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Tech News: 2016-51

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News

• Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 9 January 2017.
• The writers of the technical newsletter are asking for your opinion. Did you get the information you wanted this year? Did we miss important technical news in 2016? What kind of information was too late? Please tell us! You can write in your language. Thank you!

Recent changes

• Administrators and translation administrators can now use Special:PageLanguage on wikis with the Translate extension. This means you can say what language a page is in. The Translate extension will use that language as the source language when you translate. Previously this was always the wiki's default language. This was usually English. [1]
• Wikis connected to Wikidata can now use the parser function {{#statements: }} to get formatted data. You can also use {{#property: }} to get raw data. You can see the difference between the two statements. There are also similar new functions in Lua. [2]

Problems

• Some abuse filters for uploaded files have not worked as they should. We don't know exactly which filters didn't work yet. This means some files that filters should have prevented from being uploaded were uploaded to the wikis. MediaWiki.org and Testwiki have been affected since 13 October. Commons and Meta have been affected since 17 October. Other wikis have been affected since 17 November. [3]

Changes this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week. There will be no new MediaWiki version next week either.

Meetings

• The next meeting with the VisualEditor team will be on 3 January at 20:00 (UTC). During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. See how to join.

Future changes

• The 2016 Community Wishlist Survey is done. It decides what the Community Tech team will work on during 2017. You can see the results.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

20:33, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Eh?

• The no barnstar missing award

After reading your Userpage, I thought you deserved some kind of humor award, and found the "Random Smiley" award. However, when I went back to copy it, I couldn't find the *#)* thing, so this will have to do - Thanks for the laugh of the morning. Activist (talk) 15:13, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

help with image

hello,

I am writing with reference to the page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zubaida_Bai

On December 08, 2016 you had removed the photo for Ms. Bai as a copyrighted image. I had submitted an undelete request explaining that Ms. Bai was the rightful owner of the image as it was taken for her. Can you please help rectify this?

Thank you,

Habib Reference: (cur | prev) 07:31, 8 December 2016‎ Bgwhite (talk | contribs)‎ . . (7,063 bytes) (-52)‎ . . (rm copyrighted image) (undo | thank) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hakhadbai (talk • contribs)

Hakadbai WP:IUP is the long documentation on images. A shorter answer... The default copyright on images means Wikipedia can't use Ms. Bai's image. As Ms. Bai owns the image, only Ms. Bai can give permission for Wikipedia to use the image and change the image's copyright status. Bgwhite (talk) 20:54, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Reference errors on 21 December

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that some edits performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. They are as follows:

• On the Beatific vision page, your edit caused an unsupported parameter error (help). (Fix | Ask for help)
• On the Brigid Hanrahan page, your edit caused an unsupported parameter error (help). (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check these pages and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:20, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

BG19bot

Hi. Would I be correct in thinking that BG19bot (talk · contribs) performs many of the same functions as Yobot with regards to CHECKWIKI, etc.? Your bot seems to get the job done without a fraction of the complaints that Yobot gets. Are you operating any differently to Yobot? How do you avoid cosmetic edits? Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:10, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

MSGJ Loaded question. BG19bot, Yobot and several other bots have the same BRFA approval for CheckWiki. Anything CheckWiki related, both Yobot and BG19bot do the same things. Yobot has more BRFAs than BG19bot, thus runs more things. We are both not running all the BRFAs we were approved for. For the past several years, I've only run BRFA 7-9. On the usual daily routine, both Yobot and BG19bot don't do anything differently that I'm aware of. Yobot isn't getting in trouble for running CheckWiki or any other of its approved runs via "common sense". Also, as Yobot/Magioladitis has been in trouble in the past, people do complain more about Yobot/Magioladitis than another bot doing the same thing. If a person sees BG19bot on their watchlist, they may ignore it while a Yobot sighting brings scrutiny. Magioladitis and I both "joke" that if Anomiebot was named Yobot, it would have been shut down by now. Anomiebot allows anyone to run certain jobs and those "anyones" cause problems.

The last two times Magioladitis got blocked were not CheckWiki related. They were manual edits doing template redirects, I think.

The current brouhaha started when Checkwiki error #104 was being expanded. I used MediaWiki's documentation for the definition of #104, not enwiki's. I gave Magioladitis and Dexbot bad input. AWB could not "fix" 90% of the articles, but Magioladitis ran the bot on the list. The list was at least 2,000 articles. Bgwhite (talk) 20:50, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

I guess @Xaosflux: would be interested about this section. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:43, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Is one of these combining tasks more perhaps? If something more substantive gets updated at the same time something less visually impacting does it will tend to get less complaints. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:59, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

Merry Cristmas everybody!!!

"And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold,

I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."

Luke 2:10-11 (King James Version)

Tito Dutta (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas.

This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove.

Spread the cheer by adding {{Subst:Xmas4}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

--Tito Dutta (talk) 04:28, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Enjoy the holiday season or winter solstice (whichever you prefer). Have a great 2017. Quis separabit? 05:36, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

Hello Bgwhite: Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice if it's occurring in your area of the world, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, GSS (talk) 16:01, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

Reference errors on 24 December

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that some edits performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. They are as follows:

• On the 2017 in American music page, your edit caused an unsupported parameter error (help). (Fix | Ask for help)
• On the 2016–17 Japan Figure Skating Championships page, your edit caused a cite error (help). (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check these pages and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 01:09, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

The Deleted ISBN on WP article "Seidlitzia rosmarinus"

Dear friend, I'm not sure why the ISBN for the book "The Land of Israel and Syria as Described by Al-Tamimi," written by Zohar Amar and Yaron Serri, does not show-up on the ISBN check-list. The book is published at the Bar-Ilan University, in Ramat-Gan, published in 2004, with a Hebrew title of ארץ-ישראל וסוריה על-פי תיאורו של אלתמימי. You can see an online description of the book here> "The Land of Israel and Syria as Described by al-Tamimi" (Hebrew). I have no idea what the problem might be, but I have copied correctly the ISBN just as it appears in his book, on the second page, viz. ISBN 965-226-252-8.Davidbena (talk) 16:47, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Davidbena The book you describe above does not fit with the books I edited on Seidlitzia rosmarinus. The books I edited were published after 2011. None have the title you mentioned and none had the ISBN you mentioned. The main problem is I don't understand Hebrew. IKhitron, could you help? Here's the diff that shows what books were edited. Bgwhite (talk) 19:20, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi. Sorry, I do not understand what do you mean in "ISBN check-list". About the book - it appears in many hebrew catalog sites as 2004 BIU book, with this exactly ISBN. I couldn't find any edition in 2011 or later, including in the file with all author publications until December 2015. IKhitron (talk) 19:33, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Okay, now I see my mistake. You were referring to a different book mentioned by me, entitled, Flora of the Bible. Actually, that is only the translation of the Hebrew title. The book is entirely written in Hebrew, except for the taxonomic names. I'll try to provide the book's full description (information) for you tomorrow evening, as I am at work right now.Davidbena (talk) 21:08, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Pursuant to our earlier discourse, the book published by Zoar Amar (Flora of the Bible - A New Investigation Aimed at Identifying All of the Plants of the Bible in Light of Jewish Sources and Scientific Research) is actually entitled in Hebrew: צמחי המקרא. It is published by Rubin Mass of Jerusalem. The ISBN given in the book is as follows: ISBN 978-965-09-0308-7. The publishing company can be reached at: rmass@barak.net.il . Hope this helps you. Sincerely, Davidbena (talk) 23:36, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Hello

Hello, I wrote three page for this Wikipedia and I wish to write others, but I wanna to use the visual edition, I need that somebody will give me welcome to this fabulous proyect as has occurred in others Wikipedia, and help me is this problem. Happy Christmas!!! Al-Baco (talk) 18:49, 23 December 2016 (UTC) Thank you!!! Al-Baco (talk) 18:56, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Al-Baco Up at the top of the screen and towards the right-hand of the screen, the is a "Preferences" link. Click on that. Then click on the "Editing" tab. There is an option in there to turn on or off Visual Editor. There are many other options under Preferences that maybe useful to you. Bgwhite (talk) 23:46, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you again, Now I can write in a visual edition, I will write others articles, mostly about Cuban culture and law, If you want you can help me in the traduction of several articles in spanish wikipedia. thanks again. --Al-Baco (talk) 13:07, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Merry, merry!

From the icy Canajian north; to you and yours! FWiW Bzuk (talk) 02:13, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Konkani TV

Could you please change the title of the article "Konkani TV" to something more formal and in keeping with the Wikipedia style, perhaps " List of Konkani language television channels"  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abdulrahimb (talk • contribs) 02:12, 28 December 2016 (UTC) 

Reference errors on 28 December

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:

• On the Samara culture page, your edit caused a broken reference name (help). (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:21, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Turing test

• (in Ruth Buzzi voice) *sniff* That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 01:34, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Reference errors on 29 December

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:

• On the Shesh Paul Vaid page, your edit caused an archiveurl error (help). (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:18, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Edit to Brabus Rocket

You reason of reverting article due to 'No refs. Don't do ALL CAPS' is questionable. If you actually read the changes prior to your reversion, the references are at the bottom of subsections. Instead of actually verifying the presence of reference, your reversion base on such false claim is not helping. Besides, if all caps are the issue, your wholesale reversions of edits based on small technical are downright disruptive. If you have issues with words' casings, edit the disputed area instead. Please try not to do pointless wholesale reversion again. - 205.189.94.12 (talk) 00:31, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

"List items"

Hello. I am not at all sure what you did here. The Edit summary is not clear to me. What is a "list item"? Yours sincerely, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 07:33, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

BeenAroundAWhile Each individual list item starts with a *. Also called individual items on a list. There should be no blank space between each item per WP:LISTGAP. Bgwhite (talk) 07:36, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Regarding Arsh Shah Dilbagi

I have been managing the page for a while but there are severe problems pertaining to Wiki policies. Kindly check if you can contribute to rectify the same otherwise the page will be deleted soon.

SteveDorf (talk) 05:43, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I gave you a notification

Because you edited it. I know yo didn't start it. As an editor I thought you might want to improve it. Guess not. Postcard Cathy (talk) 23:06, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Postcard Cathy You may want to change the message. The message said things like, "If this is the first article that you have created..." or I maybe blocked for copyright violation. Bgwhite (talk) 23:47, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

I didn't create the message. I don't know who did. It's an automatic message when you post the template with the speedy req. Postcard Cathy (talk) 00:10, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

422 class locomotive table

Hi there I noticed you fixed the table on the page I updated a couple of days ago - can you explain to me what the change you made was and how it works? Thanks James Jamesbushell.au (talk) 12:51, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Jamesbushell.au I added a |} at the end of the table. This closes off the table. If it isn't there, several things could happen. Such as, anything after the table becomes part of the table or the table could be moved to the very end. The version without |} has the table at the very end... after the refs, external links and navboxes. Bgwhite (talk) 23:10, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Great, thanks for this. I did notice a change in the ref list too, but this mustn't have been the thing that changed it. Can you tell me what that was (the code you added was 30em). Is that just formatting of the reflist? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamesbushell.au (talk • contribs) 23:29, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Jamesbushell.au {{reflist|2}} says to put references into two columns. This is the older way to do it. This has a problem on smaller screens, such as tablets and phones. The screen may not be big enough to show two columns. {{reflist|30em}} is the newer way. 30em is roughly the size of 30 characters, whether the font is big, such as on desktops, or on tablets where the font is smaller. So, the newer says to put columns every 30em. If the screen is big, it maybe 3 or 4 columns. If it is on a tablet, it may only be one column. Bgwhite (talk) 23:42, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

bgwhite Thankyou very much for this explanation. Ill try and incorporate this in future edits. And thanks for taking the time to explain this to me, that is personally appreciated. See you round. Jamesbushell.au (talk) 00:17, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Bgwhite!

Happy New Year!

Bgwhite,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
Donner60 (talk) 07:36, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

Multiplication algorithm‎

Hi. AWB misinterpreted a double underscore at the end of a sum as a section header and complained. I've added a nowiki pair around the sum to try to prevent this type of error in future. Would you care to run AWB over it and see if it kicks up now? Regards, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:18, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Martin of Sheffield It was a manual edit, not AWB's. A pair of nowiki's will fix the problem, otherwise it looks like section headers. Thank you for your note. Bgwhite (talk) 21:19, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

AWB new release

AWB 5.9.0.0 is up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:36, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Arbitration Case opened

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Magioladitis.

Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Magioladitis/Evidence. Please add your evidence by January 17, 2017, which is when the evidence phase closes.

You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Magioladitis/Workshop.

For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration.

If you no longer wish to receive case notifications for this case you can remove yourself from the notifications list here.

For the Arbitration Committee, Amortias (T)(C) 22:52, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Question on bot edit

Hi! I thought I'd leave you a note that I happened to see your bot making an edit that fixed no CHECKWIKI error, only swapped the order of two refs and made genfixes (hyphen to endash and expand redirected template). It said the error it fixed was "Punctuation goes before References." but that is incorrect, there was no reference before punctuation and it did not "fix" such an error (it did reorder two refs that were both after a period). I don't really mind this edit, but I'm letting you know because some people are likely to raise a big fuss if these issues are recurrent. :) ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 08:15, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

@Salvidrim!: Re-check; the first change in the diff provided is a punc-swap. --Izno (talk) 13:05, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Secondly, the dash change is not cosmetic as it changes the appearance of both the source and HTML versions. --Izno (talk) 13:06, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Izno allow me to insist -- the first change is not a punc-swap. It swaps the order of two refs which were already after punctuation (a period). The bot blatantly did not make the edit it thought it was making and therein lies the problem.

Secondly, I didn't say the dash change was cosmetic (the template-redirect-bypass was), but the dash change is part of genfixes, and my current understanding of AWB bot policy is that edits consisting solely of genfixes should not be made (by a bot or a human for that matter). ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 15:17, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Your bot made at least one edit in December that consisted solely of changing hyphens to en-dashes (albeit inconsistently).

I think the policy bing referred to is WP:COSMETICBOT.-- Toddy1 (talk) 15:50, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

@Salvidrim!: You're missing the actual first change. Please re-review; the Stopkewich speech ref was moved. --Izno (talk) 15:56, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

As regards the AWB rules of use (for you are surely not referring to COSMETICBOT but instead rule #4), that rule is An edit that has no noticeable effect on the rendered page is generally considered an insignificant edit. Correcting the kind of dash clearly has a noticeable effect on the rendered page and as such is significant. --Izno (talk) 15:59, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Izno if I'm missing something I'm missing it complete-fucking-ly. The edit by Bg's bot swapped the order of the refs names "BMD" and "Forensics" after the period at the end of the first paragraph of the "Arrest" section. The only other changes it made were genfixes in the "References" section. Am I completely insane or are we looking at different diffs!?!?! ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 16:03, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Salvidrim! there is a change 3 lines above the one you see. There is a punctuation move. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:01, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Holy shit this was difficult to see but completely my bad. I blame the holidays hangover. I've made a fool or myself and I apologize. Wow!!!!!!

Whack! You've been whacked with a wet trout. Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know that you did something silly.

to myself. Izno, I understand that not all genfixes are cosmetic, but I was under the impression that genfix-only AWB edits weren't allowed... maybe they're just frowned upon then. :) ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 16:03, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Should've tried using improved diff view before opening my mouth at all.... ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 16:04, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

@Salvidrim!: Maybe frowned upon. And I only caught it because I happened to have the improved diff engine turned on. --Izno (talk) 16:12, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments Izno. Salvidrim!, any CheckWiki fixes, whether a broken bracket fix, ISBN fix or any other, are done via Genfixes because that is what fixes the problem. Comments about cosmeticbot are unfortunately not new the past couple of weeks. Ever since the Yobot mess blew up, I've been getting this all over the place, plus lovely insults. So far, the bot's edit did what the edit summary has stated. I'm getting run down. Bgwhite (talk) 06:01, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Conversion of hyphens into en dashes

This edit by your bot is a bit odd. The article has a number of dates in the format "2010-11". Your bot has converted some of the hyphens in such constructions into en dashes. It would be neater if it either did all or none.

The reason for the "2010-11" constructions is to show which UK financial year accounts are being referred to.-- Toddy1 (talk) 12:27, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Toddy1 Well, I'm really odd, so it would make sense the bot was off kilter too. The bot follows MOS:DATERANGE, specifically A simple year–year range is written using an en dash (– or {{ndash}}) not a hyphen or slash;. For the bigger question, why some year ranges and not others? I don't know. I filed a bug report at T154351. Bgwhite (talk) 07:13, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Toddy1 The bug was closed as sort of fixed. You can read why on the bug report. Bgwhite (talk) 06:49, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Merger discussion for Al-Masry SC

An article that you have been involved in editing—Al-Masry SC —has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Boopitydoopityboop (talk) 03:56, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Soylent (food)

Very cleverly written promotional piece masquerading as an article. I've looked at it and sighed inwardly on numerous occasions, but don't have the stomach or the endurance to take it on. The content you removed was certainly a bit much, almost like reading a brochure issued by the manufacturer. Keri (talk) 09:08, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Keri Thank you for your note. I'm sure there can be more trimmed from the article. If you could mention your thoughts on the talk page, it would be appreciated. Bgwhite (talk) 18:10, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Reverting to previous revisions because of a minor formatting error

I really don't think this edit was called for. One little formatting error does not justify reverting entire helpful changes because you were sick of fixing the missing closing center tag error manually or using your bot on the pages I forgot it on. Some pages were already missing closing center tags; most times, I merely added an additional center tag without closing the one another editor (most likely Egg Creations) forgot, which you obviously blamed on me because you only noticed it after I did it. That wasn't going to make me see it anyway. You could have left me a message on my talk page if you actually thought it was my fault instead of doing a revert to a previous revision in December that I only saw now. It appears most of what you and your bot do is fix broken bracket or missing closing tag problems, so why single my errors out to personally revert? Why not revert all the editors who make a couple of mistakes? Ss112 04:34, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Ss112 The edit summary states "Stop adding". I was getting tired of fixing articles day after day with the same problem that you had just edited. Reverting does send a notice to you, therefore contacting you. You kept doing it and I know I reverted you atleast once more a day or two later. You not looking at your notices for three weeks is not my fault. I've done the same thing in the past to other people and they've thanked me, but they read their notice. I don't primarily fix brackets. The bot doesn't fix all brackets. Bgwhite (talk) 05:50, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I do read my notices. I did not receive a red "1" notice at the top of my page, and as far as I aware (from later coming across users who did it on other pages I had edited), reverting to a previous revision using Twinkle or whichever Wikipedia tool (excluding clicking "undo" manually or rolling back edits) does not notify all users who had edited in the interim time that they have been reverted. From later seeing the pages I watched edited by the bot, this would have happened on maybe five or so articles, so "day after day" seems like an exaggeration, as I did 95% of them on one day. Again, it just seems like I was singled out for blame because you/BG19bot didn't pick up the missing center tag errors when Egg Creations or whoever made {{center}} a thing for 2016 year-end lists added them earlier on. Most of the time, I wasn't even introducing the center tags on pages; I was separating references from ranks by closing the first center tag, then opening a new center tag, so any that weren't closed (on pages with pre-existing center alignments) were not errors initially made by me. Ss112 05:58, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Ss112 I fixed I don't know how many music articles, with the same problem, for several days without thanks and the days after. When I started noticing a pattern, I noticed you were the common thread. There were different editors and IPs editing just before I arrived, but you were always there editing the same day. When I did look at an edit of yours, you happened to cause the error. That's why I focused on you. I've been guilty of doing something wrong, then using that as a copy/paste type template, thus spreading it to other articles. I didn't know if that is what you did or something else. My goal was you to get notified, say oops, revert me, correct the mistake and not do it again.

FYI, the {{center}} template, from a technical stand point is better. <center> is obsolete HTML, as is the <font> tag in your signature. But, they aren't going to stop working anytime soon. Bgwhite (talk) 06:19, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't have any problems with the {{center}} template, just implying that I had previously seen, in such lists, either the whole wikitable center-aligned or other manual markup for each entry. I understand I introduced some errors, but I didn't add any year-end entries. Most were added by the user Egg Creations, who chose to use the template around the rank and ref, warping the sortable function for numerical values in that column, and on several articles, not closing the center tag (I fixed a few myself, but evidently missed a few, which were the ones you fixed). I would have seen it earlier if you had've pressed undo, because I wasn't notified and I don't know why that is. But on the articles I did introduce the error on, thanks for fixing it. Ss112 06:26, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Twinkle reverts don't notify, this is a known problem. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:37, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

@Ss112: Thank you for the info Redrose. It looks like it was fixed two days ago (T153567. The phab ticket didn't say when it would be pushed out. Bgwhite (talk) 20:16, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Parliament of Australia

Hi, your BG19bot made an edit to Parliament of Australia to remove a space in the infobox between the two Houses of Parliament. This was there because without it the final Independents box in the House of Representatives comes out slightly out of alignment with the other boxes. Is it possible to stop the bot doing this again? Superegz (talk) 05:51, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Superegz I added &nbsp; at the end of the <br> tag. I also moved the {{reflist}} out of the infobox and into the article where it belongs. Bgwhite (talk) 06:07, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Bgwhite Thanks. that looks much cleaner. Superegz (talk) 06:19, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-02

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• You can now use datasets on Commons. You can see an example that is using this source. [4]
• There is a new opt-in beta feature of a wikitext mode for the visual editor. You can try it out.
• When you update a page with translations on wikis with the Translate extension the existing translations will be marked as outdated instead of removed. [5]
• The new version of MediaWiki was released to all wikis last week (calendar).
• MoodBar has been removed from the Wikimedia wikis. [6]
• The live option for the Tipsy notice tool has been removed. Gadgets and user scripts which use it need to be updated. [7]

Problems

• Editors who use Firefox 50 might get logged out or fail to save their edits. This is because of a browser bug. Until this is fixed you can enter about:config in the address bar and set network.cookie.maxPerHost to 5000. Firefox 50 is the current version of the Firefox. [8]

Changes this week

• There is no new version of MediaWiki this week because of the Wikimedia Developer Summit.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

19:12, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

User/Glabb/List of highest bridges

Hi, this page wasn't an exact duplicate of the Wikipedia article, but an updated version with news elements and entries, I created it to propose to main contributors an improved version before change the main article. My version has 183 entries whereas the Wikipedia article has 97 entries. So I would like to restore this page.--Glabb (talk) 10:10, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Glabb The problem is that you put your version into article space rather under your user pages, so it was live. I copied what you had done and put it at User:Glabb/List of highest bridges. Bgwhite (talk) 20:03, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you--Glabb (talk) 21:59, 9 January 2017 (UTC).

Reference errors on 9 January

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:

• On the Pro Wrestling League page, your edit caused an unnamed parameter error (help). (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:20, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

BG19bot edit

Hi Bgwhite... In this BG19bot edit, the bot has changed "page = 3-296" to "pages = 3–296" to the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics reference on the hexamethylbenzene article. In this case, however, 3-296 is not a range of pages but rather a single page as the CRC Handbook uses sections with individual page numbering (ie. there is likely a p. 1-296, a p. 2-296, etc.). The bot change means that the reference displays as "pp. 3–296" suggesting the source is somewhere in a 294 page range instead of the correct "p. 3-296". I realise why the bot made the change (and everything else it did was helpful and appropriate, so thanks for its contributions). What I would like to know is: if I change this single reference back to what it should be, how do I avoid your bot (or any other) making the same erroneous change again? Many Thanks. EdChem (talk) 21:21, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

EdChem The {{cite book}} documentation says, Hyphens are automatically converted to en dashes; if hyphens are appropriate, for example: pp. 3-1–3-15, use |at=. So, do the same thing here for your situation. Instead of saying |page=1-296, use |at=p. 1-296. |at= is also part of COinS data, so nothing is lost when using either page or at. Bgwhite (talk) 21:33, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Bgwhite, I am glad to learn that a solution already exists, I'll add that to my mental list of wiki-quirks.  :) EdChem (talk) 21:44, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

When Google crawl my page - HTC_Global_Services

Hi Currently my page has noindex "<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow"/>" . when it change to index or what is producer to crawl my page . kindly give your comments . Thanks in advance — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gopikarthikeyan.k (talk • contribs) 08:06, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Gopikarthikeyan.k All articles are automatically set to INDEX. One cannot turn this off. The article is not yours, it is part of Wikipedia, thus Wikipedia sets INDEX/NOINDEX. Bgwhite (talk) 09:15, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Bgwhite . Is There any time for Wikipedia sets INDEX for the pages — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gopikarthikeyan.k (talk • contribs) 09:37, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

There was a MediaWiki software change a few weeks ago. Although the default for mainspace (articles) is still INDEX, new pages in article space are now NOINDEX until patrolled. See for example Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 152#How to force search engines like google recognise page created from redirect? Magic words like __INDEX__ have no effect on unpatrolled pages. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:51, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Redrose64 As always, thank you for the info. Just when you figure something out, it changes. I remove the INDEX, NEWSECTIONLINK, NOTOC, DIAMBIG, NEWSECTIONLINK, etc that are added by #(@*#& Visual Editor. Bgwhite (talk) 05:43, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

MPT-76

You have added ref #17. However, I get the message "Janes360 - Page Not Found! 404 Error" when I click on. Please check. CeeGee 11:29, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

CeeGee I didn't add a ref or anything else. I only reverted your edit. You added two refs incorrectly that caused a big red error message in the article. One ref was complete, but done wrong. The other ref wasn't complete. I'm not sure if that was a mistake or just forgot to complete it. As I wasn't sure of your motives, I reverted, mentioned why the edit summary, and then you would see it and then fix it.

You also changed the infobox's |production_date= from 2014 to 2017. This is clearly wrong as refs state it started in 2014 and serial production in 2015. It appears you did this as the Turkish army received 500 rifles in 2017, which is false as it was 2016. You also changed the infobox's |number= from blank to 500, which is again wrong. The section already talking about the Turkish army has various number that can't be corroborated by the lone ref. But, the ref states 500 were received in 2016 with 19,500 already built and delivered "soon". Bgwhite (talk) 22:43, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-03

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• You can now upload WebP files to Commons. [9]

Problems

• video2commons was down for two weeks. This was because of a problem with Commons video transcoders. It is now back up. [10]

Changes this week

• There is a new magic word called {{PAGELANGUAGE}}. It returns the language of the page you are at. This can be used on wikis with more than one language to make it easier for translators. [11]
• When an admin blocks a user or deletes or protects a page they give a reason why. They can now get suggestions when they write. The suggestions will be based on the messages in the dropdown menu. [12]
• You will be able to use <chem> to write chemical formulas. Before you could use <ce>. <ce> should be replaced by <chem>. [13]
• You now can add exceptions for categories which shouldn't be shown on Special:UncategorizedCategories. The list is at MediaWiki:Uncategorized-categories-exceptionlist. [14]
• The "Columns" and "Rows" settings will be removed from the Editing tab in Preferences. If you wish to keep what the "Rows" setting did you can add this code to your personal CSS: #wpTextbox1 { height: 50em; } You can change the number 50 to make it look like you want to. [15]
• Sometimes edits in MediaWiki by mistake are shown coming from private IP addresses such as 127.0.0.1. Edits and other contributions logged to these IP addresses will be blocked and shown the reason from MediaWiki:Softblockrangesreason. This should not affect most users. Bots and other tools running on Wikimedia Labs, including Tool Labs will receive a "blocked" error if they try to edit without being logged in. [16]
• When you edit with the visual editor categories will be on the top of the page options menu. [17]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 January. It will be on all wikis from 19 January (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on January 17 at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

23:24, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

USAID Page's "Controversies and Criticism" Section

You are exactly right about "weasel words," which I felt forced to adopt in order to give air time to some topics that (despite the lack of specific references) are quite common (coming from Members of Congress etc.) without being argumentative or pointing the finger at anyone.

I have not felt at all satisfied with this state of affairs and I have specifically challenged USAID Alumni Association members and university classes to strengthen this section of the article, without getting anything, however. I wish they would take the section as seriously as you are!

By the way, there are some sections in which contributors vent about various things. My feeling is that it's okay to leave them as they are. Serious readers will recognize them as being different from the institutional information that I'm trying to provide.

I do take your point seriously and I'll see about making the "controversies" more specific as to their origins and particular cases. It may take some time, so please don't undertake major surgery quite yet.

In the meantime, do you feel the need to keep the maintenance template?

Jsryanjr (talk) 15:13, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Jsryanjr I think you have the wrong person. Btrem is the one who mentioned "weasel words" and added the maintenance template. Btrem added the maintenance template incorrectly by placing it on the same line as a section header. This causes the section header to not show up and I fixed that. Bgwhite (talk) 17:18, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Sorry about that! Is there some way to send my message to Btrem?Jsryanjr (talk) 18:16, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Questionable editor behavior

Could you look at the manner Cassianto engages with other editors with statements like, "With bated breath, and with an almost unexplained quiver of excitement in my gentleman's area at the prospect of such a discussion, I now open up the floor to others. and how my post was responded to here. Please see Talk:Bernard Lee section Infobox. Perhaps my perception of that users statements are off, but it appears uncalled for. Thanks. Mitchumch (talk) 21:17, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Shit-stirring, much. Is there a reason why you are canvassing an admin for the presumed purpose of a block rather than concentrating on the matter in hand; whether to include an infobox on Bernard Lee? Cassianto^Talk 22:41, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

@Mitchumch: User:Bgwhite blocked Cassianto for a week due to a pattern of behavior of which this edit is a part. DMacks (talk) 11:16, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

@DMacks: Thank you for letting me know. Mitchumch (talk) 21:18, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Replying Cassianto's comment about harassment on his talk page. Cassianto will obviously not tell what he was doing . He was the the one who first thanked me on 12th January. The only edit I made on 12th January was reverting Cassianto's comment from my talk page, and he thanked my edit after 6 hours. I didn't like when he called JohnCD's son as troll. Marvellous Spider-Man 12:33, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Mitchumch I haven't been on Wikipedia much the past few days and it was past my bedtime when I blocked Cassianto, so I apologize for not writing sooner. I don't have much time now either. I haven't read what is on Cassianto's talk page since I blocked them, but I guess you can read about your Cassianto question there.

As for the infoboxes.... One of the more infamous "fun-filled" messes around here were the Infobox wars. It got so bad it went to ARB. Battles are still going on. I try to stay away from them, so I'm pretty much cluess to the majority of it, thank goodness. I have commented in a couple of them that the infobox should stay. The ones I commented in contained the same two groups and I've seen those two groups in other discussions. Those discussions have been civil. The infobox group you encountered is new to me, but appears similar to the other one... same group of people wanting to get rid of an infobox.

So, what I'm saying is, if you participate in one of those discussions, realize everybody's mind has been made up long ago. They all keep using the same arguments, some valid, some not. I'd just state your position and move one. Bgwhite (talk) 20:48, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for addressing Cassianto's behavior. I didn't know about the anti-infobox movement on Wikipedia until I dug around various talk pages and noticeboard discussions. Anyhow, I hope your absence is temporary and not permanent. Take care. Mitchumch (talk) 21:18, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry you haven't found your way back to Cassianto's talk page since you blocked him, as I have expressed concerns there about your action that I would appreciate you address per WP:ADMINACCT. I quote: "Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions". If you are going to wade in and take an administrative action at the request of someone posting to your talk page, you don't have the luxury of walking away and avoiding follow-up discussions because you're too busy. I also consider you involved since you have opined at length in favor of infoboxes, and taking administrative action against someone for their behavior when speaking out against infoboxes really smells bad. In fact, Cassianto had participated in that very same discussion taking an opposite view from yours, so this is a particularly vivid violation of WP:INVOLVED. --Laser brain (talk) 22:54, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I'm not going to comment on the merits of the block, or patronising you by posting to the relevant page in the administrators' guide, but you really ought to have seen this coming - do controversial blocks, get harassed. By your own admission you are stressed out about an arbcom case and editing while tired. I blocked someone last night while I was tired (and in my case it was a clear cut 3RR violation that had already had multiple administrators agreeing there was disruption on ANI) but a few minutes later I decided I didn't want to the fall-out and hassle, and there wasn't an urgent need to prevent this person from editing the encyclopedia, so I self-reverted. You could have punted the whole discussion off to ANI and watched consensus play out from a safe distance; perhaps there would have been a block, perhaps something else, perhaps a whole load of hot air and drama, but what you wouldn't have had is unsolicited complaints and harassment which looks set to last for a few more days. Something to think about for next time, perhaps? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:07, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Ritchie333 Thank you for writing. I always appreciate your comments. I actually wasn't tired. I started writing up an ANI discussion several hours before I placed the block. I noticed atleast 10 ANI discussions since summer about Cassianto, including two this year. They had the same players in the discussions and many of the discussions went downhill. Any ANI discussion would be fruitless. I see the majority of people wanting an unblock on Cassianto's page also in the dicussions supporting him in ANIs. I then started writing Drmies for his advice, which is what I've done in the past. More I wrote, the more I started thinking about a block instead and when Cassianto posted this, I did the block.

So... I know fully well ANI is useless in this case. I know fully well I'd get harrassed. I did not block hastley. There was ongoing harassment on Talk:Kristen Stewart

I do have a strong dislike to your words... Certainly parroting WP:CIVIL to an editor with multiple FAs under their belt is akin to pouring gasoline on a fire How many FAs a person has done should never be a factor in determining if a person is civil or not. Unforetunely I keep seeing this done over and over again. There should be no protected class, but there are. Cassianto is no longer a content creator. He's been a talk page stalker on infoboxes for a couple of years. He needs to go back to content, which is what he does best and helps Wikipedia the most.

I fully expected Cassianto to be unblocked for time served because that is his pattern. If you want to unblock, go ahead. Bgwhite (talk) 03:58, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

"Gasoline on a fire" comes from Fred Brooks' The Mythical Man Month and describes an act which although it sounds sensible actually has the opposite effect (in the book's case, adding development staff to a late project makes it even later). Feel free to disagree all you like; I'm simply describing what I see and have found out from experience.

I will unblock, but I want to make it clear it is not because I think Cassianto's language is acceptable, because I don't, but rather it will stop anger flying around on talk pages which doesn't help the encyclopedia get written. In the long term, I feel utterly drained from hearing about these silly and petty infobox feuds, and somebody really needs to kick the whole dispute to Arbcom. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:05, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: With many of the same players then as now, the last case request for infoboxes was declined in March 2015 (though I could swear there was an ARCA request also more recent). --Izno (talk) 12:56, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: Are you saying I'm harassing Bgwhite by questioning his block and asking him to respond to my concerns, after he had been here chatting with Mitchumch? Are you saying I'm patronizing him by linking to "relevant page[s] in the administrators' guide"? Just clarifying, since you appear to be responding to my post. --Laser brain (talk) 16:36, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

@Laser brain: I don't think that at all and I think you had every right as a fellow admin to question the block, and my main point was to suggest Bgwhite is stuck between a rock and a hard place and it is entirely of his own making, so getting stressed about it won't wash. Certainly parroting WP:CIVIL to an editor with multiple FAs under their belt is akin to pouring gasoline on a fire; a point I have made in numerous threads elsewhere. The "patronising" in this instance would have been quoting Wikipedia:New admin school/Blocking's "Remember that even if you issue a block in a completely uninvolved, nonpartisan manner and perfectly in-line with policy and past precedent, you are stopping another person from being able to contribute to the world's largest encyclopedia project, and they are unlikely to react to the block in a positive manner. If you have any doubts - don't block." Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:51, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: @Laser brain: How do you propose to stop Cassianto uncivil behavior? This user has a block log that is as follows:

• 16:47, 23 October 2014 placed by Future Perfect at Sunrise due to a complaint placed on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents on 16:51, 23 October 2014 by non-admin Caden. The end result was Caden meet Mr's Pot, Kettle and Black.
• 16:29, 25 March 2015 placed by Gamaliel. The end result was Blocking. Cassianto response was to eventually delete post and write in edit summary "oh dear what a shame I'm utterly devastated; how on earth will I cope!"
• 14:58, 12 June 2015 placed by Mike V. The end result was While you're on the beach... Scroll down and open the box labeled "Tantrums and Tomfoolery".
• 11:17, 1 July 2015 by Mike V. The end result was Block notice.
• 13:36, 24 October 2015 by Guerillero. The end result was Blocked.
• 10:32, 19 November 2015 by MSGJ. Cassianto first response was "Clearly MSGJ you are just another incompetent "admin" who doesn't know their arse from their elbow. Wikipedia needs me more than I need it over the next 24 hours." The end result was November 2015.
• 13:20, 24 November 2015 by Berean Hunter. The end result was Blocked.
• 15:38, 11 January 2016 by Future Perfect at Sunrise. The end result was January 2016.
• 23:15, 13 May 2016 by HighInBC. The end result was May 2016.
• 20:40, 25 May 2016 by HighInBC. The end result was Blocked for personal attacks.
• And most recently by Bgwhite

I have no idea how many warnings Cassianto has received on his/her talk page since joining Wikipedia on Nov 6, 2010, 10:47 AM. The most recent warnings are as follows:

• 16:10, 15 January 2017 by non-admin Mlpearc. Cassianto response was to delete post and write in edit summary "bugger off"
• 14:16, 10 January 2017 by admin JamesBWatson. Cassianto response was to delete post and write in edit summary "fuck off"
• 14:45, 1 January 2017 by non-admin Rusted AutoParts. Cassianto response was to eventually delete post and write in edit summary "idiot. (Oh, btw, FIM, and thanks and have yourself a happy new year!"

And the behavior extends to Jimbo Wales talk page. Cassianto responded to an editor, "What are you trying to prove in linking to a previous comment where I told a well known troll to fuck off? I'm not in the least bit ashamed about doing that and would do it again in a heartbeat; care for me to test that theory out?" on 11:20, 31 October 2015. Cassianto next post was "Has it ever occurred to you that you might be coming across as a bit of a cunt yourself?" on 11:27, 31 October 2015.

Cassianto has engaged in uncivil behavior towards admins and non-admins alike. Please do not ignore Cassianto's behavior and allow it to continue with impunity. Mitchumch (talk) 21:32, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

You have to be fair. That means if you block Cassianto for a week, the person who provoked him gets a week's block as well. My preferred mechanism for dealing with it is to hat the conversation with a mildly condescending message such as "not now, chaps". It isn't directed at any specific editor and it avoids anyone else taking third-party offence. I haven't had too many complaints about that. For "fuck off" in an edit summary, best thing is to ignore it, but if the offended party can't possibly bear being told to fuck off, I guess you could revdel it under the "grossly offensive" provision. It might be controversial, but a hell of a lot less controversial than a block, that's for sure. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 21:57, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

People don't generally tell others to "fuck off" and the like off the tops of their heads. Let's see some diffs re: what the provoking factors were to cause the profanity. We hope (talk) 22:28, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Here's a diff, already provided above. An editor left a civil, AGF message on Cass's talk page about this edit war, and Cass deleted it with an uncivil two-word edit summary. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:03, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Another. Cassianto removed another's comments. Comments were not directed towards Cassianto. Bgwhite (talk) 03:58, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

The ongoing votes to unblock Cassianto is biased, as it should be done on WP:AN. They have Cassianto's talk page in their watchlist and they mostly have worked with Cassianto and likes his content creation and anti-Infobox sentiment as this userpage. If anyone will vote oppose unblock, then Cassianto will remove his comments from his talk page. There will be a false consensus. Cassianto should be unblocked through WP:AN. Marvellous Spider-Man 04:06, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Ritchie333 Casssianto has already already removed oppose vote and a followup while being rude. Bgwhite (talk) 05:18, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: You unblocked Casssianto on 05:11, 18 January 2017 because "Per agreement with the blocking administrator". What agreement? Please provide a link. Thanks. Mitchumch (talk) 13:37, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Sure : If you want to unblock, go ahead. I also agree with Bgwhite that Cassianto needs to put the infobox feud behind him (other eyes are looking at it now) and work on the Whitehall Mystery a bit. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:42, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: Thank you. Mitchumch (talk) 14:42, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

• "Cassianto is no longer a content creator. He's been a talk page stalker on infoboxes for a couple of years." -- are you being serious, Bgwhite? Take a look at Michael Hordern and Burke and Hare murders. Get your facts right before you start posting rubbish like this. Cassianto^Talk 14:37, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Holy moly Cass - I like you, you produce brilliant FAs, but going and sticking two fingers up at the blocking admin straight after an unblock is about as sensible as standing in the middle of Hyde Park Corner shouting at all the cars "come and have a go if you think you're hard enough". Jeez. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:52, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Just pointing out an inaccuracy, Ritchie333. Nothing wrong with that. It seems Bgwhite's whole involvement here has been based on a lack of research whilst not being in full view of the facts. I'm entitled to correct people. But if you think this message was "sticking two fingers up at the blocking admin", you should've seen what I typed before going out for some more air and a cup of tea. I thought better of it. Cassianto^Talk 15:14, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

You worked on Michael Hordern a year ago. Burke and Hare murders was six month ago. There's also Catherine Zeta-Jones, but that's it for two years. You do write great articles. You are really good at it. Unfortunately, you really haven't worked on any articles since September. Take a look at your editing patterns by monthly count. It used to be that over 75% of your edits were about writing articles. The dark red and green dominated. For the last 2+ years, except for three months, less than ~25-33% of your edits were about writing articles. If I counted correctly, you had 11 FAs in three years. You've had 3 FAs in the last 2+ years. Talk pages are now your primary editing concerns. You were a content creator, now you are talk page writer who does articles on the side. I'll repeat from above... You need to go back to content, which is what you do best and which helps Wikipedia the most. I also bet you were much happier on Wikipedia when writing mostly on articles. Bgwhite (talk) 22:12, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

I had nothing to do with Catherine Zeta-Jones; more flawless research, I see. I should also remind you that I've semi-retired. That means I'm partly active. To be fully active would mean I'd be open to write articles and frequent talk pages. I asked Floquenbeam to delete my user page, hence why my signature is red. When I decided to semi-retired, something needed to give way, and I chose content creation. The reason for this is because of dispute like we've just seen. Why should bother to invest my time and money into something when shit like the kind we've seen today happens time and time again? Writing FAs is a thankless task; all that time spent building a quality article; all that money spent on buying books and subscriptions; for what? Nothing. It's evident Jimbo hates the FA writer and it's obvious the community do too. The Noel Coward dispute saw the retirements of Tim riley and SchroCat, all because of a few people who decided that they were going to stick two fingers up at the principle authors because they wanted an infobox. There are only so many RfCs you can take. To have a bunch of people turn up and force an infobox onto something you've slaved away on for the best part of two months it is tantamount to bullying. The people who do this have generally had no prior involvement in the article's construction and probably don't even know the subject, if truth be known. They get summonsed by a bot and then lemming vote support without even bothering to take into account the feelings of the principle author. It's sickening. That is why I no longer write. What's the point? Cassianto^Talk 22:48, 18 January 2017 (UTC).

Anyway, I'm sick of all this. I wish you luck in your future endeavours. I'm out. Cassianto^Talk 22:56, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Cassianto I've only done one FA and I did it for myself. I did it to do research, learn and write. I didn't do it for anybody else or what anybody else thought about it. I enjoyed doing everybit of it. I really hope you find enjoyment in Wikipedia again, whether by writing an FA, helping someone else on their FA or something totally different. Good luck in your endeavours too. Bgwhite (talk) 05:31, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Colons and citations

The bot made an edit to the article Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, leaving aside noise, the issue it was changing was:

O'Neill was married four times{{sfn|McNeill|1911|p=110}}:
* a list

to

O'Neill was married four times:{{sfn|McNeill|1911|p=110}}
* a list

In this case it is not the statement that "O'Neill was married four times" is covered by the citation and if it were a comma, semicolon, or a full stop then it would by the rules currently in use imply that {{sfn|McNeill|1911|p=110}} covered the phrase, clause or sentence, but by moving the citation after the colon it implies that it covers the list.

The reason why I was against the imposition of the rule MOS:REFPUNCT in the MOS (it is one of SV's less than useful interventions), is because it does not help with clarity. My views on this are well rehearsed in the MOS talk archives, and the agreed solution (via an RFC) did not cover colons. -- PBS (talk) 15:43, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

PBS No quite sure what to say. MOS:REFPUNCT clearly says any punctuation, so the bot is following MOS as it is currently written. To me, it doesn't matter where the colon is at because readers and editors will get confused in both cases. Editors put both line specific and list specific refs in the same spot. If you don't want the bot to move it, I'd suggest using the {{not a typo}} template. Bgwhite (talk) 21:34, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Caution when changing markup from HTML to wiki

Please be careful when changing HTML markup to wiki markup that you wind upd with the same rendering. In particular, when you have apostrophes around text inside of an italics tag pair, e.g., 'characters', changing the tags to pairs of apostrophes, e.g., characters, makes the text bold instead of italics surrounded by apostrophes. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 23:40, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Bot was gettting DEFAULTSORT wrong

This edit was wrong. Perhaps it was concentrating on sorting out a non-standard character, but it then left him sorting by forename instead of surname. Now noticed that it was in 2015 - does that mean that there are a pool of incorrect sortkeys from around that date, which no-one has noticed, and which ought to be fixed? PamD 12:00, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

PamD AWB does DEFAULTSORT depending on what categories and infoboxes are present. For example, if an Infobox person or a living/died category is on the page, then AWB treats DEFAULTSORT as a person. There are other infoboxes and categories AWB uses. As AWB didn't find one, AWB didn't treat the article as a person. AWB shouldn't have made the edit in the first place. It changed ø -> o, which is no longer needed as of a few months ago due to a MediaWiki update. Magioladitis, wasn't that supposed to be fixed? Bgwhite (talk) 21:09, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

AWB removed most of the letter logic. If this is done it is done for a reason(?) -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:43, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Added a bug report... T155865. Bgwhite (talk) 23:17, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Page Protection

Hi BGWhite, can you please help to temporarily lock down a page which is under IP vandalism, again. You were able to do this on 12 July 2016, when the page was undergoing constant vandalism. The page is Shankarananda (Shiva Yoga). I have put a CHECKPOINT tag with the last known good version (21-Jan-17, 23:22). Can you please assist as I feel this page is undergoing the same vandalism as last year. Anything you can do to assist would be greatly appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.243.49.121 (talk) 00:24, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

BG19bot marking what is ‘confusing’ or ‘needs clarification?!’

I added a section to mathematical universe hypothesis, then this bot came along and marked sections confusing and needing clarification. How is it supposed to be believed a bot even ‘knows’ this? Or, did a person use it in a semi-automated way (but seems you don't need a bot just to add a tag?) If so, it doesn't all seem appropriate, because mathematical Pythagoreanism, Platonism, Neopythagoreanism, Neoplatonism (the last two also including modern revivals) are the most in-depth/complex philosophies, too hard to understand for 90% to 99.9% of people who have simpler or less logic-/math-focused views of reality... that doesn't mean a mathematical philosophy article is confusing (any more than some advanced, university-level, computational or geometric math article 99.9% of people don't study) rather than hard to understand--it means those people need to study more. It's not clear what was asked for clarification on, but it seems the details are (and should remain in) the referenced article or haven't been stated yet by the author responding to Tegmark, though different possibilities exist in higher/graduate-level mathematics.--dchmelik (t|c) 01:16, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

dchmelik It was not BG19bot which performed the edit in question. Check again. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:23, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Oh yeah... looks like it was an actual user in between two bots but that had a net change of decreasing the length of the section even while adding those tags. Then feel free to delete this talk section if irrelevant.--dchmelik (t|c) 01:32, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Paragraphs in quotations

Hi. This edit actually broke the paragraphs in the quotation, since {{quote}} doesn't support line breaks. I used the html <p></p> tags instead of <br/> because they were more semantically correct. Are ellipses at the beginning of a quote unrecommended? WP:... doesn't say anything against them. --Paul_012 (talk) 00:52, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Paul 012 Yea, I goofed on the ellipses. You are correct in not using br to create a line breaks as that is against HTML5. One also shouldn't use <p> tags either because people may not recognize them and it can cause accessibility issues. I replaced them with {{paragraph break}}. The other option is to use <blockquote>. Bgwhite (talk) 05:50, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. However, MediaWiki doesn't appear to convert line breaks within the blockquote tag, so the paragraph break template seems to be the only way to go. --Paul_012 (talk) 10:23, 24 January 2017 (UTC)