User talk:Tim Starling/Archive 10

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Contents 1 bn-wiki numerical bug 2 CurrentTimeIn 3 Google Web Accelerator autoblocks cause large amounts of collateral damage 4 Why only linked dates? 5 Advice for China 6 Request creation of Cebuano Wikibooks and Wiktionary 7 Auckland meetup 8 Melbourne Wiki 9 Edit deletions 10 Wikimania 11 About MediaWiki:Bad image list 12 Capitalization 13 LT wikisource 14 Orphaned fair use image (Image:One Angry Dwarf (BFF).ogg) 15 Smile :) 16 steward 17 merge 18 CheckUser request 19 Reminder 20 MediaWiki:Tooltip-diff 21 Mediawiki 22 request 23 Static wikipedia 24 Westnet IPs now registered correctly 25 Checkuser 26 Special pages problem... 27 Solar updraft tower 28 My sincere thanks 29 Broken link 30 Hi. 31 Soft Blocking 32 Conversion script 33 SVN commit access 34 Differential Storage 35 Request 36 Test wikipedia 37 Network Link 38 Software changes 39 Edessa 40 Date format 41 short question captcha 42 date format and pref 43 Namespaces Portal and Babel 44 User: D Hill 45 "V:" redirect problem to wikiversity 46 Tabs on sign-in page 47 Adding functionality to Editbox toolbar 48 Hello 49 Wondering if you could... 50 flexible numbers of rows in template 51 category intersections 52 Developer help needed in bnwiki 53 About static dumps 54 Mailinglist of ar.wikipedia 55 Changing IP entries to my Username 56 Welcome back 57 Google Web Accelerator and XFF at WP:ANI 58 Categories 59 Sorry for my blunt action at zea: 60 Hey 61 Number format 62 special:chemicalsources 63 Creating Karakalpak Wikipedia request 64 Rollback, new proposal 65 Strange template 66 test wiki conversion issues 67 Assistance with images. 68 IE scroll fix / User:Tom- 69 Bug 6638 (new block options) 70 Wikipedia:WikiProject Lake Macquarie 71 A new parallel syntax for autoformatting dates 72 Graphviz 73 A NEW WIKILANGUAGE SISTER PROJECT 74 Image copyright problem with Image:Northern_Territory_crest.jpg 75 Image:Tim Starling non-residence.png listed for deletion 76 London meet is TUESDAY 9th, not Wednesday 10th! 77 Qtel proxy 78 Hi! 79 Image Deletion 80 Rev 18220 81 User:Pending deletion script 82 Tamil wikisource 83 favor? 84 Ongoing harrassment from Michael 85 mediawiki.org/wiki/User_talk:Tim_Starling 86 Logo 87 Talk page blanking 88 Random page generator 89 Help 90 You are a developer? 91 Latin Wikisource 92 Categorization overhaul 93 Please contact me 94 Family tree 95 Question 96 Russo and Steele 97 Username/password 98 Newcastle Meetup 99 You stopped doing your PhD for Wikipedia? 100 Login unsuccessful 101 En Wikiquote move setting 102 Has there been a change to the RSS stream? 103 Help again (about stollened account) 104 Move rate limit 105 imagemap 106 London Wiki Wednesday 107 GeSHi syntax highlighting 108 How can I create a REDIRECT BUTTON 109 $wgImageMapAllowExternalLinks 110 Rogue Admin 111 User:Tim 112 List of England international footballers (alphabetical) 113 Usergroup 114 Work on MIKE2.0 with Mediawiki by BearingPoint 115 Change my username 116 Re: Striking your vote 117 vote striking 118 OpenStreetMap MediaWiki plugin 119 Logo on no.wikibooks 120 4x4 square templates nominated for deletion 121 Mongolian Wikipedia 122 <imagemap> question 123 Re: Editpage.php - an Idea. 124 Justice in the Wikipédia 125 The Static HTML Dumps Are Down 126 Wikipedia viewing experience 127 Great Job 128 Wikipedia:WikiProject_Lake_Macquarie Nominated for Deletion 129 ImageMap extension install problem 130 Images 131 OggHandler 132 Wikipedia xml dump, all pages with history 133 Happy Tim Starling Day 134 OggHandler 135 developer? 136 Ogg Handler 2 137 Please help me, thanks 138 Please help me, thanks 139 Request for oversight 140 Bug 12154 & questions 141 About Mike Garcia 142 New parser 143 User:Charles T. Le

[edit] bn-wiki numerical bug

I had posted this to the developers talk page, could you please check it out? m:Talk:Developers#numerical_bug_in_bn-wiki. Thanks. --Ragib 22:53, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CurrentTimeIn

Tim, many thanks for the heads up. I replied in full at Template_talk:CurrentTimeIn. 193.82.16.42 17:09, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Google Web Accelerator autoblocks cause large amounts of collateral damage

Whenever a vandal uses Google Web Accelerator, the autoblock seems to affect every other user who uses it. IP ranges in question include 64.233.160.0/19, 72.14.192.0/18 and possibly others, which ARIN shows as allocated to Google. Can we do something about this (ie, XFF)? Otherwise, this is a very major denial-of-service issue. -- Curps 15:51, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Anyone using GWA can disable it by clicking on the GWA icon, and selecting "Don't accelerate this website". This will allow editing as normal. Proxied requests do give an XFF header, but I'm not going to list it until we have a sensible proxy list, rather than a couple of subnets containing 24576 addresses and counting. -- Tim Starling 06:35, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why only linked dates?

m:Dynamic dates says you "intended to code" the Dynamic Dates feature. Are you the one who actually coded it? Why does it only handle linked dates? See m:Talk:Dynamic_dates#Why only linked dates. — Omegatron 20:25, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Advice for China

I'm hesitant about adding lines into Privoxy which I don't understand. What does Wikipedia:Advice to Tor users in China do? What is 145.97.39.155? Please answer at Wikipedia talk:Advice to Tor users in China.

[edit] Request creation of Cebuano Wikibooks and Wiktionary

Hi Tim,

I remember you creating the Cebuano Wikipedia last year. I should say that that was not in vain, as ceb-wp has now 1,188 articles, some of them of superb quality. Last December, I requested the creation of a Cebuano Wiktionary and Wikibooks, and they were approved. However, they are not yet created. I would like to ask your help in this regard. As most members of the Lunsayng Binisaya Yahoo Group are interested in words as words and not as concepts, I expect that the Cebuano Wiktionary will surpass ceb-wp's popularity (we were featured in a local daily, in its weekend magazine supplement) in just a few months. There are also two or three active online users who want to create wikibooks in Cebuano. Thank you very much in advance. --Bentong Isles 06:50, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Auckland meetup

Just to let you know that a meetup is planned in Auckland for the 25th of June (see Wikipedia:Meetup/Auckland for more details), and that you are cordially invited. GeorgeStepanek\^talk 00:21, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Melbourne Wiki

Hi Tim, as a wikimaniac I thought you might be interested that I'm trying to start a wiki for Melbourne right now. Am still trying to find lots of people to participate... ;-)

Melbourne Wiki (or actually the first draft) can be found at http://www.melwiki.com.

[edit] Edit deletions

I was wondering if you would delete a couple edits for me (on very long articles, I've alread done the others this vandal created) -- here and this one. Thank you very much. Mak (talk) 02:47, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikimania

Oh trust me, Mr. Starling. I may not be there this year, but I will eventually get to Wikimania and I will learn PHP well enough and I will sit around with the Mediawiki developers randomly programming. :P

Especially when Leopard and Vista come out and I get a Macbook Pro 17" ;)

[Yes that was random, I just felt like sayin']— Ilyanep (Talk) 01:53, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] About MediaWiki:Bad image list

Hello, I am a user from Chinese Wikipedia. Thank for your nice work of MediaWiki:Bad image list. I also think it will be useful to fight vandals. However, according to your design, ONLY image's link will be displayed on linked page, I think it is not enough. As you know, not only images, but also words are affront materials, and unfortunately, image's filename may contain those words. So furthermore, I think it would be better if displaying a warning image or layer instead. Besides against word-vandalism, this is also more legitimate. Because of many country laws, displaying a warning desciption or disclaimer is necessary before porny or bloody images are displayed. If this idea can be accepted and implemented, then which users will see on linked pages are not links, but more meaningful images or layers, and users can decide to click in or not by themselves.--百楽兎 01:19, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization

As you are a developer, could you change the part where articles have to have their first letter capitaliszed. It is a big problem with articles such as IPod and Ebay. Raichu 01:33, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] LT wikisource

Please help.

Language domain requests

--Veneto 21:54, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Orphaned fair use image (Image:One Angry Dwarf (BFF).ogg)

This media may be deleted.

Thanks for uploading Image:One Angry Dwarf (BFF).ogg. I notice the 'image' page currently specifies that your image can be used under a fair use license. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If your image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why your image was deleted. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful.

If you have uploaded other fair use media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any fair use images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Jusjih 17:47, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Smile :)

—G.He 23:18, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] steward

hello,
i use mediawiki, but how can i creat a steward? -- Comic Book Guy

[edit] merge

Hallo. i want to merge my two useraccounts. who can i ask, or wath can i do? De:Benutzer:Robinhood and De:Benutzer:Robinhut --58.84.79.95 01:47, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CheckUser request

Hello Tim!

The list of the vandals (all dewiki_p) is:

• Glorreiche 6 Armee (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Generalfeldmarschall Paulus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Adolf Hiter (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Hitler (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Familie Alois Hitler (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Onkel Adolf (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe Hermann Göring (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• SS (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (nebenbei ein Verwechsler auf Benutzer:SPS)
• Fügt Hitler Bilder in diverse Artikel ein (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Horst Wessels (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Führer des deutschen Volkes (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Führerhauptquatier (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Führerbunker (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• Famile Adolf H (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• SIEGREICHE 6.ARMEE! (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• HEIL DEN SIEGREICHEN WEHRMACHTSSOLDATEN! (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• ADOLF HITLER FAN CLUB! (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• HITLERS TREUER DIENER (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• SCHEISS AUSLÄNDER KANACKEN RAUS (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
• AUSLÄNDER RAUS!!! (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)

All of these users have not made edits, but as de:User:-jha- and me think, that these accounts were created from IP ranges 21*.***.***.***; because if they are the accounts are new proofs for an abuse complaint to his provider.

Many thanks in advance, HardDisk 00:11, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

(and PS: sorry for my bad english)

[edit] Reminder

Tim, now that I think that you have returned, I just wanted to remind you of the email I sent at 23:42 on 3 May (Melbourne time). I haven't received a reply yet. Perhaps you did not receive my mail? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 06:56, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MediaWiki:Tooltip-diff

Do I understand correctly that you are the human behind User:MediaWiki default? If so then you are probably the one to report this to: MediaWiki:Tooltip-diff reports a shortcut of "[alt-d]", which should probably be "[alt-v]". Wikipedia fixed this in February, and Wiktionary just today. You probably know how to fix this in the release and what other projects need a change. --teb728 00:04, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mediawiki

Hi Tim
please, check this out (p.s. great work!) --Jollyroger 16:59, 16 June 2006 (UTC) it:Utente:Jollyroger

[edit] request

Hello! I`ve got one request for you. I collect words in various languages. Now I`m looking for word "sugar" in other languages, but I can`t find an Afar dictionary. I`ve got counterparts of word "sugar" in Japanese, Ahmaric, Thai, Georgian and Chinese, so can you write me what is "sugar" in Afar language? I`ve got this word in 313 languages and dialects of many regions and countries in the world so it is very important for me! Thank you very much! Szoltys <talk>

[edit] Static wikipedia

I didn't know who to contact exactly, so here I am. Are you planning on updating the Static Wikipedia dump? Many sites are using it as the source of database dumps (i.e. Godseye) and it is vastly outdated. If the normal dumps are done so often, maybe doing this "once" wouldn't hurt too much? Thanks. -- Jared A. Hunt 02:11, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Westnet IPs now registered correctly

As I've said on the technical pump, westnet tell me that the PTRs for their IPs have been updated, and 202.72.148.102's reverse DNS now points to cache-1.wa.westnet.com.au. Cesarb pointed out that I needed to contact you directly about this, as per m:XFF. Please let me know if there's anything else I need to do. Thanks! — JEREMY

Done. -- Tim Starling 10:44, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Checkuser

Hi Tim, do you care for checkuser-requests on German Wiki? If yes, would you be so friendly to help de:Benutzer:Achates with his actual request posted here. Thank you in advance. Alexander Z. 12:35, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Special pages problem...

Special:Lonelypages seems bugged, it's not listing any items this week. Surely we haven't de-orphaned them all, hehe. --W.marsh 13:29, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Solar updraft tower

Please do me a favor and have a look at Solar updraft tower and Talk:Solar updraft tower. I would appreciate your input. JdH 17:43, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My sincere thanks

I was informed that you are the father of the new "Bug" on AOL/IP blocks. I will test out my new 24 hour access as soon as possible! Thank you for your magnificent effort. This will make a real difference for me and other dedicated editors. My very best wishes. WBardwin 18:12, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Tonights attempts to edit reveal that your fix does not affect the autoblocker. While I appreciate the effort you put into the "bug", I am interrupted much more often by autoblocks than by range blocks. Sigh. Would it be possible to target those next? WBardwin 08:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Broken link

The link on your userpage to a new version of the page move script is broken and gives a 404 - would you be kind enough to either remove/change it? Just thought I'd point it out; thanks. —Xyrael _{/ 17:34, 14 July 2006 (UTC)}

[edit] Hi.

I'm on the Homestar Runner Fanstuff Wiki under the username "Y2K" and I like those Crystal icons. Can I use them on HRFWiki? - Year2000Prob ^(email) 07:54, 10 September 2006 (UTC) 22:30, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Soft Blocking

I work at a school, so I edit a fair bit from behind the same proxy as thousands upon thousands of teenage vandals. Thank you very much for your work on soft blocking - I'm now soft-block-evangelising frantically :) What should we now do with the WP:BPP page? It's no longer a proposal, but I think the page is redundant on its own. Should we mark it as historical, and direct people to WP:BP#Options for IP blocks? --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 10:00, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Conversion script

Hi Tim.... Could you (or another dev/admin type) please have a look at my comments on User_talk:Conversion_script? Thankyou! --SJK 12:23, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] SVN commit access

Hi Tim! I used to have CVS commit access on sourceforge, and I now find myself wanting to commit a trivial patch. Please could I have SVN commit access? Lupin|talk|popups 20:43, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Differential Storage

Hi Tim

I found your slides about how wikipedia compresses the data to save storage page on the web.

I'm a PhD student at the University of Zürich and the wikipedia storage touches my research area. I have a few questions how you store the data. Do you compress the data before it is stored in the database (i.e. you store a compressed file) or do you store the data in the database and the database file is then compressed?

Is there a way I could contact you by email?

Thank you very much in advance!

Stefania Leone

We compress the data first, and then store it to the database. Database systems need to have fast read/write random access, and that's something that compressed filesystems don't provide. You can contact me at tstarling@wikimedia.org. -- Tim Starling 17:17, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request

Hi. I hate to bug you for something that's kind of trivial in the overall scheme of Wikipedia, but it's rather important to me personally. I have several (281 to be exact) edits that I performed while not signed in (it was before I registered). However, the IP I had at that time belonged to someone else previously, and I would like to merge the edits that belong to me personally into my own edit history if you'd be willing, or could point me to a Developer who could. There's a bit more to the matter than just me wanting all my edits assigned to my username, but it's a personal matter, so I'll be e-mailing you the specific details. I just wanted to announce this here so that you'd know in advance (assuming you check this before you check your e-mail). Ryu Kaze 00:55, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

If my e-mail didn't reach you, by the way, please let me know. I first tried copy-pasting your e-mail as written on your user page and mailing directly from my e-mail address, but it didn't go through for some reason. I assume that there was just a typo somewhere in that, as you obviously had to confirm your e-mail for me to even be able to use the on-site Wiki e-mail feature. Just putting this out there in case something went wrong, though. Ryu Kaze 02:47, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I notice now that you make mention of another e-mail (tstarling@wikimedia.org) in the previous response area. Is that where I should have sent the e-mails? Like I say, the first one I tried sending came back to me with a message stating that it couldn't be delivered, but after I tried it here, it went through (apparently... I hope). Ryu Kaze 03:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Test wikipedia

Can you clarify that test.wikipedia.org is for developers not editors on the front page? -Ravedave 00:27, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Network Link

Hello Tim, my englisch ist very bad, but i have a problem and i hope you can help me. We have installed a Media Wiki in our Network. This Wiki can only achieve from this Network. It is possible to make a link in this Wiki direkt to a PC that ist Connected to this Network .e.g. \\192.168.122.15\Pictures I makes an link to your Site and I hope you can help me. Thank you an best Regards Timo--129.35.204.162 11:54, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Software changes

Hi, Tim. Hopefully you'll read this soon. Do you know of any software changes this week? We need them for the Wikipedia Signpost. Robchurch gave them to us; but then he left. If you don't know, fine but if you do know, great. People miss reading about the software changes. Carmelapple 22:18, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edessa

Hi. I'd like to ask for your help concerning the article Edessa, Greece. There seems to be a bug in the software... I can't fix it myself, but i hope u can. Thanks in advance. --Hectorian 23:33, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Date format

Could we have our date format back please? :) -- Steven Fisher 14:59, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] short question captcha

Hi Folks, please tell who is responsible for the design of captcha-feature? We think about some pics in other design (simple questions, answerable by using articles) to prevent account-spaming by real persons, not bots. recent picture see here [1], the design could be modified 172.158.129.188 12:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] date format and pref

I've built a mediawki 1.7.1 installation at work. Dates appear in whatever format I type them in (ISO, whatever), not what I have set in preferences. Also, the ISO date link as one unit (y/m/d all as one), not as m/d and year as on wikipedia. How can I fix this? Do I need a plugin or extension? Is this being caused by one or two issues? There should be a guide on "How to get mediawiki to work just like Wikipedia" somewhere-;)Rlevse 12:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Set $wgUseDynamicDates = true; in LocalSettings.php. -- Tim Starling 08:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!Rlevse 10:18, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Namespaces Portal and Babel

Hi Tim
Because the babel templates are going to dominate the template namespace, there are attempts to separate these templates from the others. In German wikipedia they created a pseudo-user subsuming the babel templates. So in fact they are now in the "User" namespace.

On German wikiquote I tried to move the babel templates into an own namespace "Babel", as you can see here. But since this namespace is not registered, the templates appear in the article namespace. To register the new namespace I visited meta:Help:Custom_namespaces, but I found that I have no access to the files mentioned there "/includes/DefaultSettings.php" and "LocalSettings.php" or they don't exist.

Could you tell me how I can register the namespace or name a contact person, who is competent in these things.

Also at German wikiquote it is desired to have the "Portal" namespace. The existing portals are now in the article namespace, too.

Hubert22 07:59, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

File a bug report at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org

P.S. Could you tell me, how I pass the pipe sign "|" as a parameter or part of parameter to a template?

You can't. -- Tim Starling 08:05, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User: D Hill

I have forgotten my password, and have no e-mail address registered to my account. I was told that a developer may be able to help restore my account. I have already contacted another developer but he has not responded. I saw that you have recent contributions and the highest level of access in wikipedia. I thought that you would be able to help.

[edit] "V:" redirect problem to wikiversity

Hi there. The helpdesk told me to contact you, so here I am. V: The New Mythology Suite now redirects to wikiversity (presumably because of the "V:" in the title). It used to be a perfectly valid page. All the links in Wikipedia to this page don't work anymore (e.g. the links in this article). How can we get this page back? Thanks Petergee1 19:43, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tabs on sign-in page

Hi. I hope I'm asking one of the right people this question. The field order on the sign-in page appears to have changed and is now very counter-intuitive. After User, Password, the next tab is "email a new password" instead of "log in". For those of us who prefer keyboarding to mousing, this is very frustrating! I've received 3 new passwords today. Any chance this can be changed back to a more logical field order? Thanks. -- Slowmover 21:49, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adding functionality to Editbox toolbar

Hi Tim, I am admin in Te wikipedia. Telugu input tools are not well developed so most of the folks are typing in roman script and transliterate them into telugu script by using conversion tools. They have to go through ardous task of cut and paste between windows for this task. having a conversion tool right in the wiki editbox would be great favour to telugu wiki. The script is already available in javascript. How do I go about this? Who is working on editbox toolbar in developer team. Any suggestion in this direction are very much appreciated --Vyzasatya 22:44, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hello

This user is unable to contanct you, so I'm acting as middle man. (S)he has been autoblocked by using a proxy IP, despite being a legitimate user. I'm not great with technical stuff like open proxies, so that's all I know. :) --172.193.194.250 02:43, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wondering if you could...

Use your oversight powers to delete my user page history? There is sensitive personal information on there that I would like removed. Everything up to the most recent edit? Magic Window 14:57, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] flexible numbers of rows in template

Hi Tim, I was trying to put together a template nomen actionis on the Dutch wiktionary that could show a flexible number of rows depending on a first parameter. I used the template switch and got it to work to some extent, except that it keeps giving me some extra brackets I dont want. I am a total nocie at ParserFunction and wonder how to achieve the same (actually better result that way). I'd appreciate your input. nl.wikitonary Gebruiker:Jcwf

152.1.193.141 00:20, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] category intersections

Hi - Have you seen Wikipedia:Category intersection? I'm curious what your reaction might be. Note that Radiant! implemented intersection as a special: and is soliciting feedback (see bugzilla:5244). I have a suspicion that intersections involving very large categories that produce no result might be kind of a problem (imagine Category:Living people intersected with Category:Ancient Greeks). Was the 200 category member display limit motivated at least in part by database concerns (or was it mostly VM or something in the Apaches)?

I'd really, really like to get rid of most (if not all) of the "x by y by z" sorts of categories. We spend an inordinate amount of time maintaining these sorts of categories, and it seems that they really ought to be mechanically generated. Note that there are three different UIs proposed at WP:CI. The first one attempts to tie intersections to existing categories (with a behind-the-scenes transclusion), I don't think Sam likes the third one very much and counter-proposed the second one, the third one proposes intersections be a completely separate feature including an "intersection selection table" allowing users to navigate in "intersection space". In any event, I think any time you could spend thinking about how we might actually get an effective intersection feature added to MediaWiki would be greatly appreciated. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:02, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Developer help needed in bnwiki

Hi Tim, I'm a bureaucrat in Bengali wikipedia. We have reached a consensus there to change the spelling of the Wikipedia namespace, from উইকিপেডিয়া to উইকিপিডিয়া. How do we do that, and also migrate the existing WP namespace pages there, without breaking anything? Thanks. --Ragib 21:52, 13 September 2006 (UTC) en:User:Ragib / bn:User:Ragib.

[edit] About static dumps

That's great. I meant to write Wikipedia_talk:Mirrors_and_forks#Zdnet.co.za, but I must have mixed up with godseye while working with something else. Take a look at Superm401 and WB in Wikipedia_talk:Mirrors_and_forks#JavaScript though about JS. —Jared Hunt September 13, 2006, 23:44 (UTC)

[edit] Mailinglist of ar.wikipedia

Hello Tim, can please help me with providing the name of the person responsible for running generally the mailinglists of Wikipedia. The problem is that in our ar.wikipedia the owner could't provide us with the password for running our mailinglist (#ar.wikipedia) because he forgot it himself and anyway is busy to run our local mailinglist. We intend to let another active user of our wikipedia resbonsible for it. I'm a bureaucrat on ar.wikipedia. I'll very thankful for any kind of help.--Oxydo 09:09, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changing IP entries to my Username

I followed links for a while trying to figure out whom to ask, so I may still be in the wrong place. Is there a way to change past entries I made, having forgotten to log in, which display my IP, to my actual Username? I keep seeing stolen IP identities misused and would like to avoid it. I tried to find this in FAQ but got lost. Hoverfish(UTC) 12:46, 18 September 2006 - Also I notice sometimes that although I am logged in, I suddenly find myself logged out.Hoverfish 14:02, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Welcome back

WB, dude. nice to hear you are ok now. --Jollyroger 14:57, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Google Web Accelerator and XFF at WP:ANI

In case you haven't noticed it already, there's a discussion about the GWA at WP:ANI#Blocking Google Web Accelerator. Just thought you might want to comment on it. (Anyway, has there been any progress in getting a proper list of proxy IPs from Google?) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 06:09, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

Hiya, I've been told that you're the person to contact about the list at Special:Uncategorizedpages? We've currently got a team that is aggressively identifying uncategorized articles so that they can be tagged with {{uncat}}, and it would be helpful if the Special list (which currently only shows 1000 articles, and updates twice a week), could update more frequently. Or perhaps it would be helpful if one of us could have a way of "goosing" it, when we're done with one batch and ready for another. Is that something that you could help with, or if not, do you know who we would contact? Thanks. --Elonka 21:54, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Hiya, as a followup, have you had a chance to check on this? The cache at Special:Uncategorizedpages is currently updating on a very irregular basis (the last update was on 25 November), and this is continuing to cause some difficulties in trying to keep up with things, since new uncategorized articles are accumulating at such a fast rate, the cache never really gets very deep into the alphabet. See here for a list of recent progress.

To address the problem, what would really help would be any one of the following:

• Have the cache update more quickly, such as once every 48 hours; or
• Have the cache cover more articles, like up it to 2,000 articles instead of 1,000; or
• Give someone else on the categorization team (such as myself), tools to "poke" the cache to update, when we're ready for a new batch of another thousand articles.
• Direct us to who else we might ask about this.

Any assistance appreciated! --Elonka 18:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry for my blunt action at zea:

Hi Tim, sorry indeed that I blocked your import script, but I had some good reasons to do so. The case is that it seemed as if the pages at the Zeelandic test wiki had disappeared while they hadn't. The links at the main page had been changed by a bot edit but the actual pages behind the links had not been moved! Since I thought I would be the only one who could find the pages, I decided to transfer them manually. I left a note for all of you on the Zeelandic main page. To prevent any possible duplicates I blocked your script. I don't know if this makes sense at all, but I didn't want any possible mistakes to be made. Steinbach (fka Caesarion) 14:33, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

You can't block it, it accesses the backend API directly without checking permissions. The reason most pages weren't imported was because I incorrectly used the Wp/zea prefix instead of the Test-wp/zea prefix. It doesn't matter to the import script if the pages already exist, if they do, the page move to remove the incubator prefix is skipped, allowing you to merge or delete them as you see fit. -- Tim Starling 03:58, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hey

Hey Tim, Awesome to see you back... Hope you're feeling tip-top, although this really says it all :) also: bloody brilliant job yesterday fixing all the servers :) have a good 'un ;) --Deon555^talk_Review 00:04, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Number format

Hi, Tim. Thanks again for making #expr: (and all its cousins)!

Is there a way to format a long number like 299,299,678 or 300,000,001 with commas? It's hard to read 299299678 or 300000001 without commas and I've created the {{uspop commas}} template to add commas to 304274000 (current U.S. population estimate).

I hesitate to ask, except that other population estimates may benefit from some PHP coding. --Uncle Ed 09:56, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Use {{formatnum:12345678901234567890.1234567890}}, this will rendered as 12,345,678,901,234,567,890.1234567890.--AlefZet 09:45, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] special:chemicalsources

Hi, I felt like spamming you with the same message as some others, until I realized you were the same guy I am trying to bug with my extensions on #wikimedia. Nickj from the wikimedia IRC channel has set up a site for me at http://chemistry.poolspares.com. It runs two extensions I have written to the wikipedia software, a special page (for chemical sources, see also wikipedia:chemical sources and a chemform tag (for easy input of chemical formulae). Could you have a look, and comment on it (if useful I would like to try to let you or Brion enable it on wikipedia). Cheers! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:58, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Creating Karakalpak Wikipedia request

Request for Karakalpak Wikipedia was already approved on meta. So need start kaa.wikipedia.org for further works (recruiting contributors, interface translating, articles editing etc). Thanks for advance. (m:User:AlefZet, incubator:User:AlefZet kk:User:AlefZet) --AlefZet 09:42, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rollback, new proposal

I have proposed at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Rollback to the bots! to allows antivandalism bots to be given the rollback privilege. This proposal has meet no opposition so far (Tawker also agreeed that this could be somehow useful). If you also don't oppose it, would it be possible to recreate the rollback group so that this can be implemented? I am asking you because it seems that you were somehow involved, at least reading the archives of WP:RFR. Tizio 17:38, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Strange template

Template:Commentedit, what's the point of it? Punkmorten 23:53, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

It's an old MediaWiki namespace message which was deleted from the source files before the Template namespace was created. Because it was not a valid message at the time the template namespace was created, it was considered to be a template and hence it was moved to the template namespace. It can be deleted. -- Tim Starling 07:51, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] test wiki conversion issues

Hi Tim, just wondering: when you transmit pages from incubator to a newly created wiki, are the prefixes in the internal links automatically removed? I hate having to remove the Wp/stq/ prefix manually in 300 articles, so I hope they are. But I don't know how smart your script is...

The prefix is automatically removed from internal links.

Fine :-) Steinbach (fka Caesarion) 11:09, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

And talking about test wikis, when do you expect the now approved wiki proposals to be created? We'd all love to see them asap, but I understand developers are only human. Regards Steinbach (fka Caesarion) 13:32, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

What approved proposals? -- Tim Starling 05:18, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

see meta:Approved requests for new languages. Steinbach (fka Caesarion) 11:09, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

These have been approved under the old policy, not the new policy, is that right? Some people complained to JeLuF about not following the new policy last time he created wikis, even though the new policy was actually proposed after he created them. Imagine what they would say if I failed to follow it now! -- Tim Starling 04:43, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Assistance with images.

Can you possibly get these images back? I am sorry about it, me getting these is crucial, I need them. They are:
Image:Moreblah1.gif, Image:Moreblah2.gif, Image:Moreblah3.gif, Image:Blah1.gif, Image:Blah2.gif, Image:Blah3.gif, Image:Moreblahblah2.gif, Image:Blah4.gif, Image:Blah5.gif, Image:Blah6.gif, Image:Blah7.gif, Image:Blah8.gif, Image:Blah9.gif, Image:Blah10.gif, Image:Blah11.gif, Image:Blah12.gif, Image:Lastblah.gif, and Image:Blah7.gif. --RedPooka 04:25, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
The origional source from them had an HDD faliure, and they lost them, and they really want them back. I wanted to do them a favor. :( --RedPooka 05:26, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello? I really need them! Seriously. --RedPooka 19:57, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IE scroll fix / User:Tom-

Hi Tim, do you have any idea what this piece of code does exactly and why it isn't included in IEFixes.js instead? Alternatively, do you know how I can contact User:Tom-? He is/used to be a MediaWiki developer but isn't active here any more. Cheers, —Ruud 21:18, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bug 6638 (new block options)

Hello, if you have the time, could you look into this bug? I understand you coded the block options-which are great BTW-but currently the only way to see what options are enabled on a block is going through Special:IPblocklist. I thought it might be nice if this could be added to Special:Log/block as well, so you can see what options were used on prior blocks. If you aren't too busy could you tell me if this is something that would be easy to add, and if there is any possibility of its being implemented? Thanks for all your work, Prodego ^talk 20:28, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Lake Macquarie

This is to inform you that the project above, of which you are a member, is being considered for deletion. Please feel free to go to Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Lake Macquarie to participate in the discussion. Thank you. Badbilltucker 20:39, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A new parallel syntax for autoformatting dates

As a developer, you may be interested in the renewed proposal and subsequent debate here. Cheers, Gzkn 01:38, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Graphviz

Hello! Do you developer? If you are, an you please add GraphViz to Wikipedia. This will be very usefull tol. You can wiew usage on meta or on one of Wiki in Slovenia (Faculty of Mathematics). Gretings, --Mihael Simonic 21:26, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A NEW WIKILANGUAGE SISTER PROJECT

Hi Tim! I have been contributing extensively to wikipedia for some time now and feel I have come up with somethin that could potentially be huge that would be of enormous benefit to the world.

I propose a new major sister project of wikipedia WikiLanguages or WikiLinguistics which specializes in the teaching of all languages. I have looked over the internet and have found some sites which do have several of the major languages giving knowledge of learning them but this wuould be huge and would provide all the information for learning languages such as most of the 250 languages that already have wikipedias. Learning a language is a major infomration source but wikipedia does not have this in detail. I beleive this wikipedia sister project would be developed into an extremwely valuable resoruce not only for achieving knowledge of major languages but also other world languages which are not always readily available to learn. Also many of the existing webistes which do atempt to provide some learning of language often involve a subscription and are not free.

If it is created I would hope that say five years down the line we should have the ultimate language learning resource in the world. If everybody contributes from their respective countris and knowledge of their languages we could see a resource which could allow you to potentially become fluent in hundreds of languages. Ernst Stavro Blofeld 12:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I strongly beleive this is what providing free easily accessible information is what wikipedia is all about and think this is an extrmely valuable component missing from the Wikipedia Foundation. E.g if I wanted to learn Norwegian or Czech or FInnish at the highest possible level or whatever this resource would be there to provide this knowledge. WikiLanguages would be divided into 250 or whatever massive sub projects e.g WikiFrench WikiSpanish WikiNorwegian WikiFinnish WikiDutch WIkiItalian WIkiPortuguese WIkiThai WikiJapanese etc etc dedicated to providing an English encylopedia of languagesErnst Stavro Blofeld 12:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC).

Imagine if this major sister project could incorporate translation technology - imagine the immese benefit for learning but also for tranlsation from foreign wikipedias. This would be a highly useful tool for Wikipedia itself. The site could also incorpate audio technology so the resoruce would not only provide you with the detail to reading and writing a language fluently but provide you with the knoe how to pronouncre and speak a language well. Ernst Stavro Blofeld 12:28, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I strongly beleive that this is the next step for the Wikipedia Media series. The series attempts to connect the world up entirely providing 'the sum of all human knowedge freely' but I think a key to commuinication is language- a vital part of the project.

Please let me know if you think this is a good idea. I would like to organize a proposal petition with the top wikipedia foundation administrators to decide to start this. WikiLanguages would also provide specializes knowledge of localized dialects or whatever -the ultimate global language resource. Ernst Stavro Blofeld 12:40, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:Northern_Territory_crest.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Northern_Territory_crest.jpg. The image has been identified as not specifying the copyright status of the image, which is required by Wikipedia's policy on images. If you don't indicate the copyright status of the image on the image's description page, using an appropriate copyright tag, it may be deleted some time in the next seven days. If you have uploaded other images, please verify that you have provided copyright information for them as well.

For more information on using images, see the following pages:

• Wikipedia:Image use policy
• Wikipedia:Image copyright tags

This is an automated notice by OrphanBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. 11:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Tim Starling non-residence.png listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:Tim Starling non-residence.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. — Gay Cdn (talk) (Contr.) 20:52, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] London meet is TUESDAY 9th, not Wednesday 10th!

Update: Jimbo got his days of the week confused. This is now happening TUESDAY 9th, same place. You may care to sign up again or not - David Gerard 10:42, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Qtel proxy

Tim, could you take a look at my comments on meta:Talk:XFF project? If I'm right about this, this could be a technical fix for the recent high-profile problems on this IP, which generated a lot of recent press coverage: however, it might need some communication with Qtel to confirm that this is a real proxy under their control, and properly XFF-enabled. -- The Anome 15:23, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hi!

Hello, I'm Pat. I was wondering what you think about project WP:CCT adding time to locations in articles? Thank you for your comment. --CyclePat 03:09, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image Deletion

Which image? -Nv8200p talk 15:40, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why I deleted it. All I can do is apologize. I'm glad you were able to recover the image and a lot of its history. -Regards Nv8200p talk 00:36, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rev 18220

Hi there. I was wondering if you would have time to look at this discussion about rev:18220? Do you know what is happening here? Do redirects to div-ids and to #section headings work differently? I also raised another matter concerning anchored redirects at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Categorising sections of an article. Any advice on either thread would be much appreciated. Thanks. Carcharoth 13:04, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Oops. The first thing seems to have been a cache issue. That is working now. Sorry about that. Any input at the VP:TECH thread about whether categorising falls under the "use it wisely" dictum would still be appreciated. Thanks. Carcharoth 13:10, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Pending deletion script

Hello--I'm trying to piece together a mystery, and I thought you might be able to help. If you look at the history of List of University of Chicago people, the first edits are in the midst of a move war of a list that's obviously already well along. The deleted edits, though, show the beginnings of the list, as well as a deletion log by User:Pending deletion script. It seems like there might be a GFDL problem. Do you have any objections to my undeleting the history to preserve GFDL info? Or alternately, any idea what happened here? Thanks. Chick Bowen 18:22, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh wait, never mind--I think I figured it out. The whole problem was caused by the move war, it had nothing to do with the script. Thanks anyway. Chick Bowen 18:27, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tamil wikisource

Hi, i am w:ta:user:ravidreams from tamil wikipedia. we have voted for the creation of tamil subdomain for wikisource and the wikisource admins asked me to contact wikimedia developers regarding creation of this subdomain? could you please help us? Thank you--Ravishankar 10:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] favor?

Tim, I am getting some inconssitent results when I use template Current UTC is 18:38. Does it provides only the current time when I add the template, or is this enough to automatically update to the real current time? Is there a proper/better way I can do this? How? Thanks! Slrubenstein | Talk 12:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Time and date variables are typically wrong by up to 24 hours. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Variables#Time -- Tim Starling 19:39, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ongoing harrassment from Michael

>Someone, probably you from IP address 69.121.173.40, has registered an >account "John Hephaestos Robinson" with this e-mail address on Wikiquote. > >To confirm that this account really does belong to you and activate >e-mail features on Wikiquote, open this link in your browser: > >http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:Confirmemail/>8d686905e6609e0907ed55256c80ec09 > >If this is *not* you, don't follow the link. This confirmation code >will expire at 02:21, 3 March 2007.

How about this:

1) How about the brand-new account can't edit any Wikimedia site until the confirmation is sent in from the claimed email account, like, gee, every other site on the Internet?

2) How about you take the advice I put on Mike Garcia's talk page last November and disallow any new account using my email address?

How thick do y'all have to be to just let this continue for four years? I have been online harrassed by this asshole for years now, and I blame at least half of it on laziness in the Wikimedia code. It's irresponsible. I guess y'all just figure "to hell with the average contributor." Hephaestos|[[User talk:Hephaestos|&#167;]] 02:50, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Unlike all those other sites, Wikimedia websites are wikis. We try to reduce barriers to entry, and we've always thought that requiring email confirmation is much too steep a barrier. I don't know why you think I'm thick for not reading something you put on Mike Garcia's talk page last November, it's not a forum I check regularly. This is the first complaint I've had about Michael in a couple of years. -- Tim Starling 19:32, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

That you have received no complaints in two years is surprising, given that he has created about 300 vandal accounts during that period. Well, I guess not surprising, given the level of accountability. - Hephaestos|[[User talk:Hephaestos|&#167;]] 20:35, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] mediawiki.org/wiki/User_talk:Tim_Starling

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User_talk:Tim_Starling —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tobias Conradi (talk • contribs) 16:23, 14 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Logo

Hi, I saw your comment on wikimedia page about the logos switch. I am ready to switch the logo for ce.wikipedia.org , but you said any sysop can change it. I am a sysop, how can I do it?

Please reply back on my talk page: here

--Ice201 20:45, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Talk page blanking

I believe you helped to fix this issue before. It seems to be happening again. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Talk page blanking after edits for the new details. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 19:57, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

It even appears to have done it here on this page. (I restored the deleted content above this post. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 20:05, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Random page generator

Hi Tim; I've got a question for you. People seem to be using the "Random page" function pretty much lately for doing statistical analysis, and I heard that you created the function, so I thought I'd ask to make sure that it's well suited for these purposes. I imagine that it uses an LCG somewhere in there, but what exactly is the process? Has anyone run any serious tests on the RNG (like Diehard tests)? --Spangineer^ws (háblame) 02:21, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I have answered this here. -- Tim Starling 16:22, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! --Spangineer^ws (háblame) 22:28, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help

Hey, since you're a developer, I need your help. Please contact me on my talk page if you have time to help me out configuring something in LocalSettings.php on a different language wiki, or know somebody else that can do it. Thanks! — Alex^(T|C|E) 09:25, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] You are a developer?

Can you please get the password for my old account Qho? I know I changed it before I left for summer break but when I came back I could not rember it for the life of me. Also tell my if I'm right in that it has to do with alligators or dragons. I think thats close enough, please let me know, #REDIRECT [[--Missing No Teeth 15:44, 5 April 2007 (UTC)]]

[edit] Latin Wikisource

Bonjour,

I'm bureaucrat on la: Wikisource ; is it possible to activate the Proofread page extension that is in use on en: and fr: Wikisource ? Thanks. Marc 11:29, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Categorization overhaul

I'm very enthusiastic about your proposed overhaul of categorization that you mentioned on the village pump. I'm wondering if category intersection might be a part of it. I got the sense from User:Aerik that this can be done using Lucene. According to him, "this can be implemented quite easily (comparatively). This is what Brion has been suggesting for a long time now".

While we are on the subject, I've been thinking about a system of keyword searching, that would be much less "formal" than what our categorization system has become. I'd appreciate your comments. I've posted a proposal at Wikipedia:Link intersection.

If some major overhauls are entering the pipeline, it would be great if we could gather many of the people who have been kicking these ideas around over the years to think through the UI. Let me know if you'd be open to this, and I'll gather people and make it happen. There are many people with software design experience that would like to contribute to the shaping of Wikipedia's future. Thanks, --Samuel Wantman 20:11, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please contact me

Tim - can you contact me regarding a mediawiki project? I would like to hire a developer that understands mediawiki well. bobbys (at) gmail dot com. Robertuva 04:21, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Family tree

Hi. I noticed your edits to Template:Familytree/step2 and see that you changed the maximum parameter to 40. Would that maximum be the allotted amount of tiles per line? If it is, could you please extend it cause some of the much needed tiles of some family trees I made don't appear. --Xallium (talk • contribs) 23:42, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question

Hello. I have a question about user preferences and lines displayed in user contributions. Could you please stop by the conversation at User talk:Ais523#User contributions and make any comments as you see appropriate? --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 16:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Russo and Steele

I had major problems with this one and I wholeheartedly apologize. Vandalistic contributions from the Wikipedia sandbox were screwing up this other page and I deleted the wrong page when it had been vandalized. I immediately realized that I had cocked up and attempted to do something about it. I hadn't realized that the actual edits were causing the redirect to happen and I assumed that it was from an article which wasn't to do with the Sandbox. Eitherway there were serious problems with it and I shall be careful from here on. I'm sorry. Bobo. 16:47, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Username/password

Hi!

I am a wikipedian from Slovenia, acting under username Jalen. As of April 27th, I have had problems with logging in on all three wikipedias where I had a user account; apart from Slovenian wikipedia, I was also active on the English and German ones. After reading the Help Desk forum, where another user had a similar problem, I found out that developers decided to block access to all users whose passwords were the same as their usernames. This also happened to be my case. A few days ago, I managed to log in to the English wikipedia after repeated clicking and I wanted to change my password but the server denied that as well. Now I am no longer able to log in under either the old or the new password. I also have no e-mail address entered. I can understand that it was not a wise decision to choose a password equal to the username, but on opening my user accounts I received no notifications about my password being inappropriate. I have been active on Slovenian wikipedia for nearly two years, I have almost 1400 edits and have contributed a number of articles. As such, I gained some credibility as a wikipedian which is why I would like to keep my user account and continue contributing. I would therefore kindly request some assistance. Thank you, Jalen 84.52.134.168 13:22, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Newcastle Meetup

Tim, I notice you used to live in Morisset. Newcastle is having its first Wikipedia meetup and we'd be happy for you to come. I know you live in Melbourne but I'm assuming you could possibly have family in Morisset you might want to visit. --One Salient Oversight 01:00, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] You stopped doing your PhD for Wikipedia?

You must be incredibly dedicated to the project. - 2-16 17:17, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Login unsuccessful

Hello, I am the User:Bababoum and have been unable to login since logging out sometime on Saturday. Even though I'm sure I have tried to log in with the correct password (my username), I requested to be e-mailed with a new password, but it said "There is no e-mail address recorded for user "Bababoum". I took this to the admins where it was discussed here, WP:AN#Login unsuccessful, and I was told that you would possibly be able to retrieve my account. They also said that my account may have been disabled due to having the same username/password, although I wasn't aware that this happened. If proof is needed that I am indeed that user, please check my IP address (apparently a 'CheckUser' would be able to prove this). Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. 82.29.19.104 20:09, 14 May 2007 (UTC) P.S. after reading Username/password above, I think I am probably experiencing the same problem as Jalen.

[edit] En Wikiquote move setting

Hi, thank you for your help yesterday. Would you please inform us what you did exactly on our VP? I'm not sure if I properly asked what we would have liked, and also if I understand what has changed. Thank you for your attention, --Aphaia 20:17, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Has there been a change to the RSS stream?

Has there been a change to the RSS stream in the last couple of days? The 'Filter recent changes' mode of Lupin's anti-vandal tool has stopped working. I know nothing of RSS, and what I know of Javascript comes from reading Lupin's code, but it's as though there's been a change to the 'description' tag, and Lupin's code no longer finds any suspicious text in it. The 'All recent changes' and 'Recent IP edits' modes still work fine.

Slightly separately, can you point me to a description of the RSS stream? I have some ideas for modifying Lupin's tool I'd like to try. Philip Trueman 10:21, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

'Monitor my watchlist' has worked at times, other times not so well. There are discussions of this bug on the tools talk page as well as Village Pump. Lupin is not around, so if you can help out it would be huge.—Gaff ^ταλκ 15:48, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Update: It looks like Cacycle has modified the RegExps in Lupin's tool to handle the new format. Philip Trueman 10:06, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help again (about stollened account)

Mr Tim Starling, I hope you remember me I am from Türkçe Vikipedi.Erdemsenol I think Cool Cat is on holiday I am wrightin you. Last night same stewards and developers (and you) helped me and done somethings on my account but new password didn't come yet. Can you help me. Why didin't come password still.

Try requesting it again, and if it still doesn't come, ask me about it on IRC. -- Tim Starling 15:15, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Move rate limit

Hello. I was said at Village pump that you set the move rate limit to 2 moves per minute in response to vandalism. I was wondering if this is going to be permanent because it really slows me down when working on User:Jogers/List5 and few other similar lists. Regards, Jogers (talk) 20:19, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I've increased it to 8/min. It would be nice if we could exclude you from the rate limits somehow. If you were a bot or a sysop, it would be no problem. -- Tim Starling 15:11, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I wish I were. Anyway, thanks for increasing the limit. Jogers (talk) 15:22, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] imagemap

I couldn't find further info on mw:Extension:ImageMap as to the setting of $wgImageMapAllowExternalLinks on en.WP. Are external links deactivated for imagemap here? —AldeBaer 00:54, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] London Wiki Wednesday

Hi Tim. I'll see you and Angela at London Wiki Wednesday again tomorrow night. Looking forward to it! -- Harry Wood 13:11, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GeSHi syntax highlighting

Tim, I ask since you seem to be the person who installed the Extension:SyntaxHighlight GeSHi extension: If I get you some improved language-description files such as this new c.php, would you be able to install them on Wikipedia? My goal is eventually to make the syntax highlighting for all languages correct; obviously that's not going to happen anytime soon, but if I could find someone to review and install the changed files, that would at least be a first step. :)

I am also interested in fixing some of the bugs in GeSHi, such as the initial-whitespace chomping and maybe even its inability to embed wikilinks. I guess that the English Wikipedia is using unmodified copies of the files linked here, so I could play with my own copies of those files and then point someone to them when I got them working. If the English Wikipedia's copies of those files have been modified already, have they been published anywhere visible to ordinary Wikipedia users? I'm looking for something like Wikipedia:Innards/geshi.php here. :) Any advice?

I don't follow bugzilla.wikimedia.org, but if you think it's critically important, I could make an account there. So far, I've just been working alone and nagging relevant admins to install my fixes. --Quuxplusone 07:46, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and please ping me when you respond. Thanks! --Quuxplusone 07:47, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Replied on User talk:Quuxplusone -- Tim Starling 20:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How can I create a REDIRECT BUTTON

On edit pages is there any way i can creat a REDIRECT button on Dhivehi Wiki ([2]) in edit pages just like on English wikipedia?

We currently have BOLD, ITALIC, INTERNAL LINK, LEVEL 2 HEADLINE, IMAGE, MEDIA FiLE LINK, MATHEMETICAL FORMULA, NO WIKI, SIGNATURE and HORIZONTAL LINE buttons.

I have asked a few other users, who told me wat to do. But i couldn't figure out how to do this. I tried editting MediaWiki:Common.js. But the redirect button just wouldn't show up.

As a you are a developer, i ask your help!

Thanks!!

--~GlaCiouS~(T) 12:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] $wgImageMapAllowExternalLinks

Could you look in to setting $wgImageMapAllowExternalLinks, if there is not problem with this? Thanks, Prodego ^talk 04:31, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm removing the setting, enabling the feature unconditionally. -- Tim Starling 11:02, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response! Prodego ^talk 16:02, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

It looks like there is a little bug in ImageMap, which coverts '&' to '&'(this is a closed &amp) in external links, breaking any links with '&' in them. For example, click the image I have placed to the left. Prodego ^talk 17:23, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rogue Admin

Please see my User talk:68.110.8.21 and User_talk:Akhilleus#WP:POINT.2C_WP:HOAX.2C_WP:PN.2C_WP:BIAS. Wikipedia seriously needs your help Tim. Thanks. 68.110.8.21 03:16, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Tim

Hi, someone has requested the usurpation of this username at Wikipedia:Changing username/Usurpations as it has no edits. This post: [3] and this page: User talk:Tim/email substitute suggest someone was under the impression that the account is yours. Just wanted to confirm where or not this is the case before a crat performs the necessary renamings. WjBscribe 21:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Anyone wanting to use User:Tim should be shot. -- Tim Starling 23:28, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Well you are a bureaucrat, you can always decline the request (hell, you can prob have them shot too) .... WjBscribe 23:49, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of England international footballers (alphabetical)

Following discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Football it was decided to convert List of England international footballers (alphabetical) into a sortable table. I have started to build the table, but seem to have hit a limit on the number of templates that can be included. If the whole list was to be included in the table, there would be 1150+ entries in the list, each of which will have three columns sorted by date using the {{Dts}} template plus the subject's names being sorted using the {{sortname}} template.

I have read the article Wikipedia:Template limits but I must confess that most of it went straight over the top of my head! Am I attempting the impossible or can the limit be changed? If not do you have any suggestions?

I would appreciate any help or advice you can give. Thanks and best wishes. Daemonic Kangaroo 18:35, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Usergroup

Hey, I am wondering whether you (as a developer) could comment on this bot discussion. The request may require another usergroup, specifically for editing protected pages, which I know is a minor change to LocalSettings.php, however as far as I am aware, it requires a server admin or dev to change.

I am posting this message to many developers talk pages, who are part of the developer group here on enwiki.

Thanks! Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 21:23, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Work on MIKE2.0 with Mediawiki by BearingPoint

Tim, just wanted to drop you a line that we haven't forgotten our chat at the last Wiki Wednesday in London about contributing and extending Mediawiki for the MIKE2.0 project ;). We are currently working on further refining our internal requirements for the collaboration solution:

• how can we use MIKE2.0 to aggregate (link and tag) public (websites, blog articles etc.) and private assets
• how to add group-level security to enable a hierarchical content release model
• How to provide a WYSIWYG editor (internally we are trialling FCKeditor and are not very happy with it; we are thinking about going back to non-WYSIWYG environment because of all the problems with it). I also see major improvements on the editor provided by Mediawiki itself in the 1.11 release which might actually solve our problems. The insert table feature is our biggest concern and it seems to be solved (at least with basic tables).

Cheers, Andreas Rindler 11:41, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Change my username

Hello. Please change my username to User:R@y88 because it is a very serious request. Please do not ignore my request. Please change it without a redirect. R@y 11:06, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Striking your vote

Sorry about that, I thought my edit count was easily valid for some reason. Jw6aa 02:11, 6 July 2007 (UTC) It seems edits to articles that are subsequently deleted don't seem to count. I was unaware of this. Jw6aa 02:41, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] vote striking

I totally understand and agree with the bylaw about striking votes of ineligible people however I seriously hope that in the future this will be caught before people actually vote and that better safeguards will be put in place in the future for this. Cat-five - talk 19:54, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] OpenStreetMap MediaWiki plugin

Dont know if you've had chance to look at the possibility of an OpenStreetMap plugin yet, but I've slapped down some ideas on this page: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/MediaWiki_plugin take a look and see what you think. Some coders at OSM may take up that challenge for you anyway. I could probably knock up a simple plugin myself in fact. I was thinking it would need to store a cache of map images on the local file system. But not sure if that's a good idea? Feel free to edit that page anyway -- Harry Wood 17:49, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I got around to writing the simplest possible openstreetmap extension. That's just spitting out an <IMG> tag with the src pointed at the openstreetmap image generating service. So pretty trivial code really. But maybe if wikipedia used a squid proxy to take the traffic, we don't need to do anything cleverer than that.

Were you keen on creating a more complex 'slippy map' extension? The other question is, would users want a more sophisticated way of hanging these things together with something akin to an 'image' page, perhaps linked to SVG source somehow. That all starts to get more tricky. As you will see, my first stab is noddy. -- Harry Wood 14:11, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Logo on no.wikibooks

Thank you very much for your help with the logo! — H92 (t · c · no) 14:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 4x4 square templates nominated for deletion

Hello Tim Starling. I've nominated most-perfect magic square templates on Meta for deletion. (I've posted this message here since you don't seem to be regularly active on Meta.) You participated in an earlier discussion in 2005 that was never closed; if you'd like to comment again, please see Meta:Requests for deletion#4x4_type_squares. —{admin} Pathoschild 02:19:42, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mongolian Wikipedia

Hi. Why is it that if you write [[Mongolia]]n, it becomes Mongolian, but when you write [[Монгол]]ын it becomes Монголын??? Can you fix that, please???

And if you can, I would really appreciate it if you can change the logo of Mongolian Wikipedia (mn). The logo is at mn:Image:Wiki.png

--Chinneeb 05:50, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] <imagemap> question

Why does <imagemap> not work with Magic words?  Tcrow777  talk  04:06, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Editpage.php - an Idea.

Hi Mr Starling. I am a user from the English Wikipedia who has been trying to set up a new wiki from home. I used the Custom Javascript and Custom CSS to try and get the extended MediaWiki toolbar, as used on here. But I could not get this to work, so I tried something out. I hard coded all the extended buttons into Editpage.php and got it working on a couple of new browsers. I know you have better things to do, but when you have time, could you look at my sample on MediaWiki, to which I have attached notes, (mw:User:Tmalmjursson/Coding_Subpage) and tell me if you can see any problems with the idea of hard coding the bar (or making the extra buttons so that they can be commented out of the array). Many thanks, and I hope that I have done this right! Thor Malmjursson 13:04, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Justice in the Wikipédia

JUSTICE

ANYONE TO REPLY THE 4 FAXES SENDED TO WIKIMÉDIA FOUNDATION

THE ATTITUDE OF WIKIPÉDIA IS NOT FAIR

THE BUROCRATS ARE MAKING A NEW CHECK USER TO MY ACCOUNT BUT I AM WAITING FOR THEIR REPLY AT LEAST THREE VERY HEAVY DAYS. STRANGE BECAUSE THE FIRST CHEK USER WAS REPLY IN FIVE MINUTES.

THE WIKIPEDIA DO NOT HAVE A CONSUL OF ETHIC?

BY FAX

PLEASE BE RESPECTFUL AND HONEST WITH THE USERS OF WIKIPÉDIA

Dear Sirs,

Once again…

A group of users (friends) of Portuguese Wikipédia brings more illiberal policies regarding an non free Wikipedia without a preoccupation with a environmental and social education.

This group of users (always the same) and some administrators propose and vote systematically to erase some pages with a total absence of knowledge about the subject, some of the articles with a high importance to the community. They have a chain of contacts to promote their vote and their contacts (friends) vote without common sense, reasoning, good judgment, brains or sagacity; They vote against the person and not against the article.

Less obvious for know, but perhaps as consequential over the long term, is a less participation of some users who TRY CONTRIBUTE to this projects with articles.

Because of this behavior, I decide do not agree with their conduct and I write my point of view in there discussion pages.

I have been block for suspicion of being a sock puppet after a check user. I know I am not a sock puppet, so is impossible the check user be positive.

Several of times, I and other users asked for a check user to my account to dissipate any suspicion about the issue (because they accuse-me to be a sock puppet). But our request was always reject for these (group) users.

However, know, the “group of users” decided to make a “check user”. It is strange and uncommon, because 2 days ago they rejected my check user proposal.

In the past, they admit in their discussion pages, they make a me check user and the check user was inconclusive (this in half-words). Know the result is positive? Is impossible. I know that. I am not a “sock puppet”.

All I ask to Wikimedia foundation is that an administrator check the merits of the block and to verify the check user. Send me the results by email, because is impossible this result.

I think these groups (with administrators) are trying making a fraud to eliminate my participation.

Put yourself in my shoes and imagine the frustration.

– The other user

– Me

– The checkuser rejected by “the group of users”

– The same checkuser approved by “the group of users”.

SOME QUESTIONS

1) HOW MANY TIMES I WAS CHECKED?

2) WHO MADE THE CHECKS?

3) WHAT WERE THE RESULTS?

PLEASE REPLY TO ratresende@gmail.com AND SEND THE LOGS

Sincerely,

Rui Resende —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.157.79.92 (talk) 01:48, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I have replied by email. -- Tim Starling 03:33, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Checked. Thanks. I will contact you soon and I will send you the suspected IPs double check. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.157.79.92 (talk) 04:05, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Static HTML Dumps Are Down

The static html dumps are unavailable for download at http://download.wikipedia.org/. Thanks for your help. --Mattwj2002 18:21, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia viewing experience

Hi Tim. From this DRV discussion, I started thinking of how the individual viewer can have a Wikipedia viewing experience suited to their own taste without an editor violating Not censored. In particular, images identified as objectionable or offensive are posted in MediaWiki:Bad_image_list and some viewers may desire that these are not received by their computer screen. The DRV discussion centered around a template placed about such pictures, but the act of an editor placing such a template was not consistent with Not censored. However, it would not violate Not censored if the viewer themselves determine what may and may not be shown on their computer screen. To some extent, Wikipedia already allows for this and readers have a few ways to view Wikipedia content as they so choose. For example, Wikipedia:Main Page alternatives has a variety of ways an individual may view the main page. The text only version eliminates the images on the main page. Pages may be viewed by an individual in a printable version. As one of the developers, you are able to program the Wiki software to allow viewers a choice to screen out images from MediaWiki:Bad_image_list or other images marked as objectionable or offensive to some. There are readers who prefer not to have adult images appear on their computer screen (especially if their kids use the same computer). Since we already allow viewers viewing choices and we already identify objectionable/offensive images, I think we should put the two together and allow individual viewers the option to view Wikipedia without having objectionable/offensive images brought to their computer screen. The images can stay in the article, unaltered in compliance with Not censored and the individual viewer can have a Wikipedia viewing experience suited to their own taste. Many of the large websites already have this feature. For example, Google has SafeSearch Filtering which they discuss here. I think this is a solution to an often raised issue. Please let me know what you think. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 14:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Great Job

From what I understand, you were instrumental in helping to set up the OggHandler extension so that audio and video can be added to articles in much the same way as images. Wikipedia has been needing this for awhile, and I am sure it was hard work so I just wanted to say that you have done a great job from what I have seen so far. Keep up the good work. Remember 13:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject_Lake_Macquarie Nominated for Deletion

Are you aware that this project has been nominated for deletion for inactivity and lack of scope/membership?

If you or any of the other members want to comment you should go to Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Lake_Macquarie_2#Wikipedia:WikiProject_Lake_Macquarie.

Please respond, if you choose to respond, on my user page. Thanks.

--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 01:15, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ImageMap extension install problem

Tim, I am having trouble installing the ImageMap extension. I have put details on the error I get here. Can you please suggest how this can be fixed?

Regards, Peter Campbell 00:25, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images

Hi. I am wondering if you could take an image of Speers Point's landmarks next time you're near? I noticed you took a picture of Lake Macquarie. Auroranorth 12:37, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] OggHandler

Please answer on questions at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_talk:OggHandler —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.78.191.4 (talk) 08:28, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia xml dump, all pages with history

Tim, do you happen to know where can I find the latest Wikipedia xml all page with hisotry dump? At the obvious location ... http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20070908/ ... this dump was ostensibly aborted. I would use an older dump, of course, if one existed, but there does not seem to be any on the MediaWiki site.

SAM-Purdue U —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.252.233.180 (talk) 22:48, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Happy Tim Starling Day

Secure and split! Have a nice day. bibliomaniac15 A straw poll on straw polls 02:27, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Is it that time already... Have a nice day. Prodego ^talk 03:09, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] OggHandler

Hi Tim,

Anna here from EngageMedia.org/Plumi.org. I met with Brianna recently and talked to her about a report I've been writing into FOSS video codecs for the Transmission network of online video projects for social change. The aim of the report is to promote various FOSS video projects, help members of the network choose software that is ready to use, help identify the most pressing areas for development and encourage collaboration between projects on development around FOSS and patent-free video codecs.

Here is the second draft of the report, I'm just wrapping up this version now: http://wiki.transmission.cc/index.php/FOSS_Codecs_For_Online_Video:_Usability_Uptake_and_Development_1.2

Here is a link to the section I wrote after talking with her about OggHandler.

And here is a link to the section on MediaWiki itself.

Hopefully you might find some information of interest within the report. I'd really appreciate it if you could have a read through the sections about OggHandler and MediaWiki and give me your feedback.

It would also be nice to meet up sometime - the EngageMedia collective is based in Melbourne and we don't get to hang out with FOSS-focussed online-video developers often enough (offline) :)

Cheers, Anna

[edit] developer?

Could you please create the Limburgish Wikiquote? http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11760

--Ooswesthoesbes 15:32, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ogg Handler 2

Hi, many thanks for OggHandler. I asked fr howto suppress the two carriage returns of the Madia player icon which make the inline use of Image: impossible. As requested by you it is on: Extension_talk:OggHandler --Nbrouard 08:36, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please help me, thanks

Hi, you're a bureaucrat here right? I've just seen you online. Now I'm requesting to change my name, so can you please go and handle my case? Project:Changing username. Thank you! --King Edmund of the Woods 09:21, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please help me, thanks

Hi, you're a bureaucrat here right? I've just seen you online. Now I'm requesting to change my name, so can you please go and handle my case? Project:Changing username. Thank you! --King Edmund of the Woods 09:22, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for oversight

Hi, I would really appreciate it if you could delete my entire user account: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Woof82 Woof82 00:42, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bug 12154 & questions

Hello Tim,

Thank you for the list in User:Tim Starling/Bug 12154 diffs. It seems that it only contains diffs not followed by a new revision; however, I found several pages on the French Wikipedia still containing the string UNIQ, because they have been edited after. If you have the time, could you please generate a list of diffs that contain the string UNIQ, whether the pages have been edited after or not? I will ensure that all the pages have been fixed.

Also, do you know if it exists an online wiki running with the latest MediaWiki revision, on which I can test if the bug is fixed? If I am not mistaken, the Test Wiki does not run with the latest revision of MediaWiki; and Betawiki has not all extensions found on Wikimedia wikis (<ref>, <math>...).

A final (unrelated) question: do you still need the page m:LanguageJa.php? You restored it a long time ago; it has been recently proposed for deletion.

Thank you for your help, Korg 16:32, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About Mike Garcia

You seem to have dealt with Mike Garcia in the past so i'd like to show you some possible evidence. Some users are randomly running around claiming they are finding sockpuppets of Mike which are trolling several userpages. But there's something strange that was posted on his talk page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Tim_Starling&diff=prev&oldid=110492014

How about you take the advice I put on Mike Garcia's talk page last November and disallow any new account using my email address?

Notice that the advice in question wasn't put by the Hephaestos account, but by the Mike Garcia account. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Mike_Garcia&diff=prev&oldid=73702092 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Mike_Garcia&diff=73702989&oldid=73702636

Hephaestos wrote nothing between september 2006 and february 2007.

Mike Garcia then asked Tim Starling, on meta, to help him recover his account

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Tim_Starling&diff=prev&oldid=426850

This leads to several options:

1. Hephaestos is Mike Garcia, therefore he was the troll who annoyed pretty much everyone since 2003.
2. Hephaestos has cracked Mike Garcia's account to make him look bad or for revenge, and mistakenly mentioned the fact under his account.
3. Mike Garcia has cracked Hephaestos's account for a prank, thus Hephaestos is actually innocent. Although this looks less likely to have happened.

So, Hephaestos might really be the user who is framing Mike after all. By the way, wasn't Mike "infamous" for his use of AOL proxies which caused a lot of collateral damage?

Menticor (talk) 21:24, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Option 1 is hilarious, the idea that someone would spend countless hours reverting vandalism that they actually put there themselves doesn't make an awful lot of sense. Mike victimised Hephaestos because Hephaestos was leading the fight against him. Hephaestos has demonstrated his good faith and his devotion to this project many times over. You shouldn't second-guess him at the first opportunity.

The issue Hephaestos is complaining about on my talk page is harrassment from Mike, in the form of Mike registering accounts on various projects, changing his email address to Hephaestos's email address, and then sending a password reminder email. Obviously Mike tried this trick with the "Mike Garcia" account, and Hephaestos logged in with the new password and then complained about it in this diff. It's likely that he took the opportunity to change the password, because there never was another edit from that account. -- Tim Starling 03:33, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

But is Mike Garcia actually "Johnny the Vandal"? Mike uses (or used) AOL to edit, while "Johnny" is on a different ISP (something with 69.x.x.x as proved by several CheckUsers by Raul654), although they both seem interested in editing articles related to music. And looks like "Johnny" created a great amount of accounts to hit Mike's userpage during 2006. Menticor (talk) 13:55, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Single-purpose account anyone? -- Manticore (talk) 16:36, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Geez, i'm just asking for some info and you respond with "SINGLE PURPOSE ACCOUNT ALERT"... Menticor (talk) 20:19, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I think Michael left AOL at around the same time as his "reform" and name change (Michael -> Mike Garcia). I don't care if "Jonny the Vandal" is Michael, and I'm not qualified to comment since I've never dealt with Jonny. In general, I think it would be naive to attribute all vandalism in a particular style to a single individual -- I did some investigation into the WoW-style vandalism at one stage and found that there were almost certainly some copycats involved. -- Tim Starling (talk) 06:20, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New parser

Hello,

Several people (myself included) asked at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)##ifexist limit that the limit on #ifexist calls not be lowered to 100 until the new pre-processor is online. I see that the limit has been lowered. Have you brought online the new pre-processor as well? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 21:20, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't look lowered to me. -- Tim Starling (talk) 06:22, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, sorry. I misinterpreted what I read. Thank you for your work. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 06:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

A related question: Do you know what's going on with the embedded counter? {{OlympicEventRow}} has 22 #ifexist calls, but if you look at the counter added to the rendered page it reads as 0. Dragons flight (talk) 02:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

There are some bugs. -- Tim Starling (talk) 10:31, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Charles T. Le

Hello. This user is currently sanitizing Florentin Smarandache and nominating Progress in Physics for deletion. I saw that you identified this as one of the alter-egos of Smarandache 4 years ago. I have currently reported this as suspected sockpuppetry on WP:AN/I, quoting your findings from then. Since Smarandache actually self-published his own (auto-)biography with this nom-de-plume, this really seemed too much of a coincidence. If you can help out in any way on this identification, that would be helpful. It might initially seem odd that Charles T. Le is attacking his creator, but he is not attacking the mathematics, which is as unoriginal if not as wrong as the physics. However, this would be typical behaviour for a sockpuppet account, set on removing adverse criticism on the internet. Any thoughts? Cheers, Mathsci (talk) 02:15, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Seems very likely. Charles T. Le was the one supposedly living in a national park, right? -- Tim Starling (talk) 04:01, 14 December 2007 (UTC)