User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2011 September

Previous · Index · Next

DNB templates

See the TFD. — This, that, and the other (talk) 03:30, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Colas Ltd

Hi, I have noted your comments and I hope I have addressed the. I'm new to Wiki and tried to follow what Colas Rail and Colas Group have done, so any suggestions greatly received. Thanks Colasuk (talk) 19:16, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Categories for discussion nomination of Category:JMY Records albums

Category:JMY Records albums, which you created, has been nominated for discussion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:57, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Miniature Lop topic

I have just realized that you have made a comment on both the Miniature Lop and Mini Lop topics which you have suggested a merge of the two articles. However, before you carry out any further modifications, please take some time to visit the British Rabbit Council website as well as The National Miniature Lop Rabbit Club Website.

Because, Miniature Lop (Max 1.6 kg in weight) is a recognized and very popular breed in the UK and it is a totally different breed from the US mini lop (Max 3kg in weight). Unfortunately we have our own rabbit breed registration organisation in the UK, which is independent from the American Rabbit Breeders Association in the US, and even more unfortunately there is only one English version of Wikipedia. If you do a search on Google UK, you will realize how many people are confused between a US mini lop and a UK miniature lop( or mini lop, as that is what we called them in the UK). Therefore it is extremely important, for both topics（Mini lop and Miniature Lop) to be co-exist on Wikipedia. MiniatureLop (talk) 04:15, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

It was the user you already left a message for. Pixie Bot just dated the tag. Note that your username is "Miniaturelop" without the capital. Rich Farmbrough, 08:06, 22 August 2011 (UTC).

Merge discussion for William Duesbury (1725)

An article that you have been involved in editing, William Duesbury (1725) , has been proposed for a merge with another article. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Alanl (talk) 04:05, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Please notice

Please notice that I have added some new categories to Wikipedia:List of monthly maintenance categories given month. I found them because they used {{Parent monthly clean up category}}, while not being in that list. There are now 112 of them. If there are any more, or you will add any more in the future, please let me know, or add them yourself. Debresser (talk) 17:20, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

112 eh.. well it is a complex project. Rich Farmbrough, 10:25, 26 July 2011 (UTC).

Is it? It is becoming bigger and bigger. But complex? Yesterday I had a fight with someone who recently created a template and a category. You helped him here. About his all-inclusive category. User_talk:JaGa#All_category_for_Dablinks. And I do think these 112 names should be more standardised (compare in need of, needing, which need, that need). And perhaps templates Fix and DMCA are all superfluous in maintenance templates and could be replaced by the enhanced Ambox. But so far these are just dreams of mine. Debresser (talk) 10:50, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I mean WP is a complex project. I would prefer Fix and Ambox to remain separate, as they are mainly presentation templates. But I think the layer above could be glued: so that {{Vague|inline}} would work. Rich Farmbrough, 10:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC).

And I'd add that new substitution detection that was developed no so long ago to all maintenance templates. Forgot about that one. Debresser (talk) 11:08, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

You're right. Fix should stay for inline templates. Nobody ever tried to merge the Ambox, Tmbox, Ombox, Mbox etc. templates? Debresser (talk) 11:40, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Helpful Pixie bot bug

Please see this edit [1]. Apparently, when trying to add a "date" parameter to the {{Weather box}}, the bot just does a superficial parse for the nearest closing braces, without taking into account embedded templates. I'm afraid you'll need to do a proper parse including hierarchically embedded opening and closing braces. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:10, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

(Or add the new parameter right at the beginning, directly after the template name, I guess.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:13, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh, but another thing, I just notice the {{Weather box}} is supposed to have a date parameter only as a warning when there is no source, but in this instance a source was in fact present. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:40, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, if there's a ref the date is suppressed. This is actually in some ways not a good way to do things - some of the infoboxen do the same as do some of the {fb- family of templates. The better way would be for the ref field to be set explicitly to "{Citation needed}" but the template designers want the "{Citation needed}" embedded. Rich Farmbrough, 10:52, 1 September 2011 (UTC).

Hello? The bot is still doing it [2][3]. Are you going to fix this? If not, I must ask you to please deactivate its treatment of {{Weather box}}, and possibly others. The bot cannot safely handle templates that may occur with other templates embedded in their parameters. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:37, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I turned off weather box until I can put a permenant fix in . Rich Farmbrough, 09:53, 2 September 2011 (UTC).

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Shadez listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Shadez. Since you had some involvement with the Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Shadez redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). Colourlines (talk) 02:05, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Minor question

I saw this edit. Is that detection and the related category now added somewhere else, or is it gone? Debresser (talk) 05:06, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

It's gone, the only pages that linked to the cat were user pages of you, me and Avenciencis. It was obsolete anyway. Rich Farmbrough, 05:09, 5 September 2011 (UTC).

Bug report

The bot has incorrectly dated (an already dated) infobox here.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 7, 2011; 13:27 (UTC)

Thanks, infobox dating suspended until I have time for a proper fix. Rich Farmbrough, 20:27, 7 September 2011 (UTC).

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard discussion notice

A discussion about your edits can be found at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Rich Farmbrough violating editing restriction. Fram (talk) 09:40, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Regarding tags you placed on "Hollandia Produce" article.

Hello. You have tagged Hollandia Produce, for being written like an advertisement, and also for lack of notability. I disagree -- the language, content, tone, etc. seems to me to be utterly neutral and factual. As to notability, the company is a California business, organic produce, an important player in the small city of Carpinteria, where it is located. The products are hydroponically grown. The article refs include several articles in the New York Times along with other mentions. Please revisit. Leoniana (talk) 20:27, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi Leoniana, the tags were added here not by me. Rich Farmbrough, 22:50, 13 August 2011 (UTC).

Your edit to Template:Inbox

• I put this template in as a quick way of putting text in a visible box, and used it thus plenty of times. But on 15 October 2009 you edited this template to a form that does not put a box round the text. Was this intended? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 09:13, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

"Bitey much?"

See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Dalina66/Why should we buy a membership in some games You know what? Instead of saying "bitey much," how about in this circumstance you say something like. "Hey, you know what? Usually when there is a new user we cut them some slack in their non-project pages to encourage them to stick around and become a beneficial contributor. No need to delete just yet." or some such? Accusing me of "biting" is insulting, when I'm only spending my free time trying to help the project. You are soooo worried about "biting the newcomers" that your thoughtless comments makes me want to quit, and I have a hell of a lot more article contributions than the guy who wrote a non-sensical essay about why we shouldn't sign-up up for on-line game services. Practice what you preach. Quinn ^{░ RAIN} 01:56, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for biting - see the MfD for a more detailed comment. Rich Farmbrough, 07:35, 7 September 2011 (UTC).

And I apologize for being a bit too defensive with my first-go at NPP. Thank you for your clarification on the MFD, and I will make an effort to have thicker skin in the future. Cheers! :) Quinn ^{░ RAIN} 23:59, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Fluss

Can you do me a favour and delete all pages I created ending with (Fluss) in brackets. Obviously keep the pages they were moved do but delete the Fluss pages which are now redirects as implausible redirects. OK?♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:17, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Fluss flushed. Rich Farmbrough, 09:33, 8 September 2011 (UTC).

Unhelpful pixie

Kindly tell your bot not to do an edit such as this one. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 21:51, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

That's what the delimiters are there for. If you are going to hack tags, you need to understand them . Rich Farmbrough, 01:18, 5 September 2011 (UTC).

The Signpost: 08 August 2011

• Wikimania: Seventh annual Wikimedia conference concluded in Haifa, Israel

• News and notes: Wikimania a success; board letter controversial; and evidence showing bitten newbies don't stay

• In the news: Israeli news focuses on Wikimania; worldwide coverage of contributor decline and gender gap; brief news

• WikiProject report: Shooting the breeze with WikiProject Firearms

• Featured content: The best of the week

• Arbitration report: Manipulation of BLPs case opened; one case comes to a close

• Technology report: Wikimania technology roundup; brief news

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 00:06, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

DNB

I've left a comment at WT:WP DNB#Bot_building about the new Magnus Manske tool in the area (Magnus put it together in a couple of hours after the meetup). I've never been exactly sure about the merits of importing text from Wikisource other than in an article: but I think the merits would be improved by a number of possible "added value" steps. One of those would be to take into account the output of this tool, and only import articles for the project to work on which come up as "none found" with that matching tool. I.e. remove or sort according to what the tool finds, which can be (a) no match, (b) very plausible match, (c) inconclusive run with numerous candidates none of which is a great fit, (d) > 50 hits. There is actually a good argument for first doing that sorting into four. The case (d) is one either for human intervention, or for another layer of matching attempt. Case (b) is the sort of stuff I'm going by hand, and invites work expanding stubs and adding the ext lk back. So anyway case (a) is the most fruitful at this point for an import.

And what else? Imported text should be topped-and-tailed in some way to make it more useful (will need a lead section, should finish with reference using {{cite DNB}} and attribution using {{DNB}}, both filled in with wstitle=[name as on WS, no suffix]). There is actually a lot of scope for stripping out parts of the article too: certainly the [references at end in small] sections, and with more intelligence much of the inline refs between parentheses. NB the use of small caps within parentheses for author names, which should be a clue.

Charles Matthews (talk) 13:18, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Burma

Hi. What's the chances of you being able to use your tools to help with dabbing for Burmese settlements. Check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Burma (Myanmar)/Township templates and User:Dr. Blofeld/Burma#Repeated places names...♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:57, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

What I'll do first is draw up all of the templates. Once that is done Abok should be linked inside two different township templates when currently it is just Abok and so. Most of them do not even have dab pages...Once I've drawn up the templates hopefully you will be able to read the what links here and run something... example:Ahlaw. Perhaps you have something which will be able to read the ... Township links and generate dab pages like Ahlaw with Ahlaw Paungbyin and Ahlaw, Tamu linked. Bets thought to wait until I've created all the templates so the links can easily be accessed in the what links here.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:09, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

What I envisage is a script which reads .... Township , e.g Ahlaw being linked in the template named Tamu Township and extracts the name and dabs them e.g as Ahlaw, Tamu. It would need to generate pages and also correct the existing links in the templates. Might need BAG approval. I've also proposed it to Plastikspork. Perhaps you could contact him and decide the best way to do it. Meanwhile I'll continue making the templates after I've stubbed some of the few missing township articles for Bago region..♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:30, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism

• Can someone revert the IP vandalism here. Rich Farmbrough, 01:14, 12 September 2011 (UTC).
  
• Thanks Dave! Rich Farmbrough, 01:24, 12 September 2011 (UTC).
  

Speedy deletion nomination of User:Rich Farmbrough/blog

A tag has been placed on User:Rich Farmbrough/blog, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done for the following reason:

See WP:NOTBLOG. Sorry User:Rich Farmbrough, even admins aren't excempt from rules.

Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not meet basic Wikipedia criteria may be deleted at any time.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, contest the deletion by clicking on the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion". Doing so will take you to the talk page where you will find a pre-formatted place for you to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. You can also visit the the page's talk page directly to give your reasons, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, you can contact one of these administrators to request that the administrator userfy the page or email a copy to you. LikeLakers2 (talk | Sign my guestbook!) 23:43, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

sw-wikipedia?

Hi Rich, I see that you imported hundreds of English language templates into sw-wikipedia. I am sure that you did this with a good intention! Did you discuss this with any of the admins (not that I am aware of). What is your idea in flooding the Swahili wikipedia with material in a foreign language? Kindly comment! sw:user:kipala — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.98.113.164 (talk) 11:34, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Moved to sw: Rich Farmbrough, 15:18, 16 September 2011 (UTC).

About bots and categories - clarify request

Conversation - actions required.

I brought this up at wp:ani but it's not that relevant. (Fine details of sort are important, but not my main point, I think we can live with any alphabetical ordering - especially when cat contents tend to group similar items anyway..). The issue is that your bot (and others?) appears to be acting only on recent or new pages (based on experience). It would be reassuring to know that this bot or another bot is applying the changes systematically starting at Aardvark and working up to Xylophone.. Does the bot do that ?, and if not can there be one please (I think I explained why at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Minor_technical_question). Just mark this section "done" if the issue is definitely already addressed, and a solution exists and has been implemented. Thanks.Sf5xeplus (talk) 16:21, 1 October 2010 (UTC) Well - yes and no. I have a BRFA for diacritics in biographies, and I have done all those pages. I did have a plan to do exactly what you suggest - and not just for diacritics - and for the excellent reason that starting at Aardvark means not breaking any ordering as you go through (if I remember correctly) but there was one extremely vociferous critic that sapped the energy out of the whole thing - believe it or not you can't change a space on WP without someone objecting - possibly me! However: what would be possible, if a little hard, would be to do it on a category by category basis: automatically identifying categories where an "out of order" (lets call it an O3) occurs and correcting all members. And of course setting default sorts for pages with diacritics only would also probably be acceptable. Rich Farmbrough, 16:39, 1 October 2010 (UTC). ok thanks. I'll be back (or get Yobot to fix it) if a similar problem occurs; now I've mentioned the probably of that becomes infinitely unlikely. Problem not resolved, but probably solved. As for systematic bot A to Z diacritic work - maybe wait a bit and suggest again. I can supply +1 !vote.Sf5xeplus (talk) 17:00, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Italic titles

Conversation - actions required.

Back in July you were a model of efficiency using AWB to strip out {{Italic title}}. Just curious - not to seem demanding, I hope - would your technical abilities and/or old-school industry be sufficient to the job of restoring those templates where removed, in the wake of this discussion? Wareh (talk) 01:59, 3 October 2010 (UTC) Was it as recently as July? And I can't remember being very thorough about it although I try. Not to restore, specifically (although it wouldn't be that hard), but to install for, for example, all ships, novels or whatever the consensus is. Incidentally it would have been good to have been involved in the discussion - you may have missed that I was replacing or proposing, at one point (maybe back in 2009), more specific templates - I forget the names but effectively {{Novel title}} or similar. This allows policy to flip-flop without having to edit a zillion articles. I was also installing "Italic title" (I proposed a specific name for that I think) on taxon pages, the temptation of projects to build the formatting into infoboxes is very large - I see the ships are going down that channel? - but misguided because 1. not all articles will have the infobox 2. it then becomes very difficult to use the infobox without italics 3. it is not clear from the page source how an "effect" is achieved - newbarrier. Rich Farmbrough, 07:27, 3 October 2010 (UTC). Topic specific templates also allow automatic processing of standard exceptions for example "HMS Midgard" instead of "HMS Midgard" if that is needed. Rich Farmbrough, 07:52, 3 October 2010 (UTC). The connection to you only just occurred to me as I manually changed a couple of articles on books whose italic titles you had removed. I'm sorry if this news of the discussions was not timely (and I did in fact know nothing about your previous template proposals), but I hope even this belated information about the change in policy may be useful in the hands of someone who clearly knows a lot about templates, automatic processes, etc. I take it you are suggesting that {{Italic title}} could perhaps be routinely added according to categories, e.g. Category:Books by date. The problem is that even "books" is too narrow: Category:Works by author and Category:Works by date are really only slightly too broad, but they include a lot of non-"books" (by WP category) whose titles should be italicized in running text. Most everything in Category:Ancient Greek works by author and Category:Philosophical works by author (areas near and dear to me) should be italicized, but I suspect many of them are not categorized as WP "books." So, if more specific templates were to be developed, I'd suggest that {{Novel title}} is way too narrow: even {{Book title}} has coverage issues for the relevant range of works. You've already lost me with some of the technical issues you raise, but book titles (more or less) are where I'd really love to see automated changes in equal or greater volume to the previous italic-removals. Do you see a good chance of achieving that? Here's what may be the most practical idea I can come up with. If the article title appears in the lead '''''Like this''''', isn't that the best criterion for applying {{Italic title}} (or DISPLAYTITLE for longer titles that break that template)? This seems to me to apply perfectly the new policy at WP:AT, which is simply, "Use italics when italics would be used in running text." If you think that's a useful avenue, perhaps you can take it to WP:AT or the appropriate technical forum where such things get implemented? Or I can at your suggestion: but I am very inexperienced on the technical side. Wareh (talk) 15:01, 3 October 2010 (UTC) No criticism was intended. Yes I miss lots of discussions, and end up "sighing" some of the time - but I really couldn't keep up with them all anyway - this one seems to have come to an acceptable conclusion, although I'm not sure I agree with it, I have always found this issue tricky, and, of course non-critical (unlike invisible capitals in template names <joke />). The ' ' ' ' ' idea is great - cuts to the chase - in would include ' ' too, since that probably means that the bolding was forgotten. It would probably be suitable for a WP:BRFA - I have a bit of a backlog there right now. Rich Farmbrough, 15:18, 3 October 2010 (UTC). I'm glad that sounds useful--it really only occurred to me in the course of replying to you here. So does "backlog" mean you think you'll pursue that eventually, or would it make more sense for me to go to somewhere like WP:BOTREQ, and if so, with or without stopping by Wikipedia talk:Article titles first? (The policy at WP:AT is plain enough, but I don't want to step on any toes in initiating action on that scale.) Sorry if this is asking for too much hand-holding, but I'm only slowly learning the ropes of all this behind-the-scenes work. Wareh (talk) 15:47, 3 October 2010 (UTC) No it's fine, I'll get a BRFA in presently. I'm just trying to streamline the way I deal with it - although the average response time of the BAG is long. Rich Farmbrough, 16:06, 3 October 2010 (UTC). I'll drop you a note when it's there, and you can mention it at other venues to gain input. Rich Farmbrough, 16:07, 3 October 2010 (UTC). Thanks. You are a true Wikipedia public servant! Wareh (talk) 13:57, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Railway

Conversation - actions required.

Hi, did you correct those Burmese infobox errors afterwards? Can you move all of the Gare de... in Category:Railway stations in France categories to ...... railway station. There is consensus to do so at WP:Trains. They should be in english.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:34, 6 October 2010 (UTC) E.g Gare de Colmar should be Colmar railway station.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:35, 6 October 2010 (UTC) See #Burma .. let me know. Yes that's not hard, when I get back about 5pm I'll get on to it. category:Paris Métro should not be a sub cat of Paris railway stations as this puts rolling stock into a station category. Rich Farmbrough, 13:03, 6 October 2010 (UTC). Gare Aero d'Montparnasse OK Gare de, Gare du and Gare d' I take it are fine to move, how about: Gare Maritime de Cherbourg  Done Gare Maritime de Dieppe  Done Gare Montparnasse Gare RER de Saint Germain-en-Laye Gare Saint-Lazare Gare TGV Haute-Picardie ? Rich Farmbrough, 13:08, 6 October 2010 (UTC). Mmm I'd go with: Gare Maritime de Cherbourg = Cherbourg Maritime railway station Gare Maritime de Dieppe = Dieppe Maritime railway station List here. Rich Farmbrough, 17:57, 6 October 2010 (UTC). Hang on a moment - I'm new to this but can't find the consensus for change described above. (Yes I tend to favour the Gare de .. title obviously.) Don't look at Category:Railway stations in Germany either :) . Lot's of stuff like Mannheim Hauptbahnhof. Particularly there is an objection to things like Gare d'Avignon TGV are in fairly common use in English, as are others. I'm worried that if you bot this it will make a mess eg consider Gare du Nord.Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:16, 6 October 2010 (UTC) Look on the talk page - specifically Manheim Hauptbahnhof and Gare du Nord are mentioned as exceptions. I don't think even if I was "botting it" I could affect the BBC pages... Or perhaps you mean the content of pages? There is no intent to do a search and replace (As far as I know.) Rich Farmbrough, 18:31, 6 October 2010 (UTC). Yes funny - I linked to the BBC to show an example of common usage.Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:38, 6 October 2010 (UTC) I'd also suggest (can that be demand) that the ones moved be moved back. This Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Trains#Railway_stations discussion hasn't really established a consensus for such a big change. Also despite being an English word too, I don't feel that 'maritime' is the correct English translation, possibly 'marine' is better, but fundamentally its usage is specific to the name - a literal translation probably won't make much sense. Although not English the French names satisfy Wikipedia:Article_titles#Deciding_an_article_title, especially recognisability. This definitely seems to have been an error in your judgement in honesty.Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:27, 6 October 2010 (UTC) Of course you can Revert (using "undo" - not roll-back if you have that) - then go and Discuss - its part of the BRD cycle, although with a month elapsed form the discussion, it's not that bold. Just drop me a note to let me know which bits if any you revert - or if you wish discuss then revert if necessary. Rich Farmbrough, 19:05, 6 October 2010 (UTC). I might have but as I'm not objecting to the other changes they exceptions with "Maritime" would seem out of place. There seems to be a few examples in english of the usage that's been proposed/changed ("xxx maritime station"), I'm not sure if "xxx harbour station" or "xxx port station" is better or worse. Must do more research before acting.Sf5xeplus (talk) 19:16, 6 October 2010 (UTC) Note Just to make it clear - I've changed my position (on naming) from object to neutral - you can ignore the above.Sf5xeplus (talk) 19:50, 6 October 2010 (UTC) (Thanks for the note: RF.) Will try to get back to this today or tomorrow. Rich Farmbrough, 11:52, 8 October 2010 (UTC). More Anyway far be it for me to stand in the way of progress - if the station name is simply "gare de xxx" then I don't object to "xxx station" etc. I'm not sure about the ones with "maritime" in. However you did get the capitalisation wrong, its railway station (lower case) eg King's Cross station. (ok so some USA stations use Railroad Station with caps, but that's for another day). Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:51, 6 October 2010 (UTC) Yes that is what was suggested, and normally I love WP's "down" style, and regularly take Dr Blofeld out the back and threaten him with his own sharks for using capitals in things like "Splurgle District". However thinking about it for a moment will reveal that it is not that simple. If the name is "Gare d'" then Station is part of the name. Though I argue elsewhere that, for example Kingston University is also Kingston university, so "downing" is a fairly safe operation, where as "upping" is not (Manchester universities <> Manchester Universities for example), in this case I think the cap is justified. I am open to persuasion however, more: if you can get consensus from WP T on either style I will go with that quite happily . I would indeed personally prefer just "Station" or "station", since to my ear "Railway" is the default. Other varieties of English, however, may vary. Rich Farmbrough, 19:01, 6 October 2010 (UTC). Category:Railway stations in Belgium could be an example of precedence - 1/2 of it speaks French of a sort (or maybe that's wrong too). As an additional capitalisation of gare is not always done (except at the beginning of a sentence) eg [4] [5], also http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=+site:www.lemonde.fr+le+monde+gare Le Monde uses lower case if not leading a sentence. eg [6] No idea what the official French ministry of spelling and culture position is on this controversy.Sf5xeplus (talk) 19:13, 6 October 2010 (UTC) That's interesting. I am, sadly, an expert in neither Walloon (as I remarked earlier today, funnily enough) or railway stations, although there is a fascination about abandoned underground stations that probably speaks to either a deep character flaw, or to much "Quatermass" as a child. (Hobbs End I think? OR was that the good Doctor?) The place for discussion is is most likely the WikiProject. You can cut and paste this wholesale if you wish. Rich Farmbrough, 19:18, 6 October 2010 (UTC). Or maybe I should take your opinion, my doubts, and the talk page suggestion as consensus for lower case? IDK. I'l think on't. Rich Farmbrough, 19:19, 6 October 2010 (UTC). I've left a note at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Trains#Capitalisation_of_french_railway_stations and on Blofeld's page too. I can let you know (though I've suggested others post here since I'm fairly certain this is a non-controversial thing already decided). I can let you know. the reason I'm hassling you about this is because I'm under the impression that you have 'thousands' of station articles to name change..? maybe that's not the caseSf5xeplus (talk) 19:34, 6 October 2010 (UTC) Thanks. It's about 400 - see the list I mentioned. I was planning on creating redirects to the Gare du Nord articles - an of course anyone could move back specific items. Oh and yes, re: Le Monde, French capitalisation differs from ours for proper nouns (e.g. Académie française) but that's about as far as my knowledge takes me. Rich Farmbrough, 19:49, 6 October 2010 (UTC). There seemed to be no objection to moving the pages to lower casing e.g Rouen railway station. These really should be moved as Gare means nothing to most non French speakers. I personally prefer the Railway Station capitalised but consensus at WP:Trains seems to be lower casing. "railway" station is necessary as "station could refer to bus station, tram/cable car station or even a scientific research station.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:41, 6 October 2010 (UTC) Thanks for the notes, will try to get back to this today or tomorrow. Rich Farmbrough, 11:52, 8 October 2010 (UTC).

Printworthy

Conversation - actions required.

It occurs to me that any redirect that is categorised (Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects) excluding those which only have categories which are subcats of Category:Wikipedia redirects should always be printworthy redirects (Template:R printworthy).. Any chance of a bot for that?? Sf5xeplus (talk) 14:05, 9 October 2010 (UTC): Yes, but probably better to either ensure Category:Unprintworthy redirects is in the appropriate redirect templates, and the rest would be printworthy by default? Rich Farmbrough, 14:08, 9 October 2010 (UTC). Maybe - in an earlier life I might have created various unprintable redirects (spelling and caps variations) that I haven't got on a watchlist and don't remember.. I haven't done that for years since I learnt better. Following on with the logic - a bot could "printworthy" all mainspace categorised redirects, and "not-printworthy" all other redirects not already having "printworthy". A few printworthy redirects might get missed but that's a user problem.. The final sauce would be to have a bot to tag "printworthy" any "unprintworthy" redirects if they are subsequently categorised in the 'mainspace'. That would categorise all redirects, with only minor printworthy omissions - the omissions could be manually caught by categorising with "bot categorised unprintworthy" - giving a much more easily human-checked list of possible bot errors. Once done maintenance should be minimal.. Hope springs eternal.Sf5xeplus (talk) 14:28, 9 October 2010 (UTC) Yes I think there is something to that. I just changed 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection: The Best of Rob Zombie to unprintworthy, it was the second one I looked at - and quite bottable. Rich Farmbrough, 14:51, 9 October 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot duplicate tags feature request

Conversation - actions required.

Sorry if this is not the place to leave this, but this is mostly a feature request I think. In this diff, it would be nice if SmackBot would notice that there are duplicate tags and remove the duplicated tags. Would this be easy to implement? Devourer09 (t·c) 16:25, 12 October 2010 (UTC) I'm not sure how hard it would be, it depends on scope, I suspect that the main difficulty would be dividing the list up into remove and don't remove, dfor example, multiple Expand section, or multiple Citation needed tags are legitimate (but not adjoining). Simpler might be to limit it to tag knots, in which case it would be fairly easy. I'll submit a BRFA. Rich Farmbrough, 16:31, 12 October 2010 (UTC). BRFA submitted and in trial. Rich Farmbrough, 02:12, 16 October 2010 (UTC).

Risk list bot

Conversation - actions required.

I would love to see the BLP risk list turned into an ongoing bot. We could manage it as an ongoing queue by having the bot keep all the previous hits with context in a local file or DB on the backend. For example: Bob Smithinson: accused of an affair with his After this hit, "riskbot" would keep this in a local file or db, and then would filter it out of subsequent runs, context included. That way if the affair gets added back in with slightly different context, we'd get another warning. It would take all the "new hits" and append them on the bottom of the running queue page. As people check the hits, they'd remove them from the page. It's O(n^2) on the number of hits, but scrubbing one set of lines with another is pretty inexpensive, since it's just simple equality. Let me know what you think. Gigs (talk) 01:13, 30 October 2010 (UTC) It's worth doing I think. The time consuming part at the moment is actually accessing all the articles, thought they are mostly small. There's ways to optiminze this away however. Rich Farmbrough, 01:45, 31 October 2010 (UTC).

Bibliographies

This is just a personal opinion, mind you. Like I said, I am, rather slowly, assembling bibliographies of the various geographical areas of the earth. As they would deal with things like the local flora, fauna, people, culture, and the like, they could also serve as the basis for things like, for instance, Bibliography of South American military history, which would be a selection of books about the military history of that area drawn from the bibliographies of the main states/regions themselves.

That will not however include such things as the sciences, or philosophy, or the major religions, and certainly not off-world topics like astronomy. They would probably need to be created entirely separately.

My own basic choice would be to maybe have others create bibliographies for the sciences, business, and other topics that don't have clear geographic ties.

I would think the items to be included would best include separate books/works on the topic that have been reviewed by academic journals and other reputable specialist magazines, and/or included in books or articles of bibliography of that topic.

There are obviously questions regarding how long to make these bibliographies, and that's a separate matter entirely. The bibliography of physics, like the bibliography of Christianity, would be potentially endless. For such broad topics, maybe the best way to proceed would be to look at the various extant reference works, like encyclopedias, that deal with the topics, and to start include only those works which are included in the bibliographies of the articles in those encyclopedias. That would be a start, anyway. John Carter (talk) 17:15, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

The bibliography of physics should probably include some well known wide ranging texts, Weidner and Sells, Richards, Wier, Zehrs and Zemansky I think are two, the vade meca of various fields, seminal works, and key references (Handbook of Physical Data?) and cross references to detailed, bibliographies of mechanics, relativity, gravitation, string theory, etc... Rich Farmbrough, 12:57, 9 November 2010 (UTC).

Ask Fred, and Ed. Rich Farmbrough, 22:26, 19th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).

And DGG. Rich Farmbrough, 15:20, 20 February 2011 (UTC).

IPA dump search

Conversation - actions required.

Hey Rich, If you have the time, would you mind doing another search of the dump, as you did at User:Rich Farmbrough/temp14? I've run through that last list. (20 articles which I can't do on my own are all that's left.) A couple things different this time: no article exclusions (I will simply have AWB ignore anything within templates, unless you can pre-parse those at your end), plus a couple extra characters we missed last time. (If you can search for pure diacritics, that would be even better; otherwise I've noticed some more common combos, such as β̞ i̯ u̯ e̯ o̯, plus another character, ‹ˁ› that is commonly mistaken for IPA ‹ˤ›.) Thanks, — kwami (talk) 07:13, 10 November 2010 (UTC) What do you think of this? I'll have a look at making this scan a regular thing. Rich Farmbrough, 09:47, 11 November 2010 (UTC). Yeah, silly me. That worked fine. We missed β̞ last time, though, and if individual diacritics aren't possible, i̯ u̯ e̯ o̯ will probably turn up a good number of hits. — kwami (talk) 06:04, 12 November 2010 (UTC) I'm doing my own search of the IPA letters (the first block in your search), so never mind about doing them again. However, AWB won't work w ˥ ˦ ˧ ˨ ˩ ꜛ ꜜ, which you included in that block last time. There are also a few new ones you didn't include and AWB wont' cover, if you can add them: ꜞꜝ ↗↘‖˕˔‿ and t͜ . Plus, of course, any diacritics, which AWB search doesn't handle well. Thanks!! — kwami (talk) 18:54, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Notes to self

• Need to check on enzymes. Rich Farmbrough, 10:39, 18 November 2010 (UTC).
  
• Nested templates. Rich Farmbrough, 19:38, 15 July 2011 (UTC).
  

List of townlands of County Cork

I note that you've tried to slim down the above page a bit. I took the matter of size to WikiProject Ireland but they didn't seem particularly interested! As you have been around Wikipedia a fair bit (apparently you've got a few thousands edits under your belt), I wondered if you had any ideas on how to make the article accessible to Joe Bloggs. Would splitting it up into List of townlands of County Cork, A–E etc. be acceptable? What's the point in having a page which 80% of readers won't be able to access? Thanks. —Half Price 20:42, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Splitting by barony would make more sense. Rich Farmbrough, 23:31, 19 December 2010 (UTC).

Yes, though significantly more troublesome. OK, thanks. —Half Price 11:23, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Except that I already did it.... Rich Farmbrough, 11:25, 20 December 2010 (UTC).

Yes, sorry, it isn't hard at all! —Half Price 16:07, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Template:Infobox wine region

Being f Fixed. BTW, hundreds of users have used the wrong infobox on UK school pages (maybe other countries too, I haven't looked yet). Do you know of a quick fix that retains the data? I can't use AWB on my computers. Cheers. --Kudpung (talk) 00:57, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh? Which template? I thought that there was a resolved discussion which ended up unifying the school (educational institution) infoboxes. Yes I have a fix for this sort of thing. Rich Farmbrough, 06:38, 31 December 2010 (UTC).

There is no cohesion at the schools project of the kind you get with a project like wine for example where there is a standardised template and a regular group of dedicated members who monitor the quality of the articles and intervenes where necessary. School articles are each and every one written by SPA, none of them read the guidelines, and in the same way as many new editors think every new article needs a new cat for it, they think every school type or school district needs a custom infobox. The end effect is that we have 39 different infoboxes out there where all we need are three: one for US Schools, one for UK schools, one for Oz schools, and a generic one for the est of the world. A big team has just recently improved the programme functions of the UK Schools infobox, and I've had a list made at Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/UK schools using wrong infoboxes of nearly 400 schools that are using the wrong one. I started to work through the list manually but I felt that this could somehow be automated as I am currently running the schools project pretty much single handed. Any ideas you have would be greatly appreciated. --Kudpung (talk) 07:14, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I am pretty sure I replaced all except the UK/Oz ones a couple of years back. And at that time both were completely replaceable with the main infobox - I actually did a trial replacement of each, without loosing any fields. We flatter ourselves that "Ofsted" or "DFES number" is somehow special. Rich Farmbrough, 09:18, 31 December 2010 (UTC).

Hi Rich. Yes, you're right about the DfES and Ofsted fields, but if it was that long ago I guess the 370 on this list are more recent. They have either used deprecated boxes, or copied ones from other school articles. --Kudpung (talk) 19:12, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Removing noinclude tags

Why are you removing noinclude tags: [7]? These year pages are transcluded in higher level articles, and your removal royal screws up the entire chain. 68.35.24.151 (talk) 22:25, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining, I was told there was no current purpose. Onlyinclude is a better directive for this purpose. Rich Farmbrough, 22:54, 1 January 2011 (UTC).

I agree. It should be a straightforward task to take all the "year" articles and flip the logic. Even better would be to add a comment next to it as well, so people don't inadvertently remove it. I know I have done the same before in season episode list articles which were being transcluded in another article. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 23:25, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

This was done I think. Rich Farmbrough, 16:12, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

United States settlements

Hi. I was wondering if you could run something which adds a pushpin map to every infobox by state. I did start doing it manually previously and removed the census maps but I got sidetracked because of objections to the removal of the census maps. However if you were to keep the census maps and to add the pushpin maps this should be fine. Minot, North Dakota for instance. The majority of the articles have the shoddy census maps in them which mostly leaves you really having to look hard where the place actually is in the state. let alone America. Eventually the pin maps will have the US state inserts so you can see where in America it is. Of course I've proposed we have the option like on French wikipedia for clickable maps but nothing is happening there.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:09, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Any thoughts?♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:29, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes I did one. May not really suited for AWB because of the complex logic (which I'm not sure of yet) - what other parameters are needed for the pushpin map to work? Rich Farmbrough, 19:35, 19th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).

I was assuming "coordinates_region" needs to be defined. Rich Farmbrough, 19:36, 19th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).

Those album cat renames

You might not have noticed, but I've vandalised User:Rich_Farmbrough/temp19/redir with loads of ticks and crosses.

I hope what I'm doing is OK, and I'm pretty sure it is, mostly - so I'm boldly ploughing through them. If it is all wrong though, please let me know. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  00:25, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Y Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 22:16, 5 March 2011 (UTC).

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SmackBot 43

Template: {{BAG assistance needed}}. *

Edits by:

1. H3llkn0wz at 19:09, 3 March 2011 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by H3llkn0wz at 19:09, 3 March 2011 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 21:31, 7 February 2011 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by H3llkn0wz at 19:09, 3 March 2011 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Rich Farmbrough at 19:09, 3 March 2011 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 13:55, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

New tasks for SmackBot

Can you please perform the following tasks with SmackBot (and ask for a BRFA if not already covered by your tasks)? Since the tasks were already approved for Yobot it should be no problem. Thanks! -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:50, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

List of approved tasks
BRFA 8	Replace the short-cut template "lifetime" with the DEFAULTSORT keyword and the categories it generates.
BRFA 13	Auto-tagging of uncategorized articles found in toolserver. Tagging/untagging will include all AWB's taggers. Auto-tagging by request running in selected lists.
BRFA 14	Moving HATNOTES on the top per WP:HNP to help accessibility and navigation
BRFA 16	WP:CHECKWIKI error fixes

harmful articles

Hiya, I seem to call one you had some criteria for identifing 'harmful articles', can you point in in the direct of that. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 13:19, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm inclined to think it was "harmful redirects"? Unless you can be more specific. Rich Farmbrough, 16:37, 16 June 2011 (UTC).

The only think I recall was that Jimbo commented on it. Does that ring a bell? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 17:45, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, BLPs, I have been meaning to bot that task. I was looking for key-words "scandal" "affair" "Murder" "libel" "law-suit" etc... Rich Farmbrough, 17:50, 16 June 2011 (UTC).

Currentl see #Risk List Bot. Rich Farmbrough, 18:06, 16 June 2011 (UTC).

Yes, that's it. Where to I see the Risk List? Above link is dead. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 18:53, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I'll have to make a new one. Rich Farmbrough, 18:55, 16 June 2011 (UTC).

Was thinking of doing a similar thing for new articles (via User:TedderBot/NewPageSearch, that's if I find someone who it willing to check through the list of them once found. Did you find any takers on your risk list before? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 19:05, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, people went through the list. I can't remember if I did a second run, but I think I did. Rich Farmbrough, 19:14, 16 June 2011 (UTC).

Thanks. I'm looking at doing it now. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 21:06, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Found in your contributions(!) Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Risk_lists/List_2 Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 22:06, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Text after redirects

Some time ago you bulk-reverted Mhiji's removal of text after redirects (edits such as this one), the majority of those removals appear to have been correct. While the text after the redirect doesn't automatically do any harm, there are many cases in which it is not wanted. (Copyright violations, nonsensical text, straight copy-pastes from the target article, and so forth). Just to let you know I have already re-reverted some of these and will likely do more. Thanks Gurch (talk) 21:28, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I have no problem with selective removal, probably I intended to find a better way to do what he had meant to do, pretty much the only things there shoukld be are {Redirect from/to...} {redirect with possibilities} and categories. Rich Farmbrough, 21:32, 17 June 2011 (UTC).

(This should probably go on my to-do list) Rich Farmbrough, 09:29, 21 June 2011 (UTC).

Helpful Pixie Bot

Hi. Any chance Helpful Pixie Bot could be modified to avoid editing anything with an {{inuse}} or a {{GOCEinuse}} tag, please? (Please ignore this if it does it in a way that cannot cause edit conflicts. I'm not sure of the technicalities about that). --Stfg (talk) 20:12, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes it should do that. However it appears there is some bug that means sometimes it doesn't avoid them. Rich Farmbrough, 21:02, 15 July 2011 (UTC).

English language templates and categories

I have standardized (or should I say standardised here?) the documentation of the seven "Use English language" templates and the corresponding category pages. See e.g. Template:Use American English and Category:Use American English. I have added the four that were missing to Wikipedia:List of monthly maintenance categories given month. Even though two of them are empty so far this month, it is still better to have them, than to not have them. Debresser (talk) 13:29, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Btw, why is it that a category like {{Use American English}} has a backlog notice? It has only two subcategories, each with only one article. I noticed that Template:Backlog subcategories is automatically a part of Template:Parent monthly clean up category, without any mechanism to deactivate it if the number of categories is lower than a certain threshold. Do you think that is correct? And if not, what can be done about it?

In addition, and with an eye on the future again, "Use" categories like these "Use English language" templates, and the "Use date format" templates, are first candidates for using {{Monthly maintenance category}} instead of {{Monthly clean-up category}}, since they are not about "clean-up", and I think that one of the differences between them should be that a backlog notice is not appropriate in them. Debresser (talk) 14:22, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's pretty much what it was for, it seems strange to worry about these niceties of naming, when it is all behind the scenes, but there is some functionality that can be put there as you say. The same applies to the Parent template. Rich Farmbrough, 10:59, 26 July 2011 (UTC).

I see you are adding a clean-up parameter. I'd create a Template:Parent monthly maintenance category also, with that same parameter. And then as one of the first things, I'd remove the backlog from it. Btw, should Template:Parent monthly clean up category be moved to Template:Parent monthly clean-up category? I could help you do this, but do not want to intrude upon what I consider "your" projects. Debresser (talk) 11:00, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Already done - the new template. As to the name I'd have to change bot code too, and really it's not worth it. I only changed the monthly because someone asked very nicely - and that is I suspect, never typed and rarely seen. Rich Farmbrough, 11:06, 26 July 2011 (UTC).

If you'd ask me what I really think, if I were to design it. I'd do it the other way around. Use only the term "maintenance template" and a parameter called "clean-up" to add a backlog e.g. After all, clean-up is also maintenance. Debresser (talk) 11:04, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

And what can be done so that the backlog message should not be displayed like in that example I gave above when there were only two articles? Debresser (talk) 11:11, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure I agree with the backlog message philosophy at all.

View 1. A backlog of 1 is still a backlog. Hence all clean-up cats are either empty or backlogged.

View 2. A certain amount of backlog is "work in progress" and not back log proper. But we have not measured this, nor do we have a way of deciding what is an acceptable amount of work in progress, nor how age comes into the equation. Therefore labelling something "backlog" when it has over X entries is facile.

Rich Farmbrough, 11:17, 26 July 2011 (UTC).

What does "facile" mean in English. I know it only in French "easy". Does it mean "overly simplifying"? I of course understand your point. Debresser (talk) 11:22, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes it is a wonderful word - although I am probably abusing it slightly. The use has changed over time from simple (and therefore obvious) to simple (and therefore wrong - in political debate with connotations of duplicity). Rich Farmbrough, 11:29, 26 July 2011 (UTC).

Just move Template:Parent monthly maintainance category to Template:Parent monthly maintenance category. And shouldn't the clean-up parameter be added to Template:Monthly clean-up category/outer core also to make it work? Debresser (talk) 11:16, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes - I have wished for a "pass all parameters" magic word... Rich Farmbrough, 11:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC).

Smile. Btw, I made Template:Parent monthly clean-up category as a redirect. Perhaps in time, it could come to replace it. Debresser (talk) 11:35, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Did you see what I wrote about the way I would design it, the other way around? Debresser (talk) 11:42, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

You want to say that it's not worth the time. That may be so. I personally like to do things the right way, even if that would take a lot of time. If I were an admin and could edit protected pages, I'd have no problem doing all of this. Including the work to bots. Debresser (talk) 13:09, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Use editprotected if you want. Rich Farmbrough, 18:43, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

The Signpost: 25 July 2011

• Wikimedian in Residence interview: Wikimedian in Residence on Open Science: an interview with Daniel Mietchen

• News and notes: Oral citations; the state of global development; a gentler Huggle; brief news

• In the news: Open access clash with copyright; rising reader satisfaction; the wiki-correlates of geopolitical instability; brief news

• Recent research: Talk page interactions; Wikipedia at the Open Knowledge Conference; Summer of Research

• WikiProject report: Musing with WikiProject Philosophy

• Featured content: The best of the week

• Arbitration report: New case opened; hyphens and dashes update; motion

• Technology report: Protocol-relative URLs; GSoC updates; bad news for SMW fans; brief news

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 23:34, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia category template

I notice that the {{Wikipedia category}} does not seem to line up nicely with the other centre boxes as it once did. Any ideas? Rich Farmbrough, 11:23, 26 July 2011 (UTC).copied from my talkpage

I think it does. Just that the progress-box is pushing it. Or please show me an example of what you mean. Debresser (talk) 11:32, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes I dismissed it for that reason initially. But "show" the progress box and the other centre boxes do not squash to the same extent. Rich Farmbrough, 11:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC).

Yes they do. I checked that before I wrote you. Could you show me an example? Perhaps a screenshot? Debresser (talk) 12:21, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I took some screen-shots, but I'm not really prioritising this one. Rich Farmbrough, 18:03, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

Heck,lets archive this. I can go from scratch. Rich Farmbrough, 18:04, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

Help

On User:Debresser/Sandbox I copied some code, then changed it a little. When I press the link indicated by {{fullurl:User:Debresser/Sandbox|action=edit&section=new}}, I can make a new section. So far so good.

When I write something in that section (like "bla2") I can save it. When I write only a section header, but no text, the page doesn't save. Why is that?

Please feel free to use my page for testing. Debresser (talk) 14:55, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I think this is the MediaWiki software itself. The "&section=new" won't save without content - presumably the assumption is that this is an error. Rich Farmbrough, 11:24, 31 July 2011 (UTC).

I see. Thank you. Debresser (talk) 17:32, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Isn't this issue closed? Debresser (talk) 02:58, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, just need the archive boot unblocked. Rich Farmbrough, 01:25, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

Unsubstitution failure

A while back, you said I should tell you if I ever noticed SmackBot failing to unsubstitute a template. It looks like this is such a case. Unlike the other times I've seen SmackBot fail, I don't see anything obviously wrong with the begin/end tags this time. I've done it by hand for now. – RobinHood70 ^talk 22:31, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 01:16, 31 July 2011 (UTC).

Archive and add to todo list. Rich Farmbrough, 18:16, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

(Note: Page in question deleted 00:17, 15 August 2011) R.F. 2015-10-21Z20:12

The Signpost: 01 August 2011

• News and notes: Wikimania; why Board of Trustees elections attract few votes; brief news

• In the news: Consensus of Wikipedia authors questioned about Shakespeare authorship; 10 biggest edit wars on Wikipedia; brief news

• Research interview: The Huggle Experiment: interview with the research team

• WikiProject report: Little Project, Big Heart — WikiProject Croatia

• Featured content: Featured pictures is back in town

• Arbitration report: Proposed decision submitted for one case

• Technology report: Developers descend on Haifa; wikitech-l discussions; brief news

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 01:46, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Empty July categories

Please see User_talk:Avicennasis#User:Avicennasis.2Fcatpage, where I ask the question why empty maintenance categories from June auto-nominate for speedy, but July categories don't. It seems they have to be 2 months old to self-nominate, and I wonder why that is. Not technically but ideologically, I mean. Why not nominate July categories as well? Debresser (talk) 11:05, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I think the reason was that I wanted to allow a full month, for reversions etc.. I didn't want the cats being constantly recreated and deleted. Rich Farmbrough, 11:47, 2 August 2011 (UTC).

Please see there on Avicennasis' talkpage, that Category:Wikipedia monthly maintenance categories that are empty receives August categories during the last hours of July, and what can be done to remove them later on. Debresser (talk) 12:18, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

This issue is still waiting for your input. Debresser (talk) 02:56, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Dealt with. Rich Farmbrough, 18:02, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

Tweet

DYKS. Rich Farmbrough, 11:42, 2 August 2011 (UTC).

Adoption

I noticed Category:Wikipedians having been offered adoption using Template:Adopt offer is being dated. I had to do quite some maintenance there. Interestingly, Category:Wikipedians seeking to be adopted in Adopt-a-user using Template:Adoptme is not dated, even though it is a lot bigger, and dating it to create a backlog idea seems logical. I'll take care of that in the evening. Debresser (talk) 13:25, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I added the date parameter to {{Adoptme}}, and then I noticed something strange. See this edit. There is some type of timestamp there. And I noticed the same on other userpages. How did these users know how to put such a timestamp there? And in view of that, should it be replaced by a date parameter and monthly categories? Debresser (talk) 18:02, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

In the mean time let me ask you, is SmackBot checking for Template:Adopt offer? Debresser (talk) 18:15, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Can't say until I get home on the 10th. Rich Farmbrough, 18:16, 2 August 2011 (UTC).

It took me some searching and thinking to fix this, e.g. Debresser (talk) 18:40, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Good catch! Rich Farmbrough, 18:49, 2 August 2011 (UTC).

Can we get back to this? Debresser (talk) 02:52, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the template {{Adopt offer}} is on the list. I think {{Adopt me}} needs a finer grained backlog than monthly. Rich Farmbrough, 22:37, 31 August 2011 (UTC).

{{Dated adopt me}} is the answer to your query. Rich Farmbrough, 00:16, 1 September 2011 (UTC).

The previous version sorted by the timestamp.

NIACE

Hi Rich, I've added relevant citations/references for this article and removed the Unreferenced Template/maintenence Tag placed in 2007. Could you please have a look and see if it is okay? Thanks! Audit Guy (talk) 04:03, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Rich Farmbrough, 18:33, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

Hubertine Heijermans

Just a word to say, that Paldopaldino interfered and wrote today, that he created this article and introduced the images, proving instantly that it was not an autobiography I was working on in order to add final touches. Greetings, Kalaharih--Kalaharih (talk) 22:53, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Kamarina

Hi Rich, I noticed that you added few lines about an Arab bath discovered between the remains of the Greek-Sicilian city of Kamarina. Just wondered if you knew the location of this archaeological site? Is it really inside the area of Kamarina because from the photo it looks in a different location. Thanks.--Sal73x (talk) 20:58, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid I have no information other than the article. I hope I haven't misrepresented anything. Rich Farmbrough, 22:46, 13 August 2011 (UTC).

Template:Advert

Sorry about the bold letters in the paragraph below. I am just trying to achieve clarity (of communication).

Hi. One of the articles I work on got tagged with this template. I don't agree with the rationale so I am removing it. However, that is not why I am writing on your talk page. I am wondering if you know how the statement "use Db-spam to mark for speedy deletion. (August 2011)" got added to this template. This statement seems out of place if this is to be used in the article main space. It's like an invitation to go ahead and request speedy deletion for whatever article this is placed on. If it is an established article that kind of statement makes no sense. If its a new article then the request for speedy deletion would be more appropriate than placing the Template:Advert on the new article. So anyway I look at it this statement seems to be out of place. So, I think the statement should be removed. I will watch your talk page for a reply. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 19:06, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I think the idea is to advise the placer of the template, in case it is a speedy candidate. I would support removing this, since many speedies under this criteria are wrong anyway. Rich Farmbrough, 00:10, 14 August 2011 (UTC).

Thanks for your reply. I started a discussion on the template talk page here. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 17:36, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Soldiers Chapel

The bot marked the lead of Soldiers Chapel as too long. I am surprised because - as a rather short article - it didn't have a lead, no heading until references. I created one now. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:24, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

This was the addition of the tag, not my edit. And the article was, arguably, all lead until you added the heading. Rich Farmbrough, 23:41, 13 August 2011 (UTC).

Thanks for looking! I thought so far, that an article with no heading is "all article, no lead" (which makes sense to me for short articles) but still learning. My heading is not quite to the point, but I didn't want to change too much in an article of a writer who left, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:40, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Never hesitate to improve an article! Rich Farmbrough, 08:23, 14 August 2011 (UTC).

Odd edit

Out of interest, what was this about? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 07:42, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

"Delete" is the !vote, "just because..." is the joke "(WHS)" = what he said - I.E. I agree with the previous !voter. "~~" is a typo for a sig. Rich Farmbrough, 11:04, 28 August 2011 (UTC).

Cleanup banner for articles with non-English text, lacking appropriate markup

I have created {{Cleanup-lang}}, for articles with non-English text, which should use {{Lang}} but do not yet do so. I'm not sure whether you need to manually add it to the list of templates your Helpful Pixie Bot dates. Suggestions for improvements would be welcome. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:56, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

It's done. Rich Farmbrough, 21:02, 29 August 2011 (UTC).

[8] Debresser (talk) 21:50, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing that. Rich Farmbrough, 18:58, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

last edit at Talk:Keith Raniere

Hello! I was wondering about your last edit at Talk:Keith Raniere.Chrisrus (talk) 02:45, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Specifically, I was wondering what you did and why. Chrisrus (talk) 12:25, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I replaced {{Merge}} with {{Tl|Merge}} - because the template should ideally be used on the article page, and in any event with a parameter for the merge partner - {{Merge|NXIVM}} in this example. Once the merge discussion is completed and the article merged if appropriate the template should then be removed from the page - while the discussion on the talk page remains. SO I changed the use to mention. Note also that if you know which way the merge should be done {{Merge to}} and {{Merge from}} are available. Rich Farmbrough, 15:07, 29 August 2011 (UTC).

Helpful Pixie bot suggestion

Hi. As I get annoyed by no longer seeing a Top behind items on 'My contributions', only to see that a bot ran along, I have the habit of dating 'citation needed' tags when I introduce these. Unfortunately, because I do not chase unsourced material all the time, I tend to make the mistake of passing the argument unnamed, which is common for simple templates that know only a single argument - but in this case, also 'reason' is a valid argument.

If I happen to be the only one, you might disregard this message. Else, it would be interesting if the bot would recognize a date (full or only month and year) as entire content of an unnamed argument, and then convert that argument by putting "date=" in front of the (by the bot properly formatted) date. Now, the bot modifies {{Cn|August 2011}} into {{Cn|August 2011|date=August 2011}}, which may make other editors wonder what the intention of the two arguments might be. Fortunately, because a such template simply disregards unnamed of faultily named arguments, the readers do not see anything unusual.
​▲ SomeHuman 2011-08-29 04:53-05:00 (UTC)

Thanks, this is on the todo list. Rich Farmbrough, 13:07, 30 August 2011 (UTC).

More than good enough. Thanks.​▲ SomeHuman 2011-08-31 02:20 (UTC)

Template:Refer

I don't understand what you did here with this edit, but it appears to make subst'ing the template rather pointless as it produces results like this or like this. older ≠ wiser 02:15, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Strangeness occurred when I moved the sandbox code. The idea that using refer on a (disambiguation) page should now not require a separate parameter, whether subst'ed or not. Rich Farmbrough, 16:05, 31 August 2011 (UTC).

2006 FIFA World Cup qualification

I want to edit all the archive of 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification and 2006 FIFA World Cup qualification to this format:

2006 FIFA World Cup qualification – CAF Second Round#Group 2

Please help me to that.

Thanks! Banhtrung1 (talk) 13:45, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Do you have all the information? Rich Farmbrough, 12:46, 2 September 2011 (UTC).

The Signpost: 05 September 2011

• News and notes: 24,000 votes later and community position on image filter still unclear; first index of editor satisfaction appears positive

• In the news: Britannica and Wikipedia like "apples and chairs"; should anyone who's anyone get an article?; and why fighting and barriers to editing may be useful after all

• WikiProject report: Riding with WikiProject London Transport

• Sister projects: Wiki Loves Monuments 2011

• Featured content: The best of the week

• Opinion essay: The copyright crisis, and why we should care

• Arbitration report: BLP case closed; Cirt-Jayen466 nearly there; AUSC reshuffle

• Technology report: Pencils down in Google Summer of Code, August analysed and integrated HTTPS support in action

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 00:35, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Replace superscripted text with normal text

Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Replace_superscripted_text_with_normal_text. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:21, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Easy enough once the dumps decompress. Rich Farmbrough, 16:16, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

Stopping the bot since the owner is blocked for a week

I am leaving this message to stop the bot from editing because the owner was blocked for a week. Since it is a bot operators responsibility to fix any problems created by a bot he would not be able to do that in a blocked state. --Kumioko (talk) 15:28, 9 September 2011 (UTC) [X] copied from User talk:Femto Bot by Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 15:31, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I also stopped Helfulpixiebot. --Kumioko (talk) 15:33, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I have my doubts that will work. Rich Farmbrough, 16:01, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

Autoblock

Can someone revert the autoblock since it's screwing with my talk page archiving, and bot stuff. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 16:55, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

I'll cycle my router, and they can catch up, but the problem is still there. Rich Farmbrough, 17:16, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

I believe your active bots have been blocked directly. –xeno^talk 17:20, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Not according to the logs. Rich Farmbrough, 17:25, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

See [9]. –xeno^talk 17:28, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Et tu, MSGJ. Rich Farmbrough, Rich Farmbrough, 17:44, 9 September 2011 (UTC).
17:41, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Still the logs show blank. Rich Farmbrough, 17:44, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

You probably looking at the user logs rather than the target logs. –xeno^talk 17:46, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Helpful Pixie Bot (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · target logs · block log · list user · global contribs · central auth · Google)

Femto Bot (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · target logs · block log · list user · global contribs · central auth · Google)

OK. Rich Farmbrough, 17:52, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

List_of_regicides_of_Charles_I

The sentence opposite Thomas Fairfax, isn't. "Even though" should probably be "despite". Rich Farmbrough, 22:16, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

 Done[10]. —Sladen (talk) 23:57, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 01:23, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

Maginot Line

"However, it was proved " => "However, it proved " — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rich Farmbrough (talk • contribs)

 Done[11]. —Sladen (talk) 23:54, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 01:24, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

Template:Update after

Please see this edit to Template:Update after. Debresser (talk) 19:00, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I am shocked to see you blocked. BTW, I've been blocked for a week also recently, for violating 3RR. Anyway, you can post here, and I'll take care of it. Debresser (talk) 19:02, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I am also shocked, however no longer surprised. Wikipedia is, after all, a bureaucracy, however hard it tries not to be. If you want to, you can also be shocked at my proposed banning. I am making good use of my time on Wikisource, Meta and Commons, plus a side project I have called Real Life. Rich Farmbrough, 21:46, 14 September 2011 (UTC).

Yeah, I saw that proposal. It is already obvious that it is not going to be accepted, luckily. I posted anyway, to give you my support.

I don't see any problem with the edit to the template. Am I missing something? Rich Farmbrough, 21:46, 14 September 2011 (UTC).

That is fine then. No, you probably didn't miss anything. I was just making sure. Debresser (talk) 05:30, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Your editing privileges have been suspended for 1 week

Per the discussion at WP:AN, and in particular your response where you gave no indication of the required prior approval or noted that you were under restriction or that your edits were in keeping with same, I have enacted the above sanction. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:05, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

So on the 7th Sept I created 3 articles and for that I get a weeks block? Crazy. Rich Farmbrough, 14:00, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

Especially as they don't even break the purported editing restrictions. Rich Farmbrough, 14:00, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

Am I the only one going WTF here? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:45, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Xeno

(In response to [12]) In the last week, you've used a script to create 92 biography articles requiring cleanup ("DNB00") and AWB (seemingly inappropriately modified to auto-save) to create over 200 redirects of dubious necessity [13]. These are clear violations of your editing restrictions. You are also violating your other editing restriction as we speak from Helpful Pixie Bot (talk · contribs). –xeno^talk 14:13, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

1. Firstly that's a fairly small number of articles and they are not by any means mass created - I know you and Fram just hate to see content added, but tough, it's gonna come.
2. Secondly any AWB edits in the past week have been with a brand new virgin copy of AWB.
3. Thirdly you have obviously forgotten the details that were agreed at the time in respect to then SmackBot's editing.
4. Fourthly it is most unedifying watching people "pile in" - weather if the "usual suspects", ANI trolls, or just folk caught up in the mob frenzy.

Rich Farmbrough, 17:11, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

1. Wikipedia:Bot policy#Mass page creation says "anything more than 25 or 50". And what about the redirects?
2. Stock AWB shouldn't change the initial-case template capitalization.
3. I seem to recall that it was mandated that you would leave template capitalization alone. Does my memory fail me?
4. It is similarly disheartening to see administrators wilfully ignoring duly-imposed editing restrictions.

–xeno^talk 17:18, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

25-50 is an absurdly low number and anyone using AWB is goign to hit that in the first 5 minutes. --Kumioko (talk) 17:30, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Look again. –xeno^talk 17:33, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

1. "Alternatives to simply creating mass quantities of articles include creating the articles in small batches" which is what happened here.
2. You obviously still don't understand AWB.
3. In detailed discussion there were several exceptions.
4. It wasn't duly imposed, it was just some stuff you made up one day.

Rich Farmbrough, 17:44, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

1. ... "While use of these alternatives does not obviate the need for a BRFA, it may garner more support from the community at large." And what about the redirects?
2. I understand that you have set SmackBot to change the capitalization of templates.
4. cf. WP:RESTRICT

–xeno^talk 17:46, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

RESTRICT says the community or Arbcom. This was one admin. The fact that the proposed restriction is on it's face crazy is another reason it shouldn't apply. All this is moot, though, the reason for the block is something no contained in either the restriction nor against the, rather hastily cobbled together, part of botpol you cite. Rich Farmbrough, 18:24, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

If you think the restriction was improperly enacted (or crazy), then you petition to have it removed. You don't just ignore it. I don't follow the rest of your statement about this being moot. –xeno^talk 18:32, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

It was never enacted, it was merely imposed by a now retired editor. Rich Farmbrough, 21:43, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

Unblock request

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Rich Farmbrough/Archive (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

---

Request reason:

1. Blocker states "Violation of mass article creation restriction" # While "mass article creation" isn't clearly defined in BOTPOL, it is specifically stated that "batches of 25-50" represent an "acceptable alternative" to mass article creation. # The page creation in question was mostly in ones or maybe twos and threes, and was mainly not in article space. The items created over the week are enumerated below, broken down by hour. It is clear that this is not "mass article creation" in the sense intended by the worders of BOTPOL and is well within the creation of 25-50 items indicated therin. Rich Farmbrough, 21:17, 9 September 2011 (UTC).
   

Decline reason:

It is clear from the discussion at AN that these edits are a violation of your restriction. Furthermore, the evidence that Xeno provides below is unambiguously a violation. This request is declined pending consensus at AN. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 01:10, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

---

If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

What about [14] ? –xeno^talk 21:36, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Not the point at issue, lets keep the discussion focussed. Rich Farmbrough, 21:40, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

WP:LAWYERING, WP:GAME. —Sladen (talk) 23:31, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes I wish people would not do that. "Aha! but what about these edits.... And what aboout.. " Rich Farmbrough, 01:23, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Rich Farmbrough/Archive (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

---

Request reason:

Reason, previous decline is on two grounds, the first is clearly wrong, the second is responding to a "fishing expedition" by Xeno. Rich Farmbrough, 9:23 pm, Today (UTC−4).

Decline reason:

I'm sorry, Rich, but you are under a clear restriction which you understand and have unambiguously violated. Focusing on how it was noticed or who reported it is entirely besides the point and does you no service. As it stands, the block may be disputable but is legitimate, and I can see no reason to overturn it on procedural ground.

You will have to address the concerns expressed about your editing if you are to be unblocked early (And, I expect, if you are to avoid further blocks). — Coren ^(talk) 02:53, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

---

If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

The point is that the block as imposed is wrong. Digging around and saying "Oh well we found some other edits which we don't like the look of so we'll just leave you blocked, is a bad business. Blocking should be the last resort when disruption is occurring. No one was disrupted by either the 92 new pages (not all are even articles) that Fram kicked up a stink about, far less the trivial redirects that Xeno later raised. This is process for the sake of it, responding to incorrect and malicious seeming allegations with a block, then supporting the block over technicalities that were not actually a problem. Rich Farmbrough, 03:07, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

Let us be absolutely clear here. The allegations of Fram was that I was "Mass creating articles" - this means batches of more than 50. I was following the procedure - in fact I was generally creating one article at a time. Therefore the allegation is wrong, and clearly wrong. Blocking any user on false allegations is bad. Failing to unblock is worse. Rich Farmbrough, 03:12, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

I've avoided this perpetual discussion like the plague, and I'm questioning myself about getting involved now, but a very cursory glance at your last 500 edits to mainspace show over 50 edits with the summary Created from Wikisource stretching back to September 4. I'm not sure how to reconcile that with the table below. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 03:54, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Well I didn't count them but I was told there were 92 pages created in the last week or so, so 50 edits seems on the light side, if anything. It's not really a perpetual discussion, though, people try to drag old loci of conversation in. Rich Farmbrough, 03:59, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

I've added totals. I make it 27 and 60 which is a total of 87, although some pages are still in my user-space and wil probably be deleted. Rich Farmbrough, 04:01, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

Rich, it's pretty clear that "No one was disrupted by [...]" is incorrect given that it led to an AN/I thread and the decision to block you. After a bit of investigation, the root issue is that people have repeatedly expressed concerns about your creation of large number of low quality articles and restricted you from doing so anymore. That you disagree with this (that the number is large, or that the articles are of low quality) is clear; but your disagreement does not free you from the restriction.

You have exactly two options: stop doing what the community objects to, or convince it that the restriction is unnecessary or inapplicable. You can't just ignore it when it suits you. — Coren ^(talk) 16:14, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

The AN thread was the disruption, this is the classic Fram attack, that he has been perpetrating for a year now. Rich Farmbrough, 18:00, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

If you are unwilling or unable to accept that others may have legitimate concerns with what you do, then there is nothing I can do to help. — Coren ^(talk) 18:23, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

{{Unblock|Per unblocking policy, this block is in not necessary to prevent damage or disruption. The premise that mass article creation (batches of over 50 articles created in rapid succession) was taking place, has been shown to be false (See table below). There is no suggestion that the article creation was disruptive, or that any damage or disruption has occurred or is expected to occur. Rich Farmbrough, 03:32, 10 September 2011 (UTC).
}}

Nvm. Rich Farmbrough, 08:21, 12 September 2011 (UTC).

Counts of biography articles created September 2011

Date	Hour	Main space	User space
7 Sept	16:00	1	0
7 Sept	00:00	2	1
6 Sept	23:00	2	1
6 Sept	22:00	5	1
6 Sept	22:00	6	1
6 Sept	20:00	0	1
6 Sept	14:00	1	0
6 Sept	13:00	1	0
6 Sept	12:00	1	1
6 Sept	10:00	2	0
5 Sept	23:00	2	0
5 Sept	16:00	2	0
5 Sept	15:00	1	6
5 Sept	15:00	1	6
5 Sept	05:00	0	3
5 Sept	04:00	0	11
5 Sept	02:00	0	5
4 Sept	23:00	0	3
4 Sept	22:00	0	1
4 Sept	00:00	0	3
3 Sept	23:00	0	3
3 Sept	19:00	0	6
Total		27	60

That's still ignoring all the redirects you created in one go, which is not xeno saying "Aha! but what about these edits.... And what aboout.. ", because he already pointed it out when you were first blocked, only you decided to remove that from your talk page for whatever reason. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 05:56, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Have restored that section as it is relevant information relating to an active contested block. –xeno^talk 17:53, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

How many of those user-space creations were then moved to the mainspace? Or let's count it this way: how many pages have you brought to the mainspace (as immediate creations or from your userspace) in that week? 87? Fram (talk) 18:30, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Less, but I don't see the relevance. The point is, contrary to your accusations, this is not mass article creation by any stretch of the imagination. Rich Farmbrough, 20:30, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

Why the revert

Rich, it you want to blank-archive items other than the block that fine.

Resetting or removing a declined unblock request is not.

- J Greb (talk) 03:30, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that happened. Rich Farmbrough, 03:32, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

Indeed it did not.

And I don't want to blank-archive stuff, someone blocked the archiving bot. Rich Farmbrough, 03:34, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

Ah... I see what happened. You had an out of sequence new request. Sorry, I picked up the two declines prior to your purge and then the active followed by a decline, my bad.

And some food for thought: you are under editing restrictions. Breaching them, and at this point the two declines seem to agree happened, nets a block. Full stop. If you feel that is out of line, re-open that can of worms after the block runs its course. Make the cases either that the restrictions are too vague or not codified in one place as to what you are and are not allowed to do or that applying a block to end behavior that the community has deemed disruptive - either in general or by a specific editor - does not prevent damage to the project and/or the community. Flogging it with the unblock requests is something though that would normally result in you loosing editing privileges on this page for the remainder of the block.

- J Greb (talk) 03:46, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, doubtless you are right, however I appealed to common sense and natural justice in the first two unblock requests. Block policy, however makes it clear that blocking should only be used to avoid disruption or damage, and that blocks which are performing neither of these functions should be removed. Rich Farmbrough, 03:51, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

... can you bring down your number of open block requests to 1 - there's 2 of them active, and I wouldn't want to decline the wrong one :-) (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:25, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I believe Rich deliberately has two open unblock requests – one for his bots and one for himself. Jenks24 (talk) 12:31, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

But, the edits of a bot are the extension of the edits of the editor in control of the bot - and therefore should also be blocked when the editor is (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 15:14, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I think Fempto bot only does automatic changes. So I don't see the point of blocking this one. Block is used to enforce editing restrictions. One has to see which part of editor's the blocking admin wants to prevent. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:27, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I believe the idea is that is that it is a safety measure; when Femtobot goes AWOL, the owner would be unable to fix it, yet would still be holding the responsibility to do so. (Nota bene: the Femto bot account has been used manually[15] during a previous block on the main account). —Sladen (talk) 01:54, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

A block is not a personal reprimand or punishment (or it is not meant to be - the point is lost many), per blocking policy it should only be used to prevent disruption and damage. The blocks to the bots do neither. Rich Farmbrough, 17:38, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

486 (number) (disambiguation) listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect 486 (number) (disambiguation). Since you had some involvement with the 486 (number) (disambiguation) redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). D O N D E groovily Talk to me 21:41, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

SmackBot BRFA 39

Xeno, the coding error in the Navbox is exactly what the bot run was fixing. Rich Farmbrough, 18:28, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

Yea - mea culpa Rich, I totally misread this one. Sorry 'bout that. –xeno^talk 18:33, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Strange edit by bot

Helpful Pixie Bot added a {{Use dmy dates}} template in this edit to Forbidden relationships in Judaism. Why would he do that? Debresser (talk) 00:28, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

The article uses "1 January 1991", thus establishing the style. Rich Farmbrough, 08:24, 14 August 2011 (UTC).

Because of a single use of a date in a certain style you can't label the article as you have to use this style now throughout. If it were an article about something English e.g., that would be a reason, even if no dates were used yet. But the incidental use of a date in a certain format is no prove of anything. Debresser (talk) 08:33, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Someone can always change it if they want to. Rich Farmbrough, 14:50, 14 August 2011 (UTC).

You know very well that that is not so likely to happen. Does the bot really have to add this? Debresser (talk) 19:49, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Rich? Debresser (talk) 02:46, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I think if there was a reason they would change it. Where there are no "strong ties" priority decides the style. Rich Farmbrough, 22:24, 31 August 2011 (UTC).

Perhaps this is of interest to you

An article that you have been involved in editing, Falafel [[16]] has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the good article reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Veritycheck (talk) 01:34, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Not really. Rich Farmbrough, 16:27, 23 September 2011 (UTC).

The Signpost: 19 September 2011

• From the editor: Changes to The Signpost

• News and notes: Ushahidi research tool announced, Citizendium five years on: success or failure?, and Wikimedia DC officially recognised

• In the news: Wikipedia: yesterday's news? Calls for women, doctors, and scholars of humanities; Wales makes Wikimedia work "look easy"

• Sister projects: On the Wikinews fork

• WikiProject report: Back to school

• Featured content: The best of the week

• Arbitration report: ArbCom narrowly rejects application to open new case

• Technology report: MediaWiki 1.18 deployment begins, the alleged "injustice" of WMF engineering policy, and Wikimedians warned of imminent fix to magic word

• Popular pages: Article stats for the English Wikipedia in the last year

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 10:25, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Winged unicorn tags

I can answer some of these questions for you. In the edit you said the article was not referenced. This isn't really true, because it links to a variety of other wikipedia pages about winged unicorns, which have their own references. You might look at this as somewhat of a disambiguation page (disambigs don't need references) which discusses them. The articles themselves have the references. The only reason I could think to include a reference specifically about winged unicorns is if there were original content here not on the articles it directs to.

As far as a citation being needed for the alternate names, 'horned pegasus' makes sense because the earliest known winged unicorn (WW2 air division) was a pegasus with a horn added to it. As far as the 'alicorn' bit, that seems to be a misunderstanding in the MLP communities, right now it's even used on the MLP characters article, a problem I am trying to have corrected. The portmanteaus have shown up on other articles I have found discussing the creatures. That editors are using the term seems reason enough to disambiguate it here. Bonechamber (talk) 07:27, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Y Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 19:28, 23 September 2011 (UTC).

Proposed major re-org at Mukkulathor

Greetings, based on your recent participation in the article, I'd like to invite you to: Talk:Mukkulathor#Suggest_major_reorganisation_of_the_article. Thanks for your input! MatthewVanitas (talk) 13:46, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Changes in Ireland article

Just curious - why change, for example, 16th century to sixteenth century? And if you are going to do it, why just in one section (Food and drink)? Hohenloh ⁺ 12:06, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I see you changed it back - no big deal. It looks better as words IMHO, and I probably edited that section to change something else and decided not to. Certainly it would have made mor sene to change the whole article or nothing as you say.Rich Farmbrough, 12:48, 20 September 2011 (UTC).

Template Copying

Hello, I see that you have recently copied a lot of templates from the english wikipedia to the hindi wikipedia(semi-automatically, I'm guessing). Would you please tell why you have done the same? I have no problems with copying templates from en to hi, but I dont understand why such a huge influx of templates is being made right now, that too without any translation.--Siddhartha Ghai (talk) 16:40, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Re:OK, I've just seen the volume of content you've added, and I'd seriously like to ask you if you've talked to an hi admin about this. If you have, then go ahead; but if you haven't, I'd really like for you to put a hold on this until we have community support. Regards--Siddhartha Ghai (talk) 16:45, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Drop a note then take this to hi: Rich Farmbrough, 20:04, 23 September 2011 (UTC).

Nomination of Tiffany Page for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Tiffany Page is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tiffany Page until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. LongLiveMusic (talk) 15:44, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The article has clearly been vandalised, by addition of spurious information, back in July. A simple revert will sort it out. Rich Farmbrough, 16:32, 11 September 2011 (UTC).

Well done, AllyD! Rich Farmbrough, 16:33, 11 September 2011 (UTC).

Ban proposal at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

While you are aware of the general thread, I don't know whether you followed it after your block. There is at the moment a proposal to ban you from Wikipedia for 1 year. You are unable to directly participate in it for the moment of course, but any comments you would like to make about it can be copied to it (by me or if you prefer by another editor). The section is at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Ban Proposal. Fram (talk) 13:12, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with the way you and Boleyn have been creating the DNB articles of late but a ban is ridiculous. Rich has never had anything other than good intentions. I'm not happy with DNB articles being created either with cleanup tags slopped on them and I feel it should be done quickly manually. But Rich most certainly didn't deserve a ban proposal or even a block for what he did.♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:07, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, preposterous. But that's t comes with the territory on WP.Rich Farmbrough, 13:15, 24 September 2011 (UTC).

THIS BOT SCREWED UP THE FORD FE ENGINE ARTICLE AND WILL NOT ALLOW ITSELF TO BE UNDONE

It messed up the coding for the template at the bottom of the article, messed with, apparently, every line in the article. And when I tried to undo the damage it just redid it all again. And I'm not supposed to notice, or comment on that???? You delete any comments that point out the failings of this bot? I read a little about this bot, and even more at its apparent author's talk page, and this is not an unknown, or unidentified issue with this bot....SO WHY THE HECK IS IT ****STILL**** RUNNING?????? User:12.73.220.22 19:58, 18 September 2011

You are a little confused. Look at the rendered page before and after, nothing is messed up. Nor is every line affected. And no I don't delete anything. Rich Farmbrough, 19:28, 23 September 2011 (UTC).

sockpuppet editing

There is an open WP:SPI case looking at sockpuppet editing primarily on the Johann Hari/ Talk page. As you edited the Johann Hari/Talk page between 2004 and 2011, your input is welcomed. Yonmei (talk) 22:30, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Rich Farmbrough, 13:19, 24 September 2011 (UTC).

Stale Userspace drafts

Hi. Did you notice that there are 61 undated pages in Category:Userspace drafts. Btw, see User_talk:Avicennasis#Stale_Userspace_drafts? Debresser (talk) 17:11, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Stopping the bot since the owner is blocked for a week

Regretfully, I am leaving this message and stopping the bot because the owner/operator was blocked for a week. Although I have concerns about the validity of the block I don't think a bot should be running if the sole operator is blocked. Bot operators are required to monitor and repair any problems that bot creates and a blocked editor cannot do that. --Kumioko (talk) 15:10, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, you know there is nothing saying that leaving a message will stop the bot. Rich Farmbrough, 20:01, 23 September 2011 (UTC).

Rich Farmbrough, 20:01, 23 September 2011 (UTC).

WP:BOTPOL#Configuration tips:"Providing some mechanism which allows contributors other than the bot's operator to control the bot … without resorting to blocks … bot could check the contents of a particular page". My reading of that is that if you are unable, or unwilling, to provide that functionality for the bots then such bots will always be "controlled" through the use of blocks alone.

My understanding is that it's entirely the operator's choice, but likely in your own interests to provide a method which is not visibly accumulating in the block history log. —Sladen (talk) 12:26, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

My bot was one of the first to offer that facility thanks to AWB, you saw the shenanignans that stopped me using AWB for most bot runs. For years I even allowed unregistered uses to stop the bot. Meh. I guess the culture is changing and not necessarily in a good way. Rich Farmbrough, 18:12, 24 September 2011 (UTC).

Question

Why should I have my day wasted, my planned evening out ruined, my work (both on wiki and off) thrown into disarray, and my sleep disturbed, because someone stalks my edits? Rich Farmbrough, 21:17, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

At the collected (AWB+full bot) edit speeds in question, it's really impossible for anyone to review all of your edits (much as one might wish to believe otherwise). Chances are that you've walked across somebody else's Watchlist and trigged them to try and investigate what that edit run was doing. (This is why I've ended up here on previous occasions to report issues with bot edits).

My general advice would be just to detach for a week, think things over, and ponder how to come back and make fewer, but higher-quality edits, at an average speed where a single human can reliably review them before saving or initiating. (Which is purely what WP:BOTPOL requires: "Bots … should be run at a rate that permits review of their edits when necessary"). Nobody is wanting "punishment", all that is being requested by the succession of admins placing this and previous blocks is simple compliance with Wikipedia policies and procedures (including the individual edit-restrictions).

You've already won the edit count wars. By a long way… Quality, not quantity is the way forward. —Sladen (talk) 23:47, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

It's not someone's watch list, Fram has admitted to periodically stalking my edits. Rich Farmbrough, 01:20, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

In terms of your other point, "taking a week away" I am currently working away from Wikipedia - or I was - on the Wikisource end of things, it's this senseless farrago of nonsense that has drawn me back. It's a mistake to think that more edits means less accuracy, in fact the first time around the block one of the projects this stupidity interrupted was typo-fixing WP 0.8, which as a reult went out of the door with tens of thousands of spelling errors. Obviously a good bun fight at AN/I and other talk pages is far more important to some than shipping quality product to some of the most disadvantaged people in the world, but for myself I'd rather reverse the priorities and concentrate on building, rather than tearing down. Rich Farmbrough, 01:39, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

As a further point if someone is watch listing pages before I create them it would be a neat trick. Rich Farmbrough, 03:39, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

It actually is technically possible, using the same method of me "watching" for the recreation of specific deleted articles (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:24, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that is certainly possible. But the situation I was describing is more one of foreknowledge. Rich Farmbrough, 18:02, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

If anyone is curious, I noticed the creations because of Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2011 September 3#Dictionary of National Biography contributor templates, where I went looking at what articles now used them (for months they were totally unused, just like thousands of other templates Rich Farmbrough made in the past). In this way, I couldn't help but notice the new articles, and their problems. If I had really been stalking his edits, I would have noticed the mass creation of redirects, with ones like Whatsisname) where his script again screwed up (the trailing bracket? Straight from the redirect target, where it is an alternative name, "Nodessertro (Whatsisname)"). It's just a typical example of the problems with the script creations which lead to the editing restriction (that time around, it were completely incorrect category names). Fram (talk) 18:40, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

No wrong again. They were not totally unused. Besides which it appears that you oppose the project moving fast, and oppose it moving slow. I have told you before that coming to me with actual problems is helpful, creating a mess or attacking me isn't. You have now successfully excluded me form the TfD. I know you just love to see stuff other people create being deleted, I just don't know why. Rich Farmbrough, 20:26, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

Sigtrygg Silkbeard

Fixed

Pashhur

Should be a redirect. Rich Farmbrough, 18:38, 11 September 2011 (UTC).

Suggestion for superscripts

I often see superscripts that looks like these:

The color may be blue ^[1] or orange.

It would be great if you could enhance your bot to move superscripted text to better locations:

The color may be blue^[1] or orange.

Mfwitten (talk) 19:37, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes this would be a generally useful fix I think. Rich Farmbrough, 17:37, 18 September 2011 (UTC).

This was added to AWB. I no longer run bots. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:05, 23 April 2014 (UTC).

Unchallengeable take downs?

Rich, On the talk page for the proposed terms of use, you mention a takedown that is unchallengeable. While it's possible, I think it's more likely that it's a symptom of our bad communication about it or something (for which I would take responsibility). I don't think we have any that are unchallengeable right now. So, I want to write to ask if there's something I can clarify, or whether I'm missing something on my list? Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 01:14, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the matter has come up a couple of times, both on the Talk:Texas_Instruments_signing_key_controversy talk page of the article in question, and in the commentary to a recent (July) SignPost. The issue is that there only people who can issue a counter notice are the anonymous editors who originally posted the material. On most websites another person could post the material, wait for a challenge and respond to that. Here, since take-down has been implemented as an office action no one can repost the material without going against the office action (and in fact, even if they did, it would be removed by editors in support of the office action) therefore the material, which is freely published elsewhere, since the DMCA was challenged and the challenge not responded to, cannot be posted on Wikipedia. Effectively this makes Wikipedia the most censored forum for this information. Rich Farmbrough, 01:32, 11 September 2011 (UTC).

Interesting. My understanding from the legal team is that a DMCA takedown must be challenged by a party with legal standing, which would mean that it has to be someone who had posted the content. If we were to then suggest or passively allow someone else to post it, we would not be in full compliance. However, I'll confirm that. If that's the case, then we're in compliance with the regulations and others arguably are not. If it's an issue of interpretation, I'll find out why we're not more broad, but since Mr. Godwin structured those originally, I tend to think we're at the broadest level that he (and then Mr Brigham) felt was legally possible. But I'll get an answer and try to report back. Thanks for clarifying. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 05:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)