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Your input

John, does this make sense to you? If so can you explain the reason for lower case 'latinized'. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 22:17, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Here is a handy link to several online dictionaries. Most have it with an uppercase "L", but Merriam-Webster merely says it is "often capitalized". -- John of Reading (talk) 06:50, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

False positives file

John, Do you use the false positives file? Do you have a file that you could share? Here is my false positives file after the first day, if you want to copy it hit edit, copy and paste into your txt file. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 19:39, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

No, I don't use the false positives button at all. If I'm working on a long list of articles with the same typo, I'll compile Find+Replace rules that automatically skip some of them (details). But I don't bother to keep a permanent record of those that I skipped. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:51, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, because false positives occur around 1 in 500 articles having such a list doesn't help a lot. By the way, I don't consider every article I skip a false positive, many are skipped in situations that are undetermined. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 08:50, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
On a related note. Do you mark articles with {{not a typo}}, {{sic}} or {{lang}} or similar. Is that worth doing or just leave them? Regards, SunCreator (talk) 09:41, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm using Find & Replace, so I'm finding typos even where the standard typo fixer won't look, including quotes and web page titles. If I find a typo in a quote or web page title I'll often try to verify it, and either correct a mistake, mark it with {{sic}} if it's from the original, or with {{sic|?}} if I don't know. There are five or six [sic]s in my last 250 article edits.
I don't often add {{not a typo}} or {{lang}}. If the typo fixer has made a mistake I turn it off and re-process the page; that way "my" typo gets fixed even if some others don't. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:34, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
I understand and it makes sense. You are doing the non-standard typos, the ones that AWB misses. I'm trying to do the ones it gets, but make sure they are right and not be delayed by false positive. {{Not a typo}} will be invaluable long term, already false positives run at around 10% of real typos and they will only rise as a percent as real typos are removed. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 22:55, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Portal:Serer : Can you please help?

Hi John, I am having problems with the Portal:Serer. I only renamed it to Portal:Serer people and nothing else but it would appear that I've lost all the pages. Well most of them anyway. I've tried purging but the problem is still the same. Is not even allowing me to undo my edit. Can you help? Thanks.Tamsier (talk) 11:06, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

You should be able to move the page back again, as far as I can see. Or to complete the renaming you would need to rename these 29 sub-pages. I don't have any easy way to do that, though I believe an admin might be able to move them all at once. Would you like me to try undoing the move, or completing the move? -- John of Reading (talk) 11:18, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
That would be appreciated thank you so much. Yes please go ahead. Comple the move. Thanks. I hate technical stuff.Tamsier (talk) 11:22, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
EDIT : I will remove the help tag I have added on my user page before somebody else edit clash with yours.
OK, let's try the admin route first... -- John of Reading (talk) 11:28, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

{{adminhelp}} Per Wikipedia:Moving a page#Automating multiple page moves, can an admin complete this portal move by renaming the subpages? -- John of Reading (talk) 11:28, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Never mind, Tamsier has started to move them by hand. I'll join in... -- John of Reading (talk) 12:37, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
 Done one at a time. The 29 pages are now here. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:55, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Hello John, thank you so much. Well I started to move them by hand but after moving two and saw that nothing happened, I decided to take a cigarette break and clear my head. Thank you so much for your help. Best regards.Tamsier (talk) 13:06, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Two article typos I can't bring myself to save.

Take a look in AWB at these.

Let me know if you think they are correct or not, if AWB is correct I may need to go read up on why! Regards, SunCreator (talk) 23:00, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

I can just about fathom out the first one, but the second completely baffles me. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 23:19, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
At Food security, the first of the two typo rules named "Men's" tries to do something clever, but isn't clever enough. I'll have a think about it. The second example needed more than a typo fix - garbage in, garbage out - and I have reworded the sentence entirely. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:52, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Typo day

I've been having a Typo run today. Do you think typos are less common then they used to be? Regards, SunCreator (talk) 22:07, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the typo rules at WP:AWB/T are finding fewer typos recently. This is because some editors have revived Wikipedia:WikiProject TypoScan, a systematic effort to fix all the typos that AWB's typo fixer can fix. So if you are relying on the AWB typo fixer, you might as well join in with the TypoScan project.
One way I find more typos is to read the text near the places that the AWB typo-fixer has found an error. There are likely to be other, more unusual, errors nearby, that aren't covered by the AWB rules. Then you can create a list of articles with "Wiki text search" and fix them with "Find & Replace".
Or have a look through the Wikipedia:Lists of common misspellings to find typos with more than one possible fix. Those can't be included in the list at WP:AWB/T because half the time the suggested fix would be wrong. For example, one typo I'm currently working on is "beared", which I'm changing to bore/borne/bearded as the context requires.
Also, the AWB typo fixer deliberately doesn't try to find typos in headings, quotations, other text that it thinks might be a quotation, external links, and references. For those you need "Find & Replace"; and, of course, judgement as to whether the typos should be fixed or merely be marked with a {{sic}}.
There are more ideas at User:John of Reading/Typo fixing with AutoWikiBrowser. Good luck! -- John of Reading (talk) 11:40, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
One idea. I'd recommend using the pre-parse mode (Options -> Use pre-parse mode), create big lists and leave AWB running(when doing other things, even overnight?) in pre-parse mode to condense the list. Then set pre-parse mode off and manually check through resulting articles. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 14:34, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I sometimes use pre-parse mode too. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:35, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
As well as 'the the' other double short word combinations appear a lot, i.e. 'was was', 'and and'. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 23:00, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Take extra care with multi-word typos, though. This was a mistake which I happened to see on my watchlist. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:45, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Lists of common misspellings doesn't seem to have a capitalisation section. Can't add them to AWB/T but some to check are "twitter=>Twitter" and "itv=>ITV". Regards, SunCreator (talk) 11:54, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
A sprinkling of capitalisation errors are mixed in with the main lists. I've added "twitter" to the "T" list. I won't add "itv" because it doesn't seem very common. I've added it to my to-do list so that it will be part of my next database scan. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:39, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Forgot to say that there is a "Twitter" rule at WP:AWB/T, but the rule only acts when the following word makes it 100% certain that the phrase is talking about the website. Budgerigars twitter in lowercase. A rule for "ITV" would be very tricky, because ITV (disambiguation) lists several possibilities. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:44, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Previously edited page

Hi John, there are some updates to the Devi Nampiaparampil page. It has links to it from Sharecare and from Facebook. If they look okay to you, do you mind removing the orphan tag you had added earlier? Regards! Reeseskupp (talk) 19:08, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Devi Nampiaparampil (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
That "orphan" tag needs to stay, because there are no links to the page from other Wikipedia articles. See Wikipedia:Orphan for more details. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:14, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Need help with template

Hi John, I needed some help modifying a template. I posted the request on the Help Desk, but I figured it'd be faster if I ask you directly. Here's the query I posted. Could you help? I'm really bad at this template stuff. Thanks! Lynch7 15:18, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

OK, I'll have a look at it. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:21, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
Have a look at User:John of Reading/X1. The top infobox uses the current coding, and the bottom one uses my new coding. Is that OK? I've just bolded the labels and added a "consulgeneral" parameter. If that's OK I'll copy my coding into the real template. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:32, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
Looks perfect. Thank you very much! Lynch7 15:35, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
 Done The new parameter is "consul_general" - I noticed that the high_commissioner parameter uses an underscore, so followed that example. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:40, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Brilliant Idea Barnstar
HI Ringkhuanlung (talk) 17:31, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure which idea you are referring to, since this is the first edit you've made after registering this account. But thank you anyway! I've left you some introductory links on your talk page. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:06, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Editor's Barnstar
Thank you for your contributions at the Help Desk! Electriccatfish2 (talk) 21:20, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
Thank you - 1953 contributions and counting! -- John of Reading (talk) 21:24, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Special Barnstar
Thank you very much in archiving my talk page. Max Viwe | Viwe The Max 22:01, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
Thank you - though it took me a few goes to get it right! -- John of Reading (talk) 05:46, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

A beer for you!

this is a thx to u and message me when u get this sooooooooooo thx for the hard work u have done bye wwecenarules 06:35, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
Thank you! I hope you settle in well here. Happy editing! -- John of Reading (talk) 06:39, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Book:Arkansas Confederate Infantry Units

Thanks very much for the attention that you have paid to the articles in Book:Arkansas Confederate Infantry Units! I do have an issue that you may be able to help with. I would like to exclude the Infobox military unit from printing in the book. I have tried to ensure that anything comvered in the Infobox is included in the prose of the article. The Templates just take up too much room in print. Headbomb had helped me do a simular thing for the template Arkansas Confederate Infantry Regiments, but he seems to have dropped off the net for a while. I think he did this by adding an exclude in print tag to the template but I am not sure. Can you help with this? Thanks. Aleutian06 (talk) 16:07, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

I found Headbomb's edit, which just added a category. Unfortunately you can't do the same thing to Template:Infobox military unit because it is used by over 13000 articles, not just those in your book.
But you can achieve the same thing by editing each article, wrapping the infobox inside the {{Hide in print}} template. I've just tried this with this edit to one of my sandbox pages, and it works. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:25, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
Outstanding! Thanks! Aleutian06 (talk) 18:15, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

New Message for you, re adding edit code glossary on edit help pages

Hello I replied to your message on my talk page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:67.160.137.69#Your_question_on_.22eo.22

Delete Permission for this section The User of this talk page, has my permission to delete this section titled
"New Message for you, re adding edit code glossary on edit help pages" on this talk page.
I was not sure if my permission was required for someone to delete sections on there own talk page. I just gave this permission as a courtesy, so the other person can keep there talk page clean from to much clutter.
67.160.137.69 (talk) 04:28, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, I've seen your reply. For future reference, there's no need to give "deletion" permission for talk page posts, as users are allowed to delete old material from their talk pages if they wish. That's at "Personal talk page cleanup" in the Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. -- John of Reading (talk) 05:57, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Preference notice re deleting vs archiving
I thought i would put this notice, since it said on the talk page guidelines page that deleting is permitted, but most editors prefer archiving. My purpose was to say that I have no preference in archiving, when it comes to this section. If i have no preference, should i state that i have no preference, or is it necessary.?Thanks
If you reply, please notify me on my talk page.
67.160.137.69 (talk) 06:32, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Oh, I see. I think that "most editors prefer archiving" is shorthand for "most established editors prefer to archive the discussions on their talk pages, rather than merely delete them". So when you post on this page, it is up me to decide whether the post should be deleted or archived (and, as it happens, I've set the page up so that everything is archived automatically). I've never seen anyone else state a deletion/archiving preference when making a talk page post; I wouldn't bother to do this in future. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:48, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Interpretation of "Most editors prefer archiving." TalkPageGuidline page
Hello, You have been helpful, so if you feel this is a redundant topic for you, then feel free to disregard my comment. I just thought i would let you know how this statement came across to me. I think how i interpreted this comment "most editors prefer archiving" on the talk page guideline page. I interpreted the statement this way: "Most Editors that make entries on your talk page, would prefer that you archive there entries on your talk page in your archive instead of deleting them". I assumed this paragraph was commenting for my talk page. Thanks again for your time.
If you reply, please notify me on my talk page.
67.160.137.69 (talk) 15:06, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

More Barnstar for you

The Special Barnstar
For taking the time to help with portal:Serer people. Always there when people need your help. People like you should be administrators. I would have no hesitation supporting you if ever you decide to become one. Thanks and keep up the great work. Tamsier (talk) 15:28, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Occasionally the extra tools would be useful, but I'm know I wouldn't get through WP:RFA in its current form, and I'm not going to try. But thank you for your !vote of confidence! -- John of Reading (talk) 15:35, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Henry Marshall Furman

Your "correction" from "builded" to "built" altered an accurate quote from the original source material. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Juris77 (talk • contribs) 17:18, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Mea culpa. I was fooled by the nested blockquote tags. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:35, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Your reversion to Help:Searching

Sorry but I don't understand your reversion of my Help:Search clarification. If I do an Advanced Search for web browsers and check only "Category" then at the top of the search results I find the Category page Web browsers, containing the articles ("pages") and the subcategories that belong to this category. So checking "Category" does indeed find Category (page) names, doesn't it? LittleBen (talk) 16:23, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

I think that This search finds Category:Web browsers, and the others, only because the words "web browsers" appear on the category page itself - where it says {{Commons cat|Web browsers}}. I'll look around to see if I can find an example to confirm or deny this. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:26, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
(More) You are right, but not 100% right. The search looks at the category name and at the content of the category page. Thus this search finds Category:Masorti rabbis even though the category page does not mention the word "Masorti" anywhere; while this search finds a category that happens to include that text in the description at the top of the page.
So I apologise for revising your edit. Can you come up with some words to cover both cases? -- John of Reading (talk) 16:38, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
(More again) Given the complexity, I'd prefer the previous wording that concentrates on why you might want to click Advanced: "To search in any subset of namespaces, click Advanced on the search form" -- John of Reading (talk) 16:59, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
I have attempted to explain why I think it's so important that users know how to search for existing category names here. It beggars belief that a Wikipedia search does not include the Category namespace, and not finding existing articles and existing categories results in (1) people creating articles with different names but duplicate content to existing articles, and in (2) article naming and category naming being inconsistent. That's why I think it's so important.
I have tried to clarify how to research existing category names here as well.
It beggars belief that one has to click through three levels of search boxes in order to find something as important as Categories. But until somebody fixes this, the best workaround is surely to explain the unintuitive procedure adequately. ;-) Best regards, and keep up the good work. LittleBen (talk) 17:51, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I see where you're coming from! No one has yet revised my revision of your words, so the Help:Searching page currently says "...such as the Category pages...". On reflection, I think that is consistent with the actual behaviour of an advanced search in the category namespace. Will that do? -- John of Reading (talk) 19:30, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes, that's fine, John.
Given the importance of Category search, and the fact that few people can work out how to do it, surely it would make a lot of sense to alias the Category search button up one level (to the same level as the Advanced search button) so that one doesn't have to know to click on the Advanced search button in order to to find it?
Do you think it would be feasible to persuade someone to include Category search in basic search? That would be even better. It would make it so much easier to find related stuff without having to know how to do a Category search. LittleBen (talk) 22:28, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
You could suggest it at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). -- John of Reading (talk) 06:32, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
I put a similar suggestion here (down the bottom, just above "Can we do both")   LittleBen (talk) 13:11, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, and another question

With your assistance in formatting citations I made the Soviet-Albanian Split article. My next question is: how do you cite journal articles? I made a sentence in my sandbox, the "[1]" should be replaced with an actual citation in the style of book citations if possible. --Ismail (talk) 18:55, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I've edited your sandbox. Can you see how that works? -- John of Reading (talk) 19:13, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes, thank you once more. --Ismail (talk) 20:04, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Book talk:Arkansas Confederate Infantry Units

John

You once did me a very great favor and ran through the entire Book talk:Arkansas Confederate Infantry Units. Since then I have done a pretty massive re-write of most of the articles. Could I persuade you to make another run through the book when you have time? Thanks! Aleutian06 (talk) 05:18, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Gulp! OK... -- John of Reading (talk) 06:51, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Have checked all these a few days back after Aleutian06 gave me a barnstar in response to a "battalion" typo check involving many of these articles. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 08:52, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
I've made a start. I've copyedited from the 20th to the 29th, and used AWB to re-apply the fixes to the rest of the book where applicable. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:48, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the great work! Aleutian06 (talk) 16:10, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Done from 30th to the 39th similarly. It's a pity that my browser is blocking history-sites.com as a "reported attack page". -- John of Reading (talk) 10:08, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for all the help! Aleutian06 (talk) 13:40, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank You!

Thank You!
Thanks for your help....you make Wikipedia a better place!

RDN1F TALK 20:37, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

...well, I try to! -- John of Reading (talk) 20:43, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
Let me add my thanks for your help on the entry on Francis de Capillas. The edit had baffled me for nearly an hour until I had to move on to more pressing matters, like my real job. Daniel the Monk (talk) 16:06, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
I enjoy fixing articles in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting from time to time. Each one is a fresh puzzle to solve. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:57, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Help Desk

Thank you very much for your help.One last wish, Could you give me the name of Oversight who deleted history? I want little help from him. Iamthewinnerofthemonth (talk) 20:57, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Although I received an email reply from the oversighter responsible, it's signed with only a forename not a Wikipedia name, so I can't think of a way for you to contact him. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:03, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks a lot.I have put retired template on my talkpage and userpage.Is there anything additional to be done for quitting Wikipedia? Iamthewinnerofthemonth (talk) 21:18, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
No, those messages are clear. Fare Well! -- John of Reading (talk) 21:24, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi. When you recently edited Ghoraghata, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page TMC (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) 12:16, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

 Fixed -- John of Reading (talk) 13:56, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Mixed Greek Latin again?

If you have a chance could you refresh the data on User:Naraht/Mixed Greek Latin? No rush...

 Doing... - though my database dump is a month or two old. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:14, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 Done after a false start with a tick in the wrong box. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:04, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Leonardo

Here is a page from the Duc du Berry's book for the month of July

I cannot believe that you are still able to discover a spelling mistake, after so many people have picked over that article! Just remind me: is it Emporer or Emperor?

Amandajm (talk) 17:16, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Leonardo da Vinci (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
That's the wonder of computer-aided searches! Thank you for posting this splendid picture. And it's Emperor... -- John of Reading (talk) 17:21, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
;-) Amandajm (talk) 04:19, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

For fixing my signature at Talk:2008 Summer Olympics! It's been breaking templates all over the place because of the pipe, but I believe I've taken care of that. Thanks for all you do around here! Evanh2008 (talk|contribs) 21:58, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I typed a reply to your post at WP:VPT, only to find that DH85868993 (talk · contribs) had got there first. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:36, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the help

I realize this is over a year late, but still I feel I should give credit where credit is due, even if overdue.

The Guidance Barnstar
I want to thank you for your help with my problem with my watchlist. Nutster (talk) 13:41, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Thank you! -- John of Reading (talk) 16:03, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

in the news

Hi, i am a regular reader of wikipedia but not an editor. The indian movie star Rajesh Khanna just died and it should be in the news on the main page. please do the needful. thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.199.222.50 (talk) 20:22, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't have editing rights on the main page, so I can't help you directly. You should post at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:27, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
At Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#Rajesh_Khanna. Western reader don't know who Rajesh Khanna is; more the reason to have it listed imo. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 20:29, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
My mistake, I didn't see that it had already been suggested. Thanks. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:40, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Tennis tenmplate

Hi, I tried copying the lines from User:John of Reading/X3 into the {{GrandSlamEvents}} template but the layout goes awry. To be on the safe side could you add the relevant code to the template for me? Thx.--Wolbo (talk) 11:03, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

 Done and I've edited 2005 US Open – Women's Singles as a check. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:19, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Talk: Jobandtalent - Redirecting to a Wikipedia article in a different language than the host article

Thank you for your assistance! I was searching endlessly for that syntax.

Thanks again, Jordan.jobandtalent — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jordan.jobandtalent (talk • contribs) 16:39, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

A bowl of strawberries for you!

Thanks for letting me know about the TW preferences! WingtipvorteX PTT ∅ 21:11, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
They were delicious! -- John of Reading (talk) 21:13, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Re:Help

Hello John of Reading, Aris riyanto has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Go on, smile! Cheers, and happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Aris riyanto (talk) 07:48, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Lost password template

Just a heads up, WP:HDT includes {{lostpassword}} which you could use for situations like this. BigNate37(T) 07:54, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that would have done the job just as well. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:57, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

First ever Reading Wiki Meetup

You are invited to the first ever Reading Wiki Meetup which will take place at Copa, 76-78 Kings Road, Reading, RG1 3BJ on Sunday 23 September 2012 from 1.00 pm.

I hope as many people as possible will be able to attend so that we can make this a regular event. If you have never been to one, this is an opportunity to meet other Wikipedians in an informal atmosphere for Wiki and non-Wiki related chat and for beer or food if you like. Experienced and new contributors are all welcome. This event is definitely not restricted just to discussion of Berkshire related topics. Bring your laptop if you like and use the free Wifi or just bring yourself. Even better, bring a friend! Click the link for full details. Looking forward to seeing you. Philafrenzy (talk) 22:01, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Uploading new logo to site

Hi John, Thanks for helping with our new logo. The link is right, however the thumbnail and PNG file are still the old, green logo. How can I get these changed? This is the new logo: http://www.alvarion.com/upload/images/logo_alvarion.gif

This is the page where the .png and the thumbnail files are still incorrect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alvarion_logo.png

Appreciate your help with this - it is quite confusing for me... Alvarioncontent (talk) 09:34, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Both File:Alvarion logo.png and the Alvarion article are showing orange for me. Try bypassing your browser cache - that's Ctrl+F5 in many browsers - to see if that loads the latest copy for you. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:58, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes! Thank you! Done it is. Much appreciated, you don't know how long we have been struggling with that, you made it look so simple...thanks again. Alvarioncontent (talk) 10:36, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your help on Doreen Giuliano's page!

I was wondering what we can do to protect her page from this happening again. Please let me know- whatever it is we would also like to do to also protect her son, John Giuca's page as well.

Thank you.

Mdavis2 (talk) 18:47, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think any admin here would be willing to protect these pages after only one bad edit in several months. See Wikipedia:Protection policy, and especially the paragraph at WP:NO-PREEMPT. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:52, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you, John. Very kind. If you are so geekie I wonder if you could be also so helpful to address me to some wiki markup language website in order to create templates. If not forget it: it's just that I am not being able to find anything about it. Have a nice weekend. Maurice Carbonaro (talk) 09:43, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, there's Help:Template and Help:Magic words for starters. You may find it helpful to view the source for a few templates - perhaps try Special:Random/Template to pick random examples, skipping any that look too complicated. If you have specific questions then by all means ask them here, and I will try my best to help. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:50, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

a/an rule

Thanks for using the a/an replace rule from Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos/Extra. In the last day I've extended a number of exceptions Oaxaca/Oaxacan/of/unassuming/AAA(spoken triple A)/unassailable/uvula etcetera and made it faster. Note, both the rule and the replace part have changed. If you encounter any exceptions letting me know or adding them to User:Sun Creator/sandbox/An would be great. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 01:54, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Ah. Actually I did a one-off database scan for "a act" and "a up", and haven't used your rule at all. -- John of Reading (talk) 05:33, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
No sweat. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 14:14, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Sic tag

I noticed recently that MOS:QUOTE says "Trivial spelling or typographical errors should be silently corrected unless the slip is textually important." As typos come under that heading I've stopped adding the sic tag. Is there situations you use the sic tag for typos? Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 14:24, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of that MOS guideline. I use the {{sic}} tag occasionally. In my last 1000 edits I've used one [sic] for a mispelled web page title, and one [sic?] in the hope that someone will eventually check a spelling against a source. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:57, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
To add another thought. Grammar seems the gray area, even when we consider it part of a typo correction process. Changing "a old house" to "an old house" would be a grammatical change and therefore technically outside the scope of what can be silently corrected and thus a candidate to add {{sic}}. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 13:33, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for help in archiving

Hello! Thank you for taking care of the archiving problem that I faced. I am somewhat technically challenged person, and do not understand all the details of how this automated things work! Anyway, thanks a ton :) Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 23:27, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Copyeditor's Barnstar
Thanks for your sharp eye and great spelling skills! Hope you enjoyed "On This Day" as well! Marketdiamond (talk) 06:24, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
Thank you! The "preformed" at Portal:Pittsburgh/On this day/August 31 was just one of about 200 that I found using a database scan. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:36, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, John of Reading. You have new messages at I dream of horses's talk page.
Message added 18:03, 3 September 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

AWB talkback

Hello, John of Reading. You have new messages at Sun Creator's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 15:26, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Ping. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 12:34, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

sih

Could you use your database dump to find words 4 or more letters ending in sih. I think there are many but have no way to locate them - other then asking you ;-) Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 01:04, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, I'll give it a go later today. -- John of Reading (talk) 05:46, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
(More) I've posted a list of 1821 articles matching "sih\b" in User:John of Reading/X1. I don't have an efficient way to create a list of the relevant words in those articles, but if you use AWB's "Links on page" option you can copy the list into AWB and use it to improve the "-sih" spelling rule.
  • The list includes articles containing the three-letter word "sih", because I didn't bother to exclude them
  • The database scanner doesn't have an option to scan only the parts of the page that the typo-fixer will work on, so these articles include matches inside web addresses, quotations, and so on
-- John of Reading (talk) 09:49, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
Very good John. The reduced list is easy for me to resolve. Thank you for doing this! Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 11:59, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

I want to thank you for fixing some wiki-links in an article I partially translated from Dutch (Jo Voskuil). I didn't know the nice way to do internal links, so I learned something new! Marjoleinkl (talk) 06:25, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! You might like the Wikipedia:Cheatsheet and Help:Wiki markup. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:30, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Missing article link provided

Dear Sir:

I am totally new to editing. Hence, my apologies for wrong ostings.

The article I wanted to edit is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._N._Ramachandran

Thanks a lot.

--Nmarbus (talk) 12:04, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm not sure how to fix the problem, so I've copied your comment to Talk:G. N. Ramachandran. Maybe the regular editors of that article will know what to do. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:13, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Major Israel McCreight

Thank you John. You have a keen eye. Richlevine00 (talk) 16:06, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Most of the credit belongs to the countless editors who created Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos! -- John of Reading (talk) 16:10, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Errors on the Historical Anniversaries pages regarding Aviation

John --

I have noted very many errors over these last few months on the Historical Anniversaries pages for aviation, such as on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Aviation/Historical_anniversaries/September_in_aviation

An example is that the date of the founding of the USAF is September 18, 1947, but entries appeared for that on the 16th, 17th and 18th. I tried editing one, but am unsure if this is something welcomed or how I should do it.

As background, I publish a website called HistoricWings.com which is a leading aviation history website. We do a story for each day about some event from aviation's past. Whenever I reference the Wiki pages, however, it seems I notice something that is missing or wrong -- do you want us to help whenever we see something? Is this peer-reviewed or should we just start correcting when we see something?

Thomas. Historic Wings Magazine — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tvanhare (talk • contribs) 18:09, 15 September 2012‎

The usual advice on this is "Be bold"! If you see something on those portal pages that disagrees with the related Wikipedia article, then please do edit either the portal page or the article to bring both into agreement with what the external sources say. There is no formal peer-review process at Wikipedia; about 50 edits are made each minute, so it would be completely impractical.
Those portal pages would also be much improved if each entry had a blue link to the relevant Wikipedia article - I've just changed Zond 5 to [[Zond 5]] at Portal:Aviation/Historical anniversaries/September in aviation/September 15, and now it displays as a blue link Zond 5. But, before you spend hours doing that, check this chart to see how few people are actually looking at the page.
One rule here that might trip you up is that accounts should only be used by one person (WP:NOSHARE). If other people at Historic Wings want to help, they would be welcome too, but they should register their own account rather than sharing yours. OK?
Do come back here if you have any other questions. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:23, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for your help regarding my note to Cenarium. I posted my query on the Wiki Help page, as you suggested. --Mrwick1 (talk) 16:55, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

They dealt with it pretty quickly! -- John of Reading (talk) 18:09, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

The Donnington Collection

I have resubmitted the article and reworded it to meet your requirements - I am an employee of the combined military services museum but it seemed easier to resubmit than try to enable copyright. Cocklecanoe (talk) 10:05, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, your rewrite at User:Cocklecanoe/sandbox may be enough to get past the copyright issue. But for this to be accepted as a Wikipedia article, you need to show that the collection has received "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" - follow that link to read more. So far, the only independent coverage is the piece in the Maldon and Burnham Standard. I suspect that won't be enough, but I'll leave the decision to the usual reviewers. Has anyone else written about the collection? If there's any other coverage, it would be worth adding it to your draft. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:07, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

the problem i have is the collections existence until was unknown outside the MOD ,the negotiations of its release to the public domain were and are confidential and the openimng of the collection to public display was , because of its location hardly of huge newsworthiness . If the the museum itself was the subject of a wikipedia entry would this help verify things . Certainly its existence prior to release to the public was only ever shown in two sets of MOD accounts as far as information in the public domain is concerned. Cocklecanoe (talk) 11:31, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia only aims to report on things that have already been written about - it's not an advertising medium, however worthy the cause. If there's no significant news coverage yet, then there can't be an article. Once the museum is written about (news reports, guidebook entries, books on army/weapons history, who knows?) then someone might write an article on it. Since you are an employee, I suggest you look through the FAQ page for organisations, which explains the issues more clearly than I can. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:41, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

HI John!! Thanks!

Thank you John of Reading for introducing me to wikipedia. Umm... Could you help me find computer science courses? Thanks!!--Miquaz1 (talk) 22:55, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Er, not really! You could try googling for "computer science course", adding the name of your country, state or city. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:48, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks John!! I found some on wikiversity. And, I need some advice on creating my own portal about a certain type of robot. Thanks again!! --Miquaz1 (talk) 17:44, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean Portal:Lego Mindstorms? I don't think that has much of a future, really. A portal is supposed to be an introduction to a whole collection of Wikipedia articles - Portal:Science, Portal:Cornwall, Portal:Jane Austen, and so on. I think that Lego Mindstorms isn't a wide enough topic area - there's only one or two relevant articles (Lego Mindstorms, Lego and then what?). In fact, a portal with a very narrow topic area can be speedily deleted. Instead, I suggest you try nominating the Lego Mindstorms article for inclusion in the list at Portal:Robotics/Featured article. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:56, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean to create an article instead of a portal?? Thanks!! PS, how do I delete a page?? :O --Miquaz1 (talk) 20:43, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

For general advice on creating an article, see Wikipedia:Starting an article. But since there is already an article on Lego Mindstorms you should give that a careful read through and decide if you can improve it. Before adding large amounts of new stuff to it, you could perhaps make suggestions on the talk page, Talk:Lego Mindstorms. Anything you add will have to be backed up by references to reliable sources - see all those little footnote markers in the article? - so that readers can see for themselves where the information is coming from.
To ask for the page you created, Portal:Lego Mindstorms, to be deleted, the "proper" way is to add the code {{db-author}} to the top of the page and save it. That will display as a big red box that an administrator should spot fairly quickly. Or you could make the request here, and I'll add that code to the page for you. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:02, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

uhh... Thanks John, I think that you should add it for me. :D — Preceding unsigned comment added by Miquaz1 (talk • contribs) 21:07, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Also, I was showing somebody how to do italics on wikipedia, and I created a page by mistake called grapes101 and I want somebody to delete it for me before I get in trouble :o!! URGENT!!--Miquaz1 (talk) 00:37, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see this message earlier. I see from the deletion log that you managed to blank or tag it somehow. No harm done! -- John of Reading (talk) 21:06, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks John!! Miquaz1 (talk) 13:48, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

P.S How do you delete an account and, how do you change your user name? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Miquaz1 (talk • contribs) 00:04, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Accounts aren't deleted because of the licensing rules (see here). To change your user name, go to Wikipedia:Changing username. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:42, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Leyland Olympic

Thanks for visiting and spotting/fixing the typo Stephen Allcroft (talk) 12:50, 20 September 2012 (UTC)Stephen Allcroft

I saw "prouced" in one article a few weeks back and put it on my "to do" list. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:20, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Since you recently helped me with Portal:International relations, I was wondering if you could answer a few question for me about some of the portal fields. First, I am not really sure what kind of content is supposed to populate Portal:International relations/Topics. It seems that there would be a lot of overlap between topics and categories. Similarly, there is a field for 'Wikiprojects,' but I already have one for related Wikiprojects and portals. Do I need both? Finally, I am not really sure what to do with the 'tasks' list. The corresponding Wikiproject page for international relations lists a few items, but they are very generic. Should I just copy those as placeholder text for now, or would it be helpful for me to come up with some more specific to-do items (for instance, it would be great to see more developed articles on some of the influential IR theorists).

I hope I'm not asking too much of you, but you seem pretty familiar with how portals ought to work, and I am still on a pretty steep learning curve here. Thanks. Keihatsu (talk) 08:33, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Here's a listing of other portals with "Topics" boxes: [1]. But you are right: since you've done the categories list quite thoroughly, a matching "topics" list isn't going to add very much. It will be better for readers if you just remove the boxes you're not going to use, rather than creating place-holder text. The portal already has plenty of good content. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:44, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

First ever Oxford Wiki Meetup

You are invited to the first ever Oxford Wiki Meetup which will take place at The Four Candles, 51 George Street, Oxford, OX1 2BE on Sunday 4 November 2012 from 1.00 pm.

I hope as many people as possible will be able to attend so that we can make this a regular event. If you have never been to one, this is an opportunity to meet other Wikipedians in an informal atmosphere for Wiki and non-Wiki related chat and for beer or food if you like. Experienced and new contributors are all welcome. This event is definitely not restricted just to discussion of Oxford related topics. Bring your laptop if you like and use the free Wifi or just bring yourself. Even better, bring a friend! Click the link for full details. Looking forward to seeing you. Philafrenzy (talk) 21:43, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Notabillty

I used Wikipedia's powerful search engine to search for notabillty. It found ten. I edited seven of them. Just wanted to let you know. No response is necessary unless you have any questions about my edits. Respectfully, Tiyang (talk) 16:45, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I've had a look at your recent edits, and all your spelling fixes look good. Well done! I have two comments:
  • There's no need to type ~~~~ in your edit summary, as the software keeps track of who made each edit. I've rarely seen edit summaries as polite as yours!
  • I saw your comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New Jersey/Hudson County Task Force#Marion section, and the mention of the "three revert rule". That rule doesn't say that you can only edit an article twice. If you have made two edits to article and then see more ways to improve it, go ahead and make the edits. The rule only applies to situations where editors are disagreeing about an edit and keep undoing ("reverting") each other.
-- John of Reading (talk) 17:05, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
Thank you, John of Reading, for your thoughtful comments and compliments. A Bot chided me for not doing the tilde thing soon after I began Minor editing at Wikipedia. I began the practice of typing the tildes first and then pushing them across the page as I typed the Edit Summary. I am 72 and learning. One of the reasons for my comment for the Hudson County Task Force was to avoid stepping on their toes. I thank you again. (no tildes this time) Respectfully, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tiyang (talk • contribs) 17:52, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
Oops! I meant that there was no need to type ~~~~ in the edit summary box below the main editing window. It is customary to type them at the end of your comments, inside the main editing window, when using talk pages like this one. It's no big deal, though, as the bot comes along to fix it up. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:06, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

THANK YOOOUUU!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG! Thank you soooo much for all your help on my portal (Portal:Miley Cyrus)!!! Thank you! You are such a lifesaver! Thank you so much! No one else was really willing to help! So thank you. God bless you! :D Lopezjaylo98 (talk) 19:14, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
This is for the help and suggestions you gave me. Thank you. It is greatly appreciated. God bless! Lopezjaylo98 (talk) 20:39, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Thank you! -- John of Reading (talk) 21:05, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

'aly' help

John, if I gave you a very big Regex could you run a database dump to find mainspace articles like you did User:John of Reading/X1 for shi. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 00:55, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, of course. But it may be Monday before I get round to doing it. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:08, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. Monday would be perfect as quite a bit to do before the Regex will be ready. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 01:06, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
\b\S[a-z-]+aly\b(?![^\s\.]*\.\w)(?<!\.[^\s\.]*aly)(?<!\b([BDEHhMS]|Ma|Bab|Sheb|[CK]oulib|[Kk]oijb|[Tt]simb|[Tt]symb|presumb|Ob|Kub|Alc|[Ss]c|[Dd]|[DH]ad|Greich|[Kk]amchad|Med|Miller-Gid|[BJ]and|Khyrmand|Kharmand|Charmand|Tind|Kund|Kod|Od|[BDHFKMmNSY]e|[KMmSW]he|unahe|Rathe|Ballyhe|[Mm]ealy-mouthed|Sme|Conne|Glene|Ken?ne|Kinn?s?e|McNe|Kilte|[BCG]re|Ste|Sque|Que|[Yy]e|Mahaf|Off|Of|Orf|Ag|[MZ]ag|Shukyurag|[Mm]eg|[Cc]ardiomeg|[Ss]plenomeg|[Hh]epatosplenomeg|[Cc]litoromeg|[Hh]epatomeg|[Vv]entriculomeg|[Aa]cromeg|Beng|Karing|Karg|Al-Ah|Mafah|Ch|Mech|Verch|Gh|Fegh|Mih|Csikszentmih|[Aa]ceph|[Aa]nenceph|[Oo]xyceph|[Ee]nceph|[Mm]egalenceph|[Mm]icroenceph|[Mm]icrenceph|[Ss]chizenceph|[Dd]olichoceph|[Mm]icroceph|[Tt]rigonoceph|[Cc]ynoceph|[Tt]rigonoceph|[Mm]acroceph|[Hh]ydroceph|[Aa]utoceph|([Mm]icro)?[Bb]rachyceph|[Pp]olyceph|[Hh]oloprosenceph|[Ll]issenceph|[Pp]lagioceph|[Mm]acroceph|Roh|[Ss]h|al-Sh|[MP]ash|Gadzh|Khadzh|Karadzh|Karag[ao]dzh|Kh[ao]dzh|Sarydzh|Mi|[Bb]r?i|Mari|Materi|Vi|Dzi|Spezi|Zidj|Khodj|Manj|Aloj|Khoj|Bak|sk|Seik|Chamal|[Bb]agval|Hel|Hil|Call|Moll|Mull|Forml|Mul|Bagul|Adam|Angam|Ernakulam-Angam|Pham|Chem|Rem|Adim|Alm|Chronom|Sokhom|Deuteranom|[Aa]nom|Som|Arm|Gorm|Kum|An|[KN]an|Asan|Adn|Juven|Sermn|Fin|Ann|Nunn|Bon|Don|Gorn|Adyn|Khyn|Rayn|[Fl]o|Podp|Lilip|Karunagapp|Kanjirapp|Thottapp|Arp|Esp|rozhoup|[BEe]r|[HK]ar|Gr|Fakhr|Kr|Kir|Beyuk-Pir|Ser|[DM]or|Ur|Dzhur|Zr|Vas|Is|Phongs|Ros|Al-Fais|Fais|Ass|Mass|Thess|Mus|Nat|Naft|Neft|Napht|Bit|Vit|[Ii]t|Cast|ou|Dou|Qu|Zhu|Nagav|Sabdatharav|zlikvidov|Donov|Úv|Al-Dow|Metw|[BKL]ay|Kariy|Gamiy|[BC]az|Ghaz|Gamz|[Kk]hunz|Ogorz)aly)(?<!\b([Aa]c?cident|[Aa]c?ctu|[Aa]ddition|[Aa]nn?u|[Aa]utomatic|[Bb]asic|[Bb]ucc|[Cc]ommerci?|[Cc]ongression|[Dd]iagon|[Dd]ialect|[Dd]igit|([Nn]on|[Uu]n)?-?[Dd]iplomatic|[Ee]n?vironment|[Ee]soteric|[Ee]speci|([Uu]n)?[Ee]v[ae]ntu?|[Ff]at|[Ff]inanci?|[Gg]ener|[Gg]eni|[Gg]radu|[Hh]istoric|[Ii]ll?eg|([Cc]o)?[Ii]ncident|[Ii][nm]parti|[Ii]m?mediat|[Ii]ndividu|[Ii]n?niti?|[Ll]it?ter|[Ll]oc|[Ll]ogistic|([Dd]is)?[Ll]oy|[Mm]agic|[Mm]argin|[Mm]unicip|[Mm]utu|([Ii]nter)?[Nn]ation?|([Uu]n?)?[Nn]atur|[Nn]orm|[Oo]r|[Oo]c?casion|([IiUu]n)?[Oo]f?fici|[Oo]ri?gin|[Pp]arti?|[Pp]erson|[Pp]articular|[Pp]henomen|[Pp]hysic|[Pp]ractic?|[Pp]resumb|[Pp]robab|[Pp]roportin|[Rr]e|[Ss]im[ai]lar|[Ss]peci|[Ss]pecific|([Uu]n)?[Qq]uestion|[Tt]empor|[Tt]radition|[Tt]rivi|[Uu]nilater|([Uu]n)?[Uu]su)aly)(?<!\b(?:[Rr]iv|[Nn]e|[Hh]e|[Aa]dmir|sundaymailit|bodyguardit|[Tt]ot|iwdwsit|unahe|era|yearendit|tav)aly)
I did say very big. Copy/paste the above. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 02:17, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 Doing... It says it will take about three hours. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:58, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 Done 2813 matches listed at User:John of Reading/X1. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:19, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Thank you! Quite a lot to be looking at. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 09:29, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Is there a quick way to post a list with leading "# " (or even "* ") as you did in User:John of Reading/X1? Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 13:14, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
The database scanner created the list for me within AWB. To post a list from AWB, use List > Save list... and choose "Text file with wiki markup"; this adds the asterisk and the square brackets. Then open the saved file in Notepad and paste it into the Wikipedia edit window. -- John of Reading (talk) 13:18, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Nice! Have put this to good use already. :) Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 16:49, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
So many exceptions to the -aly rule having to rethink the approach. Regards, Sun Creator(talk)

At your convenience could you run the following to check for -ably exceptions. ably is related to -aly and could be considered a subset of it.

\b(\S[a-z-]*)(?:(aab|ba|abl|abb))l+yl?\b(?<=(?:rib|rob|urb|lac|ecc|[dlmprty]ic|voc|ead|[om]id|[aeu]nd|aud|[ain]ce|[rs]ee|[anr]ge|ake|[lp]le|rme|use|ove|ize|[ae]ff|tig|[eo]ach|augh|[ru]ish|vai|[eo]ci|edi|ifi|reli|ami|eni|xpi|ari|[ai]ti|nvi|[eht]ak|ink|ark|sal|mbl|ail|[eo]ll|[is]ol|cul|lam|tim|amm|[ht]om|orm|sum|san|[miv]en|[eu]gn|[afglm]in|amn|[dis]on|cap|[au]lp|[ao]pp|[ep]ar|ecr|[dflmnpstuw]er|pher|over|[ms]ir|[dlmnvx]or|err|[es]tr|[cdos]ur|[adnv]is|ens|pos|ers|ass|[cf]us|\b[Uu]s|[el]at|ubt|[aeiu]ct|[bdfmpruv]it|[aeu]nt|not|ept|ort|\b[Ss]t|est|ett|[fmprt]ut|rgu|alu|equ|ssu|iev|[egr]iv|[lmr]ov|erv|low|joy|[ns]iz)(?:aab|ba|abl|abb)l+yl?)\b(?![^\s\.]*\.\w)(?<!\.[^\s\.]*)

Thankss! Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 03:08, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 Doing... It says this one will take five hours - when we bought this computer I didn't realise I would be doing so much data-crunching. With 3% of the job done it has found only one match, correctly finding "notablly" in Emu. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:05, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 Done Just 44 articles listed at User:John of Reading/X1. No false positives, though some of the articles have been fixed since my database dump was created. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:47, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. I will do my own database dump before the end of the month if usage allows. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 10:23, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
Not many matches but zero false positives(!), only one article with the word 'generablly' was changed to 'generably' when it is best left alone by this rule which has since been adjusted to ignore 'generablly'. What do you think of a rule like this that won't be the fastest(because it's an -ending rule) but will correct a potential 312 words that could have 7 variant misspellings; 7 * 312 is a potential 2184 typos that it can correct. It's over the 25 typo minimum required, but you are the one who raise the issue of speed(profiling typos) so welcome you comments on the situation. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 19:53, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure about "potential fixes". If you or I use the regexp and the X1 list to fix those 44 articles, then we'll know that if the rule is installed in WP:AWB/T it won't currently find anything to fix at all. I don't know! -- John of Reading (talk) 20:31, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
That's true, but in 6 months time there will be another 40+ typos, will you want to run the database scanner again? - and if you did would you do for each of the 3000 rules that AWB has. I've added the rule to extras Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos/Extra, because while the rule resolves 25+ typos it takes about 300ms to run on List_of_Doctor_Who_universe_creatures_and_aliens; and I'm aiming for rules that exceeds 1 correction for every 1ms taken. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 21:12, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
How about an AWB with an optional set of "expensive" rules? Then the Typoscan project could have then turned on when doing the database scan, and also have them turned on when working on the articles found by that scan. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:00, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
I've download a copy of the database now. Is it possible to reduce the size by removing everything that is not in the mainspace? Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 18:14, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
In theory, yes, because it is all encoded as XML. But I don't know of any built-in way to do it. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:22, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
I think having some way of selecting which optional set of rules to use would be helpful. Like having fast rules for yourself. In WP:WikiCleaner it is possible to select which page to load the typo rules from, that can help greatly with testing by having new rules that you don't want live for other AWB editors. WikiCleaner has the optional way, because you can switch sets of rules on or off, so you could switch off the slow 'Endings' section to make the process faster. Also I'd like the option of setting grammar or insignificant edits off because you can encounter edits that break the rule Avoid making insignificant or inconsequential edits. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 11:29, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
On reflection, the speed isn't too much of an issue, as long as the typo check only takes a second or two on ordinary-length articles. I can turn off the typo check (and the genfixes, but that's another issue) when I get to "List of AAA" and turn them on again when I get to "List of ZZZ".
But the "insignificant edits" idea is a good one. I'd like a way for some of the rules to be treated as part of the "genfixes" or even the "minor genfixes", so that they are caught by those checkboxes on the "skip" tab. I'd like those rules not to appear in the edit summary, too. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:56, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
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