User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2009 January

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SmackBot - Please use minor edit flag

That says it all. They are minor edits, albeit importtant collectively. But, individually, each edit by the bot is minor by definition. Thanks. Paul Beardsell (talk) 05:13, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

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SmackBot, DEFAULTSORT, comments

I have been attaching comments to DEFAULTSORTs for names containing diacriticals to let other editors know that I omitted the diacriticals from the DEFAULTSORT entry so it would sort properly. When SmackBot touches such an entry, it removes the comment from the DEFAULTSORT and puts several blank lines between them, making the comment pointless. Is there a way to get around this? Rklear (talk) 07:59, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is an issue I have raised with the AWB developers before. I can't remember if this was fixable or not, I wil try to investigate. Rich Farmbrough, 03:13 6 January 2009 (UTC).

Stub removed?

O Lord of the Smackbot - your servant apparently removed a stub template from my article? I didn't see anything of that sort in its list of tasks but I might have missed something.

I'm a web software engineer and I tend to tinker endlessly with the HTML and wiki code and make it, perhaps, unduly complex, so if this is an error I may be partly to blame... there's a little spacer div above the stub that got removed, I wondered if that might have anything to do with it, maybe some regexes got cross-mojoed.

But anyways let me say in passing that in general everything Smackbot does is wonderful.--❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 13:19, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your message, SmackBot makes a number of changes that are available to all WP:AWB bots - in general these provide a number of non-controversial minor improvements.

The issue you raise is related to these, and has been discussed in the past. The present arrangement is the result of consensus - this page is too long to be classified as a stub.

Rich Farmbrough, 00:03 6 January 2009 (UTC).

Smackbot removal of deliberate error

In this change Smackbot removed a deliberate error, which was illustrating an incorrect way of writing Celsius temperatures. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:59, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I have re-purposed the {{typo}} template to deal with this sort of situation. Rich Farmbrough, 03:10 6 January 2009 (UTC).

I noticed that your use of the typo template uses several fields separated by pipes (|) but the documentation of that template does not describe using it in that matter. Since you know more about that template than I do, can you arrange for the documentation to explain your use of the template? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 14:02, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

smackbot changing math equations

Hi Rich, I noticed SmackBot changing an equation at capacitor. It noticed the braces in a LaTeX expression and mistook them for a template transclusion, and then replaced an underscore with a space to "fix" the "template name." Please exclude <math></math> tags. Potatoswatter (talk) 22:29, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Done, unfortunately this also excludes Images which I need to fix, so apologies if this ever happens again, please don't hesitate to let me know if it does. Rich Farmbrough, 03:11 6 January 2009 (UTC).

thx! Potatoswatter (talk) 05:09, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Date in infobox templates

[relisted]

Hi,

Did you get anywhere with the conversion of release/ foundation/ start dates in infoboxes, to use {{Start date}} (see also my earlier note)? If you're not able to oblige, please let me know, so that I can reissue my bot request, Thank you. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:44, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

You archived the above without reply. I understand you may be too busy/ not interested, but if so please let me know, so I can re-open the request on WP:BOTREQ. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:11, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Andy, the archiving is automatic. I have been busy clearing my late father's house which should be finished tomorrow, I will revisit this over the weekend or early next week. Rgds, Rich Farmbrough, 01:29 12 December 2008 (UTC).

I'm sorry for your loss. It must be a difficult time for you, Thank you for you reply and forbearance with my impatience, Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:27, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Just a gentle nudge. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 00:15, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Nofootnotes notice followup

On February 7, 2008, SmackBot left a {{Nofootnotes|date=February 2008}} notice at Amahl and the Night Visitors. The article now has 15 citations from seven sources. I think the notice asking for more inline citations can be removed. What is the procedure for following up on such a notice? --Thomprod (talk) 08:07, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image (File:Red balloon leanrer centres logo.gif)

You've uploaded File:Red balloon leanrer centres logo.gif, and indicated that it's used under Wikipedia's rules for non-free images. However, it's not presently used in any articles. Wikipedia policy requires that non-free images be either used or deleted, so if this image isn't used in an article in the next week, it will be deleted.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. 11:13, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

{{Current related}} vs. {{Current-related}}

Hey! I saw your bot is changing {{Current related}} to {{Current-related}}, but the latter is a redirect to the first one – so no need to do this, I reckon. --Eivind (t) 08:14, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, {{Current related}} is now the canonical one. Rich Farmbrough, 09:30 9 January 2009 (UTC).

TfD nomination of Template:Formatnum

Template:Formatnum has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. –OrangeDog (talk • edits) 01:55, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Extreme quality assurance

A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Extreme quality assurance, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process because of the following concern:

WP:Notability

All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised because, even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. Ismarc (talk) 03:02, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about the delay...

My current access to Wikipedia is slow.

I need to wait until I log on to a better machine in order to look over the list of pages you sent.

The Transhumanist    23:51, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Improving Smackbot

I think Smackbot could help with page patrol. Can you make it tag the following problems:

• Inline citations
• References
• Autobiographical pages
• Wikification (especially lack of sections titles)
• Stubs

Andrewjlockley (talk) 08:59, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

AWB Stuffs

FYI Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature_requests#Add_a_date_to_some_maintenance_tags - doing some of the stuff smackbot does extra (fact and such)... Just so you know they can be removed from your own scripts if wanted...

And also, whilst im here..

Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs#.281.29_unicode_substitutions_mangle_Typographic_articles_.282.29_workaround_will_mangle_multi-paragraph_Blockquotes_in_future - What needs doing for this?

Thanks!

—Reedy 13:23, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

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from where did u got information about bulfati or burfat trible let me know

from where did u got information about bulfati or burfat trible let me know...i wat to know more abt it..my e-mail id is naveed_darkside@hotmail.com

Hi, thanks for your message, SmackBot does not generally add tags, but merely dates those that are already there. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 19:48 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Happiness, etc. article

Hello Rich. Thanks for looking at the Happiness article. I wrote to another party User:Schuminweb as well and he looked into it and dealt with it. Bests. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 15:30, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Changing redirect capitalization

Things like this make no sense. (1) REDIRECT is generally the preferred style (at least it's the default when you press the little button). (2) REDIRECT == Redirect, so you were essentially bypassing a redirect, but not really 'cause you had zero effect. (3) Colons are optional after "#REDIRECT"; in fact, some projects have quite a lot of redirects with colons after the "#REDIRECT" bit. It doesn't harm anything to keep it there.

I realize you made the edits like three months ago, just wanted to let you know. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:53, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

There are a number of cases where tools have broken because to the colon after the redirect. In particular AWB was tagging these redirects with orphan tags. Now, of course, I spoke to the AWB devs to have that fixed, but I also removed all the ":"s to prevent this from happening again with other tools. The case cahnge was just an irrelevant by-product. Rich Farmbrough, 09:08 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Ahh, thanks for the explanation. Fucking bots. :P --MZMcBride (talk) 01:07, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Smackbot

I'd really like to see some kind of automation of page patrol. If a page has any of the following:

• No inline citations
• No == tags for top level titles (in longer articles)
• Stub size
• No categories
• No references
• No references section
• No inbound links
• Written by banned user

Then Smackbot should be able to come and tag it up, then mark it as patrolled. It would do this better than a human, as it won't 'forget' things. You could even have the article 'sandboxed' in some way until it had been sorted out by a human after smackbot's had a go at it. Currently, page patrol is a boring, robotic, soul-destroying task. I have no intention to waste my life doing something that Smackbot can do itself! :-)Andrewjlockley (talk) 10:22, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Dr Karl Shuker article

??? Rich Farmbrough, 19:48 12 January 2009 (UTC)

smackbot list

maybe put them all in a category by itself??

Archive:Rich Farmbrough, 18:21 2 January 2009 (UTC)

what purpose

to input into my bot. thats why i want smackbot's article list. and if possible could you just give me a big category and include the category into the category pages.

heres a list of what i want you to do:

1. get the pages into the category:uncategorised (possibly with a bot taask)
2. put the category name on my talk page
3. i will put it into the category:pages
4. when my bot is approved, i will run a recurrent category scan to get all the pages
5. everyones happy
6. my bot does something wrong/malfunctions
7. admin clicks emergency shutoff
8. gets unblocked
9. i temproarily stop the bot
10. bot returns
11. return to step 4

Archive:Rich Farmbrough, 18:21 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Michael Hochberg

Hi smack bot, I'm curious what you think of my discussion on Michael Hochberg. I'm a first time wikipedia editor and I would appreciate your opinion on my thought process on this article.

Archive:Rich Farmbrough, 18:21 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Headings in the country outlines

Someone has pointed out to me that you've been simplifying the headings in the country outlines by removing the country names from the headings.

The reason we have the country names in the headings and in the list entry items on almost every line is because the country outlines share identical formats. Without the country names prominently displayed, it is very easy to forget which page you are looking at, especially when comparing countries.

Please see the discussion thread on my talk page.

Thank you.

The Transhumanist    01:29, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Current consensus is to leave the country names in. Please change the headings back to the way they were (with country name) - my access is way too slow to be able to do this in a reasonable amount of time. The Transhumanist    21:50, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

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Delievered by SoxBot II (talk) at 00:54, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Templates

Thanks. I have a hard time figuring out when to use subst and not. AnyPerson (talk) 04:40, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you

You've saved a lot of time on the country outline project by inserting the area figures. I appreciate it. Thank you. The Transhumanist    22:07, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

There are still some 20 or so without the area, I will drop you a list at some point. Rich Farmbrough, 02:05 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Cool. Thank you. The Transhumanist    02:15, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Smackbot on smack?

I went looking for loc. cit. and op. cit. and ibid. in algorithm and didn't find any. So I reverted the banner. However, I do agree with the intent and will avoid such in the future. Bill Wvbailey (talk) 23:28, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Footnotes

WP:FOOTNOTES says, "Do not use ibid., op. cit. or similar abbreviations in footnotes." However Smackbot is tagging articles that used ibid. in Harvard references that are not footnotes, such as Brouwer-Hilbert controversy‎. While it is true that there is some risk of random cutting and pasting, I don't think the risk is so severe as to warrant tagging every article that includes the word ibid., but particularly, not the ones that don't use it in footnotes. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:02, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your note, if I do this tagging exercise again I will look at restricting to fotnotes only. Rich Farmbrough, 01:52 19 January 2009 (UTC)

While "ibid" should generally be avoided for various reasons of convenience, the task of tagging articles using this construction seems to require supervision. I suggest that it be added to AWB, if possible. siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 01:47, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Good idea, there is feature request process on the [WP:AWB]] pages. Rich Farmbrough, 01:52 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply on my page. I think this would be a very natural task for AWB. And some of the pages the bot found do use ibid. too much – because they have too many inline citations in the first place. But others seemed to be really OK to me. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:01, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

a shiny

		The Admin's Barnstar
		It's nice to see another admin on Huggle. Thanks for being willing to do this! J.delanoygabsadds 03:08, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

op. cit.

I noticed you plugged a few underscores into my refs.[1] Anything I need to do going forward? I'm kinda on bot tilt over Lightbot de-linking historical years (and WP:OWN on WP:MOSNUM), so you are catching a little "carry over" disappointment. Love your bot though! Most days.... I might be a lonely soul as far as using this style, so just let me know if we can split the difference somehow.... -- Kendrick7^talk 03:27, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

erroneous placement of ibid tag?

Hi Rich. Can you have a look at this diff - I can't see what the grounds are for placing the ibid tag in this article. The only thing I can see which might have misled it is the "cit" in "Tata gets $3 billion loan from Citi" in one of the refs. Cheers -- Timberframe (talk) 20:52, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

re User:70.88.103.253

This appears to be a false positive, the edit summaries are a bit off but both recent edits were removing vandalisms, not making them. I've already unblocked, and wanted to let you know what was up. --Golbez (talk) 21:11, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

date delinking

Hello Rich Farmbrough. I just wanted to make you aware (in case that you missed it) of the decision about dates noted here. Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Date_delinking/Proposed_decision#Temporary_injunction_against_automated_date_linking_or_delinking. Please don't take this the wrong way because I know that this is a contentious area on WikiP just at this moment. Also, I actually don't care about it one way or the other - I just hope that a decision gets made sometime soon. Bu I did want to let you know about this before someone who it does matter to notices the edits that you are making. Let me also offer my apologies if any of this causes offense. Cheers and happy editing. MarnetteD | Talk 22:01, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to interject, but this is mostly on Lightbot, not Smackbot, AFAIK. However, I'm really really glad something is finally being done here though! -- Kendrick7^talk 05:44, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

Dear SmackBot, I have revised the footnotes in the article on Bagha Jatin. You may remove the band now. Thanks for your interest.--BobClive (talk) 09:23, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

 Done Rich Farmbrough, 21:10 24 January 2009 (UTC).

Blue Valley Creamery Company

Smackbot inserted an ibid template in the Blue Valley Creamery Company article. The offending op. cit. was actually a reference in a reference, but I changed it with the change appearing in square brackets. I am not sure what to do about the ibid template. Should I remove it or will Smackbot automatically do so later? (By the way, I had the wrong URL to the reference and the ibid template helped me catch that. Bad cut & paste methods on my part.)--Rpclod (talk) 13:39, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Untitled

Dear Rich F., Thank you for visiting the article on Bagha Jatin with positive suggestions. As a solitary Wiki user, I appreciate it.--BobClive (talk) 14:08, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

Dear Rich, You may remove the tag on the article on Bhavabhushan Mitra. Thanks.--BobClive (talk) 16:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

Hello, Rich! You may undo the tag on Taraknath Das. Thanks.--BobClive (talk) 17:00, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

Hello, Rich! You may remove the tag from Pingle. Thanks.--BobClive (talk) 17:09, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

Dear Rich, Ignorant of the operation, I request you to remove the tag on the article Atulkrishna Ghosh. Thanks.--BobClive (talk) 08:39, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

Hello, Rich! You may undo the tag on the article Yogendra Vidyabhushan; Thanks.--BobClive (talk) 08:48, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

Hello, Rich, the article on Mokshada Samadhyayi can be rid of the tag. Thanks.--BobClive (talk) 09:13, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

Dear Rich, You may remove the tag on Satish Chandra Mukherjee. Thanks.--BobClive (talk) 09:22, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

Hello, Rich ! I have revised the last article of the series, Amarendra Chatterjee. You may remove the tag now. Thanks.--BobClive (talk) 09:38, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

template:ibid

Do you realize that the recently created (nov 08) ibid template is higly controversial, and that several editors argue this template should not be added to mainspace. Nevertheless Smackbot is ruthlessly adding this template to articles, as you may have seen from all recent complaints.

Can you please disable this function of the bot ASAP. Thanks Arnoutf (talk) 22:51, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

As a counterpoint, I appreciated the template and did not realize that the problem existed in an article that I authored. The only change I would suggest is some direction that whoever corrects the problem can unilaterally remove the template once the correction has occurred. Perhaps also link to a page that explains the underlying problem, why it causes problems for readers, and options for resolving.--Rpclod (talk) 13:19, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Rich,

I dont know you removed the Notability tag on the article on Baburaoji Parkhe. If you did so, thanks for the same.It is my continuous endeavor to improve this artile and few others with notable and reliable information.

Currently it has 2 tags attached, one for Grammer and another for additional citiations. Now I have a lot of credible material on the subject along-with lot of news items in vernacular as well as english newspaper. I would be adding them soon and getting the english language straight.

Please let me know from whom and how to get the tags removed, once I am done with the article.

Regards,

Vin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.99.215.11 (talk) 14:18, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Geo-stubs

Why do they have to go at the end? Is there a hard-and-fast rule that they have to go at the very end? That would mean that when there is a page-wide template such as the communes template, they would never be seen by anyone. The point of the stub templates is to indicate that we are aware that the article is insufficient. It should go at the end of the text of the article, not under all the frame. Ksnow (talk) 16:42, 22 January 2009 (UTC)Ksnow

No the point is to get the article fixed. The articles are self-evidently stubby when you are on the stub. the navbox is part of the article, the stub tempate isn't; see - Wikipedia:Stub#How_to_mark_an_article_as_a_stub. Rich Farmbrough, 16:48 22 January 2009 (UTC).

Ages in Family Guy Articles

Yea, I don't know how to fix the templates, however, some of the ages DO need citations. I found some without them. Kagome 77 (talk) 16:42, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I fixed it. Rich Farmbrough, 16:49 22 January 2009 (UTC).

Thanks for the help and advice. You seem like a good person, there's quite a few "rude" people on here that would bite someone's head off for editing something because they find something wrong, but you're not one of them. Kagome 77 (talk) 16:52, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

AIV/edit conflict?

Hi, with this edit [2] you removed another report from AIV. Did you have an edit conflict when reporting? DuncanHill (talk) 16:59, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I have reported it at the Huggle feedback page. DuncanHill (talk) 17:05, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - I got an edit conflict with you there. Rich Farmbrough, 17:10 22 January 2009 (UTC).

Age field in FG template

Was removed a while ago due to constant edit struggles to maintain it. Talk:Brian_Griffin#THAT.22S_IT.21.21.21 for the discussion. But if you want to leave it restored, that's cool too. DP76764 (Talk) 17:23, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I removed the age field again. Family Guy is very loose with consistency, and there's no clear evidence that age is consistent between episodes, which are subject to constant edit war, original research and in-universe hairsplitting debate. Most characters do not have ages, so this is better handled in the articles. Please discuss on Template talk:Family Guy character or WT:FG if there is a genuine need to restore this field. / edg ☺ ☭ 17:44, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

ibid/loc.cit/op.cit template

Please could you stop smacking big templates at the top of articles just because they might have a couple of op. cits? This is really a small matter for editors and not something we need to alert the general readers to. I've just removed a couple of these templates after reformatting two op.cits/loc. cits from each of the two articles; even though they may be deprecated by the guidelines, in these cases they did not affect the comprehensibility of the notes, since the sources and page numbers were given as well. In my opinion, if an article makes a source clear, it is doing its job. Minor issues of tidying up do not require a template to be smacked on, surely. qp10qp (talk) 17:52, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

SmackBot

As usual the tempest threatens to overwhelm the restraining capabilities of the teaup... Guy (Help!) 20:04, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Too true. Rich Farmbrough, 20:08 22 January 2009 (UTC).

Veronica Wadley

But she's really about to be sacked, don't you get it? Why are you preventing me from inserting this piece of information in the article?

Lebedev appeared to confirm that the Standard's current editor, Veronica Wadley, would be stood down, saying he would reveal a new editor, widely tipped to be Tatler editor Geordie Grieg, next week. As reported here, Grieg is one of two shareholders in Evening Press Ltd, which now owns the Standard. The Russian oligarch's son, Evgeny Lebedev, is chairman. Lebedev also said he had no immediate plans to buy any other British papers: it had been rumoured he was sniffing around the Independent [3] 62.200.52.25 (talk) 20:26, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry! 62.200.52.25 (talk) 20:35, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

User:Pionier alert

Hi, When a warning was issued to Special:Contributions/62.200.52.25 I looked at the edit history of because the IP's talk page was on my watch list, and I am over 85% sure that it is User:Pionier in the UK. There is an entire category about this person - he has had over 20 blocked identities. Please be on the look out. His edit signature is very similar to User:Pionier. Please also see: User:History2007/Content_protection (that I still need to finish) that was based on him. Please pay attention to the edit signatures, for he is gradually learning to hide his vandal edits among normal edits. He likes to add and delete categories and usually edits Christian, Russian and Lithuaninan pages. Thanks History2007 (talk) 21:20, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 21:42 22 January 2009 (UTC).

Problems with House on the Rock

I noticed you added a clean-up template to House on the Rock and was wondering where the problem is? I was going to try to fix the issue, but I couldn't find it (probably because I am not really sure what I am looking for). Could you point the issue out in the article so I can fix it? Thanks Daniel J Simanek (talk) 21:26, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I fixed the problem. Rich Farmbrough, 21:39 22 January 2009 (UTC).

Thanks!! Daniel J Simanek (talk) 08:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Dates in infobox templates

May I again remind you of Dates in infobox templates? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:22, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

HENRY VI

Hello I woulld like to inform you that charles vii assumed control of the armagnac party and took up the royal title as king of france but was a mere gesture since henry vi was the de jure king and so was theroticlly the soveriegn of both countries.charles vii was a rebel along with the other princes who followed him.charles later came to an official corination in 1429 so he was now the legal king. he was illigially the de facto of the south from 1422 to 1429.--HENRY V OF ENGLAND (talk) 22:34, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!

If I have any more questions, do you mind if I ask? Spinach Monster (talk) 17:26, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

To Confirm

Ok, is this what you're talking about? Spinach Monster (talk) 17:32, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah, Ok

Thanks. Spinach Monster (talk) 19:33, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Question

I asked another guy on my talk page, how does one get "trusted"? This place is kind of cool so far, but i'm wondering if i'm doing it wrong. Spinach Monster (talk) 15:48, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I See

Thanks. Otherwise, am I doing ok at this? Spinach Monster (talk) 16:16, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!

Let me know if there's anything else I should know or talk to. I'd like to meet more of these people on here. Spinach Monster (talk) 14:35, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

P.S - Caught someone committing the formatting error you showed me.

Cool Rich Farmbrough, 21:17 24 January 2009 (UTC).

Ibid question?

Dear Rich, Were you the person who ordered the bot messages discouraging the use of 'ibid' tags for Wikipedia articles? Personally, I was taught at University in the 1990's (in Canada) to use 'ibid' in my essays...but I don't mind if an article has an ibid reference or not. All I care is that people know which book was penned by an author...since some articles here may cite 2 books by a single author. Do you have a response? Thank you sir. --Leoboudv (talk) 06:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

The reason we discourage the usage of "ibid" in wikipedia is because of its dynamic nature. A different reference placed in between the "original ref" and the ibid referring to it will make the ibid no longer accurate. However the template is an eyesore and there's better way to go about getting rid of the ibids. Rich, there's still some articles to which your bot added the tag, can you remove? Thanks. –xeno (talk) 16:49, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

• I have responded to the tag in articles I am involved in by removing the op cit references & simply typing: "Dodson & Hilton, p.22" if a book by Dodson & Hilton is well known...or in the case of an article which cites 2 books by the same author: "Tyldesley, Queen Hatchepsut, p.200" and "Tyldesley, Chronicle of the Queens, p.35." Here the book titles are abbreviated but it still resolves confusion over which book Joyce Tyldesley wrote. With kind Regards, --Leoboudv (talk) 20:32, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

pretense or regnal

Hello Farnbrough, I would like ask if I could change Henry VI title from pretence to regnal .as already said Henry VI is de jure or legal king of france from 1422 to 1429 and charles VI orderd in 1421 the french crown should be passed to henry vi( henry v was heir but was suffering from dysentry badly so it looked he would die) SO WAS said from the preddescesor soveriegn himeself i.e charles vi.in the treaty of troyes the crown was to be passed to henry v and charles vii was removed from succesion but took illigial possetion as de facto of the south thus making him a rebel of charles vi and henry vi. In 1421 since henry vi was the heir of henry v upon his birth that made him dauphine legaly. conclusion: henry vi is a legal king of france and not in pretence but regnal however hes still a titular head since hes a baby king of france from 1422 to 1429. he was also a dauphine upon his birth in 1421 untill he became soveriegn of france in 1422 21st of october. please answer to this post thankyou.

Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 19:52 25 January 2009 (UTC).

No content in Category:Pages needing images

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Category:Pages needing images, by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Category:Pages needing images has been empty for at least four days, and its only content has been links to parent categories. (CSD C1).

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Category:Pages needing images, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. To see the user who deleted the page, click here CSDWarnBot (talk) 21:30, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia Signpost, January 24, 2009

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Delivered at 04:54, 25 January 2009 (UTC) by §hepBot (Disable)

SmackBot

Hi SmackBot Thanks for helping me to improve on the article about Jorgen Sigurd Lien It was almost deleted becuase it gave the impression that it's a promotional material, which is not the case. I did a research papaer on eHelp Corporation and the founders and realised the important contributions that they made to the Silicon Valley, and would like others to have these information available to them. The information are not for promotional purposes because the comapny has been bought over by Macromedia. The main intention of the article is to preserve valuable information that would otherwise be lost through time. Thanks again for your help

Cheers, Charmaine —Preceding unsigned comment added by Charmainechen (talk • contribs) 12:38, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

POV tag

This bot turned the {{POV}} tag that I placed at the top of this article into in-line tag. I changed the tag to {{NPOV}} with an "N" so hopefully it should work now. It might be problematic if the bot is programmed to turn all POV tags into in-line tags. Best,--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 14:40, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Thansk. This is a bug due to the template {{pov?}}.~~

SmackBot removing spaces in headings

Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Section headings says:

• Spaces between the == and the heading text are optional (==H2== versus == H2 ==). These extra spaces will not affect the appearance of the heading, except in the edit window.

Is there a reason Smackbot removes the spaces? Diffs like [4] makes it hard to find the real changes.

Another thing, the only change in [5] was capitalizing the first letter in a template name. It seems unnecessary to clutter up watchlists and page histories for something like that. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:12, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes the reason for the caps change is explained in the FAQ: User:Rich_Farmbrough/FAQ#SmackBot_capitalised_a_tag.2C_and_made_no_other_changes._Why.3F

The spacing shouldn't be changed, probably a side effect of the new way I'm running the bot. Thanks for letting me now.

Rich Farmbrough, 19:01 25 January 2009 (UTC).

Fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 15:53 26 January 2009 (UTC).

More Questions

Hello again, since you're the expert I know, I figured i'd ask you. There's an article where somebody said something I edited wasn't germaine to the article. I think it is. How does one determine that? I don't want to go into an editing back and forth, but I think they're wrong and i'm right, so I don't want to let it go just yet. If the rules say i'm wrong, then i'm wrong and I'll leave it alone, but it's kind of bugging me for now.Spinach Monster (talk) 16:03, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Kick to kick

There has been a dated call/tag placed near the foot of this article calling for further reference and citation. Please note, however, that fundamentally, kick to kick football - particularly in the older "end to end footy" format, is very much a fundamental informal, spontaneous, play activity - somewhat as in play activities such as marbles, etc. There is no formality to the activity, no clubs or associations which engage it, but it is a well-known, highly popular engagement to southern Australians. There is therefore very little written or other available material on this activity —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.176.187.1 (talk) 15:58, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 19:04 25 January 2009 (UTC).

Thank you Rich. Eventually found the link at the top. So with reference to 'Kick to Kick', then, how are those tags and dates removed??

Possible SB bug?

Rich/SmackBot: I'm not sure if this has been brought up before, but it appears that certain situations can cause SB to add an extra close bracket when adding dates. See this edit to Greta Salpeter (and this edit shows the change that needed to be made). This was probably caused because some idiot (*cough* it was me) added "date=" to the tag but forgot to actually add a date. Thanks, JazzMan 20:18, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, SB is used to that particular error., but has just been re-jigged to work in a different way. Rich Farmbrough, 21:43 25 January 2009 (UTC).

Fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 15:52 26 January 2009 (UTC).

84.59.202.75

84.59.202.75 needs guidance. I have written up just a few of the problems at User talk:84.59.202.75, but I really had more substantive edits in mind when I sat down at my PC today. It is the usual, ethnicity edits without citation, incomplete or undecipherable citations, trashing established Wikipedia usage, etc. I'd appreciate it if you could take a look at some of 84.59.202.75's edits. Thanks. --Bejnar (talk) 22:20, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Smackbot capitalsation

Sorry to bother you but... Regarding edits such as these (concerning the "dead link" aspect): I've seen the bot capitalise like this many times before. Are there any actual benefits to these kinds of edits? Surely it all links to the same template as initial letters are automatically capitalised? Sillyfolkboy (talk) 19:50, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Rich, I think you have to adjust this. Check this one. I had added date tags only 5 minutes before you and Smackbot just capitalised Fact. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:36, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes I probably can, its not a big deal. Rich Farmbrough, 01:26 29 January 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot

Hi Rich. I'm a new user so please forgive any errors on my part. Was wondering if the notability tag was necessary on this page as third party sources have been added. please advise. thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wordfarmer (talk • contribs) 03:47, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 10:07 29 January 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot "general fix" wrongly(?) removes some self links

On Vimperator, SmackBot recently removed the square brackets around the opening "Vimperator". That caused the conventional opening bold to be removed. I added explicit bold marks around Vimperator as a fix, but it was my impression that Wikification changes self-links to bold on purpose in order to enforce this convention. If that's the case, then SmackBot should at least leave opening self links alone. That is, if there is a self link within the first sentence or two, SmackBot should not make a change. Thanks. —TedPavlic (talk) 02:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 04:39 29 January 2009 (UTC).

Thanks. Re-posted to AWB talk page. —TedPavlic (talk) 13:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

• Rich please see Rj's post at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser#AWB policy on self links in first sentences of page and comment. (i.e. is smackbot using its own logic to delink self-links) –xeno (talk) 18:12, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

no, it;s gen fixes. Rich Farmbrough, 12:27 30 January 2009 (UTC).

cheers, thanks for explaining the bit about the bug. –xeno (talk) 15:25, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Compiler

Hello Rich. A bit of a mess has been created in the Compiler article. I added some important and still relevant sources, which took me hours to find precisely and cite, and User:Derek farn just removes them saying they are too old and no longer relevant. I have been in this field for decades and know they form the basis of most modern compiler writing technology. I feel my effort has been wasted which is not terribly appealing. Might you have a look? My very best wishes and thanks in advance. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 15:13, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Rich. One is left slightly bewildered by this all. Best. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 20:19, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Another SmackBot comment

Is there any reason why it put a merge suggestion on National Gold bank Note, and Gold certificate? They are two diffrent things and The Gold Certificate Article lacks any references at all.Knowledgekid87 19:53, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your message, SmackBot does not generally add tags, but merely dates those that are already there. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 12:27 30 January 2009 (UTC).

Visually indistinguishable special characters and bot conversion

I make frequent use of some special characters to ensure line-end word-wraps look appropriate in all cases. They are the non-breaking hyphen, which has the ISO Latin-1 code ‑, and the non-breaking space, which has the HTML Entity name  .

Pretty much everyone knows what the non-breaking space is for: you can code Then add a 25 kg sack of and it will appear as Then add a 25 kg sack of… without worrying that it will do a line-end word wrap, like this:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Then add a 25
kg bag of enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci back-strainuneum.

Similarly, the non-breaking hyphen, ‑, prevents instances like this:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. The United States’ F-
22 fighter plane enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation kickbuttotis.

My trouble here is with User:SmackBot. It replaces the code with the rendered characters. The trouble with this is that other editors—even myself—can no longer see where these special characters are being used and copy them for use elsewhere in an article. Worse still, it appears that when some users copy swaths of text for editing in a text editor using various Barbarian OS machines, the special nature of the non-breaking characters is lost when they paste back into the article.

Now, at $100 per terabyte, the server cost of leaving these special characters as their code names is an average of about 6×10⁻⁸ ¢ per occurrence. All hundred of these special characters that I might use over a period of several months, still might be a “Greg L overhead” of 6×10⁻⁶ ¢. Multiplied by the 1000 or so like-minded editors who might be inclined to do as I do, we’re still talking 6×10⁻³ ¢. So cost isn’t a factor here; less than a penny.

It would be far easier for other editors—particularly less experienced ones—if they wade into our F-22 Raptor (for instance), if they can actually see F‑22 nearby and take a hint to copy and paste the thing instead of pounding away on the keyboard. And it would be infinitely easier for the editors who put them there in the first place and are still editing the article.

Don’t get me wrong here. I am all for having bots do cleanup where the rendered character is visually distinctive and identifiable and doesn’t have a visually identical cousin that functions differently. For instance, it is just fine if a bot converts the “Identical to” sign ≡ to the easy-to-distinguish ≡ character (enlarged here for detail). You can see, copy, and paste the rendered character just fine. I’m talking about just a very special, small class of characters, where bots should not be changing the non-breaking space and the non-breaking hyphen to their rendered character because they are indistinguishable from their identical-looking regular-functioning counterparts. Greg L (talk) 03:44, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Locke Cole created a {{nbhyph}} template. That is in addition to the {{nbsp}} template we’ve long had (but I didn’t know about). I’ve converted over an important article to these templates since there may well be other bots that will be converting ISO code and HTML entity names to rendered characters. I still would appreciate it if you could tweak your bot so it leaves non-breaking spaces, non-breaking hyphens, and something I didn’t mention before: thinspaces (which, though different in appearance from a regular space, it’s not much of a difference). Can you do this? Greg L (talk) 01:21, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Piteå

Kan ju help me i have write about sport in my home town Piteå in Sweden. Can you se my spelling.Wolfmann (talk) 14:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikimania Oxford bid

Some time ago you indicated your support of the Oxford 2010 Wikimania Bid, and it was recieved with much gratitude. I now ask if you could could help support our bid by contributing to the bid page that is located at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010/Bids/Oxford. Now is the critical period for work to continue on the bid as the official bidding period has now started and the jury has been formed.

I do not ask for huge swathes of time, just enough that with eveyrone working on this, it can be completed in time to the high standard required in a bid. For the bid page, an excellent source of information is the travel wiki article on the City of Oxford which is found at: http://wikitravel.org/en/Oxford. The chance of bringing Wikimania to the UK is the best so far and i expect the best chance for many years. With a fresh and stong UK chapter we have an amazing opportunity to put ourselves on the map. If you have any questions, please mail them to the Wikimedia UK mailing list, email me or post a message on my talk page and i will answer as quickly as possible.

I look forward to working with you on the bid page. Many Thanks. Seddσn ^talk 15:13, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

The Member of the Wedding

I've removed the op.cits .Can you remove the box? Thanks. Ewen B. Maclachlan

Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 21:07 24 January 2009 (UTC).

ANI note

FYI Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Rich Farmbrough. –xeno (talk)

TY Rich Farmbrough, 21:17 24 January 2009 (UTC).

Sathya Sai Avatar

Dear Sir,

Its always usual that when Godman decends to earth, people deny to accept the reality. its sheer the play of God. Here if again if the very same Jesus comes in flesh and blood, He will certainly be Crusified again. from time immorial its usual that people comit the same mistake...

so only Lucky and chosen ones get the contact of Godman and Realise the truth...

thank you

Jai Sai Ram

Thnk you for teling me. Rich Farmbrough, 20:42 24 January 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot

Heenal Raichura Please check out the following citation for Unique Achievement Award and kindly have the tag removed.

http://srijanfoundation.org/2008/07/13/indian-heenal-raichura-is-uk%e2%80%99s-youngest-doc-at-22-years/#comment-350

Thanks

OK Rich Farmbrough, 21:17 24 January 2009 (UTC).

SmackBot- Cybernetic revolt

On 11:49, 25 January 2009, SmackBot deleted most of the page of Cybernetic revolt. I doubt this was intentional, and might be a bug. However, I'm not savvy enough to figure it out.

Yes it;s a bug. The same page gets treated perfectly in my tests in user space... Thanks for the note. Rich Farmbrough, 22:01 25 January 2009 (UTC).

Fixed . Rich Farmbrough, 15:53 26 January 2009 (UTC).