User talk:John of Reading/Archive 16

This is an archive of past discussions about User:John of Reading. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 10

←

Archive 14

→

AWB & dates

Thank you for your help adding |year= to {{Infobox year in spaceflight}}. I have AWB, but not the skills to write instructions for it. I also have RfC approval for a task, but have been unable to interest bot operators. Could you help me by writing the AWB code for it? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:56, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't doing anything clever with those edits, just pasting a line into each article and adjusting the year by hand. But if you post me a link to your task I'll see if I can come up with anything. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:30, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Doh! I had the text in my clipboard when I wrote that, but forgot to make the link. It's Wikipedia talk:Bot requests/Archive 2#RFC: Deploying 'Start date' template in infoboxes. Cheers, Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:47, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

I'll have a play with the AWB "Advanced settings" dialog. So far I've only used the regular "Find & Replace" dialog, but that won't be good enough for this. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:01, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: OK, some success. I've posted a settings file at User:John of Reading/X1 (Permalink). Using these settings I made this edit to my sandbox, wrapping a {{Start date}} around "Parameter2" of "Some template" when it looked like "YYYY", "DD Month YYYY" or "Month DD, YYYY". Two tricky points I noticed (there will doubtless be others): (1) {{Start date}}'s 1583-9999 range would be clumsy to code in a regular expression; I took a shortcut and coded the range 1600-2099 instead. (2) The #time parser function has converted the invalid date 30 February into a different date, 2 March. This would be *very* difficult to catch. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:40, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: Actually, are these edits still needed, now that we have LUA? A LUA module could implement a template such as {{Add dtstart metadata if the date is simple enough}}, and the infoboxes could call that template. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:09, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

This is often proposed, but unworkable (others have tried), as it's not possible to code for all the edge cases. I have in mind to write an essay, explaining why. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:57, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Reimaigning Mentorship Proposal

Hi John. As you volunteer at the help desk, I wanted to bring your attention to a grant proposal under review. A small team of us want to implement a system of mentorship that focuses on the specific skills new editors want to learn and incorporates the 1-on-1 relationships from the adopt-a-user programs. Please read over our proposal here. Your feedback would be much appreciated, particularly as you work with new editors, and we want to make our proposal fit the community's needs. You can leave comments on the grant talk page, and if you like the proposal, please feel free to add your endorsement at the bottom of the page.

In addition, we are gathering information and attitudes from experienced editors on the current ways new editors can get help. If you are interested, please consider taking our brief survey here. Thanks very much, I, JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 05:41, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for April 21

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Tapan Sinha, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Raja (film) (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:14, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

That was a week ago! Fixed. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:18, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

in reply to your help desk answer

thanks for answering - my reply is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk#automatic_underlining_in_search_box Manytexts (talk) 07:37, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Replied there. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:42, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for April 14

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited List of Singaporean films of 2010, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Forever (film) (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 08:55, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

It was an improvement on "Forever (flim)", though. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:00, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

You are talking to a bot? OccultZone (Talk) 10:40, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Or reminding myself how I resolved the problem.

-- John of Reading (talk) 11:39, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh.. Nice one! OccultZone (Talk) 12:50, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

...or perhaps to amuse the editors watching my talk page. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:52, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

These bots are peacemakers. Sometimes my talk page has number of complaints, soon I will see notification from bot. It is close to the sign that everything has finally cooled down. OccultZone (Talk) 13:20, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Invitation join the new Physiology Wikiproject!

Based on the long felt gap for categorization and improvization of WP:MED articles relating to the field of physiology, the new WikiProject Physiology has been created. WikiProject Physiology is still in its infancy and needs your help. On behalf of a group of editors striving to improve the quality of physiology articles here on Wikipedia, I would like to invite you to come on board and participate in the betterment of physiology related articles. Help us to jumpstart this WikiProject.

Feel free to leave us a message at any time on the WikiProkect Physiology talk page. If you are interested in joining the project yourself, there is a participant list where you can sign up. Please leave a message on the talk page if you have any problems, suggestions, would like review of an article, need suggestions for articles to edit, or would like some collaboration when editing!
You can tag the talk pages of relevant articles with {{WikiProject Physiology|class=|importance=}} with your assessment of the article class and importance alongwith. Please note that WP:Physiology, WP:Physio, WP:Phy can be used interchangeably.
You will make a big difference to the quality of information by adding reliable sources. Sourcing physiology articles is essential and makes a big difference to the quality of articles. And, while you're at it, why not use a book to source information, which can source multiple articles at once!
We try and use a standard way of arranging the content in each article. That layout is here. These headings let us have a standard way of presenting the information in anatomical articles, indicate what information may have been forgotten, and save angst when trying to decide how to organise an article. That said, this might not suit every article. If in doubt, be bold!
Why not try and strive to create a good article! Physiology related articles are often small in scope, have available sources, and only a limited amount of research available that is readily presentable!
Your contributions to the WikiProject page, related categories and templates is also welcome.
To invite other editors to this WikiProject, copy and past this template (with the signature):
- {{subst:WP Physiology–invite}} ~~~~
To welcome editors of physiology articles, copy and past this template (with the signature):
- {{subst:WP Physiology–welcome}} ~~~~
You can feel free to contact us on the WikiProkect Physiology talk page if you have any problems, or wish to join us. You can also put your suggestions there and discuss the scope of participation.

Hoping for your cooperation! Diptanshu^Talk 12:36, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

A cheeseburger for you!

For quickly and perfectly helping me to find the DNP meta files. LukasMatt (talk) 08:18, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Yum, thanks. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:40, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Best wishes from User:Frze

18:16, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Dear John - hope you are well as I am again. See you soon - have good night, after a very rainy Dresden-saturday; sleep well till tomorrow. Your's faithfully Frze ^{> talk}

I'm OK; thank you for your good wishes. Sorry to hear you've been ill. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:52, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

It was a headache like migraine for months. Now we are going to explore the three border region Germany – Czech Republic – Poland. Would you like to join my DRESDEN-Project next year? It would be a pleasure for me to shake your hands. Your's Frze ^{> talk} 04:26, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

That's a kind thought, but I think it's unlikely. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:49, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Shai held

Hi

I noticed that you entered his prior education but there was no source Other than that of his doctorate. I scoured the Internet but alas wasn't able To procure any source. What are your thoughts?

Thanks! Abraham — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.116.27.147 (talk) 04:15, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

No, I only fixed a spelling mistake in that article; I probably spent about 15 seconds on it. Looking at the history now, it's clear that just about all the content was contributed by RubinJA (talk · contribs), the only edit from that account.

There are three options for unsourced content: remove it, tag it with {{fact}}, or leave it alone. I'm inclined to leave it alone: it's not contentious, and we do have a source for the higher degree. But I don't have much faith in my editorial judgement - that's why I mostly stick to fixing spelling mistakes. You could ask at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:50, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for being one of Wikipedia's top medical contributors!

please help translate this message into the local language

	The Cure Award
	In 2013 you were one of the top 300 medical editors across any language of Wikipedia. Thank you so much for helping bring free, complete, accurate, up-to-date medical information to the public. We really appreciate you and the vital work you do!

We are wondering about the educational background of our top medical editors. Would you please complete a quick 5-question survey? (please only fill this out if you received the award)

Thanks again :) --Ocaasi, Doc James and the team at Wiki Project Med Foundation

How curious! But I've done the survey anyway. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:37, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

What you know about medicals? I am curious about your hidden interests! OccultZone (Talk) 05:55, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

@OccultZone: Their definition of a "top medical editor" is someone who has made a lot of edits to medical articles. It seems that during 2013 I made 525 medical edits - but most of them would have been spelling or grammar errors, and the rest would have been other kinds of cleanup (vandalism, reference syntax...). I don't think I've contributed any new content to medical articles. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:20, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Obviously most of our edits are fixes. I was actually kidding, because I had seen same message on Magioladitis' talk page as well. Good day. OccultZone (Talk) 07:10, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Hey John,

Thank you SO MUCH on helping me with the John Campbell page. Now, could you do me one favor? If you can, can you please add a major intersections section to Ohio Route 49 Thank you! Yours Truly (talk) 12:54, 20 April 2014 (UTC), Jack

@Jd52102: Looking at Ohio State Route 48, these tables don't look too bad, as all the hard work of the formatting is done by the {{OHint}} template. But none of the links to www.dot.state.oh.us are working for me, so I have no idea what the intersections list should say. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:59, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, question. How do you add pictures to templates? (ex. Reese Havens) Yours Truly (talk) 23:33, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

@Jd52102: The box at the top right is called an "infobox". If the image hasn't already been uploaded, then (1) you need to check that it is a freely-licensed image, perhaps one you took yourself; then (2) you can upload it to Wikimedia Commons using this form. Getting the image displayed in the article is quite simple after those complicated steps: click "Edit" at the very top of the page, find the line that says "image =" and add the name of the image; for example "image = Reese Havens in February 2014.jpg".

There's more advice, perhaps too much, at Help:Upload and Help:Infobox picture. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:08, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Infobox tennis circuit season

Hi, I'm looking to update the {{Infobox tennis circuit season}} template so that the 'Awards' header does not appear if all of the achievements field are empty. For instance the infobox at the 1931 in tennis article has no awards filled in (didn't exist in those days) but the header 'Awards' still appears. Can you give me some pointers on how to do that? Thx.--Wolbo (talk) 18:59, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I've made the edit. The explanation will take longer than the edit:

The {{Infobox}} template ignores any headerNN parameter whose value is blank
In {{Infobox tennis circuit season}} the "Awards" heading is generated by the line "header11 = Awards"
To make "Awards" blank sometimes, it needs to be inside a conditional, {{#if: <thing to test> | <value if thing is not blank>}}
The magic string {{{parameter name|}}} is replaced by the value of that parameter if is been passed in, or by a blank string if not.
So the magic string {{{x|}}}{{{y|}}}{{{z|}}} will be non-empty if parameters x, y and/or z are passed in with non-empty values, and will be blank if all those parameters are missing or blank.
Hence the new line in the template header11 = {{#if:{{{player_of_the_year|}}}{{{doubles_team_of_the_year|}}}{{{most_improved_player_of_the_year|}}}{{{newcomer_of_the_year|}}}{{{comeback_player_of_the_year|}}}|Awards}}

Let's hope I haven't broken anything. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:17, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Thx, also for the clear explanation! Works like a charm. I'm not aiming to become an advanced template editor but it would be nice to be a bit more self-sufficient template wise.--Wolbo (talk) 21:37, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi, I have a follow-up question to a post about tennis infoboxes from last year. In it you mention that the main_name field can be used to link to the general tournament article and that a piped link can be created using the syntax main_name = Heineken Open (tennis){{!}} Heineken Open. I tried it at the time and technically it works fine but the {{!}} code is difficult to remember and few people will know how to use it so can you tell me if the tennis infobox template can be adapted to accept a standard pipe link main_name = [[Heineken Open (tennis)|Heineken Open]]? Thx. --Wolbo (talk) 21:24, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

@Wolbo: It would be tricky to do that neatly, without breaking the articles that already use main_name. I've added a note to Template:Infobox tennis event/doc. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:49, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't think very many tournament articles use the main_name at the moment and would be willing to update these but for now thanks for adding the note to the template.--Wolbo (talk) 07:49, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Portal hinduism

Hello. There is a matter with the portal Hinduism; if you could look it. Have a nice day. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zavatter (talk • contribs) 19:51, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

@Zavatter: What is the problem? It would be better to post at Portal talk:Hinduism rather than here, as it will be seen by editors who know more about the subject. I see that a couple of the "selected pictures" have been deleted; I may get round to choosing replacements if you don't get there first. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:00, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) He just made multiple fixes, but they were very important, check[1] the version before Zavatter's edit. It seemed horrible. OccultZone (Talk) 10:49, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Ah, thanks - I only checked the diff and missed the deletion of that leading space. But Zavatter fixed that before posting here, so the real problem could have been that he was still seeing the bad version when viewing the portal. If I'd realised that, then I would have mentioned purging the page and bypassing the browser cache to see the latest version. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:57, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Direct calls to Infobox

User:Pigsonthewing/Direct calls to Infobox is going to be immensely useful; thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:51, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Enough there to keep you busy for weeks. -- John of Reading (talk) 13:53, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Roughly one-fifth gone... Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:37, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Portal:Computer-generated imagery

I moved the portal Portal:Computer-generated imagery and the sub-pages but it does not appear to work properly this time as many links stay red even though the sub-pages were moved. Do you know how to solve this? Coreyemotela (talk) 19:06, 22 May 2014 (UTC).

@Coreyemotela: That often happens; the servers don't realise that the page needs to be rebuilt. The solution is to "purge" the page; see Wikipedia:Purge for instructions. I've done that to Portal:Computer-generated imagery and it looks much better now. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:20, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for this explanations and solutions! Coreyemotela (talk) 21:11, 22 May 2014 (UTC).

I need eggs of block swan.

Hi john, my name is adenaike Babatunde, I am from Nigeria.I need the eggs of black and white swan, how much are they each? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adenaike babatunde (talk • contribs) 20:13, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

@Adenaike babatunde: I have no idea! Someone might be able to help you if you post at the Miscellaneous reference desk. You'll need to say where you are buying them - in Nigeria, or somewhere else? -- John of Reading (talk) 20:18, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

@Adenaike babatunde: check here. OccultZone (Talk) 13:38, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

@OccultZone: Though that page doesn't mention swan's eggs. It occurs to me that Adenaike babatunde didn't say whether the eggs were for eating or hatching! -- John of Reading (talk) 07:51, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Surely it includes all? "Poultry generally refers to those species of birds man have domesticated for the purpose of producing eggs, meat and recreation. It includes chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, swan, pigeon, guinea fowl, peafowl ostrich, parrots etc."[2] There's a huge document about it.

Nigeria is largest producer of poultry in whole Africa, it should be easy to find a egg of black swan in the country. OccultZone (Talk) 07:58, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

In the UK, hen's eggs are cheap and easy to buy, but I have no idea how I would acquire a swan's egg (legally) -- John of Reading (talk) 08:03, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

informal talk, thats all

hi, just wanted to tell you that im happy to see you still very active and functional in wikipedia thru all these years, keeping the nice work. Nice to see you around! Congrats. 179.232.20.168 (talk) 12:21, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Four and a half years now, just about. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:53, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

How you managed? Especially with 0 blocks :) You see, I've done over 50,000 edits with AWB. But now I've got so many manual tasks to do. OccultZone (Talk) 10:17, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

@OccultZone: Have a look at User talk:John of Reading/Archive 13#Pondering. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:38, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

U and I Sugar Company

John, Wanted to add a comment to your edits to the U and I Sugar page. Their first plant in Washington was in Toppenish, Wa on the yakama Indian reservation. It's first campaign was 1937 and was shuttered the same year as Moses Lake following the 1978 crop year. The name of their farm in Patterson was, and still is, AgriNorthwest. My source? Personal experience.

Bob of Toppenish (166.216.157.79 (talk) 20:02, 4 June 2014 (UTC))

I'm surprised to see that I've made five edits to that article in the course of four years. In each case I was scanning the whole of Wikipedia for articles containing a particular error, and this article turned up in my lists of articles to fix one by one. I don't remember the article at all!

Without a reliable published source the information shouldn't be added to the article. You could try adding your comment to Talk:Utah-Idaho Sugar Company. Someone seeing your comment there might know where to find a book or newspaper confirming your recollections. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:40, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you for completing that AFD for me. (Oddly, I tried to complete it but when I looked I couldn't see the entry on the page so I reverted it; but when I now look at an old version from the history it shows up perfectly. Not sure what happened.) RJFJR (talk) 17:30, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

A welcome message

Welcome John of Reading!

Now that you've joined Wikipedia, there are 48,246,257 registered users!

Hello, John of Reading. Welcome to Wikipedia and thank you for your contributions! I'm MWP met Judge Judy, one of the other editors here, and I hope you decide to stay and help contribute to this amazing repository of knowledge.

Some pages of helpful information to get you started:

Introduction to Wikipedia

The five pillars of Wikipedia

Editing tutorial

How to edit a page

Simplified Manual of Style

The basics of Wikicode

How to develop an article

How to create an article

Help pages

What Wikipedia is not

Some common sense Do's and Don'ts:

Do be bold

Do assume good faith

Do be civil

Do keep cool!

Do maintain a neutral point of view

Don't spam

Don't infringe copyright

Don't edit where you have a conflict of interest

Don't vandalize

Don't get blocked

If you need further help, you can:

Ask a question

or you can:

Get help at the Teahouse

or even:

Ask an experienced editor to "adopt" you

Alternatively, leave me a message at my talk page or type {{helpme}} here on your talk page, and someone will try to help.

There are many ways you can contribute to Wikipedia. Here are a few ideas:

Fight vandalism

Be a WikiFairy or a WikiGnome

Help contribute to articles

Perform maintenance tasks

Become a member of a project that interests you

Help design new templates

Remember to always sign your posts on talk pages. You can do this either by clicking on the button on the edit toolbar or by typing four tildes (~~~~) at the end of your post. This will automatically insert your signature, a link to this (your talk) page, and a timestamp.

The best way to learn about something is to experience it. Explore, learn, contribute, and don't forget to have some fun!
To get some practice editing you can use a sandbox. You can create your own private sandbox for use any time. Perfect for working on bigger projects. Then for easy access in the future, you can put {{My sandbox}} on your userpage.

Sincerely, User:MWP met Judge Judy (talk) 15:31, 6 June 2014 (UTC) met Judge Judy&action=edit&section=new&preload=Template:Welcome_to_Wikipedia/user-talk_preload (Leave me a message)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by MWP met Judge Judy (talk • contribs) 15:13, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

That's pretty! Thank you for your good wishes. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:19, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Blocked by someone for being a "sock troll". OccultZone (Talk) 14:06, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I spotted that. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:07, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Your opinion would be appreciated

Dear John Reading,

This article was deleted per Deletion proposal page. I have applied for this ruling to be reconsidered per Deletion review dated June 1.

Your comment/opinion/response there would be appreciated.

Thank you. --Jose77 (talk) 08:31, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Sorry: User:John of Reading/Userboxes#...and weaknesses. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:35, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

@Jose77: There's a Afd, I voted for a keep. OccultZone (Talk) 14:09, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Three card reading

hi john its wanda from about two weeks ago that u did a three card reading for us it was on a saturday nite can u let me know if u can do a full reading for friday night this week and can un let me know how much it is thanks wanda≤ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wandashackley (talk • contribs) 21:14, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

@Wandashackley: I'm sorry, you've contacted the wrong person. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:01, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

John, I hope what you are saying is true.

OccultZone (Talk) 14:38, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Unused ref

You commented out a ref with this edit.

I wish I could tell you that you missed something obvious, but that ref was left over when some IP, perhpas annoyed that their addition was removed so responded by [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wayland_Baptist_University&diff=next&oldid=602636131 stripping out a notable alumnus, Matt Brown. That left the ref in the ref section with nothing to support.

I restored the alumnus.--S Philbrick (Talk) 19:33, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick: I chose to fix the "cite error" that way because the "SI" reference did not mention any link with Wayland Baptist University. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:38, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Brown's connection with Wayland is mentioned in the article about Brown. The SI link was supporting the claim that he was an amputee. I can't think of how you would have figured it out, but I just wanted to mention it. It actually turns out to be fortuitous, as I missed the removal of Brown, and only picked up on it when you commented out the ref. If the petulant editor removing the entry has also removed the ref, I might have missed it.--S Philbrick (Talk) 19:49, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for sorting that out. As long as the article stays out of Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting, I won't be going anywhere near it. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:51, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Heh, thanks for linking to that page, one I had not seen. I saw an article I created Moriah Jefferson, which had been vandalized by an IP. Now fixed. --S Philbrick (Talk) 20:28, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

IP address

Thanks, John, I had no idea that's what it was as I don't pay attention to it.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:25, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Nor me. But I followed the "Whois" and "Geolocate" links for the IP address that the software was showing me, and saw my ISP and location. Oh, wait... -- John of Reading (talk) 20:34, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Nalaka Godahewa

Thanks for fixing that issue. The article it self is a big mess, with citations manipulated and misquoted in a malicious way to disguise criticism and show non-existing praises ! I am going to do some clean up in the article in near future and hope you can lend a hand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 126.15.198.169 (talk) 13:50, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

You could perhaps ask for help at the biographies of living persons noticeboard. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:26, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Bar sinister

I read with interest the wiki entry for Frances Richard Charles Guy Greville 5th Earl of Warwick, Lord Brooke who died in 1924. What updates did you perform and would you be interested to know there was a secret bar sinister line from him which resulted in the birth of my grandfather and subsequently to me? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.113.86.1 (talk) 05:55, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

To see the effect of my update, click the "View history" link at the top of the article and then the "prev" link at the beginning of the line with my user name on it. That will take you to this page, a "diff", showing the differences between the old and new versions of the article. You'll see that I fixed a small grammar error, and changed the spacing in a range of dates. That's all!

If the extra facts are "secret" then they don't belong in the Wikipedia article, I'm afraid. Wikipedia aims to summarise facts that have been published in "reliable sources" such as books, journals, respected news outlets, and such like. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:14, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

June 2014

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Bread and Roses may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "()"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

''Bread and Roses'''" originated in a speech given by [[Rose Schneiderman]]; a line in that speech ("The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too."<ref name="Eisenstein-S_1983"/> inspired

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 07:06, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Ta! -- John of Reading (talk) 07:10, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Miloš Krivokapić may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "()"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

| birth_place = Upper [[Cuce]], [[Prince-Bishopric of Montenegro]] (now [[Montenegro]]
| PLACE OF BIRTH = Upper [[Cuce]], [[Prince-Bishopric of Montenegro]] (now [[Montenegro]]

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 16:06, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Fixed -- John of Reading (talk) 16:08, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for June 25

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Chilean Olympic Committee, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Swimming (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 08:54, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Fixed -- John of Reading (talk) 10:04, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Martineau family

Dear John could you please check the refs for "Martineau family" page Thanks Mike — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.220.62.45 (talk) 12:57, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Some of the parameters of the three new references look a little odd. "first1" and "last1" are intended for the forename and surname of the author of the web page, and should be omitted or blank if no name is given - they are for items on news websites really. Have a look at Template:Cite web/doc. -- John of Reading (talk) 13:04, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

		The Typo Team Barnstar
		Hi, John of Reading! I wanted to award you this barnstar for all your hard work in correcting thousands upon thousands of typos! Keep it up! Upjav (talk) 19:48, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, that's encouraging! -- John of Reading (talk) 20:27, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you very much, Your edits to the monarch butterfly article are appreciated!

bpage (talk) 13:52, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for noticing! -- John of Reading (talk) 18:30, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you very much for fixing the typos with the letter "s" and the non-hyphenated word in the page for Malcolm Stuart Boylan, John of Reading; your efforts really helped and your work looks good!!

Taram (talk) 15:27, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

And thank you for getting back to me! -- John of Reading (talk) 15:29, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

You fix more typos than we do. You have loaded your own settings right? Or still different settings than most. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 15:40, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

@OccultZone: Yesterday I was working on subpage 35 at User:Darkwind/Typos, since GoingBatty pinged me about it. I ended up making about 600 quick edits, a lot for one day, but mostly for very small typos involving only spaces and hyphens. My main project at the moment is Wikipedia:Lists of common misspellings/S, for which I'm developing my own settings. That started off slowly but is gradually becoming more efficient as I expand my regular expression to skip the false positives automatically. The regular expression is up to 21 kilobytes so far! -- John of Reading (talk) 15:51, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

That's very nice. Yes Goingbatty seems to be very active these days. Good thing about AWB, you can use your own settings. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 15:54, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Moving

I thank you for your help. I was not trying to do anything improper, I was only trying to help as well. While I have been here at Wikipedia for a little bit, I had no knowledge of the page moving function.Reigndog (talk) 19:44, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

@Reigndog: That's fine! When I saw your edits turn up in my recent changes patrol, I thought I'd better jump in, as each of those pages will need a repair by an admin. I hope you and Karl's Wagon (talk · contribs) can come to an agreement. Perhaps a post at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Greece might help? -- John of Reading (talk) 19:50, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

I thank you again sir.

The only disagreement I thought existed was over one page, the Hellenismos vs. Hellenism (religion) page, which one should be the main page and which one should have the disambiguation link.

I then go off-line for about a week and the other editor in question moved all those pages, pages I have never edited or even seen and again, does not discuss the matter beforehand at all.

I am sorry to have caused any admin any extra work whatsoever though.Reigndog (talk) 20:04, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Hey!

~~You can't go on a wikibreak!?!? Who is going to clean up the Portal spam? This place is going to fall apart with you gone. Geez... Stop going on wikibreaks!~~ -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 05:24, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

But seriously... welcome back. Hope the wedding was fun and you had a good weekend trip. =) -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 05:25, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

@Gogo Dodo: Thanks! Yes, some relatives I don't see very often, and a weekend of w i d e scenery that I've not seen before.

But seriously... if any part of the project falls apart because one editor disappears, then something is wrong! It's a pity that the usual Cluebot/Huggle/Stiki tools and volunteers don't tackle portal space. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:47, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

I think it has happened. Checked a number of wikiprojects, they are inactive since Rich Farmbrough stopped. I don't know many other examples, but probably there are a few. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 13:56, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

I tried to pick up some of the slack while you were enjoying the view, but it was a poor imitation of what you do. =) -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 04:38, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Reviewing Interior reconstruction

I am helping to encourage editors to improve articles to which they have edited or created recently. In regard to the article: Interior reconstruction, the following assessment has been placed on the page:

Feel free to remove this post from this talk page if you would like. Since you have shown an interest in this article's improvement I thought you might like to have this information.

Regards,

bpage (talk) 23:41, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

@Bfpage: I see that most of those tags have already been removed. I've read it through and fixed a few spelling and grammar errors; I'm reluctant to do more because I don't understand the subject at all. -- John of Reading (talk) 05:52, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Only 1 issue with that article now. I was requested by this editor to check. Whenever you see any article tags anywhere other than the main space article, consider removing them or decode.OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 06:37, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

The tags were harmless here, since they only add categories when used in mainspace. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:40, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Restored for a trial, "Templates used in this preview"(at below of save page - show preview - show changges) includes "Template:Copy edit", "Template:Orphan", "Template:Multiple issues", "Template:Technical". No categories but increases the amount of usage. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 06:56, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Highland mills fire company page

The highland mills fire company page is full of false information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.46.75.120 (talk) 17:38, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Please post more details at the talk page, Talk:Highland Mills Fire Company. Or, you are welcome to improve the article by removing the false information yourself - just be sure to explain what you are doing in the edit summary so that editors reviewing your edit can see your intentions. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:05, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Templates written by banned editor

Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)#Templates_written_by_banned_editor is a problem, because they are being deleted. The policy with articles written by banned editors is to require editors who want them back to rewrite them before placing them in mainspace. This is hardly a possibility with many templates about places or streets.

I can cite particular examples affecting Philadelphia, but I am seeking advice on the general problem. Feel free to reply right here, or at the several places where this is already being mentioned.--DThomsen8 (talk) 14:36, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

More Portal:Democratic Republic of the Congo, sorry!

Hi John,

Sorry to bother you again, but I just wondered whether you might know how to transfer the Quotes section of portal to a random selection from the article? As I say, all this code really mystifies me! Any help would be much appreciated! Brigade Piron (talk) 10:36, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

@Brigade Piron: I'd be happy to help, but... I haven't worked out from this exactly what you are hoping to achieve! Could you explain in more detail?

If it's any help, here's how it works at the moment: At Portal:Democratic Republic of the Congo there's this call to {{Random portal component}}...

{{Random portal component
 | max     = 3
 | seed    = 43
 | header  = ''Selected quote''
 | footer  = <small>Archive</small>
 | subpage = Quotes
}}

...which displays a copy of Portal:Democratic Republic of the Congo/box-header, followed by a random choice one of the three numbered quotes pages one, two or three, and then a copy of the Portal:Democratic Republic of the Congo/box-footer. Within the footer there's an "archive" link which jumps to Portal:Democratic Republic of the Congo/Quotes; the markup there displays all three sub-pages at once. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:59, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi John, thanks for your patience. I'm very sorry, but I meant the "Did you know" section! Is there a way of choosing a more random selection? I can add new DYKs if necessary. Brigade Piron (talk) 20:08, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

@Brigade Piron: Ah, that makes more sense! Yes, I could reformat the existing DYK box as a couple of randomly-selected subpages, so that it is fairly easy to add more subpages with more facts.

For the best-quality portals, the DYK facts are those that appeared on the Main Page in the "Did you know?" box there. The "CatScan" tool can find these; over at User:John of Reading/Sandbox (permanent link) there is a list of talk page that are tagged by the DRotC Wikiproject and have a record of a main page DYK appearance. You could look through those to see if any would look good on the portal.

Which DYK facts would you like me to start with? -- John of Reading (talk) 20:31, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

That's excellent, thanks! To be honest, any of those look fine - and certainly better than the rather lame ones on the page to start with. It would be nice not to have too many war/murder/rape/death topics - there is more to the DRC - but perhaps Lola ya Bonobo, Sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cinema of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Belgian Congo in World War II, Bodys Isek Kingelez, Yellala Falls, 2008 Congo football riots and any others you think look genuinely interesting? Once again, many thanks for this - one a side-note, is there a way that your table could be kept (perhaps as an annex document on the WikiProject page) and updated? It would be quite interesting to see what content we actually have! Brigade Piron (talk) 20:46, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

@Brigade Piron: OK, I'll have a go at this sometime in the next few days - not sure exactly when, as I have some extra real life commitments this week. I've copied the table to Portal talk:Democratic Republic of the Congo/Did you know. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:57, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! It's really appreciated! Brigade Piron (talk) 20:58, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

@Brigade Piron: There we are - three sets of three facts. It's a pity so few have a suitable picture, but there's not a lot I can do about that (remember that non-free pictures cannot be used on portal pages). -- John of Reading (talk) 07:56, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

That's superb, John, many thanks indeed! Brigade Piron (talk) 11:51, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Typo fixing with AutoWikiBrowser

Your section on Typo fixing with AutoWikiBrowser on your user page caught my attention. I run AWB frequently, also. I don't follow how using a downloaded copy works to fix the live article, and I don't understand how you limit the corrections to typographical errors. Please explain right here on your talk page.--DThomsen8 (talk) 20:05, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

@Dthomsen8: I use the downloaded copy only to create the work lists. Once the list of article names is ready, I click the usual "start" button, and AWB reads the live articles as it always does, and I run my "Find & Replace" rules on that. AWB never modifies the downloaded copy.

I'm not sure what your second question is getting at! I specialise in fixing typos, so just about all of my "Find & Replace" rules look for a particular misspelling, and fix it. If I've searched for something that is only sometimes wrong, then I'll click "Skip" to avoid saving a bad edit, and try to refine my rules so that they don't make incorrect changes. Does that help? -- John of Reading (talk) 20:41, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2014_July_25

Hello. Would you like to share your thought on that category's entry? --Opus88888 (talk) 02:06, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

No thanks, I'll let the specialists sort those out. -- John of Reading (talk) 05:12, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

"it's own"

Is that in your rule set? Seems like a pretty safe heuristic. ~40 hits currently... also "you're own", "they're own" and "there own", but you'd have to be careful with that last one... --jnkyrdsprkl (talk) 19:33, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions. "There own" is in the standard rule set, but I've added all four to my "to do" list. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:24, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Ah, that's where the master list is... thanks for the pointer. --jnkyrdsprkl (talk) 03:53, 30 July 2014 (UTC)