User talk:MSGJ/2010

Template:WPMED MCOTW logic

When you have a chance do you think you could update Template:WPMED with the collaboration logic. There's no rush on it, but I just don't want to forget. Thanks, -Optigan13 (talk) 00:35, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I've done it, but any existing uses of MCOTWnom, MCOTWprev and MCOTWcur parameters will now be broken. Did you manage to change these? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:38, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Forgot to do that. I think I'll just go through and manually update to the MCOTW=cur/prev/nom first, then revert the template temporarily to ID any ones with the MCOTWnom, etc. syntax. Thanks. -Optigan13 (talk) 19:15, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually I don't think that's necessary, I don't think the categories updated so I think I saw all the instances of MCOTWnom=yes, etc. Thanks, -Optigan13 (talk) 01:15, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay. We could always add a tracking category to find any missing ones if you like? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:10, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Sure, couldn't hurt. better safe than sorry. -Optigan13 (talk) 08:55, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done. Give it a couple of weeks to give the job queue a chance to update the category. Note that it is not actually necessary to create Category:Medicine articles using deprecated parameters in order to see the pages in it, but you might prefer to. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:27, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

The ever-popular "my proposed article name here"

I just logged out to check, and the editnotice for Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/my proposed article name here doesn't appear for IP editors, rendering it mostly useless following your protection. Anyway, I've reprotected with the text from the editnotice, hopefully serve as a hint to anyone who ends up there. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:08, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

You're right. It doesn't work the way I thought it should. Compare with the edit notice Enter your new article name here (which is used by the article wizard). That ones works really well. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:50, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Huh. Any idea why that might be? Just due to how namespaces/IP (non-)creation works? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 23:26, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

:) Hehe, that's because what you're seeing there is not an editnotice (at least not if you're not an admin, and can't actually edit that page), but some really mean hack in a couple system messages: See the source in MediaWiki:Titleprotected and MediaWiki:Noarticletext. It's probably acceptable to include one or two more, but once it's abused for too many pages then we should build an editnotice-like system there, too ("saltnotice" or something). Amalthea 19:46, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, tricksy. Thanks Amalthea. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:07, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

If you're planning to set this up for AFC, you might want to do so with a slightly different page that is salted from the get-go, so that you don't show the ugly deletion log. WT:Articles for creation/Enter your proposed article name here, or some such. And you probably only need to place it in MediaWiki:Titleprotected since talk pages can be created by IPs, so they shouldn't see MediaWiki:Noarticletext like they do with a mainspace page. Amalthea 20:21, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I've been pondering this for a few days without getting anywhere. Actually registered users quite often use AfC, which we don't discourage, because they probably get more useful feedback from us than if they create the article in mainspace. However I don't quite understand the use of the those two system messages. Titleprotected is displayed whenever a user doesn't have permission to create a page and Noarticletext is displayed when they do?? I am still hoping to merge the two article wizards actually because they are almost identical ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 00:14, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, the related messages are I think MediaWiki:Noarticletext, MediaWiki:Nocreatetext, MediaWiki:Titleprotected, and MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext. Which one is shown depends on circumstances, whether your user groups give you the right to edit a page or not, whether you look at the page or attempt to edit it, and whether it's salted or not – and sometimes more than one of those are shown. I forgot which one is used when, truth be told, but you can find some pointers at the very top on the respective talk pages, although I'm not sure they are 100% correct.
Cheers, Amalthea 02:08, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Re: Cookie

SoWhy has eaten your {{cookie}}! The cookie made them happy and they'd like to give you a great big hug for donating it. Spread the WikiLove by giving out more {{cookie}}s, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Thanks again!

Spread the goodness of cookies by adding {{subst:cookie}} to someone's talk page with a friendly message, or eat a cookie with {{subst:munch}}!

Thanks for the cookie. Don't worry, if such things got me down, I wouldn't (and shouldn't) have run in the first place. I can only offer to help out after all - if the community doesn't want my help, I will accept it. I will reflect on it in those cases where people offered valid criticism, of course, but I will not lose any sleep over it. If nothing else, it was a good way to invite feedback. Regards SoWhy 11:42, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

A little help with Template:WPBiography

Hi. Could you help me with Template_talk:WPBiography#Book class and living parameter? --Magioladitis (talk) 16:18, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Replied there. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:28, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Courtesy note

See here. MickMacNee (talk) 15:09, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll second that courtesy note (as I came here to leave one of my own). Your actions in posting the ITN darts piece have been criticized, so you may wish to reply. Physchim62 (talk) 16:45, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

T:Asbox

Hi,
I notice you created the cross-namespace redirect T:Asbox a fair while ago. It's practically unused though, so I'd really like to get rid of it, to avoid the side effects mentioned at WP:XNR. Are you using it a lot?
Amalthea 19:46, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't recall using it much, so you're welcome to delete it if it's bothering you :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 00:15, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Well, I'm a bit OCPD when it comes to those. :) Cheers, Amalthea 09:35, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you

Thanks! I was getting a bit worried there for a minute. I figured that you had gone off for the night or something, and that I'd have to wait 24 hours for a few fairly trivial edits to actually be made... which brings up an issue. Don't you think that creating page edit notices requiring admin assistance is a bit wonkish? I mean, has there really been significant issues (or any issues at all!) with controversial page edit notices? This is my first exposure to using them, and it seems a tad ridiculous to have needed your help here (not that I don't appreciate it, it's just... it seems liek "process wonkery", to me).
— V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 22:31, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree and I will be bringing up at WT:Editnotice again shortly. It makes no sense at all that you can create the editnotice for your root user page but not for the subpages. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:33, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

We briefly discussed opening the system up for user notices, but since there wasn't anybody speaking out for them we kept it as it was. It would of course be trivial to do so, but in my opinion we should rethink the place where user edit notices are stored at the same time. I don't like for example that the User talk editnotices don't have talk pages, and would rather move them into User space; creating structures mirroring those in the Template:Editnotices space would be better as well I think, to keep track of them using Special:PrefixIndex more easily. With redlinks showing only for the user whose space we're in, it wouldn't make using them any harder. Amalthea 09:35, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I've moved this thread to WT:Editnotice and replied there. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:27, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs

Hello MSGJ! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 1 of the articles that you created is tagged as an Unreferenced Biography of a Living Person. The biographies of living persons policy requires that all personal or potentially controversial information be sourced. In addition, to ensure verifiability, all biographies should be based on reliable sources. If you were to bring this article up to standards, it would greatly help us with the current 9 article backlog. Once the article is adequately referenced, please remove the {{unreferencedBLP}} tag. Here is the article:

1. David Patchen - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Thanks!--DASHBot (talk) 21:41, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Template:For year month day

Your edit seems to have fixed the time as 4 years and 18 days, no matter what the parameters are. I didn't want to mess with the code, so if you could take a look, that would be great. Thanks, MrKIA11 (talk) 15:49, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind, the problem was with {{User admin for}}, which I believe I fixed. Feel free to check it out if you want. Thanks, MrKIA11 (talk) 16:02, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that looks good to me. Sorry about that. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:22, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Importance ratings for non-article classes

If you have a moment, I'd appreciate any thoughts you have about Wikipedia_talk:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Assessment#Importance_ratings_for_non-article_classes. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:50, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Template:Infobox nrhp

Thanks for updating {{Infobox nrhp}} with the edits I requested. I didn't expect you to do any moving around of templates, especially one that is transcluded on over 16,000 articles haha, but it didn't really hurt anything. A little heads up over at WP:NRHP would have been nice, though, since that's a main template for the wikiproject. A user has alerted me to an error in my update, though. I've fixed the edit in the sandbox, so if you could copy over the code once again, that would be great. A single vertical bar missing from a ParserFunction has caused Category:NRHP infobox needing cleanup to explode haha, so it needs to be added back. It's really annoying when I, the creator of the template (for the most part), have to ask administrators do this kind of thing, especially when it's such a small edit. I wish there was a way to like allow me to edit certain protected templates without taking on the entire repertoire of responsibilities gained when becoming an admin. Alas, I'm stuck asking others to correct my mistakes for me haha. Though I am ashamed, your help would be much appreciated.. Thanks a lot! :) --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 06:31, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I've fixed the error. Unfortunately Wikipedia:Protected editing rights is never going to happen, and that template is just too well used to consider reducing the protection level on it. (I would be happy to reduce to protection temporarily if you needed to work on it, but it needs to stay protected otherwise.) So you'll just have to use WP:RFA sometime :) By the way, there seem to be a lot of subtemplates of Template:Infobox NRHP which are completely unused. Perhaps I could delete them to tidy up a bit? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:25, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm.. I would have liked to see that proposal go through; it would have made things a lot easier for me haha. I guess if it becomes too much of a nuisance, I may file an RfA in the future, possibly making it clear that I only intend to edit protected pages (specifically this template, and maybe some others) and I wouldn't be too likely to block editors or other stuff like that. Idk.. maybe I'll do that. I don't think the protection level should be reduced temporarily.. editing on the template is not that common, and when it's edited, it's usually only a few minor things that need to be done once. The sandbox system works fine as of now since there's not really anything big going on with the template.. thanks for the thought, though.

About the subpages, yes sure go ahead and delete them. They were in use way back before I came in and did a complete overhaul of the infobox (Template:Infobox NRHP/conv now does what all those templates used to do). The only subpages that need to be kept are /doc, /conv, /sandbox, and /testcases. Thanks! --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:56, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

All unneeded pages are now tagged with {{db-t3}}. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:26, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

:)

Too late! :) Thanks, though, I appreciate it. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:12, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Hehe, I was going off User:X!/RfX Report which has not updated recently. Anyway you didn't need my support. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:13, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:AFC submission/namespace number

Template:AFC submission/namespace number has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 22:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Articles for creation and all that

Hi-- you recently commented on this: Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Gary A. Brown. Seems like the author didn't much heed your advice and moved it to mainspace anyways: Gary Brown (politician). Care to have a look? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 21:14, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, MSGJ. You have new messages at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Essay_Categorization_and/or_Classification#Proposal_for_Essay_Talk_Template.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

ɳoɍɑfʈ ^Talk! 13:02, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi again, thank you for all your help. I'm learning a lot. I've launched Wikipedia:WikiProject Essay Categorization and/or Classification/Assessment and I was wondering if you could lend me your expert eye again, especially to making sure I got the "How to" section right. Thanks! ɳoɍɑfʈ ^Talk! 05:01, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Alerts?

Hello again. I was wondering, is there some sort of code snippet that exists somewhere that will alert WP:ESSAY C/C when the {{essay}} tag is applied to a new article, so that we'll see it right away and can put our project banner on it? ɳoɍɑfʈ ^Talk! 22:53, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think so. What you could do is watch Special:RecentChangesLinked/Category:Wikipedia essays and Special:RecentChangesLinked/Category:User essays for new pages. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:45, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Risk disclaimer

There's a random empty documentation box at the bottom of Wikipedia:Risk disclaimer --128.54.190.171 (talk) 12:00, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't actually random - it was to put the categories and interwikis in a subpage because they don't need to be protected. I've now changed it to use {{cat iwik}} instead. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:44, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

My RFA page

Thank you for fixing my my RFA page. Regards. Rehman⁽⁺⁾ 13:46, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Restored Headers

The link you sent only said it was discouraged. Similar to the long usernames with long html coding. I'll worry about taking it down if I ever run for admin. Until then do not remove things from my userpage again. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 17:23, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Replied on your talk page. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:46, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

ಠ_ಠ listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect ಠ_ಠ. Since you had some involvement with the ಠ_ಠ redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). Zondor (talk) 17:33, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for informing me, but I don't really have a strong opinion on the matter. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:46, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Please do not edit other peoples user or talkpages without their permission

Your action here is contrary to WP:USER#OWN - it behoves you to act in strict accordance with a different subset of the guideline you are quoting to someone. You might strongly request removal of the material at the talkpage, or you might start a discussion at a suitable venue and invite a response from the editor concerned. What you don't do is remove the content and then chide the editor, and you should never disparage an intervening editor; Wikipedia promotess a consensual, respectful and collegiate editing environment first and foremost. When you are familiar enough with the rules, policies and guidelines and can apply them to yourself, then you might assist by helping guide other editors toward compliance with the regulations. Until then, and you may consider this an official level 2 warning, please desist unless your actions draws its own sanctions. LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:53, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

On the contrary, I am acting well within standard practice to remove unsuitable content from any page, and user pages are no exception. The guideline we are discussing here makes it clear that user pages belong to the community and not the user themselves, and the content on these pages has to meet the expected standards. In other words, the user has a "wide latitude" but not "free reign" over their userpages.

Yes, I could have made a request to the user to remove it themselves. On reflection this might have been better, but in general I am much more likely to fix it myself. And I doubt the result would have been any different anyway.

It wasn't my intention to disparage the comments of other editors, although I maintain that their comments were not helpful.

Lastly, what on earth is this with the "level 2 warning"? Who do you think you are? Since when have we given numbered warnings to anyone except vandals on Wikipedia? How about you show me some of this respect and collegiality you speak of.

With best wishes — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:52, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

This may help as to the level part of things. Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace. LHVU is actually a admin that blocked me when I first got here. How in the world do you go form contributing [[1]] to being here only for disruption? Also removing things from others talk pages is also "Strongly Discouraged" unless it is blatant personal attacks. Perhaps you should follow your own advice?

"In general, it is considered polite to avoid substantially editing another's user page without their permission. Some users are fine   with their user pages being edited, and may even have a note to that effect. Other users may object and ask you not to edit their user pages, and it is probably sensible to respect their requests. The best option is to draw their attention to the matter on their talk page and let them edit their user page themselves if they agree on a need to do so. In some cases a more experienced editor may make a non-trivial edit to your user page, in which case that editor should leave a note on your talk page explaining why this was done. This should not be done for trivial reasons."

I do not agree. That leaves other venues. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 15:15, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Template:ArticleHistory

Please revert or fix your recent edit to the ArticleHistory template. It put 509 articles in the ArticleHistory error category. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:51, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Was coming here about the same thing; after 20 minutes of trying to discern why an individual article's ArticleHistory was putting the article in the category, I discovered that some 905 articles are now in it. Appreciate if you would take care of this as soon as possible, as we are unable to find real ArticleHistory errors in the meantime. Maralia (talk) 03:47, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Looking into it now. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:13, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

How's this coming? I've still got over 400 pages in the error cat; I check it several times a day to clean up articlehistory errors, and it's currently unuseful, meaning articlehistory errors are being made without detection. Can this be resolved soon? We need to be able to use the error cat. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:18, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I have placed a request on Wikipedia:Bot requests to see if anyone could clear it out for us, but so far no response. I appreciate the concern, I just didn't expect it to take this long to clear. Let's see if anyone responds to the request in the next day. Otherwise I'll have to think of something else! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:16, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:17, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Removed MisterWiki's tool from {{Copy to Commons}}

Gday. At the request of Commons, I have removed the banned user MisterWiki's tool from {{Copy to Commons}}. Regards. billinghurst sDrewth 10:56, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Template:Copy to Wikimedia Commons external link

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Brian Jason Drake 11:25, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I see the link has now been removed, so I've marked that thread resolved. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:58, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Warning

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Rosi Sexton. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24-hour period. Additionally, users who perform several reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. When in dispute with another editor you should first try to discuss controversial changes to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. Should that prove unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection. Please stop the disruption, otherwise you may be blocked from editing.

You are also edit warring by reverting, so you get the same warning. Paralympiakos (talk) 22:30, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

You obviously haven't read any of those links yet. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:31, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I have. I gave an explanation. The matter should have been over, but you started edit warring. Paralympiakos (talk) 22:33, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Replied on your talk page. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:51, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok, fine. Just as a (hopeful) final reply, I didn't think it really needed any explanation. Any edit that helps with accuracy is pretty much self evident and shouldn't need explaining. You, yourself started to "edit war" so I guess we're both as bad as each other, so that point applies to you too. Finally, civility...it really doesn't bother me to see statements such as the one I made, so it's a matter of personal belief. Paralympiakos (talk) 22:58, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

The fact that you are still saying that means that you have fundamentally not understood the concept. Ah well, I tried. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:07, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

DYK-related changes to "ArticleHistory"

Hi, I left a message for you at "Template talk:ArticleHistory#DYK hook (section break)". It may have got missed in a flood of new messages on the page. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:16, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I did see it actually. Just haven't got round to replying yet :) Will do shortly. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:25, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Imsmexinsmexin

Hello. I am the same person who made this account, and I will, as to respond to the person on my page, say how I will contribute. I will most likely contribute on the Apple company, because I know a ton about that. Also Green Day. And one more thing: You guys should really create a wiki page on the Apple iPad. THank you. I may contribute on other stuff, too. I am sorry for vandalizing.I will only contribute positively. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iamnotandneverasock (talk • contribs) 18:48, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Emancipated myself

Thanks for adopting me. Your pointers helped immensely. I feel confident enough to move forward by myself now, so have removed your "adopted" box from my userpage. Indeed, I am the coordinator for WP:CTM with a fair amount of work on my shoulders... Anyway, thanks again: I really appreciated your help. --Jubilee♫clipman 01:19, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Wow, congratulations. It sounds like a lot of work. Glad you found it helpful, although I don't feel I did much at all! Please continue to ask if you have any questions and I will try to help. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:10, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Redirect class

Hi MSGJ. Can you take a quick look at the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine. I had actually e.c. with you and the redirect I had set up showed 221 within the cat where as after your edit it now shows empty. Why is this? Just curious. thanks Calmer Waters 10:32, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

unblock of User:YourBrain on hold

Interestingly enough, I have just written an essay on this type of unblock request at WP:ROPE, and I was thinking of unblocking this person to give them a chance to prove they will stop vandalizing, thought I'd check in with you first as blocking admin. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:15, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm skeptical whether this user will become productive, and I probably wouldn't unblock, but if you want to give him/her a chance and keep an eye on their edits then I have no objection! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:28, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't exactly have high hopes myself, and I've tried to make it clear this is an absolute last chance and they consider themselves permanently at "final warning" level. Beeblebrox (talk) 09:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Reducing thousands of Convert subtemplates

The current variety of numeric conversions will still require hundreds of subtemplates, even if totally re-written in some other manner, because of the use of numeric-ranges, temperature-ranges, and imperial versus U.S. units. However, more than 2,500 display-related subtemplates can be deleted, long-term, after changing Convert to pass more parameters into some condensed (but multi-parameter) display subtemplates. The overall reduction is so complex, that I wrote an essay (begun on 27-Oct-2009) which explains, step-by-step, how to start eliminating subtemplates:

• See essay: WP:A_plan_to_reduce_Convert_subtemplates.

Hence, I have given everyone 3 months to prepare for the reduction of many of those 2,500 display-related Convert subtemplates. The subtemplates named "Convert/L...Na2" are a quick group to delete (because I think they are all equivalent to subtemplates named "Convert/L...2"). I wish the whole Convert could have been reduced to 50-or-100 subtemplates, but the variety will still require more than 600 subtemplates, in the long term. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:04, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Re: Edit to my talk page

Thank you for taking an interest in my mental health. —  Cargoking  talk  20:04, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

No problem. Glad you're not completely insane! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:40, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Ya. Not completely. —  Cargoking  talk  20:42, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

While you're here, can I just ask you about something which confused me a lot about a month ago? What happened between this edit and this edit that made you change your mind so fundamentally about the archiving method? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:36, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

For two reasons:

1. Like many other people, the luxury of have the use of my watchlist is ideal. My watchlist directs me to the page and discussion thus leading me to contribute and see what's happening.
2. When I "very much approved of this idea", I was doing the archive daily. Now someone else does it for me (well not for me, for the project etc. You know what I mean). I have no role in doing it anymore.

I respect all your work and thanks for putting in the time for creating the trial. —  Cargoking  talk  09:43, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so you changed your mind. That's fine. Thanks for explaining. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:30, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Help with Whuteva

Hello, I am new to wikipedia and needed help correcting my page. The information is definitely accurate and for the most part I have all the sources. I received a deletion marker on my page. how can I work this out so my page will remain?? Your help is appreciated. Thank you. (Innertainment (talk) 02:02, 11 February 2010 (UTC))

I've cleaned it up a bit. Now you've just got the other 5 points to work on! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:45, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you so much. I will be sure to check adn work on the other 5 points. God Bless. (Innertainment (talk) 22:33, 11 February 2010 (UTC))

re:How about it?

Hello Martin. I've spent the past couple of days thinking about your offer as well as going through some recent RfAs. Previously, I didn't have any interest in adminship, however, after thinking about it, I have changed my mind. I do believe that it is something that I could handle and I would like to help do more of the maintenance work here and help keep backlogs down. However, when looking at the recent trends, I've seen the emphasis on content editing. Unfortunately, that is something that I feel that I've kind of steered away from recently. So, I think that I really need to get back to that and demonstrate that I can practice what I preach before making a run for the mop. I think that I'll take a month or so to do this so I'll be able to demonstrate my knowledge of these guidelines and policies and then possibly make a run. I really do appreciate your offer. It really does mean a lot to me. Cheers! Apparition^{11 Complaints}/Mistakes 08:17, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Personally I think you are ready now, but I completely appreciate and understand your desire to do some content work beforehand. It is something which is valued by quite a few commentators at RfA. I suggest you get some DYKs, maybe even a GA if you can. Let me know when you feel you are ready. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:01, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Drugbox: mab_type

Hi Martin, thank you for updating the code! However, despite thinking about this modification for nearly a week, I've found a small issue: Could you replace line #49,

 | discFv  | discfv  = di-[[single-chain variable fragment]]

with the following:

 | di-scFv | di-scfv = di-[[single-chain variable fragment]]

The hyphenated form is used in literature and in the related Wikipedia articles. Cheers, ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 12:34, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:01, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Country showdata and alt text for images

See Template talk:Country showdata#Alt text needs to be provided and address if you can. Thanks, –xeno^talk 18:34, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Favor?

I'm not sure if you noticed that I got my userpage table from Apparition. Anyway, on his "time zone" is on one line; on mine it isn't. I tried fixing it a long time ago, but did not succeed. Could you see if you could fix it so "time zone" is on one line? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zhang_He - Zhang He (talk) 02:46, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I think it's just because you have a long entry in the right column which can't be split so the left column is made smaller to compensate. For example if you remove your website URL "time zone" will probably be on one line again. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:48, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay. I just noticed your reply a few minutes ago. Anyway, I was able to fix it without even removing my website. I just tried this, and it worked! - Zhang He (talk) 21:37, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

This is not pressing

But since you were involved in infraparticle, you should know that I was arguing with headbomb over the contents, which he claimed were inadequately sourced, and when I provided the sources for the questions he asked, and noted that those sources did not adress the real issues, I was administratively blocked for vandalism for providing bad sources (!), then edit-warring (!). The block was overturned by the admin who placed it, to his or her credit, and I am asking you to review the history of the page, and of the administrative actions before doing anything.

The consensus before administrative action was for the material to appear with its sourcing, with only headbomb opposing this, because of his unsubstantiated belief that the sources are somehow fraudulent. Please, if you can, restore the version that was there, or unblock the page, although all this can wait for a little while, of course.Likebox (talk) 18:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi Likebox, I am not "involved" with the article at all, indeeed I know nothing about the subject. But I am happy to respond to protected edit requests as an uninvolved admin and try to judge consensus. I am reluctant to comment on the blocking/unblocking as this is now water under the bridge, although I will offer the opinion that the decision seemed somewhat rash. I will come over to infraparticle again and take a look at the recent discussions. Perhaps, with the agreement of the editors involved to stick to WP:1RR, the protection could be lifted. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:11, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Although the editors are all sufficiently experienced to all follow reversion rules to the letter.Likebox (talk) 22:46, 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:

1. Proposal to Close This RfC
2. Alternate proposal to close this RFC: we don't need a whole new layer of bureaucracy

Your opinion on this is welcome. Okip 02:03, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry, this was a misunderstanding

I am so sorry I thought that everything that you were doing was vandalism. And I thought that this was a vandalism only account until just moments ago that I saw that you were a admin. Please give me rollback back, you can look at my contributions to wikipedia and see that I really am committed to antivandalism and that all of this is a misunderstanding. Tell me what I can do to undo some of my mistakes so that you don't have to take the time out of your day to undo my mistakes. Once again I am sorry. --Clarince63 (talk) 21:48, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi Clarince, I have several concerns, and I don't think I'll be re-adding the rollback right today or anytime soon.

1. Why on earth did you think I was a vandal? You should not think such a thing until there is some evidence.
2. All those people posting queries on your talk page are real people trying to communicate with you. I think they deserve some kind of response from you, don't you think? Their comments should certainly not be reverted without comment. Remember you are responsible for your actions.
3. What is the link between yourself and User:71.184.50.19? I cannot shake the suspicion that you logged out to make a couple of edits.

Wikipedia needs vandalism fighters, but at the moment you don't seem to be going about it in the right way. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:58, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I know it might sound crazy now but before when all of this was happening I really thought you were a vandal. That thought in my head stemed from the first edit I reverted by you. I can't remember exactly but you were saying something to the effect of how did I vandalize that page or something. So reading that triggered in my mind vandals like to vandalize a page and when someone reverts there edts (as they should) and they would normally go to mymy user page and vandalize that, well they can't anymore because I asked Mifter to semi-protect it. So the only thing that they have left is my talk page. So most of the time they say something to the effect of "What was the problem with my edit, it was not vandalism." And they know what the problem was with their edit they just want you to have to tell them. An example of this is that this user was vandalizing a lot then put this on my talk page So in short that is what I thought of when I read your edit, and I thought that you are a vandal because you were asking what the problem was with your edits. And I will be the first to admit that I was to quick to judge adn I should have assumed good faith. I look at this whole situation as a learning experience, and I found this out the hard way and I apoligize once again. I know that people posting things on talk pages are real people and they are talking about real concerns but I just thought that what you were saying was unconstructive because of the above reasons. I know that I am resonsable for all of my actions (I read that all the time when I was waiting for Huggle to connect to the recient chages feed). The link between User:71.184.50.19 and me is that, that was me. I only had Huggle open and I wanted to undo your edits on my talk page (I know now that I should have not) but I could not have done that from huggle because their was other people editing my talk page at the time and if I simply hit the undo button it would only rid the page of one. So I hit the "view this page in external broswer" so I could manualy revery your changes. But here is the thing, I forgot to login, so my IP was recorded as the user name. With all of this said, if you want to hold off on giving me rollback for a while I understand completely. --Clarince63 (talk) 11:04, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanations and I appreciate the honesty in your answers. We all make mistakes and learn from them, and you have earned back a lot of the respect that you lost yesterday. Nevertheless I still have several concerns about your editing actions that haven't been resolved yet.

1. You were going too fast with Huggle and making mistakes. I have never actually used huggle but I believe it is possible to get carried away and see vandalism where there is none. I tried to give you a friendly reminder here and here but you didn't take the hint. Do you now accept this? How will you try to prevent this happening again?
2. You are not responding to legitimate queries on your talkpage. You are right, comments like this can be removed because they are just trolling. But this question, this comment, this assertion and this query all seem to be made in good faith and deserve a reply. Reverting these edits is a misuse of rollback. Even if you are not sure if it's worthwhileit is probably better to assume good faith and reply nicely and either explain what they are doing wrong, or apologise if you made a mistake. I will need to be sure that you understand this concern and be confident that you won't use rollback in this way in the future.

I'm optimistic that we can now sort out this issue, but I won't return rollback until I'm sure you will use it properly. (I don't want to give it and then have to take it away again!) Best wishes — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:00, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Correction

Correction, all this time I thought that this edit was one that you made. I don't know why I thought that but I did. So if I known that at the time all of this could have been avoided, I would have simply apoligized to you and 99.88.78.94 and I would have put the edit back up if it already was not. So in short, all of this whole mess could have been avoided if I simply noticed who made this edit. With all of this being said, please respond to all of this here or on my talk page, thank you. --Clarince63 (talk) 21:10, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

In response

Hello, MSGJ. You have new messages at Clarince63's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

I have seen your message and will reply shortly. In the meantime, please continue your work here using the undo button instead. I will review your edits and give you feedback. Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:49, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

User: Wexeb

Thank you for your instructive message to Wexeb. I believe part of the problem may be a bit of over-enthusiasm, combined with a small amount of language difficulty. However, they just moved your message to an archive page - so I am not sure they are getting the message about how to rollback/interact with other editors. I am now afraid to repair Gary Busey as I will be guilty of 3RR violation - so I will leave it for now. I have also reported Wexeb to the person who granted them rollback so they can counsel Wexeb on proper use of the tool and dealing with editors in the correct manner instead of ignoring queries and accusing them wrongly of vandalism. Triste Tierra (cannot log in at work) 24.176.191.234 (talk) 21:58, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Hopefully he/she will learn from this experience. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:34, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Spanish

(Menssage on spanish) Lo considerare una llamadada atention, tendre more cuidado ЊЪηθΩχ 21:56, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry my Spanish is non-existent. Google tells me this means:

Because it considers a flame atention, tendre more care

which doesn't make any sense. Could you could reply in English? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It is filled with typos, but after making plausible corrections it means: ""I will consider it (your message) a call to attention, and will be more cautious." Acting as translator: NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 04:46, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks for that. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:34, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Template talk:Cite interview#Archivedate, archiveurl

Will you take a look at my reply at Template talk:Cite interview#Archivedate, archiveurl and see if you can help? Thanks, Cunard (talk) 23:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, will do, but it might not be till next week. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:35, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Clarification on RfC closure procedure

Any thoughts on how to deal with this mess? The RfC was proposed by another editor, then refactored by Happy-melon to start again above my "a new perspective" heading thus making me appear to be the proposer. I have asked Happy-melon to help out also. Should I get an uninvolved admin to close up? Thanks --Jubilee♫clipman 15:54, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I think it's too early to think about closing the discussion. I've boldly moved the RfC to a subpage and explained my reasons on the project talk page. (If you feel this is the wrong decision, feel free to revert.) I would just let the discussion play out and don't think about closing it until the discussion has dried up. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:05, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Concur... They really do need to sort it all out once and for all. Problem is they are all sick and tired off it! But then, so are the editors that keep getting reverted by these editors and pointed to a Terabyte of discussion that actually goes round in circles and is ultimately self-approving, biased and closed-minded. That's the ultimate issue. Comments like "Infoboxes just don't work full stop" and "we've been here a zillion times before" and "{{{{Groan}}}} and even "ZOMG what the HECK IS THIS RUBBISH ?!?" etc kinda say it all. Kleinzach's behaviour... [I thought better of making that statement and removed it before posting.] I hope outside interest will trickle in to gee them all up: my continued presence is being interpreted as "direction" or "vested interest". I don't think I can hold the debate on a straight path for much longer unless more, fresh voices are added. I'll walk away for now, I think and check back in a few days [weeks?]. I really don't care, literally: as I said, "if they're there they're there, if there're not there're not..." FYI, this particular debate has been raging for over a week, though you are right about the actual RfC timescale. (Links below, though you probably know all this, already. Skip if so..)

Anyway, thanks for taking a bold and firm decision to reject closure: it's up to them now. BTW, the bot updates the links, right? And the other links dotted around the place still link to the Composers project talk page? I'll update the latter if so. (oh yes, and my watchlist...) Cheers, Martin, and it is great to have your wise guidance, once again! --Jubilee♫clipman 18:27, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Here are the diffs (and one permalink):

• Question first asked by Buzzzsherman: [2]
• RfC proposed: [3]
• RfC endorsed: [4]
• RfC tagged: [5]
• A new perspective: [6]
• Permalink to above: [7]
• RfC tag moved: [8]
• Tweaks to statement: [9] and [10]
• Questions for other interested parties patrolling RfC listing pages: [11]
• Discussion moved (well, d'uh...!): [12]

More on the RfC (sorry!)

I'm wondering if a View by [editor] might be useful at this stage. I am fully aware how that method has (perhaps) caused some chaos in the other ongoing RfC and that it also creates votes (or at least endorsements: see happy-melon's recent comments at the Composers' RfC). However, a concise statement by each editor might be useful? Thoughts? Should I start the ball rolling or wait awhile (considering the possible implications of me starting it...)? --Jubilee♫clipman 00:38, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

It probably would have been better to give more structure the RfC in a more rigid and conventional way. The poll was probably started too early. But I'm not sure how much you can do to change it at this stage. People might get upset if you reformat their comments. I'll come over and look in the next day or two to see if anything can be improved. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:14, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Actually, things seem to be progressing well, at the moment. Quiditty dropped a spanner in the works with his infobox so everyone has to comment again. That and Happy-melon's well formed questions and my less-well-planned-out addition to that... Look in anyway if you're passing. I'm looking at a request to refactor an article about a politically-sensitive murder at present so the RfC is sort of off my agenda anyway. Politics: you can't live with it and...  ;) --Jubilee♫clipman 12:39, 1 March 2010 (UTC) BTW, any idea why "url=www.mysuncoast.com/Global/story.asp?S=10989099" breaks the {{cite}}{{cite web}} template? --Jubilee♫clipman 12:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Think you need http:// in front of the url. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:55, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh yeah... (!) Thanks for that obvious piece of advice...  :) --Jubilee♫clipman 12:57, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

 Done (as opposed to {{thanks}}!) --Jubilee♫clipman 13:03, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Userfying vs incubating vs live editing an article to rework it

Wikipedia:Userfication seems to discuss the procees of moving articles into the first editor's userspace rather than any other editor's userspace. Wikipedia:Article Incubator seems to discuss articles that are so bad that they should be deleted. In the case of Murder of Denise Amber Lee neither process seems to be quite appropriate. Rather than rewriting the article in my userspace and dumping the text over (losing the history in the process), I feel that it would be better to remove the article from mainspace (in some sense), rework it and move it back over to mainspace when done. The main problem is the style of writing used for the sections The Crime and Trial which read more like a witness statement made to the police or public prosecutors than an encyclopedic entry. I am also concerned that those sections may be copyvio, though I haven't yet found a source proving that suspicion. Any thoughts? --Jubilee♫clipman 18:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I think editing it in-situ, as I see you are now doing, is most appropriate here. And good job too by the looks of it! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:56, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I came to that conclusion, too, actually. I'm using userspace to create old copies, for quick comparision, and factsheets and to-do lists, and to write drafts (linked from that fact sheet) etc. Nevertheless, I will edit in-situ as I go along so as to preserve the history. Still some way to go: I have almost too many sources now, for a start! OTOH, some many not be as useful as they first appeared so that's no bad thing. I also ran up against the dreaded examiner.com... thankfully blacklisted!

I had a flash of inspiration, in fact, as I browsed other wikis: I might try to write the article in Simple English and then expand it for the (Horribly Complex) English WP. That way, I'll be forced to de-construct the article and start again. My 'simple' version could go over to that wiki at the end of the process, if they feel it would be useful. I haven't edited there actually so will have to enquire about what they deem appropriate. This topic may be a bit much for them. The article is also orphaned which may become a slight problem as I proceed.

Anyway, the family are very happy with my efforts so far. They have also sent me a photo of Denise to upload. However, I haven't a clue how to translate the blurb over at Commons, not being able to speak Neptunian... Anyway, I suggested they get in touch with their lawers who would be able to better advise them. They have also contacted the photographer, i.e. the person who should upload the image, IMO, with "I own this and release it as Share-Alike/GFDL/whatever". The family are lovely, BTW: I have had several conversations with Peggy over the past few days via email. Amazing woman and amazing family: they are all driven to do everything they can to force changes in State—and even Federal—Law to avoid the screw-ups made during that fateful day. Anyway, I'll not bother you longer and get on with editing rather than waffling --Jubilee♫clipman 14:29, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

website

do you know how i submit a website for a person on wikipedia, in this case - Zach Parise - www.zachparise.com?? Kyballer23 (talk) 22:36, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I can field this: just drop it in for now at the bottom (under External Links or where ever) and in full (include the http://) placing square brackets around it eg [http://www.zachparise.com] Others will come along and tidy it up later. Assuming it is his official site, do not place it in the References section --Jubilee♫clipman 23:52, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Addendum: if it is his official site it can be added to Zach Parise under External Links in this format: {{official|http://www.zachparise.com}} The template will resolve everything for you --Jubilee♫clipman 23:57, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for answering. At first I thought they wanted to create a page about this person. But I think you've worked it out. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:54, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

No problem --Jubilee♫clipman 14:34, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your guidance

		The Guidance Barnstar
		I just want to say thank you for all you help and understanding on this matter and I am overjoyed that we came to a conclusion to all of this and once again thank your for your guidance. Clarince63 (talk) 12:40, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that's going on my userpage now! We all make mistakes and you've been able to accept them and learn from them - hallmarks of a good Wikipedian. Best wishes, — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:04, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

While you're passing...

...you might wish to review this. Thanks --Jubilee♫clipman 17:40, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

That's a very large wall of text :O Is there anything in particular you want me to look at? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:03, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Probably not important now... Move on nothing see here. :P --Jubilee♫clipman 00:52, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Template:Infobox character

I've proposed more parameter removals and your comments are welcomed here CTJF83 GoUSA 22:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I have no opinion on this template but if a consensus develops, feel free to ping me and I'll come and change it for you. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:35, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

It's been a week, can you implement the changes? CTJF83 chat 18:28, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Help with assessment template for Ontario roads

There is a request here to set up the Bottom-importance rating for the Ontario roads project. I can do the bot part of the setup, but I don't know enough about the assessment template to enable the importance rating for them. Would you mind giving it a look? — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:25, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:28, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Template:Convert/LoffAonDorSoff (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Regarding the parser error on the LoffAonDorSoff subtemplate, where was it? JIMp _talk·cont 20:58, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Here. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:28, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

If that's all, we needn't worry, just enclose it in includeonlies. JIMp _talk·cont 07:39, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Well ... an error on the template page indicates to me that the code is not robust. The same output could probably be generated by feeding in a blank parameter. Although this is not correct usage, the template should be able to handle invalid inputs and fail gracefully rather than giving parser function errors. Therefore I would prefer not to make that edit until the code is improved. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:33, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikiproject Pennsylvania logo

The new template photo that you added does not look good when you look at just the banner. What was wrong with the one before? Can't the old image just be converted to a vector image?--CPacker ^{talk to me} 18:22, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I've reverted, please discuss over there. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:37, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Deletion of Valley Newspapers

Why is this an ad —Preceding unsigned comment added by Donnys nuts (talk • contribs) 23:49, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikiproject tagging

You changed {{Album}} to {{WikiProject Albums}} recently with the reasoning 'standard name for wikiproject banner'. I'm interested why you have not done the same to others, especially {{Songs}} which you are the only editor of in the last year. I raised the naming of this template a month of so ago at WikiProject Songs. Would you be so kind as to take a look and comment? Regards, SunCreator (talk) 19:49, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Your move crashed Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Article alerts. Please help restore that page. Hekerui (talk) 00:48, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I think you just need to update the bot with the new template name... (Sorry I'm talkpage-stalking again...) --Jubilee♫clipman 01:21, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I'll ask the bot operator. I like the consistent style better, but why now after so many other templates were moved and this one sat forever? Regards Hekerui (talk) 01:46, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Apologies for breaking the bot, Jubilee was right and hopefully this is now  Fixed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:18, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I'll take a look. I'm not on a crusade to move these templates but occasionally I will move one that I come across. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:18, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Please also have a look at Template_talk:WikiProject_Albums#If_you_are_going_to_redirect_templates.2C_keep_the_code_in_the_redirect and help by fixing the double redirect. Thanks in advance. – IbLeo^(talk) 07:49, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

kalam denomination with the branches Murji'ah and Mu'tazili

kalam with the branches Murji'ah and Mu'tazili should have a separate heading and branch since they have different laws and different theologies

they are currently grouped under sunni denomination even though most sunni scholars reject them as committing bid'ah heres a reference http://nadeemnaik.com/ http://www.uga.edu/islam/faith.html

could you group them as separate denomination please?Jigglyfidders (talk) 01:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Template:yes2 template, color blindness

Hello! A month ago, you helped me edit some protected table cell templates. Recently, I've found one minor thing I think needs to be changed: {{yes2}} needs its background color changed from #DFD to #BFD. This was changed in {{won}} on 2010-02-01 as a remedy for red-green color blindness. Could you please edit that page?
--Gyrobo (talk) 19:13, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Certainly.  Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:15, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! --Gyrobo (talk) 20:40, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Article Wizard Protection

Hello, thanks for the good work you have done on the Wizard. Per a request for unprotection I changed the protection level of Article wizard/Instruction image to semi protection as this coincides with the level of protection of the main article. If you disagree please feel free to change it back. JodyB _talk 23:25, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

No problem. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:34, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Help with Michael Pillsbury article

Dear Martin - I am writing to ask for your help to improve the Michael Pillsbury article that I started and you created last summer. One of the editors has left a number of tags asking for improvements, and I tried to do all I could to make this work, but the tags are still there. Do you feel the wikifying and bot edits of the past 10 months justify removing any of the 7 tags? What can be done to improve the article?

Respectfully, Artdriver (talk) 10:18, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the assistance

Thanks for the assistance, Martin. I have to admit, I am finding the entree into Wikipedia somewhat perplexing. I have written Wikis on other Forums before, but this is the big leagues. Can you recommend a means of demonstrating notability for an article? I find no lack of third-party sources, but suspect I may be presenting them incorrectly. In any event, thanks again. Mfunk9400 (talk) 16:17, 20 March 2010 (UTC)Matt

Okay, first step: could you move all the comments/discussion to the talk page (that is User talk:Mfunk9400/Arbonne International) leaving just the proposed article itself on User:Mfunk9400/Arbonne International? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:08, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Checking in.

Just thought I'd check in and get a quick review on how I'm doing with my edits, Martin. =) Not like the reviews I request, but just a quick review. Are there still places where I could improve? - Zhang He (talk) 15:16, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Reverted your change to Template:Recent changes article requests

I've reverted your changes to this template as it appears to have broken the output on Special:RecentChanges. [13] Nakon 20:13, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

That's worrying. Could you give me a bit more detail? What was the output exactly? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:00, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

It changed the output to something like [[]] - [[]] - [[]] - [[]] Nakon 23:06, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, that's not very good. It probably means the starting position was higher than the number of articles in the list and so it couldn't find any articles. I removed a few articles yesterday (because they already existed) and then reduced the total accordingly. So I think you may have been looking at an old version and have now reverted to this "broken" version. I've just put the new code in the /sandbox and purged it about 50 times and each time it worked perfectly. So I will probably unrevert and keep an eye on it. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:03, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Your random number/mod changes

Hi, a problem was reported on VP/T regarding these changes, and I couldn't figure out what was causing the problem right away, so I reverted them for now. If you don't get around to it, i'll look at it again in a few hours time when I get back. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:58, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that, not sure what happened. I'll take another look shortly. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:50, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Automatically assessed via size

I think you toyed around with the idea of auto-assess per size for WPBio. Songs wants to do this now. How can I tell the banner to automatically assess as stub when pagesize is less-than X? What value were you planning to use for X? –xeno^talk 16:19, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

It was in WPBio for a while (with X=1500), but was removed by Tim Starling because of performance concerns. So it would probably be best to check with him before adding to other banners. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:54, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Hm. So it would probably be best to have a bot actually set the class to stub due to size... And add a new "auto=size" option ? –xeno^talk 18:57, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds as though it would work. By the way I haven't returned to your query on stubs rated via inheritance yet, perhaps because I still don't really understand what you're after. But I'll come and look again soon. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:12, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

It's not all that important. It would assign a different sortkey to stubs rated via inheritance. i.e. [[Category:Automatically assessed Foo articles|μ{{PAGENAME}}]] or something. –xeno^talk 22:19, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

April 2010 GAN backlog elimination drive

WikiProject Good Articles will be running a GAN backlog elimination drive for the entire month of April. The goal of this drive is to bring the number of outstanding Good Article nominations down to below 200. This will help editors in restoring confidence to the GAN process as well as actively improving, polishing, and rewarding good content. If you are interested in participating in the drive, please place your name here. Awards will be given out to those who review certain numbers of GANs as well as to those who review the most. Hope we can see you in April.

–MuZemike delivered by MuZebot 17:57, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Lalaland redirect

Thanks~
ManathMagesinger (talk) 21:51, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Template:Infobox museum

in the example list, I see it was copied from the Met, which means this is showing up in a whole bunch of categories, is that the behavior you expected? dm (talk) 18:23, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I don't know what you mean. Which particular edit are you referring to? What is the "Met"? I generally only edit that template to make protected requested edits, so perhaps posting on the talk page will be better. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:15, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I've been away for a bit. Category:Museums in Manhattan has an entry for Template:Infobox museum/testcases2 because the example was for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Should "examples" be showing up in the category? I can bring this to the talk page if that's better, just wanted to explain my question... dm (talk) 18:31, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I've deleted that page now as it wasn't needed anymore. I guess that fixes the problem. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:34, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Protection

Hello, I am still new at this and find the instructions to request a page for protection not user-friendly. That being said, I would like to suggest special education be protected. It's vandalized weekly, and the fact riles me. Can you help? Thanks. Jim Steele (talk) 23:52, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi Jim, I can understand your frustration, and this article has experienced quite a lot of vandalism. However one-per-week is generally considered "normal" and it is being easily dealt with by the recent changes patrollers. And although most of the edits by unregistered users is unconstructive, there have been several good edits in recent weeks. Usually page protection is considered a last resort because it prevents good edits as well as bad. This said, I'll add the page to my watchlist and keep monitoring it. By the way, the place for these requests is WP:RFPP, but I don't mind you asking directly. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:06, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

template

on the islam template i would like you to add 2 denominations please 1. Salafi - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salafi and 2. Ahmadiyya - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadiyya

could you do that please?Jigglyfidders (talk) 16:13, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:34, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Admin's Barnstar

		The Admin's Barnstar
		You seem to every where doing great work. Thanks and keep it up Gnevin (talk) 18:02, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, thanks very much. I appreciate it. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:34, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Moving Paramahamsa Nithyananda

There is no consensus to do that, please revert it. Off2riorob (talk) 11:47, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I have judged that there is consensus, and have included a detailed reasoning on the talk page Talk:Swami Nithyananda (Dhyanapeetam). — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:50, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

There are 4 for moving and three against, I would like a second opinion, how do I dispute your move? Off2riorob (talk) 11:52, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

There were 6 in support and 3 against, and the arguments of those supporting outweighed those dissenting. I don't think there is any particular route to appeal but you are welcome to take it to WP:AN. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:55, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I added the standard templates for closed movereq discussion on the talk-page. DMacks (talk) 14:59, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:03, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, dude

Good job at quickly answering my "editprotected" requests. Bravo! Timneu22 (talk) 13:52, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome, glad to be of service. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:53, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Creating "Snowgoons"

Hi there! I made a talk page to be unprotected (for creation) and you asked me to make an userdraft first. Now that I've made one, could it be unprotected?

Thanks!FOsk8 (talk) 13:54, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Well done, looks good.  created — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:03, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Article Wizard confusion

Hey Martin. Hope you're doing well. I wanted to stop by and say I love the new combined Wizard. I have one thing I wanted to ask you about it. At OTRS we get more or less regular emails from people asking why their submission hasn't been reviewed yet. I've also seen these sorts of questions at the help desk and related pages. Whenever I look into the submission, it was always actually a userspace draft. Do you think there's a way to make the Wizard more clear to users that userspace drafts are not regularly reviewed by anyone, let alone established editors? Thanks. Someguy1221 (talk) 19:44, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi, didn't know you were involved with OTRS. Perhaps Template:Userspace draft can be ajusted to make it clearer? There is also Wikipedia:So you made a userspace draft which is comprehensive but is quite long and probably not read by everyone. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:23, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

And perhaps we should also make it clearer that the place to seek feedback on userspace drafts (and new mainspace articles for that matter) is WP:FEED - not that I want to add to the backlog, but at least if most such requests are in one place, we stand a better chance of getting more eyes on them. I am planning, at least in my head for now, a revamp of the advice for WP:FEED reviewers, which will include use of {{Feedbackreply}} to alert the requester that comments have been given. – ukexpat (talk) 13:37, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

need help

i would like to update the Claims to be the fastest-growing religion article. Currently, the latest data goes from the year 2000 to 2005. However, i'd like to see it updated to the year 2005-2010. but i'm not familiar with editing complicated layout boxes as in the above statistics.

help pleaseJigglyfidders (talk) 17:12, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks...

Thank you for the kind words. Don't think I am ready to subject myself to an RFA at the moment, but when I am, I will let you (and all the others who have asked!) know. Thanks again for the encouragement. – ukexpat (talk) 13:41, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Happy Easter!

Have a good Easter, Martin! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zhang He (talk • contribs)

Thanks, you too! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:40, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Old Comics templates

Hi, There are a few old banner templates lying around:

• Template:Comics/Class
• Template:Comics/Classhack
• Template:Comics/Importance
• Template:Comics/Work group categories

The comics banner is at {{Comicsproj}}, so these are no longer used. So just wondering if you could unprotect them and delete them. Thanks - WOSlinker (talk) 19:58, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

All unprotected and tagged with {{db-t3}}. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:39, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Template talk:Cite interview

Hi, MSGJ, would you revisit Template talk:Cite interview#Archivedate, archiveurl and see if you can add the |archiveurl= |archivedate= parameters to the template? It's been a month and no one replied to the messages we placed at Template talk:Citation and Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). Thanks, Cunard (talk) 07:30, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I see this has now been resolved. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:46, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Bikram Samwat

This code is correct for Bikram Samwat in Template:Year in other calendars:

{{#expr: {{{year|<noinclude>{{CURRENTYEAR}}</noinclude><includeonly>{{PAGENAME}}</includeonly>}}}+56}} – {{#expr: {{{year|<noinclude>{{CURRENTYEAR}}</noinclude><includeonly>{{PAGENAME}}</includeonly>}}}+57}}

2010 (Gregorian calendar) - 2066–2067 (Bikram Samwat).

Error was not corrected from 15 April 2009 when I first wrote about this!

Also please change "Vikram Samvat" to "Bikram Samwat" in template.

James Michael 1 (talk) 01:08, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done. Remember you can use {{editprotected}} to request an administrator to make an uncontroversial edit to a protected template. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:20, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Martin. James Michael 1 (talk) 07:50, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Composers RfC

Would you have time to sum up the RfC on infoboxes? Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers/Infoboxes RfC. The bot delists it tommorow. Thanks --Jubilee♫clipman 21:12, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I should have time to take up a look in the next couple of days. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:54, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. The bot has delisted the RfC, now. There are still comments coming in—as well as a whole new train of thought from Tony1—and there are still questions to answer. The issue concerning the Composers Project guidelines has been resolved, though. Cheers --Jubilee♫clipman 22:07, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

So we don't drag it out unduly, perhaps the debate should be reviewed on or around March 31st (ie a week after the bot delisted it) assuming consensus has been reached on the final steps to be taken? --Jubilee♫clipman 21:56, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I'll try and look into it today or tomorrow. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:09, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Debate seems to have slowed significantly now, if not actually halted, so whenever you are ready. Cheers --Jubilee♫clipman 17:33, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I'll try and do it tomorrow. Sorry. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:59, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done, finally. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:50, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Just spotted this. Thanks! --Jubilee♫clipman 01:12, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Your remark in: Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/New delimitation of the federal territory

Yes, in the current form this could be integrated into the existing article on States of Germany. The German wikipedia has am article on this which is much more comprehensive. It contains a more detailed history of this debate, pros and cons as well as several models for the fusion of German states. The proposal for an article in English only has a historical summary of this debate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.221.249.194 (talk) 16:48, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest adding the content into States of Germany. If and when it becomes too large for that article, then a fork can be made. It's probably better to do it this way round because you may get some help with it from editors watching that article. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:08, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. Thanks, Manfred. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.221.227.155 (talk) 16:12, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit protect request

Thanks I appreciate you editing {{Information}}, but you actually didn't address the one instance of "image" that I was requesting be changed. There is a section of the source that reads:

|- valign="top"
! style="background: #ccf; text-align: right; padding-right: 0.4em;" id="fileinfotpl_perm" | Permission<br /><small>([[Commons:Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia|Reusing this image]])</small>

If you could please change this instance of "image" to "file", I would appreciate it. If you need to respond to me directly, please do so on my talk. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:30, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:26, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Regarding your recent update to additional chronology template...

Hi Martin, your input in this discussion would be appreciated since it concerns a template change that you recently implemented. Cheers. – IbLeo^(talk) 17:24, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:28, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

WPVG MU* task force image

Hi. I've uploaded an icon for Template:WikiProject Video games, for the MU* task force: Image:Mu_task_force.png. Can I get it added to the template? —chaos5023 (talk) 02:46, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done, although it might look better with a transparent background. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:05, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I agree; I've uploaded a new version with one. —chaos5023 (talk) 11:18, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

MU* task force rename

Hey again. I'm presently pursuing the idea of renaming the MU* task force to the MUD task force, for reasons that the MU* article goes into; long story short, and precisely opposite to what one would expect, MUD is actually the more inclusive term. My efforts at opening discussion have so far met with no response at all, which probably means I'm the only one who cares. If I were to ever-so-WP:BOLDly rename the task force page, would you be open to a request to edit the template to match? —chaos5023 (talk) 03:03, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Certainly, per Wikipedia:Silence and consensus. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:23, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Cool. I've gone ahead with it; please update the template, if you would be so kind. Thanks! —chaos5023 (talk) 12:23, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

 updated — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:14, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

With dual support for MU*=yes and MUD=yes, no less. Nice. Thanks again! —chaos5023 (talk) 15:15, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Makes sense

Thanks for this. The box still does transclude in my sandbox but, as you say in your edit summary, the box isn't yet live—and there's no rush to make it so, IMO. Perhaps we need to explain that the box can't be used until the TfD is over (if the box survives it)? Incidently, why does the TfD template cause the box not to transclude and why does the TfD template end up all over the place without noinclude? Is it a universal problem caused every time by {{Tfd}} or a local issue with the infobox template coding? --Jubilee♫clipman 06:42, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

When I said "box" I was referring to the TfD message box not the infobox! The infobox will still work as normal and can be used (although I agree there is no rush to do so). The normal behaviour for the TfD template is to display large on pages in the template namespace and small on other pages. Unfortunately the documentation is also in the template namespace, but perhaps a check could be added for this so that the documentation displays the same as actual uses of the template ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:22, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. There must be a problem my end because the box in my sandbox displays my user name and the v.d.e links but no more. Most of the fields are filled in, in fact, so it should display a picture and some info. It went like that after the infobox was sent to TfD. Any thoughts or is it indeed a problem my end? --Jubilee♫clipman 15:53, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Scrub that: I forgot that all the fieldnames had been changed... it works fine once you change them. D'uh! --Jubilee♫clipman 17:14, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Username policy

Hi Martin. Just a quick question about usernames. I have been talking with PrincessofLlyr‎‎ (talk · contribs) who has recently started adopting. Her first adoptee is Asdadogs (talk · contribs). I am a little concerned about that name since a) there is a supermarket chain in the UK called ASDA and b) there is a voluntary service called Autism Service Dogs of America who also often shorten their name to ASDA. If the editor is referencing a voluntary organisation in their name—even if the name is also used by a commercial company—is that OK? Could they just put a note on their userpage explaining why they chose the name? Or is promotion of any organisation via usernames frowned on? OTOH, I just noticed Asda Story, which might also be an inspiration for this editor's name. That would be fine, I guess? OK, hardly a "quick" question! But important nonetheless, perhaps --Jubilee♫clipman 20:20, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

You're right, usernames which are blatantly promotional are not allowed. But I think the assumption of good faith is important here. Neither of us have any idea why this user chose his/her username, so why try to think of all the possible wrong reasons? I have to say that I find it extremely improbable that this editor is trying to use his username to promote either an autism charity or a supermarket! It is much more likely that their nickname is Asda and their favourite animal is a dog, although there are a dozen other possible reasons besides. In short, I wouldn't worry about it :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:43, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

AFG... wish I'd thought of that! Thanks Martin. I'll let the Princess know --Jubilee♫clipman 22:54, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, the user has now changed his name so its a moot point now in his case. Your thoughts will be useful for my future reference though. Thanks again --Jubilee♫clipman 23:00, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

RFC cleanup

Thanks for your cleanup efforts. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 20:34, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:39, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Template:WPBannerMeta/bchecklist/criterion

Is it worth adding |link=|alt= to the images in Template:WPBannerMeta/bchecklist/criterion to improve accessibility? -- WOSlinker (talk) 12:37, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:45, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

project banner

Hi MSGJ, can you check if Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Problem_with_B-class_rating is related to some of your recent changes to the project banner ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:08, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

 Fixed. I should learn not to make major changes just before I go to bed! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:51, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Class mask/b

Maybe some protection should be applied. -- WOSlinker (talk) 21:32, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:51, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm just wondering if it would be more logical to have the template code at Template:Class mask/b and have Template:WPBannerMeta/bchecklist/b as the redirect. -- WOSlinker (talk) 14:31, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah maybe you are right ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:09, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Request for changes on protected page

I left a request regarding the new provincial flag of Tucumán, Argentina, at Template talk:Country data Argentina#Fix errors. There are also requests there for replacing Córdoba flag with CoA and for incluiding Catamarca CoA on the provincial flags template as well. Thanks in advance. Salut, --IANVS (talk) 17:16, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick response. I saw that the current policy is to avoid CoA in these templates. But there is still the change of flag for Tucumán Province. Thanks again. Salut, --IANVS (talk) 20:45, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Class mask

There are 5 pages that could do with the noinclude part adding to their class masks:

• Template:WikiProject Albums/class
• Template:WikiProject Comedy/class
• Template:WikiProject Canada/class
• Template:WP India/class
• Template:Physics/class

thanks -- WOSlinker (talk) 20:25, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done, thanks for your help with this. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:49, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

2010 #1 country hits

• Billboard publishes charts with an issue date approximately 7–10 days in advance, so May 15 was intentional and is correct. The following is a source directly from Billboard.com that will verify that "Gimmie That Girl" is No. 1 for a second week - http://www.billboard.com/column/chartbeat/chart-highlights-pop-rap-rock-songs-more-1004088334.story#/column/chartbeat/chart-highlights-pop-rap-rock-songs-more-1004088334.story. NOWucme(NOWudont) _{talk 2 me} 16:51, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Your comment on my talk page.

You are correct, which is why I stopped after that last edit to the article and requested page protection. While what I did was not right, you have to admit that it was better. After all, last time I used rollback to do it. In the small edit wars I've had after my rollback rights were re-applied, including this one, I just used the "Undo" button. Anyway, thanks for the comment. It's appreciated. I need to figure out how to keep from getting in those situations, as I'm interested in becoming an administrator, and, honestly, while I don't think my chances at it are zero, as I think some people would support me, I think they're low. I'd say that if I were to request it now that I'd probably have a 10% chance of becoming one. Do you have any advice on not getting into difficult situations? It would be appreciated. - Donald Duck (talk) 15:02, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Essays template

I am embarrassed, but I can't seem to get template:essaysort to automatically put every tagged article into category:NA-Class Wikipedia essays (any category that start with "NA-Class" would be fine). I'm sure it must be some combination of parameters. Could you point out where I went wrong? Thanks again for your help with the meta template, even if it defies my expectations. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:24, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi Carl. |class=NA would have worked fine, except that you put it inside the hook so it wasn't passed to the right template. However it is more efficient if you also use |QUALITY_SCALE=inline as this bypasses the class mask which is not required and also supresses the prompts for all the standard categories. But can we rethink this - it seems a bit pointless to have to classify all the pages in this way. There are plenty of projects which use quality and not importance; why is it more difficult the other way round? Now we have an extra row in the banner for no purpose. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:46, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Inside a hook – apparently it was a good idea to ask you instead of twiddling more. Thanks.

The difficulty here is that the Essays project is stretching the WP 1.0 bot in a unique way, by only rating Wikipedia pages and by not trying to assess for quality. The bot has special logic to detect when a project doesn't use importance ratings and handles that, but it doesn't have logic to detect when a project doesn't use quality ratings. I think that every other WikiProject that uses the WP 1.0 bot does assess for quality. So rather than complicating the bot with code to handle this special case, I wrote a custom table for the essays project that hides the quality aspect for them. They could just not include any quality category, and the bot will not crash, but it will cause e.g. the assessment log to be confusing.

I agree that getting the "quality" row to disappear in the banner would be nice. I switched the template to just manually do the categorization. This fixes the output, but add the template to a "doesn't assess for quality" category. That's not ideal; maybe a custom assessment hook with no output would work. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:23, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Okay that looks better and I now understand your reasoning. For some reason I didn't think this would be so rare. I've tweaked the template again to make sure category opt-out works properly. And I think Category:WikiProject banners without quality assessment is fine here because it doesn't really classify by quality - this is just a hack. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:53, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Invisible Barnstar
		I hereby award you this Invisible Barnstar, for your behind-the-scenes contributions to Wikipedia:WikiProject Essays. You've gone out of your way to make sure our WikiProject functions the best way it can, and completes its mission of bringing order to Wikipedia Essays. We thank you. ɳorɑfʈ Talk! 12:05, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:14, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Bchecklist

Only six left to convert over to the hook. Protection probably needs removing and adding to the hook (also the subpages as well) -- WOSlinker (talk) 08:29, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Also, just wondering if there is any reason why a conversion of Template:Film to WPBannerMeta has not been attempted? -- WOSlinker (talk) 09:02, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

No reason as far as I know ... And I'll sort out those remaining ones later when I get a chance. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:23, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, I've done a version in Template:Film/sandbox but it still may need further tweaks. -- WOSlinker (talk) 10:08, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Okay I'll take a look when I get a chance. Might be an idea to drop a note about this somewhere. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:23, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

All done now I think. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:23, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

bchecklist/core

The pre section with the copy & paste code doesn't show up at all if the checklist in the banner is only set to use 5 items. Another issue is that you've still got a link to the sandbox from the main bchecklist page. -- WOSlinker (talk) 18:11, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Well spotted! I thought I'd remembered to remove the sandbox but obviously I missed one. The copy/paste code problem was related to this problem I think, because the sandbox code is not yet ready to go. (Waiting for your help with the spacing still.) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:43, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Mlpearc

• Sorry, I didn't think of the notification aspect with the storage of the flags, Thanks for the fix Mlpearc MESSAGE 16:02, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

No idea what you're talking about, but glad you're happy! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:44, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

• Again thanks for fixing my GOCE flag. I'm now aware of the veribales I need to change each time I post it. Thanks Mlpearc MESSAGE 21:09, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Irish International University

The article Irish International University has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Not notable

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

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

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{dated prod}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Chocolate4921 19:00, 9 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chocolate4921 (talk • contribs)

That's for the notification; I've de-prodded. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:39, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

For [14]. Prodego ^talk 02:08, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 - NZ politics

Thanks for adding the politics tab to the {{WPNZ}} template. Can you please help me to set up the stats table for the task force? I used the WPNZ table as a guide, and followed the instructions here, but seem to have got this. I would appreciate your help very much. Thanks, Adabow (talk) 09:47, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I'll try. You'll first need to create all the categories shown on Template:WikiProject New Zealand/class. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:14, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

 Done Adabow (talk) 07:15, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

The Golden Maple Leaf Award Thank you for all that you do for the Canadian projects Moxy (talk) 20:53, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks for this! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:46, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

"Free encyclopedia" tagline

It should not have a period at the end since it is not a complete sentence. PleaseStand ^(talk) 11:32, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Pendantry :)  Fixed — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:10, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I commented on this at the Village Pump - I think this whole addition should be reverted until lengthier discussion is undertaken, and by a larger number of people. Simply "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" has been the status quo for six years, and several older, much more comprehensive discussions on this topic ended up rejecting any changes. It's too soon to reach true consensus on something that effects over three million Wikipedia pages, after only a few days of discussion, and just four support votes (one of whom agreed with me that it was too soon to actually physically change anything). All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 09:07, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi there. This discussion has actually been running from 23 April on the VPD and many editors have taken part. I can't see a single editor actually disagreeing with the proposal, which is exceedingly rare on village pump discussions! Do you actually oppose the change? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:17, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I do oppose the changes, but that's not my point at the moment. This discussion may have been going on since April 23, but actually adding "that anyone can edit" into that tagline (something that was explicitly rejected by a straw poll in 2005) was only introduced on May 7. The April 23 discussion was began by an anon user who wanted a tag to indicate that Wikipedia is not reliable (something I consider to be a very, very bad idea). It was replied to by editors User:Seb az86556 and User:Huntster, who strongly disagreed with the anon's request. The only user who supported some kind of action then was User:Equazcion, who complained of "corporate ass-covering". At that point, a few of these editors started working on a new version of the logo to the left (not the tagline). That discussion was basically over on the 23rd, the very day it began. Next, it was moved into The Village Pump on May 7, where just four users signed their "Support" (not a large group of people or a broad consensus). After I posted my message there today, one of these four agreed with what I said and stated that it was too soon to actually make a change (possibly, this dwindles the "support" votes down to 3). One of the points I made today was that there should have been some kind of alert to long-time editors, like one of those "check out this discussion" tags we sometimes get at top of pages. A change of this magnitude - something that's been there for six years - should be made with a discussion that involves at least as many people as it did back when it was rejected in 2005 - around 50. All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 09:28, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I understand your point to some degree. And on reflection I agree that 5 days is fairly short. A few points:

• Although this change affects every page, at the end of the day we have added four words to it and as such I regard it as a trivial change.
• We have the principle of being bold.
• We know that consensus can change and discussions from 2005 are exceedingly old in Wiki-time.
• We have the principle of not being overly bureaucratic.
• The village pumps are the place to consult people and gather more views on a subject. There is no other place where a proposal will gain more attention, and I find your suggestion of an RfC (if that is what you mean by "check out this discussion" tag) on this somewhat absurd.

(You are probably aware of all of these pages; if so please forgive the links.) So I can accept your position of disagreeing with the change (and if more people turn up expressing opposition) then I will happily revert. But your point about process not being followed is off the mark, I think. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:17, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

"if more people turn up expressing opposition"? Shouldn't the status quo of six years be restored until a broad consensus is reached? (a consensus in a discussion the size of the previous poll on this exact phrase, for example?). There's nothing wrong with being bold, but it certainly doesn't mean that the "bold edit" is a correct one or should not be reverted if it needs to be. Yes, the particular edit may seem trivial to some, but it nevertheless inspired a discussion of the length that it did back in 2005/2006 - so clearly, it is important. Yes, consensuses can change, but that the consensus has changed can't be reasonably deduced from a small discussion involving a handful of editors in comparison to a much larger one with several dozen editors (also, this new discussion took place over, at best, two weeks, and at worst, five days; the old one took several months). I also disagree that the Village Pump is the only reasonable place to discuss this. MediaWiki talk:Tagline, this tag's own talk page, is where the previous one took place, and (as I keep repeating ad nauseum) that was the one that attracted a mass of editors. All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 10:30, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I guess what I'm saying is that I interpret the village pump discussions as constituting broad consensus for this change. I know fewer people took part in these discussions but 2006 is a long time ago in wiki-time. Yes, the change is easily revertible if it turns out to be unsupported by the community, but so far there is little to suggest this. In fact you are the only person who is opposing this change. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:05, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd imagine much of the community either hasn't noticed this change, or if they did, do not know how it was made or where to go to discuss it. That's the problem. I only found the village pump discussion after doing a little digging, and posting a message about the tagline elsewhere. It's not right out there in the open. It wasn't even brought up on the talk page of the tagline itself. That's pretty radical. I wouldn't go changing a template by talking about it on another discussion page, while not even alerting anyone who may be editing or watching that template. I also disagree that there's little to suggest anyone else opposes it. As soon as I posted my first message there opposing the immediate change yesterday, I got a reply by one of the people who voted "Support" - a reply that stated it agreed with what I said. That makes another person, and I don't think it's unfair to say that dwindles the "support" votes down to a 3. Furthermore, if a majority voted to oppose this change in 2005/06, are you saying that the community's mind has changed so much since that this change would get unanimous support today? Well, maybe it has, maybe it hasn't. The point is that we don't know, and we can't know, because we've only seen the votes of a mere four people, one of whom later changed his mind. How could that possibly be enough to reverse six years of status quo? User:Equazcion, one of the (3) proponents of this, himself stated that the "proposed change would constitute some sort of sacrifice on our part". Well, why should I or any other Wikipedia editor be forced to "sacrifice" anything, without at least a broad discussion of many people where it's agreed that we have to? All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 21:24, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your help

Thank you for your help with {{WikiProject Russia}} fixes that I couldn't work out. I was wondering if you wouldn't mind helping me out with a few things on the template which need to be added. Instead of writing the list -- it's not that many, really - if you could let me know if you wouldn't mind helping with this, and I can get back to you with the changes needed. Would appreciate any help. Cheers, --Russavia ^{I'm chanting as we speak} 09:10, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Certainly, just let me know. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:18, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Quagmire's Dad

Can you act on my request too? Thanks, CTJF83 chat 20:50, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I would prefer to wait to see if the idea is supported by other editors. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:52, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, that's fine. CTJF83 chat 21:00, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Michael J. Franklin

Hello Martin,

Thanks for your help and assitance. We seem to be having a great deal of problems getting the article "Michael J. Franklin" added. We have been going as best we can by the rules. We have also tried using the German version which seems easier than the English...also without luck. What advise or help can you offer?

Thanking you in advance

Haverly999 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Judson012 (talk • contribs) 12:08, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi, currently that page is completely biased and non-neutral. It needs to be written in a neutral point of view before it can ever be an article here. (Follow the blue link for more information.) Hope this helps — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:14, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Bot problem on Template:Afc onhold

Fixed! I traced it back and affected globally 4 pages. Many thanks for reporting! -- Basilicofresco (msg) 17:52, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Chess diagram templates

Hi, I wanted to let you know that your edits to Template:Chess diagram and Template:Chess diagram small appear to have broken both templates, affecting every page about chess throughout Wikipedia. I have fixed Template:Chess diagram small by reverting it, but Template:Chess diagram is protected and I cannot fix it. modargo (talk) 17:26, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

error in chess diagram

Something that was done to Template:Chess diagram today has messed it up. Diagrams that are not marked "small" seem to have the pieces on ranks 1-7 shifted one rank to the right. Can you see if what you changed caused this? Thanks, Bubba73 ^{(You talkin' to me?)}, 17:30, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that's fixed now. Can you check? Sorry about that. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:54, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

A quick check shows it OK - thanks. Bubba73 ^{(You talkin' to me?)}, 18:02, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Permissions

Am I ready to have Rollback and Autoreviewer? The first would be especially useful and, though I haven't created any articles recently, the latter will be useful soon as I intend to start creating some articles flagged up on WT:CTM. Thanks --Jubilee♫clipman 23:52, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Rollback? Sure. Not sure about autoreviewer; that's usually for the maniac article creators who were drowning the NPP people in geography stubs and so on. But enjoy a few new buttons! Happy‑melon 10:22, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Happy-Melon! Rollback much appreciated. Yeah, thinking about it, AR is probably not necessary for me yet. I have created a few articles and will create more soon but not enough to fill the NPP page with a zillion stubs about unknown composers or what ever. Anyway, I intend all my articles to be fully sourced from the off so they should be no problem for the NPPers. Cheers. --Jubilee♫clipman 12:56, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Although happy-melon beat me to it, I would have happily have obliged. I also think you could start thinking about asking for a few more permissions in maybe six months time (if you were interested in that). — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:36, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

RfA?! Thanks! 'Tis a thought but certainly not yet... :) --Jubilee♫clipman 08:40, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Input Box

Thanks for the input box. As the young lady on our support desk would say, "Coolio!".-Sammy_r (talk) 14:13, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Glad you like it! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:36, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Proposal link

Following your suggestion, I added a proposal here. Cheers, Waldir ^talk 07:07, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the VP tip. I really didn't notice that that option was there, and I added an idea there to prevent other editors from missing it in the future, too.

About adminship -- it really flatters me that you would refer to me as an "ideal" candidate. I do think that being able to edit protected pages could be quite convenient for everyone (I wouldn't have to be bothering people with {{editprotected}}s or {{ncd}}s every now and then, and the intended effects would be accomplished with 1/2 or 1/3 of the edits), but having read about RfAs on enwiki, and taken a look at some of them (including yours), I have a few concerns:

1. I do not help out in some of the most common administrative tasks. I do have the rollback flag and use it whenever I find vandalism, but I don't actively seek it or attempt to reduce backlog in that area or in others such as the deletion processes. I also don't see myself in the future skimming the AN(I), or blocking vandals (I've been an admin in ptwiki for over a year, and am currently one on commons, and only did so occasionaly, and on request). I do think I would use the tools to help out in image-related tasks (renaming, moving to commons) editing protected pages (mainly templates), and helping with edit requests, among others. But is that enough?
2. Due to my gnomic (and sometimes ogrish) wikibehavior, I believe I might not be well known enough in the community to garner enough confidence votes for a successful RfA; Do you think this is an issue?
3. I really don't feel like answering all those "optional" questions that make the process feel like an examination... ok, this is not a real reason, but 3's a nice number :P

Let me know what you think. Cheers, Waldir ^talk 21:56, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply, and for missing your post in the first place! To each of your points:

1. Each editor works in the ways that interest them and the same applies to adminship. Your work with images gives a clear need for the tools. No one would expect you to do things that don't interest you. I personally use the tools in a fairly restricted way (highly visible templates and {{editprotected}} requests).
2. I don't believe being well known is much benefit at all actually. Most of the people who comment in your RfA will look through your contributions and base their comments on that.
3. Yeah, the optional questions can be a pain. You may well get a few opposes if you choose not to answer them, but if you made your position clear beforehand, you might even get extra support for taking that decision. I dare you to try it! I really doubt it would affect your chances of passing.

Let me know if/when you'd like to take this further. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:28, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, you convinced me :) I'll take the challenge! --Waldir ^talk 10:02, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Is there anyone you can think of who might be willing to nominate you? I could think about doing it myself, but there may well be others who know your work here better? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:09, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, most enwiki editors I know and contact with regularly are people I met in Wikimania 2007 and kept contact with, rather than people I came across while doing wikiwork; I don't interact with them on-wiki so much, therefore, so I am not sure they'll know much of my work here. There are also people from Commons (most of whom I suspect are not very active on enwiki), and others I have had contact with via IRC or through comments on the Planet Wikimedia blogs. But again, these are not people I work with here on enwiki. To be honest, even though several editors have shared quite a bit of messages on my talk page, you are probably one of those I've interacted most during actual work (such as in template talk pages). It's not that much, I know, but as I mentioned above, my wiki-personality has always been a tad on the gnome side, so I tend to run across different editors depending on the area I'm working on.

Well, sorry for the long answer. The short version is: No, I can't think of anyone who would know my work on enwiki much more than you do. If, as you say, you'd consider nominating me, I'd be much honored :) --Waldir ^talk 10:48, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Sure thing. When you have a spare week? :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:18, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Lol! I'm not planning on taking summer vacations this year, so I guess anytime would be a good time :) --Waldir ^talk 16:08, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

No time like the present eh? Okay I'll try and put something together. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:53, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

RfA. Feel free to start answering the questions. By the way I'll be away from Tuesday for a week or so - you may prefer to wait till I return, or I don't mind if you start it earlier. I don't anticipate anything going wrong (but I said that last time and oh boy ...) Good luck anyway. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:00, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words :D I think I'm going to accept it now; even though I'd like you to be around, I think that it is important that it can succeed on its own. In any case, you can rest assured that (as far as I know!) I don't have any controversial issue hiding under my edits :) I will answer the questions and let you know once I'm ready. Cheers, Waldir ^talk 06:44, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I've added my answers. Please check whether there's anything missing; if it looks fine, we can move on with it :) --Waldir ^talk 08:25, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Looks good. I only found one spelling mistake which I fixed for you. Would you like me to transclude it now? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:57, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Sure :) and thanks for the fix, that one always catches me :P --Waldir ^talk 12:13, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I think I didn't express myself clearly enough. I was an admin on ptwiki for over an year, but my permissions were removed automatically for inactivity (measured in admin actions). Maybe you can find a clearer way to mention this without sounding ambiguous, as I suspect my attempt was :) --Waldir ^talk 12:33, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I see. It's probably clearer in my first version then. I'm glad we don't remove admins due to inactivity over here; it's pretty pointless. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:37, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

By the way, please don't feel you have to respond to every oppose! Providing some clarification is fine, but some people will never change their mind and others may feel it is "badgering" if you reply to them all. Anyway it's going very well. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:15, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I see what you mean. I understand the risk of coming across as "badgering", but I guess I prefer to err on that side than to have those editors (and others who read their comments) have incorrect perceptions about my intentions and opinions, namely when I agree that my previous statements could have been more clear or specific. I will keep your advice in mind though, and try to weigh better my responses, and whether to respond at all.

And yes, I also feel the process is actually much less stressful than I was led to believe all these years. It seems there are many more thoughtful, reasonable and considerate editors around that common "knowledge" about Wikipedia community (Planet Wikimedia blogs, the pumps, the Signpost, etc) portrays. That's quite a nice surprise for me, and strengthens my faith in the long-term success of Wikipedia and on mankind in general. Well, at least until I read the next bunch of Not Always Right posts :) --Waldir ^talk 10:35, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

just in case...

...did you miss my message above? Or perhaps my reply discouraged you? :P --Waldir ^talk 18:11, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes sorry, I completely missed that! Will reply shortly. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:29, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

ArticleHistory Template addition?

Hi, I'd like to add this to the ArticleHistory list of milestones: {{GOCE |user=Noraft |date=22 May 2010 |small=no |no}} But the page is protected. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 02:51, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

This sounds like a reasonable idea but my talk page is not the place to propose this! Please start a thread at Template talk:ArticleHistory. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:04, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

To be clear, I wasn't proposing it to you. I was telling you that the page protection was inhibiting me from making an addition and getting a suggestion for what to do about that (which you have given). ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 13:38, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Okay :) I'll come and comment over there when the time comes. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:49, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

RfA nominations and voting

If you (as nom) don't vote for your candidate, then what happens if the election is close, say 80-21? Also, what about the candidates feelings? What kind of message does it send to the candidate when the nom refuses to vote for them? Think about it.--Hokeman (talk) 13:07, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I think my message about the candidate is perfectly clear from the nomination! If it came down to the wire, then I may add my vote, but I don't expect that to happen. The fact that nominators often vote in an RfA is actually an anomaly, and you don't see this happening much in other discussion, e.g. WP:AfD. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:45, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I just had a chance to check and see how Waldir's RfA nomination is going since leaving this message this morning, and was glad to see it headed for what appears to be an easy win. So it appears this will be a moot point. I still think you are taking a "hard line position" by not voting as nom. We all have feelings. I'm sure your candidate would like to see his nom ratify his candidacy.--Hokeman (talk) 00:12, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your concern, Hokeman, that's very kind of you. :) However, I'm already pretty happy with Martin's words in the nomination, and I agree with him that a support vote would be redundant (perhaps the counting could include the nominator automatically? that makes perfect sense to me). Cheers, Waldir ^talk 08:01, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Er... a little (!) help, if possible...

Apologies if the following is all horribly confused! I really can't yet get my head around all the coding, meta-data etc used in WP and so my attempt to figure out what was happening took a whole evening and then my attempt to explain the issue to you took about 3 hours to formulate, let alone actually write! I was going to post this at VPT but then remembered that you deal with all this coding/meta stuff all the time and so might just be the man to talk to. Either that, or one of your TPS's can help!

As coordinator of WP:CTM, I am responsible for the categorisation of the pages that fall under our banner. There are several issues I have run across recently that I am sure are all related but I really don't yet understand categories enough to deal with them. BTW, the various categories are slowly being de-/repopulated, so much of the below might be explained by that fact. I am still bemused by the situation, though, and can't figure out what to do.

• Background: Recently, Xeno, correctly, moved Template:Contemporary music to Template:WikiProject Contemporary music (we discussed this a month or so back); later, The-Pope, again correctly, updated the User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects/Templates page to avoid the redirect page.
• Initial result: The template still transcludes but strange things happen!
  1. One result of these changes is that Dashbot no longer records the uBLPs for the project since they are all tagged with the old template name. I could use Category:WikiProject contemporary music articles instead (generated originally by the old template name, now generated by the new name), placing it in User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects; however, the category is not behaving the way I would expect it to.
  2. If you press what links here from either the template page or the redirect you apparently get the same list of articles in a slightly different order; furthermore, the list for the actual template page doesn't say "redirect" next to the articles it simply says "transclution".
  3. Next, if you go to Talk:John Adams (composer) (the first article in either list), and look at the categories you don't find Category:WikiProject contemporary music articles in its footer (even though it is sopposed to be placed in that cat by the project banner); indeed, if you go to that category, his article is not on that list. However, if you follow the link from that WikiProject category to Talk:4′33″ (near the top of the list) you find that that category isn't listed in the footer but instead you find Category:WikiProject banners with formatting errors (which also appears on Adam's talkpage, in fact). How can 4'33" be both in and not in the category at the same time?!
  4. Also, I assume the formatting error is in our banner-using-the-old-name version that appears on almost all of the talkpages, but what is the error? There is no explanation of what the error is, AFAICT.
• Possible solution? - Is it the fact that all of the pages bannered by the project use the template redirect rather than the actual template that causes these errors (if they are all errors) to be generated? Do I have to use {{R from other template}} to resolve all of this? I have posted a few (!) questions over at Template talk:R from other template and am reluctant to try it out until I understand what it does. As I understand it, a redirect must not contain anything else but the #REDIRECT [[Target page name]] syntax; adding anything else to the page stops it redirecting automatically and thus creates a soft redirect. OTOH, why does {{Composers}} still correctly categorise the articles even though that has also been moved recently without the addition of R from other template? Is it to do with the {{WPBannerMeta}} thing? Or something else?

Any help appreciated—from anyone out there! :) --Jubilee♫clipman 16:05, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Leaving that in there does some very strange things to categories and stuff; and I can't think of a problem it would actually fix. You're seeing some caching issues with categories and pages, as well, but have a look and see if removing that extra |category=no fixes things. Happy‑melon 16:47, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Hip, hip, hurray! (Click the links!) Thanks, Happy-melon! I knew it would be something simple... I had to manually re-cache the 4'33" talkpage so I'll probably have to wait for all the others pages the get sorted by the what-ever-it-is that sorts such things automatically (bot?) before seeing the global effect of removing that pointless argument from the banner. Tell you what though, the !Help pages etc that are supposed to explain these things are awful! I am learning far more from trying to muddle through on my own with occasional help from other editors than from reading Help:Redirects and the like (not to mention the pointless /doc page of R from other template). Any chance any one out there might sort some of these out sometime (=rhetorical question... Seriously, though, the redirect help pages don't explain how and when to use {{noredirect}}, for example) --Jubilee♫clipman 17:53, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for tackling this question H-M. I take it this is now all resolved? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:28, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes. That single |category=no argument was causing very strange things to happen. After HM sorted this, I requested that Category:WikiProject contemporary music articles be speedy renamed to Category:WikiProject Contemporary music articles to rationalise the capitals and we are now waiting for the articles to move over to the new cat. I will have a better idea where we are once the articles are all re-cached now that both template and category have been renamed --Jubilee♫clipman 23:45, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Roald Dahl template.

I have tried to insert the template on a page but the class and importance don't come up. I have done it like I have seen before but it does not work. --Sillybillypiggy (talk) 16:15, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

The template is not set up properly for class and importance yet. All the information you need can be found on Template:WPBannerMeta/doc. However it may be better to add the support to Template:NovelsWikiProject as it is a task force of this project. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:42, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

maths rating and the WP banner shell

Hi, Martin. First of all, I want to thank you for the RfA nomination. It was a great experience overall, and I appreciate your trust and encouraging :) Now back to business :P, could you take a look at why {{maths rating}} does not align properly when inside the {{WPBannerShell}} template? See here for an example. Cheers, Waldir ^talk 19:27, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

You are very welcome. The maths template does not align because it does not use the meta-banner {{WPBM}}. This is due to the non-regular format of their banner and also some idealogical reasons about centralisation. You can read the discussions on the talk page. It's probably worth another go - I could work on producing a WPBM-version which does not change the appearance of the banner. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:26, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Do you think this is something I could tackle, or does it require substantial knowledge of how the WP* templates work? I could give it a try if you're busy atm :) --Waldir ^talk 06:31, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

It would be great if you could get familiarised with the wikiproject banner templates, and {{WPBannerMeta}} in particular. You could have a go at the maths template, but I'm not sure if it's worth the effort because changes are likely to be opposed. (I've wasted quite a bit of time on this in the past ...) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:43, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok :) I will give it a go. Meanwhile, please take a look at this -- there is probably something that could be done to avoid it. --Waldir ^talk 08:27, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Not a lot can be done there. The last bar was redefining the first unnamed parameter to be blank! Anyway, probably not a common problem. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:44, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I thought 1= would take precedence over an unnamed parameter (which would thus be 2nd, or whatever order wasn't taken before). Does this make sense to you? --Waldir ^talk 09:03, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

You're right, it is a bit quirky. m:Help:Template#Mix of named and unnamed parameters seems to explain this. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:25, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I submitted a bug. --Waldir ^talk 09:42, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Code check

As a coding genius, could you please check both the syntax and logic of User:Chzz/Wikipedia:Requests for feedback? The idea is to have the subpages (/2010 June 9, /2010 June 10, etc.) for the last 5 days to be automatically transcluded on the page. I've tried also to make it cope whenever there's a new month, new year, and leap year. If I got it right, yay. If I missed something, then please tell me or fix it and whatnot. Thanks! —fetch·comms 03:04, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Wow, there's a much easier way to do that! Check the code for the following.

• Wikipedia:Requests for feedback/2024 December 2
• Wikipedia:Requests for feedback/2024 December 1
• Wikipedia:Requests for feedback/2024 November 30
• Wikipedia:Requests for feedback/2024 November 29
• Wikipedia:Requests for feedback/2024 November 28
• Wikipedia:Requests for feedback/2024 November 27

More information about the #time parser function can be found at mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions##time. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:45, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Epic fail on my part. I knew I was forgetting one of the more useful functions... :P Thanks though, this is much cleaner! —fetch·comms 16:44, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Merry widow of Windy Nook

During your editint to Merry widow of Windy Nook, you changed all references to our killer to "Wilson", the last name of her lattest husband. Wouldn't that cause some confusion? She had four last name in a two-year period due to her multiple marriages.

By the way, is there any reason this article is under a nickname? Most article on killers seem to use their real names or a prominent alias. Should this one be renamed? Dimadick (talk) 12:29, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Moved to Talk:Merry widow of Windy Nook and replied there. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:45, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

RE: Soap

That's an absolute joke.  f o x  15:07, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Martin, I do respect you, but I do object to you seeing it your role to censor with this edit. Who is to decide what is and is not 'necessary', and indeed what is/is not profane? We've been through all these arguments on subjects such as Muslim cartoons, the name of the lord/Lord, and Christ knows what else. Please reconsider; I see no policy decision to support such a redaction; I think, in all fairness, you are being a little over-sensitive here. Wikipedia needs to encourage input from all kinds of diverse cultures, and their choice of language - civil notwithstanding - should not be an issue.  Chzz  ►  15:17, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Your edit to Template:Editnotice

Hi there. I undid your edit to this template since it broke several editnotices, like the one for WP:AN. Please review them and reapply them in a way that does not cause such breaks (I would have done so myself but I have no clue what you did exactly). Regards SoWhy 10:36, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

That shouldn't have broken anything. What was the effect on the AN notice? Amalthea 10:42, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

The part of the table that should be hidden (i.e. | style="..." |) was displayed, as well as the | before the text. I don't know why it broke anything but it seems to have done so because the edit notice looks fine again now. Regards SoWhy 11:03, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah, it removed the linebreak in front of {{{text}}}, which might have affected the MediaWiki table that was passed in. The {| always needs to be on a new line, IIRC. Amalthea 11:11, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I think we both came to this conclusion at the same time! I played around in the sandbox and now reapplied the edit with the line break in place. The {| should never be needed really, and I've removed it from the ANI notice. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:43, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Portal taskforce

Wish yoiu had talked to me about this, it has polluted the category that is controlling the cleanup. Rich Farmbrough, 11:37, 11 June 2010 (UTC).

Wish you would talk to other editors before making major and unilateral changes to high visibility templates. No parameters should be removed from the template without discussion. I did actually start a thread at Template talk:Portal taskforce before reverting the change. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:39, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

fb team template

…is now working perfectly. Thanks a lot! —WiJG? 19:28, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Glad to be of help. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:10, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your work on the H:title template

I find it distracting to have to open a whole additional page just to get the basic meaning of a word or phrase in an article. But adding parenthetical definitions can be so distracting, especially for those who already know the word.

The {{H:title}} template seems like the perfect solution. This is, in my opinion, web-reading at it's best. It offers the reader multiple levels of detail, so they can learn as much as they want, without being bogged down by too much information. Thanks for taking the time to make the template work.

Though, I still wish you could just double-pipe a link.

For example:

[[Limited slip differential#Factory_names | GM's Positraction | A drive train component that limits the difference in the rotational speed of the rear wheels, providing better traction.]] was a factory option for the 1968-1980 model years.

Would result in:

GM's Positraction was a factory option for the 1968-1980 model years.

(Though, I couldn't actually use the {{H:title}} template in this example, since I needed to pipe the link display name. Probably not a common enough occurrence to require any changes, however.)

--Pi3832 (talk) 06:26, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

An interesting idea. I have copied some of your message to Template talk:H:title and replied there. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:55, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

My code

Hi, starting to learn the parser functions, and I'm putting together a new template that will cite signs (we've already got consensus to do it from FAC and the RS Noticeboard) and I need someone to look at my code, which is at User:Noraft/Sandbox/3. I recognize that it is in sort of a basic form right now. My concern is that I'm not sure how to code it so that it doesn't return an error if someone doesn't use all fields (i.e. if someone doesn't put the publisher name, for example). Would appreciate a second set of eyes and some guidance. Documentation is included to make it understandable. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 14:55, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Okay I'll take a look when I get a chance. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:27, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Hey thanks for your help on this. I'm parsing it over at User:Noraft/Sandbox. How do we rearrange the order of the parameters? Is that done with a new class in the /core code? Because if we're just stuck with that order, then I'll have to code it from the ground up and not use /core... ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 13:23, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Ding! ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 11:10, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Cite Sign

Hi, over at Cite sign/sandbox, is there any way to get the parameters to parse in the right order, or are we stuck with Citation/core's order? I'm parsing Cite sign/sandbox over at User:Noraft/Sandbox and you can see there that it comes out all funky. If we're stuck with /core's order, it might be better to build it from the ground up... ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 15:18, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your help on 'Cite sign'

Hey thanks for your help on this. I'm parsing it over at User:Noraft/Sandbox. How do we rearrange the order of the parameters? Is that done with a new class in the /core code? Because if we're just stuck with that order, then I'll have to code it from the ground up and not use /core... ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 23:37, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi, you are very impatient :) And I have been busy. I will try to help when I can, maybe in a few days. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:10, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I apologize. One of the drawbacks to the WikiMedia software is that when you are told you have messages, if you have more than one and they aren't contiguous, it is easy to miss one. I've had people miss mine before, because I replied to an item halfway up the list. But again, I apologize, and I'll wait longer next time. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 06:50, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

You don't have to apologise. I don't mind you bugging me, but you can do it without starting a new thread every time :P I'm looking at your problem now. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:33, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

checking history of Croatisation

Thanks to have examined my request to edit the above mentioned article. I would note how the paragraph I'm asking to restore was present in the article since its first version, but the first section blanking was performed just on last may. Since then the section, as you can easily check, was fully sourced, and has to be restored in the text. There was consensus on it, despite many unjustified attempt by the same single user to force other users to accept his blankings. It's hard to re-develop consensus on a subject not so interesting for many non-partizan users, and just taking a look to the page history you can check what I mean. Thanks in advance --Theirrulez (talk) 12:17, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Taskforces in meta banner

It was pointed out that log pases like Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Aesthetics_articles_by_quality_log#Removed show a massive loss of articles. That "project" is actually populated as a taskforce in Template:philosophy. The talk pages of the removed articles show no sign of the taskforce's categories, so I think this must be due to some change in the meta banner template. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:52, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I was just going to mention this; we have more complaints about it here. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 21:59, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, thanks for drawing this to my attention. I believe this is now fixed, but I'll carry out some other checks tomorrow. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:28, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Am i a reviewer?

It seems User talk:Courcelles#Am i a reviewer? made me a reviewer @ 2010-06-19T02:00:04 & U removed it @ 2010-06-19T15:16:52. Please consider responding on my talk page so that this doesn't become a messy 3-way. Warmest Regards, :)—_thecurran Speak your mind ^{my past} 10:17, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Everything's been cleared up. Thank U for your patience. Warmest Regards, :)—_thecurran Speak your mind ^{my past} 11:39, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Daniele De Rossi

Hi, please remove de rossi from the trial, article does not receive beneficial unconfirmed edits. Off2riorob (talk) 13:13, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I was wondering why did you change the protection was it a request from somewhere? If it was could you link me to the request. Off2riorob (talk) 13:14, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

As mentioned in my edit summary, this article is part of the trial of pending changes. You might like to check the queue. Are you sure the article gets no constructive unconfirmed edits? Perhaps you will agree to try the new system for a few days - I will happily revert it back if it is still getting too much vandalism. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:21, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Are you just swapping semi protection for pending protection without any request? Off2riorob (talk) 13:25, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Who says it is part of the trial, please provide a link to who added it to the trial. Off2riorob (talk) 13:34, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

No worries, I have had a look and seen the ideas and asked Amalthea a question about it, thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 13:48, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Cristiano Ronaldo

Hi, please restore semi-protection to this article, as you can see, it was already on the trial, but it had to be re-semi'd a couple days after, as the vandalism was getting heavy. Thanks. Connormah (talk | contribs) 13:57, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Okay  Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:52, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

You're a star

May I say that you have slightly restored my ever-waivering faith in admins today. Thanks a lot for helping me with the {{WikiProject Football}} template, and then preventing my CSD example from being deleted yet again. I've been on WP for many years now and sometimes feel myself becoming a bit fed up with the whole thing but its editors like you that make it worthwhile. Cheers, BigDom 18:01, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad to be of service but I'm disappointed that your faith in admins needed any restoring ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:46, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Too many admins think they're above us regular editors, I'm afraid. At least you aren't one of them. BigDom 12:11, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Speaking of adminship, I think it's about time for you to have another go. Your last attempt was triumph of stupidity over common sense, but I doubt you'll have any problems second time round. I notice that I supported you then (I generally only bother to comment if I see the result going the "wrong way") and I would be happy to support again. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:34, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

very much for adding Jamie Lynn Spears to the pending changes list. Wildhartlivie (talk) 07:39, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

No problem, I hope it helps. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:56, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Bedfordshire

Hello, I am currently trying to revive WikiProject Bedfordshire, and would like to make some changes to the the project's assesment template. I would like it to include the following categories: Book, Category,Disambig,Project,File,Redirect and Template.Also, I would be gratefull if you could add the facility to use the importance scale. I saw your name in the history and was wondering if you could help. If you can, that would be great and I would happily give you the template barnstar for your efforts. If not, please accept my apologies for wasting your time! Thanks,Acather96 (talk) 10:23, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Happy to help; no barnstar required! I've created Template:WikiProject Bedfordshire/class - you might like to check that page to make sure the options are set as desired. Don't forget to update the documentation for the template, and also create all the necessary categories. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:41, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

The tinsel strength of ribbon

Napoleon was once quoted as saying something to the effect "You can accomplish many great things, so long as you have enough ribbon". I fully appreciate the acknowledgment of my efforts, even more, respecting the source of the accolade. Perhaps what's best, is I enjoy contributing at WP:AFC. Having said that, Please feel free, even know that I request, helpful intervention towards Best or better practices, of which I may be less aware. Again thanks, and I will now re-double my efforts. An almost logical outcome. Bravo when it works. My76Strat (talk) 19:36, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

RfA

Hi MSGJ, thanks for the message (on my talk page and at the RfA). Didn't realise my mistake really! I've removed it from the main RfA page, so hopefully the comments won't continue until (at least) the candidate wants them to. What would the correct thing be to do with the existing comments? I wouldn't want that to jeopardise the nomination – even though there's a clear tilt it would only be fair to treat this nom as others. Cheers, matt (talk) 11:30, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, not sure what's best. You can't just remove people's comments. I would suggest apologising to the candidate and asking them how they want to proceed. Seeing the direction the RfA was going, they would likely decide not to retransclude it. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:24, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Pending changes trial

I see that you have added the Pending Changes trial on Adoor Pankajam article. This looks like a useful tool. Can you please let me know how to suggest or add articles for Pending Changes? I wish to nominate the article List of top grossing Malayalam films which is being frequented by IP edits now. --Sreejith K (talk) 12:33, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Adding the pending changes is at adminstator's discretion, just like normal page protection. You can add suggestions to WP:PCQ/P, or in more urgent cases you can request it at WP:RFPP. I have added it to the article you requested. There seems to be occasional vandalism but mainly contructive edits from unregistered users, so PC-protection might be useful. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:18, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Cascading protection

FYI, I believe this was a valid edit request due to the cascading full protection from the lockbox. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 05:33, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes indeed. Not sure how I missed that. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:42, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Eurohist template

I was going move {{Eurohist}} to {{WikiProject European history}} but the move wouldn't let me. Just wondering if you could do it. Thanks. -- WOSlinker (talk) 12:33, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:36, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Question

Hi! I noticed that you moved {{WikiProject Hello!Project}} template to {{WikiProject Hello! Project}}. I've been tagging Hello! Project-related articles with the former. So, by moving it to the latter, does that mean that I have to re-tag these articles? Thanks. Eugh jei ♥ Kaorin 13:08, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

No, not at all. The former is now a redirect to the latter, so you'll notice they work just as well. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:09, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

File copyright problem with File:AfC submissions in 2010.gif

Thank you for uploading File:AfC submissions in 2010.gif. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright status. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously. It may be deleted soon, unless we can determine the license and the source of the file. If you know this information, then you can add a copyright tag to the image description page.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their license and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have created in your upload log.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thanks again for your cooperation. —fetch·comms 17:43, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

That was an epic fail XD. —fetch·comms 17:43, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Ooh, have I done something wrong? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:17, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Standardization effort

These may be helpful: wp:standardize & wp:banner standardisation/data. –xeno^talk 04:23, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, may well be helpful. Nice work with this. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:34, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

thanks

so much for setting up that assessment template.

		The Original Barnstar
		For generous assistance with template coding, I award MSGJ this barnstar. Thanks! --Sross (Public Policy) (talk) 01:52, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I hope it proves helpful to your project. And I hope it doesn't mean you spend all your time assessing the articles so that you have no time to improve them! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:22, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

T:APPLE deletion under R2

Hello. I have recreated T:APPLE, which you deleted under the R2 rationale. R2 applies to any redirect that "redirects from the article namespace, to any other namespace except the Category:, Template:, Wikipedia:, Help: and Portal: namespaces." The T:APPLE redirect redirected to the "Template:" namespace, so WP:R2 does not apply. Thank you. —mono 22:31, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Regardless this CNR hardly strikes me as necessary. The more of these there are, the more of a chance a reader will slip through the cracks into Wikipedia's seedy underbelly. And we wouldn't want that, now, would we? –xeno^talk 22:38, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I was not saying it was "necessary." I simply said you deleted this incorrectly, as it doesn't fall under R2. If you'd like to discuss the redirect, bring it to RFD. —mono 23:16, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Process for process sake then? (I didn't delete it: (talk page stalker)). –xeno^talk 23:19, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for drawing my attention to this - I'd forgotten those exceptions. And thanks to Xeno for helping to sort it out :) What we need is a proper shortcut T -> Template. Until that time we should be discouraging these redirects. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:37, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

unprotect?

Per this, thanks for that. Actually, the article can probably be unprotected now, at least to let us clear out all the disruptive tags that a sock had added in his attempts to POV the article. We have three editors now who are patrolling the page, so we should be able to prevent further disruption without 3RR. Thanks! Eusebeus (talk) 08:41, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:56, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Ta! Eusebeus (talk) 12:08, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Stub templates

Hi; you seem to have experience with {{asbox}} and {{Asbox/templatepage}}. When I look at Category:Stub message boxes needing attention, I see lots of entries under "N", but when I look at the stub templates concerned, most don't actually show this category at the bottom, nor do they show the box

"One or more of the stub categories defined in this template do not seem to exist! Please double-check the parameters |category=, |category1= and |category2=."

Any idea what the problem is? --Redrose64 (talk) 11:31, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

That's a good question. The reason is that when the template was created, the category did not exist. When the category is created at a later stage, although the warning disappears, the category does not automatically update. This is some kind of limitation with the job queue I suppose. However a null edit to the template will force the category to update. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:39, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Fix

It looks like your changes to Fix broke stuff, for example Yellowcake should be categorised in "Articles needing references from April 2010". Rich Farmbrough, 16:15, 20 June 2010 (UTC).

 Checking... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:57, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any error. Yellowcake belongs to Category:Articles with unsourced statements from April 2010 which seems to be correct? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:11, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Or maybe it was this that fixed it. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:14, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes seems likely. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 00:17, 9 July 2010 (UTC).

ISBN Citation

Hi Martin,

Would you revisit your decision on altering the way that the citation template handles ISBN? There's been a link to the proposal on the Template_talk:Citation since May 15th, and there has been a fair amount of discussion Template_talk:Citation/identifier#ISBN_Links since your original post. Thanks. Lunchboxhero (talk) 16:48, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I have no memory of this, but I'll come over and take a look now. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:11, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Page Creation

I'm writing in response to an automated ms I got when creating a page: "16:26, 2 September 2009 MSGJ (talk | contribs) deleted "Category:Template-Class Stagecraft articles" ‎ (C1: Empty category)". Since September 2009 I've been going through adding tags, and now have several articles that would fill out this category... DJSparky ^huh? 23:26, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

That's fine. Before you changed to |QUALITY_SCALE=extended this category wasn't needed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 00:41, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Reviewer and rollback

Thanks for the reviewer and rollback tools. Could be very useful. HiLo48 (talk) 23:45, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 00:41, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

POTD notification

POTD

Hi Martin,

Just to let you know that the Featured Picture File:M777 Light Towed Howitzer 1.jpg is due to make an appearance as Picture of the Day on July 12, 2010. If you get a chance, you can check and improve the caption at Template:POTD/2010-07-12. howcheng {chat} 03:38, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Great, thanks for letting me know. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:00, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Template:Featured article tools

Hi, your recent edits to the above template have broken it (see for example Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Yarmouk/archive2). Would you mind reverting them for now and testing your changes somewhere else? Thanks, Dabomb87 (talk) 13:55, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Apologies.  Fixed — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:01, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:03, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Degrassi: The Next Generation (season 10)

Wow, I am surprised that no one was created a copyright editnotice yet. How is this Template:Copyright editnotice? 117Avenue (talk) 17:45, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the help on List of minor Degrassi: The Next Generation characters. I don't mean to be too forward, but I did want your thoughts on the above template. 117Avenue (talk) 01:15, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I forgot to reply to this one. The edit notice looks good. Can you remind me which page you wanted to add it to? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:00, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Template:Editnotices/Page/Degrassi: The Next Generation (season 10) 117Avenue (talk) 22:28, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

 Added — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:42, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, 117Avenue (talk) 23:01, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Template edit

Just a friendly reminder about this. Cordially, SergeWoodzing (talk) 22:11, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, sorry I forgot. Now updated. Cheers — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:37, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Ten Commandments

If you're interested in reverting contested edits, then you should support my edit, which was reverting a contested edit. That wording was decided by consensus and has been stable for two years. — kwami (talk) 09:33, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Consensus can change. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:35, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Template:Db-meta/testcases

Would you please fix this page? I'm not sure what it does, but I just hid the deletion tags to prevent the page from appearing in CAT:CSD. Nyttend (talk) 17:40, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

 Fixed. Turns out that |nocat=yes is not accepted for |nocat=true. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:15, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Invitation to edit

Thank you so much for your help at the above. (Clearly) I haven't a clue what I'm doing. Anthony (talk) 20:45, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

No problem; happy to help. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:31, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Template:Infobox college coach

MSGJ,
Hello. I saw you recently edited Template:Infobox college coach. We need to make a little code change to reflect a redesign of the College Football Hall of Fame website. A pretty simple change is need. The root URL for the external link needs to be changed from http://www.collegefootball.org/famersearch.php to http://www.collegefootball.org/famer_selected.php. I already made the analagous change at Template:Cfbhof, but I don't have edit rights for Template:Infobox college coach. Thanks. Jweiss11 (talk) 21:07, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The current version still seems to work. Is there reason to believe that it won't work in the future? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:42, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Check out http://www.collegefootball.org/famersearch.php?id=80001 and http://www.collegefootball.org/famer_selected.php?id=80001 for Bo Schembechler. The old URL seems to just be a skeleton now. Also, the navigation bar doesn't seem to work on the old URL. Jweiss11 (talk) 21:56, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay I see.  Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:44, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! Jweiss11 (talk) 17:04, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Relisting an RM closure

I think you should relist Talk:Israel – North Korea relations#Requested move for more input, three editors is not enough to judge anything imho, and Afd's and moves are routinely relisted for a further week when such little input occurs in my experience. MickMacNee (talk) 18:18, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

But it had already been open for nearly 2 weeks, which is equivalent to being relisted. I doubt it will attract any more comments. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:20, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I've seen Afd's relisted multiple times. What's the benefit of closing it? If necessary, relist, and post requests for comment, if the problem is attracting more comments. MickMacNee (talk) 19:05, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Well sorry, I don't see the benefit in keeping it open because only one person commented in the last 10 days and I doubt if anyone else will. It's obviously not a topic which many editors care about. We have a backlog at WP:RM you know and requests like this need to be closed. Feel free to file a new request in a couple of months but for now I think I will stick with my decision. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:14, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

The benefit in keeping it open is to actualy reach a decision either way. If you are clearing backlogs by just closing little participated in discussions as 'meh', instead of advertising them or relisting them, then you are not doing anything for the pedia except being a pointless beaurocrat. I will ask you one last time to relist, or come up with another solution that actually gets to a decision. There is not enough input here to even call this a 'no consensus', that actually implies there has been enough comments to actually judge the consensus, or lack of. 'no consensus' <> 'no input' or 'no interest'. I am not going to wait a couple of months when there is absolutely no need to do so, that is just perverse. MickMacNee (talk) 14:09, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Chip/Chips/French Fry Debacle

Why not attack the editors when there is a huge bias by the americans who are determined their view is correct when the issue is clearly disputed yet they have gone ahead and edited and merged the pages to suit their views amid huge controversy on the subject. i take it your also american which is why you have sided with them.

it's supposed to be an encyclopedia not which country has the most editors view goes, also denying us to express our selves on the talk page goes againsts the yanks 1st ammendment and the european convention on fundamental rights article 10 the right to freedom of expression.

any rules you create cannot override law.............Jse1986 (talk) 10:08, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Woah.. He OK? - 4twenty42o (talk) 11:23, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

He seems to have some rather strong views on the topic of fried potato. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:32, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Not everything on Wikipedia is done the American way. For example see American football which American's just call Football but the article is not at Football. -- WOSlinker (talk) 11:41, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, also the spelling of Yoghurt caused a huge ruckus I believe! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:23, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Mmmm ... potatoes fried in oil to the point of crunchiness ... Redrose64 (talk) 21:09, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

It should be Yog-hurt :) Ouch. -- WOSlinker (talk) 22:20, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you

Thanks for granting me Rollback permission. It's already proving to be a very useful tool. katherine_a (talk) 16:13, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome, glad to hear it. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:22, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

px

FYI, your latest edit breaks the whitespace stripping feature. For example, {{px|35|40}} has no space, but {{px| 35 | 40 }}, currently has a space between the number and the px. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 17:01, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused. Per Template:Px/testcases that seemed to happen with the previous version as well. But I thought I spaces were stripped from the ends of parameters. Please explain! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:24, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind. I did some more testing, and it's not actually a problem. Mediawiki doesn't care if there is a space between the number and the px, so no problems. You are probably correct at the previous version. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:31, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

But I would still be interested to hear an explanation of the space trimming. Is it only leading spaces that are trimmed? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:10, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Template standardisation

Hi there, thanks for the work you've done on the project template moves (I wish you'd done it before I started helping out with the UBLP issue!), but can I ask you to hold off for a while. For some reason (job queue?) the lists we are using to track Unreferenced BLP's fail for a day or two (or longer) after the template is moved. See Bodybuilding and Volleyball and even Football (back in early June) for examples. If you really want to keep going, can I ask you to maybe do them mid week, as I often use a Sunday to Sunday weekly change number, and not around the end of month (for the monthly checks). Finally, if you could update any redirect links on User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects/Templates, it would save me checking over 600 links or only discovering the change when the numbers of UBLPs drop off. Thanks, The-Pope (talk) 00:18, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay I will bear this in mind. Perhaps the bot needs to be a bit cleverer because a redirect should operate just like the template does. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:49, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Grading scheme category

Hi ! I saw you're the creator of Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Grading scheme. I noticed a funny thing - the category example, Category:Coastal settlements in New York was deleted in a CfD discussion. Quite a coincidence :) Maashatra11 (talk) 15:50, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah well spotted. I've changed it to Category:Extragalactic stars now. Hopefully that one will survive! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:44, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

File:B-checklist still screwy.jpg missing description details

Dear uploader: The media file you uploaded as File:B-checklist still screwy.jpg is missing a description and/or other details on its image description page. If possible, please add this information. This will help other editors to make better use of the image, and it will be more informative for readers.

If the information is not provided, the image may eventually be proposed for deletion, a situation which is not desirable, and which can easily be avoided.

If you have any questions please see Help:Image page. Thank you. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 15:05, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Editprotected requests

Hi Martin,

I'm genuinely confused and saddened by your opposition to my current RFA on the grounds that "a surprising number" of my editprotected requests have to be declined, especially given your support of my previous RFA. I've compiled what I believe to be a complete list of the editprotected requests I've raised this calendar year at User:Thumperward/EP. Of the 34 in total, only 5 have been declined (two for the same page), and of those I believe two were simply through being raised early even though neither appears to be controversial (I was about to re-request sync for the {{infobox film}} change). Could you perhaps take a look and share your thoughts? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 14:17, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I've glad you've taken the time to compile that list as I was hoping you would respond to this. Some thoughts/questions:

• I am applying the assumption that each time you use {{editprotected}} to attract an admin's attention then you feel the edit is appropriate at that time and so would make the edit yourself, if you were able. Is this correct?
• Do you really feel that 5 out of 34 is reasonable? (This is about 15% of your requests this year.)
• In addition there were others from 2009. In particular Template talk:Expand list#Undiscussed change seemed to show quite an astonishing lack of awareness of WP:BRD and WP:WAR.
• I think that most of requests are good ideas and on several occasions I personally supported them (e.g. on Template talk:Oldafdfull) but was not able to make the edit because I felt that it did not have sufficient consensus or had not been discussed thoroughly enough. Do you understand that an edit not only has to be beneficial but has to be "seen to be beneficial" and this requirement is not needless bureaucracy but a core part of how Wikipedia works and how being an administrator does not affect an editor's authority?

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:40, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

1. I think this is a reasonable assumption. One thing I would say is that to a certain extent I've allowed myself to be slightly reckless with my editprot template usage precisely because I know there's a check in place in the form of whoever looks at it. I would like to think that if the responsibility for the correctness of my actions were entirely in my own hands, I'd think twice even in situations I consider uncontroversial because of the added responsibility to get things right first time.
2. Yes, I think so, considering that of those five two were really part of the same incident (a moment of ill judgement on my behalf admittedly) and two of the others were either carried out in the end with no opposition or should be once re-requested. In the end, it's a handful of potential banana skins in seven months' work. Conversely, 85% of those requests were carried out without hitch, and I could be helping to ensure that future edits of that type are processed more quickly.
3. The editprotected request there was ill-judged, I'll admit to it; however, I think that's an exceptional case, and it's from fourteen months ago. Once the editprotected request was declined, I argued my case and then dropped it when I didn't have consensus. I certainly didn't edit war over it, nor did I have any inclination to, and I wouldn't consider doing so for a minute with the tools.
4. Yes: the oldafdmulti discussion showed a failing on my part. I'd like to think that I coped much better at template talk:archive box collapsible the other day when I specifically pinged Amalthea for his comments rather than just sticking an editprotected request up.

Thanks for the response. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 15:06, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Loss of articles

Today, someone moved several wikiproject banners, e.g. [15]. The resulting projects lost a huge number of articles (the categoriers disappeared from the talk pages). But, the articles seem to be coming back into the categories through the job queue. Do you have any idea how this could have happened? Do you think the edit that removed BANNER_NAME could related? The affected projects seem to have lost nearly all of their articles, so I'd like to figure out if there's a way to avoid this. Here's a particularly bad one [16] — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:35, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

It is likely because of sloppiness by the editor that moved the templates. In the case of astronomy and sexuality, the /class and /importance subpages were moved 2-3 hours later than the template itself during which time the articles would have fallen out of the categories. (I raised this with him yesterday). Failure to update the BANNER_NAME is unlikely to cause these problems. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:16, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I see. Thanks for the explanation. I'm hoping these will all repopulate through the job queue over the next few days. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:30, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Category:Politics of the United Kingdom articles by quality has emptied out for the same reason. Now fixed by myself and should be refilling. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:21, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

FYI

Grey background replaced with our FA.

I posted a new (but still rather rough) version of the AfC barnstar at WT:WPAFC but seeing as you were the main commenter, I thought I'd seek your opinion. What do you think?

sonia^♫♪ 10:19, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

It looks pretty good. I quite like the words in the background. It would be even better if it could be a bit shinier :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:23, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Banner moves

Hi Martin, here are a few easy banner moves that I can't do myself. Mainly just upper/lower case issues or an extra space in the name:

• Template:WikiProject Endangered Languages → Template:WikiProject Endangered languages
• Template:WikiProject FireService → Template:WikiProject Fire Service
• Template:WikiProject Former countries → Template:WikiProject Former Countries
• Template:WikiProject Ice hockey → Template:WikiProject Ice Hockey
• Template:WikiProject mythology → Template:WikiProject Mythology
• Template:WikiProject Scuba → Template:WikiProject SCUBA
• Template:WikiProject Shreveport Article → Template:WikiProject Shreveport

Thanks -- WOSlinker (talk) 21:27, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

All done, I think except one where I moved the project. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:40, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Here's another minor move:

• Template:WikiProject Home living → Template:WikiProject Home Living

Thanks -- WOSlinker (talk) 19:33, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:31, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Banner move fixes needed

After the various banner moves, there are a few occurences of BANNER_NAME (mainly for hooks) that haven't been updated. Below is a list of those for protected pages that need fixing. Just wondering if you could take a look. Thanks -- WOSlinker (talk) 09:16, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

• Template:WikiProject Astronomy
• Template:WikiProject Catholicism
• Template:WikiProject Iowa
• Template:WikiProject Novels
• Template:WikiProject Physics
• Template:WikiProject Trains

 all done I think. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:26, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

db-notice

Hi Martin,
todays changes to {{db-notice}} broke the behavior if it's placed on a red-linked page, see this fix that had to be made: The new line in front of the heading was missing.
I didn't look into how this can be fixed while retaining the changes, if you figure it out feel of course free to re-apply the change, cleaning this template up is certainly overdue.
Cheers, Amalthea 18:08, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I've been caught with this before I think. I'll take another look. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:28, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay I've got a working version on Template:Db-notice/sandbox. It's strange that </br> doesn't behave the same as a new line. Do you know if this is intentional? Unofrtunately this means there is no way to conditionally add a line break, and that version is still somewhat unsatisfactory because it leaves an extra line space when no welome message is displayed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:54, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Template:Citation needed

When will the underline feature be restored? The same feature has long been available on other language versions of Wikipedia. Thanks. 112.118.148.29 (talk) 21:07, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

As soon as the deprecated uses have been fixed up I think. The best place to discuss this is Template talk:Citation needed because I am not really involved with this project (just responding to requests). I believe the underlining functionality is still possible with Template:Reference necessary though. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:32, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

File-Class bits

I've put a page together at User:WOSlinker/Sandbox5 which may help in automating the creation of the categories if you can't get a bot to do it all. Would only take about 700 mouse clicks to do it all. -- WOSlinker (talk) 19:28, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Wow thanks, you've spent quite a lot of time on that! I'll post it on the WP:RIF page; may well turn out useful. (But it's still 700 clicks ... I'm worried about repetitive strain injury!) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:24, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Didn't take too long to do the list, just used Excel to generate each line. The bit that took slightly longer was getting the javascript bit to work. -- WOSlinker (talk) 22:36, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Only 358? I thought it was more than that. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:37, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Regarding this, I explained what I was doing on my talk page. I doubt I'll have any further involvement with this effort, as I really don't mess with templates much, and it looks like a template job from here on out. Courcelles (talk) 16:56, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay thanks for your help with this! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:12, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Interewiki links - ref desks

Hi. Could you look at Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk#Interwiki_links Thanks.87.102.43.171 (talk) 14:34, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your swift response.87.102.43.171 (talk) 16:35, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Template:China–Macau border crossings

You would probably be interested to take a look at [17] and [18]. The Macau government spells Macau with an 'o' in English (but a 'u' in Portuguese). And it spells habour with a 'u'. Meanwhile the link to Wanzai requires disambiguation. It's apparent who was vandalising around. I got no opinion with your page protection, but please freeze it with the right version. Thanks. 112.118.163.141 (talk) 19:03, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

And it was User:SchmuckyTheCat who first brought up the controversial changes [19]. He changed harbour to harbor, which was obviously contravening the Wikipedia rule on spelling differences, even if Inner Harbour wasn't a proper noun. 112.118.162.55 (talk) 19:12, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

The correct place to bring this up is Template talk:China–Macau border crossings. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:14, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Y...es. But as the administrator who decided to freeze the page with one of the two versions, you might want to figure out which would be the correct one. I therefore provide the information that you may need. 119.237.153.112 (talk) 02:55, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Quick question

This edit [20] only removed a "dead link" on the actual template page as far as I can see (admittedly I haven't reverted it to check). The reason is that the template page itself is not an article on the schools wikipedia, obviously. I think in every live use of the template it removed a live link, was that intended? The only reason I ask is editors following the talkpage links provide a useful stream of checking volunteers on the CD project and it is a pity to break the flow. --BozMo talk 19:45, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh yes! Silly me. I've re-added it now. And are you happy with the change in the pipe to Wikipedia:Wikipedia CD Selection? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:12, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Sure and the rename. Thanks. --BozMo talk 20:22, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Even wider range IP disruption

112.118.162.55 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) appears to be related to the 112.118.130.28 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) block that you made not too long ago. Active Banana (talk) 22:32, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

And more 112.118.162.156 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) Active Banana (talk) 22:47, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Blocked. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:51, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

In order to put a decent pause on this, the range to soft block is 112.118.128.0/17; please hit it for a week. Also, could someone create a new Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Instantnood, so I can record the results in a place it can be found in future. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 23:25, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your help with this. I see the case has been closed already so I'm not sure if I can add anything. I'm not so familiar with this user anyway. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:34, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

EDL

Thanks!

Regarding the three straw polls, the article is currently the subject of a request for mediation as well... It's a very difficult area: editors range from an EDL member through to an editor who's vehemently opposed to the EDL, and until yesterday it's probably safe to say that every editor had strong views for or against the EDL (mostly against - which was part of the problem). (I posted at WP:NPOVN yesterday, and we've got a few new faces). Anyway... thanks again! TFOWR 13:18, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Haha, sounds like you've got a job on your hands there. Question: I appreciate you are being extra cautious, but if consider yourself uninvolved enough to close the polls, then why not make the edit? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:21, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't entirely sure I was uninvolved enough to close the polls, to be honest - but everyone seemed quite happy with me doing so, so I went ahead and did it. Really, the {{editprotected}} was a "sanity check" - one last chance to check I wasn't being "bad" without realising. Also, it's such a contentious article I figured better to err on the side of caution... TFOWR 13:34, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Extended assessment

Martin, re this - if we wanted to use the extended scale, how should our assessment page have differed? Would it be simply a case of adding the other six rows? If so, where can we obtain sample rows to copy into the table? Are there any other changes to make elsewhere? --Redrose64 (talk) 14:31, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

By all means enable the extended scale if your project wishes. But Wikipedia:WikiProject Thoroughbred racing/Assessment currently doesn't mention any classes other than the standard ones. You could look at the documentation for Template:Grading scheme to see how to adapt that table. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:44, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Invitation to edit

Hi Martin. Thank you for asking the question about hiding messages from logged in editors here. I don't understand the lingo though. Does it look like it is doable, provided someone volunteers to write the script? I just noticed you're boating! How wonderful. Anthony (talk) 05:55, 30 July 2010 (UTC) Updated 15:31, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi Anythony. Yes it is doable and I am currently trying to persuade User:Alex Smotrov to write the code for this feature. Boating was great. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:15, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Quick question 2

Hey Martin, you're knowledgeable about this sort of thing so I'll as you. What's the mediawiki page that controls the protection durations in the drop-down list? Thanks, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:32, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay. MediaWiki:Protect-expiry-options looks like the one you're after. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:09, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

No problem, I trust you enjoyed your time on your narrowboat? Thanks for the answer. If you have a few minutes, there are quite a few pending {{editprotected}} requests that are beyond my capabilities. Best, Whisky drinker | HJ's sock (Mistake? let me know) 17:38, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, very enjoyable as always! Okay, I'll take a look shortly :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:39, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Template:Pirates

I hate asking this(because of the whole "I'm not a user" type thing), but could you put Jack Sparrow in Template:Pirates under Fictional Pirates? Because Jack has been in three, and soon-to-be, four films, so Jack HAS to be in the list. And I'm not able to put his name in the list(for I am not a user), but you are. So, if you can do this for me, I will be very grateful. :) 75.89.207.133 (talk) 22:40, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done, although you are clearly are a "user" albeit an anonymous one. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:21, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Michael W Higgins page

Dear MSGJ,

Is there any way to lock the Michael W Higgins page?

Someone keeps changing the fact that the lockout at St. Thomas University (during Higgins' presidency) was unprecedented. I have provided numerous credible references and explanations (several times) as to why the lockout was unprecedented. Yet someone keeps changing it. This is revisionist history. The lockout was unprecedented because never before had a university locked out the faculty union before they had taken a strike vote. The situation at Bishop's University (which the person keeps citing) is different - one bargaining unit (the staff) of the faculty union was already on strike (and had taken a strike vote). At St. Thomas, there had been no strike vote and no one on strike. This is the truth and a fact. Someone won't accept this, despite the references I have provided and explanations.

Thank you for your consideration, Sonja Rosca —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sonja B Rosca (talk • contribs) 00:25, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

If this "unprecedented" lockout is such a big deal, just make a separate article for it. Higgins is not even president of STU anymore, so get a new hobby and leave him alone. Do you know how foolish it sounds that one person single-handedly patrolled the grounds and went around the school with a bucket of new locks for the doors while flipping off the poor hard working professors? This man is a professor too, and a far superior one than many as evidenced by his accomplishments. This is pure jealousy, and borderline libel. He happened to be president of a tiny university during a 5-week labor dispute three years ago. Get over it. Leave the discussion on the Discussion page of the article, and if facts are in dispute - for the integrity of the Wiki - leave them out.

MSGJ, your attention is appreciated. Thank you. Markhenick (talk) 01:50, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

This is quite petty. You both need to stop edit warring and start discussing this. Talk:Michael W. Higgins is looking quite bare considering the controversy that this article seems to produce. Sonja: if you are trying to change the article and are getting reverted then the onus is on you to make the case for the change on the talk page, not to keep reinserting your changes. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:29, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Martin, for your response. I shall make the case on the talk page, as you suggest. I did this in the footnotes and edit explanations, but I see now that this was not the correct place. Thanks for your correction. I shall also, in the next week or so, suggest a compromise which I hope will be greeted openly and respectfully and end the edit war. I would appreciate your continued attention to this issue. Regards, Sonja. Sonja B Rosca (talk) 00:39, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Your rewrite of the dated prod template

Before you touched the template, wikilinks included within the prod concern (such as WP:OR to indicate original research) were transmitted into the prod warning issued to the author. This is no longer the case. Can you look into that? -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 20:04, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh I see what you mean. Checking now. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:50, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I wondered what that bit of code was for and now I know. All fixed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:23, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

My Defcon code

Thank you for your assistance in shortening the code with my defcon template. I would ask though that next time you stop by my talkpage and ask. It's just so I know what is going on. Although I know you probably wouldn't cause problems on purpose, if you make a simple mistake, I would have to read through your changes to find the error. Thank you again for you help and understanding. -- /DeltaQuad|Notify Me\ 18:21, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome. I thought my edit summaries were clear enough to explain what I did. If you're saying I need permission to edit your userpages then I suppose that is a reasonable request if somewhat WP:OWNy, especially as my edit did not change the output of the template in any way. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:01, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, your summaries were clear enough to explain, and yes I am being a bit owny. I am not trying to be a pain, but this is was the second one in a short time where my userspace was randomly edited. Again, I like the edits, and I think I understand them, so it's not a huge deal, just something I like to have editors do, as I would do for them. Thanks, -- /DeltaQuad|Notify Me\ 20:09, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Template:Ygm

Are you saying that redirects aren't templates?! Honestly the idiot who protected that redirect in the first place should hang their head in shame... ;-) Well caught... TFOWR 10:22, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Heh, redirects in template space are templates and redirects aren't they? You're confusing me now. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:25, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Wait - are you saying that I'm not an idiot? You're confusing me, too! Probably best if I slink away and pretend this never happened... ;-) First time I've had a template become useful enough to move into Template-space - that's my excuse, anyway...!

Seriously though, the "ygm" redirect is probably overkill, anyway. I removed references to it from the /doc, and I'd be happy if "YGM" was the only shortcut. Any objections (as you're the only other editor to the "ygm" redirect") if I delete it? Can I delete it, with you having edited it? TFOWR 10:29, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I have no problem with you deleting that redirect! Generally I would agree with you that the lowercase would be useful to keep but I understand the problem with the removal instructions. BTW the reason I lowered the protection on both of these is that it not seem to be warranted. We don't generally protect templates (or redirects) unless they are highly used, not just in case they become highly used. And I couldn't see any reason for the move protection to be greater than the edit protection - someone might have a better idea for the name, just as they might have a good idea for the actual coding. Hope this makes sense. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:17, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

No, that all makes perfect sense - thanks! I think, having given it some thought while my internet connection decided to act up, that I'll leave "ygm" in place, at least for a while, to see if it gets any use. I'll leave the rest as-is, to avoid overloading the removal instructions (I kind of feel that the removal instructions are pretty obvious - folk shouldn't be too confused between upper- and lower-case variants). TFOWR 11:40, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Interesting, as my internet was also playing up. Wonder if we use the same ISP or if it was a national glitch. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:42, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Hutchison 3G, in my case - and it's the "3G" aspect that's the problem: up and down like a yo-yo... I should be back to proper broadband next week, and, frankly, it can't happen soon enough... TFOWR 11:51, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

File:Juan Manuel Santos 59 Presidente de Colombia.jpg

Trout. You forgot to add the source and license on this one ;) —fetch·comms 16:32, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I've always wondered whether this is really necessary. The {{c-uploaded}} template says "For file history and other information, please see the Commons image description." which is only one click away. This cited comment just seems to be the opinion of one person. Thoughts? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:41, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Sock puppet returned

I think that Special:Contributions/90.199.49.37 is a returned sock puppet. Where would I go to report this? PvsKllKsVp (talk) 00:12, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind, I found it in Twinkle. I found your name because you had dealt with an earlier issue. I see now that was 2 years ago. PvsKllKsVp (talk) 00:16, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I have no memory of this user. But it seems this the contributions of this IP are not disruptive so you could just let it go? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:00, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

edit links on template documentation

Hi, Martin. I was trying to edit {{Db-a7}}'s documentation, but there were no edit/purge links. Digging a bit, I noticed that it is on {{Db doc}}, which passes the "content" parameter to {{documentation}}, which in turn makes it not produce the edit links, apparently per this edit to its /core. I was wondering whether the "docpage" parameter could be used to provide a different link, if that's the problem. The complexity starts to overwhelm me around here (I don't have enough time to dwell into the template right now). Do you have any insights? --Waldir ^talk 08:30, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Hehe, yeah a bit complicated. It makes complete sense for the links not to show if content is passed because, as far as {{doc}} is concerned, there is no doc page. However we could think about whether passing the first unnamed parameter and the content parameter should force the links to appear, because currently the 1= is ignored if content is used. (This might be something to bring up at the template talk page.) We also have the link box which is quite useful and you'll see a this is used on {{db doc}} to link to itself. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:56, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately that didn't seem to work. The link box should do the job, but it's not where we expect it to be, so it probably doesn't live up to its potential (case in point: this). By the way, do you know how we could tweak {{nn-warn}} so that it displays correctly on {{db-a7}}? --Waldir ^talk 10:27, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Template move

You put in a request to move Template:Requested move/testcases to Hello. Is this intended? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 15:22, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

It's a test =\ Don't carry it out... –xeno^talk 15:27, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Indeed it was a test (hence the name of the page ;)) I've now added a demo parameter to stop it categorising. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:44, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject Slovakia

Hi Martin, nice picture of the Angel there on your user page. The reason why I'm writing to you is because I see you have a bit of experience with project banners. I was wondering if you could add the category, template, file, project, disambig classes (and any others I may have missed!) to the Template:WikiProject Slovakia banner as I have no idea how to format this type of stuff. I'd really appreciate your help mate. Greetings – Jared Preston (talk) 14:00, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done. There are some prompts on the template to create the additional categories. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:03, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Done and dusted! Thank you very, very much for your lightning-fast reaction and reply. I spent the afternoon creating the categories and doing some other stuff. Could it be said that the categories and templates already listed under Category:NA-Class Slovakia articles need to be refreshed manually somehow to recategorise them? I thought they would be done automatically after an hour or two, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Cheers! Jared Preston (talk) 20:06, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

As long as they are not explicitly marked as |class=NA they should automatically move over in time. However it could take a week or two depending on the length of the job queue. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:15, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah OK, the job queue is at around 50,000 at the moment so we can be patient for the next few days. Slovakia-related articles have been on my to-do list for a while now, but there are so many other things I have planned I sometimes just don't know where to start. I can't even imagine how hard it is being a sysop, but you're doing a great job! Thanks for all your help; if there's anything I can do for you in return then please let me know on my talk page! Jared Preston (talk) 20:36, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Well thanks for the compliment, but I don't think it's hard work really. The people who write articles have a much harder job! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Prod Template

You've broken the essential Dumbot prod listing. Please revert it until you can fix it properly. This is so important for admins like myself who patrol there, that I shall revert the changes myself tomorrow until you can get them fixed properly DGG ( talk ) 11:00, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I've replied at Template talk:Proposed deletion. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:04, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Template:Archive navigation

Hey there MSGJ, Template:Archive navigation seems to no longer work correctly when used on a /Archive 1 as {{Archive navigation|1}}; it displays like so: Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 1. This seems to have started since you changed the template in July. Unfortunately, I know very little about the syntax used on that template (I can just about get my head around the <noinclude> tags ). Thoughts?
Kindest regards, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 15:01, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting this. I think I've now fixed it. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:08, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Excellent, seems to be working fine now. Thanks a lot! Spitfire^Tally-ho! 02:40, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Editor review template

Do you still need this? Or can I have it deleted? It is annoyingly showing up as part of the backlog. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 16:43, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

What about this? :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 16:44, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I've deleted the testcases. What's wrong with keeping the sandbox template? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:10, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh, ok thanks. Just wondering about the sandbox. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 23:29, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:PEND at Thomas Cranmer

• Thomas Cranmer (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This article was semiprotected for a while, but in June you put it under pending changes. Every week or two weeks, an IP will come along and decide that Cranmer is not a martyr, and a regular editor will change it back. This results in quite a few changes that need to be manually reverted. Background for the dispute can be seen at this 3RR case from last April. What would you think of my switching back to semiprotection? Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 02:39, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome to restore the semi-protection if you feel it is warranted; I have no particular knowledge of this article. However I would note that the inappropriate edits are rather sparse and so probably manageable. Also that not all anonymous edits have been unconstructive. So PC-protection would seem to be working reasonably well. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:30, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Gillian Duffy

Hello, I can't see the discussion on the now-deleted talk page, but it looks like there is no objection to a redirect of Gillian Duffy to United Kingdom general election, 2010#April where she is prominently mentioned (and which contains the information one would likely be looking for if you searched for her here). There is a current DrV on her, and there seems to be no objection to such a redirect. Further, per WP:BLP1E this should clearly be a redirect to the article. As the protecting and deleting admin I've come to you. Thanks, Hobit (talk) 15:29, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I too would support a redirect, but it would be better to wait for the outcome of the DRV I think. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:31, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Not sure on that. Given the way the discussion is going, I think we'd avoid more drama than create with the redirect, but it's your call. Thanks again! Hobit (talk) 17:20, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I have told Hobit that this was all discussed at interminable length before, and given him the references. As the first deleter and salter of the redirect I am still against having one, for the same reasons; but I agree, the DRV (where I am about to comment) will have to decide. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 20:44, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2010 August 13#Template:Fb team TBA

I closed the above TfD and I thought I managed to replace the uses of the templates in several other templates, but the whatlinkshere search still indicates that it's being used. Can you figure out where they need to be replaced still? —fetch·comms 18:15, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Seems you found all of them. The whatlinkshere can take a long time to update itself. For example this template still shows thousands of transclusions even though I replaced all of them and deleted it months ago! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:14, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

File:ArticlesForCreationEntry2.JPG listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:ArticlesForCreationEntry2.JPG, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Hugahoody (talk) 21:28, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Commented there. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:07, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

User:Donald Duck

Hi. In November 2009 you took away User:Donald Duck's rollback permission, then gave it back. Now Donald Duck is on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents for a pattern of disruptive reverting. I became involved on day 5 of the discussion, when Donald Duck disrupted my editing two different articles. Donald Duck was advised to refrain from using Huggle, but has chosen to ignore that advice. Would you care to look into this? 68.167.224.215 (talk) 03:07, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I see that huggle has now been removed from the account which seems like a good idea. I'm not sure if any further action is required at this time but it seems like it is being sorted on ANI. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:10, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Just something to note. I wasn't advised to not use Huggle -- it was merely a suggestion. - Donald Duck (talk) 16:01, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, MSGJ. You have new messages at Wikipedia talk:WikiFun Police.
Message added 19:29, 25 August 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Navbox changes

Hi Martin, Just wondering if you would take a look at Template talk:Navbox#width_parameter and review my changes for navbox before I implement them as Navbox is used in quite a few places. Thanks -- WOSlinker (talk) 12:43, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Will be a couple of days before I can help as I'm on a mobile device. 07:34, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

No rush, that will be fine. -- WOSlinker (talk) 09:04, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done 11:04, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for adding "Rollback" to my account.. --Sweet xx^Talk 20:24, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

No problem. 11:05, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Featured templates?!

Care to give this a once-over? Note there are some comments in the source, too, and feel free to point anyone else you care to towards it. =) 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 04:12, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah I'm glad you are pursuing this! I'll take a look shortly. 11:05, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I've hacked at it. 16:09, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Template:Amg

Hi Martin, I thought I'd bring this to you since you appear to be involved with {{AMG}}. At my request, Yobot is currently replacing all transclusions of {{amg}} with {{allmusic}}. It should be done by the time you read this (unless you're having a late one like myself), so do you think you could unprotect it and redirect to {{AMG}}? Thanks in advance. PC78 (talk) 23:41, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I've lowered the protection but there still seem to be a few transclusions in the file namespace so I haven't redirected it yet. 09:08, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

They appear to have been done now, and I've just replaced the last remaining transclusion on an archived AfD discussion. I'll redirect it myself as it's no longer protected. Thanks. PC78 (talk) 15:41, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Six Day War Request

I put in an "editprotected" request on the Six Day War article and you disabled it with the comment that there was "nothing actionable here". I don't know what that is supposed to mean. Please give me an explanation as to your reason, so I can try to resolve whatever problem you may perceive there to be. JRHammond (talk) 12:34, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

The reason is that the issue was still under discussion and there was not consensus yet for the requested edit. 12:55, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

But there have been no objections. JRHammond (talk) 13:56, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

User:HupHollandHup and User:BorisG both seem to object. Please continue the conversation over there. 14:01, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

You are mistaken. There have been no objections to the fix I proposed for which I employed the editprotected template. There are two items in that section. You seem to be referring to item (2), but I didn't employ the template for that item, but rather for item (1), for which there have been precisely 0 objections. Look again. I won't re-enable the template, but please reconsider it. There have been no objections to the fix, and I'm confident if you look at the problem and the fix, you'll find it perfectly reasonable (which might explain why nobody has objected. JRHammond (talk) 00:23, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay I didn't realise there were two separate requests. I recommend putting each in a new section so that they don't get confused. I've invited other editors to comment on your proposal and if there is no response in a couple of days I can make the edit. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:46, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks so much. I appreciate it. JRHammond (talk) 14:13, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

New article put on hold - Brian Fridge

You reviewed my new article and put it on hold, questioning the notability of the artist. He is notable under #4d of the creative professionals section - his work is collected in several museums. I had included the names of the museums in the 1st version of the article, but it was declined because I could not provide online sources. Unfortunately, few museums have the name of every single artist in their collection online. The one exception in the case of Brian Fridge, the artist I was writing about, is the Whitney Museum of American Art (http://whitney.org/Collection/AllArtists?artists_page=2&name=F). I did find his name on their website, but did not want to include the name of only one museum when his work is collected in 6 - I was taking an all or nothing approach.

Does that satisfy the hold requirement? PCbee (talk) 02:28, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I've created the article although I still have some doubts about whether the notability is established. The cited sources do not seem to give any extensive coverage of the artist, so if you can find any better references that would help. I've given an example to show how references can be formatted properly using Template:Cite web. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:39, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

You are mentioned on A/E

You may want to chime in at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Arbitration enforcement action appeal by User:JRHammond. Apparently JRHammond wasn't happy with the standards I set on Talk:Six-Day War regarding proper usage of the editprotected template, and he found you more sympathetic, mentioning your and my contradictory positions in his appeal. I tried to reconcile this in my response. ~Amatulić (talk) 17:42, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, please, I would appreciate it if you would weigh in. I observed that you and I had an understanding that, in your words: "Okay I didn't realise there were two separate requests. I recommend putting each in a new section so that they don't get confused. I've invited other editors to comment on your proposal and if there is no response in a couple of days I can make the edit."

I maintain that the stated reasons for my ban are wholly spurious. I would appreciate if you would examine my argument for appeal and responses to admins arguing in favor of the ban, which are demonstrably riddled with factually incorrect or misleading statements, such as Amatulic's suggestion that I came to you AFTER Amatulic had told me the edit would not be made unless it had approval, regardless of how much time might passed in which no objections are raised. You will note that the understanding you and I came to occurred before Amatulic expressed his own personal interpretation of how the "editprotected" template is to be used, which I disagreed with, and which you yourself disagreed with in agreeing to make the edit "if there is no response". It is spurious arguments such as this, mostly from users who are not uninvolved, but who rather have already demonstrated prejudice against me underlying my current ban (the admin who banned me had previously done so on spurious pretexts, violated WP:OUTING by posting information personally identifying me, threatened me, etc. I've documented all this in my appeal), and I would appreciate an impartial editor.

In fact, I'll trust and respect your judgment. If you find that I've been in any way at fault by violating any Wikipedia policy guidelines, I will submit to the ban to whatever period of time you deem reasonable. I trust that demonstrates my good faith. All I ask in return is that you make a good faith effort to examine the claims being made against me that underlie the ban, and my point-by-point responses to each demonstrating their spurious nature, and if you find I have not violated any Wikipedia policy guidelines, that you lift the ban.

Thanks for your consideration. JRHammond (talk) 01:50, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, JRHammond came here after I requested he withdraw the template he posted, and only after MSGJ disabled the same template. I made this clear in my followup although it was muddled in my initial comment. I've been trying my best to help mediate things and was willing to continue. I recommend JRHammond step back read what he wrote above from the point of view of someone who hasn't seen it yet, and he may realize how combative he appears. He isn't doing favors for himself in this regard. ~Amatulić (talk) 03:43, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Completely untrue. It was MSGJ who disabled the template,[21] and I never re-enabled it after that, so it's simply a logical impossibility that I came here after you "requested" I "withdraw the template"! A little honesty would certainly be appreciated.

Moreover, as I've already observed, I had reached the above agreement with MSGJ well BEFORE Amatulic stated his interpretation of the usage of the template. How is observing this demonstrable fact "combative"? Such prejudicial characterizations constitute ad hominem argumentation. And repeatedly making false statements against me also demonstrates your extreme prejudice. I've stated the facts, and among those facts are that you have spoken falsely in this regard. It's like I said: I had already come to the above agreement with MSGJ before you posted your comments stating your differing interpretation of how the template is supposed to be used. That fact is incontrovertible, and accusing me of being "combative" won't change it.

This kind of demonstrably prejudicial treatment goes to the heart of this whole matter. I am being treated with extreme prejudice, and all I'm asking for is fair and equal treatment. I reiterate what I said to MSGJ: I place my trust in his judgment, and if he finds that I've in some way violated Wikipedia policy in a way that warrants a ban and shows me where I've done so, I will accept his judgment; all I ask in return is that he deal fairly with me. I challenge Amatulic to quote me where I ever said or did anything warranting this ban (much less an indefinite one). And I challenge Amatulic to respond to the facts I've here stated, rather than making false statements and resorting to prejudicial ad hominem arguments. JRHammond (talk) 04:41, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

The dates say otherwise. I requested you withdraw. Then you came here. Enough. ~Amatulić (talk) 05:24, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

You're not being honest Amatulic. Let's review the facts: You requested I deactivate the template on the basis that it had been met with debate and controversy. That was incorrect, as I pointed out to to you at the time, and as you perfectly well know -- and as you perfectly well knew when you stated FALSELY on the appeal page that I used the template and a "huge" debate erupted afterward. A demonstrably false statement.

After I pointed out your error in that regard, MSGJ then deactivated the template. I did not seek him out, as you also falsely suggest. MSGJ will confirm that he did that of his own accord. After he did so, I came to an understanding with him here that the edit would be made after more time was allowed, if there were still no objections raised. Your claim that I sought him out is another demonstrably false assertion.

It was SUBSEQUENT to that that you said the edit would NOT be made without explicit support -- in other words, it didn't matter how long it remained there without objection and was uncontroversial, the edit wouldn't be made. It was that position of yours, which is not supported by the page outlining the use of the template, that I said was unreasonable. The whole premise of your argument on the appeal page is that I went "shopping" for an admin to support my position. YOU KNOW PERFECTLY WELL THAT IS FALSE. Again, my understanding with MSGJ was arrived at before you had even made your comments. Yet you've constructed an entire argument supporting the ban against me on the basis that I went "canvassing" for an admin to support my position -- a 100% FALSE claim, as you know perfectly well.

Your lack of honesty, Amatulic, demonstrates your lack of good faith and extreme prejudice towards me. I again request that MSGJ consider my appeal. I trust that he, unlike yourself, can be impartial, honest about the facts, and non-prejudicial in his attitude towards me. You don't have to like me, Amatulic, but I've got the truth on my side. I've done nothing to warrant this completely ban, implemented on 100% spurious accusations, and I challenge you or anyone else to actually quote me where I posted anything or did anything that was in violation of Wikipedia policy in such a manner as to warrant an indefinite article and talk-page ban on the Six Day War topic. Every single argument you've made in support of the ban is premised upon demonstrably false assertions. That is one thing. The fact that you know perfectly well your claims are false when you make them is another matter, and clearly demonstrates that you have no basis judging one way or the other on my appeal to have the ban lifted. I request that Amatulic be forbidden from doing so, on the basis of his demonstrably false claims against me. JRHammond (talk) 07:21, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Good grief. I will try to post there if I get a chance, but I don't really want to get involved with such things. I simply review protected edit requests and act according to my judgement. I have seen some problematic behaviour by JRHammond but not really enough to justify a complete ban from the page. However I am not familiar with all the past history so it perhaps not appropriate for me to make such a statement. Amatulic, you do seem to be taking a hard line with regard to the "Suez Crisis aftermath" request; I have commented there on why I believe the request was in order. It was not my intention to undermine your efforts over there and hope you do not take it this way. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:05, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

RJHammond: You are the only one demonstrating prejudice and lack of good faith. I have been impartial, even accepting one of your edit requests, and exhorting others to weigh in regarding another so we could have consensus and move on. However, your unwillingness to see other points of view, your characterization of any disagreement as an ad-hominem attack, your treatment of multiple talk pages (including this one) as a battleground rather than a community, clearly indicates where you stand regarding good faith. I will not comment further on this talk page.

MSGJ: My hard line regarding edit requests is not something I would apply in most cases, but is appropriate for highly contentious articles, and the talk page has indicated unwillingness to support the change. The comments below confirm. ~Amatulić (talk) 16:12, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not interested in your attacks on my character, Amatulic, which are only intended to deflect attention away from the demonstrable fact that you have repeatedly made prejudicially false statements against me. JRHammond (talk) 01:09, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

wall of words, Six day war

• The silence at Six-Day war is because everyone has abandoned the idea of debating in the face of the wall of words – it's a result of fatigue, and absolutely nothing else. • Ling.Nut 16:00, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

  I understand. After putting separate requests in different sections I hoped this would be alleviated. Indeed this particular request did seem to be clear and relatively to-the-point. However if you are now saying that you oppose this edit (and will explain why) I am happy to revert. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:07, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

  • MSGJ could you please revert your change to the article? First of all there was no consensus, second of all the user, who requested the change is banned on the article now. You are proxy editing for a banned user. Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 16:10, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

MSGJ, if no actual reason is given for opposition to a proposed edit, how can it seriously be considered? What is this? Clearly, the reasonable thing to do would be to request a REASON for their opposition. It's a completely uncontroversial edit, and if people can't even so much as to offer a rationale for why it shouldn't be made, their objections don't have any weight. My explanation for why it should be made it speaks for itself. So you've got a good argument for the edit, and you still have precisely ZERO arguments against it. So you revert it on the basis of...??? JRHammond (talk) 01:09, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I replied on this matter once. I will go repeat myself over at the article's talk page. • Ling.Nut 01:14, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Ling.Nut, an objection of a proposed edit on the basis that it was proposed by JRHammond is not a reasonable one. This is a purely ad hominem argument. Again, here are the facts:

The current version states: After the 1956 war, Egypt agreed to the stationing of a UN peacekeeping force in the Sinai, the United Nations Emergency Force, to keep that border region demilitarized, and prevent Palestinian fedayeen guerrillas from crossing the border into Israel.

This sentence does not accurately reflect the UNEF mandate. UNEF was established by the General Assembly under Resolution 1000 (November 5, 1956), which "Establishes a United Nations Command for an Emergency International Force to secure and supervise the cessation of hostilities in accordance with all the terms of General Assembly resolution 997 (ES-I) of 2 November 1956"[22]

Resolution 997 noted "the disregard on many occasions by parties to the Israel-Arab armistice agreements of 1949 of the terms of such agreements, and that the armed forces of Israel have penetrated deeply into Egyptian territory in violation of the General Armistice Agreement between Egypt and Israel of 24 February 1949". It urged a cease-fire, urged withdrawal from Egyptian territory.[23]

I therefore proposed the following neutral replacement: After the 1956 war, Egypt agreed to the stationing of a UN peacekeeping force in the Sinai, the United Nations Emergency force (UNEF), "to secure and supervise the cessation of hostilities".

Now, Ling.Nut, do you have any objections on the basis of any error in fact or logic on my part? Do you contend that the existing wording is WP:NPOV, but my proposed edit is not? What, exactly, is the basis of your objection, besides the fact that it was I who proposed it?

User:MSGJ, again, if there are no reasonable objections (and by "reasonable" I mean factually and logically sound), then there is no reason not to make the edit. Like you yourself said: How am I, as an uninvolved admin, supposed to know if there is any opposition unless someone tells me!? In addition to that, axiomatically, any objection should be reasonable. That is hardly asking for too much. I'm not the one being unreasonable in this whole affair. JRHammond (talk) 03:06, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• I'm not Opposing. I'm stating for the record that this edit does not reflect any strong Consensus (or any Consensus at all), and may be subject to change at a later date, given reliable resources, without discussion. I hope that clarifies things. I'm sorry if I am unclear. • Ling.Nut 03:45, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

User:Ling.Nut, Okay, thanks for clarifying. No need for apology. Simple misunderstanding. However, User:MSGJ seems to have similarly misundertood your remarks as constituting opposition to the proposed edit, because after implementing the edit, he reverted it again apparently on the basis of your remarks (and MSGJ may correct me if I'm wrong on that). That being so, I would therefore request that since the apparent basis for the revert is no more, that the revert be reverted; that is to say, that the proposed edit be implemented once again.

That misunderstanding aside, I don't understand what your point is in saying "this edit does not reflect any strong Consensus". WP:CONSENSUS states: "Consensus is a decision that takes account of all the legitimate concerns raised." If there are no legitimate concerns raised, then, axiomatically, a proposed edit is ipso facto uncontroversial, and on that basis there is no reason not to implement it. As for your remark that it "may be subject to change at a later date", yes, certainly. That is true of any and every edit, the one I've proposed being no exception. You say it could be changed "given reliable resources". The sentence is about the UNEF mandate. My proposed edit quotes from the mandate itself. There is no more authoritative or reliable source on what the UNEF mandate was than the UNGA resolution that established it itself. Finally, you say it could be changed "without discussion". Again, that is no more or less true for my proposed edit than any other; yet I would observe that Wikipedia guidelines state that: "All editors are expected to make a good-faith effort to reach a consensus that is aligned with Wikipedia's principles."[24] I presume you and I are on the same page in that regard. JRHammond (talk) 04:21, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

MSGJ, I implore you to consider the following facts:

User:Ling.Nut does not oppose my proposed edit ("I'm not Opposing." See above).

User:BorisG has expressed opposition on the basis that "The sentence is sourced to a RS. Unless it is shown that this is not what the source says, it can stay." But the question is not whether the cited source says what the article says it says, and nobody has suggested the source is mis-cited. The question, rather, is whether the UNEF mandate is characterized in accordance with WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT. I believe I've demonstrated conclusively that the current wording is in violation of both.

User:Ruslik0 has objected on the basis that "That UNEF acted to prevent fedayeen infiltration (from Gaza) is discussed at length in Middle East - UMEF I" In fact, that source specifically mentions fedayeen infiltration from Gaza only once: Palestinian fedayeen, with the support of the Egyptian Government, had been launching frequent raids against Israel from their bases in Gaza, and these had been followed by increasingly strong reprisal attacks by Israeli armed forces. This was in 1955, prior to the 1956 war. In every other instance where raids are mentioned, it is with regard to the need to stop raids from both sides.

This objection simply does not address the issue, which is that the current wording is a blatant violation of WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT. This is further easily demonstrable from Ruslik0's own source. For instance: However, a new situation developed in late October 1956, when Israel, in cooperation with the British and French Governments, launched an all-out attack on Egypt. And: The United Nations Emergency Force was the key element in the United Nations efforts to resolve the crisis arising from the military action of the Israeli and Anglo-French forces against Egypt.[25] And so on.

Moreover, the actual mandate itself does not explicitly refer to fedayeen raids, whereas it does state that its purpose was "to secure and supervise the cessation of hostilities in accordance with all the terms of General Assembly resolution 997" which did explicitly refer to "the disregard on many occasions by parties [plural] to the Israel-Arab armistice agreements of 1949 of the terms of such agreements, and that the armed forces of Israel have penetrated deeply into Egyptian territory in violation of the General Armistice Agreement between Egypt and Israel of 24 February 1949" Again, the current wording is a blatant and incontrovertible violation of WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT.

My proposed solution to this problem is perfectly neutral, quoting directly from the actual UNEF mandate itself: After the 1956 war, Egypt agreed to the stationing of a UN peacekeeping force in the Sinai, the United Nations Emergency force (UNEF), "to secure and supervise the cessation of hostilities".[26]

Clearly, therefore, for all of the above reasons, my proposed edit would be an improvement to the article. I would emphasize that the spirit of all Wikipedia guidelines is summarized by [WP:IAR], which states that If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. Please consider my proposed edit on the basis of its actual merit, which is that it would improve the article by replacing a blatantly biased wording with one that is neutral -- which is the underlying issue here that neither of the existing statements of opposition to my proposed edit substantively address in any way whatsoever. JRHammond (talk) 10:10, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Use of {R ...} templates

Is there any particular reason you put the {R ...} templates on separate lines in this edit? I've been putting them on the same line as the #REDIRECT. Any problem with that? - dcljr (talk) 08:11, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it matters much either way. Perhaps slightly easier to read the source code if they're on separate lines, that's all. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:28, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

A simple request

Hi MSGJ, I have a small request if you have time to do. For start, can you delete View history of this file. You can see that there is a lot of my editing, but actually those are my mistakes that I made when I was just log on Wikipedia quite a long time ago, and back there I didn't knew how editing works, so I do not want that to be there because when someone would like to see the history of that file and found a 15 mistakes that I made. I have also one more request, that is if you could in my Upload log page to erase two files from that list. It was a File:Clash2010Soundtrack.jpg. There are two that files and I would like to erase it completely from that list. Reason for deletion is that I have already sent that files under a different name and I do not want to be on list because it was a big mistake. Thank you in advance. Corey.7.11.1992 10:46, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Hello, I can only delete pages and files in line with the Wikipedia:Deletion policy. We do not generally delete revisions simply because an editor has made a mistake. In the interests of transparency, all editors' contributions are visible and all page histories are visible. But please don't worry about this as everyone has made mistakes, especially when they have just started to edit. I notice that File:Clash2010Soundtrack.jpg has already been deleted (twice in fact). — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:27, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I know that it was deleted and I didn't wanted you to delete that files, but I wanted it to be erased from my Upload log list, not to be there. I don't understands how can that be so difficult. You don't even need to erase both files, just the second in the middle of list, reason is that text next to the file, it totally annoys me because I have copied it from another file and forgot to change the data, and there is another reason that I was explained in upper text. Please erase. Corey.7.11.1992 14:49, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, logs and history records can not be expunged to cover up mistakes. This is the way of the wiki. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Meredith Kercher Page

Re: This Diff

With due respect you are not well informed on this matter. This sentence has a long history and stands as the posterchild of much of what is wrong with that article -- and that is a lot. The article text is compared below to a proposed change I had made so I hope you can see the substance of the complaint. The position that any change to that sentence must address the underlying problem is legitimate.

From the article

"A bartender has also alleged that Guede entered his home uninvited and carrying a knife and the owner of a nursery school in Milan has claimed that Guede trespassed on her premises.[16]"

Proposed Change by me

Failure to Arrest Rudy Guede Prior to the Murder

"Rudy Guede had no criminal convictions at the time of the murder. However, in the weeks leading up to the crime he had participated in a series of criminal acts which Italian police knew about but for reasons that remain unclear did not act upon. Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini has conceded that Guede should already have been in jail when the murder took place leading to questions of whether Meredith Kercher would still be alive if police had done their jobs properly.

"The similarities between Guede’s modus-operandi in his break-ins prior to the murder and what was observed at the crime scene was central to arguments made by lawyers for Knox and Sollecito that Guede had committed the murder alone. "

"By some reports Guede was known by Italian police to have committed six crimes in the 33 days prior to the murder. In a deposition submitted at trial Cristian Tramontano described how he had found Guede prowling around his house while he slept. In the incident, which was reported to police and witnessed by Tramontano’s girlfriend, Guede brandished a knife in his escape."

"Only four days prior to the murder Guede was caught alone, prowling around inside a Milan nursery school as the owner, Maria Del Prato, arrived in the morning. Police found Guede to be in possession of a laptop and cell phone stolen from a Perugian law office a few weeks earlier. He also had a large knife in his backpack which he had taken from the nursery school kitchen. Police did not detain Guede but instead put him back on a train to Perugia. The Perugian law office break-in was significant because: (1) The entry was through a second story window that had been broken with a rock, and (2) a cell phone had been stolen. Defense attorneys also pointed out that in these acts, he had no accomplices and was armed with a knife."

PhanuelB (talk) 14:45, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry there's nothing I can do to help you. Please discuss this on the article's talk page. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:51, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Cite sign

Hi, I've gone back to work on {{cite sign}}. I'm in the sandbox, trying to change up the order that the parameters are displaying in (and which appear in parenteses, etc), and can't figure out where the order is set, nor where the parentheses are added. Can you enlighten me? ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 17:34, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

MoMK edit

Hi MSGJ. Did you miss one "had" here: "...a nursery school in Milan has claimed that Guede trespassed..." [27] or was it it on purpose in which case you can disregard my comment. Anyways, thanks for the edit.TMCk (talk) 21:13, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I just tried to do what was requested on the talk page. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:46, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

No problem. Please take a look at the original proposal at the top of the thread where you can see what was proposed and decide at your discretion.TMCk (talk) 22:37, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Car-sharing in the United Kingdom Query

Hi Martin,

You have recently reviewed my article called Car-sharing in the United Kingdom. Thank you for looking over it. It is very useful to gain feedback, but I must query the solution offered. You have suggested that I place my article within the current car sharing article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carsharing), under a country specific titled section. I however do not feel this would be advantageous to the article I have produced and the creator of the current article.

The current car-sharing article has been produced with the American definition of car-sharing. For the UK definition of car-sharing is two or more people sharing a car journey. But the method described by the current article describes something which in the UK is called a car-club. Already this poses some difficulties in that the same wording is used by both nations but with very different meanings.

By inserting the relevant country specific text from my article into the existing one will only further the confusion of users. From the existing articles name it does not become apparent that the information listed is largely most useful for those in the America, and the addition of a UK section I feel may easily be over looked and people will presume the definition given of car-sharing in the existing article is suitable for the UK too.

My favoured resolution is one I think offers the best results for both articles. I suggest we change the title of the current article named Carsharing to Car-sharing in the United States, and upload my article with its current name of Car-sharing in the United Kingdom.

I believe this would increase understanding from users of which page would be most relevant to them, and generally help to improve the efficiency of Wikipedia. It would be immediately apparent which page was most relevant. It is a more acceptable option than posting the country specific information within the largely US based article. This would then lead to UK users having to go through the article to find the correct section, or they could easily be misinformed of the correct UK definition of car-sharing

I feel we should try to resolve this matter to maintain the clarity of Wikipedia and continue the spread of accurate knowledge.

Regards Car-share10 (talk) 10:45, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the message. I will share my thoughts with you first. All Wikipedia articles should be written from a global viewpoint. Therefore titles such as "XXX in the United Kingdom" are sub-optimal as there should be an article on "XXX" which covers the topic in a general way and then country-specific information can go in separate sections. See Traffic light and Driver's license for examples of this format. Separate articles are only required if the article would otherwise be too long. In this case you would still have a brief paragraph in the main article and then it would say something like

Main article: Driver's licence in Canada

Now I not saying that this is an official guideline or that it must be followed in all cases, but it seems to me that it would work best in this case. Now if you're saying to me that the Carsharing article is on a different concept then obviously they can't be merged. Perhaps that article should be moved to a different, less ambiguous title. I would ask the following:

• Is there yet a general article about the car sharing concept that you have written about?
• If yes, please merge your article with that.
• If not, then I would respectfully request that you could write it!

All it needs is a few sentences at the top of article to describe the concept. Then you can put the UK-specific stuff in a section. I still think this is the best way forward. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:27, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

PS we have the Carpool article. Perhaps this is the best one to merge with. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

A further car-sharing query

Hi Martin,

Thank you for your thorough feedback on my car-sharing article, it has been really useful and much more approachable than the help pages that are un-navigable.

I understand that merging with the carpool page would be a suitable location for my article. But I am concerned that the term car pooling is not one that is often used in the UK. So any UK users that were searching car sharing would be lead to the American page. Are there any obvious ways around this? As I would quite like to make my content available and I think it would be beneficial to have this additional info within an article in some format.

Would it be advisable for some information to be input into the ‘American’ car sharing page? For example: in the introductory paragraph introduce the idea that there are varying definitions for the term car-sharing. For the US see article below, for the UK please see the car pooling article? I can then merge my article into the carpooling article but UK users will still be able to locate it. Would this suggestion fit in with Wikipedia protocol?

Thanks again for your already useful feedback. Kind Regards Car-share10 (talk) 10:44, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I think it would be an excellent idea to merge the content into Carpool. A note at the top would also be a good idea. These are called hatnotes or disambiguation links - for more details see Wikipedia:Hatnote.

Now about the name, I agree that "carpool" is not the clearest term. As a "confirmed user" you are now able to move articles by yourself (by pressing the "move" tab at the top of the article). However it might be worth posting on the two articles' talk pages to gather some more opinions before doing this. When there is a difference between UK and US uses it is often useful to look at how other English-speaking countries use the terms. So you could find out which name is used in Australia, Canada, India, etc. Finally, to get some more input on a proposed move, you can use the Wikipedia:Requested moves process - details can be found on that page. Hope this helps — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:28, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi

Hey - long time, no talk. How are things going? Someone had a template question at VPT. I know you are pretty sharp with templates, so if you could take a look, it would be great. I hope you're doing well. TNXMan 16:24, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I'm doing well. Very busy in real life at the moment! I guess that question was resolved now. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:34, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Template:Infobox country changes

Martin, I've fixed the template loops per your request. Would you please take a look? Thanks! Template_talk:Infobox_country#ISO_3166_codes_(again) — Cxw (talk) 14:08, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I've optimised the sandbox code slightly. If that's looking okay and working as intended I will be happy to implement. It may be quicker to use {{editprotected}} if I'm not around. Cheers — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:00, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll be back

Hi Martin. I've become distracted by some large events recently but hope to get back to Invitation to edit soon. Anthony (talk) 16:11, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I am also very busy, but will help out where possible. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:00, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you

Than k you for adding the info on the Template:Icon ..however i was also hoping to get {{Icon|Project}} to also use File:People icon.svg if possible...will add doc info after your done.Moxy (talk) 17:09, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Think this may require more discussion. Most of the icons that we use for assessment classes of pages/articles all follow a similiar design: a design inside a circle (see Template:Class/icon). I agree the current icon for Project-class is not very good, but perhaps it would be better to try and find one which is more consistent in design to the others? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:57, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

ok np ...tks againMoxy (talk) 09:10, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Template Changes

I've replied to your comment at Template talk:Subst check top. Also, I've made some changes at Template:Proposed deletion/sandbox after updating the substcheck templates to add categories to pages with untrancluded main templates. The result of the changes can be seen at Template:Proposed deletion/testcases. Could you review these changes and update Template:Proposed deletion accordingly? Thanks. Set Sail For The Seven Seas 343° 21' 30" NET 22:53, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't really have time to check the changes now. Perhaps you could raise the request on the template talk page. But I don't think it is wise to move the noinclude from the demo parameter because otherwise that would be shown on every use of the template. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:39, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Added reply at Template talk:Proposed deletion. Set Sail For The Seven Seas 256° 56' 45" NET 17:07, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

A Talk pages deletion

Hi MSGJ, I have a request if you can do. Can you delete Talk pages of two articles. I was created them soon and I don't think that is need to be there right now, because if someone wanted something to say about article, he will create it in that time. So this are pages (this and this). I hope that you will help. Thank you. InfamousPrince^Talk 14:35, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done, although there is no harm is leaving them like that. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:31, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Talkback @ Template Talk:Shared IP edu

Hello, MSGJ. You have new messages at Template talk:Shared IP edu.
Message added 16:24, 22 September 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Thanks again. Wolfnix • Talk • 16:24, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Wolfnix has given you a cookie! Cookies promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. You can Spread the "WikiLove" by giving someone else a cookie, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend.

To spread the goodness of cookies, you can add {{subst:Cookie}} to someone's talk page with a friendly message, or eat this cookie on the giver's talk page with {{subst:munch}}!

The Hockey Stick Illusion

Thanks for restoring the last stable version at The Hockey Stick Illusion, but you also unprotected it, perhaps by mistake? There's only been one edit since unprotection, and that is relatively uncontroversial (if anything in this field can be said to be truly uncontroversial!). Anyway, I merely wished to bring this to your attention. Regards, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 19:45, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually I didn't unprotect it; the article as only protected for one day and this expired 16:28, 22 September 2010. Hopefully it will not require reprotection. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:43, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Ahh, thanks for the clarification. Sanity is currently prevailing. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 08:24, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject Television

Can you please go ahead and add WP:GLEE to the list? Thanks, CTJF83 chat 19:48, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:52, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you...can you add a Glee importance, like the other ones have? CTJF83 chat 15:52, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Do you want the quality classification as well? Are all the categories created already? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Uhh...? WIll it show up like the WP:TV importance and a WP:GLEE importance? CTJF83 chat 15:58, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

If you want to track the quality of these articles you'll need to create categories, such as those in Category:Test cards articles by quality. Similarly the importance categories will be needed as well. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:06, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

like this? I'll have to do the rest after lunch or work. CTJF83 chat 16:14, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

The list of required categories is now shown on Template:WikiProject Television/sandbox. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:39, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done thanks for the help! CTJF83 chat 16:10, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Template:BLP

Hi Martin, just noticed the new look for this template and have noted my objections on the talk page. Having read through the talkpage discussion, I don't see much concensus for this change: besides yourself, only Garion96 and NuclearWarfare participated in the discussion, and neither seemed to show much enthusiam for change. Can you have another look please? PC78 (talk) 20:19, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I see that this has now been reverted. I don't have any strong feelings either way. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:34, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Template:WPBannerMeta/collapsed

You deleted this template (a piece of a generic WikiProject template) about 4 months ago, and I had a question. The "What links here" page still lists 246,000+ pages with it as a transclusion. I noticed a null edit does remove a page from a list, but there is still all those pages, is this a problem? —Preceding unsigned comment added by A p3rson (talk • contribs)

I'm not sure if those pages will ever be removed from the whatlinkshere. It seems to be a bug. However I don't think it is causing any problems either. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:34, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Template:Shared IP edu

Hey Martin,

In this edit you commented out the template documentation. Was this deliberate? I undid it in the process of carrying out an editprotected because it looked like a mistake, but wanted to check. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 17:23, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

You are right; it wasn't intentional. I guess someone commented it out on the sandbox version and I didn't notice. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:20, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Abusefilter-warning-link-spam

The italic format was meant to show my additions. Below is how the message should look like (with minor ce):

It appears you are adding external links to many different Wikipedia pages in rapid succession. This is often a sign of people spamming Wikipedia. Persistent spammers may have their websites blacklisted, preventing anyone from linking to them from all Wikimedia sites. Before you continue you may wish to review Wikipedia's policies of external links and spam as these may help you decide whether these links are appropriate for Wikipedia. Please feel free to ask at the Help Desk if you have any questions.

If you want to add references to the article, please, read WP:References for an appropriate way to do this. If you're sure you still want to make this edit, go to the bottom of this page and click 'Save page' again, and it will be submitted as is. If you were not trying to add links to many pages, and you received this message in error, you may report this error.

Sole Soul (talk) 18:54, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

 changed — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:18, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Cleanup

Hi Martin. Would you be free to reply at Template talk:Cleanup? I'm involved in a TfD that depends on the resolution of the edit request there, and the reviewing administrator is waiting for your reply. Thank you. --Bsherr (talk) 02:15, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

 responded — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:16, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Template:Italic title infobox

Hi Martin, the template no longer seems to be working properly, can you have a look please? Also, I've left a comment on the talk page. Regards. PC78 (talk) 16:14, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay I've reverted. Not sure why it would have broken it. I'll take a look at the request again when I get a chance. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:20, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

BTW, if you haven't already seen it you may want to look at some of the discussion at Template talk:Italic title. There seem to be some outstanding issues with that template. Regards. PC78 (talk) 16:34, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Question

• Template_talk:WPBannerMeta#Task_force_quantity

I left some questions at the link above (see also the other links there). Any help would be welcome. - jc37 22:56, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Lang-he template

Hi MSGJ! I have reverted your changes to the template {{lang-he}}. The change introduced two important flaws: 1) Hebrew is a right to left language, and the idea of not using a global template was to allow right to left to work properly, and 2) Hebrew doesn't use italics in general. In fact, the edit summary from my previous edit to the template (from January 5, 2009) clarified this issue.

I realize that there is a way to use a global template with right to left, but have no time to learn how at the moment, so it's better to leave it as it is. If you can make the template work properly with right to left and also transclude the global one, please feel free to make the change. Again though, please don't use italics, which aren't standard in the Hebrew language. Cheers, Ynhockey ^(Talk) 16:23, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I'm copying this to the template talk page for future reference. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:52, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Happy 10/10/10

Double Ten Day is, really, unrelated—but we don't appear to have a cool pic for this one

I suppose I should've timed this message at 10:10:10 too, but frankly, I can't be arsed. You know how it is.

Did you know... that tenten in Japaense writing are a little wiggly thing, a bit like a quotation-mark, which makes e.g. "ka" (か) into "ga" (が) or "fu" (ふ) into "bu" (ぶ) ?

So, take time out to have a bit of a giggle.

All the best, and 10-10 'till we do it again.  Chzz  ►  08:49, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Template:Infobox college coach

MSGJ, I've proposed some changes to Template:Infobox college coach and wanted to keep you in the loop. See here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football#Template:Infobox college coach. Thanks. Jweiss11 (talk) 07:51, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Noted, but I don't have an opinion on the issue at this stage. Let me know if I can be of any assistance. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:33, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

My test changes to the template have gotten good reviews at the discussion page linked above. With your help I'd like to update the code with what I've put together here: User:Jweiss11/Template:Infobox college coach. I can take care of updating the documentation. Thanks. Jweiss11 (talk) 23:38, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Continued

MSGJ, circling back with you about Template:Infobox college coach. I'd like to make changes to the code per User:Jweiss11/Template:Infobox college coach, which have been well reviewed here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football#Template:Infobox college coach. Can you push the changes through or lower the protection on the template so that I can make the changes myself? Thanks. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:48, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't get to this in time. I see the protection has now been lowered. Let me know if I can help with anything else. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:40, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Ngurah Rai International Airport

Hi MSGJ, I do not understand what you are up to with the disable my edit request. This seems to be a good way to make sure the current nonsense remains in the articles destination section for an extended time. The contentous issues arisies from one editor only. Other than for that it seems to just be a bunch of normal editing. This is not an article about the pope getting a teenage girl pregnant, it is just airline destinations. Two other objections were raised to my edits to that article. One objection was that a source was not in English, but it was, the person objecting had apparently not bothered to actually look at the source.. The other was from another user who was not apparently seeing anything contentious in the content, rather a point on formatting. That user is having similar problems to my own with Contributions of User 124x247x221x146 and Contributions of User 124.247.221.146 will be revealing. I you are suggesting waiting for consensus from this individual I think we will be waiting a long time. It does not seem to be a feature of his editing. Rather he does hit and run reverts and deletes or alternatively stalks the edits of a user deleting every edit they have recently made. I don't think he pays a lot of attention to the details rather he is hunting for trophies and collects disputations like an mad beaver collecting sticks. Ngurah Rai International Airport is one of his more successful logjams. Could you let me know why you have done this. Thanks. Felix505 (talk) 16:06, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I cannot make edits to protected article unless they are supported by consensus. In this case User:MilborneOne said that he would look at your proposed edits, but he has not done so yet. Therefore I decided to give it more time. I am not suggesting that your edits are inappropriate; I just need to be sure that they represent the views of other editors. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:09, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi Martin, thanks for your reply. In regard to these edits other editors seem to be rather quiet so if you want to wait for consensus I think we may be in for a long wait. There does not seem to be anyone objecting other than one person who is chronically disruptive and apparently likes to edit without regard to any attempt at research or sourcing. Thankfully he has gone off elsewhere where he continues to create conflicts on a daily basis with his refusal to research or source his edits. In any case for others to check everyone of those edits will take many many hours. I know this because I have checked every one of them exhaustively. I boldly put forward this assertion; if there is no one challenging the edits on the talk page then maybe there is only a problem with one notorious idiot rather than with the detail of my edits. Maybe like yourself other editors are moving house, but no one seems very interested anyhow. I am beginning to feel as though my edits are being assumed not in good faith. If so I would like to know why, I have absolutely no history of that on WP. Maybe other editors are keeping out of it because they don't want this idiot stalking them compulsively undoing their edits as a pay back. I think it would be appropriate to re-establish the protected page edit request asap. I have detailed the issue ad nauseum. I am certain you mean well and that your actions have only good intent but I really think that you are inadvertently just further postponing the delay in getting some accuracy into this article. I am struggling to see anything that is contentious with my edit proposals other than from one belligerent and another who did not even look at the source concerned otherwise he would have know what language it was written in. I have pointed out the areas that could be of genuine, concern and really they are pretty light weight problems. That being how to deal with TransNusa ie just list all their all flights as TransNusa or should we breakdown the complex and potential confusing arrangement into all their charters and co-ops into operated as.

When I first came to the article many active scheduled DPS services were not there, not complete or just completely wrong. Due to the actions of 124x247x221x146 many remain that way, with his further errors compounding it. I have listed the sources and my methodology of my edits although I really do not feel I should need to do more that cite sources in order to make this sort of revision to an article. The disruptive clown who started serial deleting has an astounding edit content deleting frequency and often seems to be on an article for 1 minute or less. He clearly does not research and most times his edits are hit and run. Why so much critical review of my proposed content yet the ridiculous rubbish put in by 124x247x221x146 still remains in the article. As to the Citilink query it is simple, either I am wrong in my understanding of the meaning of operated by or [User:MilborneOne] did not have sufficient information at hand to make the right call (pls see my note to his on the discussion page). Whatever I have already stated quite clearly that I am in complete agreement with either himself or [Mjroots] having the final call on any issues to which I may be thought to be in error.

I must assure you am not just making this content up. I have checked this stuff vigourously per the airlines online schedules, booking systems and the airports arrivals info. I have included a destination only after checking a published schedule (if available), finding a flight number, attempting a booking request and checking flight arrival and departures on the airports websites. I have checked both departing airport DPS and sometimes also arriving airport if there seemed to be any confusion about the flight. This sort of source and information checking takes a lot longer than one minute per article, indeed a lot more than one minute per flight/destination. I think it is required as sometimes things in Indonesia can be a little less than ideal when referring to authoritative resources, hence my double and triple checking. I have then gone through the whole thing again to try to absolutely ensure accuracy. This is a sad state of affairs where a notorious edit warring twit has jammed up editing and destroyed a legitimate and properly sourced series of edits that would otherwise be improving article accuracy and content. My suggestion is to put up my edits, change the formatting to suit whatever arcane WP:Airport formatting makes legitimate editors sufficiently happy and get the article back on track. Small details like Garuda Citilink operating for Garuda or (alt) Garuda operating for Citilink and how a link is formatted is rather small detail. Surely it is more important for us to ensure that the content is accurate or as near to it as reasonably possible. As to the links, what is the issue? I have clearly stated that I have no objections to any in good repute editor changing them to a more acceptable formatting. If you want to change them, you will see no objection from me. If either yourself or any reputable editor want to change the way I have formatted the info then go for it. Rather I am appalled that the article remains so inaccurate. I have certainly learnt from this incident. After seeing this nonsense over the last week or so I will never even faintly trust the content of any aviation article on WP ever again. You mention a desire to see a consensus. I would like to see there is a consensus that there is a problem. I see no one presenting any evidence that there is a problem with this content. So lets just move forward with this. Why don't you just check some of my edit info at random against the sources and see for yourself if you are in doubt. I am quite new to WP and claim do not allude to any great editing achievements here but my contributions are sincere and I do check my facts exhaustively. If you have some doubt about my editing credibility have a look at some of the new articles I have created, built up from stubs or done major revisions on. North Lombok Regency, Central Lombok Regency, West Lombok Regency, Mataram (City), Selaparang Airport, Directorate General of Civil Aviation Republic of Indonesia, Lombok International Airport, TransNusa Air Services, Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse, List of current French Navy ships, Tourism in Indonesia, Lombok, Mount Rinjani That is if you have any time what with the unpacking that you must be involved in by now. Truly you have my sympathies, I loath moving house. Felix505 (talk) 14:09, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi Martin, thanks for getting back on the case with the article. I think the detail of the notes need to be there but how to deal with it I am not so sure, ie, footnotes or notes. Trying to avoid any further controversy I looked around other airport articles and found the note style being used. I cannot recall other than sydney kingsford smith but there was at least one other major airport I think. What say I put the detail up using the existing notes layout and if you think there is a better way to deal with it then change it to a footnote layout. I assume you have some sort of sway on the matter as you are an admin on the airport sites so maybe this is one of those moments to exercise your judgement. As to consensus, no one has passed any comment on the notes style. I think it might be preferable as they are in immediate proxinity to the table and from an information flow POV that seems to make sense to me. However like I said, I will defer to you on that and I will be keeping out of it other than to suggest that the content in the notes are desirable for clarification of the table detail.

Another issue I would like you to look at is the question of lion air/wings air. Personally I think they are seperate airlines owned by the one company. Lion air seem to be quite deliberate in separating them out with Lion as a LCC trunk operator and Wings as a regional and feeder complementing Lions trunk ops. You will note I have put some refs on the discussion page that relate to these two operations. There are some cases (not in this article) including AMI-SUB which has some flights operated by Wings with Wings MD80's as well as Lion flights in MD80's and 737-400's. Lion/Wings are making a big noise ablout their new ATR's replacing the MD's and if you read the cited announcements you will note that they are very clearly differentiating the operations. DPS-SUB is the same, 3 flights per day listed online by Lion. 1st one in the morning is JT 1807 described by lion as "Flight Operated By Wings Air". Subsequent flights JT 53 and JT 57 are both Lion, one a MD aircraft and the other a 737-400. So do you think we need a Lion operated by Wings listing to complement the Lion and Wings flights? It would of course be a duplication of the Wings DPS-SUB requiring another listing Lion operated by Wings DPS-SUB. Here is the contradiction though. DPS-AMI is definitely a Wings flight. All of the ops are operated by, have a Wings flight number, are crewed by and identified by tail, titles and callsign as Wings flights. Lion also define them as Wings flights on their website. However on the Lion website they will carry a Lion flight number and be described in the same fashion as the DPS-SUB flights, that is "Flight Operated By Wings Air". Martin, your call or at least if not then please advise on this as it seems a little confused within the strictures of the WP article guidelines re codeshare or operated by.

I tried to get a response from MilbourneOne on the CitiLink issue. as follows *Are you sure about this [MilborneOne], the aircraft are all registered to GA. [28] The crews are Citilink, the aircraft operate with a GA flight number (DPS-CGK is GA081). That flight number is unique to Citilink (there is no other GA flight carrying that number). Citilink is a fully owned LCC division of GA. Garuda Citilink use GA's callsign (Indonesia). So I was thinking this is operated by Garuda as advertised as the aircraft are registered to GA and the airline is a fully owned subsidiary division of GA. As far as I can tell the flight crew and cabin crew are may be employed separately to Garuda flight crew. So is it the flight crew that are the distinction and cabin crew? If not then as it is a service operated in a GA aircraft, registered to GA on the national aviation register, the flight number is GA and the callsign is GA and it is advertised as operated by GA then I though it should be described as Citilink, operated by Garuda. However the Aircraft carry Citilink Garuda Airlines titles rather than Garuda Airlines titles. Have I misunderstood the "operated by" description here? Felix505 (talk) 19:34, 30 September 2010 (UTC). Maybe you would like to make a call on this as M1 has been silent on it for 11 days now and has not expressed any further thoughts on it. Honestly I don't know if I am reading it all backwards or M1 did not have sufficient info at the time. I will hold back on putting up the table for a few hours to see if you are able to respond and if I do not hear from you I will upload the table as is. It can always be edited later. I just hope that idiot does not show up and start up his deleting again.

Thanks. Felix505 (talk) 07:45, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I see you have already uploaded the table but could you still look over re the above. Thanks. Felix505 (talk) 08:02, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Template:Invitation to edit

Hi Martin. I see you're moving. Ugh. If you don't have time, don't worry. If you do... I'm going to try the template on Pain for a couple of weeks while, hopefully, things settle down in my world. Would it be possible to

1. Add a pale background colour and maybe a subtle border to distinguish the tutorial from the article text.
2. Centre "Click to find out how"? (Presently it's justified right.)
3. Move

   "Content that does not conform to Wikipedia policy, or that is not accompanied by a "citation" (a number like this linking to a textbook, journal, etc.) might be deleted by other editors."

   to under "How to create a citation."
4. Make it so the tutorial stays open when you navigate away from the page and return?

Any of the above would be great, if you can manage it. Cheers. Anthony (talk) 14:39, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I've fumbling about with the template. Feel free to undo anything and everything. Anthony (talk) 21:13, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

The green box on top of the grey box looks a little strange. But apart from that, everything looks good! I don't think #4 is possible - either it starts collapsed or uncollapsed. I don't think you can make it "remember" its previous state ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:48, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The grey box is there because I stole the code from User:Jimbo Wales, and haven't a clue how to trim it out. HTML is Greek to me. Anthony (talk) 15:22, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Request to re-examine change to common.css

I'm not sure if this is the proper procedure, but I'm requesting that you re-open the request at MediaWiki talk:Common.css#some wikitable ideas, specifically The main proposal to left align row headers. I've commented in full in the main section of the debate, and since I believe that improving accessibility on the Wiki is being harmed by the problem that the proposal addresses, I would ask you to reconsider the relative strengths of the opposing views expressed there. Thanks --RexxS (talk) 20:43, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I will give a little more time for Edokter to post his reply, and then I will revisit and reassess. Cheers — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:38, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Template:AMG again and a few related questions

I've left a few comments regarding this template at Template talk:AMG. Ideally I think {{allmovie name}} and {{allmovie title}} should call this template as is the case with {{allmusic}}, but this is not entirely possible at the moment.

On a related note, I'm interested in doing something similar with {{IMDb}} (currently a redirect to {{IMDb name}}). Transclusions of {{IMDb}} and {{IMDB}} are relatively few and can easily be dealt with, but is it necessarily a problem that {{Imdb}} has so many transclusions (16,326)?

On a less related (but non entirely unrelated) note, I was hoping to use {{Korean}} for something more useful than a redirect to the project banner, ideally as a less obscure name for {{Ko-hhrm}}. I've replaced all transclusions of {{Korean}} and fixed as many of the incoming links as possible, but the main obstacle is the non-trivial page history. I was thinking that the page history could be moved to Template:Korean2 (or something) and the incoming links redirected there, but I've never done anything like this before so I would welcome your advice or input.

Regards. PC78 (talk) 17:03, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

1. Sorry it's a while since I did anything with the {{AMG}} templates. I can't remember what the differences are.
2. I'm not familiar with the IMDB templates. It would be worth merging them if it would simplify their usage and make things more consistent.
3. It's strange that there were two concurrent versions. Looking at the history of the two templates, a history merge would not be an option. We could move it to Template:WikiProject Korea/old? Perhaps a more logical place than Template:Korean2. Updating the links might not be necessary because they are just on talk pages.

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:29, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, I can deal with #1 & 2 myself. Regarding #3, I'm happy to go along with this if you're willing to do it. I've been keeping tabs on {{korean}} and no-one is still using it. My thinking on updating the links was to preserve the context of past discussions, but it doesn't trouble me if you don't think it's necessary. PC78 (talk) 21:59, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

 Done. I suppressed the redirect so you can use it for whatever you want now :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:46, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Just seen it. Cheers! PC78 (talk) 19:49, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Please do not revert my edits on my subpages

I am not sure why you felt the need to revert my removal of an unsolicited comment on one of my subpages by a user who I consider to be somewhat unfriendly and uncivil, but I have reverted your re-addition. I would prefer it not return to my page. I am sure this was a simple mistake on your part. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 22:31, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Google Street View

• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive642#Google Street View
• User talk:Uncle G#Google Street View
• User talk:Uncle G#Google Street View (2)

That's the background. And stuff being put in and then taken out again was the problem. Uncle G (talk) 12:44, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Your advice

Few months ago you offered advice here. Because the thread was moved, I only now found it; but I am still not totally sure how to act on it. Further advice would be appreciated - thanks! --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:53, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Replied there. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:07, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Replied there. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of User:PacStyle/Lil Eazy-E

If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.

You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.

A tag has been placed on User:PacStyle/Lil Eazy-E requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G12 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be a clear copyright infringement. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material, and as a consequence, your addition will most likely be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. This part is crucial: say it in your own words.

If the external website belongs to you, and you want to allow Wikipedia to use the text — which means allowing other people to modify it — then you must verify that externally by one of the processes explained at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials. If you are not the owner of the external website but have permission from that owner, see Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission. You might want to look at Wikipedia's policies and guidelines for more details, or ask a question here.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hang on}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion, or "db", tag; if no such tag exists, then the page is no longer a speedy delete candidate and adding a hang-on tag is unnecessary), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 10:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Please help or the article will stayed lock forever

"LOL are you thick? .. just go to Google Maps and see for yourself if that isn't a "external source" then I don't know what is. Maybe you should get out more whoever you are and see how the world really works."

"89.110.232.235 THE source-MAN"

etc.

What you can see is a total lack of understanding for how Wikipedia sourcing policy works and even users making fun of me as thick and being "the source-MAN" for trying to follow those rules. Those are the same users that removed fact templates because "you can see for yourself that this is true, what else do you need" etc. and then the edit war over the maintenance templates brought the article to locked state.

For as long as an admin doesn't step in and gives a clear explanation of the rules for sourcing, the article will stay locked. What is also needed is a clear explanation of what happens to those who insist on adding unreferenced original research and to those who remove maintenance templates. Can you please help? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Google_Street_View#UPDATED_ANIMATIONS

--89.110.232.235 (talk) 10:08, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Permanent edit protection for "Israel and the Apartheid Analogy"

Recently (on Sept. 29th) I requested that an edit be put into the presently "edit protected" article "Israel and the Apartheid Analogy," since, as I believed, consensus had finally been arrived at on that article's "Talk Page" concerning the suggested text of the contribution. The contribution was to the section entitled "Criticisms of the Apartheid Analogy." Discussion had gone on on the Talk page for over a month at that point, chiefly with one editor who finally, grudgingly, declared himself in agreement with the validity of sources, phraseology, etc. However, following my application for inclusion of the text in the edit-protected article, this editor and another one vociferously objected, not on the grounds of verifiability, etc., but simply because of remaining dislike of the points being made, i.e., from POV grounds. They are proponents of the anti-Israel accusations. The editor I had chiefly been discussing the matter with indicated his intention, notwithstanding agreement on the acceptability of the text, to modify it unilaterally once "edit-protection" was lifted on the main article, to rephrase the whole and even to break it up and place some crucial portions of it elsewhere in the main article so that they could not be used to support the argument being made under "Criticisms of the Apartheid Analogy." To facilitate these foreshadowed moves, and end the discussion, he suggested that I join him in requesting that "edit protection" be removed from the main article. Naturally, I did not agree with this. I wrote, on Oct. 6th, that the experience that I had had on the "Talk Page," together with the constant reverting and distortion of material in the main article down through the years suggests that the article should remain permanently under "edit protection." Unquestionably, the article is deeply flawed and biased, with extreme disproportion in length, style and substance between anti-Israel allegations and pro-Israel defenses against those allegations. However, opening it up to business as usual would perpetuate exactly that imbalance: the causes that brought on the edit protection have not gone away, as amongst other things discussion on this present proposed contribution very clearly show. A proper edit protection might enable a better and more NPOV article eventually to emerge. At least this is the only hope that it might. For it would mean that any proposed changes or reversions would always have to be brought to the "Talk" page first, and thrashed out and a responsible consensus reached in accordance with general Wikipedia principles, before the changes or reversions were put into the main article. This would prevent constant edit warring and irresponsible and arbitrary nastiness on the main article page, such has been so characteristic of this and allied articles in the past. In fact, a proper edit protection may be the only assurance pro-Israel editors might have that their contributions will last in the main article without hostile editing and truncation or complete reversions. I would fully expect that even if and after consensus were reached on my proposed addition to the main article and it was placed in the article, as soon as edit protection were removed so would be my additions. That, I think, is highly probable.

Discussion on the Talk page since then has only confirmed the reasonableness of my concerns. Many of the objections continue to be simply with the divergence of the proposed contribution from the POV of the editors who want to prevent its inclusion. It has even been objected that I have not entered refutations of the views cited, defending apartheid-analogy proponents, into my proposed text! Once edit protection is lifted on the main article, my contribution will either not be able to be placed in the main text, or will be seriously distorted, weakened and truncated if it is there at all.

Furthermore, while it may be argued against this that I can always revert the reverters, this really is not so. I am one against many. The heavy predominance of editors contributing to this article are advocates of the "racism" and "apartheid analogy" to Israel, that is, anti-Israel. If from nothing else, this is evident from the present shape and tone of the entire article, which is deservedly, after all these years, still ranked in the "Start Class." It is heavily one-sided and polemical in tone; the anti-Israel text is six times longer (over 9,000 words) than the pro-Israel text, and much more substantiation is allowed in hostile criticism, while contributions to refutations of the accusations are sharply truncated to the point of banality. I myself experienced this truncation and mangling of my efforts at contributing items before the edit-protection was imposed. But this disproportion means that anyone of the hundreds of readers of the article a day can wipe out the proposed contribution, every day, but I can only re-enter it three times a day before facing possible bans from the webpage. Nor do I have the time to monitor the page 24/7. So the proposed contribution to a more NPOV article will disappear or be mangled into a travesty, and that will be the end of the story.

There is therefore probably no point in requesting that my proposed contribution be entered into the text while it is under "edit-protection," if it has no future as soon as edit protection is lifted, which might come very soon. I would like instead to request consideration of a permanent edit protection on the main article, so that all proposed contributions must be vetted fairly and fully on the "Talk" page and then when consensus on Wikipedia-relevant issues has been reached (not political nor ideological consensus, but just on Wikipedia editing issues), the edits will be entered into the main article. And if some editors wish to remove text or change it in the main article, they too must go through the "Talk Page" and defend this openly and in terms of Wikipedia principles (including NPOV). That seems much fairer, and much more likely to produce a satisfactory article that might eventually lift itself from the "Start" ranking. The Wikipedia page devoted to "edit protection" suggests that any plea for this should start with the administrator editor of the page in question. So I have come to you to request advice. Thank you.Tempered (talk) 05:41, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

No advice.Tempered (talk) 23:31, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Still no advice. Why? It is a civil and reasonable request. Tempered (talk) 05:51, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Interestingly, while there has very pointedly been no reply for my request for advice for two weeks now, the article in question has instead been opened up (I assume by you, or at least with your cooperation) to general access again. This is puzzling and may be due to your absence from Wikipedia matters for personal reasons. I note that there are few other responses on this page for the past two weeks, too. So that is probably the reason. But I hope it is not because of a personal disapproval of edit protection, nor an endorsement of the strongly POV article we have at present, nor an attempt to refuse me aid in seeking any wider support for introducing a more NPOV and responsible result.Tempered (talk) 22:41, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Apologies. I will try to find time to post a proper reply today. Thanks for your patience. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:50, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry again for the late reply. I don't have any particular knowledge of this article and have not been involved with it, except perhaps to make requested edits as an uninvolved admin. From looking at the history it seems there is plenty of constructive editing happening now and also lots of discussion on the talk page. This is good and suggests to me that the article does not need protecting at the moment. I can understand your frustration if you are battling to keep an article neutrally written in the face of POV warriors. I don't know who you are referring to, but in this case it is better if possible to block these editors rather than protecting the article and stopping everyone from editing. I am rather busy at the moment (see note at top of page) but if there are further problems I will happily look into them if I have time. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

ANI

I notice you have been compiling a sub-page about me. Can I ask what it is for? Rich Farmbrough, 06:16, 22 October 2010 (UTC).

The sub-page is the usual approach for editors who have been the subject of a lot of talk at ANI. It allows others to find related discussion easily without having to search the archives. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:35, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

WPBannerMeta

Since you helped us at Template:ice hockey in switching over to WPBannerMeta, I thought you might be able to help with something we have been meaning to implement for awhile but never got around to doing. Right now we have a needs-photo= param and it dumps all articles tagged into a specific folder. What we would like to do is add a bio= param and then have that needs-photo= param dump the articles in Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of ice hockey personnel if the bio=yes is set instead of into the generic ice hockey folder. Is this something that WPBannerMeta can handle? -DJSasso (talk) 17:11, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Certainly. Do you want the bio parameter to have any other effect, or just merely to adjust the category if needs-photo is also set? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:16, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

At the moment just what I mentioned above. I could see us maybe wanting the bio param to also place people in a different category to track bios, but at this point that hasn't been discussed. I wouldn't think that would be a hard change in the future if we go that way would it? -DJSasso (talk) 12:31, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

 Done. How does that look? Perhaps you could update the documentation? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:58, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I can take care of the documentation etc. -DJSasso (talk) 13:04, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Tested it out and it works great! Thanks. Exactly what we needed. -DJSasso (talk) 13:15, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

You are very welcome. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:17, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello, MSGJ. You have new messages at Bsherr's talk page.
Message added 20:26, 27 October 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Might you look ...

At Left-wing terrorism which I think might be a deliberate POVfork of Communist terrorism per [29] from a suggestion by User:Petri Krohn who is under Digwuren sanctions, but who suggested the fork at [30] ? Thanks. Collect (talk) 10:48, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, perhaps an AfD for Left-wing terrorism might be the best way to proceed to determine whether the article is desired? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:53, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I do not list AfDs as a matter of principle. The particular sudden recreation of what had been a redirect for a very long time, however, is something of which an admin might reasonably wish to be cognizant. If you have a few weeks, you can look up the AfD histories of each person. :) Collect (talk) 11:09, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Project banners

Elsewher we were thinking about the advantage of bibliographies to encourage content creation. As a side note the I wondered if banners can be used to pull potential contributors more directly to lists of work needing to be done, and resources for doing them. Thought? Rich Farmbrough, 18:34, 28 October 2010 (UTC).

Committee

You are invited to join the Committee for getting things done Rich Farmbrough, 18:34, 28 October 2010 (UTC).

Hello, MSGJ. You have new messages at Bsherr's talk page.
Message added 15:37, 29 October 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Italics via Template:Infobox video game

Hi; I saw that you do maintenance work on {{Infobox video game}} and handled the addition of title italics to {{Infobox film}}. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games#Title italics via Template:Infobox video game, the sequel and its predecessor show consensus in favor of doing the same with {{Infobox video game}}; would you be willing to implement? —chaos5023 (talk) 18:03, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:29, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! —chaos5023 (talk) 12:54, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Born This Way Redirect

Can you please redirect Born This Way to this incubator page: Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Born This Way. Thank you!! PinkFunhouse13 (talk) 22:32, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately cross-namespace redirects are not allowed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:17, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Template:S-roy

Hi there, you have previously responded to requests to edit the Template:S-roy. There's a couple of unactioned requests on the talk page; would you mind having a look when you've got a moment? Schwede66 20:30, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Responded over there. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:15, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Schwede66 04:50, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

roll back rights request

Thank you for responding so fast and no problem I withdraw my request for roll back rights at this time, but if you don't mind I will request them from you in the future.TucsonDavid (talk) 02:28, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, certainly. I suggest giving it a couple of weeks. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:31, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Ronald Skirth peer review

Just to let you know that Ronald Skirth is currently undergoing peer review. As you helped with this before, I thought you might like to have a look at it. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Dwab3 (talk) 12:36, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing signature

The system wouldn't seem to fully sign Talk:Federal taxation in the United States when I made a post; only the time/date stamp would appear. My technical skills weren't up to fixing it. Thanks for the fix. Oldtaxguy (talk) 03:45, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

{{Expand}} templates RfC

Since you have recently commented on the type/color of one or more "expand" templates, could you express your opinion in the centralized RfC on this issue? The discussion is currently fragmented between various template and TfD pages, which makes a consensus on this issue difficult to form. Thank you, Tijfo098 (talk) 08:44, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Expand RfC mess

I know you have good judgment, Martin, so I'll defer to you in deciding whether Tijfo098 was forum-shopping when starting the RfC at the page Tijfo098 chose. I'm pleased to discuss the issue wherever, I'm just trying to avoid the work of having to repeat everything that's already been said on what I believe is the far more appropriate page on which to have the RfC, Template talk:Expand, where the discussion began. With that as my goal, it goes without saying that I only want one RfC. I'm not trying to be disruptive, of course. You can see from my comments on Template talk:Expand that I'm actually trying to move the conversation forward productively. --Bsherr (talk) 17:23, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh, in case it wasn't clear, I wasn't trying to start a second RfC, I was trying to move the existing RfC. Right now, both have been removed, so that's not good. --Bsherr (talk) 17:26, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Suggesting that holding the RfC at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (article message boxes) is forum shopping on the part of Tijfo098 is not assuming good faith, is it? In fact it was me (on Template talk:Expand section) who suggested the page Wikipedia talk:Template messages), although I think the one chosen is better than this one actually. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:44, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't presume the forum shopping was malicious, but I do believe it is objectively counterproductive to hold the RfC away from the majority of the existing conversation. Is it proposed to copy all the conversation at Template talk:Expand over to a new location? --Bsherr (talk) 18:53, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

It was not "forum shopping". The message posted on your talk (as well as here) explains the reason: centralize discussion that was already occurring in at least 3 places: talk page of {{expand}}, {{expand section}} and the Tfd for {{incomplete}}. Making unwarranted attacks on fellow editors is WP:UNCIVIL. Tijfo098 (talk) 00:24, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

None of the three places you mention is the place you started the RfC. Why? You chose the talk page of WP:AMBOX, but you don't seek to change WP:AMBOX, do you? So why is that the best place for the RfC? And what's to be done with the discussion already begun? And if we're indeed centralizing, will you temporarily withdraw the TfD? If not, the discussion will still be occurring in at least two places. --Bsherr (talk) 01:01, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Changing WP:AMBOX to reflect the unwritten convention used for the expand boxes is one possible outcome of such a discussion. It is sometimes the case that a policy or guideline, especially one that does not see a lot of attention, does not fully reflect all relevant practices. I'll let you pick the best venue for the RfC (since you removed the rfctag from the talk of AMBOX), just pick one, and point all other discussions to it. Tijfo098 (talk) 02:38, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

The TfD for {{incomplete}} is based on duplication with expand. Whether that duplication should exist is somewhat, but not totally independent of the color for the expand group. Insofar you're the only editor who thinks we need two boxes with different color but basically the same text. I'm not aware of other templates where we do this. So it is a somewhat different question that needs to be asked separately of the "should the expand group be orange". You're free to phrase the RfC as you like, and include multiple questions in it. If you do include the question for duplicate sets based on color, I'll agree to suspend the TfD pending the outcome of a more general question in the RfC, but beware that two other editors have already expressed their opinion in the TfD, and they'd have to agree to that as well. Tijfo098 (talk) 02:50, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Moving around in circles

There's a move tag from expand to AMBOX talk, and another move tag the other way around now! The rfc rag is gone from both places. Tijfo098 (talk) 00:20, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Okay it seems that we have at least resolved the location of the discussion. About suspending the TfD, that might be a good idea. The two issues are different but related and might be best discussed together. I note that Hrafn does not support this proposal, but if one or two other people support then I may close the TfD down so that discussion can stay in one place. The RfC is not properly formatted yet. It needs a clear and neutral introduction to what is being discussed - can one of you two do this? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:37, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Soyuz TMA-19

Why have you placed Soyuz TMA-19 under the pending changes protection system? I can see no reason why protection should be applied to that article. --GW… 09:01, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

It was during the time that we were trialling the PC system and were looking for suitable articles to apply it to. The articles where is was likely to be most successful were those which had a high ratio of constructive edits, particularly by new and unregistered editors. One of my ideas was to apply it to articles which involved current events, and I applied it to a batch of articles like that. Feel free to remove the protection if you don't think it's helpful. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:27, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Category:Image-Class Louisville articles

Hi!

I was hoping you could help me with a question concerning the project banner for WikiProject Louisville. All Image-Class categories recently were renamed to File-Class (see Category:File-Class articles), except Category:Image-Class Louisville articles. If I correctly understand how {{WikiProject Louisville}} works, then the reason is the "file=no" parameter in {{WikiProject Louisville/class}} (diff).

Is there a reason that Category:Image-Class Louisville articles should not be renamed to Category:File-Class Louisville articles?

Thank you, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 16:40, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

We received a request to add Audio-class to the Louisville project banner. It seems likely that a project which is classifying different kinds of files would not want its images to be called File-class! However the only way to be sure if they want this category, would be asking them, I guess. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:34, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. I'll ask at the WikiProject banner's talk page. Cheers! -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 05:44, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Sandbox header

I've replied at the sandbox header. Thanks. --Bsherr (talk) 18:15, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Will take a look shortly. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:52, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Template:AttackOrg

Martin, can you fully unprotect Template:AttackOrg please? As it's redirected, it no longer requires the semiprotection. It has no transclusions, and no histroy of vandalism. --Bsherr (talk) 21:31, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Reuse

Can you take a look at Wikipedia_talk:Reusing_Wikipedia_content#CC_example please? (Being as you did another request there).

I did ask Mike godwin about it back in early June here, but got no response, and my note on the talk page has been there since September.

Cheers,  Chzz  ►  03:13, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:39, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Martin.  Chzz  ►  00:14, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Official website

FYI, currently, {{official website|https://www.example.org}} is broken. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 14:24, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I've put something in the sandbox that might fix it. -- WOSlinker (talk) 15:01, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

 Done. That should work. Are there any other possible prefixes? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:44, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Template help

Any idea if there is template that resolves wiki markup first (a bit like displaytitle does) so [[The O.C]] would just give "The O.C." (not The O.C.) as it would be useful in and idea for some italictitle coding here. Thanks, Rambo's Revenge (talk) 14:37, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Well {{Chop head and tail|The O.C|2}} gives The O.C. I'm not sure how efficient that template is though. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:53, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

There is also Template:Unlink which may be useful. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:23, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, the latter is what I was looking for. I'd searched lots of variants of nolink but didn't think of unlink. Cheers, Rambo's Revenge (talk) 13:13, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, whitespace problems with both. Might pick your brains further later at another date. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 13:39, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

A SVG version of the TV icon is available

theres the link Totalaero (talk) 02:40, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

The {val} template

Thanks for your quick fix to the {Val} template, Martin. Please see my full and properly documented and linked response at Template talk:Val#Val is now screwed up. I did respond to Verdy p on his talk page. My response to him was partly as follows:

Please see Template talk:Val is now screwed up. In a nutshell, the BIPM and the NIST and every other standards organization uses a last group of four digits so as to never leave a single hanging digit. By wide consensus, Wikipedia follows that practice and does not want a house style that flouts international conventions. Links are provided on the page.

Greg L (talk) 18:49, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Hello, MSGJ. You have new messages at Template talk:Val#Val is now screwed up.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Merging

Hi, I want to merge this article. Black Buddhist Check the talk page please and give your opinion Zaza8675 (talk) 08:45, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Wrong template

You're moving the wrong template. Uncle G (talk) 16:11, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm moving both ;) See Template talk:Article for deletion. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:12, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

I did, and I thought that you'd read the explanation there that you'd be moving the wrong template. It's pointless to move {{afd}}. Please put it back where it was. {{AfDM}} is the one that actually sits in the Wikitext, and even that between two comments that say "AfD". Uncle G (talk) 16:18, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Not pointless. I would be happy to discuss further. The main advantage is that related templates are kept together and discussed in one place. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:22, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Why didn't you discuss further before doing the moves? It was already pointed out on the talk page that moving the {{afd}} template is pointless, because that's the wrong template, and all that you needed to do was move the other template. Uncle G (talk) 16:41, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

The proposal was made 4 days ago and nobody commented within 4 days either. I'm not sure what else you expect me to do. Why didn't you participate in the discussion? Anyway, I suggest we move this discussion over there. I will write my full rationale for moving both templates when I get a chance. If you wish to revert in the meantime, that is your right. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:52, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

And since there's no dating system, unlike with Proposed Deletion that needs it, the "/dated" affix is misleading. Uncle G (talk) 16:20, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

The year, month and date are substituted. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:24, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Only to produce that edit link for the subsequent nomination step. There are no dated categories. There's no dating system implemented by the article template, and the the name affix "/dated" in the template is misleading. Again, please put this back to how it was before. Uncle G (talk) 16:41, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

This move has caused {{subst:afd1}} to not work properly. —J04n(talk page) 19:16, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Apologies, I hadn't updated this redirect. Should be working okay now. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:48, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Template:Infobox video game

Hello. Why is this template fully protected (so nobody besides admins can edit it) ? Sir Lothar (talk) 07:05, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

It is transcluded on 16,793 articles and it is normal to fully protect such highly visible templates as vandalism would have such a big effect. What do you want changed on it? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:14, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

No, I was just curious about fully-protecting this template, so I asked :). Thanks for explanation, Sir Lothar (talk) 12:17, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

US at ITN

About this. It's an abbreviation and not that clear what it means. I hope you revert that. --Kslotte (talk) 09:50, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Discussion has been moved to Wikipedia:Main_Page/Errors#US_at_ITN. --Kslotte (talk) 10:00, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Some more issues with your last ITN edit. --Kslotte (talk) 15:36, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Template duplication

Thanks for telling me that, will take care next time. Taqi Haider (talk) 11:28, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject Water

Thanks for building this template correctly! Well, how did you do it? Can I use it on article talk pages now? --Sainsf<^> (talk) 11:41, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

You should find all the instructions on Template:WPBannerMeta/doc and you can adapt the banner to suit the needs of your project. If you don't understand something you can ask at Template talk:WPBannerMeta. Yes you can use it now. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:21, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Using hooks with the MetaBannerShell template

In a conversation we had a while back you mentioned using a subpage and a hook to do custom changes to a WikiProjectBanner and I was wondering if you could give me an example of this? There are a couple of things I would like to do with {{WikiProject United States}} and this would be useful I think. Just as an FYI here are a couple of the things I would like to do.

1. Add the ability of displaying the subprojects inline like {{U.S. Roads WikiProject}}. I would like to be able to display just the Icon in line rather than a long list of projects that scrolls down the page. I could really use help on this if your interested but I think I could eventually figure it out if your not. I think this could best be done by creating a subpage with the Icons and a yes/no toggle. If its yes they show up, if its no they dont. Could work with a 0 and 1 too but I thought Yes/no was more intuitive. If you have a better way though Im open.
2. Add a way to section off a group of projects in the WPUS template. For example. Right now I have one long list and I would like to have the states in a group, federal government related in a group, cities in a group and an other group for other projects that dont exactly fit in the other categories like WikiProject Barack Obama, NRHP, etc (not saying there going to be a part of it but I would like to be able to accomodate them if they do).

Both of the above are based on comments I have received from the other US related projects and also because there are more than 200 US related projects so some articles (Like Barack Obama) could get very full of banners. For this just a simple line will do but if possible I would like to be able to specify a group name at the top of the group (Ie State related). Thanks in advance for the help and please let me know if you have any questions.--Kumioko (talk) 15:34, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I can probably help, but don't have a lot of time to look into now. Where did you want this row of icons for the taskforces? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:05, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Im not sure. I guess I dont really have a strong opinion about where they should go as long as the template can support it. --Kumioko (talk) 14:43, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Another question

Ok, I have a related question. and a plea for help. We've been using the sandbox for the USRD template as a staring point at writing a template for the Canada Raods WikiProject (CRWP), our sister project in Canada. Template:Canada Roads WikiProject/sandbox2 is that attempt. We have all of the cosmetics set up, coded the subtemplates to handle provinces instead of states, hand a |tch= parameter for articles that are a part of the Trans-Canada Highway. The problem is that when we're using the sandbox at Template:Canada Roads WikiProject/testcases, all of the various hooks appear. The categories at the bottom of the page are right for the test cases, but the class and importance never change. The ACR/photo/reassessment/merger notes all appear even though they aren't being invoked. The various issues are likewise showing when they shouldn't. Can you help us? We'd like to re-deploy a banner for CRWP in the coming days or weeks so that we can retag their articles by province and stuff. Imzadi 1979 → 05:30, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

You'll need to use |category=no to tell the template that it's an example. I've done this for you (and also removed some substituted code). — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:27, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

So what do we need to do to the code to take the template live and use it? Anything? Imzadi 1979 → 19:37, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Infobox World Heritage Site

Hi Martin, replied here. --Elekhh (talk) 05:43, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

File:WPBM collapsed screenshot.jpg missing description details

Dear uploader: The media file you uploaded as File:WPBM collapsed screenshot.jpg is missing a description and/or other details on its image description page. If possible, please add this information. This will help other editors to make better use of the image, and it will be more informative for readers.

If the information is not provided, the image may eventually be proposed for deletion, a situation which is not desirable, and which can easily be avoided.

If you have any questions please see Help:Image page. Thank you. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 12:49, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

 Fixed — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:57, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

File:Bchecklist on Google Chrome with red lines.jpg missing description details

Dear uploader: The media file you uploaded as File:Bchecklist on Google Chrome with red lines.jpg is missing a description and/or other details on its image description page. If possible, please add this information. This will help other editors to make better use of the image, and it will be more informative for readers.

If the information is not provided, the image may eventually be proposed for deletion, a situation which is not desirable, and which can easily be avoided.

If you have any questions please see Help:Image page. Thank you. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 13:22, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

File:Short main text on Chrome.jpg missing description details

Dear uploader: The media file you uploaded as File:Short main text on Chrome.jpg is missing a description and/or other details on its image description page. If possible, please add this information. This will help other editors to make better use of the image, and it will be more informative for readers.

If the information is not provided, the image may eventually be proposed for deletion, a situation which is not desirable, and which can easily be avoided.

If you have any questions please see Help:Image page. Thank you. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 13:28, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

article title italicization glitch

You implemented article title italicization to {{infobox court case}}. However, at Trustor AB v Smallbone (No 2), it's only italicizing everything before the opened parentheses. Nothing in the infobox's documentation explains this behaivour, and I was hoping you could help. — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 06:46, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Usually it is not desirable to italic the part in brackets. In cases like this, you can force it by passing |italic title=force, which I have now done for you. You are right, this is not documented yet, I will get round to it soon. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:18, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Cool, thanks for that! — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 17:59, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot and dated templates

Since AnomieBot is doing the date tagging now (check Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/AnomieBOT 49), I think you could unblock SmackBot so it does other tasks. The tsk done now by AnomieBot reduces the amount of work done by SmackBot drastically. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:17, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:AfC editintro

Template:AfC editintro has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Mhiji (talk) 21:32, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Template:Symbolism

This template looks like it's not being used. Do you know anything about that? rʨanaɢ (talk) 08:19, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I created this at the request of Orangemike (see User talk:MSGJ/2009#Help in creating a messagebox). I have no idea about its use though. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:11, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok, thanks, I'll check with him. Best, rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:21, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Fyi

• User talk:SmackBot. Regards. Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 08:44, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Noted, I'll try and look over it and give a response shortly. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:35, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to unblock Smackbot tomorrow unless you have an objection or someone else beats me to it. (Feel free to unblock yourself, of course.) Rd232 ^talk 21:01, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

AN thread concerning SmackBot

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Your comments would be very welcome there.  Sandstein  12:43, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification. I have posted some comments there, and will try to follow the discussion, time permitting. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:17, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

talkspace draft

Re this edit: I mentioned it at VPR (Wikipedia:VPR#Help:Talkspace_draft) and also AN. If you have issues with the concept, please discuss at VPR. The concept includes an associated talk page for ease of discussion and keeping discussion clearly associated with the draft; it's assumed that the draft and its talk page will be prominently enough highlighted on the article's main talk page. Rd232 ^talk 22:07, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Commented at Template talk:Talkspace draft. Per BRD you shouldn't really have re-added that without discussion. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:11, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

BRD is an essay - and you ripped the heart out of the template without discussion [in the process breaking the Help:Talkspace draft setup Rd232 ^talk 23:05, 21 December 2010 (UTC)]... And you commented on the template talk page instead of at VPR like I asked. I'll reply there to your comment, but if you want to pursue it, please go to the VPR thread. Rd232 ^talk 22:21, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

BRD is the way in which we operate, and editors who do not follow it are usually edit warring. The thread on VPR did not look very active/established and the template talk page seemed the more natural place to discuss the template. (I haven't seen the AN thread you mention though.) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:33, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive220#Help:Talkspace_draft. I pushed for the VPR thread because hardly anybody is likely to be watching the template! We may as well discuss it here, we'll probably get more input from your TPSs! And, er, that's an idiosyncratic view of BRD/edit warring/editing. Rd232 ^talk 22:50, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Bambu

How could you make a change to a page when use Nahome has provided zero reference from the Bambu trademark office in Madrid or est. date? This is absolutely ludicrous, and makes no sense whatsoever.. There have been multiple publications which list Bambu's est. date 1764 in Spain.. This has been citation on the cite as well.. There is no reason for this to be changed . — Preceding unsigned comment added by ArnaudMS (talk • contribs) 19:37, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

This is already in discussion on the talk page of Bambu. Please continue the conversation there. Nahome (talk) 18:09, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

English Defence League

I think you made the wrong call there. For a start editors are split 50-50 on the material (Snowded, JRPG, FormerIP & Mo Ainm for, Alexandre, Slatersteven, Santamoly & Meco against). Your statement that there is consensus for its removal is in error. There is agreement to look at rewording and/or placement but not to removal. Also the material has been there for a long time which means the default is that it should stand until agreement is reached for change. Finally given that the article was frozen after an edit war (people removing the material without first reaching agreement) you are potentially encouraging behavior that will not help in what is a contentious area. We will now get resistance to change by those who want to remove any material that seems negative to the EDL. My understanding is the mop should not be used to take sides so I would like you to reconsider that decision. Especially as you supporting the position of an editor who so far has refused to take part in the discussion on alternatives--Snowded ^TALK 12:33, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

PS: User TFD should be added to those in favour of the material. its also noteworthy that Slater originally moved the sentence but did not delete it. The edit war was to remove or insert the phrase so in effect you have take one side in the edit war. --Snowded ^TALK 14:59, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Will be taking another look at the issue now. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:52, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I stand by my decision. I've only read the Opening lines and anti EDL sentiment section, but there is a fairly clear consensus that the sentence either needs removing or altering. In the face of this, it is right to remove the sentence while discussion continues. I didn't count votes, but took into account the weight of the arguments. And I am certainly not taking sides - I have no interest in this article and never, as far as I recall, edited the article previously. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:13, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for taking another look at the matter. However the simple situation remains that there was a brief edit war to insert or delete a phrase while a discussion was taking place about its replacement. The article was the frozen by an admin to allow that discussion to take place. Your intervention then took one side in that edit war and the one that broke WP:BRD so you did make a content determination rather than just managing the process. Its the first time I've seen this happen in several years of editing wikipedia, normally admins avoid content issues like the plague when a dispute is taking place.

Now that you have involved yourself I would ask that you keep an eye on the article to ensure that people move forward to an agreement. My worry is your intervention will result in a refusal to move by one side to this dispute. Having seen no negative comments to my outline solution after a couple of days I have now posted a specific proposal. To be honest its a soul destroying job monitoring far right wing sites and dealing with supporters to prevent these articles becoming political propaganda pieces. All and any support would be appreciated --Snowded ^TALK 05:59, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Allmusic

Hi Martin, the finish line of this project becomes visible. Could you delete redirects for Template:Allmusicguide and Template:Allmusicguide/doc? Also you could remove Allmusic-part of {{AMG}}. Thanks for your support.--Cactus26 (talk) 09:25, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi!

• I've deleted Template:Allmusicguide/doc.
• I can't delete Template:Allmusicguide because it still has a few transclusions. Once those are removed it could be tagged with {{db-t3}} (or it could just be left as it is not doing any harm).
• Are you sure that there are no uses of {{AMG|music}}?

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:38, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

• Allmusicguide: There are only transcluding talk pages left. In dewiki redirects/templates are removed in such cases. The templates doesn't work anymore for this pages cause they were not migrated. Of course the redir may stay, but then it will be certainly be used again in article namespace. Perhaps not harmful, but confusing and bothersome (for future bots).
• {{AMG|music}}: I've checked it a few days ago. I will rerun my bot to check again, currently I've no access, I will post the result tomorrow.

--Cactus26 (talk) 14:18, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I've checked it, there was one page still using {{AMG|music}} that had to be migrated manually, now it's ok.--Cactus26 (talk) 18:47, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, just realised that I didn't reply to this, despite carrying out your requested change to Template:AMG. Here on en there is no speedy deletion criterion for deleting template redirects, so I not really able to do so. As I mentioned above, you may be able to use {{db-t3}}. Otherwise WP:RFD is the place to go. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:34, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not "at home" here so housekeeping is not that important for me. I would have to add {{editprotected}} first, then use {{db-t3}} just to remove a unnecessary redirect? I must admit I can't be bothered. Btw.: There's the first reuse in article namespace. (I know you didn't make the rules so this one is not for you, I'm grateful for your support anyway.)--Cactus26 (talk) 17:06, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Request

I need a quick favour regarding protected templates... Could you please remove the superscript notes and bottom section from the {{North America topic}} and {{Asia topic}}? There was a discussion at WikiProject Countries where it was agreed to remove all extra information.

With the Asian template, there are a total of 3 notes on alternative names. Could you please put this information in parentheses after the corresponding links (i.e., [[Burma|Burma (Myanmar)]]).

Thank you in advance, Nightw 11:54, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, no problem. Could I just ask you to edit Template:Asia topic/sandbox and Template:North America topic/sandbox with your proposed changes? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:47, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, cool, I didn't know about these sandboxes. They're ready to go. Nightw 07:21, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay I have now syncronised the live templates. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:19, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Cheers mate! Much appreciated. Nightw 10:07, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Aps.jpg

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:Aps.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of "file" pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Hugahoody (talk) 21:07, 28 December 2010 (UTC)