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Slightly confused...

Are you a rəʊɡ admin or a ruːʒ admin? It Is Me Here t / c 23:45, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

refToolbar

Hi! I've started creating some of my own userscripts, and I was wondering if you'd be okay with me copying yours so that I have a base to build off of. The final version of my script would do something completely different, but would use the same layout and formatting for use in the edit box. I just wanted to check before I went ahead and used it. Thanks! –Drilnoth (T • C) 14:55, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure go ahead. Mr.Z-man 19:03, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Could you please set up a 'popular pages' page, similar to The Beatles' one, for Wikipedia:WikiProject Michael Jackson? Thanks in advance, Pyrrhus16 17:45, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Will be done in a few days. Mr.Z-man 19:00, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi Z-man,

Requesting for popular pages for two WikiProjects - Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia and Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds. IMHO the Spoken Article project really require your stats to boost overall morale while the Bird wikiprojects will help me prioritise which bird pages to read for better reach with our very limited resources. Thanks in advance.

This is really a fantastic service you have developed. May you always be in a state of Wikinirvana.

AshLin (talk) 15:47, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I've been doing the bird project for a while - Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Popular pages. Unfortunately, the Spoken Wikipedia project doesn't use the same categorization system as normal wikiprojects, so that bot wouldn't work with it without significant changes. Mr.Z-man 19:02, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Bot apparently mishandling {{indefblocked}}

The bot appears to be doing the wrong thing with indef user blocked templates -

See: [1]

It's replacing {{indefblocked}} with {{ti|indefblocked}}. The temporary userpage category is inside the indefblocked template, but the end effect is to mangle the template's display.

I think this is an artifact of not having subst'ed the template in the first place - I'm doing that now on some pages the bot did this to.

Thanks! Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:26, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

This is the intended behavior, as there isn't a very simple way of expanding the template and removing the category in one edit and there's no other way to remove the category besides adding the "historical" parameter, which just categorizes it into a different cat, which is wrong. The only other real option is to remove the template altogether, or comment it out. Mr.Z-man 01:33, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Physics traffic stats

Could you set up a page like Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomy/Popular pages for Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics, Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Taskforces/Acoustics, Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Taskforces/Fluid dynamics, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Taskforces/Relativity? These would be very usefull to have. Thanks. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 17:38, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Will be done in a few days. Mr.Z-man 19:04, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Cool. A new taskforce as been set up in the meantime (Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Taskforces/Glass). It would be nice to have it covered also. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 04:50, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Sleeper sock filter 1

Are you sure this is working properly? It appears to look for the user's name in the article title, rather than multiple edits to the same article. - Mgm|(talk) 09:41, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

It verifies that the user's name isn't in the title, to avoid false positives with people creating their userpage. The important part is taken care of with the throttle settings. Mr.Z-man 17:17, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Abuse_filter/False_positives#204.52.215.135

Please take a look at the above report. Somehow their first edit didn't trigger filter 32 when it should have. - Mgm|(talk) 11:47, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

CloseAFD Kudos

I wish to thank you for CloseAFD. It is incredibly useful and time-saving. I was wondering if you have created a script comparable to it for other XfDs, (such as MfDs, TfDs, CfDs, etc) or if you know of scripts people use. Is there a way to have an automated count appear of the !votes for Keeps, Deletes, Merge, etc, similar to that which exists for RfAs? Thanks, Valley2city‽ 02:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC).

New Rochelle discussion notice

New Rochelle problem discussion notification: I've opened a new discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Long-running problem with respect to New Rochelle area articles.

This relates to the 4 part proposal i opened on March 26, which was closed on March 27 and archived at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive187#Proposal for unban, apology, amnesty for Jvolkblum and related others, and topic ban for Orlady.

This is a courtesy notice to all parties who had more than a one word comment in the previous discussion. I think it is a problem that won't go away, and I hope that you will be part of the solution, whether or not you and I have agreed previously. I hope that we can at least clarify the problem, if not immediately agree upon a solution. If anyone thinks this is inappropriate canvassing, I am sure they will express that. I don't anticipate too many separated discussions on this topic, but if this one is closed and a new one opens, I'll probably notify you again, unless you ask me not to. doncram (talk) 03:35, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Barnstars

You will notice I took all your barnstars. You can get them back by paying me....One Million Dollars! Grsz11 04:13, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

1 million Zimbabwean dollars will be wired to your Swiss bank account in an hour. Mr.Z-man 04:16, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
I have returned your stars in lieu of the ransom. I expect it within the hour or Mrs and Baby Z-men won't be too happy. Grsz11 04:18, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Request for arbitration - Unjustified ban of users

I have filed a request for arbitration regarding recent bans of user accounts from which no activities could be found that dispupt Wikipedia. The arbitration request can be found here: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Block of editors related to sockpuppet Jvolkblum You are not mentioned as an involved party, I send you this message as a courtesy for your information, and I hope that your opinion there can contribute to solve the issue. Thank you! doxTxob \ talk 23:09, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

unsourced blp

We do not yet have a policy for removing unsourced blp articles, just unsourceable. Per WP:BEFORE, one should try to source them. (I know I am saying this to someone who has been ad admin for almost exactly as I have & knows policy just as well, but I'm explaining why I've removed some of your prods giving such reasons where I think there might be some chance of notability. One is no longer alive. One had a ref in the text. One or two I even sourced. Those I agreed would be deleted even if sourced I put on a prod2 to make that clear. I recognize there's a dispute about deletion policy for this right now at WT:CSD, and I am probably on the opposite side of it from you. so take a few of them to afd, if you like, and people will probably source some there and delete the rest. This has got to get resolved somehow. ) DGG (talk) 05:03, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Diego Romero

The article about Diego Romero (which is quite brief) has three references. What are you talking about? Cheers, Uyvsdi (talk) 07:09, 6 April 2009 (UTC)Uyvsdi

All the bot does is replace {{unreferenced}} when its used on a BLP with {{BLP unsourced}}. There's no reliable way to check for references first, so it just replaces the template. If its wrong, just remove it. Mr.Z-man 16:20, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. Cheers, Uyvsdi (talk) 19:51, 6 April 2009 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Bot getting it wrong

Hi, "Hatnotes are placed at the very top of the article, before any other items such as images, navigational templates and maintenance templates (like the "cleanup", "unreferenced", and "POV" templates)." (WP:HNP), but your bot is moving correctly placed {{unref}} templates, while changing them to {{BLP unsourced}}, to put them above hatnotes. Please correct your bot, and correct the changes it has already made. See example here. PamD (talk) 10:01, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can see the Bot approval makes no mention of moving the templates around like this! PamD (talk) 10:19, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Just thought I'd tell you, this user has brought this to WP:AN/I. — neuro(talk)(review) 10:57, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I should have mentioned that - a little while after making the above comments I saw that the bot is continuing, and still is as I type, and was anxious to get it stopped from making more mistaken edits if possible. There seemed no other place to go. PamD (talk) 11:01, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
I stopped the bot a few hours ago after seeing this, and it will be fixed soon. In the future, a little assumption of good faith would be nice (this is based on the comments at ANI). I can assure you I didn't program it to move things above the hatnotes out of malice. Mr.Z-man 16:18, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Sorry if I didn't word it well - I wasn't assuming malice, just a mistake, but was hoping to get the bot stopped before it could make many more mistakes. When you hadn't replied after half an hour (ie were clearly not online) I went to ANI in the hope the bot could be stopped that way. Thanks. PamD (talk) 16:54, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Carrying on, the bot is still making mistakes - it tagged Abdel El-Saqua as unreferenced, even though it has 4 notes on it! GiantSnowman 22:02, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
The bot isn't tagging anything on its own. It only replaces {{unreferenced}} with {{BLP unsourced}}. If the article was mistagged in the first place, that's not my fault. Mr.Z-man 22:06, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Edits your bot makes should still be checked though...GiantSnowman 22:14, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
If the tag is wrong, just remove it, but it was wrong before the bot edited it, so I fail to see how its all my fault. There's about 18,000 pages it needs to recategorize, manually reviewing all of them is infeasible and defeats the purpose of using a bot. Mr.Z-man 01:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Article Ralph Murphy; Your bot has updated the noreferences banner, to BLP unsourced. Because the article does indeed have four 'minor' references, I've decided to update the banner once again, to "Refimprove" for accuracy. Please make further adjustments to this if necessary. WikHead (talk) 22:08, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Undeletion Request of BLP of Nikol Hasler

I have been notified that you have removed a wikipedia entry about me based on your thoughts that it was a train wreck. While some of the information was unsourced, it would seem that you should delete the unsourced information instead of the entire article.

In checking the sources that are allowable for BLPs, I have discovered that self published information (such as a twitter stream) are allowable so long as the source is written by the subject of the bio. Since people contributed sources from my public twitter page, these would be deemed appropriate.

Furthermore, the entry itself is based upon several sources of notable information. I can be reached at my publicly known email address if you wish to discuss further.

Nikol Hasler 69.113.165.192 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:26, 6 April 2009 (UTC).

I found out through various sources that you have removed the wikipedia entry I established for Nikol Hasler. This entry was created with Ms. Hasler's permission, and while much of it was based on her public Twitter stream (with her expressed permission), other sections were sourced from more traditionally verifiable sources.

As for your characterization of the article as a "train wreck"; the scattershot style of portions of the article were illustrative of various aspects of Ms. Hasler's personality and lifestyle. When a person does not lead a traditional lifestyle, a biography page cannot be squeezed into a traditional mold.

I respectfully request that the article be restored. If there are unverifable/unsourced contributions those individual contributions should be marked for review; but the entire article should not be deleted.

Flahute (talk) 00:29, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

You're free to take it to deletion review, but Wikipedia articles are not a work of art. They should be consistent, factual, and encyclopedic. They should not strive to reflect the subject's personality. We have over 300,000 biographies of living people, I'm sure more than one of them has led a non-traditional lifestyle, yet we manage to create traditional articles on all of them. Mr.Z-man 01:39, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Dear Mr Zed,

My recollection of Nikol's page was that it was fairly detailed, with information about her past, present, credits in print and television. All in all it was a good biography with myriad references and specific sources, and links to Nikol's magazine column and show - so where is the problem? If you honestly found it a train wreck, why not edit it and put the information into a cohesive state? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oroborange (talk • contribs) 01:53, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

The majority of the references were to the subject's own Twitter feed. The majority of the "biography" was a summary of Twitter postings - completly inappropriate for an encyclopedia. I already declined to undelete it above. If you wish to have it undeleted, please start a deletion review. Mr.Z-man 02:04, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations, you are now immortal

I liked this comment so much, I decided to immortalise it, in a small way. Hope you don't mind. Regards, SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 13:18, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Aitias

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Aitias/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Aitias/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, [[Sam Korn]] (smoddy) 22:09, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Script glitch

The auto-script you wrote for me can't handle the name Im a Socialist! What Are You; just letting you know. DS (talk) 01:33, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I know I'm late to tell you this...

...Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Dylan620 Bot. It'll do the same thing as your old CAT:TEMP deletion bot (talk · contribs), if you don't mind. I really liked that bot's concept, so I would like to bring it back as my own bot. Sincerely, Dylan (chat, work, ping, sign) 15:31, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Mr.Z Bot malfunction

Hello. I noticed that your bot is malfunctioning. It has been adding the BLPunsourced tag to several well-referenced articles on my watchlist. Here is one example (an article with 6 references and 2 links ([2]). Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 03:54, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

The bot was simply replacing {{unreferenced}} with {{BLP unsourced}}. If the tag no longer applies, feel free to remove it. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 05:29, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Placing template:BLP unsourced on articles with any references or sources at all (even those incorrectly including template:unreferenced) is a major design flaw in your bot, since sourced articles are thereby added to Category:All unreferenced BLPs, which may effectively be a deletion category - there's a serious discussion on Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#New_article_category about speedily deleting every article so classified, or using a bot to PROD all of the articles in the category. While administrators should check for the presence of sources before deleting articles, with over 30,000 articles in this category, overenthusiastic sysops could easily empty it in a less than ideal manner. I also notice that the problem of incorrectly placing template:BLP unsourced on articles is a relatively frequent one -- in just 21 edits, your bot did it five times [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]. Effectively, this means that every edit your bot has made under this task requires review to prevent incorrect article deletions. Please do not continue to run this task until your bot can check for at least obvious indicators that sources are present in the articles to which it is adding template:BLP unsourced. Erik9 (talk) 12:59, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
So you're saying that rather than having human administrators do their job correctly, I should have the bot not only do its job, but also the job of the admins? If admins delete articles without reviewing them, that is not my responsibility. I am not responsible for other admins doing their job poorly, and neither are the other users who tagged the 12,000 articles that were in the category before my bot started its run. Its just as likely that people will add sources and not remove the tag, which is likely how most of the mistagged ones happened in the first place, yet you're not proposing that we hold those people responsible as well, only me. It is always the responsibility of the deleting admin to verify that the page meets the deletion criteria when the delete it, suggesting that I'm responsible for their future mistakes is incorrect. Mr.Z-man 16:15, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Just as it would be considered unacceptable to use a bot to categorize images in Category:Wikipedia files with no non-free use rationale at an error rate of in 1 in 4, then insist any subsequent incorrect deletions are entirely the responsibility of the administrators performing them, it is unacceptable to use your bot to place articles into what has a good chance of being a deletion category at such a high error rate, then wash your hands of the consequences. Bot operations are intended to make human editors' lives easier, not more difficult - running a task which requires editors to review every edit your bot makes to purge a deletion category of the incorrect entries added to it is clearly unhelpful. While new editors having little knowledge of Wikipedia cannot be held responsible for not removing template:unreferenced (which isn't deletion template) when they added sources, you, as an experienced bot operator and administrator, should know better than to incorrectly place thousands of articles into a deletion category in reliance upon their naive errors. Nor can I use my bot to repair this problem by removing template:BLP unsourced from every article so designated by your bot which contains at least one external link or use of the <ref> tag, since, in the unlikely event such a task could be approved at all, editors would fill my talk page with missives of righteous indignation at the automated removal of a warning of a serious WP:BLP issue from those few articles which have external links only to self-made YouTube videos or other non-references. I would not be able to fob off responsibility for the problem by blaming the YouTube linkers. Well, since it seems your bot has already placed template:BLP unsourced on more than 10,000 articles, incorrectly, by my estimate, in more than 1000 cases, at a nominal AWB-assisted review rate of 1 article per minute, it will require over 166 editor/hours, or nearly 21 days at 8 hours/day, to clean up your mess. Erik9 (talk) 00:27, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
His mess? Absolutely not. If the biographies were incorrectly tagged with {{unreferenced}}, they're now incorrectly tagged with {{BLP unsourced}}. Should people be reviewing the usage of both templates on articles? Absolutely. But this is not a problem with the bot at all.

Your claims of imminent deletion are completely wrong. Nobody is talking about deleting all articles tagged with {{BLP unsourced}} (at least not without prior review first). This is blatantly obvious and any claims otherwise are fear-mongering rhetoric. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:35, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Of course administrators will try to review the articles before deleting them - I expect no unauthorized admin-bots :) But, especially when administrators are fatigued from deleting many articles, mistakes will be made, and will be hard to find later in a sea of red-links. That's why massive bot-categorization of articles for deletion that's wrong in one out of four cases is (and in any other context, would be considered) a bad idea - try having FairuseBot put images into Category:Wikipedia files with no non-free use rationale in a way that's wrong a quarter of the time, and see how quickly it gets blocked. Erik9 (talk) 00:48, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
How is exactly the bot wrong? Human editors have decided that the articles are a) of living people b) unsourced. The only logical conclusion is that the articles are unsourced BLPs. Your analogy is totally baseless, humans made the error, not the bot. BJTalk
Neither Category:Living people nor Category:Articles lacking sources are deletion categories. Per discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#New_article_category, Category:All unreferenced BLPs could well be. In this case, the new category is of much greater significance than the logical sum of the prior two. So, it's inadvisable to say, well, the bot's not malfunctioning: garbage in => garbage out. Instead, it's prudent to make a reasonable effort to filter bad inputs out (for instance, by checking for external links or <ref> tags) where the bot's actions would otherwise compound small errors into much larger ones. Erik9 (talk) 01:15, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Wait, what? Nor can I use my bot to repair this problem by removing template:BLP unsourced from every article so designated by your bot which contains at least one external link or use of the <ref> tag - So when you're doing it, its an inappropriate task that would never be approved and would receive nothing but a deluge of complaints, but its critical for me to do it? That makes no sense at all. You've basically illustrated the problems with a bot trying to determine the referencing status of an article, so why are you asking telling me to do it?
Also, your methodology for determining these numbers is incredibly flawed. I can only presume you chose 21 edits as that gave you the highest ratio, however, if you look at the next 21 edits, only 1 has an actual reference. 1 article per minute is also a very ridiculous number. Checking if an article has any references takes maybe 10 seconds, unless AWB got slower since I last used it.
Please stop calling it a deletion category. It isn't. Until there is an actual policy that says we delete every unsourced BLP, its just another maintenance category. In any case, I don't see anyone proposing that we just delete all the articles in the category all at once. Most of the proposals involve long delays, manual/limited deletion tagging with a different template, or only deleting newly created articles (which is in fact what the main proposal there is for). In any case, the articles were already tagged as both unsourced and BLPs. If there was an actual policy for deleting these, do you think I would be the only person to think to find the intersection of the living people and unreferenced articles categories? Mr.Z-man 01:04, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
I would also point out that the comparison to FairuseBot is also false. FairuseBot looks at an image page and decides that it has no rationale and tags it on that basis. My bot on the other hand is simply changing a template based on what human editors have already decided. Mr.Z-man 01:22, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Checking for least one external link or use of the <ref> tag, and removing template:BLP unsourced from the associated articles, can't be performed as an automated task, by anyone. What you could do (or could have done; your bot seems to have finished the task) is to skip articles with links or reference tags before replacing template:unreferenced with template:BLP unsourced. There would be no basis for complaint in your bot not editing such articles at all. But once template:BLP unsourced has been affixed to an article, editors will chastise anyone who removes the template or even demotes it to template:unreferenced without manual review as being a nasty WP:BLP violator. Presumably, the intersection between Category:Living people and Category:Articles lacking sources cannot effectively be determined without automated assistance - it would be the responsibility of a bot operator to filter the intersection to remove the most obvious bad entries before giving it to administrators to perform deletions. Also, while few editors are suggesting that we empty Category:All unreferenced BLPs in one fell swoop, with the repeated bad publicity these articles are getting, this categorization certainly does not bode well for an article's future. That "FairuseBot looks at an image page and decides that it has no rationale and tags it on that basis" while your bot relies on template:unreferenced not having been removed when references were added, is a distinction without a substantive difference - if a bot is wrongly categorizing a large number of articles as deletable, or even as something that many editors think should be deletable, and may soon be, with or without intermediate steps, the reason why doesn't affect the damage caused. Erik9 (talk) 01:52, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
The articles were already tagged. The articles were already marked as both BLPs and as unreferenced. The only thing that changed is which template was used. A human or multiple humans had already tagged the articles as meeting the hypothetical future deletion criteria, suggesting that changing the tag makes a huge difference is incorrect. As I said above several times, I am not responsible for lazy admins doing their hypothetical future job poorly. If an admin deletes a page that should not be deleted, it is the deleting admin's fault. Why you continue to say that in this case it isn't I have no idea. If you continue to persist in doing so, I would also ask that you track down the people that added the template to the 12000 pages that were in the category before I started, as they are presumably just as responsible in your eyes, and they should probably know about this new responsibility that you are trying to thrust upon them. Mr.Z-man 02:10, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Of course the bot is not acting incorrectly replacing one type of unreferenced template with another. A bot cannot verify references, a human needs to do that. Saying a bot is flawed because it is not repairing an incorrect tagging that was already there is just plain wrong. That is not even considering the fact that such a distinction cannot be made by a bot, it cannot verify references, a human needs to do that. The new tag is no more or less wrong than the tag that was there so there is no point in skipping such articles. I am very glad that our bot approval process is done by people who know better. Chillum 02:17, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Agreed, the issue of articles with references being tagged with {{BLP unsourced}} is because the page was already tagged with {{unreferenced}}. The bot did not tag it as {{unreferenced}}, a human did. All the bot does is change a general unreferenced tag to a BLP-specific unreferenced tag. Either a human incorrectly tagged the article as Unreferenced when it had references or editors added references after it was tagged but did not change the template to {{refimprove}}. But hey, it's not like there aren't articles tagged with {{Unreferenced}} which have references. In time, the tags will be removed or changed but it is something that requires a human. For now, the bot needs to continue doing what it is doing...
...and what it is doing is important because the BLP-specific unreferenced tag does two things. Firstly it refers readers and editors to Wikipedia's BLP policy and notes that unsourced contentious material must be removed immediately. Secondly, it categorizes the articles into subcategory of Category:Unreferenced BLPs and in doing so, helps editors and Wikiproject Biography coordinate their cleanup effort.
Erik9's point about the deletion proposal is a bit of a moot point. Even if the bot does nothing the articles are still tagged as {{Unreferenced}} and if the proposal goes through they will be deleted anyway. The issue has little to do with this bot. Hey, in changing the tags to {{BLP unsourced}} maybe some of the articles that may otherwise be deleted will get references added and saved.
So look at the big picture. What the bot is doing is a good thing. Maybe one day someone will find a clever way to detect articles that have references and another bot could change {{BLP unsourced}} to {{BLP sources}}. But that can be done later, for now these tags need to be changed. - kollision (talk) 13:21, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Man, I flipped out too for a second, thought your bot was going all betacommand. Please add an explanatory note about the tag replacement in the edit summary, seeing multiple "unsourced BLP"s appear in the watchlist was kind of scary. Then again, I wouldn't be against appending a giant flashy tag that read "You're not taking this crap seriously now, are you?" to articles ;) ˉˉanetode╦╩ 04:10, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

My RfA

I've replied to your oppose because not once have I said you cannot block with less than 3 reversions for edit warring. I said you cannot block for 3RR (obviously ^^). Thanks. —Cyclonenim | Chat  17:06, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

The Same Here

Look, I call it like I see it. I don't know you so theres no reason for you to take offense. Take your guard down and just here me out. I figured that you were an editor(like most are)that are only impressed by 2527256 edits and a couple of barnstars. I was trying to be as friendly as possible but I said it like I would have if we were face to face. Hope there are no hard feelings. See you on the battle field. :P-- Gears of War 2 (NGG) 23:05, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

So then you were making assumptions about me. Mr.Z-man 23:06, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
YES! Please drop it. I'm trying to make friends here. I apologize but your comment took me off guard and I gave my response. I have apologized for that small conflict but I meant no bad faith and was only questioning your comment.-- Gears of War 2 (NGG) 23:09, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Mr.Z-man. You have new messages at MediaWiki talk:Common.js.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

-- IRP ☎ 20:58, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello, Mr.Z-man. You have new messages at MediaWiki talk:Common.js.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Close AfD script

Hi there, you might want to preemptively remove the last zero from wgPageName.indexOf('Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/200') so the closeAFD.js script continues to work when 2010 rolls around. :) Thanks so much for the script, it's really helpful. — LinguistAtLarge • Talk  22:05, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Please undelete User talk:JedRothwell

The now-inactive CAT:TEMP deletion bot, which you operated, deleted User talk:JedRothwell. Because there are problems relating to the alleged ban of this editor, and a current RfAr pending acceptance by the arbitrators, and it is possible that the history of this page may be relevant, I'm requesting undeletion. Thanks. --Abd (talk) 13:18, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Help on reading if a RfC has consensus

I'm contacting yourself and some other uninvolved editors to see if you would be willng to read through an RfC at the Article Rescue Squad. It will be far from the most glamourous use of your time but it will help us see if we have reached a decision on this issue. I think the discussion has died down and concensus has been reached but another user has posited I'm misreading this. For the moment I've left my comments in the "Motion to close" and collapsed template in place but if others agree there is no consensus I'm fine removing or reworking them. The discussion itself isn't too brutal and the comments have stayed reasonably well organized so it shouldn't take long. Please read the RfC and discussion and offer your take in the "Motion to close" section. Thank you! -- Banjeboi 13:17, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

My opinion on the ARS isn't particularly impartial, I'm probably not the best person. Mr.Z-man 15:56, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
No problem, I have a rather short memory with the many folks I see around so apoligies, it looks to be wrapping up. -- Banjeboi 02:03, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Question

Yo, Mr.Z-man, I was wondering if you had though any more about the BLP list proposal at Bot Requests? Regards, Skomorokh 20:25, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I haven't started working on it yet, as I'm currently a bit busy with other projects and RL work. I'll probably have some time to work on it either later this week or next week. Mr.Z-man 20:29, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
That's fantastic, thanks very much, and don't worry there is no rush. Cheers, Skomorokh 20:32, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Amalgamated traffic stats?

Is there a chance you can amalgamate traffic stats for WikiProject Mammals and it's descendants: WikiProject Dogs, WikiProject Squirrels, WikiProject Cats, WikiProject Equine, WikiProject Cetaceans, WikiProject Primates and WikiProject Monotremes and Marsupials? The problem being is that a lot of mammal articles are only tagged with the banners of the descendent WikiProject. If you can make one stats page for them all that would be great, if not could you just create the popular pages for WikiProject Cetaceans and WikiProject Primates. Cheers, Jack (talk) 11:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Added Cetaceans and Primates. Combining them together isn't possible at this point. Mr.Z-man 04:52, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Templates, articles and rules, oh my!

I was in preparations to boldly close the AFD as moved back to templatespace when you closed it. What are your thoughts on this? My opinion is that it belongs in templatespace, and should go back there (see my comments at User talk:Rootology, the TFD should've been closed as speedy keep imo). If someone wants to nominate it again at TFD, the TFD tags can be <noinclude'ed> to prevent disruption to the article. –xeno talk 18:25, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I could really care less what happens, as long as the end result is that people don't continue to waste their time arguing about trivial things like this. Mr.Z-man 18:29, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
No doubt. Being bold. –xeno talk 18:32, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Bot reporting users matching certain abuse filters to AVI

I was wondering if you would be interested in operating a bot to report users matching certain abuse filters immediately to WP:AVI, see here. That would be for the most serious ones, that need blocking at first sight. To keep it updated, the bot could check the list in a subpage. Cenarium (talk) 22:37, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I saw the request. I pinged User:Nixeagle (who runs the other bot in the abuse-log IRC channel) with the link on IRC a couple days ago. If no one else is willing/able to do it, I probably could, though I'd have to make the script a little more reliable first (which is why I wanted Nixeagle to do it, his bot is built from a more reliable framework and doesn't crash every few days like mine). Mr.Z-man 22:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Closing script, future features "follow redirects" might not be such a good idea

I know "follow redirects" would solve the annoyance of closing "delete" and only having the redirect deleted if the page is moved but it would not be such a good idea if the nominated article was redirected to an unrelated article. One could end up deleting an article not nominated for deletion. Example, if someone nominated George W. Bush's bathroom habits for deletion and somebody redirects it to George W. Bush right before you close it as "Delete", you would end up deleting George W. Bush.

The option to not do merge tags could be covered by the "generic close" proposal I made on IRC. The idea would be for a feature that would simply close the discussion and not take any other action. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 03:59, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

.long

Error: missing name after . operator
Source File: http://toolserver.org/~alexz/coord.js
Line: 299, Column: 16
Source Code:
					lng = data.long;

AFAIK, .long is reserved for type checking in older JS engines/browsers (like mine). --Splarka (rant) 04:17, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Bah, I thought I made sure not to use that. I think that's the only one. Mr.Z-man 05:02, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Geotagged pages needing images tool

Tried the tool, very nice!!!! But it does not work well since the categories are not very updated. I guess you look only for pages with a reqphoto category. But sadly many pages does not have updated categories. The two first that I found had picture and still the tag requesting the picture :-(, I'm assuming this goes the other way also, i.e. there are pages without picture and no tag. So my improvement suggestion is to add a feature to search for pages without any image inside the page. Since this runs on tool server I assume you have database access and can do this, but maybe it generate to much load and get very slow, I'm not sure, but it is my suggestion for improvement. --Stefan talk 07:28, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Hm, adding it as an option might be possible. It doesn't get the category information in real-time but from a static table. To generate the table, it gets all the pages in the reqphoto categories, finds all of those with a coordinate template, then extracts the coordinates from the page text. It takes several days for the table-populating script to run, so I'd probably want to wait until I improve that before I add more checks/complications. I think someone is running a bot to help find pages in reqphoto categories that already have images, hopefully that will help some. Mr.Z-man 08:07, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for this tool; it could be very useful! I wanted to make the same suggestion as Stefan, i.e. to include all articles without images. Since Google Maps has an option to display geocoded Wikipedia articles near a location, would it maybe be possible to get the list Google Maps uses and check whether those articles have images? (Sorry if I'm unclear).
OK, then I understand how it works, so you can use same idea to parse in the pages in the background and build the database of pages without images. But sure, test it more first and make sure it is stable. --Stefan talk 06:19, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Another useful feature would be to include articles from Wikipedias in other languages, e.g. articles tagged on fr.wp with fr:Template:À illustrer. Cheers, Pruneautalk 11:06, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
It's not working for me: the radio buttons at the top don't do anything, and filling in my location and clicking "submit" just reloads the form. --Carnildo (talk) 23:52, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
What browser do you use? Mr.Z-man 01:43, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm using Opera 9.27 for MacOS. --Carnildo (talk) 00:03, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Hmm, I've tested it on Opera/9.64 on Windows and it worked. I'm still working on a version with non/broken-JavaScript fallback. Does Opera have an error console? Mr.Z-man 02:05, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Indeed, I do like the tool a great deal. I tried it out for places near me (which I guess is the idea), spotted one very close to me and then found to my disappointment that it had not been tagged req-photo by req-map. I suppose that could have been intentional, but I was kinda looking forward to going out with my camera. Anyhow, neat tool. On a side note - and I'll ping Stefan about this - you can get a rough list of articles still tagged but with images here, if anyone's up for a little WikiGnoming. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 20:01, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, the photo request categories on enwiki are a mess. Most are generated by the project templates, so there's no meta-template or main category to look for; I just go recursively starting from the main cat. Mr.Z-man 20:56, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Really nice tool. So, a minor quibble: it seems to have used the "needs-map=" parameter, as for example at the Talk:Woodrow Wilson Bridge page, as being equivalent to a reqphoto request. I don't think the two are the same; creating a map is very different than taking a photo. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

BLP unsourced tag in article on Albert Bitran

I don't understand this tag since there is a References section in the article. Please explain or remove. Thanks. Bgoodnam (talk) 15:50, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

All the bot does is convert {{unreferenced}} to {{BLP unsourced}} on biographies of living people. The page was already tagged as unsourced before the bot edited it. As with any maintenance tag, you are free to remove it if its not correct. If you want to find out why it was tagged as unsourced, I suggest you ask User:Fabrictramp, who added the unreferenced template in the first place. Mr.Z-man 17:22, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Where to now?

Regarding User talk:Kaiwhakahaere#You appear to have an imitator, please advise how I can air my suspicions with your threat to block me hanging over my head. Am I permitted to seek a checkuser or similar? Kaiwhakahaere (talk) 01:47, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

The threat to block was for insulting another editor because of their English skills and making random threats to sink their hypothetical RFA over one bad revert, which I really don't see why it needs to be explained is totally inappropriate. If you want to investigate socking, the proper forum is thataway. Mr.Z-man 01:51, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Oh, what you wrote was "Both of you need to just let this go or both of you are going to end up blocked for disruption." I interpreted that as meaning I couldn't take the subject further despite new developments which I think are allied. Thanks for the direction to thataway because I believe they need to be investigated further. Cheers. Kaiwhakahaere (talk) 02:24, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
With regard to the repeated impersonations of Kaiwhakahaere (we've now had Kaiwhkahaere - note, not Kaiwahakahaere - and Kaiwhakahre, not Kaiwhakahaere). I've advised Kaiwhakahaere to think of any more plausible mis-spellings and set up inactive {{doppelganger}} accounts pre-emptively. If I think of any offhand I'll set them up myself and tag them as {{doppelganger-other}} per the advice here. Tonywalton Talk 12:35, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Popular_pages

At Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Popular_pages, is it possible to get a column for importance ratings? I'd like to see how well our scheme is reflecting public interest. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:44, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Not at this time, though that's been requested a few times. If I can come up with a way to get importance and assessment efficiently, it may be added in the future. Mr.Z-man 00:08, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Abuse filter 148

This seems to be catching not just users creating autobios, but users creating articles on organizations & having a similar name. That is really a separate problem, & should have a separate message. Maybe you can figure out how to separate them. DGG (talk) 20:13, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Strange thing is happening when script closing AFDs

I'll let the picture say it all...

--Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:45, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

It does that if for some reason it can't find the nomination date on the page. Is it just that AFD, or all of them? Mr.Z-man 06:30, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
It did it for all the ones I closed yesterday. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 12:55, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 Works for me Mr.Z-man 15:40, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I may have found the problem.

It stopped happening when I disabled the "patrollinks.js" script that I enabled in the 4th --Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:49, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Geotagged pages needing images tool

I'm currently working on a similar tool to yours. I want to extract the coordinate data out of each page. Any tips will be greatly appreciated.

Seo01 (talk) 13:24, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Right now I use about a dozen regexes to extract the info directly from the page text. I believe it has about a 95% success rate, but its slow. Some people get the data from the link to the geohack tool from the externallinks table; I'll probably switch to using that soon. Mr.Z-man 16:05, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! The external links table looks like what I'm after.
Seo01 (talk) 14:56, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback

 Unfortunately, my RFA was closed today with a final tally of 75½/38/10. Though it didn't succeed, I wanted to thank you for your participation in it. I intend to review the support, oppose, and neutral !votes and see what I can do to address those concerns. Special thanks go to Schmidt, MICHAEL Q., TomStar81, and henrik for their co-nominations and support. — BQZip01 — talk 20:15, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Galactus Edit War Mediation

Hi. I'm trying to mediate an edit war over the Galactus article here. Can you chime in with your two cents? Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 23:54, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Statement on dates

Greetings, fellow BAGger! FYI, an Arbcom decision will soon be made in which the BAG will likely be prominently mentioned. I've constructed a draft consensus statement at Wikipedia talk:Bot Approvals Group/Draft consensus statement on date delinking to assist the ArbCom. If you could indicate whether or not you approve of the various statements there, it would be very helpful. All the best, – Quadell (talk) 12:46, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Rollbacker rights

Hi Mr. Z-man, It says that you are willing to consider granting rollbacker rights. Any chance of them, just because occasionally it would have been very useful? Thanks. dottydotdot (talk) 15:48, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done Mr.Z-man 20:07, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Thank you. dottydotdot (talk) 20:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Simplify policy RfC

FYI, I am drafting an RfC at the above page. If you would like to add your own statement, or indicate your support for an existing statement, please feel free to do so now. I would also strongly recommend that we avoid replying to other statements, since we would be likely to repeat what was already said on the CSD talk page, and that we should try to keep the background/proposal/objections section as concise as possible; we should not begin to pack these sections, but we should leave that for our own statements. Once we have some more contributions here, I'll see about posting it to the relevant noticeboards. Thanks! --Ryan Delaney talk 21:06, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

WP:OP

Greetings, I'm just trying to get a current feel for who is still active in the project and if anybody would object to cleaning out inactive users of the verified user list. Thank you for your time. Q T C 03:47, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Libraries for scripts

Is there a way to import other scripts, without forcing the user to do it themselves? One way might be to have the page (say, User:M/faderesolved.js) contain both imports. Or perhaps some sort of onload for an object. But both of these seem a bit messy. Is there a better alternative around?   M  00:58, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

You should just be able to import the libraries in the main script. The importScript functionality has an object that tracks included scripts, so it won't load the same one more than once. Mr.Z-man 01:19, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Merge 3RR into Edit War?

Hi, you were previously involved in a discussion about merging 3RR into WP:EW; please comment at WT:3RR#Merge 3RR into Edit War?. cheers, Rd232 talk 13:18, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, great one. Do you think that there would be any way to get an equivalent of Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals/Popular pages for some of the other projects? I'm thinking in particular here of the Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Religion projects. If there is, please let me know. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 13:21, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Added those 4, if you want any others, let me know and I'll add them for next month. Mr.Z-man 04:49, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
What a brilliant idea for prioritising. Would Wikipedia:WikiProject Cambodia/Popular pages also be possible? Mind you the top 100 articles would be plenty (we only have ~1200!). Cheers, Paxse (talk) 17:45, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Added Cambodia to the list, the results for May will be posted around the beginning of June. Mr.Z-man 21:45, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Can you request one for Wikipedia:WikiProject Visual arts? Thanks. Johnbod (talk) 16:58, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

And, possibly, one of all the portals, possibly for Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals? So far, I haven't seen a lot of portals which get a large number of hits, and it might be useful to find out which do, so that others might learn to copy them. John Carter (talk) 18:47, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I can do the Visual arts project, but not the portals one. Right now the bot requires that the project use the standard WikiProject assessment category system. Mr.Z-man 03:02, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
OK, I can generate that myself, there aren't so many that it would be too hard. I'm going to assume, by the way, that it would probably be rather difficult to generate any sort of "combined" religion projects list. I am clearly hoping that it might be possible to generate such a list, given that many of the articles fall within the scope of several of the projects, whether they've all tagged the articles or not, and I think it would be useful to have some sort of list of the top articles so that even the projects which haven't tagged an article, but have relevant content in it, will know that and maybe choose to put a bit more attention to it. Like I said, though, I'm not really expecting that. John Carter (talk) 22:24, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
The current script isn't able to aggregate projects like that. However, I may be able to do it in the future. All the data for all projects is stored in the same database table, so getting the data for multiple projects together wouldn't be especially difficult. For example, the combined top 20 for April for the 4 religion projects tracked is:
+-------------------------+---------+
| title                   | hits    |
+-------------------------+---------+
| Easter                  | 1272206 |
| Good_Friday             |  750028 |
| Masturbation            |  735900 |
| Henry_VIII_of_England   |  707133 |
| Passover                |  652933 |
| Germany                 |  586783 |
| Michael_Jackson         |  575643 |
| Martin_Luther_King,_Jr. |  545494 |
| Mexico                  |  494725 |
| John_F._Kennedy         |  494581 |
| Jesus                   |  488242 |
| Israel                  |  478140 |
| France                  |  470338 |
| Italy                   |  464969 |
| Elizabeth_I_of_England  |  436677 |
| Netherlands             |  427588 |
| Seven_deadly_sins       |  394882 |
| Spain                   |  393884 |
| Bob_Dylan               |  364048 |
| Buddhism                |  347837 |
+-------------------------+---------+
-- Mr.Z-man 22:57, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
Added Visual arts to the list, the results for May will be posted around the beginning of June. Mr.Z-man 21:46, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
Great! Where do I pick it up? A category for these results might be a good idea. Johnbod (talk) 15:40, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Sysadmins

You say the Sysadmins have global checkuser, but according to m:Special:GlobalGroupPermissions/sysadmin, I do not think that is the case. Am I reading it correctly? MBisanz talk 19:10, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Whoops, you're right, it was the staff group I was thinking of. Mr.Z-man 19:14, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
Just making sure I'm not going crazy. MBisanz talk 19:26, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

How do I go about setting up this for Wikipedia:WikiProject Mississippi? - ALLST✰R▼echo wuz here @ 23:37, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I have the same question for WP:LGBT. LadyofShalott 00:17, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
And I'm afraid that WP:OPERA is also jumping on the bandwagon. =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 09:01, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Tap tap. Is this thing on? :P - ALLST✰R▼echo wuz here @ 09:16, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Added Mississippi, LGBT, and opera to the list, the results for May will be posted around the beginning of June. Mr.Z-man 21:45, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
Excellent. Thanks Z! - ALLST✰R▼echo wuz here @ 00:08, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes, thanks, indeed! LadyofShalott 03:54, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Could you do the same for Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa, too? – Sadalmelik ☎ 06:21, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

User:Mr.Z-man/closeAFD.js

Hi there,

I use your close AFD script, and I must say that it is very useful! I was wondering if possible you could create similar scripts like this for WP:TFD, WP:CFD, WP:MFD, WP:FFD, WP:SFD and WP:RFD (where possible)?

The relevant closing instructions are at:

Thanks,

The Helpful One 09:02, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Not at the moment, mainly because I can't bring myself to do a significant JS project now. If someone else wants to do it, MFD shouldn't be too hard to make from the AFD code, as they both use subpages for the individual discussions. All the rest use 1 log pages per day with all the discussions as sections, so it would be harder for the script to figure out what to close and where to put the options box thing. Mr.Z-man 17:02, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

nstab-mediawiki

I was thinking more "interface to the underlying software" than "interface to the user", but I see your point. While we're on the subject, I'm more concerned about nstab-main, where disambiguation pages, redirects, and the main page are all labeled "article". Would you be okay with making this label more inclusive? The word "content" is a better description, and it fits well with "discussion"—the tabs would read "content, discussion, edit this page". —Remember the dot (talk) 03:00, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

While bold updates to the more "obscure" nstabs is fine, I think changing nstab-main should be discussed. Mr.Z-man 03:56, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
I know. I wanted to know if you had an opinion on the change, since you've shown previous interest in the nstabs. —Remember the dot (talk) 04:02, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Personally, I don't see the point. Technically every page is "content" as its contained within the site. If you mean "encyclopedic content," then it still wouldn't apply to redirects and it wouldn't fit too well for disambiguation pages either. Mr.Z-man 16:58, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Come to think of it, the word "entry", as in "encyclopedia entry", wouldn't be bad either. What do you think? —Remember the dot (talk) 01:35, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Filter 83

Where did Special:AbuseFilter/83 go?--Otterathome (talk) 11:22, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

It was disabled by Prodego then later deleted. Mr.Z-man 15:47, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Is it because of the abuse about placing images which only admins can remove? On another note, can you change Special:AbuseFilter/103 to warn but allow the edit, as everything it has picked up is vandalism.--Otterathome (talk) 16:36, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
It was disabled because it hadn't gotten any hits; I've set 103 to warn. Mr.Z-man 16:54, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Do you think 103 could be set to disallow yet? There seems to be a growing trend of replacing pages with pages from the website. And as vandals from the site are familiar with the mediawiki interface, they just ignore the warnings.--Otterathome (talk) 20:54, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

BLP bot

Would it be best, for the children in Africa using Netscape, to have no linking in section headers on BLP/N? لennavecia 19:20, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about the children in Africa, but it makes it easier for the bot if there are links in the headers. Mr.Z-man 19:27, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict) NFI. The sarcasm was intended to convey the point that there are some unknown (and likely dubious) reasons to not use links in headers. I know the Arbitration Committee recently banned them from statement headers. Surely there's a hot, brewing thread debating this important issue somewhere.... --MZMcBride (talk) 19:44, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
I lost interest after Mr.Z-man's post. That was exceptionally short-lived concern on my part. Sorry 'bout that. لennavecia 19:50, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

BLP to dead people?

Hi. Your bot made this edit in which added a BLPunsourced template to a deceased person. I've seen more of this around. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk)

The article is in Category:Living people. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:21, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
Oh you are right. I was before the bot adds the BLPunsourced. I'm sorry. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:40, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Formal Mediation for Sports Logos

As a contributor to Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content/RFC_on_use_of_sports_team_logos, you have been included in a request for formal mediation regarding the subject at Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Use of Sports Logos. With your input and agreement to work through mediation, it is hoped we can achieve a lasting solution. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:40, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

add PopPages for WikiProject Oregon?

Can you add Popular Pages for Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon? Thanks, tedder (talk) 19:01, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

And, while you're at it, please add Wikipedia:WikiProject Hinduism, Wikipedia:WikiProject Thelema, Wikipedia:WikiProject intelligent design, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Scientology, who have indicated that they would like to have it. You have the profound thanks of any number of people for having made this possible, by the way. I hope you know that. John Carter (talk) 19:49, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Added Oregon, Hinduism, Thelema, ID and Scientology to the list, the results for May will be posted around the beginning of June. Mr.Z-man 21:46, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks in advance, Z-man. Can you make sure to post when the first resultsets are up? tedder (talk) 19:33, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) These have been posted, and look great: Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon/Popular pages. When you get some time, can you run data for Wikipedia:WikiProject Motorcycling? Thanks. tedder (talk) 15:17, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Mr.Z-man/lazy

You may or may not have noticed me tooling about with your userbox: I made some modifications and then in the most recent edit made it so that on your user page, it appears close to how you originally designed it. However if you like the modifications you may wish to undo the most recent edit that added that functionality. cheers, –xenotalk 17:24, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

#wikipedia-en-abuse-log bot ouput

Heya! Since a few days, MrZ-bot's IRC output has changed, and it's much less useful as before:

!alert - User:xxx has tripped 5 filters within the last 5 minutes:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:AbuseLog?wpSearchUser=xxx

There's a space missing between "5 minutes:" and the URL, effectively making the link unclickable on mIRC (and probably other clients). Is it possible to easily fix it or was it done on purpose? (Same problem on the "10 filters in the last 5 minutes" message) -- Luk talk 07:13, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the report, should be fixed now. Mr.Z-man 16:28, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

What are we supposed to do with all these AIV reports?

Are we really expected to block editors for tripping the abuse filter? --Closedmouth (talk) 09:01, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Not only that, examine this AIV report, for instance:
Am I the only one who sees no contributions in this IPs history? The abuse filter link above shows this IP made an edit to Evgeny Malkin, but it's not in the article's history? WTF? - KrakatoaKatie 10:04, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Hi Katie, I guess the IP attempted to make an edit but was stopped by the abuse filter. I've created a warning template {{uw-attempt}} which hopefully could be useful for these situations. PhilKnight (talk) 12:12, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Would it be possible to adjust the bot's coding to issue a few warnings before making a report to AIV? PhilKnight (talk) 12:30, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
I think the bot should report them after they trip the filter say, 10 times over 5 minutes (5 times = IRC ping, 10 times = Wiki?). -- Luk talk 12:46, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
So they should be blocked without a warning? Obviously if it's a Grawp sock or something, then I'd block, however otherwise I'd probably just warn. PhilKnight (talk) 13:19, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
I disagree, they were warned each time they triggered a filter with Action=warn. -- Luk talk 16:27, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

IP addresses are being reported when there are no edits or no warnings (or niether). No administrator action is required in these cases, so reporting them to AIV is counterproductive. Can you please modify your bot's function so that it only reports situations that require admin attention? Thank you. -- Ed (Edgar181) 14:48, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually if an IP has tripped five filters then admin attention is warranted. It's the perfect example of a preventative block - one before the IP even gets to edit. OTOH I'm not sure every single filter hit needs immediate admin attention so hopefully this can be adjusted a bit. Some need immediate attention (like long-term abuse filters) but many don't. Wknight94 talk 16:03, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

To answer all the questions at once:

Are we really expected to block editors for tripping the abuse filter?
Yes, as far as I know, vandalism is vandalism, regardless of whether its actually successful or not.
So they should be blocked without a warning?
The abuse filter telling them: "Your edit is vandalism, don't keep trying it" isn't enough of a warning?
I'm not sure every single filter hit...
It does not report every single abuse filter hit. It reports every hit of a few filters that should be considered blatant vandalism or look for the M.O. of a particular banned user/troll. For most other filters, it waits for 5 hits in 5 minutes.

The filters it reports immediately for are:

  • 4, 9, 10, 12, 13, 17, 38, 44, 47, 54, 52, 54, 58, 68, 72, 102, 116, 139, 140

- for most, if not all of these filters, we're disallowing the edits, so if we aren't willing to block people for it, there should be some review of the filters. And it ignores all hits to these filters:

  • 5, 43, 81, 93, 96, 98, 105, 106, 117, 119, 134, 149, 152, 155, 161, 164, 167, 168, 171

as they filter for things that may not be considered vandalism, so they won't be counted toward the "5 hits in 5 minutes" count. I'm open to suggestions as to what should be in the lists, or how many filter hits it should take before it reports. Mr.Z-man 16:26, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I think only defamatory and known vandals should be reported immediately. Childish edits (you suck, filter 12, ...) should only be reported after they were triggered x times (eg: only report people that would be blocked on the spot if they made that only edit). I'm still advocating a higher threshold than IRC. -- Luk talk 16:31, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
PS: I also think we shouldn't report at all filters that do not trigger a warning (I remember an IP making useful contributions to image pages that was triggering the filter on IRC every 5-10 minutes, that would be extremely annoying on Wiki) -- Luk talk 16:33, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
I forgot to say: good job otherwise :). This can be useful when there are less people hanging around in the IRC channel. -- Luk talk 16:34, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
If someone wants to help compile the lists, that would be much appreciated. Unfortunately, we have nearly 200 active filters, many with intentionally vague descriptions :-) Mr.Z-man 16:38, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
The ones I watch are
They don't get triggered too often but, when they do, they are a long-term abuser trying to find a way around. I.e., they need an immediate block. Wknight94 talk 16:57, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Here's my list:
immediate: 4, 10, 13, 17, 38, 44, 47, 58, 63, 68, 72, 94, 101, 109, 112, 115, 116, 130, 137, 139, 140, 158, 166, 170, 175
vandalism: 3, 9, 11, 12, 18, 30, 31, 33, 46, 50, 51, 52, 65, 77, 79, 80, 97, 98, 103, 123, 131, 132
and I'd ignore all the rest. -- Luk talk 19:27, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
The 135 filter catches a lot but isn't reliable enough to turn to disallow or warn. But a large amount of vandalism gets tagged by that one. Wknight94 talk 19:49, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The kind of reports that raised my concern are one's such as User:Tez2006. According to the user's abuse filter log, he triggered warnings for "Excessive whitespace" and "Test type edits from clicking on edit bar". The user was trying to create his first article, and while it may not have been any appropriate encyclopedia article, having the bot report his actions as vandalism requiring a block seems excessive to me. He was basically just making simple newbie mistakes (unless I'm missing something). I think this bot is a great idea, and I'm glad you've taken the task of creating and running it, Mr.Z-man, but I still think it is making reports that do not require admin attention. -- Ed (Edgar181) 17:21, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

That seems like more of an issue for Wikipedia:Abuse filter/False positives or Wikipedia talk:Abuse filter to discuss those filters. The bot can't determine whether the filter hits are correct or not. It excludes filters that aren't signs of vandalism, but those 2 filters are used to catch vandalism. The user was given multiple warnings, but apparently ignored them. Mr.Z-man 18:06, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
And technically the admin may wish to fix the edits instead of blocking the user. AF Hits obviously need to be reviewed before blocking someone. -- Luk talk 19:05, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
I've blocked the bot. I've just dealt with circa 20 reports, of which I blocked only one. The other 19ish were not vandalism, or were of IP accounts with no edits at all as far as I can see. This suggests the bot was crapflooding an essential page due to a bug. I'm prepared to be shouted down (although I'd prefer not be shouted at) but something different needs to be done compared to the current practice which doesn't work and is hindering the very thing it is meant to be supporting. ➲ redvers throwing my arms around Paris 19:54, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Um, they didn't have many actual edits because the abuse filter prevented the edits. That doesn't mean we don't treat them as vandalism. Mr.Z-man 20:02, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
And there was no way of knowing that, because they triggered private filters, so what they were doing is only known to a minority of a minority. Something is very wrong with this set up: either the bot's operation needs to be modified so that the crapflood doesn't happen, or the reporting mechanism needs to change. Flooding a vital page with null reports of activity that didn't happen is simply making vandalism prevention harder, not easier. The problem is not with the AF, it's with the bot or the reporting mechanism. ➲ redvers throwing my arms around Paris 20:11, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
The abuse log and the details of the abuse log entries can be viewed by anyone. I fail to see how not reporting hits to private filters is a viable option. Hits to private filters are the ones most likely needing immediate attention. Any admin can grant themself the abuse filter editor right to see the private ones. Mr.Z-man 20:18, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Again, this isn't addressing the substantive point: either the bot's operation needs to be modified so that the crapflood doesn't happen, or the reporting mechanism needs to change. Flooding a vital page with null reports of activity that didn't happen is simply making vandalism prevention harder, not easier. The problem is not with the AF, it's with the bot or the reporting mechanism. ➲ redvers throwing my arms around Paris 20:25, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, my fault, should've said this before: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive235#AIV is discussing the bot and the block. Your 2c is very welcome. ➲ redvers throwing my arms around Paris 20:28, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

act on them!

The Wikipedia Bot Builder Award
For taking the abuse filter log and turning it into something that us regular admins can act on, I award you the Bot Builder's award. Keep up the good work =) –xenotalk 03:55, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Enhancement request

One more thing about the new AF bot... Could it include a link to the abuse log filtered by the user? Like this? Right now, it's just giving details on the last edit I think, not a list of other log entries. Wknight94 talk 17:52, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The link depends on what they did to trigger a report. Reports for tripping specific filters link to the edit, reports for frequent violators link to the log for the user. Mr.Z-man 18:01, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
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