User talk:Harej/Archive11
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Thank goodness
Thanks to the date-unlinking bot edits like this are possible. Hard to image someone doing this manually. Hekerui (talk) 17:29, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
- 1,185 full-dates! Thank you for the feedback. @harej 18:12, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
GAN tweaks, suggestions and requests
Thanks for all your work to improve the automated GAN page. I just compared the two pages, and the two histories: [1] and [2]. The bot seems to be working well, although for some reason, HMS Inflexible (1907)/GA1 was not parsed successfully. The bot then describes it as "failed" whereas it is actually "on hold".
The main differences are in the edit summaries. The bot's are more reliable, but miss some information. I believe that for new nominations, it would be useful to know the subtopic, and for passes and fails, it would be useful to know the name of the reviewer (I appreciate that the latter involves parsing the signature, which could be tricky). The GAN page edit history is one of the tools reviewers have for spotting reviews out of process and other problems.
Finally, a request. The GAN page is getting pretty large and I think some reviewers would prefer separate pages for each topic (the top level of the hierarchy). One of the advantages of an automated system is that we can have both, without using transclusions. (The problem with transcluding the separate pages is that the GAN page itself would then be static – no edit summaries.) Could RFC bot produce such separate pages as well? Geometry guy 15:41, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
- I apologize for not returning this call sooner. The one with the Inflexible has to do with a misplaced template, marked as "failed" because Talk:HMS Inflexible (1907)/GA1 didn't have {{GA}} (or cash equivalent) on it, nor would it make sense for it to be there. This is an isolated incident and not indicative of broader confusion in the process. More informative edit summaries would be a good idea, though I have not yet thought of a feasible way to get that accomplished. And while the subpage system is a great idea, that's another factor in the mix that I will need to accommodate. The easiest way to get this accomplished is to have the bot chop up the full list into sublists based on second-level headers, and informative edit summaries could be produced by difference comparisons already done for the full list. I have time tonight and will see what I can do to make better edit summaries and to implement a subpage feature. @harej 22:17, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
- I have the more precise edit summaries working now. For the topic lists, would it be okay if I were to have them in project-space now, as in Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Topic lists as opposed to User:RFC bot/Sandbox 2/Topic lists? @harej 06:58, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks Harej, good work on the edit summaries. I see no harm in putting the topic lists in Wikipedia space, as this is a proposed new feature, rather than a proposed replacement. We can discuss linking to the new pages at WT:GAN. Geometry guy 21:17, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
- PS. Before I forget: there may be some benefit in having a dedicated bot account associated with this, e.g. User:GA bot. That way, if one bot malfunctions, the other bot's activities can continue. Also there is no harm in BAG taking a look at what you have done. Geometry guy 21:21, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
- I already have User:The GA robot reserved. I will have a full BRFA prepared by the time the automated list process is ready to replace the current list. @harej 21:51, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
- Very good. Geometry guy 22:40, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
- I already have User:The GA robot reserved. I will have a full BRFA prepared by the time the automated list process is ready to replace the current list. @harej 21:51, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
- I have the more precise edit summaries working now. For the topic lists, would it be okay if I were to have them in project-space now, as in Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Topic lists as opposed to User:RFC bot/Sandbox 2/Topic lists? @harej 06:58, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
RfC bot seems to have screwed up
Please take a look here. The latest addition (sock puppetry) was formatted differently than the other entries and wouldn't show properly. I reformatted it and it still looked bad. I then figured that something about the italics in the original heading might be doing it, so I harmonized them, but it's still not working. Please take a look. – Brangifer (talk) 20:53, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
- It looks fine now. @harej 01:10, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Educational GARs
Thanks for the prompt response to my requests for reviews! FYI, I am the course leader, do let me know if you have any questions about the course or the assignment. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 01:27, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
- FYI, the deadline for the course grading of the articles is Dec 8th. Hopefully the students will be done with getting a GA status by then. Still, some may not be very active till the last few days... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:26, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
- The review is on hold until they fill in hundreds of years of history. I will be withholding promotion until they fill in that gap. @harej 18:44, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
- Certainly a good idea. Btw, something to check (I do it as much as I can but more eyes...): potential copyvio/plagiarism problems (as seen here). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 02:51, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
- The review is on hold until they fill in hundreds of years of history. I will be withholding promotion until they fill in that gap. @harej 18:44, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
- PS. Proof that copyvio/plagiarism is not an isolated problems. Sigh. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 22:22, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
- Surely the plagiarized articles are very easy to grade. @harej 00:08, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
- There is a section along those line in every syllabus – but it doesn't mean some people ever read it. Then there are the well meaning freshman who simply never heard the word plagiarism. And one has to try to distinguish between students (in the same group) working hard and those who don't. For example, I just found one problem here – but the work of others in that group seem fine (with regards to copyvio issues). Hopefully this issue will be fixed soon... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 01:41, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
- I'm not too sure about that, Harej. Dabomb87 (talk) 15:40, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
- Oy gevalt. @harej 20:06, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
- Can you clarify for students that they can resubmit it (and how) (re: this)? I anticipate a lot of "are we doomed" questions :> --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:48, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
- Oy gevalt. @harej 20:06, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
- Surely the plagiarized articles are very easy to grade. @harej 00:08, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Btw, I mispoke earlier – the assignment ends on 11th, not on 8th. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 04:59, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
Bot speed
James, I see that the bot has been stopped for more than a day. Is it not possible to leave it running unattended—say, overnight?
It was cleared to do 70,560 edits per week but we haven't even managed 10,000 yet. If it were a little slower than the approved rate, I wouldn't bother you, but less than a seventh, which might take years to clear the backlog, appears unsatisfactory.
Would it be possible to establish a completion date? The logic of the bot permission is that the completion date should be 65 days from when permission was given (650000 edits at 10080/day). I'd have thought two months was quite enough for this task. Tony (talk) 11:19, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
- The bot has random moments during which it breaks down. I have been trying to fix these problems and I have had some degree of success in doing so. Once I resolve this predicament I will leave the bot running 24/7. @harej 20:29, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Songs/coverversions
You removed an "expired rcftag" tag less than a couple of hours after I place it on the above article. I think one of us did something wrong... Can you investigate? Thanks. --Richhoncho (talk) 08:57, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
- Many thanks for your attention this. The help is much appreciated. --Richhoncho (talk) 19:49, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
You should probably consider halting the bot while this request for clarification is looked at. –xenotalk 18:46, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
The da Vinci Barnstar | ||
I hereby award this Barnstar to harej for creating and seeing the FDUB through its teething stage. As a result, WP will have a considerably improved reading experience through fewer distracting low-value links. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 07:04, 20 November 2009 (UTC) |
Old MfD on userbox
I was going through and cleaning up bad mfd templates and I came across something weird that happened with one of your mfds. Check out Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Pittsburgh_Steelers and Template:User_Pittsburgh_Steelers_Fan and Template:User_Steelers. Looks like maybe this was an improperly done multi-nom? Gigs (talk) 16:03, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
- Feel free to merge. @harej 22:55, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
TUSC token bbd052fec7083c90eb1acbfda594f071
I am now proud owner of a TUSC account! @harej 20:33, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
RM bot
Hey, the RM bot is pretty cool – saved me a lot of work doing a multiple move request just now. Nice one!--Kotniski (talk) 10:06, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
- Self-maintaining processes for the win! @harej 18:45, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
RFC bot suggestion
Looking at the RFC list, several of the talkpages for the discussions listed have been archived, which probably means those discussions have wound down and can be safely removed from the RFC list (and indeed the current instances have wound down). Perhaps a new rule to add to the bot's logic? --Cybercobra (talk) 07:04, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
- I'll consider some title-matching. In the past, I have not really considered it an issue because surely an archived RfC is destined to be delisted. However, after seeing the bot run for a good two and a half years, I'm having some second thoughts on that notion. @harej 20:03, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
RFC bot question
I recently placed an RFC at the Liquid Crystals talk page and within a few minutes the RFCbot came along and removed the tag at the top of the discussion page telling people there was an RFC. Is it supposed to do this or is it malfunctioning?Chhe (talk) 04:09, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
- RFCs expire thirty days after the first comment. Based on the position of the tag, the bot figured that the first comment was made on October 2 and therefore the RFC had to have been about two months old. However, what really happened was that you added the tag long after the discussion started. I would add the tag later in the section, or I would create a new section so you could give it a new timestamp. @harej 04:20, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks.Chhe (talk) 04:43, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Happy First Edit Day Harej
Vatsan34 (talk) 09:46, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
- Yay! I'm 5!
Provinces of Mongolia
Talk:Aimags_of_Mongolia#Requested_move 3 support, 1 oppose, 1 weak oppose, the latter with "Weak oppose: I have to qualify my vote by saying that I don't know much about Mongolia. ". More support at Talk:Aimags_of_Mongolia#Naming. The article was a long time at "Provinces of Mongolia" and the individual articles and the Category:Provinces of Mongolia, per WP:UE use the English translation too. Could you please re-count? TrueColour (talk) 16:25, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
- Excuse me, since when are such discussions decided by vote count? I don't see any consensus in the discussion, I see Truecolour and Chanheigeorge arguing for "province" because of UE, Vmenkov and me arguing for "aimag" because of COMMONNAME, Latebird arguing against "province" because of NOR, and one guy who just left his signature. The guy who said "I have to qualify my vote by saying that I don't know much about Mongolia." at least was familiar with Owen Lattimore, which (no offense!) seems to be much more than could be said about Truecolour and probably Chanheigeorge. I wonder how this constitutes wp:consensus one way or the other. Yaan (talk) 19:25, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
- Feel free to start a second discussion or something. @harej 20:18, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
RfC listing removal
Curious, other items on the Pol RfC list are listed in multiple category lists (IE: RfCs on Federales and Mark Levin), why not the RfC on Golan mountains? --nsaum75 ¡שיחת! 20:53, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
- You can add it into another category if you wish. Putting an RFC in two categories is done like this:
{{rfctag|xxx|yyy}}
, where "xxx" is the first category abbreviation and "yyy" is the second category abbreviation. See Template:Wider attention for a full list of abbreviations. @harej 21:04, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
GA Assessment – Windows Product Activation on Wikipedia:Good article nominations
If you are still intending to edit the above article, please add the notice to Wikipedia:Good article nominations under the computing section. If you are not, I would like to take it over. Please note: With all due respect, after a certain amount of time (reasonable) I will start to edit, if you have not replied to this. --MWOAP (talk) 00:02, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
- If you really want to, you may do it yourself. @harej 01:00, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
- I will do it then. If you want I would love to hear your comments on it after my review. --MWOAP (talk) 01:05, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
User:Full-date unlinking bot/manual override protection
It appears that a semi-protect of User:Full-date unlinking bot/manual override may be in order. – Tom N (tcncv) talk/contrib 15:51, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
- Personally, I'm more tempted to full-protect it. But semi-protection is a good start. @harej 20:14, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
Withdrawn GA nominations
Sometimes GA nominators withdraw their nominations, e.g., Jungle Strike today. The bot recorded this as Failed Jungle Strike, which is inaccurate.
A simple solution may be to follow {{Article History}} and describe the outcome of a GAN more straightforwardly as "listed" or "not listed". Geometry guy 22:16, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
- I consider "failed" and "withdrawn" to be the same thing. But yes, I will consider "Listed" and "Not listed". @harej 23:34, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
block
Oh really cause i blocked your mother real good last night!! brian moore (talk) 23:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
This bot is repeatedly deleting my requested move page
Wikipedia:Requested moves/current --Everyone Dies In the End (talk) 13:21, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
- See the instructions at Wikipedia:RM#Requesting_potentially_controversial_moves. @harej 20:23, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
review
the article, semi-periphery countries has been renominated for good article. --D.j.weingart (talk) 03:07, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
Articles for deletion nomination of 88 Fingers Louie
I have nominated 88 Fingers Louie, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/88 Fingers Louie. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.
Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. WuhWuzDat 15:37, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
The RFC bot keeps removing my rfctag as "expired". We had been drafting this RFC for a couple weeks before taking it public. I put the RFC tag into a section, but that pushes it below the TOC so I'd prefer it to be at the top like normal. You might want to look at whatever code the bot uses to determine when an RFC is expired. Gigs (talk) 18:17, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- It just did it again. This is getting very annoying. Gigs (talk) 19:09, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- I think I figured it out. If you don't have any other text in the same section as the RFC tag then the bot says it's expired. It should probably special case that and say "No comment was found below tag, removing tag" or something like that, if it tries to extract a date and doesn't find a valid one in the same section. Gigs (talk) 20:20, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- Or you could sign your RFCs, like you ultimately did. @harej 20:22, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- :) Still think it could give a more useful edit summary, if you are so inclined to fix it sometime. Gigs (talk) 20:31, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- In the spirit of sofixit, I took a look at the code since I know PHP. Was the intent already to avoid removing rfctags in that situation: if (time() - $timestamp[$tag] > 2592000 && $timestamp[$tag] != "") ... that second conditional clause? Gigs (talk) 20:53, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- Indeed. The fact that the robut considered the page to have a date on it anyway is interesting, as there is none that I can see. @harej 11:56, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- In the spirit of sofixit, I took a look at the code since I know PHP. Was the intent already to avoid removing rfctags in that situation: if (time() - $timestamp[$tag] > 2592000 && $timestamp[$tag] != "") ... that second conditional clause? Gigs (talk) 20:53, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- :) Still think it could give a more useful edit summary, if you are so inclined to fix it sometime. Gigs (talk) 20:31, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- Or you could sign your RFCs, like you ultimately did. @harej 20:22, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- I think I figured it out. If you don't have any other text in the same section as the RFC tag then the bot says it's expired. It should probably special case that and say "No comment was found below tag, removing tag" or something like that, if it tries to extract a date and doesn't find a valid one in the same section. Gigs (talk) 20:20, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
Birth and death date in biographical articles should be left linked
Hi Harej,
I think the date of birth and the date of death are the two basic dates in a person's life that these two should be definitely linked in all biographical articles. This way it could be ensured that the person in question could be linked from the relevant month and day combination article and from the relevant year article.
Thus, I've undone this change. Please make sure that your bot will not do it again in the future.
Thanks a lot for your attention. Adam78 (talk) 18:52, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- That is actually not what the manual of style says, but I will not contradict you. (I will leave that to someone who cares more about this kind of thing than I do.) @harej 20:21, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, I left a comment on the relevant discussion page. Adam78 (talk) 22:22, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
RM page
Howdy. Why did you revert my correction? GoodDay (talk) 19:02, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- You need to make corrections on the page where the discussion is taking place. Wikipedia:Requested moves/current is merely a reflection of what's printed on those pages. @harej 20:24, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- Okie Dokie. GoodDay (talk) 20:27, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
the bot
Hi James, the bot seems to be running slowly; it doesn't appear to be processing February and it keeps failing for extended periods. Can you take a look at how throughput might be maintained, and also consider halving the deliberate delay (i.e. doubling the speed)? Thanks in advance. Tony (talk) 11:27, December 11, 2009 (UTC) now.
- Dash bot: oops, I knew I should have checked the diff. Sorry. Tony (talk) 11:30, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
OpenStreetMap mapping party
Since you have expressed interest in coming to the DC meetup on January 9, and (I think) are coming from out of town, I wanted to let you know that the OpenStreetMap group in DC is organizing a mapping party event the next day on January 10. We will be mapping the National Mall and East/West Potomac Park areas (e.g. Jefferson Memorial). I'm not sure if you already have booked arrangements to come to DC? If not or your schedule is flexible and are interested, then I hope you can join us on Sunday too. --Aude (talk) 07:20, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
RM bot problem
Hi. RM bot seem to be persistently adding this message pointing to a merge discussion to Talk:Hong Kong, China, at the 2010 Winter Olympics, when it doesn't really belong there since that page is where the discussion is taking place. Cordless Larry (talk) 12:40, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
- The way the bot works is that current1 and new1 are supposed to the page where the discussion is taking place, whereas 2 through infinity are the other page and so they get the cross-notification. I have fixed it, in any case, and I will clarify the directions. @harej 15:17, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
- Sorry, that was my fault then. I didn't realise that when I set up the discussion. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:26, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
This seems to be a new Template. It seems to have been placed on many pages which actually do have election results (in summary form, giving the number of seats per party).
Example: Template:Azerbaijani parliamentary election, 2005
If this box is intended to mean that there are not seat-by-seat data with candidate names, etc, then I suggest it is misplaced. It is unimaginable that such detail will ever be obtainable for every election in every corner of the globe. If a keen Wikipedian with access to the data wishes to do it, they undoubtedly will. And if that user wishes to match for their country the level of detail available for UK Constituencies, they will need to create several hundred articles for the constituencies in that country etc etc. Basically it ain't going to happen. And to stick a visible box that says in effect "This article is defective" on a perfectly adequate article on an election in a less-prominent country, only serves to discourage those who create these articles.
If there is an obvious place to make this comment, I will do so. A quick look at the template history pointed me here. Sussexonian (talk) 20:54, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
- Not that the article is missing seat-by-seat results, but that it is missing results for the body as a whole. Not showing the amount of votes cast (or even the percentage) in an article about a specific election is indeed a significant omission. Likewise, if we had an article on the 2005 election within a specific Azerbaijani constituency, and that was missing data, that would be considered a significant omission as well. However, we need not worry about whether non-existent articles have data. @harej 21:10, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks for the clarification. I wonder, even so, how easy it is to find a total number of votes per party across the whole country in some electoral systems. Even in UK general elections it is not an easy statistic to find in national newspapers etc, and the British system is simpler than some others. Although it would be nice to have national voting totals, I would think that the key information a typical reader will want to find is the number of seats gained by each party, what coalition/national grouping they adhered to, etc, and how this compared with the previous/following election. Maybe the template could be more politely worded along the grounds of a stub notice, and specifically refer to the missing elements.?
- In the discussion Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Elections_and_Referenda#Standardizing_election_results, which I think you started, there is an opportunity to clean up the plethora of election box and electiontable derivatives, and it is the latter that is relevant here. So maybe some guidelines will emerge improving consistency between articles. Sussexonian (talk) 12:16, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Final assessment of educational GARs
What are your thoughts on Semi-periphery countries? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:16, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
RM bot
I recommended an article for a move, and used the wrong name. I corrected it within a few minutes, but the damage seems to have been done. I fixed it on Wikipedia:Requested moves/current, but I'm afraid the bot will overwrite it. Debresser (talk) 15:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
- Thank you for the fix. Debresser (talk) 20:51, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
GAN bot
Any idea what caused this? By the way, thanks for operating all those convenient bots. :) Ucucha 18:48, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
- You're quite welcome. Also, I don't know what caused that; probably a fluke in obtaining the list of nominations. This appears to be the first time that has ever happened. @harej 19:56, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Technical question on RfCs
Hi Harej, I think you might be one of the resident experts on the technical aspects of the RfC process (sorry to trouble you if that's not the case), and as such I was wondering if you could answer my question here (you can reply either there, here, or on my talk page). Basically I have a draft user conduct RfC in my userspace which is ready to go, and I just need to move it such that it goes "live" without screwing up the formatting of an RfC. A little tech help would be appreciated if you can spare a moment, or point me in the direction of someone who can. Thanks! --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:42, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Happy Holidays
'tis the season to be jolly! Have a Merry Christmas, a high-spirited Hanukkah, a Happy New Year, a killer Kwanzaa, a hearty Hogmanay, a smashing Silvester, or even a spiffy Saturnalia as the case may be! And don't forget to spread the holiday cheer by pasting {{subst:User:Happenstance/Dec}} to the talk pages of all your little friends, and even one or two of your enemies too, in the spirit of the holiday, no? Season's greetings, from —what a crazy random happenstance 03:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC) |
- You forgot Festivus. @harej 03:18, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Bot request
I do realise you're probably busy doing all the things do you, but since you appear to be experienced in the area (with User:Full-date unlinking bot), could I humbly request you implement the change discussed at Template talk:Infobox weather#Shouldn't the template default to metric with your bot-y prowess? It's been half a year since that discussion and the change has not yet occurred; Infobox Weather continues to be the bad boy of the template namespace, flying in the face of policy. A bot would greatly expedite the change, and it would require only one mass run, maybe two depending on how long the first one took. It would be greatly appreciated, considering the great majority of place articles, and the vast majority of new place articles use metric. —what a crazy random happenstance 03:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
- Why is this something that should be carried out by a bot instead of a change to the template so that the template will default to metric unless dictated otherwise? @harej 03:26, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
- The template uses somewhat esoteric syntax, rather than a simple C/F switch, the absence of which would default to one or the other, the template wants a special argument "metric_first = yes" for all metric uses, and no argument at all to default to fahrenheit. Hence, if we change the template over to metric every single instance of it would go over to metric too. This is a problem given that it is a very prominent template, used in thousands of very high traffic articles. Changing over would have to be a three step process, first a dummy "imperial_first" argument would have to be added to the template, then a bot would have to run though every instance of the template and add "imperial_first" wherever "metric_first" is absent or is set to no, and after that is done the template would be changed to default to metric and "metric_first" removed (it should then be cleared out of all template's instances too) Sorry if I'm being confusing here, it's entirely probable that I'm missing something completely obvious which would make all far this simpler. —what a crazy random happenstance 03:45, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
- I have come up with a procedure.
I will have it done through AWB. @harej 03:58, 22 December 2009 (UTC)- On second thought, I think this will require a custom script. @harej 04:08, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
- Brilliant! Thanks a lot. PS: You'd be surprised how frequent the requests for Festivus are... —what a crazy random happenstance 04:00, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
- I have come up with a procedure.
- The template uses somewhat esoteric syntax, rather than a simple C/F switch, the absence of which would default to one or the other, the template wants a special argument "metric_first = yes" for all metric uses, and no argument at all to default to fahrenheit. Hence, if we change the template over to metric every single instance of it would go over to metric too. This is a problem given that it is a very prominent template, used in thousands of very high traffic articles. Changing over would have to be a three step process, first a dummy "imperial_first" argument would have to be added to the template, then a bot would have to run though every instance of the template and add "imperial_first" wherever "metric_first" is absent or is set to no, and after that is done the template would be changed to default to metric and "metric_first" removed (it should then be cleared out of all template's instances too) Sorry if I'm being confusing here, it's entirely probable that I'm missing something completely obvious which would make all far this simpler. —what a crazy random happenstance 03:45, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
And now, for FV's traditional last-minute nonsectarian holiday greeting!
RMbot at WP:CORD
Hi! First of all, thanks for RM bot – it really makes the requested move process go much more smoothly. There must be a typo in the source, though – whenever there are any requests in the "Time could not be ascertained" category at Wikipedia:Coordination/Requested_moves, the bot puts the wrong collapse template at the bottom of that category. It uses "collape bottom" (missing an "s"). See this revision for an example: [3]. The result of this is that the RfA/RfB table that is below the RM section on WP:CORD gets eaten by the collapsing table. Thanks! — ækTalk 08:34, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
- I have added the appropriate letter at a very specific place on the 252nd line of code. The bot should no longer be collaping the AfD box. @harej 15:54, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Per my threat to make the change more elegantly in our last discussion, I have reorganized the closing instructions from top down. The page is now chunked for easier understanding and has a logical flow: People learn whether they should be doing to the close at all, followed by how to determine what decision to make (consensus), followed by the natural order of the moving procedures. I have clarified, condensed, removed redundancy and incorporated your changes.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:40, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
- I love it! This is even better than what I had in mind. Thank you for doing such a great job at reorganization, and sorry I couldn't make on my earlier promise to fix the page. @harej 16:16, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
- Wonderful! I spent a good deal of time on this, not just as to how to organize it but for flow and clarity of the language. The only thing I'm wondering is if I got the gist of the Header confusion section correct. I found the section a bit confusing as to what was meant. Please take a look.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:29, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
- I rewrote it. Hopefully it should be clearer now. @harej 16:47, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
- Much better. One point of clarification on the third point you added: Will it work if a user signs for another using {{unsigned}}? Most of the people finding the unsigned problem will not be the original nominator and they will likely use the unsigned template.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:55, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
- It should, but only if the timestamp used is formatted like XX:XX, Day Fullmonth Year (UTC) like signing with five tildes does. This limitation is greatly annoying but it's hard to account for the various formats. What I could do is detect {{unsigned}}, both substituted and transcluded, zero in on the timestamps, and standardize it then. Luckily,
strtotime()
in PHP is very flexible. In the meantime, it has to be in the standard way used by Wikipedia. @harej 17:09, 27 December 2009 (UTC)- Okay, note this diff. Tweak as you see fit.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:20, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
- Kind of a kludge, but a lot easier than explaining how dates have to be formatted a certain way. @harej 19:39, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
- Okay, note this diff. Tweak as you see fit.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:20, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
- It should, but only if the timestamp used is formatted like XX:XX, Day Fullmonth Year (UTC) like signing with five tildes does. This limitation is greatly annoying but it's hard to account for the various formats. What I could do is detect {{unsigned}}, both substituted and transcluded, zero in on the timestamps, and standardize it then. Luckily,
- Much better. One point of clarification on the third point you added: Will it work if a user signs for another using {{unsigned}}? Most of the people finding the unsigned problem will not be the original nominator and they will likely use the unsigned template.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:55, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
- I rewrote it. Hopefully it should be clearer now. @harej 16:47, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
- Wonderful! I spent a good deal of time on this, not just as to how to organize it but for flow and clarity of the language. The only thing I'm wondering is if I got the gist of the Header confusion section correct. I found the section a bit confusing as to what was meant. Please take a look.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:29, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Nomination
Please see Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group/nominations/Harej, if you decide to accept, please transclude to WT:BAG and notify the places specified in policy. MBisanz talk 05:34, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
modifying other user's comments
Thanks for doing so. tedder (talk) 05:46, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
RM dates
Re [4] - could we have natural, human-readable dates including day of week restored please? Knepflerle (talk) 16:55, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
- They should be very clear when viewing the list. What do they appear as for you? @harej 18:27, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
- They currently appear in the rather unusual format of "2010-01-01", whereas the previous version was the more readable "October 07, 2009". "Big-end" dates are not particularly familiar to most editors or readers. Knepflerle (talk) 19:25, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
- I used a MediaWiki magic word which should have formatted the date to the user's liking. Apparently it defaults to ISO format, which is no good. I restored the old way of things. @harej 19:28, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
- Ah, I see. Thanks for doing that! Knepflerle (talk) 19:59, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
- I used a MediaWiki magic word which should have formatted the date to the user's liking. Apparently it defaults to ISO format, which is no good. I restored the old way of things. @harej 19:28, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
- They currently appear in the rather unusual format of "2010-01-01", whereas the previous version was the more readable "October 07, 2009". "Big-end" dates are not particularly familiar to most editors or readers. Knepflerle (talk) 19:25, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
BAGgage
Thanks for running for the BAG.[5] Now get to work. Just kidding, sort-of. Your help is really needed, probably need a couple more members, also. --IP69.226.103.13 | Talk about me. 01:19, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Rabid approval
If there is some reason you have to approve a bot for trials before most editors have even seen the bot, can you at least say why? I don't see any reason this bot was approved for a trial without input from anyone. --IP69.226.103.13 | Talk about me. 05:17, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
- In immediately approving a trial I sought to implicitly request unanimous consent to suspend the rules in order to expedite the process. I consider interwiki to be uncontroversial, and of course discussion is not closed until the bot is ultimately approved/rejected. In the future, I will prefix such granted bot trials with requests for unanimous consent. In the meantime, please consider the discussion to be open; it very much is. @harej 05:22, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
- In more pithy language, I consider rehashing the debate on interwiki bots to be a waste of time. Do we really need discussion? Can't we just see if it works then approve it? (Again, if you have a concern about the bot, please register it on that page or I will consider there to be no objection). @harej 05:29, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
- Can you discuss blanket changes of policy before implementing them? I don't see any reason to approve a trial before editors can read the bot request. If there is some reason compelling enough, please establish it first. The interwiki requests are usually uncontroversial but there have been a few problem ones, that BAG members discovered by checking background on the bots/bot owners, or that the community discovered during discussion. But, if there is no discussion, and there's not going to be, maybe just move interwiki requests to your private board, and I won't monitor it. --IP69.226.103.13 | Talk about me. 05:32, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Expired RfCs
Hiya, I noticed at Talk:Sinn Féin that a couple RfC tags have been sitting there for two months now. I'm not sure why the bot didn't close them. Shall I go ahead and clean up manually, or is there something else that needs to be done to get the bot to update? Thanks, --Elonka 02:10, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
- The bot should have removed them by now; I decided to take some initiative and remove them myself since the bot wasn't going to. (I'm surprised myself that the bot hasn't vomited more from the placement of two rfctags next to each other.) @harej 02:19, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks. In looking at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/History and geography, it appears that there are also a few others down at the bottom that have just been sitting there for awhile. I'm not sure how the bot works or why it's missing those, but wanted to let you know. --Elonka 02:24, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Idea for GA bot
Yo harej, noticed you had RFC bot set up to managed WP:GAN. I was just looking at the page and thought that it would be very helpful if {{GAReview}} linked to the latest review subpage (usually Talk:Articlename/GA1, you know the one) automatically. Is this something your bot could check for and update as required? Cheers, Skomorokh 16:49, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
- The bot already links to the review, or, at least it does on User:RFC bot/Sandbox 2. Integrating this into {{GAReview}} is something I will look into. Right now my goal is to have the bot link to good articles on Twitter as they are approved. @harej 16:59, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
- Ah, so it does! I was thinking it would be better placed in {{GAreview}} because only 20% or so of the articles at GAN will have live review pages, and distracted slouches like me don't notice something unless it's >>>BOLDFACEANDFLASHING<<< in the middle of the page. The Twitter feed sounds wonderful btw. Ciao, Skomorokh 18:25, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
Re: JavaScript issues
The script is deprecated. I've updated WP:HIDEPAGES to reflect this. Both the old script and the new CSS method do not work with Enhanced changes, and there are no plans to do so as it requires a lot more work to do since Enhanced changes uses JavaScript. Gary King (talk) 02:25, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
RM bot
RM bot just blanked WP:RM (and someone quickly reverted). It may have something to do with today's server issues. Ucucha 16:25, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Correcting an error in a WP:RM
I had a brain fart when requesting a page move from Boardercross (see talk) to Snowboard cross; I accidentally capitalized the "c" in cross. I have corrected the error (diff) on the linked talk page (as instructed here), but the bot has not picked up the change and it is still listed as Boardercross→Snowboard Cross here. Help, please? (I've also asked at WP talk:RM.) Wine Guy Talk 22:56, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
Book:Chemistry Book
Could you please explain your rationale for closing Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Book:Chemistry Book as "redirect"? Thanks, –Black Falcon (talk) 00:20, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
- Redirects are cheap. Delete it if you wish. @harej 00:22, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
- I thought the consensus was delete. I should have been more explicit admittedly. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:23, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
- Since you're not content with redirects, I deleted it. @harej 00:25, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
- I thought the consensus was delete. I should have been more explicit admittedly. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:23, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia Day NYC
You are invited to celebrate Wikipedia Day and the 9th anniversary (!) of the founding of the site at Wikipedia Day NYC on Sunday January 24, 2010 at New York University; sign up for Wikipedia Day NYC here. Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends!
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 00:48, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
God's Property from Kirk Franklin's Nu Nation
Why did you remove my request to move the article God's Property from Kirk Franklin's Nu Nation. It does need to be moved to God's Property (album), that's the correct title. I mistakenly moved the article to God's Property from Kirk Franklin's Nu Nation in the first place without knowing. Can you move the article to the correct title or at least just stop removing my requests for no reason or without explanation and let an administrator discuss my request. Hometown Kid (talk) 20:19, January 16 2009 (GMT)
- Read the directions on Wikipedia:Requested moves. @harej 01:28, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/MZMcBride 2/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/MZMcBride 2/Workshop.
On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 23:01, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
all relisted non-AfD XfDs
Hello Harej,
As per Wikipedia_talk:Coordination#Request_for_relisted_non-AfD_XfDs, and my thoughts again at Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion#Policy_on_Closing_CfDs, I think it would be a good idea to add a section to WP:CORD linking to all relisted non-AfD XfDs.
Would this be easier if all relisted discussions were transcluded from their own pages (elsewhere I have expressed my preference for deletion discussions to all have individual pages, for the watchlisting benefits).
I think this would beneficial to the less well frequented XfDs, especially where the regulars are undecided, if it attracted non-regulars to these backwaters. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
- Sounds like a good idea. I will get back to you later when I am less ill. @harej 02:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
BRfA page
Hi there Harej, thanks for your work at BRfA, and welcome to BAG :D. But please remember that when you approve/deny/expire etc. a bot request, to update the BRfA page, as I've done for you here. Best, - Kingpin13 (talk) 08:27, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
What a great name. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:19, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Hello Harej
Nice to meet you! I hope we work together again sometime very soon. Ikip 03:12, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
A One bot screwup
FYI, I wanted to draw your attention to this edit, in which your bot was trying to remove a category and ended up deleting an entire archived AfD discussion. Oops! Glenfarclas (talk) 07:36, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
- Thank you for bringing this to my attention. It unfortunately happens sometimes, though luckily the bot seems to have gotten it on the second try. harej 11:16, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
- Haha, actually I got it on the second try. Well, not a problem— Glenfarclas (talk) 13:02, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
DYK for Barricades (documentary film)
The DYK project (nominate) 12:00, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
Funny talk page notice
At Talk:Token-object reading, the bot left[7] a message saying that instead of discussing the move there, we should discuss it... there. Maybe the bot needs a check to see that target page != current page?
CRGreathouse (t | c) 05:02, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry about that. The bot identifies current1 as the corresponding article to that talk page, and all the other currentns as other pages. It wouldn't be the first time that someone did not do it according to the bot's orientation and I am trying to fix it. harej 05:10, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
- No hurry, just thought I'd bring it to your attention so when you next worked on it you could take this into consideration. CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:10, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
WP:RS RfC
Hi, the bot added an odd entry. I've fixed it manually, [8] but it'll probably change it again, so I'm going to keep the manual entry too. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 20:34, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Hi, I saw you deleted that, and on the project page someone pointed out the following:
...(Criteria for notability...) Is an ensemble which contains two or more independently notable musicians, or is a musician who has been a member of two or more independently notable ensembles. Maynard James Keenan has been in three notable ensembles. Children of the Anachronistic Dynasty does have enough notability to have an article. ...
Now, I don't know who the third notable ensemble was, (maybe Puscifer, but even I don't consider them notable), but Tool and A Perfect Circle are. Does that mean this can be remade or is there some sort of process? Still getting the hang of all the protocol and jargon. Thanks! SiriusBsns (talk) 03:44, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- If it satisfies those criteria, then that is great. Most important, however, is that the Children of the Anachronistic Dynasty is covered in multiple third-party, reliable sources. If those are available, feel free to re-create the article, having it cite those sources. harej 04:29, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
awesome. thank you. i have a couple write ups/references in some old music magazines but they're not exactly Rolling Stone. i'll be sure to read the RS page to make sure they'd be considered a 'reliable source'. thanks again! SiriusBsns (talk) 17:50, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Close, Closed, Closure
Please respond to the concerns about this hook at DYK. Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 18:39, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
LOL
You're the third admin to close early the Albanian pederasty AfD; the other two self-WP:TROUTed. Obviously a forgone conclusion, but the race to close that discussion is amusing given that the article was up for years. Pcap ping 21:02, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
- My mistake. A friend asked me to close it and I assumed that he checked first to make sure the discussion expired. If you or someone else is going to challenge the closure, I'll re-open it without a fight. (Are you actually asking me to re-open it, or are you just commenting on it?) harej 21:59, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
- The previous closure(s), which funnily edit conflicted, were at a point (recorded in the AfD) where the consensus was much less clear. As for contesting, I was the one who nominated the article for deletion. :-) Pcap ping 22:09, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
RfC tag at Talk:Bivector
I noticed you've re-added an RfC tag to Talk:Bivector, but it's not clear why. The tag was added to the article by User:Brews_ohare who subsequently removed it here after the issue was resolved: the problem turned out to be one on his PC. It's now reappeared in the Maths RfC list, signed by Brews, though you've re-added it. It looks like a mistake/old discussion so will probably be ignored; if you want to re-open the discussion perhaps create a new section with an up-to-date description of the issue, though it might be better done on another page.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 15:34, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- The RFC was added to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/style/manual, which to me means the user was having trouble with the RFC tag. In any case, you are welcome to remove the RFC tag if it is resolved. (I've removed it from the manual list). harej 15:45, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
- I see - Brews must have overlooked the manual addition when he removed it from the page. Thanks, I'll remove it from the talk page.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 15:49, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
RM bot
Seems to have got stuck somewhere. WP:Requested moves/current hasn't been updated since yesterday. 81.111.114.131 (talk) 15:50, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
Flu pandemic
Hi there, you made this edit since, if I understand your edit summary correctly, you couldn't access this reference. The link seems to be working again, so I've replaced the reference and text. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:00, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
- It's not that the link was dead, but that the information contained therein is outdated. I suggest re-removing it. This page is more up to date, but I haven't figured how to incorporate that information into the article. harej 18:12, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
- Oh, I see. I wasn't sure what you meant by "redacted". I'll try to summarise that new reference, thank you. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:22, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
- OK, I've rewritten that part of the lead to summarise the "stages" section later in the article. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:30, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
- Thank you. I greatly appreciate it. harej 18:41, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
- OK, I've rewritten that part of the lead to summarise the "stages" section later in the article. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:30, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
- Oh, I see. I wasn't sure what you meant by "redacted". I'll try to summarise that new reference, thank you. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:22, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
DYK for Close, Closed, Closure
The DYK project (nominate) 06:01, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Semi-periphery_countries GA review
I have put the GA review of Semi-periphery countries on hold as I feel based on a source check that there is a possibility the information as presented could be unreliable. I would like an expert on the subject to check over the article before resuming the review. See Talk:Semi-periphery countries/GA2. SilkTork *YES! 12:35, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
RFC bot missing RFC
Hiya Harej, when you get a chance could you take a look at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Citation discussion#Inline template wikitext formatting? RFC bot seems unwilling to list it, for some reason.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 20:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
- Thank you, by the way.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:23, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Thank you
- Just read the article, top to bottom. What a fantastic article! harej 21:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks. Close, Closed, Closure looks pretty interesting too. Maybe I'll add it to the Netflix queue. Tisane (talk) 01:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
- User:Danny wrote that, not me. harej 01:50, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks. Close, Closed, Closure looks pretty interesting too. Maybe I'll add it to the Netflix queue. Tisane (talk) 01:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Where can I find the source of RFC bot?
I would just like to understand the functionality of the bot to ask some focussed Qs on the RfC discussion, and so I'd like to scan the source. I am assuming that it is FLOSS. It doesn't matter what the language is (I am pretty fluent in Perl, Python, PHP, C++, a bit more rusty dozen other languages and can understand more). Just point me at the source repository or URL.
I run a couple of mediaWiki instances so I am already pretty familiar with its architecture.
Thanks TerryE (talk) 05:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
- I publish stable versions of the bot code on User:RFC bot/rfcbot.php from time to time. The very latest code is on that page right now. harej 05:14, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
- Botclasses.php is a bit of a find. It will help to slim down some of my maintenance scripts on one of my wikis. Thanks for this!
- I've had a look at the code and it tells me what I need. I guess that you can to PHP by way of C++ from your coding style. On a quick scan I've spotted a few potential things that you might want to consider:
- wikipedia->getTransclusions returns a list not a dictionary so if a page contains both a rfctag and a rfctag-alt then the list returned by the array_merge will include the page twice, so you will process it twice in the for $i loop. It's better to do
- I've had a look at the code and it tells me what I need. I guess that you can to PHP by way of C++ from your coding style. On a quick scan I've spotted a few potential things that you might want to consider:
$transcludes = array_unique( array_merge( $transcludes, $transcludes2 ) );
- You are collecting a set of arrays indexed by the index of page containing rfctag/rfctag-alt and the instance of the tag within the page. However you use different preg_match_all patterns to pick these out. If they return different match sets then the arrays won't be consistent. Look at a test case where a page has (section head) (rfctag) (rfctag) (section head) (rfctag) and you will see that the arrays get out of sync. It's far safer (and faster) a single multi-line match for (section head) (rfctag) [.\n]*? (timestamp) then pick apart the matchstring to get the components that you need.
- If we are saying that an rfctag must be immediately preceded by a section head then we should explicitly state that in the RfC instructions, but I'll comment separately there.
- You might also want to scan for rfctags not immediately preceded by a section heading and replace them by an advisory message that rfctags must be preceded by a section heading.
- This is only on the basis of a quick desk-check so I might have got one or more of these point wrong. If so, I apologise. :-( But I've always found having an extra set of eyeballs look over my code is very useful. I hope that you don't mind.
- But I now understand the functionality. Thanks. TerryE (talk) 07:05, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
- I am very grateful that someone of your expertise has taken a look at my code. I looked up how to do a proper multi-line match in PHP, and implemented it instead of the hack I had going for a while. All of a sudden, the bot works much better!
- As for the rfctag being not at the top of the section, that's actually not a big concern. The rfctag has an anchor #rfctag, such that Talk:Example#rfctag will lead directly to the tag. That the bot actually seeks out a section header is more philosophical; I believe that a link to the section is more precise and better reflects where the user is to be directed. The reason for the #rfctag stuff is because enough users were putting rfctags in the middle of the section that I decided to accommodate them. It would be better if people just put the tag at the top of the section like they're supposed to, but it's ultimately not a big deal.
- However, I consider having two rfctags on top of each other to be illegal syntax. It really should be
{{rfctag|xxx|yyy}}
and not{{rfctag|xxx}}
{{rfctag|yyy}}
. I am working on a script that will fix these situations when they pop up. harej 08:04, 21 February 2010 (UTC)- As these edits indicate, my new code works. I have posted the updated code on User:RFC bot/rfcbot.php. harej 09:32, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
- But I now understand the functionality. Thanks. TerryE (talk) 07:05, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Version 4 production
I wiki-emailed you a version for you to look at. The thing about computer languages is that there are just so many styles for approaching a problem. There are no correct styles, but more a question of personal preference. I really did it as a fun exercise as a "compare and contrast". However having had this play, I do think that there is still a functional issue that needs to be fixed.
- At the moment, each RfC is effectively associated with the first ~~~~~ format datetime stamp (DTS) following
- But when you decide to delete a RfC you do the following which will delete all of the RfCs on the page. (At a minimum should should limit this with a limit argument of 1 so that you delete the first -- and presumably the oldest rfctag on the page).
$contents = preg_replace("/\{{2}rfctag(2|-alt)?.*\}{2}(\n|\s)?/i", "", $contents);
- I realise that you've added the optional time parameter to the rfctag, but why not always rewrite the rfctag to include the time parameter mined from the next DTS?
- and then add another transclusion {{rfcendtag|time= ... }} immediately after the DTS. This rfcendtag could either be silent or even generate an end of rfc ruler so that editors can clearly see where the rfc ends.
- now you have matching a rfctag and rfcendtag pair with the same time parameter , so deleting them is easy and it's also a lot easier for other editors to understand exactly what text will be included in the RfC summary.
I hope that you find this useful. -- TerryE (talk) 10:39, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
- Thank you for the new code. I will install it at the earliest convenience. I will also get to fixing that bug so that only one rfctag is deleted.
- The reason why I don't have the bot always add the time parameter in is because I actually intend on it being used very infrequently. In fact, it's not an idea in itself as it is a component of a broader idea that has nothing to do with the current rfctag-enabled categories (though I am still making it available for that purpose). Furthermore, when the time= parameter is set, that is done at the detriment of an RFC given a proper description, which is ignored by the script. This is because in the usual situation, description is based on everything between the tag and the timestamp. I cannot put the description in the rfctag because this then creates "forbidden syntax" such as piped links which was a HUGE problem with rfcbot.php's progenitor, discussionbot.py.
- This might sound odd, but I deliberately coded the bot in a way that heavily favors user convenience. As I mentioned, rfcbot.php is actually a successor to a script User:Betacommand wrote. The syntax you had to use to get an RFC listed was a monstrosity. I created rfcbot.php so that I would be able to maintain it more easily, but also to do away with complicated syntax. Wikipedians, after all, are used to smacking templates on top of things. I don't know if the same can be said with sandwiching a description awkwardly between two templates.
- Our options should indeed be considered but really, the current system works well. harej 23:27, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
- What we can do, however, is have {{rfctag-end}} (I decided to call it by a different name, if you don't mind) as an optional manual override of sorts. That way, people who know how to use it can and will if they choose. harej 00:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
- By the way, the new version of RFC bot you wrote is extremely fast. Kudos! harej 01:36, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
(outdent) As I've just replied to your email, one reason that the bot is fast is because I still had a test line in to limit the pages pulled down to 20 to prevent its (test) execution overloading the server. OOPS! The runtime is dominated by the network and Wikipedia latency on the API calls rather than the cpu load on the system that the bot is running on. The main advantage of simplification is readability and ease of maintenance.
My reason for suggesting the date time stamp (DTS) is a design issue: once we functionally allow multiple RFCs per page then we should find some way of uniquely identifying them -- at least internally to the process. We can't use position in the page since RfC's age and expire and therefore their position in the page can change over time. So we need some practically unique ID to identify the tag and to pair the start and end tags. The obvious thing to use is the same ID that we implicitly use now -- that is the DTS currently used to delimit the RfC.
I agree 100% that we should make this system as easy to use as possible and as robust as possible. For this reason, if we do change the rfctag syntax then this must be done it such a way that the existing user process works without change. This is why I suggest that the bot simply rewrites the tag adding the DTS. What I will do (prob tomorrow because its now the early hours for me) is upload a new V4 which
- adds a special RfC class for testing {{rfctag|test}}. The current bot will default these to the unsorted category.
- adds defines for the destination root pages so that I can hook these back to my user space
- adds an extra test so that in test mode then the bot will only write back the changes to the page if the page name contains this test pattern.
- I'll also lose the chit-chat comments and leave the "production comments"
How does this sound? -- TerryE (talk) 04:08, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
- It sounds good, but if we're going to begin adding timestamps to all rfctags, we have to change how the bot treats them. As of now, if you add a time= parameter to the rfctag, the bot will not check for a description, making the specified timestamp the description. For example:
- Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people
- 03:59, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people
- Because of this, something is going to have to change with regard to how the bot handles the time= parameter. Otherwise, good. harej 04:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
- I have copied all of the above to User talk:RFC bot/rfcbot4.php, since it seems sensible to have rfcbot4 discussions there and not clutter up your general talk page. However, I've left you to do the "cut" from your talk page -- Wikiquette and all that -- TerryE (talk) 13:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
- See additional comments on User talk:RFC bot/rfcbot4.php#Test Cases -- TerryE (talk) 01:12, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
IRC
You've just been talking to the real YM YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 02:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Final discussion for Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people
Hello, I note that you have commented on the first phase of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people
As this RFC closes, there are two proposals being considered:
- Proposal to Close This RfC
- Alternate proposal to close this RFC: we don't need a whole new layer of bureaucracy
Your opinion on this is welcome. Okip 02:18, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
A question re: your 'Om box' addition to: Wikipedia:Community de-adminship/RfC
My question to you, a Wikipedia admin: If you "mean well for those who deliberated upon the topic", as you say in your carefully worded Oppose in this RfC, perhaps you can explain why a Wikipedia admin sees fit to place a bogus 'Om box', clearly designed to cast discredit on the RfC, at the top of the page in its opening hours? I'm sure many besides myself will find your answer of interest. There is also now a specific section regarding this issue in the RfC, and this question is also asked in your 'Oppose' #21. Awaiting your reply, which I hope you will answer on the RfC page in question, Jusdafax 06:34, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
- I don't understand how my statement could possibly be considered my way of discrediting the RFC. I consider the page to be a great summary of the issues at hand, as I believe the people who vote should be informed. I also decided to place that before I made my decision on how to vote. harej 22:31, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
- You are a Wikipedia administrator. Your unsigned comment in the box: "Before voting in the poll, please, read this page. It's such a well-written page that will get you up to speed on what has been deliberated upon for months."
- So, in a special box at the very top of the RfC, you add garbled English, an absurdly self-congratulatory tone which make the drafters of the proposal look like bozos, and then decide to vote against the proposal.' And then when questioned, you don't understand what the problem is? I'm sorry, but while it is Wikipedia policy for everyone to 'Assume good faith', I find my credulity stretching pretty thin. I repeat: We should take this discussion to the RfC page where, again, a special section was started just to look at this issue. Thanks, Jusdafax 22:53, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
- I apologize my English was not up to snuff. So am I not allowed to be impressed anymore? Well fuck you, and fuck this website. harej 23:09, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
- What strikes me is that your English was very articulate in your oppose !vote, but not in the "ombox" and not just above. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
- Exactly... good English when needed, it appears. And now the admin uses the 'F word'... amazing! If I used the F word, what would happen to me? This is fast turning into a case study. Perhaps you would like to take this to the page in question, harej? Jusdafax 23:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
- What strikes me is that your English was very articulate in your oppose !vote, but not in the "ombox" and not just above. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
- I apologize my English was not up to snuff. So am I not allowed to be impressed anymore? Well fuck you, and fuck this website. harej 23:09, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
I was led to this thread from a link at the CDA RfC, and I would like to make a request of harej and Jusdafax.
- Harej, frustration, anger, and even hostility at what you perceive to be an unjustified accusation of bad faith may be understandable, but incivility is not an appropriate response to such action. Please retract your insult.
- Jusdafax, do not make accusations of bad faith without providing clear evidence of bad faith. Though you have explained why you think harej's addition of the om box was in bad faith, I think that your explanation falls short of the criterion of "clear evidence". A single instance of potentially questionable wording in the context of normally-good English is not "clear evidence", as even someone with a professional-level grasp of the language can be expected to make mistakes on occasion. It is your prerogative to believe or doubt harej's explanation, but you should refrain from alleging bad faith in the absence of clear evidence. Please retract your accusation and avoid pressing the issue further.
I ask that you try to reconcile and put the matter behind you. Misunderstandings take place, mistakes occur, and assumptions and comments are made in the heat of the moment; it is not, however, difficult to work past them if there is a willingness to do so. Failing that, I would ask you to retract the objectionable portions of your comments and to put the matter to rest. Regardless of why the om box was added, it has been removed; as long as it is not re-added, the issue is effectively moot and there is little potential for constructive discussion in this direction.
I would be grateful if you would seriously consider my request. Thank you, -- Black Falcon (talk) 06:33, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- At your request, BlackFalcon, and despite the current lack of any further statements from harej, I unconditionally retract my statements. If you request further submission, I will do so. Indeed, I find this experience has the effect of souring me on further efforts at Cda reform or further commentary, and I am going to remove this page and the Cda pages from my watchlist and withdraw. If you or anyone else would like to talk to me, please do so on my talk page. Jusdafax 08:20, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- I would say this. Harej's comment was inappropriate. However, it was understandable given the assumption of bad faith by Jusdafax and Tryptofish, their opening of multiple discussions (including under Harej's !vote) and their tone in those threads. No one looks good out of this one. I see nothing more to do here.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:42, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- Wait a minute here! Wehwalt, you need to retract what you just said about me. That accusation is totally untrue and unhelpful. If one looks at what I have actually said, minus Wehwalt's framing of what I have said, there is no justification for that. I have said two things: that I am very concerned, on the basis of comments by other editors, that some editors were misled by the "ombox" and that this confusion needs to be corrected, and that, on the basis of a plain reading of harej's "ombox" post and harej's oppose !vote immediately thereafter, that there is a striking discrepancy in tone between the two, in a way that common sense requires a question about the intent of the "ombox", and harej's response here only deepens that concern. Frankly, Wehwalt's campaign to turn the "ombox" stunt back onto me only underscores the worst fears expressed by some of the proposal's supporters about administrators closing ranks. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:59, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
- I would say this. Harej's comment was inappropriate. However, it was understandable given the assumption of bad faith by Jusdafax and Tryptofish, their opening of multiple discussions (including under Harej's !vote) and their tone in those threads. No one looks good out of this one. I see nothing more to do here.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:42, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
BAGBot: Your bot request Full-date unlinking bot 2
Someone has marked Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Full-date unlinking bot 2 as needing your input. Please visit that page to reply to the requests. Thanks! AnomieBOT⚡ 02:02, 4 March 2010 (UTC) To opt out of these notifications, place {{bots|optout=operatorassistanceneeded}} anywhere on this page.