User talk:Ral315/Archive 23

edit History Archives: Dec. 04 to Feb. 06 Mar. 06 to Feb. 07 Feb. 07 to May. 08 Jun. 08 to Present 2004-2005: 01 · 02 · 03 · 04 · 05 · 06 · 07 · 08 2006: 09 · 10 · 11 · 12 · 13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18 2007: 19 · 20 · 21 · 22 · 23 · 24 · 25 · 26 · 27 · 28 2008: 29 · 30 · 31 · 32

Signpost error

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Karmafist 2 would actually be the second-highest opposed RFA I believe, 78 opposes. – Chacor 08:09, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Fixed; thanks. We should have a page where all these statistics are kept (and in saying so, I'm well aware that someone will give me five different links that all serve the purpose :)) Ral315 » 18:01, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Another Ralbot error

(Or at least I suppose its Ralbot - the edit came from the IP 75.5.231.38)

See this edit, where the Signpost summary is somehow duplicated and embedded into itself. --Tgr 09:06, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Whoops! Must've hit paste twice. The foreign language ones I have to do by hand, so there's more room for error. Fixed; thanks. Ral315 » 17:58, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Signpost spamlist bot sensitivity to subscription page layout changes

Hi there! I guess you are the person who maintains and operates the bot which implements Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Tools/Spamlist, right? I gather you're a little busy right now, so you don't have to reply to me right away.  :)

Anyway, I was thinking of doing a little editing to the instructive text at the spamlist page, adding more description about what actually happens. When I started to do that, I realized I would have to edit the whole huge page (subscriptions and all). So I was going to add a new section heading for the instructive text ("==Description=="), and maybe demote the subscriptions a level and add "==Subscriptions==" to contain them all. But it occurred to me (before I saved, thankfully) that that might well screw-up the bot and how it parses the page. I expect it probably looks for either section ID's or maybe sequence. So before I mess-up everything, I thought I'd check in with you. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 12:24, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

That'd be great. The only thing that would screw up the bot is if you add any sort of links to the page, since the bot parses every local link there. If you really need to link to a page, use an external link, like this: Wikipedia Signpost. Thanks for your interest and your help. Ral315 » 17:59, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'm done with the big changes. As you requested, I didn't add any wiki-links, but I noticed that there were already a few wiki-links in the text before I got there. In particular, Template:signpost-subscription was linked, and I left it that way. I only mention it in case you were unaware. • Thanks for providing this service!  :) —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 23:23, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Signpost Help

Hi, I would be willing to help out in the Signpost if you need help on anything. Cheers! Zidel333 13:55, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

RE: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Gaillimh

Hi there! Thanks a lot for taking some time out of your busy day to let me know about the proceedings, which I seem to have missed while on holiday. I was able to view the deleted content, and again, I appreciate you letting me know about it. Cheers! gaillimh^{Conas tá tú?} 20:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow

Didn't realize the effort that you put into Signpost -- well done, we appreciate your efforts in synopsis 74.12.81.212 06:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Follow up

Hello again Ral. Could you please follow this up? Thanks! Extranet ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 07:36, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Spamlist???

What is this at the bottom of the page? You do a good job and what not, but Spamlist? [Signpost?]

See the notice at the top of the page. Ral315 » 22:47, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Story

Go ahead with it as is. I have been at the hospital most of the night with a friend whose parent is sick. KnightLago 02:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Signpost

By the way, some pages on this week's issue lack the usual internal navigation links (those found at the bottom) and the others use the ones for last week... Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:26, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure, no problem. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Danny

Protected Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Danny: Discussion here is not helpful, particularly Tobias Conradi's rather random accusations. [edit=sysop:move=sysop] (expires 04:38, April 24, 2007 (UTC))

Random accusations? What is randmon in the accustion of censorship, that actually happened at that page? Why not post it in that page? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 19:12, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

thanks for your fast reply. I wonder why other comments are left and mine are deleted. Is this doublespeak? two measures? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 19:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

right. you did not delete it. But then your edit comment looks (to me) not so... so good. But well, let's go from this discussion, if you like. Best regards, and thanks again for your fast replies. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 20:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Re: Minor thing

Thank you for pointing that out. I'll check into it. -- mattb @ 2007-04-17T01:26Z

Spoken Signpost

I'm doing a spoken version of the signpost for WikiCast. ShakespeareFan00 told me to discuss with you about formatting etc. I rather like Omaryak's condensed format, as used at commons 8-14-06. I've already done the April 2 Signpost - [1]. Can you comment back re: format and reusability of WP material? Thanks. ~Crazytales 22:33, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

RFA reform article for the next Signpost

I am a first time writer for the Signpost. I drafted an article on the RFA reform process. After you read it, you should be convinced that the subject meets whatever inclusion criteria the Signpost has. (If you're not convinced, then I didn't write it well enough). It could use some work on referencing, copyediting etc., but that's nothing new for you.

Please see User:YechielMan/Other stuff/RFA reform article. Thank you. YechielMan 07:10, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I have updated the article, and I replaced "Voting is evil" (opinion) for "Wikipedia is not a democracy" (policy), so I think that's better. The article may need to be updated again if Britt's RFA closes before publication. I don't know whether it will or not. YechielMan 02:22, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

When are you posting the next update? One of the RfAs is "scheduled" to close in two hours time and it would be nice to see a rap-up of that in the article. I will also post a message at YechielMan's talk page. The Placebo Effect 21:11, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

My RfA

Hello Ral315, thank you for supporting my RfA!
I was promoted with a final tally of 68/12/0.
Also, please wish a Happy Birthday to Her Majesty the Queen. Vivat Regina!

Timestamped. Ral315 » 04:42, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

RE

Yeah, sorry about the problem with the note - I'm fairly incompetent when it comes to HTML/wiki markup. Mea culpa. :-) Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 11:54, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

User:Messedrocker/Unreferenced BLPs following mailing list discussions

If no one picks up my idea on the tip line, could you perhaps include a quick note about Messedrocker's new pages that addressed reference problems in BLP? BLP discussions were sparked again by the Daniel Brandt blocking/unblocking debate. I think MD's idea would work like a charm, if more people know about it. It also mentions alternative templates for articles that are not unreferenced, but not entirely perfectly sourced either which need to be brought to public attention to avoid mistagging (which I've seen happen). - Mgm|^(talk) 20:26, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Bless your heart

Why the hell not?. You are supreme. Vassyana 12:38, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Pat Binns Article Removal

I'd like to request the removal of the Pat Binns article from the Signpost due to POV issues that have been brought up. -Phoenix 23:11, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

About the Signpost

I realize this is a dumb question, but is there anything I can help write on the Signpost? I'd like to help out. 1ne^twothree... 07:07, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Ralbot

Is there any way I can ask the bot to replace the contents of a page (in my case User talk:Tivedshambo/Signpost) rather than append to it? – Tivedshambo (talk) 08:31, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Mistake in old Signpost article

Hello. The April 16^th 'News and notes' article seems to contract itself. The French Wikisource did pass 80,000 pages recently, so I'm not sure which project the second mention actually refers to.

• The French Wikisource has reached 80,000 total pages.

[...]

• The French Wikisource has reached 25,000 articles and 250,000 edits.

—{admin} Pathoschild 07:28:18, 05 May 2007 (UTC)

Signing, because I think Pathoschild's signature will screw up the bot. Ral315 » 09:01, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Your talk page

The reason User:Grandmasterka reverted the automatic archiving by Shadowbot, is that apparently a fault with the bot meant the removed items were not put into your archive pages. – Tivedshambo (talk) 23:13, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Ahh; thanks. So noted. Ral315 » 23:58, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Admin fracas for signpost

Done, although it needs proper formatting. User:Thatcher131/Admins. Thatcher131 01:33, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

CVU page...

Recently, you removed the term:

{{selfref|On Wikipedia, CVU may refer to [[Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit]]}} which I had added.

I checked the page's history and your rationale to remove the prior addition of such a comment by JoanneB was Self-ref should not be there at all- see Esperanza as well. The CVU is not important to readers, who outnumber editors by a wide margin. However, on the page RFA, you can see

{{selfref|On Wikipedia, RFA may refer to [[Wikipedia:RfA]]}}

and also on FAC you can see

{{selfref|For Wikipedia's article promotion process, see [[Wikipedia:Featured article candidates]].}}

So, your decision to remove the {{selfref}} template was unfounded other pages contain it and do not add problems to the pages they link to

Booksworm Talk to me! 17:02, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with what you said, but will having a link to the CVU bring destruction and doom to Wikipedia? I think not! Booksworm Talk to me! 13:55, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

True, too true Booksworm Talk to me! 07:46, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Mathematics CotW

Hey Ral, I am writing you to let you know that the Mathematics Collaboration of the week(soon to "of the month") is getting an overhaul of sorts and I would encourage you to participate in whatever way you can, i.e. nominate an article, contribute to an article, or sign up to be part of the project. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks--Cronholm144 00:02, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Re: Inactivity

Just horribly, horribly busy IRL. Unfortunately, I really don't have time to write the ROLL, so if someone else could do it this week, I'd be grateful. David Mestel^(Talk)

Timestamp. Ral315 » 03:41, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Ralbot stopped

Based on it's contributions, the bot appears to have stopped in the middle of a run. --TeckWiz is now R ^ParlateContribs_@ (Let's go Yankees!) 11:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Signpost / small tag

Hi Ral,

just a quick heads up: it seems like there's a </small> tag missing at the bottom of the latest delivery which made the rest of my talk page feel somewhat small. I have already scheduled my talk page for counseling though and I'm sure we'll pull through. ;) Cheers, -- Seed 2.0 10:56, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

</small> appears to be missing from all 179 deliveries today but not from those yesterday. It appears you cannot fix already made deliveries automatically. I will fix the 179 pages manually. PrimeHunter 15:04, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. PrimeHunter 16:47, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Why the hell not?

Hi, I've been using your essay as a reason for supporting RfA's of late, and I just thought I'd notify you incase theres an issue with it. For example you may have changed your opinion and me linking to it might misrepresent your current views. Just thought I'd check before I continue. Some diffs: [2][3][4]. Thanks, James086^{Talk | Email} 14:42, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Mathematics_Collaboration_of_the_Week

[5] :) -- ALoan (Talk) 17:53, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Thought about featured content

I enjoy the current layout of the admins and features page, but the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Featured articles#Increasing exposure for our featured articles got me wondering whether it might be possible to have at least one example of each type of featured content 'shown off' a bit more in the Signpost? I suppose that might end up with people annoying you about "featuring" their article, instead of people annoying Raul, but it would give more recognition to those contributing featured content. It's only a rough idea, but do you think it has any merit? Carcharoth 01:39, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Signpost

Do you still do signpost? We are about to launch the 2007 Wikipedia Schools selection (as with 2006 Wikipedia CD Selection but its now too big for a CD). Last year you ran an article on us but this year will be loads better. The preview is at http://schools-wikipedia-test.soschildren.org/ but we haven't quite finished (text search, couple of articles and couple of phrases to tidy up). I could write something but I thought some sort of investigative sleuth might want to do a comparision with other versions... --BozMo talk 16:43, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

We have taken all featured articles and good articles from two months ago and only thrown out ones with porn etc in. Featured plus good gives a total of about 3500 articles. But others got added by WP users with the WPCD tag and some of these may be poorer (we have 7 volunteers who did the checking: I only personally have checked about 800 articles). Unfortunately Wikipedia may have 1.7 m articles but only has perhaps 10,000 of good enough quality and huge numbers of valid subjects aren't covered at all (e.g. books included on the UK English literature syllabus we have articles on about 10%). I haven't personally done the TV section (that was another volunteer) but I'll have a look today. We have a fancy script so including or excluding articles is as easy as identifying a historical version which is grafiti free. --BozMo talk 08:31, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

If you don't get back in until 4am UTC then have another look and let me know if its better... --BozMo talk 13:44, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually no, its late here and I am too tired to rerun tonight. Have a look tomorrow when I give you the article text. --BozMo talk 20:59, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Also how many words do you want? --BozMo talk 08:42, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok. I have added and trim the articles on TV (also films, poetry and opera following the same volunteer's footprints). You might want to have another look. However apart from what is already written (just updating now) at Wikipedia:Wikipedia CD Selection and on http://schools-wikipedia.org I am not going to write anything else before Monday. I have young kids and w/es are sacred. ish. Probably that means next week's signpost is better. --BozMo talk 06:15, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Carioca RFA

Thanks for your support on my request for adminship.

The final outcome was (31/4/1), so I am now an administrator. If you have any comments or concerns on my actions as an administrator, please let me know. Thank you! --Carioca 20:39, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Ralbot glitch

There is an HTML error with your bot, Ralbot. When he posts messages on a user's talk page, he uses an opening <small> tag on his message, but no closing </small> tag, which causes all other words after the message on a user's talk page to become small aswell, which is quite undesirable.

i.e. This is the code for the original message:

<small>You are receiving this message because you have signed up for the [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Tools/Spamlist|''Signpost'' spamlist]]. If you wish to stop receiving these messages, simply remove your name from the list. [[User:Ralbot|Ralbot]] 03:42, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

when it should be:

<small>You are receiving this message because you have signed up for the [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Tools/Spamlist|''Signpost'' spamlist]]. If you wish to stop receiving these messages, simply remove your name from the list. [[User:Ralbot|Ralbot]] 03:42, 16 May 2007 (UTC)</small>

I was wondering if you could fix this. Thanks. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 03:54, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Signpost not being delivered

Hi Ral. I've not been getting the signpost delivered to my talk page for the last 2 weeks even though my username is on the spamlist. Can you check what the problem is? Thanks. - Aksi_great (talk) 15:03, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Signpost citations

I generally try not to get involved in questions about whether it's permissible to use Signpost articles in the context of the encyclopedia. Ideally, it would be for other editors to decide, as I have a theoretical "conflict of interest" and my feelings about it are conflicted anyway. In many situations, using it as a source may be too circular or, as with passing news stories in the regular media, it may ascribe significance to events in ways unsuited to encyclopedic presentation. On the other hand, I do strive for accurate reporting and I believe my work is at least as reliable as that of a typical newspaper, if not more so.

In this particular case, the citation doesn't seem to add much value to the article, so I don't see why it would be important to keep in there. The article overall is pretty mediocre and in serious need of editing and rewriting, for that matter. --Michael Snow 21:18, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Non-free use disputed for Image:Anthology2cover.jpg

This file may be deleted.

Thanks for uploading Image:Anthology2cover.jpg. However, there is a concern that the rationale you have provided for using this image under "fair use" may be invalid. Please read carefully the instructions at Wikipedia:Non-free content and then go to the image description page and clarify why you think the image qualifies.

If it is determined that the image does not qualify under fair use, it will be deleted within a couple of days according to our Criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 04:50, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Ignoring; I just reverted to a smaller size, and I see someone else added FU rationale. Ral315 » 18:48, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Non-free use disputed for Image:Anthology3cover.jpg

This file may be deleted.

Thanks for uploading Image:Anthology3cover.jpg. However, there is a concern that the rationale you have provided for using this image under "fair use" may be invalid. Please read carefully the instructions at Wikipedia:Non-free content and then go to the image description page and clarify why you think the image qualifies.

If it is determined that the image does not qualify under fair use, it will be deleted within a couple of days according to our Criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 04:52, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Ignoring; I just reverted to a smaller size, and I see someone else added FU rationale. Ral315 » 18:48, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

The BRION section of the Signpost

The BRION section of the signpost hasn't been up recently. Are you having trouble finding someone to write it? Having quite a bit of free time at the moment, I may be able to help in this respect if given some clue as to what to do (although not as clued-up as the developer who used to write it, I subscribe to wikitech-l and wikibugs-l and so have some idea of the technical changes that are going on). --ais523 16:54, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Checking your contribs, we seem to be in different timezones, so another question I have about this to save time asking it later (possibly irrelevant given the answer to the first): what would be considered ontopic for the column? For instance, how important / relevant to enwiki would a bugfix have to be to be considered for the column? My current understanding is this: I'd imagine most of the recently fixed bugs/enhancement requests would be included, except those that affected only a project other than enwiki (for instance, there's a change to user permissions on the Polish Wikiquote there at the moment that probably isn't relevant to BRION), and ones where a developer noticed an old bug had fixed itself. (There's a lot of internationalisation going on, but the method of giving all that in a summary at the end makes sense.) Less clear is what parts of the day-to-day maintanence are important; most of it clearly won't be relevant to Signpost readers, but things like the entry about api.php on May 19 probably are (this was caught by bugzilla too, which is how I noticed it, but if it hadn't been I might never have re-enabled a script I'm quite fond of due to the Signpost missing it), and the mention about the devs running a password cracker over the admins on enwiki and commons would have been worth mentioning somewhere (although I think it was in a different article this time, as there was a relevant special story). Things like this from Wikitech-l might also be worth mentioning (it's a common place for developers to report changes that aren't related to the bug tracker). Are there any sources of information you know of that I'm missing? Do I have any bad misconceptions in what might be required? --ais523 17:17, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've made a start on an article detailing all the relevant changes I could find from the last BRION report to now. (I'll have to update it again nearer the time in case any more technology changes happen in that time.) In the meantime, you can see it at User:ais523/BRION; is there anything there that I'm doing wrong? --ais523 12:47, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Gracenotes' RFA

Please note that GN has clarified the oft-misunderstood answer to Q4 here, if you wish to review the oppose viewpoint you placed on this RFA. If not, I won't bother you again about it. -- nae'blis 21:46, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Your user page

What are the chances that you'll keep the userpage long enough i i put up a template like the one on mine? :) CyberoidX 20:37, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I like your selflessness, wish i could be a little more selfless.

Timestamping. Ral315 » 16:50, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

WP schools

Do you have everything you need for this now? --BozMo talk 08:51, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Did you include anything? The releases have just gone out. --BozMo talk 06:14, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

WP:OWN

After your reversion and general lack of acknowledgement of my comments regarding the appropriateness of "archiving" people's comments, I suggest you examine your relationship with WP:OWN. How much more reasonable it would be to grant me the point than to reapply archive tags for no reason. –Outriggr § 03:51, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

That page is not meant for discussion. I tolerate it and participate in it occasionally, but it is not for heated discussion and debate, it's for letting me, Michael, and other Signpost writers know about stories that might be worth covering. I decided that the article was not worth publishing, and that was it. And, to your point on ownership, I fully recognize that I do not own that page. However, again, the page is not a discussion page, it's merely a helpful tool for me and others - in fact, I usually blank discussions the moment I've covered them or decided that I won't cover them, something I'll do (leaving the current discussion intact, but archived) while I publish tonight. If you have any other issues with my actions, I would encourage you to seek a general request for comment on the subject for more input on whether my actions are correct or incorrect. Ral315 » 03:59, 29 May 2007 (UTC)