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Run User:RussBot on no-wiki?

I see that your bot User:RussBot is used to change redirects categories. I've just created the redirect template at the Norwegian wiki. Do you think it's possible to get this bot running on the norwegian wiki so Pages in the category no:Kategori:Wikipedia omdirigertekategorier is moved to the correct category? Nsaa (talk) 16:13, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's possible, although it may take me a little while to set it up. Am I correct in assuming that "Kategori:Wikipedia omdirigertekategorier" means "Category:Wikipedia category redirects"? I will also need a list of all templates that are used to place category pages into this category. --Russ (talk) 16:58, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
You're correct assuming "no:Kategori:Wikipedia omdirigertekategorier" means "Category:Wikipedia category redirects"! For the moment only the template no:Mal:Kategoriomdirigering (this is the same template as Template:Category_redirect) use this category. Nsaa (talk) 17:08, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for setting the bot up to run on the no-wiki (the redirect template will be used from now on). One more thing. Is it possible to let it name the category in Norwegian like [[Kategori: instead of [[Category: [1]. Nsaa (talk) 08:00, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. [2]. --Russ (talk) 14:33, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I’m also an editor on the Norwegian Wikipedia and I would like to tell you how much I appreciate your bot! It’s very useful. — H92 (t · c · no) 22:48, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguating

I notice you seem to have cleared up the links to dab page DST pretty quickly! I was wondering if whatever method you used could be used to clean up some links to PAL. While working on disambiguating, I notice that a lot of links to [[PAL]] on computer game pages should be links to [[PAL region|PAL]] instead. The links I see are inside a template such as Infobox VG. I realize that PAL is not a dab page, but what do you think? Auntof6 (talk) 03:58, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, the same pages have links to [[NA]] instead of [[North America|NA]] Auntof6 (talk) 04:01, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

It depends on the context in which the links appear. The DST links were almost all inside infoboxes and all formatted exactly the same way, so it was easy to have a script fix them. But if different authors format the links differently, it becomes almost impossible to automate the task due to the risk of errors. If you can give me some examples of pages that use PAL and NA in infoboxes, I will see what can be done. --Russ (talk) 11:01, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Laughs

Thanks for the laugh with your edit summary at the village pump. It was very descriptive :) ! -- Natalya 23:42, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Edit summaries are useful for so many, many things. Maybe we should have an edit summary competition for best spontaneous non-profane edit summaries. I think "Noooooooo!" would be at least in the top three.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 18:54, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Change username?

Hi, I was a little thrown off when I discovered that you are not User:Russ, yet you sign all your comments as Russ. Have you every considered usurping User:Russ? I checked, and it's currently banned, so I'm sure the bureaucrats would let you take it. Just tood for fought. Later, --Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 18:52, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Takako Konishi disambiguation page

Thank you for attending to the Takako Konishi disambiguation page. I am only an amateur wikipedian and my attempts to create a new Takako Konishi page and a disambiguation page went awry and I didn't know how to fix it. Hopefully you will finally gte it sorted. I just wanted to say thnak you Juggertrout (talk) 20:30, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Odd edits by double-redirect bot

Your bot has lately started making some fairly useless edits, like this one. You might want to tweak the code. --Russ (talk) 15:05, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

The above link is no longer valid because the page was deleted. Basically what happened was that the bot found a page containing "{{db-r1}}<br>#REDIRECT [[Target]]" and changed it to the same text without the line break. (I use <br> here to show where a line break character existed, not a literal <br> HTML tag.) Since this only happens on pages that your bot has already tagged for speedy deletion, it's going to be a problem finding a diff link that won't disappear within minutes! --Russ (talk) 15:26, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
It may have removed an invisible char. I can't really investigate as you also point out the page is deleted... -- Cat chi? 08:10, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
OK, here's one that won't disappear (I hope): [3]. Note that the bot first added the {{db-r1}} and then 12 seconds later made a second edit removing a single character. This pattern seems to occur whenever the bot finds a self-linked redirect. (On a separate note, I query whether it is desirable to tag these for speedy deletion without first warning the person who created the redirect, since many of these self-links, like this one, are just typos that can easily be corrected.) --Russ (talk) 16:16, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
Self redirects are a navigation hazard. It is best to remove them on sight. If necesary the proper redirect can be recreated. As for the bug I have pointed it out to the devs. -- Cat chi? 17:13, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Sedan (car)

Would it be possible to halt the bot edits changing sedan to sedan (car) for a while? From the talk page (and some user talk pages) this has apparently been a contentious issue ~ "is it American-centricity, or is it primary usage?" ~ and I've opened a formal move request at WP:RM to try and get a resolution. I've a feeling the decision will be to decline the move, but in the event it goes the other way and the page is restored to where it was, it'd make all these edits unnecessary. Regards, --DeLarge (talk) 14:31, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

First of all, thanks for taking this to WP:RM; we need to have a discussion before, not after, potentially disruptive page moves are made. Second, the bot edits were intended to minimize that potential disruption. If Sedan (car) is moved to Sedan as you propose, the former title will still be a valid redirect and the links that the bot has changed today will still be correct; however, if Sedan (disambiguation) is moved to Sedan instead, the links would have been broken if not fixed. By updating as many links as possible now, we minimize the number that need to be fixed manually when the move discussion is concluded. --Russ (talk) 14:50, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Sedan Edit War

I have protected Sedan given the on-gong edit war. I would remind you of WP:3RR. You have reverted this article four times. I have chosen to protect in this case. However, repeat conduct like this will likely result in blocking. Please discuss this issue on the relevant talk pages. Community consensus should determine the result; not edit warring. Let me know if you have any questions. -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:16, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the reminder. I would remind you that the policy states, "An editor must not perform more than three reverts, in whole or in part, on a single page within a 24-hour period. A revert means undoing the actions of another editor, whether involving the same or different material each time." I did not violate this policy. Also, if you review the relevant talk pages, you will see that I did attempt to engage the other users in discussion, and that they reverted my edits without responding to those attempts. For what it's worth, I think you made the correct decision by protecting the page. --Russ (talk) 19:57, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
As the the 3RR page states, neither the 3 nor the 24 is an entitlement. To quote, "Rather, the rule is an 'electric fence'. Editors may still be blocked even if they have made three or fewer reverts in a 24 hour period, if their behavior is clearly disruptive. Efforts to game the system, for example by persistently making three reverts each day or three reverts on each of a group of pages, cast an editor in a poor light and may result in blocks." Edit waring is disruptive. I am aware that you were engaged in discussion. That, plus this not seeming like typical behavior for you, factored into my decision. -- JLaTondre (talk) 23:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

"American"

Hi. The bot seems to be disambiguating "American" to "United States". Is there policy support for this? I ask because it seems fairly POINTy to me, given that the common and generally understood meaning of "American" is "of the United States". No disambiguation is necessary. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) (talk / cont) 17:46, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Policy support? I suppose you could refer to the entire edit history of the page American as establishing the consensus that disambiguation is required. (By the way, the "bot" only disambiguates to "United States" where the context indicates that this is appropriate; not all uses of "American" are referring to the United States.) --Russ (talk) 17:59, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
What's the ratio of disambiguated uses of "American" to non-disambiguated uses? Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) (talk / cont) 18:14, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, they're virtually all disambiguated, just not all to "United States." In terms of the newly-created links that I monitor on a continual basis, I'd guess about 90% United States, 10% Americas, and 1% (or less) to other targets (percentages may not total to 100 due to rounding). :) --Russ (talk) 18:19, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Don't you think those figures indicate that the general and commonly accepted and understood use of "American" is to mean "of the United States" (90% of the time), and that since the bot can determine the context of when it does not refer to the United States, so can the reader? Disambiguation seems completely unecessary, and the added wikilink just an exmaple of overlinking. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) (talk / cont) 18:22, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Take it up on Talk:American (if you want to waste your time, that is, because this issue has been discussed repeatedly before). And "the bot" doesn't determine the context, I do, as explained on User:RussBot. --Russ (talk) 18:31, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Ah. Thanks for that info. I'm not going to waste my time, except to say that I think you're wasting yours. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) (talk / cont) 19:03, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Category redirects

Hi Russ. I think I am on to something! I might have cracked the category redirect problem! Take a look at my responses over at Template talk:Category redirect#New categorization ideas and in the next section "Soon obsolete?". It's thanks to you, since you mentioned the MediaWiki API.

--David Göthberg (talk) 19:19, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I have talked to the MediaWiki API devs about the "generator + categoryinfo bug". The problem is solved, we can now use the API. See my explanation at Template talk:Category redirect#New categorization ideas.
--David Göthberg (talk) 13:46, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Editprotected request

Rather than making large numbers of editprotected requests, it's better to just make a single request along with a list of all the affected templates. Although the bot doesn't mind leaving editprotected templates, it takes an extra manual edit to remove each one.

I also noticed that the template for this message [4] is not actually protected. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:42, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Since I handle this kind of requests every now and then, and handled some of RussBot's requests today: What page the {{editprotected}} is put on doesn't matter. As long as there is a good description of what needs to be done and where it needs to be done. And as Carl said, it saves us a lot of edits to have all the similar requests listed together. So in this case it could for instance be nice if the bot had its own subpage for this, where it lists things that it needs admin help with. Perhaps named something like User:RussBot/Editprotected requests.
Oh, and from what I have seen RussBot does really nice work. Thanks R'n'B for providing that service.
--David Göthberg (talk) 15:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Removal of one category

Er.. Hi, your bot seems to have removed a Category: Biography from what is quite obviously a biography. Garry Thomson. Would appreciate a comment on the talk page for that article. Before I re add it, and your bot removes it again! Thanks for your time. --Daniel Cull (talk) 03:37, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you read the notice at the top of the Category:Biography page. (Oh, and for what it's worth, I made that edit using this account, the bot had nothing to do with it.) --Russ (talk) 10:34, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Double-redirect oddity

The bot did an unusual thing at Periodic Bernoulli polynomial. The edit summary was Fixing double-redirect -"Bernoulli polynomial#Periodic_Bernoulli_polynomials" +"Bernoulli polynomials#Periodic Bernoulli polynomials"), which is fine, but the redirect actually reads #REDIRECT [[Bernoulli polynomials#Periodic%Bernoulli polynomials]] with a percent not a space. It actually seems to work fine, but displays oddly. However it might be a symptom of something or other ... Richard Pinch (talk) 19:19, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that was a bug that was introduced into the pywikipediabot framework recently; I've fixed it since the edit you caught. --Russ (talk) 19:56, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Re: John H. Craycroft

I just saw your edits on my article listed above. I understand, now, your change regarding the biography category although I think that is perhaps somewhat arbitrary. However I don't understand the essay-like link you put on the article.

Aside from perhaps changing the date styles in the article I don't see that anything else in the encyclopedic style article would have any effect on my article. As for it being essay-like, yes it is an essay. It is an essay about a long-gone cousin of mine who played an important role in the history of a town in the California gold fields of the 1850's.

Perhaps I am wrong but I think the style and tenor of the article meets the "encyclopedic" style outlined here. Could you be more specific or at least give me some examples of what you feel must be changed?

Also, in that vein, I was under the impression that Wikipedia was intended to gather and share information about the world we live in and its history and peoples. Did I miss a point someplace?

Thank you. --Cray4348 (talk) 16:56, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

For one thing, encyclopedia articles are not written in the first person. Have you ever seen this done in any other encyclopedia? As for what you may have missed, there is a very useful and interesting discussion of what Wikipedia is not, including "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information." If you think Wikipedia needs an article on John H. Craycroft, then the article should be about him and his life, not about your search for genealogical information. --Russ (talk) 17:45, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I've rewritten the article now and understand what I should have done. Could you please take a look at it again and let me know if I've met the requirements. Thanks. --Cray4348 (talk) 02:11, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

my error

My sincere apologies for the problem caused by my use of WikiCleaner. I was using it to pinpoint pages in need of corrective action and was indeed viewing and fixing each individually. I wasnt aware of glitches or problems with the 'tool' and had no idea that it was automatically making so many inaccurate changes, entirely independent of myself. The realization of this dilemma is frustrating because I honestly contributed a significant number of accurate, productive edits. Thanks--1oddbins1 (talk) 22:14, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Redirect of Emery Naswood (singer)

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Emery Naswood (singer), by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Emery Naswood (singer) is a redirect to a non-existent page (CSD R1).

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Emery Naswood (singer), please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. To see the user who deleted the page, click here CSDWarnBot (talk) 12:40, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

double redirect

Hi, you might want to take a look. I noticed your bot is fixing redirects to dab pages. However, it sends Albanian to [[Albanian people|Albanian]] and Korean to [[Korean people|Korean]], which are then redirected to Albanians and Koreans, respectively. Thanks, Jd2718 (talk) 12:41, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

As long as the link takes the reader to the correct article, I don't think it's a problem. That's what redirects are for. See WP:R#Do not "fix" links to redirects that are not broken. --Russ (talk) 14:44, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
And I continue to learn... I am glad I asked. Thank you. Jd2718 (talk) 15:03, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

VANDALS!!!

Hey, I don't like WIKI vandals. Do you want to start a WIKI "war" against vandals? I am in if you are. If you don't want to then I will just find someone else!!! Truely yours, Bmoc2012tms (talk) 16:48, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Blocking Russbot

I notice that you've been using Russbot to do newpage patrol. However, you haven't made clear what criteria the bot uses to approve pages; as such, I've blocked Russbot until we get its patrol criteria made explicit. DS (talk) 18:41, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah. If you're the one doing the assessment and clicking the 'patrol' link, then why do it under the bot account? DS (talk) 19:05, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Okay. Your answer is satisfactory, and I have therefore unblocked the bot. DS (talk) 19:40, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

RussBot sowing strangeness

Any idea what happened here?: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Icelandic_language&diff=next&oldid=232488088. --Dynaflow babble 23:04, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

OMG, that was a mess. This (at least the original bot edit, I don't take responsibility for anything that happened after that) is a very rare, sporadic bug in one of my scripts that I am still trying to find the cause of. Sorry for the problem. --Russ (talk) 00:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Good candidate?

Hi R'n'B. I have the pleasure to inform you that you are being discussed over at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship#Good candidate?. (And no worries, no one has said anything bad about you, yet.)

--David Göthberg (talk) 13:41, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Frankly, I have been reluctant to enter the RfA process because I don't want to be more engaged in Wikipolitics and Wikidrama than I already am; in fact, I keep trying to get less engaged. On the other hand, a lot of what I am doing now involves "picking up the mop" as you put it, and being an admin would let me do things myself instead of bothering you and others. So, if you want to put my name in nomination, I'd be willing to accept. --Russ (talk) 14:47, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Ah good. And don't worry about Wikipolitics and Wikidrama. It is entirely voluntary to do work on the pages that contains such things. Some of us (like me) mostly use the adminship to be able to edit protected pages and occasionally protect and unprotect pages. To me the mop is merely like having the main key so I can move around the building freely.
And as you probably know, I have not formally nominated you, just tipped the others that you probably are a good candidate. However if they don't do it I might take the time some day to investigate you properly and then nominate you myself. I'll of course contact you if/when I get to that point. If you know someone (preferably an admin) that you think know your work well and is likely to want to (co)nominate you then please ask that person to drop a note here and/or over at that discussion and/or at my talk page.
--David Göthberg (talk) 15:09, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Sherwood, New York

About Sherwood, New York there was no article, but i just created it. Perhaps you meant Sherwood, NY which is the redirect that pointed to it, while it did not exist? Anyhow, i don't see a Speedy delete tag on either or in their histories. doncram (talk) 16:50, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Block 92.4.185.103?

Hi Russ! Please see User talk:92.4.185.103 (note the date of your comment) and this edit. Best regards, Tkynerd (talk) 01:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

RussBot - why the prod?

RussBot prodded and article, here. Now I actually agree with this but it seems incredibly bizarre for a bot to be doing it... were you logged in to th wrong account, or something? Else I'm thoroughly confused :) Regards, AllynJ (talk | contribs) 22:55, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

  • Yes, that was a mistake. When I am disambiguating, I have to read the article to understand the context, and if I see something wrong, I naturally want to fix it. If it's just minor copyediting, I do it through the bot account, but if it's something substantive like a prod, I normally drop out to my user account before editing. I must have forgotten to do so this time. --Russ (talk) 08:52, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Bot on Commons

Hi, could you give some feedback here? Thanks, PatríciaR msg 19:51, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much, your bot is now flagged. Could you please add it to commons:Commons:Bots along with a short description? Thank you, PatríciaR msg 20:49, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Template edit

I'm not totally sure why you reverted me here Fasach Nua (talk) 13:39, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

  • First, Britain is a disambiguation page. It is not helpful to readers to link there; link to one of the specific meanings instead. Second, the title of the template is "Anglican hierarchy in the United Kingdom and Ireland" -- if you think "United Kingdom" needs to be changed to something else, I suspect a lot more than just that one link needs to be revised, and this would appear to be a major change to the template that requires some discussion. However, since I know absolutely nothing about Anglican church organization, I have no opinion on what the correct title of the template should be. --Russ (talk) 13:52, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

dump analysis request

It was a few days from when you (kindly) replied to my dump analysis request, seeking clarification, until I replied to your question, so, in case you're no longer watching that conversation, I'm noting here that I've now replied there. Thanks much!—msh210℠ 16:01, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I did see it, and I'm planning to run your analysis today. I am going to use the Wikipedia dump from 2008-07-24, and the Wiktionary dump from 2008-06-13 (the most recent available), and see what happens. It will take a few hours, I'm sure (three database passes are required -- one to build a list of all pages on Wiktionary, one to build a mapping of redirects on Wikipedia, and then the third to generate the actual list). --Russ (talk) 16:11, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks so much: I appreciate your taking the time and effort.—msh210℠ 21:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, in case you're wondering, the script ran into (several) bugs last night, but I think I've squashed them all and can try it again some time today. --Russ (talk) 13:54, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your work on this! Those have now been transwikied to Wiktionary, so they can be deleted from here if you like.—msh210℠ 16:12, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Suikoden world

A tag has been placed on Suikoden world, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a redirect to a nonexistent page.

If you can fix this redirect to point to an existing Wikipedia page, please do so and remove the speedy deletion tag. However, please do not remove the speedy deletion tag unless you also fix the redirect. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. Jordan Timmins (talk) 21:05, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Star catalogue abbreviations

Thank you, thank you, thank you! (For running your Bot and fixing the dab links in the star catalogue boxes.) Is there any chance you could write a similar script for the Galaxy infobox? I have feeling (from the contributions of a particular editor) there may be quite a few links going to dab pages like VV and PGC fairly soon. Ka Faraq Gatri (talk) 21:41, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

It's easily done if you provide some specific links to the infobox that needs fixing and a list of the specific abbreviations that need to be changed (and what they need to be changed to). --Russ (talk) 21:46, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
OK, I'm a bit new to this so apologies if the links aren't too wonderful. The infobox in question is template:Infobox galaxy. The DAB links are occurring the section called 'name'. Ones I've seen so far are:

ARP - Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies
VV - Atlas of Interacting Galaxies
APG - Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies
UGC - Uppsala General Catalogue
HCG - Hickson Compact Group
MCG - Morphological Catalogue of Galaxies
PCG - Principal Galaxies Catalogue
GC - General Catalogue
4C - Fourth Cambridge Survey
LGG - Lyons Groups of Galaxies

Ka Faraq Gatri (talk) 22:30, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

On your template edits

The edits you made to {{Infobox comics organization}} and {{Infobox comic book title}} created two problems:

  1. You renamed a series of hidden categories without setting up to fix them. The creates an issue with red linked maintenance categories appearing on hundreds of articles.
  2. You botched the meaning:
    • "Deprecated" (your word) means to belittle, state disapproval of, ridicule.[5]
    • "Depreciated" (correct term) means to lose value.[6]
The parameters are not being called names, ridiculed, or humiliated. They are no longer used in, or of value for the templates.

Please, be more careful when editing templates used across large numbers of articles.

- J Greb (talk) 23:36, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to cause problems. According to the dictionary I checked, however, deprecate means: "
  1. (formal) to express disapproval of.
  2. (computing) to recommend against use of.
  3. (archaic) to pray against."
Number 2 seems to fit the bill here. --Russ (talk) 23:48, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
In looking through dome of the other listed at OneLook, and using the root as opposed to the past tense yields a few more for both, there seems to be a sense that "deprecate" is to "speak poorly of". Or that's at least the tone of the initial definitions. "depreciate" general starts with the "to lower/decline in value" ones. These also mirror the two words etymology.
It's also interesting that Encarta and Webster's New World College Dictionary treat the pair as synonyms: Encarta listing "depreciate (3rd sense)" as the 3 definition of deprecate.
- J Greb (talk) 00:11, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Good catch

Thanks for fixing the John Geoghan redirect I almost made. I'd have thought the WikiMedia software would be able to catch that automatically... --zenohockey (talk) 01:40, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

SOIL PAGE

Not sure if I am doing this right, as I am fairly unfamiliar with wikipedia, however why the corrections to the SOiL page that are incorrect by russbot? Shaun Glass helped form the band, and russbot is writing that he joined in 2007? Not correct. He helped form the band. It was Ryan Mccombs who later joined and who was the only non-forming member. Also russbot is not even spelling Shaun's name right. This robot should be blocked from the SOiL page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.15.195.179 (talk) 23:31, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

You are confused. The only edit RussBot made to SOiL was this. The edits you are complaining about were made by another user. --Russ (talk) 09:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Rewrite

Hi R'n'B, do you have a design plan somewhere for the rewrite of the pywikipedia bot? I might be able to help in the future (that screen scraping is evil! ;-) ). multichill (talk) 13:04, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

What is this "plan"?  ;) Nothing written down, alas. I've been somewhat guided by this, but also making things up as I go along; and trying very hard to maintain backwards-compatibility. --Russ (talk) 13:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
Ok, thank you. I'll have a look at it. multichill (talk) 17:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
If it will actually get you (or anyone else) to help, I'll try to spend some time writing down ideas on where to go from here. --Russ (talk) 19:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

RSSSF

Hello. Write your one guy from Russia Sorry for any grammatical errors, English I know badly. Help me please in one question. The question may seem silly, but in Russia no one knows the correct answer. Here is a page of Wikipedia - [7] Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation You can write the full spelling of the abbreviation RSSSF without abbreviations of words.

The first short word - Rec. As it is written entirely. We have found variants in Russia - Recorder, Recent. But it is certainly not true. At some sites written in the full title like this Recreation and Sports Soccer Statistics Foundation That is right??? Gavrilov Sergey (talk) 20:18, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

  • "Rec" in that title is an abbreviation for "recreation". However, the first part of the title is correctly written as "Rec.Sport.Soccer" because the foundation was named after the Usenet newsgroup of the same name. (Just as you would write "Amazon.com" because that is its domain name, even though "com" is an abbrevation for "commercial".) --Russ (talk) 20:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Hendon School

Thank you my good chap for responding to my criticism of removing the whole article relating to Hendon School.

So your objection is that there are 2 unverified facts in the whole article and you decide to pull the whole thing down? I think you have a bit of a chip on your shoulder! You alleged that there are 2 facts are nonsense, yet have no evidence to the contrary. It's not worth your time? Obviously it's at a premium - but surely I personally don't have time to verify every fact in every article either yet you don't see me deleting whole pages that comprise other people's articles.

Please desist from vandalism of this page in future, many thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by The biggest jimmy (talk • contribs) 19:09, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Template:Air National Guard

Not particularly. In this case, National Guard has the best definition. It is unfortunate that it is logged as a disambig page, when it's really more of a list combined with a stub definition. Militia (United States) is not appropriate because the term encompasses much more than just the scope of the navbox. bahamut0013♠♣ 15:58, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

RE: America

Why? I'm simply restoring the content as it was before, and for quite a long time. No demonstrated consensus supports the current wording, only a number of pernicious editors who profess consensus but revert repeatedly anyway. And I don't see you warbling on the talk page, anyway. 216.234.60.106 (talk) 15:29, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

RussBot's Geography

Hi there. RussBot just came through an article and changed a link [[British]] to the link [[United Kingdom|British]]. Britain is made up of Scotland, England, and Wales. The United Kingdom is made up of Britain and Northern Ireland. As my passport says: "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". To be from the UK and to be British are not always the same thing: Britain is a proper subset of the UK. Could you tell RussBot please. Cheers.  Δεκλαν Δαφισ   (talk)  13:03, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the lesson, although I was already aware of those facts. The disambiguation of British depends largely on the context. The article in question identifies the subject as a "British mathematician." As you point out, his passport most likely was issued by the United Kingdom. The article doesn't say in which part of the UK he was born or resides; so I think United Kingdom was indeed the best way to disambiguate in this case. --Russ (talk) 13:05, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
I disagree. Since the article said British surely the best way to disambiguate in this case would be to link to Great Britain? By linking to the UK it is making the article less specific. If there was an ambiguity about the UK then it would not make sense to change the link to the Commonwealth, even though the UK is part of the Commonwealth. I have changed the link to English since he is in fact English. I didn't mention his passport, I mentioned my passport.  Δεκλαν Δαφισ   (talk)  13:16, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps he is English; I have no idea. There is no reference cited in the article that would have led me to know this. You have changed it without citing any source. --Russ (talk) 13:55, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
I have changed it because I started the article, I am the primary contributor to the article, and he had been my MSc and PhD supervisor for the last five years (until April this year). How does one give a reference to someone's nationality? I could post an external link, but then that would suffer link rot. I don't have access to the British govenment's database, and even if I did that would suffer link rot. I can't see a reference on Isaac Newton's article for him being English, or any other biographical article that I have seen. He is English!  Δεκλαν Δαφισ   (talk)  14:07, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Trinity High School Anti-Blazers

That was a serious post and something that will need to be updated and recorded over some time. I don't see why it was deleted, I didn't do anything against the rules. I would like if you could atleast tell me why it deserved to be deleted, because it was a constructive and valid piece of information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lord-Schmee (talk • contribs) 20:52, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

The text I reverted had nothing to do with "Anti-Blazers," so I'm not quite sure what you're talking about. I reverted an insertion that looked like a personal attack on the head teacher; at the very least, you need to review WP:BLP before inserting material of this nature. --Russ (talk) 20:56, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

That was a friend of mine that did that when I was playing the PS3, sorry about that. The one I'm talking about I think was reverted by LOTRrules. Or something. Even though my point AND information were completely valid. --Schmee

Joseph Nourse biography -- or not?

Please see Talk:Joseph_Nourse for comments about removing the Biography category from the article. Thanks. -- btphelps (talk) (contribs) 05:22, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Oekoenergie-Cluster and your Bot

Just wondering why your Bot labelled this article as patrolled last month,[8], as far i can tell its not part of its areas of operation, and patrolling is something that should be done manually. Cheers--Jac16888 (talk) 19:32, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Already addressed above. --Russ (talk) 23:12, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
How did i miss that? Never mind then, as you were--Jac16888 (talk) 02:13, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Minor edit to Pub Quiz

The bot removed a link to the disambiguation page for Bingo in a paragraph about Bingo Quizzes. Whilst in principle I can see this is desirable, in this particular instance a very general link for the word Bingo seemed appropriate, since such a quiz is called so by general allusion. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pub_quiz&curid=166518&diff=244443855&oldid=238757475 Chrisj1948 (talk) 20:57, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Alternate capitalization redirects

Could you please not undo double-redirects when the first stage is to an alternate capitalization? This comes up all the time in the area of music singles. People will create an article too soon, and it gets redirected as a violation of WP:CRYSTAL. After that happens, people pop up creating all the alternate capitalizations: not only do we have If I Were a Boy, we have If I were a Boy, If I Were A Boy, etc. I always redirect the alternates to the correct capitalization. That way, when the single is actually released and WP:CRYSTAL no longer applies, all people have to do is make an article at the correct capitalization. Unless, of course, Russbot strikes. Then, people have to figure out every alternate capitalization that already exists, and change the redirect back by hand.

I think it's generally a good idea to always have incorrect capitalizations redirect to the correct one. That way, it's easy to take care of the alternates no matter what happens to the correct ones.—Kww(talk) 19:34, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't agree that's a good idea. Double-redirects create an inconvenience for the reader who mistypes the title in the search box. Indeed, to see what you were talking about, I just typed "If I Were A Boy" in the search box, and clicked "Go"; it took me to a redirect page and I had to click again to get to an article. Before you intentionally created the double-redirect, I would have gone directly to the article about the album. If you think that Wikipedia policy should encourage double-redirects, you'll need to build a consensus for it. --Russ (talk) 19:37, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Point taken. If I could get consensus for it, how hard would it be to modify the bot to notice that an alternate capitalization exists with a real article, and redirect to it automatically? That way, after If I Were a Boy contains a real article, all the alternates could have their redirect pointed to it automatically.—Kww(talk) 20:12, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Strange Russbot edit back in March

This is very strange - whole page over-written by content of another page. Was Russbot playing up, or was it hijacked for political purposes? Rather worrying that such an edit has stayed undiscovered for 7 months - I only fell over it while stub-sorting Roozbeh! PamD (talk) 16:43, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

It was a bug; I think I have solved the problem since then. --Russ (talk) 16:46, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Category redirects

Hi, there has been some discussion recently about whether there are bots handling category redirects, and I've been informed that RussBot does it. Can you explain its modus operandi? How often does it perform this task? And does it search all existing redirected categories for possible stray pages, or only new ones, or only soft redirects, or only those that have been specially requested, or...? It would be useful to know, since knowing there's a bot doing this would enable us to be more flexible about the naming of categories (e.g. including dashes, with redirects from hyphens). Grateful for any information, cheers--Kotniski (talk) 13:20, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, RussBot does category redirects. The algorithm, generally, is as follows:
  1. Iterate through all category pages that are hard redirects.
    1. If it is a hard redirect to another category page, convert it to a soft redirect (unless the page already has {{category redirect}} on it, in which case skip it).
    2. Otherwise, log the problem.
  2. Iterate through all pages that are in Category:Wikipedia category redirects, and --
    1. If the target of a soft redirect is also a soft redirect, bypass the double-redirect.
    2. If the target of a soft redirect doesn't exist, log it and don't process any articles that are in that category.
    3. If a soft redirect has been edited within the past 7 days, skip it (cooldown period).
    4. In any other category that is a soft redirect, try to move all the articles into the target category (sometimes this can't be done automatically because the category link is buried in a template call).
The bot normally runs once daily, and its log is at User:RussBot/category redirect log.
If you want more gory details, you can see the source code at http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/pywikipedia/trunk/pywikipedia/category_redirect.py --Russ (talk) 13:34, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
That's great, thanks! Just one question: is there a reason why hard redirects have to be converted to soft ones?--Kotniski (talk) 14:36, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Because, otherwise, any pages that were mistakenly assigned to the redirected category, instead of the target, would be effectively invisible until the bot got around to moving them. Plus, the hard redirects need to be put into Category:Wikipedia category redirects so they get picked up on the second pass. (For what it's worth, I was prepared to write the bot to convert all the soft redirects to hard ones, with {{category redirect}} left on the page for categorization purposes, but that idea did not gain consensus.) --Russ (talk) 15:17, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
That sounds like it would have been a good idea. The arguments you cite against doing it don't make sense (they are invisible anyway; hard redirects can also be categorized). Do you remember where it was discussed so we can perhaps raise the idea again?--Kotniski (talk) 16:00, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Error

I'm sure you've since fixed it, but someone point out this error [9] with Russbot. MBisanz talk 15:36, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

CSD

Hiya.. where did I mess up? [ roux ] [x] 17:24, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

  • On this article, you added {{db-notability}} although the article is about a book, and the deletion criterion only applies to articles about persons, organizations, or web content (and, anyway, the article does make claims about notability). On this article, you added {{db-nocontext}} even though the article was not "very short" and quite clearly stated to be about financial accounting standards. I know it's easy to get carried away with speedy deletion, as I've done it myself; but when I do, someone else always points out that these criteria are meant to be applied only to very specific situations. --Russ (talk) 17:33, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Le Train Bleu (passenger train)

RussBot changed [[English]] and [[French]] to [[English language|English]] and [[French language|French]], which is correct for the context, but probably it would have been better just to unlink them, per WP:OVERLINK#What generally should not be linked,

Items that would be familiar to most readers of the article, such as the names of major geographic features and locations, historical events, religions, languages, and common professions.

There;s no reasonable likelihood that anyone would actually click on those links, so they're just clutter. BTW, how does a bot manage to do that kind of disambiguation? Colonies Chris (talk) 14:27, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Overlinking is a fair point. As to how it works, see User:RussBot. --Russ (talk) 14:56, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Bad bot edit

Your bot's edit to Birmingham was inappropriate, as the "Reformation" referred to is the English Reformation, not the Protestant Reformation. I've fixed it, but please watch for that, in future, Thank you. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:03, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Why can't you just edit the link if you disagree with it, instead of characterizing it as "bad"? It's not wrong. The Reformation in England was Protestant, wasn't it? Being more or less specific is a different matter than being wrong or inappropriate. --Russ (talk) 20:06, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
By the way, how do you know it's referring to the English Reformation? It says first "in the United Kingdom" since the Reformation; the Scottish Reformation was about 20 years after the English. --Russ (talk) 20:13, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Good edit and one I forgot to make. Thanks. Law shoot! 01:44, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Radical

You may have already changed this, but I just came across a Russbot edit from 2007 which used a link to extremism for the word "radical". diff That's really not a good choice for a default dab link for radicalism when there are multiple meanings/interpretations -- much better to use "Political radicalism" as the default setting, which provides concise explanations for each, along with links to the main articles. Cgingold (talk) 19:35, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

This edit

[10] shouldn't you be fixing the links rather than just unlinking ? Gnevin (talk) 01:48, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Generally, yes, but in this specific case, no. That template has huge numbers of links that are useless to readers. On Wikipedia, article titles are nouns, not adjectives, so linking to all the adjectives (that correspond to the nouns in the immediately preceding column) is not beneficial. --Russ (talk) 10:48, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Ok that's grand Gnevin (talk) 18:03, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition page

Hello there! I see you’re a patroller of the Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition Bible page, and was hoping you could answer a few questions. Why - if you are patrolling the page - are you not answering the questions posed on the talk page? Anyone who tries to amend the article only seems to have his or her edits reversed. User talk:Pete unseth is also disturbed in relation to this situation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sacred_Scriptures_Bethel_Edition If you are patrolling the page, please give reasons why you are not happy with the edits which are made to improve the article and also why you are not discussing your inaction over the page. Have a nice day...

83.100.146.147 (talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Cheers, and Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

I've never edited or even read that article. --Russ (talk) 18:47, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Beatles / The Beatles

Hi, I don't really have an opinion on which of these is more appropriate for categorisation of the articles, but I observed that historically the former was used. I think it changed to the latter when the metatemplate was first introduced, probably because the editor didn't know how to set that option. If you look at the categories, they are all duplicated, but categories such as Category:A-Class Beatles articles seemed to be better set up as they had the George Harrison categories, etc. as subcategories. If you can see what I mean. Anyway, whatever you think is best. Cheers, MSGJ 12:31, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I noticed there were about 5 or 6 categorization links in that template, all of which read "The Beatles" except for the one you had changed. I also noticed that Category:Top-importance Beatles articles is a redirect to Category:Top-importance The Beatles articles. I didn't check the other importance levels, but it seemed to make more sense to have articles placed in the latter category rather than the former. Russ (talk) 14:30, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Sid Bernstein

Thanks for the ref fix, here's a smilie:

ErikTheBikeMan (talk) 01:06, 17 December 2008 (UTC) has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend, Go on smile! Cheers, and Happy editing!=)
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links/from templates

Hi, I've seen, that you updated this site. Did you use a dump or how did you make it? Is it possible, if it's not too complicated and time-consuming for you, that you create such a list for de.wikipedia? merry christmas --Knopfkind (talk) 23:43, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it comes from an XML dump. I could do one for de.wikipedia, I just don't know whether I will be able to do it before the holidays. --Russ (talk) 23:58, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
No problem, that doesn't matter. Actually, I'm very happy that the list will be made. The lemma should be de:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Begriffsklärungsseiten/Arbeitslisten/Top-BKS von Vorlagen. I really have no idea, how long the list will be. --Knopfkind (talk) 00:28, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

You are too smart!!

Of course the information about the Western District being the largest geographically was incorrect. An anonymous contributor was undoing new and acurately cited information. Thanks for actually reading critically this time. Keep your smart ass comments to yourself next time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Texaslegal (talk • contribs) 17:02, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Category:People from Trafford

Hi, I noticed you set up a redirect from the above category to people from Trafford (district) but I'm not sure why. In your edit summary here, you mention a historic town but, unless there's one outside Greater Manchester, I'm not aware of any town called Trafford. You also mention a naming scheme, but I've not come across this before, could you point me in the direction where consensus was reached? Nev1 (talk) 23:19, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Just noticed the note you left on the category talk page, but I'm still unfamiliar with the naming convention you mentioned. Nev1 (talk) 23:22, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Template:England people message is used on various categories with names like Category:People from Puddington, and one of its parameters is the name of the local government district in which the locality is found. This classifies the category into Category:People from District (district); in the case of Trafford, someone had changed Category:People from Trafford (district) into a redirect to Category:People from Trafford. This left several subcategories stranded in the redirect category, and there was no way to change that without making massive changes to the template code, which was beyond my abilities. It seemed simpler just to reverse the redirect. --Russ (talk) 23:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
It was me who set up the first redirect so I'll sort out any problems. It seems clumsy to have it called Trafford (district), and the template doesn't have to be used, but it's only a category so doesn't seem worth worrying about and I'll leave it as Trafford (district). Thanks for explaining. Nev1 (talk) 23:53, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
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