User talk:John of Reading/Archive 17

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 15

Precious

reading quality
Thank you, " harmless drudge", for fixing typos such as "the the" and "do do" from the master list (example pictured), helping reading quality, for assistance at the help desk, for articles such as Castle of Park and cathedral singing, - you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:48, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, that's very encouraging! -- John of Reading (talk) 08:23, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Spam or Malware

Hello John, thanks for your reply: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Help_desk&oldid=619145112#Malware_check

It has happened again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk#Spam_or_Malware_Links.3F

I thought I'd mention it. Is the Help Desk the best place to report this sort of thing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.114.247.150 (talk) 12:09, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I've made a comment at the Help Desk. Yes, that's a good place to ask questions about Wikipedia; your comments will be seen by many experienced Wikipedia editors, some of them quite technically-minded. Keep an eye on this second report for a few days, just in case someone has any ideas. But if this second report doesn't trigger any good ideas, I suggest you stop there, as it's unlikely that a third report will achieve anything extra. Does that make sense? -- John of Reading (talk) 13:30, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Request for comment

As someone who has edited the article Asian American this year, I am seeking your input on a proposed change to remove a reference to epicanthic eyefolds. This topic has prompted discussion in 2009, 2010 and most recently in 2013.

There's a fine line between being WP:BOLD and subverting WP:CONSENSUS. Given the history of this topic, I'm hoping that a robust discussion, for the record, would improve the article whether this reference stays or goes. Ishu (talk) 13:45, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

@Ishu: No thanks, I just fixed a typo! I notice, though, that there are three non-free images in the infobox, which is three too many for this article. -- John of Reading (talk) 13:16, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Portal Business and economics

See if the P:BEP is better now.Lbertolotti (talk) 16:21, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

@Lbertolotti: Yes it is. Compiling 365 "on this day" subpages will be quite a challenge! -- John of Reading (talk) 16:31, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Portal_talk:Business_and_economics#Page_layout: can you put the "Things you can do" between selected economy and topics? Doesn't make sense to put it at the bottom of the page.Lbertolotti (talk) 16:46, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

@Lbertolotti: Sorry, I disappeared on holiday for a week. I see that you've done this yourself. -- John of Reading (talk) 13:19, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Wiki for the greater good.

Hi john, I made some comments about redmarshall parish council, which I see you removed. I appreciate that the comments may seem irrelevant, but in fact redmarshall is a very disturbed community, primarily as a consequence of the activity of a small number of really mean old folks who centre themselves around the parish council. I added the comment in the faint hope that it may make those people think for a moment about the disruption they cause around the village. I'm not exaggerating when I say that people move away from the village as a consequence of the pc's behaviour, and if the wiki page can make them reconsider their behaviour then it would be a very positive step in addressing the issue. I'm asking you to leave the comments on next time please. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jturnbull1234 (talk • contribs) 10:01, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

@Jturnbull1234: No, comments like that do not belong anywhere at Wikipedia. Wikipedia articles should only summarise what has been reported in "reliable sources" such as respected news outlets. Anything contentious about living people, such as your councilors, must be removed if it is not backed up by a reliable source - see the guidance at WP:BLPREMOVE. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:23, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Photo of Verdi monument

Hi, JoR:

I took a very splendid photo last summer (2013) of the Verdi monument in Verdi Square, at W 73rd St and Broadway in Manhattan, and would like to release it under the GNU license system for use at this article and for the article on Verdi Square, the editors of which have been crying out for a good photo. It's been a long time since I sourced photos for other articles (never my own photo), and I know from experience that it can be tricky. Many photos I sourced completely within the guidelines of WP were summarily challenged and then deleted.

This time I would like to go about it in the right manner. If you have experience and knowledge of this sort, and can help make sure I am credited as the photographer, I would gladly work with you to get the photo into the article. I will also reach out to other editors of this article with the hopes that someone can step up to the plate and get the photo up properly.

Thanks,

paul klenk ^talk 14:06, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

@Paul Klenk: It all starts with the copyright position! Photos of publicly-displayed artworks in some countries can't be uploaded here, because the local laws say that the artist retains the copyright in his design. But for this one you are OK; Commons:Commons:Freedom of panorama#United States says that public artwork installed before 1923 have no such restrictions. So to upload your photo, go to the Commons Upload Wizard and choose options saying that the photo is your own work, and that you release it under the recommended CC-BY-SA license. Those options were selected for the other picture, File:Statue of Giuseppe Verdi in Verdi Square, New York City January 2013.jpeg, and they seem to have been accepted. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:21, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Portal barnstar

Thanks for noticing my efforts. thats a good link, so i can see progress on all the portals. i have tried to revamp Portal:San Francisco Bay Area, Portal:Greater Los Angeles, Portal:Hispanic and Latino Americans, Portal:Jazz, Portal:Pornography and Portal:Sexuality. the bay area one is about as complete as i can make it, the others are simply moved into the range of useful, not stale and outdated. the latter 2 get hundreds of hits a day, so whether or not people like the topics, readers like them, and thus they should at least not be embarassingly incomplete or inaccurate. It seems there was a flurry of work on portals from 2007 to 2010, with a lot of them abandoned and not maintained. I dont like having moribund portals linked to from articles, but I have no idea whether dismantling of abandoned portals is ever considered.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 19:09, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

@Mercurywoodrose: I liked your idea of improving the portals that readers are actually seeing - there must be dozens of obscure portals that hardly ever get viewed. A few old portals get taken to MFD each year, but on average the number keeps rising. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:30, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the search link, that was enlightening. I will continue to MFD portals i find that seem redundant and are also not viewed. I may also find some to improve. I will also check at the main page for portals and see if anyone else is doing this kind of work.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 17:12, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Copyvio issue

Hi, how did you determine the paragraph that the newbie was referring to here? The article is pretty much my work and the supplied url in the template bears no relation to any of it. The article is also very prone to POV attacks from a pressure group that shares the same name as the popular movement that is its subject - their attempts have been rejected at every venue, from the talk page to DRN, ANI, OTRS and even the WMF. Given that the newbie made exactly 10 edits before going there, and then made another POV edit somewhere else, I strongly suspect that we're about to get another wave of attacks. - Sitush (talk) 10:05, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

@Sitush: I edited the article in response to TheRedPenOfDoom (talk · contribs)'s thread at the help desk. The copyvio template included a link to this external page. The text in the "Rise" section could be taken to be a too-close paraphrase of the text in the external page. I'm not a good judge of these things, and am very happy to leave the decision to "an administrator, copyright clerk or OTRS agent" as the template text requires. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:15, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I'm not re-checking it now but I have looked at the thread that TRPoD started and they are familiar with the ongoing problems. Thanks for sorting out the placement etc. - Sitush (talk) 23:35, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Dalmatian/Dalmation

Hi Nice Person,

I came to Wikipedia to confirm the location of Dalmatia and to confirm the spelling of Dalmatian (the peoples of Dalmatia and the breed of dog). I frequently see Dalmatian spelled as Dalmation, especially when referring to the breed of dog. It is even misspelled on the Talk Page for the article Dalmatia. It is misspelled in a computer game I am playing and I will bring it to the attention of the Community Manager at DJ Arts.

I did an Alt/F here for Dalmation and found it several times. The only problem is someone created a Redirect, so I am unable to correct all the misspellings. Would you mind looking for it someday?

I looked at the Birthday Cake you sent to me last year; a lovely gesture of thoughtfulness and the most meaningful thing on my Talk Page. It is still very beautiful and as fresh as the day you sent it. Thank you again.

Respectfully, Tiyang (talk) 09:54, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

@Tiyang: Hi, thanks for contacting me. I've added "Dalmation" to my "to do" list. There are a couple of ways to use the Wikipedia search to find "Dalmation", though. One is to use the box at the top right, but to stick a tilde (~) in front of the word you are searching for. That will show you the full search results even though there is a redirect in place. Another way is to leave the search box empty and then press the return key there or click the magnifying glass; that takes you to the main search page, Special:Search. Searches triggered there also ignore the redirect. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:45, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

2014 FIFA World Cup editnotices

Hi John of Reading. At the 2014 FIFA World Cup editnotices TfD discussion, you listed the "more complex" templates as:

Template:Editnotices/Page/2014 FIFA World Cup disciplinary record,

Template:Editnotices/Page/2014 FIFA World Cup disciplinary record (again) and

Template:Editnotices/Page/2014 FIFA World Cup statistics.

I'm wondering if perhaps you meant:

Template:Editnotices/Page/2014 FIFA World Cup disciplinary record,

Template:Editnotices/Page/Template:2014 FIFA World Cup stadium statistics and

Template:Editnotices/Page/2014 FIFA World Cup statistics?

I also notice that Template:Editnotices/Page/2014 FIFA World Cup squads is slightly different to the other editnotices, so I wonder if it might be worth adding that one to the list. Regards. DH85868993 (talk) 12:18, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I got that wrong, thanks. The three I intended to list are about 5 kilobytes each, so seemed worth saving. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:25, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Recovering a post

Hi John, I'm trying to recover my previous post. I see the message where you said that you have restored it. I'm having trouble finding the talk page. Thanks NukefieNukefie (talk) 13:07, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

@Nukefie: The text you posted at Portal talk:Biography/Intro is still available in the "page history". You can access it by following this link. But please don't post it anywhere at Wikipedia; as I and others have noted on your talk page, this text is way too promotional to be posted here. Perhaps have a look at Wikipedia:Alternative outlets, a list of other websites that you might be able to use for promoting your career. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:45, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikinews

Portal_talk:Business_and_economics#Bot_malfunction Lbertolotti (talk) 14:18, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

I've replied there. I am watching that page, so will see any comments you add there. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:59, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

archiving

Thanks. I'm (finally) back. —Steve Summit (talk) 15:18, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Welcome back! -- John of Reading (talk) 16:20, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Copyeditor's Barnstar
	Thank you for your work on the Distortion Mirrors page! Kingslove2013 (talk) 18:27, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for noticing! -- John of Reading (talk) 20:56, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Football editnotices

Hi John of Reading. Thanks for actioning my edit requests on those football editnotices. FYI, many of the templates contain {{REVISIONUSER}}, so they now say "Attention, John of Reading". I just thought I'd let you know in case you wanted to edit them again to remove your username. But if you're happy to leave them as they are, that's fine. Regards. DH85868993 (talk) 09:52, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Not a problem. This "magic word" was once useful in edit notices, but the behind-the-scenes software has changed and it is now useless. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:47, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		For this. Kingsindian (talk) 17:56, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsindian: Thank you! There may well be easier ways to solve your problem, but AWB is the tool I am most familiar with. "To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail" -- John of Reading (talk) 18:22, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Karvina

What do you know about the Karvina Corporation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.56.35.155 (talk) 05:46, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Nothing at all. What prompted you to ask? -- John of Reading (talk) 06:01, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

You edited the page of a city with the name karvina and i am curious if the karvina corp. Has ties to it.

Oh yes, the Karviná article. I just fixed a grammar error there; that's what I do at Wikipedia, find and fix spelling and grammar errors in hundreds of articles.

I've had a quick look with Google and can't see any connection between the town and the games company. I assume you've tried that already. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:25, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Nazie92

Yes, I decided on further reflection to unblock. But if the user wants to stay they should make very clear that it's a name on their user page. Daniel Case (talk) 17:48, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

@Daniel Case: Thanks for unblocking. I doubt if we'll hear much from this user, though. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:15, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia!

<<<huge welcome template removed>>>

@Good userz: Thank you! Actually I've been here for a while now, but it's good to be reminded of all these useful links. I hope you enjoy settling in. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:36, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Deleting an article by turning it into a redirect

Hello,

The Sibot article is a pretty poorly written article about a DJ in South Africa and the Șibot article is very short article about commune in Romania. Was there a discussion about this article that I missed? RevelationDirect (talk) 12:47, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

@RevelationDirect: No, it just turned up on one of my spelling lists, and I stopped to look at it instead of fixing the spellings. The text about the DJ is a copyright violation of the stated source, so it had to go. I chose to restore the redirect myself, leaving the DJ article in the page history. A different approach would be to restore the article, tag it for speedy deletion, and then recreate the redirect with a clean history. -- John of Reading (talk) 13:14, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Speedy deletion and then reclaiming the redirect probably would have been the right sequence, but it all ends up the same in the end. Can't believe that the poorly written DJ article wasn't at least original! RevelationDirect (talk) 01:09, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank You Internet Saftey Man

Dear Sir, You are singly highhandedly making the internet more grammatically correct, one Wikipedia post at a time. It would have been heart breaking to me to miss lead the youths who would have studied from that link and received false information. You truly are a grammar/astrology hero. Perhaps one day we could discuss astronomy instead... ?

Beast Regards, SmoothYeah♠(that is a spade)

PS- I wanted to change the font but I don't know how. Will you teach me?

PS PS= I'm not hitting on you. I have a fiance. :3 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smoothyeah (talk • contribs) 07:11, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for appreciating my efforts! Regarding fonts, I think the best way to set the font is with the {{font}} template - follow that link to see some examples. But don't do this in articles, as articles should be written in a consistent style. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:19, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

multiple Issues

I create biography page , I am new to Wikipedia, and I have a multiple unsolved issues regarding my page. I would greatly appreciate it if you kindly give me some feedback how to fix this issues.

Nissan300zx (talk) 18:48, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

@Nissan300zx: I see that you've received some advice at the Help desk, at this section, already.

I think the best way to improve the article would be to find some publications where other people have written about Tenekedjiev, and use those to back up what is being said about him in the article. This would fix the "primary sources" issue - currently most of the material in the article only has references to parts of Tenekedjiev's own web site. And it would also help with the "notability" issue - if this isn't fixed, the article may well end up being deleted. Wikipedia doesn't aim to have an article on every person or subject, but only on those that other people have already decided are worth writing about.

I hope that helps a bit! -- John of Reading (talk) 20:01, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Paul Levy and the stable distribution

I saw on your page you know both math and French. If you have some spare time, can u check this Talk:Stable_distribution#Paul_Levy? Lbertolotti (talk) 19:09, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

@Lbertolotti: Where is the French you'd like me to look at? Both the links web.williams.edu and www.webofstories.com are in English. But I'm only claiming "fr-1" anyway! -- John of Reading (talk) 19:32, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

The book cited by Mandelbrot is this: http://books.google.it/books/about/Calcul_des_probabilit%C3%A9s.html?id=8_FLAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y I'll see if I can find other sources. Lbertolotti (talk) 19:39, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Google Books is only showing me the front cover, not the text. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:45, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Paul Levy books are all in French and very hard to find on-line, nonetheless the summary confirms Mandelbrot [1], Levy used the term "stable lois", however "stable Paretian" is Mandelbrot own terminology: "We shall then introduce a new version of Pareto's law which belongs to the class of "stable" distributions, and which we shall designate as "the Pareto-Levy law"^[1] Lbertolotti (talk) 21:37, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

References

^ B. Mandelbrot, The Pareto-Lévy Law and the Distribution of Income, International Economic Review 1960 http://www.jstor.org/stable/2525289

A barnstar for you!

	The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
	Your help led to a reversion of an edit by a community-banned sock-puppeteer. Thank you. Netscr1be (talk) 12:16, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! -- John of Reading (talk) 12:23, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

NRHP and {{coord}}

Thanks for the help! Other members of WP:NRHP and I are tackling the items that you found, and we hope soon to finish cleaning all of them. When we're done, would you be willing to run the AWB query again, so that we can see if we missed any? If so, I'll be happy to let you know when we're ready. Nyttend (talk) 13:42, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

@Nyttend: Yes, that will be fine. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:28, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Everything is supposedly done, so if you could run the AWB query when next you get the chance, we'd quite appreciate it. Nyttend (talk) 03:54, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

@Nyttend: Done, nine articles posted at User:Nyttend/NRHP row and coord. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:31, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

That's why I said "supposedly" done :-) Thanks again! Nyttend (talk) 12:16, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Checked everything on that list; the outliers were largely the result of us using a conversion script developed by a wikiproject member, which apparently didn't account for a weird format being used on a few of these lists. Since some of the original findings had a few hundred entries (each!) to convert, and since there were about a dozen not-yet-converted entries between these lists, I'm not going to complain about the script missing these few :-) I strongly doubt that we'll need any more help in this matter. Once again, thanks for the big help. Nyttend (talk) 12:43, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

@Nyttend: I was impressed that you got some helpers joining in - a WikiProject working effectively. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:21, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, WP:NRHP is rather stronger than many projects I've seen, especially with routine non-creative maintenance like this; we sometimes have trouble getting bigger work done (see how many articles are in our biggest cleanup category), but something like this doesn't normally take long, especially because the script-writer can often figure out technical solutions that don't require much human effort. Nyttend (talk) 15:36, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Several things have changed

Hello, I'm back but these days I prefer to do my work not-signed-in, except for special occasions such as this.

I've been off more than a year. There have been changes. Can you give me a few starter-pointers?

I have come across the hidden category Category:Pages using deprecated coordinates format – apparently there are more than 12000 of them. But nowhere can I find what a deprecated coordinate format actually is. A propos, when I upload pics to wikimedia, it doesn't like dms and wants only decimal degrees. Bizarre and annoying. That is deprecable in my book!
Ditto Category:Pages using deprecated map format
This wikidata thing. Seems like it was rushed out inadequately tested. I can't fathom out how to update data, nor even where it got it from in the first place. Format of e.g. population doesn't work with #expr:. Apparently it is possible to get {{coord}} to accept coordinate wikidata, but when I tried to edit wikidata/coordinates to remove excess precision, it displays one as ... 60" and the other as ...0". I don't want either, particularly the incorrect.

I'd prefer you reply here. Thanks John of Cromer (talk) mytime= Fri 19:26, wikitime= 11:26, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

@Johnmperry: Both category pages have a header containing a one-line description of their purpose, "This category contains pages that pass...". I haven't met these categories before, so I can't really answer your questions. Both categories were created by Jackmcbarn (talk · contribs) [ping!] who presumably knows more about them. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:38, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

@Johnmperry: Category:Pages using deprecated coordinates format is to find infoboxes where people pass in a premade coordinates template. This is bad, because the infobox can't use this kind of coordinates to generate a map. Instead, the individual coordinates should be passed in and the infobox itself should generate the coordinates template. Category:Pages using deprecated map format, similarly, is to find infoboxes where people pass in a premade map template. This is bad because it results in duplication of the coordinate data (once for the map, and once for the coordinates template). Again, the fix is to pass the parameters directly to the infobox template, and let it generate the map. Let me know if that makes sense. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:41, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

I think some examples would help! Are you saying "Don't use {{coord}} within an infobox?" 112.198.77.28 (talk) 10:42, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

@Johnmperry and Jackmcbarn: Yes, I think that's the message. But this discussion would work better at Template talk:Coord, where the right people would see it. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:26, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Me again, again

I have been editing anonymously since July / August. However I am coming under increasing attack for so doing (from young whippersnappers mainly). I am really reluctant to use my account. Is there any way I can either change its name, or create a second account (which would carry forward all the previous info, mainly seniority)? Nil carborundum - (J of C) 112.198.82.85 (talk) 02:08, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

I second the advice by Sky Harbor. Having a variable IP address does indeed make it harder for other editors to work with you, as it's never clear whether today's edits to article A are being made by the same person who made yesterday's edits to article B. And Sky Harbor (talk · contribs) is not a "young whippersnapper"; he's been editing here since 2005. Currently you are less anonymous editing as an IP than if you'd logged in, since by signing here as "J of C" anyone can work out your registered account name. If you stay logged in then at least you keep each session's IP address hidden.

You can change the name of your account - see Wikipedia:Changing username - and this will transfer all your old contributions to the new name. The link back to the old account name will be obvious from the rename log and from all the signatures left by your contributions to talk pages, as they won't be updated to reflect the new name. Currently your account name isn't the same as the name displayed in your signature; renaming your account to match the "J of C" signature would tidy up this potential confusion.

I don't recommend creating a second account that isn't clearly linked to your old account, unless you start again in an entirely new topic area. That's described at Wikipedia:Clean start. A "clean start" often turns out badly, because someone will work out fairly soon that new account X is actually old account Y.

As an aside, your report at WP:AIV didn't "just vanish", it's just that declined reports are deleted from the page fairly quickly. Your report was declined with this comment. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:39, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll investigate the name change route. But I don't live there these days. I wasn't referring to him, but to a new editor who pays no attention to Wikipedia style guides, reverts without explanation, and doesn't seem to know of good faith, much less WP:WIP Unbuttered parsnip (talk) mytime= Thu 00:05, wikitime= 16:05, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Grammar advice sought (or do I mean syntax?)

This sentence: Batuan's working age or economically active population age 15-64, comprises 58% of its total population, while its dependent population, aged 0–14 and 65 yrs and above, comprises 42%.

I'm inclined to remove the "of", making it "...comprises 58% its total population..." What do you think? Unbuttered parsnip (talk) mytime= Fri 10:57, wikitime= 02:57, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Maybe I'll rework it to remove some clumsiness:

Its total population comprises 58% working age or economically active population age 15-64; 42% dependent population, aged 0–14 and 65 yrs and above.

Unbuttered parsnip (talk) mytime= Fri 14:12, wikitime= 06:12, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

This second version is better. The <big thing> comprises <the little things> -- John of Reading (talk) 06:19, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Market data

I've got some good news regarding the market data panel, I can write a bot to load the text from this page on the Portal:Business and economics/Market Indices, but for this to work we would need to have a template here on wikipedia with the same syntax.

link to discussion Lbertolotti (talk) 03:35, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Replied there -- John of Reading (talk) 07:41, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

South Coast Meetup

Hi John, you are hereby invited to the South Coast Meetup.

Kind Regards -- Marek.69^talk 18:28, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

@Marek69: Thank you for the invite, but this is too far for me to manage easily. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:54, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

OK, no probs John. Maybe we'll meetup at another event :-)

Best Regards -- Marek.69^talk 21:20, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Halloween cheer!

Happy Halloween!

Hello John of Reading:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!
– NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 14:17, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Send Halloween cheer by adding {{subst:Happy Halloween}} to user talk pages with a friendly message.

I like that adapted Wikipedia globe! Thanks! -- John of Reading (talk) 15:39, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Bot edit period

What's a "One time run" bot edit period?Lbertolotti (talk) 15:41, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

@Lbertolotti: It means that my batch of proposed edits only needs to happen once. Your task needs to be specified as "once per day" or whatever. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:03, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

@John of Reading: My code is working and I've submitted the bot request, however how the code will run automatically?

@Lbertolotti: It varies from bot to bot. The one that archives the Help desk is set running run by the bot operator each day, on his own machine, so when he is away/ill/busy the task doesn't happen. Other bot tasks run on the Wikimedia Labs machine(s) and, I think, can be set running by a scheduler. I haven't explored that side of bot operation at all. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:07, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Question about do not archive

Hi, John - you responded to my original query on Village Pump Tech regarding archive options, but I have one more question. Can I use auto archive on an article's talk page? If so, will it archive the headers, or does the bot ignore the header templates? I'll be using the Misza Bot config. like I'm using on my talk page. If it does archive the headers, is there a way I can use the "Do not archive until" template to prevent them from being archived? Atsme☯^Consult 21:10, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

@Atsme: In short: yes, the archiving bots are happy to work with article talk pages as well; the bots don't touch anything before the first == Level two heading ==; and Template:DNAU works on article talk pages too. See Help:Archiving a talk page for full details. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:27, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, John. Hope you had a fun Halloween! Atsme☯^Consult 09:02, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Intrusive interest bordering on oppressive

Some of my recent edits seem to have incurred the wrath of a number of Manila-based editors. That led to 36 hours in the sin bin, along with one of them. I also queried the basis on which Maribojoc Church received GA status. I could tell you why here, but it's irrelevant. What has happened today though (I'm 8 hours in front of you), is that that editor (admin maybe) has taken a close interest in my edits, and reverted two without explanation, until I sought it. I can't help feeling I'm being singled out for special attention. Is there any way / anywhere I can post a notice about it? Unbuttered parsnip (talk) mytime= Thu 14:41, wikitime= 06:41, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

I assume you are talking about CaroleHenson (talk · contribs)? [ping!] Since she left you a standard welcome template, my guess is that she didn't realise that you are an established user with a newly-renamed account - you haven't made that obvious on your new user or user talk page. But that's only a guess. She's not an admin, by the way. One way to check an editor's user rights is to type the account name into Special:ListUsers

I've been out of action for a couple of days, visiting my daughter in Durham; since the last section on your talk page is headed "Great teamwork!" I'll assume this has been resolved. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:17, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I have little control over what others write on my talk page, but basically, I had to spend eight hours defending my changes to two inconsequential web pages, at the end of which the outcome was almost exactly how I'd left it. I particularly object to editors such as her who quote the wrong policy/rule (for instance WP:BOLD V MOS:BOLD) or only part of an instruction (e.g. the validity of using ISO 3166-2 codes for region_code in an infobox). Also, ignoring policies or not understanding them. Such as WP:CAPITALS, WP:OVERLINK, WO:ROC, WP:Abbreviations#Abbreviations_widely_used_in_Wikipedia and of course WP:EDITORIALIZING and WP:OWNERSHIP.

[page stalker since I saw my name here]. We certainly see this quite differently - and I thought we worked through items amicably.--CaroleHenson (talk) 16:00, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Not particularly her, but I despair when editors seemingly unable to form a single syntactically correct sentence are praised for producing a page which for the most part looks like a direct crib from a freely-available pamphlet, often without even understanding what they're copying. (See Punta Cruz Watchtower then tell me what a "perfect isosceles triangle" is – isosceles triangle doesn't know.)

And as regards WP:PRIVACY and WP:HARASSMENT, there is a small Manila-based group who offer lines like this:

I hear you 112.198.82.71, 112.198.77.28. See Wikipedia talk:Tambayan Philippines#Infobox changes by IP editor. I have been watching you.--RioHondo (talk) 15:49, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

or this

Another one of johnmperry or above IP editor's little games i see. ...--RioHondo (talk) 13:21, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

or this

Welcome again to Wiki Johnmperry! Good to see you editing Maribojoc Church. Oops, you did not change Maribojoc Church to Maribojoc church just like Loboc church? --Carlojoseph14 (talk) 14:48, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

(when johnmperry may or may not be me)

Incidentally that user RioHondo seems to have pursued a renaming policy of his own, or "removing disambiguation" as he calls it, which is why "Silion Island" became Silion which clashed with an article with the same name deleted two years before. (Perhaps the renaming bot should be extended to check for that.) He has also merged Cebu Island with Cebu (i.e. Cebu province): they are not the same thing.

I could go on, but I won't.

My nephew read his first degree in Durham – Latin & Greek, then went on to a Master's in Edinburgh, also in Latin & Greek. Now he's a suit in the city! Unbuttered parsnip (talk) mytime= Mon 21:37, wikitime= 13:37, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I would need some kind of personality transplant before I could give advice on resolving issues like these. -- John of Reading (talk) 13:57, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Party funding in Austria

Hi, I have checked your improvements but I was not able to identify major problems. If there are some, please let me know. If not, thanks for your effort! Khnassmacher (talk) 17:21, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for checking my spelling correction. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:24, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

RE: Copyright violation

See my reponse on my talk page User_talk:Danski14#Path_integral_molecular_dynamics Danski14^(talk) 20:33, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for November 15

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Chota Char Dham, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Tirupathi. 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) 10:54, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Done -- John of Reading (talk) 17:27, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

New page

Hi, I have a text can not send you to see what's missing and tell me .. I am from Serbia SrpskiMateraci (talk) 21:26, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

@AcaMateraci: Hi! This is the English-language Wikipedia; if you want to create an article here it must be written in Eglish. If you want to write an article in Serbian you should visit the Serbian Wikipedia, or Bosnian at the Bosnian Wikipedia. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:43, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Mission Succesfull

Hi. I've spotted a spelling error in this image:

It took all of two minutes to create a corrected version... and half an hour of searching to find out that, not being autoconfimed, I'm not allowed to upload it. Anyway, I happened to notice that you corrected the spelling of the page text a few months ago. Is there any chance that you could fix the image too? 78.146.212.160 (talk) 14:59, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Well spotted! I've edited the image with GIMP and uploaded the correction. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:05, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. 78.146.211.231 (talk) 18:53, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

A beer for you!

Good to meet you at the Science Museum Late on Wednesday. Since volunteers were not supposed to drink while on duty, here is a beer to make up for it! Arthur goes shopping (talk) 12:58, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! I enjoyed the evening very much, and was home just before midnight. -- John of Reading (talk) 13:07, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Clan leslie

I would appreciate some help in keeping the Clan leslie website factual and transparent.Would you be able to help---- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lickleyhead (talk • contribs) 16:00, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

@Lickleyhead: I don't think I can be much help, sorry, as I don't know anything about the subject and don't have copies of the books listed as sources. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:10, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia genealogy project

Just wondering if you have any thoughts re: the idea of WMF hosting a genealogy project. If so, feel free to contribute to this discussion. And apologies if I have made this request before. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 18:17, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello John of Reading

Could you please explain to me how to fix the citation that you ever so thoughtfully pointed out to me on the Paul Johnson calderon page?

Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by PaulReid1985 (talk • contribs) 09:51, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I made the red error message go away by adding the missing </ref> tag. The next step is to hide the URLs and instead display the web page titles; I've done that for you in my last two edits. The final reference doesn't appear to work, though - is that the right URL? -- John of Reading (talk) 10:04, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm still a bit confused, but Let me know if there is anything else I can do! I truly appreciate your helping me! — Preceding unsigned comment added by PaulReid1985 (talk • contribs) 10:18, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

@PaulReid1985: I think the next thing to do is wait 24 hours. I see from the article history and the talk page that there's been some disagreement over whether Calderon is sufficiently notable for a Wikipedia page to exist about him. I'll let the regular editors decide whether your new references are enough. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:05, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thank you for your help! PaulReid1985 (talk) 10:16, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! -- John of Reading (talk) 10:46, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for mentoring me through all of this! You're the best! 6:11am, 11 December 2014 best, PaulReid1985 — Preceding unsigned comment added by PaulReid1985 (talk • contribs) 11:11, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't for the life of me know how to send a message, normally without posting to your page... I was wondering if you know how I could insert a picture? Best, PaulReid1985 — Preceding unsigned comment added by PaulReid1985 (talk • contribs) 11:15, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

@PaulReid1985: This page is the usual way to send a message to a Wikipedia editor - though, yes, I did receive your email. For more help see Help:Using talk pages, though you're doing fine so far!

For help with pictures see the Wikipedia:Picture tutorial. But to add a picture to the Calderon article, you'd first need to find one that was released under a suitable license - any picture you find on the web is likely to be subject to copyright restrictions and therefore unusable here. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:22, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Twinkle Red Rollback

Hey John, I was hoping to get your feedback about this matter I previously brought up at WT:TW, specifically about adding some additional functionality/purpose to the red Vandal rollback link. I really think this is something we should float to the many Twinkle users out there, but you're the only person who has responded. Do you have any idea what the appropriate forum is for this discussion? RfC? At the very least I think what would be of tremendous help is the ability to add an edit summary, so other users can understand the rationale for the bright red rollback. It's unclear to me if the red rollback does anything special, like notify one of the anti-vandal bots that there might be bad faith afoot, but if not, the ability to add summaries should help other users, and there's no clear reason why this isn't happening. Anyhow, I appreciate your thoughts before I pursue. Feel free to respond here, I'll watchlist your talk page. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 03:32, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

@Cyphoidbomb: The other technical difference between the two buttons is what happens if the "vandal" has made another edit after the one you are looking at. The middle button aborts its action: Twinkle can't tell whether your reason for reverting is still relevant, now that the page has changed again. The right button rolls back the new edit without you even seeing it.

Looking at my contributions in the Portal/Portal talk namespaces, where I do most of my reverting, I use the right button about 20% of the time, the middle button 80% of the time, and the left button not at all. My edit summary with the middle button usually makes it clear whether I think the edit was a good-faith edit or not.

I don't think the right button should prompt for an edit summary as the worst edits need dealing with quickly. One possibility would be a configuration option where a Twinkle user could pre-configure an edit summary for the right button. But even then, with hindsight I'm not sure that I would bother to set one up; experienced users reviewing the page history will know that the right button was used. That configuration option would be an ordinary feature request which wouldn't need an RFC, I think, since there would be no change in behaviour for most Twinkle users.

The choice of middle/right button does not feed into ClueBot's algorithms, but ClueBot does take note of any recent templated warnings on the user's talk page. If there are recent templated warnings, ClueBot will take a firmer line with borderline cases. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:41, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Aha! I will ruminate. Much obliged for the explanation. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 15:02, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for December 17

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Eurasian Economic Union, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Intergovernmental. 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) 09:02, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Fixed, though the bot has notified the wrong editor in this case. Odd. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:54, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Here's another barnstar ...

		The Invisible Barnstar
		For your tireless efforts to keep the non-article namespaces free from vandal and test edits! Super Mario Man ( talk ) 15:50, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! Yes, I've been watching over the portal and help namespaces for about four years now. There are too many edits to categories and templates for a similar "recent changes" effort to be practical, but I have many of them on my watchlist. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:06, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Articles with untypeable names

What can I do about: Draft:؟olleH I think its whole raison d'être is its silliness. But there are other pages with names in non-Latin alphabet, e.g.
Draft:Hussein Mahmoud Khairy حسين محمود خيرى which in addition has part of it in ltr text and part in rtl. What to do? --Unbuttered parsnip (talk) mytime= Fri 16:51, wikitime= 08:51, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

@Unbuttered Parsnip: If they are in the draft namespace, I wouldn't bother to rename them. If and when the page is accepted and moved to mainspace, the reviewer will choose an appropriate name. As for fixing the citation errors, I guess that fixing them will make it easier for the reviewer to check their quality and accept or decline as appropriate. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:55, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Seasonal Greets!

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2015 !!!

Hello John of Reading, May you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New year 2015.
Happy editing,
The Herald : here I am 13:53, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to user talk pages with a friendly message.

Thank you! -- John of Reading (talk) 13:55, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi

Please take a look at the article Carolina Neurath. Any help is welcomed. :) Merry Christmas to you.--BabbaQ (talk) 18:50, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Merry Merry

To you and yours

FWiW Bzuk (talk) 21:53, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! -- John of Reading (talk) 21:55, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

A very merry Christmas

– to one of the most helpful Wikipedians. Chris the speller ^yack 22:45, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Chris! -- John of Reading (talk) 05:02, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Happy New Year John of Reading!

Happy New Year!

John of Reading,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:01, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year 2015}} to user talk pages.

Thank you very much! Happy New Year to you also. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:39, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Dear John of Reading,
HAPPY NEW YEAR Hoping 2015 will be a great year for you! Thank you for your contributions!
From a fellow editor,
--FWiW Bzuk (talk)

This message promotes WikiLove. Originally created by Nahnah4 (see "invisible note").

Thank you! I wish you many happy edits. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:29, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for January 4

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Enrique Roldán, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Villains. 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) 09:01, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Fixed -- John of Reading (talk) 09:05, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Cricket Glossary

Hi John,

I am writing you because you're the last and most recent updater on the Cricket Glossary. I'd just like to bring to your attention that ODI is not listed there. Thought perhaps you'd like to add it to the glossary.

thanks, Simon — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonasion (talk • contribs) 10:10, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

@Jonasion: Good idea! I've added it as a "see ..." entry, since "One Day International" is listed. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:17, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

The Queen's Colour/Colours

Hello, and a very Happy New Year to you. Belated, but heartfelt.

I am finding "the Queen's Colour" in some articles which have "Colour" or "Honour" in the title. The Queen's Colour reads awkwardly; the Queen's Colours reads smoothly. Would you please put it on your list? Thank you. Respectfully, Tiyang (talk) 17:13, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

@Tiyang: I'm not sure about this, as I think the singular form may be correct sometimes. The ceremony has always been called "Trooping the Colour". I suggest you ask the experts at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Heraldry and vexillology. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:21, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I am aware of the singular usage when referring to the ceremony. It was in other articles where the singular did not flow smoothly because of the sentence structure. If I find it again, I will let you know. Respectfully, Tiyang (talk) 16:42, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for January 11

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that you've added some links pointing to disambiguation pages. 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.

Canada Vignettes

added a link pointing to The Veteran

List of RTO districts in India

added a link pointing to Coming Soon

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 08:49, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Fixed -- John of Reading (talk) 09:10, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

[1] B. Mandelbrot, The Pareto-Lévy Law and the Distribution of Income, International Economic Review 1960 http://www.jstor.org/stable/2525289

[1]