User talk:Ohconfucius/archive24

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Falun Gong 2 closed

An arbitration case regarding Falun Gong has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:

1. Homunculus is banned from editing and/or discussing topics related to the Falun Gong movement and/or the persecution thereof, broadly construed, across all namespaces, for a period of one year.
2. Ohconfucius is indefinitely banned from editing and/or discussing topics related to the Falun Gong movement and/or the persecution thereof, broadly construed, across all namespaces.
3. At the discretion of any uninvolved administrator, editors may be placed on mandated external review for all articles relating to the Falun Gong movement and/or the persecution thereof, broadly construed. Editors on mandated external review must observe the following restrictions on editing within the designated subject area:
   1. Any major edit (defined as any edit that goes beyond simple and uncontroversial spelling, grammatical, and/or stylistic corrections to article content) must be proposed on the article's talk page. This proposal must be discussed by interested editors until a consensus to make the edit is formed.
   2. Once consensus has been reached in support of the edit, the proposal must be reviewed by an uninvolved editor for neutrality and verifiability of the information presented.
   3. When approval is received from the uninvolved editor, the editor subject to mandated external review may make the edit to the article. Violations of these restrictions may be reported to Arbitration Enforcement.
4. Upon the expiry of the applicable ban, Homunculus is subject to mandated external review as outlined in remedy 4, with respect to articles relating to the Falun Gong movement and/or the persecution thereof, broadly construed.
5. Should the applicable ban be lifted, Ohconfucius is subject to mandated external review as outlined in remedy 4, with respect to articles relating to the Falun Gong movement and/or the persecution thereof, broadly construed.
6. Colipon is subject to mandated external review as outlined in remedy 4, with respect to articles relating to the Falun Gong movement and/or the persecution thereof, broadly construed.

For the Arbitration Committee, Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 14:34, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment on the case remedy for OC

Weird, just weird. Tony (talk) 15:42, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Wishing you well...

Hope you're finding happiness outside of Wikipedia. On a small note, if you do decide to come back to editing, the date delinking matter here was archived without you ever submitting a statement, so if you do decide to come back, you should contact the committee before returning to date edits, so we can mark that resolved. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 05:11, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

MfD nomination of User:Ohconfucius/essay/rant about Falun Gong pages

User:Ohconfucius/essay/rant about Falun Gong pages, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Ohconfucius/essay/rant about Falun Gong pages and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of User:Ohconfucius/essay/rant about Falun Gong pages during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 18:40, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I have withdrawn the nomination. I do however want it known that, on Saturday, I spent several hours trying to complete the second step of the MfD nomination, only to be told that there was a "timeout error" every time. After getting sufficiently frustrated by this failure of several hours duration, I contacted AlexandrDmitri here to do it for me and got no help there. I have never had such problems occur to me in the past, particularly when other editors seemed to not be experiencing the same problem, and, frankly, I am more than a little creeped out by the entire thing. I am not, and will not, assume that there was some sort of "greater force" involved, but, on the off-chance that there was, I wish to offer my profoundest apologies. I just hope the weirdness doesn't recur somewhere else. John Carter (talk) 15:26, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Recent events

		The Purple Star
		There are admittedly times in all of our lives which create extraordinary difficulties for all of us. Many of us have serious problems dealing with them. Few people would have the ability to at the same time fight for the greater good in an entirely voluntary effort to promote the dissemination of knowledge. You have left the project now because of your having to deal with extreme cases of both at once. It is always a bit depressing to see one of our own fall in battle for the greater good, but in your case we know that you have the potential to return, should you see fit. We all hope that the extreme situation in your personal life improves as well. That might make it easier for you to eventually return, if you choose to do so, but it would also mean that someone whom I believe we all respect and many of us admire will perhaps have the good life I think we all believe he deserves. John Carter (talk) 18:54, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks, John. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:18, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Friendly notification regarding this week's Signpost

Hello. This is an automated message to tell you that, as it stands, you are set to be mentioned in this week's Arbitration Report (link). The report aims to inform readers of The Signpost about the proceedings of the Arbitration Committee in a non-partisan manner. Please review the draft article, and, if you have any concerns, feel free to leave them on the talkpage (transcluded in the Comments section directly below the main body of text), where they will be read by a member of the editorial team. Please only edit the article yourself in the case of grievous factual errors (making sure to note such changes in the comments section). Thank you. On behalf of The Signpost's editorial team, LivingBot (talk) 00:00, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

RfC on the spelling of Vietnamese names

• RfC: Should the spelling of Vietnamese names follow the general usage of English-language reliable sources? Examples: Ngo Dinh Diem, Ho Chi Minh, and Saigon, or Ngô Đình Diệm, Hồ Chí Minh, and Sài Gòn. The RfC is here.

Invitation to discussion

You're invited to participate in the Wikipedia:Media copyright questions‎#Tank Man image; Tiananmen Square protests article discussion. Whether you're interested in the whole discussion or not, I want one last thing to confirm which is written at the bottom of the discussion about your old deleted upload of file:Goddessofdemocracy-400x600.jpg. Thank you. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 04:28, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

The Purple Barnstar

		The Purple Barnstar
		What?! You have been topic banned from the pages you love the most? To the point where you left Wikipedia? To be strictly honest, you were something of an inspiration for me to join Wikipedia. Looking back, I hardly edited Wikipedia until December 2011. And it was you, I believe, that I saw, who edited some article of the past, and inspired me of the Community behind Wikipedia and is just a bunch of ordinary people working together to create free, shared knowledge of the world. When I saw the ArbCom case, I was personally shocked. And more when I saw the outcome of it. Sure, you had some frustrations here, some difficulties there, but all in all, you were a great contributor to Wikipedia. Rejoin Wikipedia! And when the time comes, appeal to the Arbitration Committee. Convince them not that you were innocent, but that you accept their findings. Thanks for introducing me to a growing Community behind the largest encyclopedia in the world. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 21:57, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

• Although, if you do decide to leave Wikipedia forever, then I won't try to stop you again. Goodbye Ohconfucius. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 22:22, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Actually, I don't think for one moment that those are the pages he "loved most". I think he felt an obligation to deal with some errant, non-neutral editing, and became co-lateral damage. Tony (talk) 09:45, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Just saw this comment. Trust me, I don't think anybody actually loves Falun Gong pages. Loathing, fear, disgust, and horror come to mind, but not love. He was however probably the single best contributor to that specific content, and I find it hard if not impossible to imagine that it will be possible to replace him on that content, or anywhere else. BTW, I was wondering whether anyone thinks it might be a good idea to stop the automatic archiving. I'd like to see at least the "Recent events" section I started stay visible on this page, so that the permanent "thank you" it implies is, probably, the most important and honestly most deserved thing that anyone coming to this page should see. John Carter (talk) 01:04, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

      I've added {{dnau}} to the recent events section, probably better than disabling archiving. --Mirokado (talk) 10:50, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks Michael. I appreciate it! --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:17, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

13 May incident

Hi. U moved the article May 13 incident to 13 May incident. English sources mainly use May 13. If you google 13 May incident, May 13 will come out. I think your rationale (to mirror Malaysian article) is not a good rationale. English and Malay grammar is different. I cant move it back cos of something. Mind moving it back? ќמшמφטтгמ^torque 07:36, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Hi Kawaputra! Ohconfucius has retired, so I don't think you're going to receive assistance here. You may wish to consult Wikipedia:Requested moves instead. Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 17:17, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi GB, thanks for responding. Yea, i thought of just giving it a shot. I'm too lazy of going through the requested move process, but i'll go do it one day. Thanks! ќמшמφטтгמ^torque 01:33, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

The move is based on our own convention, plus the fact that Malaysia is a member of the British Commonwealth, and an English-speaking country that uses DMY dates. I don't know what sources you may be referring to, but a Gsearch shows a very significant proportion of '13 May incident' as well as some 'May 13 incident'. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:12, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Hello

Honestly, I miss you, Ohconfucius. I hope you consider rejoining Wikipedia. You are an example for many in this project. Don't let a few bad apples ruin the great path you've paved here. If you ever decide to come back, shoot me a message. We all miss you. ComputerJA (talk) 23:53, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:16, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Small problem

Retired? You/smalleditor recently did this, which removed non-breaking spaces in violation of WP:DASH. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:06, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, the problem with those nbsp syntaxes is that they're unnecessary towards the start of the line, which is the case in both instances. Right up front in an article they can also turn newbie editors off, too. But I'm sure if OC returns he'll take note of this and consider whether to modify the script. Thank you for the feedback. Tony (talk) 10:12, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

It's not a big issue for me, but " " is rarely used in conjunction with dates despite the mention in MOSNUM, but more often in the context Justin mentions. I'll tweak the script. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:15, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

August 2012

It's rather unfortunate that you decided to return to date-related editing without addressing the previous allegations of impropriety against you. You are expected to contact the committee via email (email is left enabled on this account) to start a discussion of how you plan to address those pending allegations. Jclemens (talk) 21:54, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Jclemens, I'm struggling with the accusation that User:Ohconfucius is a sock—of whom? Does it involve his running of an alt account, User:Smalleditor. This was a declared account from the start. The accusation needs to clarify exactly what the problem is (this is a policy requirement). Does "without addressing the previous allegations of impropriety against you" refer to dateref complaints? Or that weird Falung Gong judgement you guys made? It's opaque to me.

OC does need to formally declare and guarantee a change in editing behaviour to avoid these dateref complaints (by one rather aggressive editor in particular). I encourage him to make such a declaration to the satisfaction of the committee. Tony (talk) 02:41, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Ohconfucius resumed editing as User:Smalleditor, a declared alternate account, and made a number of date related changes, without contacting the arbitration committee to discuss the previously unresolved complaints made to the committee about his editing in date-related areas. He was notified of the previous complaint, made an initial response but never substantially addressed the complaint before retiring, and my reminder of his obligation to do so before any return to date related editing still sits above on this page. While I think the block is quite regrettable, it is entirely of his own making. Jclemens (talk) 03:36, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't disagree with what you say. It should have been much better managed, the whole thing (except that there were serious RL issues impinging on him ... while I urge you to take these into consideration, I know that they can't excuse all). My take is that OC is rather less interested than editors around him, including me, in his returning. But we've come to rely on his technical and other advice, a role that would be very hard to replace. I'm discussing the scenario with him by email. Tony (talk) 04:46, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I regret this matter as well. I would contact him, but I have a feeling Tony might know him better, and I don't want any sort of impression of people "ganging up" on him, so I haven't and will not "gang up" on him regarding this. Jclemens, you know the details here a lot better than I do. While I agree he should have contacted ArbCom, I can also see how it might be possible that he wanted the stigma of the ArbCom ruling, indicating that he was somehow pro-PRC, to not follow him around from this point forward. I also note in your first comment on this thread that he should contact ArbCom, in fact, that he is "expected" to. Not knowing what Tony is finding out here, I assume that, if as I think it might be that notice slipped his mind, given the recent developments in his life. I think he kind of implied that was probably his thinking by indicating it is an alternate account, as opposed to trying to pass himself off as a new editor. I hope I don't seem to be putting words in his mouth, but if this were an honest attempt to come back under a different name, without the stigma of the ruling which seemed to be one of, if not the, primary reason for retirement, I hope that the ArbCom might be willing to maybe lift the ban, if he does contact you directly and deal with the pending complaint, which I think the evidence at least implies he might have forgotten the exact nature of? John Carter (talk) 00:34, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Such a block is not punishment, it's a technical means to ensure that he will address the outstanding issues before continuing any date-related editing. I expect he will be unblocked presently and the previously suspended proceeding resumed. Jclemens (talk) 01:04, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

• The template used wasn't ideal, but I get the message. I may come back in the future, but the Ohconfucius account will from now on make no further mainspace edits. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:19, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Unblocked (August 2012)

The Arbitration Committee accepts your block appeal, and I have unblocked your account. The clarification proceedings which you left unanswered in June 2012 will be re-opened in the coming days, and your prompt, complete participation in that request is required if your account is to stay unblocked (and your alternative account is to be unblocked). If you have any questions, please contact any arbitrator or the mailing list. For the Arbitration Committee, AGK [•] 07:33, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Suggestions for Sources script

Hi Ohconfucius - welcome back! I continue to enjoy using your scripts. While you were gone, I copied User:Ohconfucius/script/Sources.js to User:GoingBatty/script/Sources.js in order to make a few changes. Could you please consider making these changes in your script? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:30, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

• Done, thanks for the suggestions. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:39, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank YOU! Hope you'll be sticking around! GoingBatty (talk) 16:46, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I have two more suggestions for your script based on the references at Rhythm Killers (e.g. |newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|publisher=[[The New York Times Company]]|location=New York), if you're interested:

1. Delink the newspaper parameter (like you do for the work and publisher parameters)
2. Remove the publisher and location parameters for well-known works

Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 15:38, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

• Actually, such function was ejected because there were objections to me systematically removing same. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:51, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

One more suggestion for the script: change |publisher=Hollywood Reporter to |work=Hollywood Reporter (e.g. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (film)). Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:46, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:49, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Pleased to be of assistance. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:52, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and thank you for the "Rem publishers" script too! GoingBatty (talk) 01:16, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

(-: -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:49, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi again! Interested in adding (The) Christian Science Monitor to your script? GoingBatty (talk) 18:33, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

• you're right, it's missing. I always thought it was there. Thanks for the reminder. It's now updated. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:29, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Works great - thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:33, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Motions regarding discretionary sanctions and Falun Gong 2

Pursuant to two motions voted on at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment, the following actions have been taken:

• Mandated external review (MER) has been explicitly adopted as a form of discretionary sanctions. In brief, editors subject to MER are restricted from making more than minor changes to an article in the area of conflict without first gathering consensus on the article's talk page.
• Users Homunculus, Ohconfucius, and Colipon, who were subjected to MER in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Falun Gong 2, may only appeal their sanctions to the Arbitration Committee. Editors who are sanctioned by individual administrators in the future may appeal the sanction as they would any discretionary sanction.

For the Arbitration Committee,
NW (Talk) 16:58, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Discuss this

False positive on date script for novel 11/22/63

Hi Ohconfucius! Are you still around? If so, could you please change your date fixing scripts to ignore the novel 11/22/63 (Try running your "ALL dates to mdy" script on Stephen King). Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 16:28, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

• Done. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:14, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the speedy response! Time to remove the Retired banner? GoingBatty (talk) 02:27, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

All in good time! -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:28, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

?

[1] Even to a cursory scan of the references the predominant format is pretty clear. Care to restore? Gimmetoo (talk) 02:28, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

• I'm sorry?? The rest of the entire article is in dmy. It makes little sense that the body is in dmy and the refs are in mdy. Remembering we're not talking about ISO dates here, I believe such instances of dual formats are not compliant with MOSNUM. As to the use of dmy, there is consensus that US military articles take that format. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:37, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
  • The pub dates were "iso" style and there was no reason not to retain them. Gimmetoo (talk) 02:42, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Last time I looked, that ref section had quite a few non-ISO dates. Just why is it that you want a proportion of ref date-formats—just because they're ISO—to hold sway over the notion of consistency both within the refs and throughout the whole article? It's also very confusing to newer editors to see a mess of formats within the edit-mode prose, which is what results. Tony (talk) 07:46, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Question about scripts

Hi Ohconfucius - glad to see you've officially unretired! I used your "Fix news sources" and "ALL dates to mdy" in this edit. While it made a few good changes, it also removed some extra spaces (e.g. "accessdate = April 5, 2012" to "accessdate =April 5, 2012"). Could you please look at the scripts to see if this could be fixed? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:20, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

• Sure, what would you recommend the 'proper' treatment to be? In all honesty, I'm disinclined to fiddle with the script to treat this rather inconsequential issue, but I'm open to suggestions and will try and incorporate some such change on an 'non-urgent' basis. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:24, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I only brought it up based on a message on my talk page. My suggestion would be to neither add nor remove spacing that has no impact to how the article is displayed. This makes it easier for people to focus on the meaningful edits made by users of your scripts. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:54, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I do now see the advantage of not changing the space distribution because otherwise huge paragraphs show up in the diff where the one visible change, after a lot of comparing, is the space. As the script only changed spaces for some access dates only, I was able to find it and change it quickly. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:21, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your prompt service! GoingBatty (talk) 02:35, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Clarification request: Date delinking (September 2012)

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Clarification request: Date delinking

Hi. Under the conditions of your unblock in August, the June 2012 clarification request about Date delinking has been re-opened today. Please respond to that thread when you are next online. Thank you. For the Arbitration Committee, AGK [•] 20:24, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

keeping the peace

OC, I think at this stage you probably have to tell ArbCom you'll not edit ref dates. This is just causing too much trouble; your aim should be to have issues raised on your talk page rarely or never.

Your work is too valuable for me to stand by and watch this niggling continue. Tony (talk) 08:14, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Mass changes in Long March

Hi Ohconfucius, I was reading Long March and noticed a formatting error which led me to check the edit history. It seems to me that some of your changes may have been a little overzealous, especially with a fairly vague edit summary. Here are some of the issues I thought were dubious:

Change from {{zh}} to {{Chinese}}

Does the MOS actually recommend using an infobox over inline translations? The closest I could find was WP:LEADCLUTTER whose example of Genghis Khan showed a lead section with almost 20 translations. However, the cleaned up version of Genghis Khan still has a couple of translations in the lead section. In contrast, Long March has only 3. The translation infobox seems more likely to get lost among the other infoboxes than an inline translation is to cause disruption in the text.

At any rate, because {{Chinese}} is an infobox, it cannot be simply substituted for {{zh}} because it causes a line break. In the future, if you choose to replace {{zh}} with {{Chinese}}, please move the {{Chinese}} template invocation before the lead section where the other infoboxes are.

Image: to File:

MOS:IMAGES#Image_syntax and WP:NS#Aliases both indicate that Image: and File: are equivalent and interchangeable. Unless there is another guideline that indicates that File: is preferable over Image:, shouldn't the majority style within the article prevail? Especially since the Long March article was predominantly using Image: (14 of them, compared to only 1 File:).

Delinking of China

Why the removal of three links to China? (One in the lead section, one in the infobox, and one the Aftermath section as "People's Republic of China".) The Long March article has no other links to the China article.

Delinking of General Secretary

Although General Secretary is basically a disambiguation page, the link could have been improved to General Secretary of the Communist Party of China instead of being removed.

I'm sorry if I've come off as impolite, but other posts here seemed to indicate you might be using some kind of script to perform edits, so I wanted to address these issues in case this was occurring in an automated fashion. Maybe all the different changes could be broken up into multiple edits with more specific edit summaries on each one? I do appreciate the work you are doing, and I hope we can continue to improve Wikipedia together. --Laoris (talk) 18:03, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) - My guess is that the links to China were removed per WP:OVERLINK. GoingBatty (talk) 01:26, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

China is not normally linked. Did you have a more specific link in mind for each of these three cases? If not, every child of seven knows what China is. We try to ration links to those that are the most useful for readers. Tony (talk) 01:33, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, that makes sense. Would that also apply to the PRC link though, just because it leads to China? --Laoris (talk) 15:13, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for your comments. I would respond as follows:
  1. articles on Chinese subjects are particularly prone to clutter, and the linguistic inline template used is often populated with up to five parameters that are of little use to the average English language reader. There is consensus that, where there are more than a small number of such parameters, they are ejected to an infobox.
  2. use of Image: vs File: isn't really a style matter. It's pretty inconsequential from most perspectives and I don't think we should be necessarily going with 'dominant format'. On the other hand, its continued use may be confusing for the uninitiated as all our image media now resides in locations denoted by 'File', it having been migrated some months ago from 'Image'.
  3. I do accept that removal of the PRC link may have been overdone, but I would still question why the specific article would need a link to the generic 'China' – a very well known entity, the linking of which isn't really of great use to a reader. Any reader is likely to want to focus on the Long March itself, or may have come from the 'China' article. The article could use a link, where appropriate to History of China or History of the Communist Party of China. 'People's Republic of China' redirects to China, so linking one instance is generally regarded as sufficient.
  4. You are correct that links to the 'General Secretary' disambiguation page could be more specific. That's indeed why it was removed. I often retrain such links, but did not do so on this occasion. I believe there are editors who use specific tools to perform such work and I would defer to their efforts. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:41, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I appreciate your taking time to respond to my unsolicited criticism :P I'll familiarize myself with the China-related MoS. But where the zh in-text template is replaced by the infobox template, I think it still needs to be moved out of the lead section so as not to cause a line break in the middle of the text. It makes sense that Image/File could be confusing and that linking directly to China would not be necessary. Thanks again for your reply and improving my understanding. --Laoris (talk) 15:13, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree that change from the inline {{zh}} to {{Chinese}} ought to be accompanied systematically by a relocation of the template, and that I have been amiss in doing that. Regards, -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:50, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Octopussy

I'm not sure why you've decided to retitle the book: it's been published as Octopussy and The Living Daylights since 1966, as it contains two short story titles, each of which are capitalised. Please check things properly before making a stack of other people jump through hoops. - SchroCat (^ • @) 06:25, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

• Well, you probably wouldn't agree that it certainly looks like vanity capitalisation! -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 06:32, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

No, it looks like the correct title of the book... - SchroCat (^ • @) 06:43, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Nice work

Wanted to commend you for this edit. -- James26 (talk) 10:17, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks! Did you know you can do it too?

  The work was done by a combination of several scripts:

  1. User:Ohconfucius/script/MOSNUM dates – aligns dates to a single format throughout the article;
  2. User:Ohconfucius/script/formatgeneral – fixes some general formatting
  3. User:Ohconfucius/script/Common Terms – unlinks common terms that usually don't need linking in the majority of articles
  4. User:Ohconfucius/script/Sources – fixes specific formatting of various parameters within {{citation}} templates

I noticed there were some minor glitches that I went back to sort out. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:14, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Score

I had to restore the broken link to the score in BWV 70, broken when applying Wikipedia formatting to the url of an external link, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:56, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Gerda, as I noted in my edit-summary, a standard external link and pipe are necessary until the template is fixed so that it accepts normal typography. I note that the target site uses an en dash, so it's really odd. Tony (talk) 12:20, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Your changes to George Harrison articles

Hi Ohconfucius. I see you've made a number of changes to Harrison articles I've recently taken to GA status (or someone else has on my behalf) − but can I ask why you've changed all instances of the word "retrieved" in web citations to "Retrieved"? I've deliberately not used Harvard system for referencing, purely on aesthetic grounds, and I can't see that there's any requirement to use it anyway; so, unlike in Harvard system, the word "retrieved" is not preceded by a full stop, meaning initial capital letter is incorrect. (Unless MoS states otherwise, does it?) I'll be reverting all to lower case, but please let me know if there's something I should be aware of about this issue. The frustrating thing is I've got to make all these changes manually, to avoid undoing whatever else you did on these pages ... This "(retrieved 6 October 2012)" approach is something I've imposed on every 1970−76-period Harrison article I've worked on − albums, singles, songs, Concert for BD, collaborations, guest appearances. So I'm a bit worried − just how many of these articles do I need to go through again?(!) Cheers, JG66 (talk) 13:24, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• The changes were made by script. The format and syntax were modelled after the way reference sections are rendered when using the most common citation templates – {{cite news}} and {{cite web}}; {{cite}} seems not to capitalise, but doesn't use parentheses. You are one of the few people I know who inserts citations manually. When I do that, I try to stick to syntax in {{cite web}} where 'Retrieved' is capitalised and preceded by a full-stop. Without being critical of you, I should mention that I am not aware of any citation template that puts access dates within parentheses.

  Articles often have a mix of citation templates, and article reviewers generally regard stylistic consistency as important. If the dates in the Harrison articles were uniformly "(retrieved [date])" before my visit, the access date should be uniformly (Retrieved [date]) afterwards, so I see little need to change them back merely for the sake of GA/FA. However, you mentioned it being your stylistic preference. So if you wish, I can put them all back to your preferred syntax quite quickly using search-and-replace – there's no need to waste much of your time on it. I would finish by apologising for the disruption/disturbance this has caused you. Just let me know what you would like me to do; if you want them changed back, please let me have your list of articles, and I will process them over the next few days. Regards, -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 14:27, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, Ohconfucius, and for laying out your reasoning and the various examples so clearly. A month or two ago I did quite a bit of research on the citation templates issue, mainly for books, trying to find a template that suits my preferred, I suppose you might call it "running-on" style − i.e., commas linking the various elements rather than full stops, meaning minimum of capitalisation. I couldn't find anything suitable for books, but your {{cite}} suggestion should be very useful for web refs − thank you. And it's very gracious of you to offer, but in fact I've already gone through the Harrison album articles. Regards, and thanks for the education! − your thoroughness and attention to detail is much appreciated. JG66 (talk) 14:55, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect wording change ("accessed" to "Retrieved") in article text

Greetings. FYI: I see that you made some wording changes to the Webmail article (3 October 2012). Among the various edits were several instances of "accessed" being changed to "Retrieved" (I mean in the article text, not citations), and I reverted these. I'm fairly certain that, in these instances, the original text was correct, and I explained my reasons in the edit summary (6 October 2012). May I make a few suggestions?

• Your edit summary did not give a reason for the wording changes other than to point to the Manual of Style, which provides no indication why this particular wording change would be needed. My suggestion is, when making wording changes that are not covered in the manual cited, provide additional information to explain the changes, so other editors know why it happened.

• Your edit summary says "test". My suggestion is that, if it was a test, do not save changes to a live article; or, if it was not a test, then don't say "test" in the edit summary (as it may give the impression that a test went live accidentally).

• It took me some time to discover that the changes may have been done by a script. Originally, from all appearances, it seemed that it had been done manually. My suggestion is that changes being done using a script be noted as "Script" or "Bot" in the edit summary and/or the username, to make it clear what happened. Otherwise, I don't see any way to know.

• If there is any possibility that the script had similar effects on other articles as it did on Webmail (including both wording and capitalization issues), you might want to consider assessing whether there were any additional instances of adverse effects and how to address that.

Thanks for your consideration of my feedback. If some of this is due to a misunderstanding on my part (admittedly, I'm a relative newcomer), please clarify. -- HLachman (talk) 10:41, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

• I appreciate your message. The change of 'accessed' to 'Retrieved' that I put through at 'Webmail' was indeed an error. Thanks for picking it up and correcting it. I will look through the edits from around that time to make sure there are no similar occurrences. There is no guidance in use of 'accessed' vs 'retrieved' in the MOS, but the change is meant to unify with overwhelming usage as determined by the family of {{citation}} templates.

  Also relating to the above, I am actually running test scripts which are actively being modified almost on a daily basis, and try to ensure bugs are removed before they get to the production version. In fact, I discovered the script bug soon afterwards, and its rules have been made more specific to avoid the false negative. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:41, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Ars Nova (theater)

Hey, Ohconfucius. Just a heads up that there's a conversation going on at Talk:Ars Nova (theater) concerning a recent edit of yours. Just letting you know in case you wanted to weigh in. :-) Thanks. RunnerOnIce (talk) 20:35, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Hyphenation

Hi. Your recent edit to Boeing 727 inconsistently changed some of the hyphens in phrases like "727-100" to dashes. I don't think that's correct. I guess your script was trying to correct page ranges in books or something? Also, I'm not convinced there's much benefit in editing pages just to rewrite dates in a different format, though fair enough if it's just for consistency with the majority format on that page. Remember that about 95% of the world writes dates day-month-year, both in short form (16-10-2012) and long form (16th October, 2012). Dricherby (talk) 09:53, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I've replaced the dashes with the original hyphens. Dricherby (talk) 10:02, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

• I think you are correct about the dominant date format in use universally, but here on WP, we abide by two rules: we eschew ordinal dates and any date form with dashes or slashes that is not consistent with ISO 8601 (see WP:MOSNUM). As to the dashes, I use the dashes script; would defer to an editor more experienced as to whether a dash or hyphen would be more appropriate. If you are correct that a hyphen should be used, then a change in the script would be necessary. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 10:04, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough about dates. A previous dashes scipt edit to Boeing 727 was also partially reverted to hyphens in model designations, as was an edit to Boeing 737. I'm 99% sure that hyphens are correct, rather than dashes. Dricherby (talk) 09:37, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

OK, I'll take your word for it, and I'll try to watch out for the changes the script makes to airplane model numbers. In the meantime, it may be worthwhile keeping an eye on MOS:DASH and WT:MOS. Thanks, -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 09:39, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Issue with "ALL dates to dmy" script

Hi Ohconfucius - me again! When I run your "ALL dates to dmy" script on Felix Baumgartner, it changes a URL inside {{externalimage}}. Could you please let me know when this is fixed? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:31, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

• presumably you are referring to the string '|image3=[http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39347000/jpg/_39347575_after_ap.jpg Felix Baumgartner]'. Can you tell me what it gets changed to – because when I run the script, the url doesn't change it at all? It seems to be correctly protected when I run the protection function. In any event, it doesn't look like a string that should get transformed by the script. FYI, the relevant regex line in the script is (\[(?:https?:|ftp:))([^\s\]]*[\s\]])(.). -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 00:14, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

It's getting changed to '|image3=[http:⍌7⍍Felix Baumgartner]'. GoingBatty (talk) 00:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, that'll be the protection at work. I'll look at why it isn't being unprotected properly. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 00:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Update: so far, I loaded the production script, and protection seems to engage and disengage correctly; then I tried loading your entire vector script, and the same – no improper action. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 00:39, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm at a loss. I may have to do extensive testing with your settings. Tell me, does the script still change the url now, with the article in its current state? -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 00:56, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it still does, even after you fixed all the other dates. I also did a CTRL-R to ensure I have the latest version of the script loaded. GoingBatty (talk) 01:00, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm, it seems to be something local to your computer/set-up. I tried it on FF (latest versions) on the Mac (Lion) and Windoze XP, and the latest Chrome on Windoze, and all seem to operate properly. However, when I run it in IE (my version is 8.06), I get the error you report. Would it be reasonable to assume you are using IE on a Windoze box? -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:34, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

You are correct - IE 8.0.7601.17514 on Windows 7. GoingBatty (talk) 01:38, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

OK, I don't know how to code for different browser/js versions, so I guess you will need to switch browsers for the script to behave 'properly'. Haha! ;-) Thanks for the interesting case. I guess I wasn't all that bad at trouble-shooting after all! :-) -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:41, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

You may want to request some help with your script. Some of us only have one browser, and won't save incorrect edits. Other editors may save edits without checking to see if there are edits. Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 01:49, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Will do. FYI, I have just self-reverted on Baumgartner article, as I undertook that I would not be changing any ISO access dates. I will leave it to editors who are not bound by same. ;-) -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:51, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't see incorrect behavior too. The only solution, as far as I can see, would be to update the browser or switch to another one. Fixing the script to workaround buggy browsers is not an option because in long term we'd end up with unmaintainable mess. 1exec1 (talk) 12:06, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate that you updated the documentation to indicate there's a bug with IE8. Have either of you tried IE9? GoingBatty (talk) 23:38, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Not me. IE9 isn't supported on any of the operating systems I use. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:07, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Fix for "Fix news sources" script

Could you please update your "Fix news sources" script so that it changes |publisher=Latimesblogs.latimes.com to |work=Los Angeles Times? (e.g. try Martin Lewis (humorist))
Does your code need to be changed from

txt.value=txt.value.replace(/(?:\|\s?(?:work|publisher)(\s?\=\s?(?:\[\[)?)[\w\.]{0,12}latimes\.com(\]\]|))

to

txt.value=txt.value.replace(/(?:\|\s?(?:work|publisher)(\s?\=\s?(?:\[\[)?)[\w\.]{0,13}latimes\.com(\]\]|))

Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:23, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

• Oh shoot, these subdomains are getting longer and longer. :-( -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:47, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Works great now - thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:56, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:TIES in Sri Lanka?

I was not aware that Sri Lanka is considered an English-speaking country. Are you really claiming that there is an English variety specific to Sri Lanka? --Trovatore (talk) 09:54, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

• what is meant is that the date format used is international (dmy) and they generally spell with non-American spelling to the extent that these words are altered by the script. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 10:02, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
  • The point is that TIES applies only to English-speaking countries. Otherwise you fall back to RETAIN. Is Sri Lanka an English-speaking country? --Trovatore (talk) 16:51, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
    • Yes, I admit to being off with the 'WP:TIES' thing, and have reversed those changes. I'd just remark that the article has both dmy and mdy dates, with a slight preponderance of dmy, and needs to adopt a unified date format per WP:MOSNUM. You can do that yourself, or I'd happily do that for you, if you would state your preference. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:21, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Your script is leaving articles underlinked.

I appreciate the policy-based reasoning behind your script, but it removes Wikilinks in a purely objective fashion, without considering whether the Wikilinks are significant and relevant to an article's topic (such as unlinking "American", "scientist" and "television" from Bill Nye's lead).

It displays a confusing bias as to what constitutes a well-known term. It unlinks London, but leaves Dublin. It unlinks Germany, but leaves Kuwait. It unlinks tennis, but leaves racquet.

Wikilinks greatly enrich the learning experience of a reader by offering education on topics they may not consider manually seeking out. They add context and explain unfamiliar terms. Restricting their scope restricts a reader's ability to "branch out" from the path they're on. While the question of whether or not this is wise is best discussed elsewhere, I believe a script lacks the "brainpower" to decide what is or isn't appropriate. I would appreciate if you would discontinue its use, or at least use it separately from the script which makes minor date and number changes (to avoid losing those changes along with Wikilink reversions). InedibleHulk (talk) 19:06, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

• I've re-done the Bill Nye article in light of your comments. Note that in this context, links to 'water', 'educate', 'parents' and 'children' are undoubtedly examples of overlinking, as are some of the consecutive linking (such as 'talk show', 'television network'). I trust this approach is satisfactory. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 00:22, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, those are better unlinked. I noticed you (or your robot) also changed "writer" and "producer" to "wrote" and "produced". If that's a bug, you might want to tinker. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:30, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I'd say they're manual edits. Now, linking is supposed to be rationed to items that readers in English are unlikely to be familiar with, and in the case of cities and countries, it's always a tricky thing. Ideally, I'd be removing Dublin as well, since it's highly unlikely someone would want to click to the article on Dublin (rather diffuse in this context) from the article on Bill Nye. Kuwait, I suppose so, reluctantly. Please remember that a reader is quite capable of typing an item into the search box, too. Tony (talk) 00:37, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I figure all places should be Wikilinked, if we're saying "so-and-so did something here". No one place is familiar to everyone, and the relevance is that so-and-so did something there. Personally speaking, I click on any Wikilink that piques my interest, related or not. If I had to manually search it, I'd be less inclined to. But clicking through a few can open up whole new paths of learning. By removing links, we're "walling people in" to their existing information seeking biases. But that's best discussed elsewhere. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:16, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't see why place names, where they are merely incidental or where they are well-known, should be linked by default. If text in the article mentions [person] went on performing tour to '[country 1], [country 2], [country 3], [country 4]', or where a corporation has offices in '[country W], [country X], [country Y], [country Z]', I'd say the encyclopaedia is better off without those links, as they bring little of value to the subject of the [person] article. If, however, it's a place that is important to the person, then it may be worth retaining: for example, where someone went on a spiritual pilgrimage to, say, Tibet and the bio mentions some lasting influence on the person's spirituality, it would be important enough to warrant a link. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 04:25, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not judging Wikilinks by whether they improve the particular article they're in, but by how they help the overall exploration of Wikipedia's content. I don't think a Wikilink (that doesn't explain a necessary term) helps or hinders the article itself. It just makes words blue. These are as easy to read as black words. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:49, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I see; this has been an interesting conversation, thank you. Whilst I would agree with you that a word is a word, the underlying 'information' a blue word imparts on Wikipedia (cf unlinked black words that have no such connation) makes blue words more weighty, with the concomitant risk that they will detract or distract if used inappropriately. As an editor, I see it as an important part of my job to ensure that contents of all articles add value. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 04:59, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I hear you. To me, a black word or term (that isn't terribly vague, like water or children) seems more like a locked door than a blue word seems like a beckoning portal. As a different kind of editor, I feel obliged to open these doors for other readers. Not to distract them, but to remind them there's a world of knowledge in here. If we're both lucky, our jobs won't clash that often. Happy editing! InedibleHulk (talk) 05:16, 22 October 2012 (UTC) Also, a word like "concomitant" could use a Wiktionary link, I think. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:19, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, those changes to "wrote" and "produced" were manual and deliberate; I think it's a bit better. Do you think it introduced inaccuracies? -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 00:38, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Not factual inaccuracies, but it's poor grammar to say someone "was a wrote and produced". Even without "was a", it suggests he was the sole writer and producer, which might be inaccurate. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:00, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Ah, yes. I'll fix the grammar. But saying "[program] was written and produced by [person]" implies the same. If you want to imply there were others involved, perhaps the formulation should be "[program] was written and co-produced by [person]" or whatever most closely reflects the writing/producing credit. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 04:03, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I think saying "a writer" (instead of "the writer") implies he's one of several, but saying "he wrote" means "he's the writer". I really don't care much, though. Have at it. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:20, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

If this is a result of a script, you should not be stripping links - specifically the work/publication field - from references. The consensus is that these can be linked or not, as long as its consistent within the artcile (OVERLINK doesn't apply to references, like with lists or tables). --MASEM (t) 06:13, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Its primary role is to correct italicisation per WP:ITALICS. The unlinking was incidental. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 06:30, 22 October 2012 (UTC)-- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 06:30, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I think unlinking publisher names in ref sections could be excluded from the script. These linked items have none of the negative effects of linking in running prose, and while I'd probably not link them by preference, I understand arguments put by some editors that they enable an assessment of their reliability in some cases (I'm thinking of pop culture refs in particular). How 'bout it? If it's technically difficult to do this without sacrificing the romanising function (de-italicising), I wonder how important that function is. Tony (talk) 09:03, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Hey, Ohconfucius. I undid some of your script's removal of links at the Bisexuality article. For a topic such as this, it's important to link sex and gender; they aren't meant as synonyms in this case, or else we'd only mention/link to one and not the other. I also don't understand why your script unlinked homosexuality, but kept heterosexuality linked. Both links are very beneficial for this topic. Sure, most people know what either means, but the articles cover in-depth aspects about the topics. I didn't feel too strongly about your script unlinking MTV and gay, especially since "gay" is covered by simply linking homosexuality, but I did relink MTV because it seemed best to do so.

On a side note, is it just personal preference that your script, as well as those of others, apply British formatting with regard to dates? Flyer22 (talk) 17:50, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

• I agree there is an inconsistency with the 'hetero-'/'homo-' unlinking and will pay more attention to that in future. But I would note that 'homosexual' as a term seems to appear very much more often than 'heterosexual', so it's more well known as a term. Whilst in the context of bios, the links to words you restored can usually be removed, I have no objections to relinking them in this context. The subject's relationship with MTV isn't a direct one; it's a very well known channel throughout the world, so to me, it seems to me not to justify being linked. Despite our different views on the matter, I won't contest your relinking.

  As to the date format: the usual basis is the dominant prevailing format unless WP:TIES applies (eg a US subject). I pre-scanned the article before running the script, and it seemed that dmy was the dominant format in the article. Looking at it again, the version I edited had some 25 instances of dmy and 18 or mdy. I trust that deals with your query. Regards, -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 03:12, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure how "homosexual" appears very much more often than "heterosexual," unless there's some tool that can tell you that that's the case on Wikipedia...or unless that's the case when doing the Google hit test. But either way, like I stated, it's important for the Homosexuality article to be linked for a topic like this; there's still a lot about homosexuality that people don't understand; the same goes for sexual orientation in general. And the respective articles significantly help people to better understand these topics. I grasp your point about linking MTV, especially given that The Real World is already linked; I'd considered the same thing, but then I thought about how there are still some people, especially some non-Americans, who aren't familiar with MTV, and how I usually see television channels linked in Wikipedia articles. Even extremely well known ones such as ABC. And, yes, your answer about the date formatting sufficiently deals with my query in that regard. And I appreciate you undoing this; I'd considered it as possible WP:OVERLINKING since the first instance of the links are not too far from the second instance. Flyer22 (talk) 03:56, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I was referring to my observation that biographies rarely explicitly use the term "heterosexual", because its often read as default combined with people's intimate relationships; but articles usually mention if someone is 'LBGT'. Have a great day! -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 04:03, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I see, and figured that you might be referring to something like that. You have a great day as well. Flyer22 (talk) 04:09, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Boy Scouts of America

I think the objection to this edit was in the capitalization change of Learning for Life, which is a proper noun. I have reapplied your changes, less that one. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:54, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

"Test Script" defeats the purpose

A script that makes a lot of changes that includes some errors forces people to read all of the changes looking for errors. Ditto for questionable areas and mindless applications of guideline items taken out of context & contrary to common practice discussed by others above. That is the exact opposite of what scripts are supposed to to which is to save time. Suggest working on it, narrowing it and testing it a LOT more off line before turning it loose on real articles and turning the human article editors into forced beta testers for a script. North8000 (talk) 12:10, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I suspect this refers to the BSA article I noted above. Please give specific issues, as this is a well used and mature set of scripts. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:08, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I didn't see any issues in the edits to Boy Scouts of America membership controversies‎. What was the problem? ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:17, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

• Yes, only 'BSA' and 'BSA membership controversies' have been reverted, and I don't really see any problems with the date formats. ANd apart from the I'd like to know what the specific issues were, which will hopefully help me improve the script(s). -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 14:44, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

The issue is what is stated above in this post. But the trigger on the membership controversies article was also messing up of capitalization, but not in a title. North8000 (talk) 14:46, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

The encyclopaedia is replete with examples of indiscriminate title case, and I was not aware that 'Learning for Life' was a proper noun. Admittedly the formatting part of the script is still work in progress, I don't see any messed up capitalisation in the 'controversies' article: the 'Retrieved' mirrors the rendering of {{cite web}} and the downcasing of 'in the' in "House Resolution 853: Recognizing The Boy Scouts Of America for the Public Service The Organization Performs For Neighborhoods And Communities Across The United States" is a permissible (as minor typographic change), if not encouraged formatting – I seem to recall it's per WP:CAPITAL, but I can't find it for now. If anything, I'd say it should have been changed to "House Resolution 853: Recognizing the Boy Scouts of America for the Public Service the Organization Performs for Neighborhoods and Communities Across the United States", but it can't be done by script without a torrent of false positives. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 15:10, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

IMO your last statement sounds like a good argument for not having a bot/script trying to mess with such things. North8000 (talk) 15:17, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

IMO, a partial fix is better than no fix. ;-) In many instances, downcasing 'in the' is all the fixing that's required. The above string was just too complex for a regex. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 15:18, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

It drew attention that there was an issue. I saw that title and meant to fix it, but got sidetracked. Fixed now. And looking at it, both BSA articles need a lot of reference claenup. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:18, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

FYI, I'm in the process of rewriting my sources script, which I am hoping will help with future cleanups of citations. Any advice or suggestions on functionality or on code will be most welcome. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 17:30, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

If I may throw in an IMO, I agree that the script should not be used by a bot. However, if perfectly fine for a human to use the script, and then confirm all the edits are correct before clicking the Save page button. GoingBatty (talk) 01:54, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I looks like Ohconfucius has not been doing that when using this script. (?) North8000 (talk) 11:48, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

• The script relies heavily on human supervision, and all you have demonstrated so far is that we have a difference of opinion as to how to go about correcting cases of mis-capitalisation – I already told you that the downcasing of 'for the' was deliberate and not due to the lack of attention on my part. That is not to say I don't make mistakes. However, if you have any specific complaints as to possible errors, not just your personal opinion on capitalisation ve half-capitalisation above, I would be please to hear them. Otherwise, I'd appreciate it if you would refrain from trolling on my talk page. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:35, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Those were cases of clear errors, not opinions. But that is sidebar. The core question is whether or not you have been actually reviewing the changes, and you have been saying conflicting things regarding that. If you would clearly confirm that you will be reviewing the changes made, IMHO that would resolve it. And quit the baseless "trolling" accusation crap. North8000 (talk) 11:50, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Your insinuations are unwelcome. There's nothing ambiguous about whether or not I review my edits. And if you can't be bothered, neither can I. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 13:16, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

When you explain errors that were left by saying that they can't be properly handled by a script, it leaves the impression that you were not checking. And you've never made a clear statement that you are checking, but implied that. Maybe we should just let this rest. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:50, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Sussex County, New Jersey and test script usage

I really wish people would improve content instead of going back and forth with date formats. Ugh. Since I wrote most of the article, it pissed me off now that half the article is going to be in mdy and the rest I end up writing will be dmy. Ugh. --ColonelHenry (talk) 19:58, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Per WP:TIES an article on a U.S. community should be mdy. I see U.S. style temperatures and land measurements used in the article. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:13, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

It's often difficult to please (see this discussion). But it's easy to do if you want an article's dates all in dmy – I'll happily flip them for you. ;-) Just let me know. I'd also suggest that you place a {{dmy}} or {{use dmy dates}} tag on the article if you would prefer such WP:TIES format overridden – it's no guarantee that someone else will not come around assuming that the tagging was somehow faulty, but at least yours truly will be less inclined to change date formats of such US-related subjects to mdy. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 00:32, 26 October 2012 (UTC) [edited -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:44, 26 October 2012 (UTC)]

Thank you

For this. I'm really hoping you didn't go ahead and do that manually . Legoktm (talk) 08:06, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

• You're welcome. I'm an ace with Excel. It took maybe five/ten minutes. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 08:08, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Broken image link

Just a heads up - this edit broke an image link. Cheers. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 02:50, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks. As the naming isn't systematised, people will do the strangest things to image names! -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:54, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Slashdate script cootie?

Might want to examine this Dl2000 (talk) 00:27, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

• OK, thanks. I see that perhaps I was a bit too cautious with the regexes that so many false negatives appeared. I've revised them on my test script and the dates in the section in 'Prisoner (TV series)' now seems to convert properly. I will do the same for the production script in a few days should there be no unexpected glitches in the meantime. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 16:15, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

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Edit to The Who

Hi Ohconfucius! In this edit, your script changed |title=MTV → |publisher=MTV and |title=BBC → |publisher=BBC. This causes the references to be displayed with "Error: no |title= specified when using {{Cite web}}". You may want to change the script so it changes these to something like |title=PLEASE INSERT THE ACTUAL ARTICLE TITLE HERE BEFORE SAVING THIS EDIT! to make it stand out. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 14:15, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

• Yes, thanks. Let me work out how that can be done... -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 14:24, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Barnstar!

		The Special Barnstar
		For your fantastic scripts that make life a hell of a lot easier ;) — foxj 13:03, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

• I'm glad you like them. Don't hesitate to let me know if there are any issues arising from their use you'd like to discuss or would like to see addressed. Regards, -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 15:16, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Date protection?

I use your date script a lot. Is there any way to protect a date style that is in a quotation or title? Here is a specific example where the changes in the body were appropriate but the changes to album titles were not. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:11, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

• I use protection extensively, but this date and its disposition doesn't lend itself easily to systematic protection. Quotation by double quote marks or any quotation template is already protected. For this type, the best I can do is to protect strings beginning in 'Bootmoon series' and ending in a 4-digit number representing the year. I'll do that for you when I have a few minutes tomorrow. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 13:56, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
  • I added HTML comments that cause the script to not recognize the dates as such. I could use {{date}}. Perhaps we could develop a simple template that would cause the script to ignore the date. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:53, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
    • Thanks, I also sometimes use that trick. The 'Bootmoon series' strings are henceforth protected in my script. BTW, the much-abused {{date}} template is stripped by the script for that very reason. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 22:36, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
      • Then there is Wood Badge for the 21st Century in Wood Badge (Boy Scouts of America), where Century is changed to lower case. A more general solution is needed. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:42, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
        • Oh shoot, I thought I disable that downcasing of 'Century', simply because it was causing too many false positives. I'll do that now. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 23:50, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
          • Still active, unless there is some caching. See this edit. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:05, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
            • It's not doing it for me since I disabled it. So it could be a caching matter. Let me know if it is still happening after you have cleared your browser cache (again). I find that it's easier to purge the cache in some browsers compared to others. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:55, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Date formats

Thanks for making me aware of the guideline on consistency with your edit to The Way I See It (album). I couldnt believe I hadnt heard of it before. Is there a BOT or some editing app that could assist in converting between date formats, though? I would like to correct previous articles I've edited. Dan56 (talk) 23:29, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for your comment and interest. Yes, I maintain several scripts that aim to make editors job easier to comply with the various facets of Wikipedia's Manual of Style. A summary of those may be found here. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 03:00, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

MOSNUM script

Hello,

the links do not appear in the toolbox today. Regards.--Tomcat (7) 12:47, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

• acknowledged. I've reverted a few of yesterday's edits to that script. Hopefully will find the problem soon. In the meantime, it should be working. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 14:07, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks.--Tomcat (7) 16:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Voitto Hellstén/Voitto Hellsten?

Hello! I requested a page move on this page, referencing the spelling on his parliamentary profile. You denied the page move, mentioning that an original accent should be retained on enwp. Question is, the originality of this accent is put in question. Did you ever go to my reference page? You did not answer my challenging of your non-action on the talk page. Right now, Sports-reference.com and the Finnish parliament take different stands on the spelling of his name. Many thanks for any clarification. Best of wishes/P--Paracel63 (talk) 13:32, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Now I clarified the spellings in the article, with added ref and clearer ref composition. Until we get confirmation of the birth/original spelling, there remains a mystery. Maybe there is/was a lax application of accented spellings in the Finnish language, but I need some proof of this to be able to dismiss all the non-accented references in Finnish. As for the parliament, the profile page for Lasse Virén (http://www.eduskunta.fi/triphome/bin/hex5000.sh?hnro=608) has got the accented name.--Paracel63 (talk) 13:51, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

• It seems that the Finnish version of the article is without diacritics, so I guess that's as authoritative as I need to be to be persuaded that you should be allowed to move it. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 12:15, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for November 15

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I think you missed something

This edit's edit summary makes it appear that you didn't do what you intended.—Kww(talk) 10:45, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 10:52, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Reflist changes

Today you have been editing several ship articles that I have edited in the past. One of the things that you are doing is changing {{reflist}} templates to {{reflist|30em}}. I don't have a problem with that when there are enough citations to warrant columns. For one or two citations, columns just look bad and are not as easy to read. As an aside, I generally don't like references in columns because the column function isn't intelligent – the column break should not occur in the middle of a citation.

I don't know what the proper number is but there should be some sort of threshold number of citations before columnar formatting is applied. And, in fact, the column width should also be dictated by the number of citations. Automatically going to a fixed 30em for a small number of citations looks bad. Frankly, the number of columns should be controlled by the number of citations perhaps like this:

5 citations, no columns

6–10 cites, 2 columns

11–20 cite, 3 columns

more than 20, 4 columns

All of these using {{reflist|x}} where x is the column-count.

Yeah, I'm sure that this isn't the proper place for me to whine about how I think columns should be applied.

I've undone those parts of your ship article edits where the number of citations didn't warrant columns.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:42, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect Infobox ship edit

With this edit the formatting of the infobox's caption was incorrectly changed from:

|+USS Defiant (YT-804)

to:

|+'''USS Defiant''' (YT-804)

It wasn't right in the first place but the change was neither necessary nor correct. The application of the bold wiki markup is not required for table captions. The correct formatting should have been:

|+USS ''Defiant'' (YT-804)

which italicizes the ship name per WP:ITALICS.

I have fixed this particular article.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:56, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks, I don't think it was anything I did specifically. I'll raise the issue with those nice people at WT:AWB. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 15:49, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

New script now live

-- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 00:28, 30 November 2012 (UTC)