User talk:Bender235/2019 archive

Gbook links should not have their search queries removed

Hi, I noticed you're using AWB to clean up a bunch of articles, such as making them use the standard books.google.com domain, as well as removing other gunk from the URL, which is great. However, I don't agree with the removal of the q= parameter, which shows the search query the user initially used. While page numbers alone are good, having the query helps highlight the important part, which might be a keyword that you can't automatically guess from the article's title or context. Additionally, these queries will still function for cases where Google has removed previewing the book, while without it you'll get nothing. Opencooper (talk) 23:33, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

What I'm doing is removing the link clutter on the Google Books links, and I actually don't think that the marked queries are important (whenever a book only has snippet preview rather than full pages, I leave the query though because otherwise nothing would show). If you want we could take this debate to a broader audience though, say WP:VILLAGEPUMP. For now, I will halt the AWB clean up. --bender235 (talk) 00:28, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

I agree the q= query should be retained. bender235, how do you determine if a Google Book only has snippet preview because I have seen books change status over time. I believe rights holders have some control for their books. GB is not like a public library, more like a commercial book seller (eg. Amazon). Retaining as much info as possible to satisfy WP:V is a wise choice, if nothing else it's a pseudo |quote=. -- GreenC 00:47, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Usually whether the pg=... argument is included in the URL is the tell. And yes, Google gives the publisher of each book to decide whether they allow page previews, snippets, or nothing at all. I wasn't aware, though, that this is subject to change over time.

One thing that we can agree on, I hope, is that we should have the link use the standard books.google.com TLD and also change the language of the Google Books interface to English (the hl=... argument that I was changing to hl=en in my edits). --bender235 (talk) 01:16, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Agree re: domain. I think publishers have control of their content accessibility and can change on whim. I've even seen entire books disappear, or that were once full-view revert to limit-view. As a commercial book seller, it's not a good service for Wikipedia purposes, but all we have. There are competitors working on more stable replacements, all I can say :) Another reason to retain q= if/when we switch to another provider will make mapping easier. -- GreenC 01:50, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

@GreenC and Opencooper:: To give this a broader scope, which parts of the Google Books URL do you deem essential? Let's take an example:

https://books.google.com/books?id=fIrcBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA165&lpg=PA165&dq=%22Canham+Glacier%22&source=bl&ots=TT1FGi9Lbm&sig=XDTLyZ2HwVBOCgcRBvOyBSsAWmU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjT_pCZyY3bAhWFYlAKHYQ_A2sQ6AEIPTAF#v=onepage&q=%22Canham%20Glacier%22&f=false

Here I marked the Book ID, the page number, the search query, and the interface language. Which of the others is essential (and thus worth keeping), and which is clutter? --bender235 (talk) 15:56, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with all those. Might also keep |q=%22Canham%20Glacier%22 ? There might also be other forms besides dq like aq or bq etc.. not sure. -- GreenC 16:45, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Book IDs, page numbers, and search queries are what I would consider essential (based on my experience). The interface language should be left unspecified so users can see the pages in their own preferred language. I'm not sure why gbooks duplicates certain parameters such as pg/lpg and q/dq, but any redundant parameters should be removed as well. Opencooper (talk) 02:03, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of File:Taylorwessing.png

The file File:Taylorwessing.png has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Unused logo with no article used, it's also can't move to commons because of an unused logo will be deleted as of out of project scope.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated files}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the file's talk page.

Please consider addressing the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated files}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and files for discussion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Willy1018 (talk) 07:50, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Aaron Pixton for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Aaron Pixton 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/Aaron Pixton until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-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 notice from the top of the article. CapitalSasha ~ talk 11:08, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Transportion

Suggestion. At User:Bender the Bot it says "transportion" where it should say "transport". --77.173.90.33 (talk) 23:28, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Nice catch, thanks. --bender235 (talk) 00:02, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for February 2

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Mixed model, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Python (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 09:40, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Merger discussion for KidZui

An article that you have been involved in editing—KidZui—has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. _Mrwoogi010^✉ 17:01, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Costliest U.S. Atlantic hurricanes 1900–2010

Template:Costliest U.S. Atlantic hurricanes 1900–2010 has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Steel1943 (talk) 03:41, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Costliest U.S. Atlantic hurricanes by wealth normalization

Template:Costliest U.S. Atlantic hurricanes by wealth normalization has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Noah^Talk 01:52, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Capildeo family

The article Capildeo family has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

There is only one that too unreliable source Not meeting Wikipedia:Verifiability WP:Notability and nothing much notable in it as well as reliability, unsourced, advertising

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Manupriy Ahluwalia (talk) 07:39, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Please stop adding inflation information

I occasionally run across articles where people have added monetary equivalencies, usually comparing financial information to its equivalency of 2018. I found such a notation when reading the John Paul Getty article and with a great deal of effort in tracking the source of the notation learned that you are the editor who added what you call "inflation" information. Unless there is some tragedy that causes Wikipedia to stop existing and its articles to be removed from the Internet, people will be reading its articles not only in 2018, but in 2038, 2058 and perhaps even 3018. How a 1930 financial amount relates to its 2018 equivalency is information that is unnecessary and outdated almost as soon as you add it. Please cease from making such notations in Wikipedia articles. I will never be able to track down all of those notations, but I will work to remove them when I can find them. I'm sure if you look at the bigger picture of how such notation will be viewed in the future, you will agree they have no place in Wikipedia articles. Remember, the year 2018 lasted only 365 days and it is already over. Otherwise, I greatly appreciate your commitment to Wikipedia and the work you do to improve it. Best wishes. MarydaleEd (talk) 22:51, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

@MarydaleEd: I'm sorry, but you completely misunderstand how the {{inflation}} works. This template is dynamic, meaning it will update automatically whenever new CPI and GDP deflator numbers are released. Please read about how this {{inflation}} works before removing it from other Wikipedia articles. --bender235 (talk) 02:47, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

@Bender235: You are correct. I did misunderstand. I had no idea it was a template. I've been here for more than a decade and there is still so much to learn! Please forgive the misunderstanding. I'm curious, however; if it is a template that automatically updates, why is it associated with your name? I must admit, I think it is a ridiculous template. When a monetary amount is indicated in relation to a specific year, simple reading comprehension tells a person the amount of money is just that: relative to the year in which it is connected. As in this article, the monetary reference was outdated. Such will almost always be the case since the CPI and GDP deflator numbers are not provided daily. But, oh well. Wikipedia did not ask for my opinion on the matter. I thank you for bringing this to my attention and correcting me. I appreciate the education. Best wishes to you! MarydaleEd (talk) 23:09, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

List of LAM Mozambique Airlines destinations

Hello there! I recently added Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport to the "List of LAM Mozambique Airlines destinations". I would like to have a better explanation on why you reverted my edition as I have referenced the same source as Copenhagen, Madrid-Barajas and Berlin Schönefeld, the "World Airline Directory". Please check the source and you will find Paris there. Thank you! Alexmacovela (talk) 19:45, 3 April 2019 (UTC).

Please do not use Cite templates

Hi, thanks for your effort in contributing to Wikipedia!
However, may I try to convince you to not convert plain refs to {{cite...}} templates? They have no advantages, and many disadvantages:

• The format they generate "10(20) 30-40" is incomprehensible to readers who are not scientists or academics. Like the practice of drastically abbreviating names of authors and journals, it was invented by publishers to save precious paper; but in an electronic medium, that justification does not apply anymore Even journal websites now write "volume 10, issue 20, pages 30-40" -- which is much more reader-friendly.
• The templates make the references take twice as much space, and hence make the source twice as hard to understand and edit.
• The templates themseles are very difficult to read, because of the free parameter order. It is hard to find the first author's name. It is hard to tell whether two references are for the same paper. With plain refs, that is much easier.
• Only experienced editors know how to use the templates. A new editor who could add a useful reference will give up once he sees the source, and thinks that references must be entered that way.
• The splitting of the author list and of authors first and last names too is something that made sense in printed journals, but makes no sense in electronic media. It only means more work (a lot more work) for editors who get references from sources where that splitting is not done.
• The templates are inflexible, so if the thing is published in some non-standard way (like "pages 10-12 and 27 of volume 1 and 33 of volume 2, with an errata on volume 5", there is no way to enter that information; or, if there is, the editor must waste time reading the template's documentation.
• The templates are often misused, with book chapers being cast as articles, etc. Then the template has the opposite of the intended effect.

Probably 99% of the templates now being used in Wikipedia are doing much more harm than good. It is hard to tell which have been the most mind-boggingly disastrous, but the {{cite...}} templates are up there among the finalists.
So, please don't waste your time "citeifying" references; and think whether there is any point in using them yourself. "Neat looks" is not a goal of Wikipedia; it cannot be achieved, it does not contribute to its goal, and precious editor time should not be wasted on it. Consider devoting your time to improving the contents of the articles, or of making them more readable and easier to understand.
All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 21:21, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

@Jorge Stolfi: thanks for the detailed explanation, but I completely disagree with each and every point you have raised.

• The volume, issue, page location nomenclature is, besides being easy to understand IMHO, mostly irrelevant since most people, especially non-academics nowhere near a scientific library will access journal articles via the DOI link.
• I agree that templates are hard to understand for new Wikipedia editors, but as a matter of fact citation templates do not need to be edited; article titles or page numbers do not change over time. So what is there to edit?
• Splitting in first and last name is done for the purpose of ordering.
• There do, in fact, exist ways to enter "non-standard" citations. Admittedly this requires detailed knowledge on the part of the editor using the citation template, but still this method is better than having editors inventing their own non-standard citations ad hoc, resulting in dozens of different citation styles for the same "non-standard" case.
• Erroneous use of {{cite journal}} when {{cite book}} would have been proper, does occur. But again, we similarly often have non-template using editors write book titles in quotation marks, or author names after the title (Great book, by John Writer, 1999). Overall, citation templates result in clearly written citations everywhere on Wikipedia.

Now, for the advantages of citation templates:

• They unify the citation style across Wikipedia: unfortunately, every discipline has their own citation styles, and even within certain disciplines variations are stark. Citation templates harmonize them to a single style.
• If the style ever needs to be changed to, say, incorporate your suggestions of "volume 10, issue 20, pages 30-40" instead of the current "10 (20) 30-40", millions of articles throughout Wikipedia can be adjusted instantaneously to the new styles by fixing just a single internal template.
• Under the hood, citation templates create so-called Dublin Core elements, machine-readable versions of the citation that are of important use to search engines and alike.

It seems to me that it's not the citation templates that you don't like, but citation style 1. The latter, as mentioned above, can easily be adjusted if your critique finds consensus. In the mean time, your insistence on keeping a different citation style in certain articles only confuses the reader, and ultimately does more harm. I hope you'll agree with that conclusion. --bender235 (talk) 22:48, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

[stalker] Agree with everything Bender235 said, and add that machine-readable citations are critical to the future of Wikipedia. We reached a point where content is growing exponentially but editors able to maintain it staying flat - most edits are done by a small core. The idea of limitless manpower from the "crowd" is not true when it comes to certain things like the boring and hard work of keeping citations accurate. So we lean more heavily on bots and tools over time, they require machine-readable cites. Some don't like that.. but the majority prefer help from automated tools where it is possible to do. -- GreenC 23:59, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Lead for an article in mathematical statistics

Hi – You have been making substantial edits to the leads of some articles in mathematical statistics. The edits are technically valid, but they make the leads more difficult to understand. As a simple example, your edits introduce Greek letters, where such letters are not needed.

WP:MATH tells the following.

The article should start with a short introductory section (often referred to as the lead). The purpose of this section is to describe, define, and give context to the subject of the article, to establish why it is interesting or useful, and to summarize the most important points. The lead should as far as possible be accessible to a general reader, so specialized terminology and symbols should be avoided as much as possible.

...
The lead sentence should informally define or describe the subject.
...
The lead section should include, where appropriate ...

An informal introduction to the topic, without rigor, suitable for a general audience. (The appropriate audience for the overview will vary by article, but it should be as basic as reasonable.) The informal introduction should clearly state that it is informal, and that it is only stated to introduce the formal and correct approach.

Additionally, MOS:LEAD tells the following.

It is even more important here than in the rest of the article that the text be accessible. Editors should avoid lengthy paragraphs and overly specific descriptions – greater detail is saved for the body of the article.

...
In general, introduce useful abbreviations, but avoid difficult-to-understand terminology and symbols. Mathematical equations and formulas should be avoided when they conflict with the goal of making the lead section accessible to as broad an audience as possible. Where uncommon terms are essential, they should be placed in context, linked and briefly defined. The subject should be placed in a context familiar to a normal reader.
...

The first sentence should tell the nonspecialist reader what, or who, the subject is. It should be in plain English.

Some of your edits have changed the articles so that they no longer conform to those policies.

I believe that making the lead—especially the first sentence—accessible to a general reader (where feasible) is important.

SolidPhase (talk) 12:43, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree with you. Just sometimes it is hard to define a subject precisely without getting into too technical details. I encourage you to simplify the changes I made whereever you see fit. --bender235 (talk) 13:35, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm really much glad for this—will do!  SolidPhase (talk) 15:33, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

I assume you refer to my changes to parameter space, or is there another article you had in mind? --bender235 (talk) 15:44, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

I was also including Likelihood function, Likelihood-ratio test, and Maximum likelihood estimation.  SolidPhase (talk) 16:09, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

I didn't really change much on Likelihood-ratio test. As for likelihood function and maximum likelihood estimation, I really tried to give a comprehensive yet accessible summary. I know in both there are a lot of Greek letters flying around, but I don't see much room for simplification without sacrificing thoroughness and precision. --bender235 (talk) 16:14, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

The leads do not now conform to the above-cited Wikipedia policies; they previously did conform. Additionally, the leads are now inaccessible to many more readers. SolidPhase (talk) 16:33, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Again, I encourage you to suggest improvements. --bender235 (talk) 16:43, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

The versions prior your editing conformed to Wikipedia policies. Moreover, the prior versions were accessible to many more readers; indeed, I have to concentrate to read the current versions, and I have worked professionally as a research statistician. For those two reasons, the prior versions were better. Thus, my intention was to revert to the prior versions.   SolidPhase (talk) 17:00, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

For likelihood function, I guess we could move the current lede (my version) to the definition section, and use the old very informal, very light introduction. --bender235 (talk) 17:47, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

That sounds good. I will make the change, if you agree. Perhaps it would be better to put the current version in a new section "Remarks", immediately before or after (I am unsure which) the section "Interpretations under different foundations"; what do you think?

About maximum likelihood estimation, the article is less important than likelihood function. Even so, the current first paragraph does not conform to the Wikipedia policies and seems too complicated. Additionally, it states that MLE "has become a dominant means of inference within much of the quantitative research of the social and medical sciences": the references for that statement are from the 1980s, and so not really applicable. It also points out that MLE usually requires numerical methods: that point is important, and so I definitely agree with keeping it.

SolidPhase (talk) 16:16, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

You mentioned about the article Parameter space; so I looked at that. The article includes unneeded mathematical expressions and Greek letters in the first paragraph—the same problem as with the above. There is also another, more serious, problem. The article’s second sentence is the following.

If data generating processes of a particular model are collected in the set ${\mathcal {M}}$, then a parameter-defining mapping $\theta$ is understood as a submersion acting from ${\mathcal {M}}$ to a parameter space $\Theta$; that is, a typical data generating process $\mu _{0}\in {\mathcal {M}}$ is associated with a point $\theta _{0}\equiv \theta (\mu _{0})$.

I cannot comprehend that, and I have a strong background in this area (well above average among statisticians). Specifically, “data generating processes of a particular model” does not make sense.

The article Statistical model cites one of the world’s most eminent statisticians, Sir David Cox, for this: A statistical model represents, often in considerably idealized form, the data-generating process. Thus, a statistical model is an idealized representation of the data-generating process; it is not the data-generating process itself.

The representation is never exact; ergo, we have a common aphorism: All models are wrong. The principle expressed by that aphorism has even been referred to as the “guiding principle of modern statistics”. The aphorism article quotes one of the great statistical minds of the 20th century, George Box, thus: “there never was, or ever will be, an exactly normal distribution or an exact linear relationship”. Nonetheless, statistical models are commonly based on exact normal distributions and exact linear relationships—because models are idealized representations.

I checked the reference that your edits cite, Davidson & MacKinnon. Your edits cite the reference accurately(!). Thus the reference is incompetent. The reference is actually not in statistics, but rather econometrics: it is common for econometricians to be skilled at complex manipulation of formulae while not understanding the fundamentals—and that seems to be the case with Davidson & MacKinnon.

I looked at two other articles in mathematical statistics that you have recently edited the leads of: Lagrange multiplier test and Wald test. Consider them in turn….

For Lagrange multiplier test, the first sentence is the following.

In statistics, the Lagrange multiplier (LM) test, also known as the score test, is one of three classical approaches to hypothesis testing, together with the Wald test and the likelihood-ratio test, for testing a null hypothesis $H_{0}:\mathbf {c} (\theta )=\mathbf {0}$ for a parameter of interest $\theta$.

The sentence is so long and involved that it has to be read a few times to be understood. And $\mathbf {c} (\theta )$ is not defined: what does it mean?

For Wald test, the first paragraph include the following statement.

$\xi _{w}=\left({\hat {\theta }}-\theta _{0}\right)^{\mathsf {T}}\left[\mathbf {\hat {V}} ({\hat {\theta }})\right]^{-1}\left({\hat {\theta }}-\theta _{0}\right)$ has an asymptotic χ²-distribution with degrees of freedom equal to the number of restrictions

A statement like that should not be presented in the first paragraph: some readers will see the equation, get intimidated/perplexed, and then stop reading the article. Also, what is $\mathbf {\hat {V}} ({\hat {\theta }})$?

I have now looked at edits that you have made to the leads of six different articles in mathematical statistics. In all six articles, your edits seem to violate WP:MATH and MOS:LEAD, as well as make the leads—especially the opening paragraphs—less accessible for a broad readership.

I looked at some other edits that you have made to other articles. You seem to have made an enormous contribution to Wikipedia, across an extremely broad range of subjects. I found it breathtaking, and I am very much grateful for your work. I ask, though, that you consider the foregoing when editing leads of articles in mathematical statistics.

SolidPhase (talk) 18:59, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Most of the contributions I make to Wikipedia are copy-editing, so nothing of substance is changed. My expertise is actually in statistics and econometrics. That being said, I agree with you that some of the revisions I made to those articles are overly complicated and could be simplified (at least in the lead of the article).

A gave the opening paragraph in Wald test a re-write; formulas are taken out, more intuition built in. And make no mistake, I really appreciate that you are double-checking my contributions and guardrailing my tendency to be overly technical on those descriptions. --bender235 (talk) 19:26, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Also, the complete revert of my edits to likelihood function went a tad bit too far. As of right now, the lead is absurdly vague and uninformative; "a particular function ... that plays a key role in inference." Just as good as "it's some function that is used for something." I'll re-add some of what I originally wrote in less technical terms. --bender235 (talk) 16:21, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I have been away for the past month. About the changes that you made to Likelihood function, those make the lead too complicated, and introduce problems. I have left a relevant comment at Talk: Likelihood function#A good lead.  SolidPhase (talk) 20:10, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Above, I noted that the article Maximum likelihood estimation stated that MLE "has become a dominant means of inference within much of the quantitative research of the social and medical sciences", and that the references for that statement are from the 1980s, and so not really applicable. You did not reply. I then deleted the statement. You recently put the statement back in, without explanation. The statement should only be there if it has a reasonably recent reference. Hence, I have again deleted the statement.  SolidPhase (talk) 19:31, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Oh, I wasn't aware you wanted a more recent textbook citation. Will deliver. --bender235 (talk) 19:39, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Citation formats

Wikipedia has policies about maintaining consistency of citations: for citations specifically (WP:CITEVAR), as well as in general (MOS:STYLEVAR). You have sometimes changed articles' citation formats in violation of those policies.  SolidPhase (talk) 19:31, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

DTR

Re: your edit summary. I would have just left a note, but ArbCom DS templates have to be left unmodified. I usually don’t template experienced users, but Template:Ds/alert has to be used or else someone won’t be considered to be aware of the DS per WP:AC/DS. Feel free to also remove this, but since you cited that, I felt you were owed an explanation. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:10, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Honestly, did you even read the allegations of Ponyo, or did you just take them at their face value of "controversy"? Ponyo complained that six years ago I added a year of birth to Jonathan Nolan, when even the policy I oppose and try to change specifically lists adding the year rather than the full date of birth as the "fall back" option in case of privacy concern. What exactly did I do wrong, other than apparently hurting his feelings? --bender235 (talk) 15:19, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

As the template states, there is no accusation of wrongdoing: all it says is “Hey! There are special rules in place for BLPs and admins can unilaterally sanction if policy is violated. Be aware of this.” Nothing more. Giving out DS alerts when someone is editing in a contentious area is normal and not a big deal. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:40, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

I've been active on Wikipedia for 15 years. Do you really think I'm not aware of special rules for BLP? I have questioned the application of one particular rule, specifically how exactly censoring someone's date of birth from Wikipedia increases that person's protection from identity theft by one iota when that same person's full date of birth appears in the Knowledge Graph when one googles her name. You tell me. --bender235 (talk) 20:49, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

You had never a BLP DS alert. Saying don't template me is equivalent to saying I should be immune from the DS rules because WP:AC/DS require you get the exact within one year template to be considered aware. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:10, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Well, consider me aware. They must've created the template long after I joined Wikipedia. --bender235 (talk) 21:13, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Units

Hello. I saw your edits in Blu-ray and DVD where you marked your edits as minor and the edit summary said "Typo fixing". However, your edits were incorrect and introduced serious errors: "MB" and "kB" means "megabyte" and "kilobyte", not "megabit" (Mb or Mbit) and "kilobit" (kb or kbit). So for example 150 MB/s (the Serial ATA speed mentioned in the article) means 1.2 Gbit/s. Furthermore, MB/s or kB/s do not have to be changed, as "MB" and "kB" are standard, recommended unit symbols that are used in many articles on Wikipedia.—J. M. (talk) 23:03, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Good catch, thank you. Care to bring it up on WP:AWB/T to have this particular typo fix removed? --bender235 (talk) 23:05, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

London

A small point, just for your information: in British English the spelling is "encyclopaedia" so in this particular article, which is a UK subject (per WP:ENGVAR), it was correct before you changed it. Thanks -- Alarics (talk) 10:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Valid point. I think there is a template that indicates for AWB and bots to skip English variants like this, but I'm not quite sure what's its name. Alternatively, we could use {{Not a typo}}. --bender235 (talk) 14:26, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

"The science of scientific writing"

I used to get mostly criticism about the clarity of my scientific writing. Now I get mostly praise. What changed my expository life was reading "The science of scientific writing". My suggestion is that you consider that.  SolidPhase (talk) 18:55, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the suggestion. Could you be a bit more precise with this reference? Is it an essay or a book? --bender235 (talk) 19:21, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

A reprint is here:  http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/~pel/misc/gopen_swan.pdf
SolidPhase (talk) 19:38, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. It's funny, by the way, how that Fisher quote you insist on keeping in the lead of the likelihood function article, is the complete opposite of what your article describes as good practice. And yet, for some reason, you consider it relevant. --bender235 (talk) 19:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Your claim that I "insist on keeping [the Fisher quote] in the lead" is false. Here is what I wrote: "It might be debated whether the quotation should go in the lead". Your claim that I consider the quotation relevant "for some reason" is misleading: I have explained the reason that an aspect of the quote is highly relevant. I ask you to give more consideration to what I wrote before replying.  SolidPhase (talk) 18:33, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

It's funny that you say that, given that you have addressed zero of my comments on Talk:Likelihood function. All you did so far is repeatedly attacking me personally. --bender235 (talk) 19:41, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

PDF page numbers

If I make citations that link to PDFs without using # to link to the page number within a PDF, it's because that stuff appears as useless noise to me — I use a workflow where all PDFs are downloaded and opened in a separate app instead of in my browser, and anything beyond the file name is lost in translation. It has zero to do with privacy theater. So please stop with the bad-faith insinuations. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:51, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with bad faith insinuations. PDF page links are very helpful and convenient, especially on mobile devices. After all, we're not making Wikipedia just for ourselves. The privacy theater comment applied to the whole situation. The official and reliable source for Kra's birthdate exists, whether we link to it or not, and whether we do so with page pointers or not. --bender235 (talk) 22:16, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

If I can't use them, I also can't create them accurately. So I'm not going to complain if others do, but it's something that others need to do. Preferably without inaccurately-targeted snarky commentary. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:36, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Again, it wasn't targeted at you. --bender235 (talk) 13:56, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Six years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:04, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for June 27

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New message from CASSIOPEIA

Hello, Bender235. You have new messages at Talk:Francis Ngannou.
Message added 04:55, 17 July 2019 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 04:55, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Hi, your input is requested at Talk:Theology_of_Martin_Luther#Merger_proposal with respect to possibly merging the Marian article into this one.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 05:34, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't really know anything about that subject. --bender235 (talk) 17:08, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Nico Siragusa

The article Nico Siragusa has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Siragusa doesn't meet WP:GRIDIRON (didn't play in a pro game), doesn't meet the criteria at WP:NCOLLATH, and is otherwise a non-notable player that doesn't meet WP:GNG. Of all the sources in the page, only one rises above the "transactional" type articles that note someone was drafted, cut, signed, etc. A review of Newspapers.com only brings up run-of-the-mill coverage.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 14:19, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Bot effect

Hi, I've no idea why .com is considered to be a more reliable TLD but, regardless, your bot has sent my watchlist crazy in the last few hours, with about 150 articles affected. A lot of them are contentious caste articles etc, where bot edits tend to hide more damaging edits by POV pushers. In other words, I or someone else now has to check all of them to see if anything happened prior to the bot hitting them. Is there any way of minimising this effect? - Sitush (talk) 05:21, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Came to say the same stuff (roughly). You can hide bot-edits from being displayed in watchlist but that option does not show the last human-edit, any more. ∯WBG^converse 08:57, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Okay, Doc James says that he has found a way to do this:-

Preferences -> recent changes -> Group changes by page in recent changes and watchlist

Preferences -> watchlist -> expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent, hide bot edits from the watchlist

Appears to work for him i.e the bot edits do not hide none bot edits that occur before them. ∯WBG^converse 09:01, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Works for me, too. This is quite similar to the mobile-version of watchlist and IMO, quite better. ∯WBG^converse 09:04, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Further to the above, could you point me to the consensus for these changes? They seem to be completely pointless, as Google anyway changes the domain suffix to whatever it thinks best, depending on where you access the page from. Also, since the pages or snippets that can be seen do sometimes seem to depend on location, it may actually be preferable to retain the original domain. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:37, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

@Justlettersandnumbers: - See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Bender_the_Bot_2 which mentions Furthermore, I wanted to combine the HTTPS move with a change in the TLD to .com, especially for those international TLD considered "sensitive" in certain regions (like .co.il in Arab countries, or .com.tw in China). I entirely disagree with the quoted reason though; that's not how it works. ∯WBG^converse 10:12, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Sorry guys, I didn't expect this to cause this much trouble. Yesterday's bot run's task was two-fold: change the top-level domain to .com, and change the website language from non-English (Russian hl=ru, Arabic hl=ar, French hl=fr, ...) to English (hl=en). I hope the above way works to filter out the bot edits from your watchlists. --bender235 (talk) 13:30, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

As for the technical motivation of this bot run. Being the English (and thus most "international") Wikipedia, I don't see why we should send off our readers to domains registered in dodgy places like Russia, Saudi-Arabia, or UAE, thereby putting unwarranted trust in their TLD registrar which are in the grip hold of mostly oppressive regimes and their overall security seems rather shaky (see [1] or [2] for recent breaches in Greece and "Armenia, along with Egypt, Turkey, Sweden, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates"). --bender235 (talk) 16:31, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

I have no opinion about the motivations you mention, but as an American, I've sometimes discovered potential technical issues with localized URLs. In short, if someone provides a localized URL ("books.google.co.uk", "books.google.co.au", "books.google.co.br", etc.), often I won't be able to access the URL, but if I replace it with "books.google.com", I'm able to read it. Presumably Google doesn't like the fact that I'm trying to load a books.google.co.br URL from a place that's not Brazil. But meanwhile, it may be necessary to block the bot for misbehavior; there's an ANI report alerting everyone to the fact that Bender the Bit is falsifying content for pro-Pakistani and anti-Indian nationalistic reasons :-) Nyttend (talk) 03:51, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Oh wow, things really escalated quickly. I guess when I have the bot fixing .com.pk, he'll be dubbed Indian nationalist. Yikes! --bender235 (talk) 15:46, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree that there may be accessibility issues from different TLDs. I have seen cases where a book page is not accessible in .com but is accessible in another domain. So changing the TLD could effectively make the link go dead. IMO, it is not a good idea to link to gbooks anyway unless the book is PD and google are providing full access. Books that have limited access depend on google having permission from the publisher. That permission can and does periodically change making the links effectively go dead. There is also the question of context; the inserting editor probably found the link with a gbooks search, but google will often not display the page to another user who got there from a direct link. Generally it is better to provide ISBN, OCLC, or some other index and let the user search themselves. SpinningSpark 02:11, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

@Spinningspark: Do you have an example for a Google Books link not accessible in .com but accessible in another? I'd actually be surprised if there were, because Google geo-blocks based on reader's location. --bender235 (talk) 15:15, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I haven't seen one like that recently and I normally have no call to put in anything other than .com in a gbooks ref. It's only been ones I have come across in other articles and unfortunately I can't remember any article names. The last one, I think, had a country code for some Arab country where it was viewable. I tried to change it to .com or .co.uk but then lost the page link. SpinningSpark 16:19, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

So, now it's replacing .es. What evidence do you have that that is a less "trustworthy" TLD than .com? And how is that change covered in this discussion, which I now see anyway dates from three years ago? I seriously suggest that you ensure you have both community consensus and approval before you make any more changes – please! Thanks, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:50, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

The idea was actually to convert the interface language setting hl=es (Spanish) to hl=en (English). I don't see why the English Wikipedia should send readers to Spanish websites if an English equivalent is available. But I understand your concern; bot halted. --bender235 (talk) 20:14, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for August 16

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Cost function (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

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Blogger URLs

Since you're correcting Google Books TLDs, I wonder if you would also be willing to convert ccTLDs in Blogger (blogspot) URLs, which now all redirect to .com. Search for "blogspot co uk" etc. Nardog (talk) 00:28, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

I'll think about it. Although .co.uk is a more trustworthy TLD than, say, .ru or .com.sa. --bender235 (talk) 00:41, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

It's not just .co.uk. .ru, .co.il, .in, .tw, .ie, .co.nz, you name it. Nardog (talk) 03:44, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Reverting after your bot has done its job

Hi Bender235. You/ your bot is/are doing a great job. Just a query — where you have already cleaned up Google book refs and changed to .com, if the previous edit needs to be reverted, your edit will be reverted too. I trust you are aware of that and okay with it. Regards, and keep up the great work. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 18:38, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Well, I hope you'll be selective in what exactly you revert in any given article. --bender235 (talk) 19:35, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Bender235. Will do. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 10:44, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Another question — formatting of refs

Hi Bender235, I have no doubt you know much more than I do on formatting of sources, so please spare a moment to let me know if " <ref>(Paradis 1992: 25).</ref>" is an acceptable form. Thnaking you, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 10:44, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

@Rui Gabriel Correia: this is Harvard citation style and certainly acceptable. But instead of hard-coding it, you may want to use {{harvtxt}} (e.g., {{harvtxt|Paradis|1992|p=25}} , since it provides a link as well. As a side note, the example article you've linked, Fula language, contains a lot of broken citations. For instance, (Arnett 1975: 5) and (Arnott 1975: 5) are referred to, but neither exist in the bibliography. There's only a Arnott (1970). --bender235 (talk) 16:23, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Bender235. Very informative. Will also pass on your suggestion re {{harvtxt}} to the editor concerned editing the example page. Regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 12:40, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Ajuraan

Why was my piece on the sheikh Hussain mosque removed was it because of my spelling mistakes if so I can correct it please let me know and I appreciate any feedback Sahasu (talk) 15:07, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it was (a) full of typos, and (b) lacked any source (because Wikipedia is cannot be a source for itself). --bender235 (talk) 15:11, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

I can add a source I will correct my mistake, also I didn't use a wiki source but I will have a look. Thank you for the feedback Sahasu (talk) 20:22, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

I can add a source I will correct my mistake, also I didn't use a wiki source but I will have a look. Thank you for the feedback Sahasu (talk) 20:23, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

ITN recognition for Serafim Fernandes de Araújo

On 10 October 2019, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article Serafim Fernandes de Araújo, which you created. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 05:35, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

"Queens College High School" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Queens College High School. Since you had some involvement with the Queens College High School redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 17:25, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Carolineneil's econometrics articles

Hi Bender, thanks for this AFD. This article was just one of a collection of econometrics articles by Carolineneil (aka "Science Is Shaped by Wikipedia: Evidence From a Randomized Control Trial", see especially page 43), of which almost all are highly specific, too technical (or just impossible to follow), and don't do much good for the project. Any thoughts on a more unified way to deal with them? Wikiacc (¶) 18:53, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

I had a look at that paper on SSRN; it mentions 45 econometrics articles they have created, but it didn't mentioned with one's they are. Carolineneil added a about a dozen as far as I can tell, so who else did? Besides, some of the articles added are notable, for instance synthetic control method or control function (econometrics). Others, like that over-specialized Probit article are not. --bender235 (talk) 19:10, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Agreed on those two examples (to which I'd add Roy model and maximum score estimator). I think in most cases, merging, not deletion, is the right solution. But given how uniformly poorly written most of this content is, some kind of larger scale cleanup effort also seems in order.

I believe Carolineneil was the only account used for this paper. I counted 41 46 new pages, including draftspace.

Wikiacc (¶) 19:42, 27 October 2019 (UTC) [edit 19:47, 27 October 2019 (UTC)]

Wow, that's a lot. Most of them are overly specialized. I'll look at them one-by-one if I have time. Thanks. --bender235 (talk) 20:00, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

I copied the list to User:Wikiacc/Carolineneil's econometrics articles for reference/to keep it updated. Wikiacc (¶) 03:28, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

"American Indian history" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect American Indian history. Since you had some involvement with the American Indian history redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. – Uanfala (talk) 02:32, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

How to write a biography on Wikipedia ?

How to write an biography in Wikipedia? Iamthedarknigh (talk) 08:43, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Biography

I want to get one done Iamthedarknigh (talk) 08:45, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom 2019 election voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2019 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:04, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Reporting probable glitch in Bender the Bot

This revision of K-5 (ballistic missile) by User:Bender the Bot probably indicates some kind of glitch. Just reporting for your information. Regards,— Vaibhavafro ^💬 16:02, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

It's the AWB Autofixes. I'll turn them off on future runs. --bender235 (talk) 16:44, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

With your bot, how do you avoid editing the URLs contained in archive links?

With your bot, how do you avoid editing Internet Archive links, e.g. how does it know not to edit https://web.archive.org/123456890/http://example.com to make it be https://web.archive.org/123456890/https://example.com? Is it a RegEx? This would be good to know for making my bot. Thanks! DemonDays64 | Tell me if I'm doing something wrong :P 21:11, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

I usually include a workaround in my replacement rules, so that only [http://... or =http:// are being replaced. --bender235 (talk) 21:38, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

@Bender235: Hi! I've figured out a Regex, using positive lookbehinds: ((?<=url ?= ?)|(?<=\[))(http:\/\/)?(www\.)?example\.com and tested it on Regexr using the cases listed here. Any input on what else it could include? DemonDays64 | Tell me if I'm doing something wrong :P 01:24, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

That should cover it. --bender235 (talk) 17:01, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Google Code-In 2019 is coming - please mentor some documentation tasks!

Hello,

Google Code-In, Google-organized contest in which the Wikimedia Foundation participates, starts in a few weeks. This contest is about taking high school students into the world of opensource. I'm sending you this message because you recently edited a documentation page at the English Wikipedia.

I would like to ask you to take part in Google Code-In as a mentor. That would mean to prepare at least one task (it can be documentation related, or something else - the other categories are Code, Design, Quality Assurance and Outreach) for the participants, and help the student to complete it. Please sign up at the contest page and send us your Google account address to google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org, so we can invite you in!

From my own experience, Google Code-In can be fun, you can make several new friends, attract new people to your wiki and make them part of your community.

If you have any questions, please let us know at google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org.

Thank you!

--User:Martin Urbanec (talk) 21:58, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Season's Greetings

FWiW Bzuk (talk) 02:01, 23 December 2019 (UTC)