advice at Talk:Chub#Page title if you have a moment or two to spare. Thanks. — Dave (Talk | contribs) 03:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SmackBot

Cheers for the advice. Citations/links have been added to Arklow vs.MacLean.--WingateChristopher 02:22, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Place holder

Hello. Regarding the purpose of this user: would it not make more sense to create a section in WP:WBE detailing "the removal of several users who do not wish to be listed", and then link each instance of [[User:Place holder]] to this section? -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 08:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I have no objection in principle. Rich Farmbrough, 20:06 19 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Wierd SmackBot edit

Something went awry with the first change in this diff. Shiroi Hane 23:23, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it seems SmackBot doesn't like the letter Y. See this edit also. Pagrashtak 15:23, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks I picked this up (from your notes) when out consulting and stopped SB - it's worth it for things like this. Rich Farmbrough, 16:56 19 October 2007 (GMT).
I have reviewed the last 2500 edits and picked up a few occurances. I hve fixed the code, and will scan the next DB dump in case there are any more. Rich Farmbrough, 11:17 21 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Smackbot and category links

Smackbot made was an error in this diff - it moved all categories to the bottom of the page, but that included category links (prefaced with a colon) which should obviously not happen. Shiroi Hane 01:24, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I have suppressed these types of changes and file3d a bug report with the WP:AWB developers, some time ago. It might be worth an additioanl note about leading : on categories as well. Rich Farmbrough, 11:19 21 October 2007 (GMT).
Note Sb has already revisited the page here, quite sucessfully. Rich Farmbrough, 11:23 21 October 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Notability of Ronald Ray Gun

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Ronald Ray Gun, by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Ronald Ray Gun seems to be about a person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is notable: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not assert the subject's importance or significance may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable.

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Ronald Ray Gun, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. CSDWarnBot 12:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge templates

Hi Rich! Thanks for the message. I think I just made a mistake in forgetting the closing brackets. So I don't know of any reason. I thought Smackbot had repaired that error on the Sundance page, though. I'll make an effort to be more careful. Thanks again. — WiseKwai 17:20, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] date formatting of your SmackBot

Hello,

I have a question about SmackBot. (By simply using the "random article" key) I detected this edit. It seems strange to me that 1993 was delinked, but not 1996. Is this a tiny bug in your Bot? If so, you might want to change this behaviour (or maybe you've done it already because the edit is three months old).

BTW, I linked 1993 now again, before reading your description of SmackBot, and the discussion on WP:DATE – sorry for the wrong order, it seemed that you liked to have both dates without instead of with link. If so, please change Albin Gutman again…

--Cyfal 18:50, 25 October 2007 (UTC)