Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 03:30, 6 May 2010

Note: I will generally answer on your talk page (and usually copy here), and look for your responses here. If you see my answer here and it's not on your talk page, I'm either not happy with it (haven't finished writing it), or I forgot to copy it over. However I can't (borked watchlist among other reasons) watch your talk page (sorry), so reply here. R.F.

FAQ

Please feel free to read my FAQ. R.F.

Full ArQuive

Alternatively browse my Talk Archive Index. R.F.

svg version of File:UEFAEuropaLeague.png

Hi, you requested an svg version of File:UEFAEuropaLeague.png. See de:Datei:UEFA_Europa_League.svg. Maybe you want to upload it here, too. Cheers --Saibo (Δ)

Template:Quick commune19

Are you still using this, or should it be deleted? Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ 03:49, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

And Template:Blank alba infobox? Plastikspork _―Œ 03:57, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ 15:50, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Portals

I think it would be useful if you could do similar changes to Template:Portal box as you did at Template:Portal. Thanks -- WOSlinker (talk) 08:42, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

A12 Authentication

Hi Rick and all,    While going through this A12 page, i thought of posting a question related to this. In my view A12 authentication is not required at all. What is requires is return of MN-ID from AAA. Having said that i'd say AAA need not require to check for password value. AAA need to play a role of Authorizer only. AAA should get IMSI/ESN from request and return corrosponding MN-ID into RADIUS Callback-ID attribute.    Please throw a proper light on same. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sumit.pandya (talk • contribs) 09:05, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Well the IMSI is public knowledge. Having said that I have no idea how these things work. You could try the author of the A12 Authentication article. Rich Farmbrough, 09:16, 3 May 2010 (UTC).

Discrete mathematics

I haven't quite understood some of your edits to Discrete mathematics: you appear to have inserted some portal test code, which then interfered with your attempt to state the portal name directly. I've changed the portal reference to what I think you intended (diff). -- Radagast3 (talk) 09:25, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Well the end result is good, the first was to check default behaviour with no icon, I have since added an icon for Discrete mathematics, so that plus your edit, it's all good. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 15:34, 3 May 2010 (UTC).

Speedy deletion of Template:Portal/Images/paleontology

A tag has been placed on Template:Portal/Images/paleontology requesting that it be speedily deleted from Misplaced Pages. This has been done under section T3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a deprecated or orphaned template. After seven days, if it is still unused and the speedy deletion tag has not been removed, the template will be deleted.

If the template is intended to be substituted, please feel free to remove the speedy deletion tag and please consider putting a note on the template's page indicating that it is substituted so as to avoid any future mistakes (<noinclude>{{transclusionless}}</noinclude>).

Thanks. Svick (talk) 09:30, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Template:Portal/Images/Paleontology

A tag has been placed on Template:Portal/Images/Paleontology requesting that it be speedily deleted from Misplaced Pages. This has been done under section T3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a deprecated or orphaned template. After seven days, if it is still unused and the speedy deletion tag has not been removed, the template will be deleted.

If the template is intended to be substituted, please feel free to remove the speedy deletion tag and please consider putting a note on the template's page indicating that it is substituted so as to avoid any future mistakes (<noinclude>{{transclusionless}}</noinclude>).

Thanks. Svick (talk) 09:30, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

AWB edits breaking WebCite links

Hello. I notice your edits titled "delinking ISO style dates using AWB" have been breaking all WebCite-archived sources. For instance, this edit replaced

http://webcitation.org/query?date=2007-08-11&url=http://www.pgwodehousesociety.org.uk/awwwnorman.htm

with

http://webcitation.org/query?date=11 August 2007&url=http://www.pgwodehousesociety.org.uk/awwwnorman.htm

Please check your logs to repair all that damage, and more importantly update your script. Thanks. 62.147.9.150 (talk) 11:37, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

This was nearly half a year ago. I can more usefully find all articles with invalid web-cites and fix them. Rich Farmbrough, 11:40, 3 May 2010 (UTC).

Aunt Dahlia and Gussie seem to be it. Rich Farmbrough, 13:19, 3 May 2010 (UTC).

Rearranging references

You need to stop rearranging references. At your present edit rate, it is not possible that you are actually reading the text of the references and deciding which one is most relevant. Moreover, the AWB "rules of use" (see WP:AWB) are clear that one should not make edits merely to change the capitalization of templates. They also say that one should not do anything controversial with AWB - and rearranging references without reading them is certainly controversial. So edits such as are inappropriate. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:11, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

That isn't true; I have seen other users bring it up, in other places. However, now that I have informed you, recommencing this series of edits would be appropriate. If you want to get a guideline that footnotes must be in numerical order, use WT:CITE. Lacking that, you need to follow the advice in WP:CITEHOW, which says to keep whatever style is established in each article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:15, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Here is a separate complaint about the rearranging. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:17, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

It's not a complain it's a query and the interlocutor says "there was nothing untoward in the reference re-ordering;". Rich Farmbrough, 13:21, 3 May 2010 (UTC).

It's a complaint. In any case, this is my notice: if you want to run a bot task to put all footnotes in numerical order, then get permission for it first. Otherwise, you should not be running a single-purpose task to rearrange them until you get such approval. It is extremely unlikely to run into so many pages with this problem unless you go out of your way to find them. Getting bot approval will first require actually getting a guideline that says the references need to be in numerical order; the present guideline says instead that you should leave the established style in each article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:25, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Regarding , the issue here is only for footnotes that are back-to-back, and the version you cited did not have any footnotes back to back, so it had nothing to say about them. The first edit to add named references put the footnotes out of order, so the "established style" for that article is that back-to-back footnotes do not need to be in numerical order. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:37, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

And this points out the essence of the problem: if you do not know about the topic of the article, and you have not read the references being given (not the citations, but the actual references), then you have no way to tell which order is better. In this case, the next edit was not just a drive-by: the editor added a lot of information and apparently was familiar with the topic. That's the sort of person who should decide which reference is most important. In some cases, it may be better to rearrange them, but it requires careful article-by-article work, and cannot be done automatically. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:42, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

And this leads to a deeper problem: even if an article had in-order footnotes at some revision, the article could also be in the "most-important first" style. Without actually looking at the references of the article, there is no way to tell. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:48, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

But the truth of the matter is that the references have just got out of order. While I know you love policing minor edits and even better rolling them back, in the end these improvements will happen one way or another. In March there were over 15,000 articles with out of order references, a good 3,000 of those have been fixed, not by me. Many more may have been created. Similarly http style markup will continue to be replaced with wiki-markup, and obscure template names like otheruses4 will be replaced with about. Your rollbacks just waste your time and everyone else's, if you want to vandal-fight get Huggle and find some vandals, otherwise there's plenty of work to be done actually making stuff better rather than getting in the way of the people who are trying to do that. I already built in a versioning system, and hacked C sharp to stop changing , no: to stop correcting - reference order to keep you happy. And in the meanwhile I estimate over 100,000 minor fixes were lost - because you perceive that someone might have done, what they actually have never claimed to have done, on some article somewhere that might one day have its references re-arranged. I say, when it is actually a problem, then we deal with it. Why borrow trouble? Thousands of edits have lead to maybe three queries - and CBM. Rich Farmbrough, 14:24, 3 May 2010 (UTC).

The reason I feel strongly about the referencing rearranging is because it isn't a minor fix: the order of references is a key choice when writing, and should not be changed lightly. So the AWB changes don't make stuff better; instead, they destroy the effort of editors who went out of their way to arrange the references carefully.

Evidence rather than supposition points to it notbeing a choice. That is what I keep telling you. Not one person has said "my carefully ordered references were put out of order and now the article is broken".

The problem is that SmackBot didn't stop changing the reference order. I check the bot's contribs from time to time, and just this weekend SmackBot was still rearranging references, which is why I blocked it. It had two other errors that I also posted to the bot's page. You didn't reply there, but today you were manually rearranging references en masse. It's far from best practice to respond to a problem with a bot by making the bad edits yourself while the bot is blocked. I do not think it is likely that you would get a bot approval to rearrange references, and such things should not be done without approval once someone has objected.

Yes because it was doing a different task form a different computer, without the special hacked up CBM version of AWB. And mostly to articles with zero references, let alone 2 in a row.

The most productive thing here would be for us to figure out how to fix SmackBot once and for all, and then simply leave reference order to the editors of each article. I have been in touch with Magioladitis, and he is thinking of adding an option to AWB to be able to disable its controversial changes while keeping the other general fixes. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:44, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

As far as that goes Mag should look at my proposal on the matter. It is hard work to set up, but it would resolve the gen fixes disputes ongoing. Rich Farmbrough, 15:39, 3 May 2010 (UTC).

It's also inappropriate to run bot tasks under your own account while the bot is blocked (look at the history of ). — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:39, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

It happens I am prepared to do it manually, to protect the wiki from the consequences of other's foolish actions. You will notice the log was moved from being a bot log to a mere log of runs last time you engaged in this blocking activity. The runs are also being done on the hacked version of AWB, which means that and disordered references are staying disordered, therefore I am not working the claimed intention of your block, which is to keep the references out-of-order, despite no scrap of evidence supporting this as intended in even tiny minority of articles, let alone one which has sufficient currency to allow a significant number of other articles to be disfigured. Rich Farmbrough, 01:31, 4 May 2010 (UTC).

The issue is that when a bot is blocked because it is broken, it's not appropriate to run the task under your main account regardless whether you think the task is desirable. This is particularly true here, because you have had great difficulty keeping the bot under control. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

2010-5-3

In this edit you changed "references" to "reflist". As WP:FOOT says, "The choice between {{Reflist}} and <references /> is a matter of style; Misplaced Pages does not have a general rule." As you are aware, WP:CITEHOW says not to change from one style to another at random. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to assume you have fixed the problem with your bot, and so I will not contest your unblocking of it, although I find it quite inappropriate to do so without contacting me. The next time that I need to block the bot, I'll take the matter to ANI as well. There is no reason that the same coding error should continue to (re)occur for months. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:29, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

As I point out in my block message, regardless whether you think it has good effects, there is no bot authorization to rearrange references. As I said, if I see this problem again, I will block the bot and take the matter to ANI. Unblocking your own bot in order to avoid fixing would be an abuse of your administrator abilities. However, I assume that in this case you have fixed the problem before unblocking the bot. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:59, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Top Gun Talwar

What's up with Top Gun Talwar?

Y Answered on user's talk page. 13:17, 3 May 2010 (UTC)~

Balko, Oklahoma

I am looking for information about Balko, OK. Why is it named Balko? Who was the first to settle there? Etc... Wbalko (talk) 14:51, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

You might want to ask at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Oklahoma. Rich Farmbrough, 15:12, 3 May 2010 (UTC).

Template:Expand

Hi Rich,
do you have any plans on how Smackbot should handle {{expand}} and {{multiple issues|expand=...}}, regarding the TFD? It could probably remove the tag if an article is marked as a stub, as suggested.
Just asking since I was asked to remove it from {{multiple issues}}.
Cheers, Amalthea, watching your page. 12:37, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I can't believe that the tfD passed. Rich Farmbrough, 12:39, 4 May 2010 (UTC).

Heh, pretty much what I said, but I didn't follow the TfD. Amalthea 14:05, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

No I have picked myself up of the floor, SmackBot already does remove it from stubs. Rich Farmbrough, 12:54, 4 May 2010 (UTC).

:) Amalthea 14:05, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

There are on;y 20,000 uses of Expand, only 10% on stubs. WP:DRV? Rich Farmbrough, 23:57, 4 May 2010 (UTC).

The Misplaced Pages Signpost: 3 May 2010

• Book review: Review of The World and Misplaced Pages

• News and notes: iPhone app update, Vector rollout for May 13, brief news

• In the news: Government promotes Tamil Misplaced Pages, and more

• WikiProject report: WikiProject U.S. Roads

• Features and admins: Approved this week

• Arbitration report: The Report on Lengthy Litigation

I imagine...

...that old habits die hard, but please see WP:NEWSECTION. Thanks! –xeno 17:00, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Hehe, I thought of you when I saw the edit, xeno. :)
Cheers, Amalthea 17:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

'Twas what prompted this note! ;> –xeno 17:13, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

'Tis what I thought. Amalthea 18:18, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Can be javascipted? Anyone? Rich Farmbrough, 23:55, 4 May 2010 (UTC).  Fixed

Hey

How are you doing? You seem not yet reply me about this question for some weeks already.--Gzyeah (talk) 03:57, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Re:Ganeshbot stubs

Hello Rich,

Yes, some of the older stubs may have missing taxonomic cats. It is on my to do list to work on. Recently I have been making sure that the family categories do exist. I also make sure the articles do not link to disambiguation pages.

I think you are referring to the space in between <br and />. I will change it. Thanks for the tip. — Ganeshk (talk) 10:55, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot rearranging stub tags

Hi, though SmackBot is one of the best bots (and me saying that, it's no mean compliment ;-) ), I find it a bit irritating that it shuffles categories to above the stub tags.

Because I have found it makes editing easier when one puts the stub tag at the end of the "actual" article, offset with 2 empty lines (so that it will be a bit offset in the article as displayed - I think it's ugly when the stub note creeps up so closely on the article itself). And below the stub tag, categories, interwiki, defaultsort... - all the automatic tags that do not belong to the article proper. IONO how other users do it, but I think it has been the usual way as long as I can remember. It might also mess with footer infoboxes - these drop-down things -, but I have not checked (the infoboxes must not be offset, they will only look good when separated by one empty line from the main article).

IONO if this can be fixed, but I think it should, because it makes editing easier to have a clearly offset bunch of code where all these tags go. Now, one gets categories directly below the article proper, then a break, then the stub tag and the interwiki tags. Doesn't affect the output, but looks strange in the code - I always mentally "stumble" over it. Cheers, Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 11:09, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Heya... Saw your note on D's talk page. How about splitting the difference... literally. Move only the "-stub" templates below the categories. In theory, those templates will eventually get removed anyway. Just a suggestion. (And I'm a SmackBot fan, too! *grins*) - UtherSRG (talk) 11:51, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

That's what it does. Rich Farmbrough, 12:59, 5 May 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot & Template:IndigenousAustralia-stub

I think SmackBot is at least occasionally adding WPBIO templates incorrectly because the article has the above stub template eg & ? Or that's what seems to be common to those 2, otherwise I can't work work out why it would be doing this. Misarxist (talk) 11:12, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes there's a problem with the stub category tree (these are sub-cats of "people stubs"). Back to the drawing board a bit on that one. Rich Farmbrough, 13:01, 5 May 2010 (UTC).

How did you add 5,000 WPBography that fast?

I am impressed. How did you generate this list? did you just run in subcategories of ...? Cheers, Magioladitis (talk) 15:15, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes see above. And pirates. Rich Farmbrough, 16:59, 5 May 2010 (UTC).

Better turn genfixes on. Genfixes for talk pages are 100% safe and we need to add missing headers. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:44, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Less than perfect edit

Just FYI, your edit added a really odd DEFAULTSORT, presumably an assistance script that choked on the malformatted existing category, or something. No biggie. Studerby (talk) 20:13, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you saw presumably that the was the apparent sort order of the only "category" there? maybe worth looking for more "non categories" like that, non-existant cats are already on my mind. Thanks for letting me know. Rich Farmbrough, 20:16, 5 May 2010 (UTC).

Thank you

Thank you, for your portal updates. -- Cirt (talk) 01:08, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome! Rich Farmbrough, 01:09, 6 May 2010 (UTC).

Hello

Not sure if your a bot or a real person! But if this is a bot pls be aware that it replacing portal links with there templates (this is great), however its doing it to the actual temples aswell, thus rendering the whole process useless. Pls see examples --> , and this are a few that i have seen. not sure if the bot has done this all over....just FYI i have fixed the ones i have seen...Moxy (talk) 01:20, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Y Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 02:50, 6 May 2010 (UTC).

Portals

I noticed on my watchlist that you removed the break= parameter from a portal call inside Template:maths rating. Unless you can point me to a discussion where it was agreed to remove break= from all portal template calls, you should not be removing it. Template:portal supports it; I checked. Removing the break parameter from portal templates would break other templates that depend on them, like our maths rating template would if it didn't call template:portal directly. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:34, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

For the record, I don't care about the hardcoded images one bit, provided that the edits to remove them preserve the other existing parameters. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:39, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Rrich

Hi - just wondering - are you aware that your span tag trick is also making your page name show as "Rrich Farmbrough" (at least I believe that's the cause)?  7  02:37, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's about the best I can do with the trick. Rich Farmbrough, 02:39, 6 May 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

SmackBot recently added a WPBio banner template to Talk:BabaKiueria, although BabaKiueria is a film, not a person. Do you know what caused the misclassification? —Paul A (talk) 02:43, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's the stub category "Category:Indigenous peoples of Australia" stubs which is (wrongly) a sub category of "Australian people stubs" Rich Farmbrough, 02:47, 6 May 2010 (UTC).

(I will go through and check al the cat later on.) Rich Farmbrough, 02:48, 6 May 2010 (UTC).

Portal templates

I did not see any functional advantage to your edits to Template:Alabama portal, Template:Colorado portal, Template:Connecticut portal, Template:Florida portal, and Template:Nevada portal, so I reverted your edits. These templates were sized to have a uniform height, and they can be resized and left justified. Please see Misplaced Pages:List of U.S. state portals. Please let me know if these reversions cause you any grief, or if you have any other suggestions. Yours aye, Buaidh (talk) 03:30, 6 May 2010 (UTC)