User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2010 July

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SmackBot on RuneScape

Hey Rich, we already sent you a message on runescape, but I thought I'd tell you here as well. SmackBot has been malfunctioning and was shutdown. It was adding "DUMMY" to the beginning of prices and dates. I noticed that this also happened in November of 2008. Just thought I'd tell you. CookMePlox (talk) 01:56, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

Can you please tone down Smackbot? - I appreciate that some things can be checked automatically but it appears to make a lot of 'changes' that are totally invisible in a diff. If its invisible then why bother? Some changes that it does produce can be an arbitrary matter of taste which doesn't affect the final article. The meat of any genuine change is completely lost in the dozens of irrelevant alterations. E.g. Changing sub-headings from'== xxx ==' is very subjective and irrelevant to the ultimate format. (Personally, I think spaces make it easier to read, but there is no right or wrong answer here.) Removing carriage returns and splicing together lines is irrelevant, and just makes reading the diff impossible. Sifting through hundred of these changes is the sort of infuriating trivia that deters authors Ephebi (talk) 10:35, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Re: Smackbot and "Video music" changes

Just letting you know that Smackbot went through and changed a bunch of the musician awards lists. Section headings for the "MTV Video Music Awards" were changed to "MTV Video music Awards", which looks odd given in terms of capitalization. (For example, List of awards and nominations received by Adele, with the edit being shown here). I went ahead and "undid" the changes to a few of the awards lists that were on my watchlist, but I am not sure if other lists need to be changed back as well. --Another Believer _(Talk) 17:37, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes I can find them and fix them. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 19:33, 30 June 2010 (UTC).

Done those. Rich Farmbrough, 18:24, 1 July 2010 (UTC).

Formula Three

Hi Rich. Can you please ask Smackbot not to change "Formula Three" to "Formula three", as it did here. Thanks. DH85868993 (talk) 13:30, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes that will be done.

It probably shouldn't be doing this either. DH85868993 (talk) 13:34, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah no, foolish bot believed me when I said that "Two" could always be lower-cased. We were talking about "Side two" and things like that. Will explain (to it) in more detail. Rich Farmbrough, 18:32, 1 July 2010 (UTC).

Thanks :-) DH85868993 (talk) 03:23, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Gaza_flotilla_raid

Rich, this seems badly biased--the statements of those on the flotilla slant towards admitting violence, which is not congruent with what I've read in the press....I don't have the time to edit this and then have it reverted. Sorry. Hope you're well--Beth Wellington (talk) 16:57, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

for instance, see: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wirestory?id=10812607&page=3--Beth Wellington (talk) 17:09, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Also, support in Israel was not monolithic, even among the military. For instance, http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/Article.aspx?id=180119--Beth Wellington (talk) 17:51, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I've quickly glanced at the article, it is a bit of a mess on the level of basic sentence structure. I tweaked a couple of things. I don't think it implies that support in Israel was universal, mentioning the Knesset member who was on the flotilla, for example. From what I have understood there was extreme violence on just the one ship, and lesser amounts on the others. Of course with these types of events you get people who were there, (and often people who were not!) claiming all sorts of stuff and it takes a while to piece it together. To me it is shows that people can be extremely foolish - taking a one-year old on such a trip has to be grossly irresponsible at least. Rich Farmbrough, 18:35, 3 July 2010 (UTC).

Template:Portal/Images/Connecticut

Would you have any objections to changing this from "Flag of Connecticut.svg" to "Seal of Connecticut.svg" which is what the old PORTAL_IMG parameter was in {{WikiProject Connecticut}}? I think it adds a little visual interest to the project banner since the flag is already used as the main image. I'd do it myself, but 1) the page is protected and 2) I'd be afraid of breaking everything. Thanks.Abby Kelleyite (talk) 20:01, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

ISO 3166 code templates

I noticed you were the author of Template:ISO 3166 code, so I figured you're the person to ask: Is there any reason not to make Template:ISO 3166 code North Korea, Template:ISO 3166 code South Korea, or other such redirects? I'm using the ISO 3166 templates to make a new version of Template:Globalize at User:Closeapple/new/Globalize/testcases, in regard to the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2010 June 21#Template:Globalize/Australia. Is there some other template I should be using instead to make names canonical? --Closeapple (talk) 19:43, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Timeline of United States inventions (before 1890)

This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a search with the contents of Timeline of United States inventions (before 1890), and it appears to be very similar to another Wikipedia page: Timeline of United States inventions. It is possible that you have accidentally duplicated contents, or made an error while creating the page— you might want to look at the pages and see if that is the case. If you are intentionally trying to rename an article, please see Help:Moving a page for instructions on how to do this without copying and pasting. If you are trying to move or copy content from one article to a different one, please see Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia and be sure you have acknowledged the duplication of material in an edit summary to preserve attribution history.

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot (talk) 11:39, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

botched date ranges

just wanted to draw your attention to a botched mdy to dmy date range conversion I spotted. Now fixed. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:02, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Found a few more from various people going back several years. Fixing as I go. Rich Farmbrough, 23:41, 5 July 2010 (UTC).

Splitting pages

Hi. Please remember to include a wikilink in the edit summary the next time you split an article or move content from one article to another. See WP:SPLIT and WP:CWW for more information. Theleftorium ^(talk) 21:05, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

BP

This edit seems quite strange and I partially reverted it. Beagel (talk) 16:13, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Y Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 16:30, 6 July 2010 (UTC).

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Auto refresh watchlist

Hey, can you look at the conversation here and weigh in some thoughts. Sadads (talk) 17:52, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Template:$

Re this edit, what is Smackbot doing here? Mjroots (talk) 17:54, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

See BP above. Rich Farmbrough, 18:39, 6 July 2010 (UTC).

(Essentially there is a redirected template called "..." who's name needed escaping. Rich Farmbrough, 20:57, 6 July 2010 (UTC).)

Please help with this?

Rich, often at night, I go through the Category:Musicians work group articles needing infoboxes and look for those that do exist, and cross them off the list, and also add infoboxes to articles with enough information to put into them. Today, I found someone had started an article, but it's TITLE is User:Christineargue -- I'd actually begun to work on it and it's talk page before realizing how screwed up this is. Can you handle this? Figure out what the editor is trying to do, etc.? I don't feel qualified to handle anything like this. Thanks. --Leahtwosaints (talk) 03:37, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

• I've moved it into her sandbox. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:32, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

  Thanks OC, - there are many user pages that are copies of/drafts of/look like articles - if I'm doing a manual fix I often fix them up, but they can be legitimately ignored, de-categorised or whatever is needed, the encyclopedia is the important bit. Rich Farmbrough, 13:56, 7 July 2010 (UTC).

  Stil not sure how you ended up on that page, Leah. Rich Farmbrough, 14:41, 7 July 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Re: this change, "Court" is always capitalized when referring to the U.S. Supreme Court ("the Court"). The header should probably be changed to "The Supreme Court's decision", but in any event lower case is incorrect. postdlf (talk) 22:53, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes I understand, we do not capitalise words merely because it is the practice of some other body or profession, no matter how august or venerable. Rich Farmbrough, 08:31, 8 July 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot - Baltimore Orioles

You need to "white list" or whatever you do so that "Baltimore Orioles" stays appropriately capitalized. I've reverted and marked with a commented sic (its in a heading) at Alan Wiggins. --John (User:Jwy/talk) 00:23, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Hm, thought I had. Thanks for the note. Rich Farmbrough, 08:28, 8 July 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Hi....I took a picture of Estelle Getty's grave when I was in LA a few weeks ago. I can't figure out how to add it to the page...can you do this?

here is the link: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4122/4773696902_93be78157a_m.jpg

If you could upload this or give me instructions on how to do it myself I would appreciate it. I can make it larger if need be.

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.97.178.22 (talk) 05:20, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

On the left of the screen is "toolbox", opening this should give you a link called "Upload file". Rich Farmbrough, 08:30, 8 July 2010 (UTC).

Antonio Francisco Xavier Alvares

You've added a NPOV template there without stating the dispute. In fact the article talk page is empty. IMHO these templates are rather worthless without an explanation on the talk page. --Pjacobi (talk) 13:49, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

It only takes reading the article. Even the headers are (were) adulatory "True Missionary" etc. Rich Farmbrough, 14:37, 8 July 2010 (UTC).

Or worked with dedication to spread the true faith... C'mon. Rich Farmbrough, 14:38, 8 July 2010 (UTC).

"Explicit is better than implicit"[1]. If you can't be bothered to state the problem explicitely, why should anyone be bothered to fix the article?

But, yeah, of course. I see that problem. Mostly wondering whether any specific, non-obvious, question should be added to list of problems.

--Pjacobi (talk) 10:55, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Smackbot and orphans

hi rich, smackbot correctly flagged Euphoria Emporium as a orphan. I have linked the article to one other article, but am unsure of what other steps will appease Smackbot and convince it (him?her?) to remove the banner. Theinterior (talk) 19:43, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Anyone can remove the tag if the problem is fixed. In this case I have done so. Rich Farmbrough, 19:52, 8 July 2010 (UTC).

There seems to be no page for the "Channel 10" mentioned. List of television stations in British Columbia does not list it as far as I can see. Rich Farmbrough, 20:05, 8 July 2010 (UTC).

Cable 10 was the public-access channel provided by Kamloops Cablevision in the 80's and 90's. After Shaw cable bought the local license, they ended the community-access program. I am unable to reference this at the moment. Theinterior (talk) 20:14, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Benny Kalama

SmackBot just ran on Benny Kalama. Not a problem, but something interesting with the bot you might want to know. If I understand what it did, it "corrected cap in header" in the Birthdate in the infobox. The infobox changed it right back. Where that birthdate template came from is here: Template:Birth date So if it incorrectly has a cap, maybe somebody should get the template changed. If not, maybe it was just one of those things. Maile66 (talk) 21:07, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

It is not a problem. The header change was from "External Links" to "External links" - the others are just very minor things it picks up at the same time. Rich Farmbrough, 21:09, 8 July 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot heading issue

Hi Rich Farmbrough, I'd like to let you know of this edit by SmackBot. It changed ===Theatre=== to ===Theatre==, accidentally removing one equal sign at the end. XLerate (talk) 02:39, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks this happened a number of times, they should all be fixed. Any more let me know. Rich Farmbrough, 09:43, 9 July 2010 (UTC).

I'm rechecking the last 25000 edits to be sure. Rich Farmbrough, 10:04, 9 July 2010 (UTC).

Advice?

Helllooooo~! I wanna have kids, but I'm afraid my fiance won't want any. What should I do? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.59.250.67 (talk) 02:44, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Ask them. Rich Farmbrough, 09:44, 9 July 2010 (UTC).

Kind Pointer?

Rich--I'm looking for a a bot I can run against my personal wiki that will automatically build links. For example, if I create a new article I would like the bot to automatically scan the others and automatically wikify it by adding links in each section whenever it encounters the first occurrence of the new article. Any ideas? Thank you in advance!--P Todd (talk) 01:42, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Depends on how many articles you will be adding, and how many pages you expect to have. If it is very few you could use AWB, otherwise your best bet is to use perl- mix in some wget if it helps. Read Special:NewPages every so often, when there's a new page open each page in succession using the perl API module you will find on CPAN. Loop through the content looking for matches. If it is a local wiki this should be fast enough for a few thousand pages to do it.

You might also look at the tool-server, there are a couple of wikification tools on there.

You need to think about what to do if you have "blah blah titanium dioxide blah blah" and you add page Titanium Dioxide.

Rich Farmbrough, 09:53, 9 July 2010 (UTC).

Awesome. Just the info I was looking for!--P Todd (talk) 22:28, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot RFA Sir Tristram (L3505)

Smackbot has introduced a minor grammar error changing "Roll of Honour" to "Roll of honour" on RFA Sir Tristram (L3505). Its usually written in upper case as a proper noun. Regards, Justin talk 18:30, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot incorrectly changing capitalisation of section titles

Hi Rich, I have a problem with SmackBot. It has been changing the section titles of some of the FA Cup and Football League Cup articles so that instead of "Fifth Round Proper" or "Sixth Round Proper", they read "Fifth round proper" and "Sixth round proper". First of all, this is incorrect, as The Football Association refers to the rounds as proper nouns, so the words should all be capitalised. Second, the bot has been only changing the Fifth and Sixth Round sections, leaving rounds 1-4 alone. Any idea why this is? – PeeJay 12:40, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Oops, forgot to include an example diff: [2] – PeeJay 12:42, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. On the first point we follow our own manual of style, many organisations refer to things associated with themselves (primarily) with capitals, which we don't. A prime example is Nobel laureates but also endless job titles, boards, and so forth. On the second point I would imagine that rounds 1-4 are less common headers, therefore the bot hasn't yet thought about them - it works on a per heading basis but knows something about words to enable it to make some of the decisions about headings itself. Rich Farmbrough, 13:14, 9 July 2010 (UTC).

Fair enough on the MOS point, but I'm fairly sure that - as a WikiProject - WP:FOOTY agreed that we should follow The Football Association's naming style for the rounds of the FA Cup. Does that count for something? – PeeJay 13:34, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, in my experience, it varies, for example the "Tree of Life" project got agreement to have italic titles for articles in certain cases (the MoS was changed), but in general projects follow MoS unless there's an outstanding reason not to. In the case of caps my opinion would be that the MoS should be followed, because there are so many areas where customary usage is confusing, and varying from the WP style, as well as damaging the overall coherence of the work, is a barrier to editing for people not expert in the project-specific rules. Rich Farmbrough, 13:22, 11 July 2010 (UTC).

Estelle Getty

Sorry but I can't figure out how to upload that Estelle Getty grave picture. Your suggestion wasn't really any help at all for someone who doesn't have an account and a good sense of knowledge working with Wiki. Please pass it to someone who can if you cannot do it yourself.. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.97.178.22 (talk) 05:31, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, I swapped to the new interface to check but I didn't log off. You might have seen this message on the upload page.

See Wikipedia:Images for upload to request the upload of a free or fair use image available on the Internet.

This will direct you to Wikipedia:Files for upload/Wizard - if there's a problem with using this, let me know and I'll see about uploading it myself.

All the best. Rich Farmbrough, 22:13, 10 July 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot changed my references

Most the other edits on the page seemed correct, but I'm not sure why it changed the chapter numbers on my references. If this bug was fixed then disregard this message, but it seems like a pretty big deal when it's changing the references. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 10:03, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

If you look in the previous version of the page there was a reference <ref name="Vol2Ch12">{{cite book |last=Okamoto|first=Lynn|title=Elfen Lied, Volume 2|year=2002 |publisher=Shueisha |chapter=Chapter 10 |isbn=4-08-876379-3}}</ref>. Rich Farmbrough, 13:11, 11 July 2010 (UTC).

I see you fixed this, should not be a problem now. Rich Farmbrough, 13:14, 11 July 2010 (UTC).

Cambridge Meetup 8

Wikipedia:Meetup/Cambridge 8. You would be most welcome. Charles Matthews (talk) 14:04, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

help

hi Rich, Can you tell me how to run a script present here on perl.I have installed strawberry perl on my pc, but donot know the procedure--वार्ताबाट (talk) 00:21, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Save the perl script locally, and from that directory run

\strawberry\perl\bin\perl script.pl

where script.pl is the script name. Rich Farmbrough, 10:03, 9 July 2010 (UTC).

Thank you, I saved it as varta.pl and then run it on command prompt by writing C:\>\strawberry\perl\bin\perl varta.pl, then the following result came as cannot locate Mediawikihindi.pm in , compilation aborted at varta.pl line 25. Can you check source of these scripts at वार्ताबाट/सोर्स and वार्ताबाट/सोर्स/MediaWikiHindi and make correct them or guide me.We all are grateful to you for your help.Regards--वार्ताबाट (talk) 10:58, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Ok it's looking for use MediaWikiHindi perl module. Let me look at what I was doing:it is simpler, but only works each time a database dump is run. Rich Farmbrough, 16:44, 9 July 2010 (UTC).

I copied that script from an older bot whicj both scripts सदस्य:Bolbalabot/सोर्स/MediaWikiHindi and सदस्य:Bolbalabot/सोर्स. this user has left wikipedia.when i run his scripts then error was shown as Message content must be byte at Mediawikihindi.pm line 98. --वार्ताबाट (talk) 17:02, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

• Here is the AWB script I use. [3]
• The process is to run this on the talk-pages of new pages - it will skip any talk pages that haven't been created, so provided it is run on talk pages only it should be safe.
• The list of new pages is generated by comparing the list from a database dump - of article names only, with a previous list.
• The script that does this uses several utilities, and relies on the new "article-names-nz0.gz" being downloaded into the working directory. Utilities are:
  • perl (Strawberry perl you already have)
  • sed (part of cygwin)
  • grep (part of cygwin)
  • gzip
  • del (command shell)
  • dir (command shell)
• The batch I use is [4]
• The perl script is [5]
• Instructions are here

While this is not as "instant" as running a full bot dynamically looking for new pages and creating talk pages, it is very simple to run and uses standard components.

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 21:59, 10 July 2010 (UTC).

Probably want to force stuff to use UTF8 too. Actually I have had some problems with UTF8 titles using the perl module - that may be the problem you are seeing. Rich Farmbrough, 22:03, 10 July 2010 (UTC).

Thank you, but can you tell me the procedure stepwise that what should I do.I have strawberry perl installed. you have given me above scripts. but please tell me the steps in sequence now.You gave me and hindi wikipedia a lot of time, many many thanks for it.Regards--वार्ताबाट (talk) 22:24, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

OK first install WP:AWB and cygwin (and gzip). I have gzip in the AWB directory, not very tidy but you can put it there or somewhere else - maybe cygwin comes with gzip too I don't know - the batch assumes it is in AWB directory - you can easily change that.

Make a working directory, put the following files in there.

• Readme.txt
• newlist.xml
• newlist.bat
• hindihi.xml
• Download a baseline article list. You find these by going to the database dump page (http://download.wikimedia.org/backup-index.html) and searching for " hiwiki:"
  • http://download.wikimedia.org/hiwiki/20100703/ is the latest set of dumps
  • http://download.wikimedia.org/hiwiki/20100619/ is the previous set (linked to from the latest -exch page links to the previous set)
• To get going download "all-titles-in-ns0.gz" from the http://download.wikimedia.org/hiwiki/20100619/ to the working directory
• unzip it to be safe (gzip -d <filename>)

Now you are set up (provided directories are correct): Follow the instructions in readme.txt

1. Download "all-titles-in-ns0.gz" from the http://download.wikimedia.org/hiwiki/201007093/ to the working directory
2. from the command line, in the working directory type "newlist"
3. run AWB,
   1. file=>settings=>open... hindihi.xml
   2. makelist=>newtalk.txt
   3. Check it is logged in and in bot mode
   4. start.

Rich Farmbrough, 23:30, 10 July 2010 (UTC).

Thank you very much, finally it worked and double thanks for your come back to hindi wikipedia.We all are grateful to you for your humble assistance and great bot work in hindi wiki.At present time you are no 1 bot by contributions.I hope you will continue your contributions in hindi wiki. You are always welcome there.Regards--Mayurbot (talk) 15:33, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

actually I am वार्ताबाट but got bot status on mayurbot account.--Mayurbot (talk) 15:35, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for your Smackbot fixing my edits on the Greater Green Snake page! I am not very good at the codes and formats, so any help is appreciated. Also, I had tried to add a photo that I'd added to wikimedia, but I apparently didn't know how to do it right. Could you take a look and tell me what I did wrong, and how to not mess it up in the future? The photo is here: [6] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Reptileadventure (talk • contribs) 21:09, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Y Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 10:40, 12 July 2010 (UTC).

Unit-attn

I closed this TFD and made a first attempt to convert it to a maintenance tag. However, the wording probably could use some improvement, as I was not entirely sure what in particular was being addressed. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 14:57, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Cold Spring Granite and Diamond grinding

Good afternoon - you added orphan tags to the Cold Spring Granite and Diamond grinding pages, but I'm not sure why. There are several categories at the bottom, two outside external links and several wikilinks throughout the Cold Spring Granite page and a similar amount for the other. These were both reviewed and approved by an administrator a while back before they went live after Requests for feedback was utilized. Could you please let me know what specifically you think needs changed on these pages? I understand that an orphan page means that there are few or not links coming to the page, but I thought they had enough from the previous admin's comments.

I appreciate your response and look forward to your comments and/or suggestions. Thank you in advance Wendyfables (talk) 16:25, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Y Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 21:23, 12 July 2010 (UTC).

New Hampshire Department of Justice

In the article New Hampshire Department of Justice, Smackbot is changing a heading from "Attorney General" to "Attorney general". That would be fine, except that "Attorney General" is a title. I've changed it back once, but Smackbot has found it and changed it a second time. Can you tell it to ignore this heading? Thanks. --Ken Gallager (talk) 16:35, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes I can, it's not what we normally do, though. MOS:CAPS#Titles of people applies. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 19:38, 12 July 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Why did you delete 98% of the copy and images from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_S._Lewis —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aflewis (talk • contribs) 21:12, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Well it would be about 80% and it wasn't SmackBot but User:BilCat here, his reasons are explained in the edit summary. Rich Farmbrough, 21:21, 12 July 2010 (UTC).

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Sir Thomas Gates

Can you "move" (i.e. rename) the Thomas Gates page from "Thomas Gates (governor)" to simply "Sir Thomas Gates"? I am not an autoconfirmed user. Also, someone altered a few things on the page, which I just performed an "undo" on. I'm assuming these were vandal edits as Gate's name was changed to "Austin Gleitz" in the subheading. I'm posting on your talk page because you made the last accurate edit for this page. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.48.142.100 (talk) 22:24, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Generally we don't use "Sir" in article titles (though it seems we make an exception for certain baronets). The primary reason is that titles change over the course of a lifetime. Is there any reason to treat this article differently? Rich Farmbrough, 14:44, 14 July 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Hi Rich, I'm concerned about the use of ritual "of any kind" in the proper definition of Pragmatic Buddhism, as the organizations who apply Pragmatic Buddhism do sometimes carry out intentional practices, behavioral commitments, etc. that are virtually undifferentiable from "ritual" in a non-dogmatic definition of the term. I think the outright rejection of the term "ritual" is unnecessary, or at least unpragmatic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abe2008 (talk • contribs) 13:02, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Repost of List of Jewish chess players

A tag has been placed on List of Jewish chess players requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia, because it appears to be a repost of material that was previously deleted following a deletion process. If you can indicate how it is different from the previously posted material, place the template {{hangon}} underneath the other template on the article and put a note on the page's discussion page saying why this article should stay. Administrators will look at your reasoning before deciding what to do with the page. If you believe the original discussion was unjustified, please contact the administrator who deleted the page or use deletion review instead of continuing to recreate the page. Thank you. SyG (talk) 15:19, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot added WPBiography in a slightly wrong place

Hi, I just discovered a minor SmackBot issue, but it's from over two months ago, so I don't know if it's still relevant. (I looked through your talk page archive of that period and didn't see anything about this.) The bot added {{WPBiography}} at the top of a page which had an existing {{WikiProjectBannerShell}}. The WPBiography should go inside the WikiProjectBannerShell, especially in cases like this, where the bot's edit caused two blp banners to display. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 00:44, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Hello

Hello, it's Lolly Pop, thank you for protecting and correcting my page... <3 Merci merci! xxx —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.63.244.3 (talk) 06:12, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

You are most welcome. Rich Farmbrough, 13:41, 17 July 2010 (UTC).

1953 New Jersey State Highway renumbering

Hi,

Just wanted to let you know that at one time what is 17 was 17n and 2. I don't know how to edit the tables, so I won't try. But if you go to the NJ 17 article you'll see what route went where.

Keithdennison (talk) 15:04, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, so is there sometign that needs changing? Rich Farmbrough, 16:11, 17 July 2010 (UTC).

Redirect issues

Hi there. Could you please assist me in the following issue? While trying to leave a message on the talk page of an editor, I found out that the talk page had been moved by the editor to a namespace article. I reverted the move only to have the namespace article now moved to the user talk page. I don't seem to know what exactly I did wrong, and I'd appreciate it if you could help me out here. Thank you. Amsaim (talk) 18:16, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

'tis done. Rich Farmbrough, 18:23, 17 July 2010 (UTC).

Thanks very much for your swift assistance. Where exactly was my mistake? I went to this page and clicked the 'Revert' button, with the intention of reverting the user talkpage move. Amsaim (talk) 18:25, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, all that happened is Alienmindtrick created the Broxton Rocks page on his talk page, then when he was happy with it moved it to Broxton Rocks, leaving a redirect behind (this is one occasion where the "leave redirect" shouldn't be ticked). Your revert moved it back to his talk page. After that you used the history revert and removed the templates you had added. Alienmindtrick should not have been developing an article on his talkpage, a sandbox page such as User:Alienmindtrick/sandbox would serve the purpose better, but it's not a biggie. People do it all the time, or more often use their User: page. Rich Farmbrough, 18:33, 17 July 2010 (UTC).

Thank you for the information. A bit tricky these redirects if one is not used to them. I'll be more vigilant in future. Amsaim (talk) 18:40, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 19 July 2010

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• Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 16:33, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

piped ISO dates

could you help out here, please? I did a database scan which returned over 500 articles potentially with piped ISO-style, botched ISO dates (like 2007, 12-8), pseudo-ISO style dates (such as 12-8-2007). I have now delinked some, and corrected non-MOSNUM compliant ones. There are perhaps a hundred articles left on my list. But I am seriously bored doing it. As you can process these in a flash, can you take over, please? Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:32, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Minor bug

Hi, Rich! Just wanted to point out that this edit (which is one of several) is redundant as it adds an "empty section" tag to a section which is commented out anyway. Probably an easy tweak on your side; just thought you'd want to know. Also, what is the purpose of switching the order of the references? Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 19, 2010; 14:56 (UTC)

rev 6866 Don't tag commented out empty sections with {{empty section}}. Rjwilmsi 08:18, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks as always. Rich Farmbrough, 17:25, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

Nomination for deletion of Template:Film title

Template:Film title has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. —innotata 19:30, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Poker probabilities

(I prefer you reply here.)

/* Frequency of 7-card poker hands */ not probability 1/4140 but frequency 4140; rewrite to accommodate and clarify that

That is the description for the only one of my edits that seems essential. Maybe I should have left it thus, but I tweaked some other things in the 7-card sections of the article and left some suggestions on the Talk page. --P64 (talk) 21:55, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Frequency is of course correct. I was just compelled as soon as I saw 4320 to investigate and record the reason for the anomaly - all semblance of doing it in a meaningful way went out of the window. It is curious, not only arithmetically, but from the point of view of poker hands, the highest ranking hand is actually more common than the second highest (King high straight flush) - more, the source for the section IIRC, explains the apparent anomaly of their being more pair hands than the lesser valued X-high hands, but not the one at the top of the table. Rich Farmbrough, 00:34, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot continuously making very small adjustments

I wonder if having adjustments like this, i.e changing {{cn}} to {{Citation needed|date=July 2010}}, a few hours after I had put the tag, with no visible effects on the page, and clogging the page history, is of any utility. In a few days, I will remove the tag (and also the phrase, if I do not see a reliable citation).

But it is not only your bot to do this: there is an intense traffic of any type of bots (adding ukrainian or vietnamese language, or adding ISBN, or modifying references in some other subtle way, or applying "general fixes") which have made the page histories unreadable. For me it is often difficult and time-consuming to discover who and why has written what.

I think there should a policy which limits small bot editings. For example one could propose: look for the fixes to be done, put them in a database, and apply them once a month, in a unique big editing, so to avoid the dozens of items we see on the histories. I don't know to whom this proposal can be told, so I am telling it to you.

Thanks--GianniG46 (talk) 13:27, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I am leaving for a vacation this evening, so I will not be on line for a dozen of days.--GianniG46 (talk) 13:27, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

This edit categorised the article based on the date the unsourced statement was spotted. This isn't a useless edit. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:06, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot

Template name casing

Richard, please stop changing[7] the capitalisation of Template names. I remember seeing this raised on your Talk page months ago by other people, and IIRC it stopped for a while. The change adds nothing to articles, and instead makes template entries harder to read. Thank you —Sladen (talk) 13:57, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I can pull Stnlnk from the list of stuff SB knows about. Rich Farmbrough, 15:50, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

Plus {{s-start}} and {{reflist}} please. Thank you. —Sladen (talk) 17:32, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Userboxtop

I notice you moved this, and I think I know why: it's being used in the mainspace. It's not supposed to be - it should be replaced with {{cladogram}} in most instances, which largely duplicates the formatting and has a far more professional name.

FWIW after an RM reversed one of the moves, I undid them all. If this were to be spacified (though I don't see a need), it would be "userbox top", but I think that's even more confusing.

Let me know if you're interested in replacing the mainspace uses, otherwise I'll probably have a go at it. –xeno^talk 03:15, 21 July 2010 (UTC) [do note there are a few other assorted uses, but not sure if there's enough to make another mainspace template, or if a suitable one exists]

Cladogram is good in those instances. If the functionality is simply to be a box top, then it should be called "Box top". The documentation says "This template is not just for userboxes; it is also an efficient way of creating a column of images to run along the side of an article." I don't know where the made-up word "userbox" comes from, but I'm not really worried about it being used in template names for user-space, although "user box" seems better. Rich Farmbrough, 11:21, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

Incidentally "userboxside" was ubxside (something to do with unexploded bombs no doubt) - and is partially documented as such since the reverts. Rich Farmbrough, 11:23, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

You say " creates more problems than it solves" what problems are these? Rich Farmbrough, 11:46, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

The major problem is that they are userboxes (or userboxen, if you please), a single instance being a userbox. The fully-protected double redirects that didn't get fixed were another problem. In any case, I don't think it should be used in mainspace, neither "boxtop", "boxboxtop", nor "userboxtop". Surely we can come up with a better name for something that is going to be used in articles. Such that 'userboxtop' should only be used in userspace, there is no need for pedantic application of a manual of style. –xeno^talk 12:29, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

"Box top" seems descriptive to me, and understandable to all. If people want "Foobarbazboxtop" on their user pages, then it is not making editing content harder, however it does perpetuate the letsrunallthewordstogether style of naming. Rich Farmbrough, 13:11, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

Hm.. And do you think it's fine for a template originally designed to be used on user pages to also be used in articles? [Would this one day present a conflict whereby some change was needed to affect articles but was undesirably for userpages? Probably not, and namespace switches could be used, I guess] Perhaps we should file an WP:RM to move "userboxtop" to simply "box top"? –xeno^talk 13:37, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. Or split the functionality - there's CSS in there (I'm inclined to say CSS junk, because as far as I can see all it allows you to do is suppress userboxes - which is very limited utility). But certainly templates starting with "User..." seem out of place in articles. Rich Farmbrough, 19:18, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

Ah yes, good point. class="userboxes"... So either that code should go (because then we'd have userspacey-stuff in our HTML source) or it should be forked. I favour forking. –xeno^talk 21:04, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

A forking good idea. Rich Farmbrough, 21:46, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

Usless editing with AWB

Hi Rich. "Houston we have a problem..."

To begin with, this editor [8] is using AWB for multiples and multiples of trivial edits here [9]. This user did the same with WP Journals changing a large number to Wikiproject Academic Journals. Prior to this, and at the same time, if you view this person's talk page, there is recently - one section after another - editors are telling this user that his edits are insignifigant, or are causing a problem and to please stop. Instead of taking the constructive critism he just refuses to quit, and moves on to some other uselsess massive editing effort with this bot. I think an Admin needs to step in here. Also all the useless editing of the past week probably needs to be rolled back. I just left this same message with Materialscientist. Thanks----Steve Quinn (talk) 13:26, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

While I agree that Mag has been doing an awful lot of trivial edits (and should stop), rolling them back seems rather counter-intuitive. –xeno^talk 13:34, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Rolling back edits that just bypassed template redirects doesn't help anybody, and would be a waste of admin time IMHO. Rjwilmsi 13:51, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know what this means "just bypassed template redirects". In addition, it appears that this type of editing has been going on for the last month, and changing BD, and WPBS templates for some reason is another example. Sorry, but I think rolling back all these edits is best (imho). ----Steve Quinn (talk) 14:02, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

What possible benefit would be had with rolling them back? They've already been done, they are now using non-redirected forms of the template. I agree that running AWB only to bypass redirects is inappropriate, but once it's already been done, rolling them back to restore the redirects would be just as wasteful. –xeno^talk 14:04, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

• On BD: There is a consensus in replacing this template. It's an approved task based on discussion in Template talk:Lifetime. Same goes for Lifetime.
• For the rest of templates: It's certainly something nobody should be doing in regular basis. Check my talk page and User talk:Yobot for answers. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:10, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Seems consensus here:

1. BD and lifetime are very few and should be substed. Extensive discussion occurred over these.
2. Mag will try to avoid redirect-bypass only edits with Yobot - he has a method for doing that.
3. Rollback doesn't really help much, if at all (essentially it's a deliberately inserting a redirect).

Suggest any further discussion at User talk:Magioladitis - I will try to be around, but can be prodded if you want my comments. Rich Farmbrough, 16:13, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

Just a quick reply to xeno - yes, you are correct. Rolling all these edits back would be unnecessarily time consuming, and a waste of resources. I think I was responding in the heat of the moment. So, nevermind...----Steve Quinn (talk) 21:37, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Mass removal of italic titles

No one else has asked about this, so I will. Why are biologists entitled to have Begonia × tuberhybrida correctly italicized, but students of literature are not entitled to have titles of books correctly italicized? Does whatever discussion preceded this really rise to the level of Wikipedia policy, or can't expert subject editors be granted some judgement in the matter? P.S. I realize that this is possibly a brand-new feature of AWB, which you just happen to be the first to make widely effective; but even then I can't figure out how and where the decision was taken to start moving against the standards of well-edited English now. If the answer is last year's discussion here, I'd like to find out if the discussion can be had anew in a better forum where a wider range of informed editors can contribute (because the idea that biology may follow the conventions of published English while literature may not is bizarrely inconsistent). Wareh (talk) 14:58, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes that was the discussion. Subsequent to that italics have started to be applied in a peicemeal fashion - as predicted by the doomsayers at the time, to be fair. Possibly if the tempalte had been called "Taxon title" this wouldn't have happened. I have removed a bunch of miscellaneous examples today and yesterday (after the TfD for {{Film title}}), but seeing the back-door addition (not meant in a conspiritorialist way) of journals to the MoS was going to start a fresh centralised discussion. If you could do that it would be great. You will see the probable places it should be advertised at or soon after the previous discussion. The main users of {{Italic title}} at the moment, apart form taxa, are comics (1600) journals (~2000) and a relatively few books, albums etc. Rich Farmbrough, 16:02, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

Thanks for this reply. I would like to promote a new & centralized discussion, despite my limited experience with such things. Could you please suggest the best places to conduct and advertise such a discussion? Wareh (talk) 16:54, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

The same location might be best. Many of the more heavily visited places archive every day or few days. There is some help at WP:CD: I would think add to {{Cent}} list at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, mention at village pump, the Literature/Novels, Academic Journals, Comics and maybe Albums and Film projects. Rich Farmbrough, 17:24, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

Thanks, those are exactly the kinds of pointers I hoped you might be able to give. Wareh (talk) 18:52, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Raising edit conflicts

It happened a few times that during a series of edits this bot got in an caused a edit conflict message. Maybe it should be set so that it kicks in only a few minutes, maybe an hour, after there has been no edit to the article.Sum (talk) 18:34, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, that would be a little tricky. It's the first time anyone has mentioned an edit conflict that I recall, but it must happen I suppose. Rich Farmbrough, 18:49, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

SmackBot

Ur my hero —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.18.190.171 (talk) 01:26, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 16 -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:32, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot and Infobox road, part two

SmackBot messed with the country parameter again here. – TMF 15:31, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, can you please teach your bot to ignore the country parameter in {{infobox road}}? Thanks. Imzadi 1979 → 20:55, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Code for Article alert bot

Good day to you good sir I have another question today in regards to a bot. There has been some interest in started up the Alertbot bot again but it seems when the creator and maintainer (I meant to do that by the way) left WP they took the code with them. Is there any way to view this code on the tool server so we can get this bot running again? If we can locate the code I would be glad to take up the torch of monitoring and sort of leading it but I would need help from yourself or one of the other programmers in order to actually do the maintenance of the thing if bugs come up or it breaks. --Kumioko (talk) 18:26, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't have a tool-server account, so there's not a lot I can do there until and unless I get one. Rich Farmbrough, 18:34, 22 July 2010 (UTC).

Oh ok, I didn't know that. I think xeno runs a bot Ill ask them, thanks. --Kumioko (talk)

Scout templates

Pls see User_talk:Gadget850#Scout_template_moves — Rlevse • Talk • 23:32, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Was there any discussion of this or did you just do it? We've had those names for like 5 years. Where does it say what you did is the standard? — Rlevse • Talk • 00:07, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes it has been around since 2008, Wikipedia:Banner standardisation, this name format is in use by the vast majority of project banners. Rich Farmbrough, 00:23, 23 July 2010 (UTC).

You didn't answer the first question. The fact that no one tried to do this for two years tells me it's rather a dormant issue. I don't mind the standardization but with it laying unworked for two years the absolute least you should have done is notify the projects. And the fact that link is an essay not a policy or guideline makes it even more problematic. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:50, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Some info that may help: Recently, editors xeno and WOSlinker did a lot of job further categorising WikiProject templates. After the wide use of WikiProjectBannerShell we would like to have a way to easily identify WikiProject banners in order to update them/clean them/etc. Rich, xeno, me and probably others did a lot in this direction the last days. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:55, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

That's all fine but it's basically a few editors getting together and deciding to change hundreds of project templates around without any of them being notified; leaving people like me seeing 6 edits by Rich doing and leaving us wondering WTF? . — Rlevse • Talk • 11:41, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

As page moves are easily undone, I don't think they should be viewed as any more controversial than making other edits to the template. We can follow WP:BOLD here - if you actually disgaree with the move then just revert it and it can be discussed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:06, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

We can also follow common sense here and let projects know what's going on instead of blindsiding them. Since none of you seem to realize nor care, you create work for the projects when you do this too. — Rlevse • Talk • 12:16, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

General template question

Sorry to bother you with this but it seems that the list of folks who are good at template creation is pretty short, and your on the top, sorry :-) Anyway, I have thought for a while that certain "link" templates lacked substance and should be expanded. These include the {{findagrave}}, {{hallofvalor}}, {{imdb}} and others. Typically when these are created by users they say something to the effect of "Mons Monssen at Find a Grave Retrieved on 2008-10-29", see Mons Monssen for an example. I think that this template should allow and display more of the fields of the citation template. It seems the general format for these references are fundamentally the same containing a source, title, url, date, accessdate and author. I was thinking that creating a generic template for these might be appropriate and thought that using something like {{Include-USGov}} as a baseline seemed appropriate with the other templates using that code as the base. Of course it wouldn't include the wording of in the public domain and all that but I wanted to ask your opinion anyway. Do you think this is a worthwhile change or am I just wasting my time trying to change these links? --Kumioko (talk) 19:12, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest simply using "cite web" within with all its flaws.

• "Mons MOnssen". Find a Grave. Retrieved 2008-10-29.

Rich Farmbrough, 21:27, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

I implemented it with the accessdate parameter, extending it to other parameters as needed should be easy. Rich Farmbrough, 21:31, 21 July 2010 (UTC).

Thanks, I didnt mean for you to have to do it but thanks all the same. --Kumioko (talk) 00:09, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

It's no problem, the point is to show how easy it is. A chance for you to do the same to the other templates if you think it wise. Don't forget to test in a sandbox! Rich Farmbrough, 00:48, 22 July 2010 (UTC).

I will thanks. --Kumioko (talk) 01:17, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again, I used similar logic for the {{Hallofvalor}} template and I think its much improved. Do you think it would be possible to make a couple chanegs to the find a grave template? I would like to add author, work, date and accessdate as additional parameters and I would like to modify the parameter that says title=Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2010 July at Find a Grave to this: title=Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2010 July |publisher= Find a Grave. I do not have admin rights to do it myself and I completely understand if you want to put it in the sanbdbox and query the community via the template talk page to see how everyone feels. Since it basically follows the Cite web template and the parameters are optional I don't personally think thats needed though. If you do decide that this is a worthwhile change let me know when its done and Ill go and update the documentation to reflect these new parameters. Thanks again for the help. --Kumioko (talk) 21:47, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I also just found something else thats rather strange. It appears that {{Congbio}} has logic in it that links it to the data input on the find a grave reference template. So if the data in the findagrave ref is changed the congbio info changes as well. I personally think that this logic should be removed but if not then the logic for congbio would (and probably should anyway) need to be updated as well. Sorry this seems to be so much more work than I thought and I didnt intend to push it onto you. --Kumioko (talk) 22:10, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I went and made the changes to the Find a Grave template in the templates sandbox. I don't have rights to move it over though. The logic for the Congbio template is much more complicated, but I am going to go and change that in its sandbox as well. --Kumioko (talk) 12:53, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'll check out the sandbox. I changed Congbio to support the accessdate via Find a Grave - but it does seem a little tortuous not to just use the two component templates. Rich Farmbrough, 15:27, 23 July 2010 (UTC).

SilkTork put the Find a Grave sandbox live. Rich Farmbrough, 18:55, 23 July 2010 (UTC).

Response to Template:Template: burning bright

I'm not sure what you are asking. Do you want me to move the pages to a different name?Philipmj24 (talk) 17:31, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I was going to move them. Thanks anyways!Philipmj24 (talk) 18:46, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

gymnastics request

Please start an alexandra raisman page. I can build it, but not start page. A quick google will get a few real sources. She is an elite gymnasts on the national team, placed in several international and national meets. Trains with Alicia. Just start and I will build. Or build whole thing if you want. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.156.19 (talk) 01:43, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject The Beatles template

Just wondering if you could fix the template move for {{WikiProject The Beatles,}} as you've put a comma on the end of the name. You will also see that the template name without the comma redirects to a banner for userpages and it is in use on a few page (see [10]) so they will need changing first. -- WOSlinker (talk) 09:12, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:17, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Tagging

Dear Rich, with all due respect, it would be nice if you could read the changes suggested by your bot prior to committing them. I've just been reading the "Component-based software engineering" which is cluttered with tags from your bot all over. The fact that your bot's tags annoyed me enough to be writing this should give enough of a clue.  :-)

While a few of the tags are correct (for example, marking "some say" as weasel word), the majority of them is just utter nonsense and in all honesty a major annoyance when reading the article.

When reading through the article, one does not get the impression that these are actually helpful in increasing the quality of the article, but they look much more like a self-important person being, well, self-important. You could avoid that impression if you were checking your bot's modifications.

For example, two citation tags on the principles of OOP which are explained to show the contrast to CBSE is just ridiculous. Not only is that paragraph stating a well-known fact (see "Paris is the capital of France does not need a citation") in a well understandable and conclusive way, but there are also sufficient citations in the linked-to Wiki entries, if one really wanted to be pedantic about having as many citations as possible. The same is true about three who/weasel-word tags in the following paragraphs. While the inserted tags are technically correct, it would be much better to slightly change the wording of the otherwise perfectly correct paragraphs so they formally comply with the Wikipedia NPOV rules (Note: I am not the author of that page, just some random guy who came to read it). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.202.8.165 (talk) 12:30, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your message, SmackBot does not generally add tags, but merely dates those that are already there. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 13:51, 24 July 2010 (UTC).

Philomena

Although your still recent edit to Philomena was only a cleanup, I wonder if you would be so good as to look at what in practice has there unfortunately grown into an edit war (which for that reason I do not wish to continue) between me and a single-purpose editor who sometimes logs in as Merk1333 and at other times edits unlogged from Garland, Texas (obviously the same person). I have tried to engage the editor on the Talk page, so far without success. Can you either intervene yourself or advise me on how to proceed? Thanks for your attention. Esoglou (talk) 19:49, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Some kind of a conversation has begun on the Talk page. It does not look very promising yet, but perhaps we can work it out. Esoglou (talk) 20:41, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for helping. I have raised the problem here. Esoglou (talk) 07:30, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

reqphoto rename

I don't understand the recent rename of {{reqphoto}} to {{request photo}}. I can't find a template naming guideline to govern this situation, and there has been no discussion on the talk page for this template or any of the other image request templates on my watchlist. Can you help? Thanks. Tim Pierce (talk) 04:38, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)There is no template naming guideline (perhaps there should be) but there is a fairly long-standing precedent for using clear names for templates and avoiding abbreviations where possible. (One reason is that it makes it easier to see the purpose of a template when looking at the code.) Note that the previous name will continue to work as before and remain as a redirect indefinitely. However if you disagree with this move you are free to request its revert and participate in a discussion. Personally I would voice support for the move. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:25, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually a discussion might be a good idea because there may be better names, e.g. {{requested photo}} or {{photo requested}} or even {{image requested}}. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:27, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Even better might be {{Image needed}}. Rich Farmbrough, 11:05, 25 July 2010 (UTC).

I agree that {{image requested}} would probably be a better name than {{reqphoto}}. But this template is in use on 75,000 pages. I was under the impression that editors were supposed to propose changes before acting boldly on such a widely used and prominent template, but maybe I was mistaken about what constitutes "widely used." Adding redirects to this template will also require recoding PhotoCatBot, so if there's going to be a rename I would prefer to minimize the number of gratuitous redirects. Tim Pierce (talk) 13:10, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

This is already one of the most redirected-to templates! I have put a comment on Template talk:Request photo earlier, maybe the other template talk pages in the family should have a link dropped to them. Rich Farmbrough, 14:45, 25 July 2010 (UTC).

Air Force Portal Administrator

I am looking for an editor or editors to take over administration of the US Air Force Portal. If you think you might be interested please see the Portal Administration section on the talk page to see what is involved and comment there if you’re interested or have any questions.Ndunruh (talk) 17:17, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Misnamed

Er, "Template:WikiProjec Record Labels Task Force,"? --Redrose64 (talk) 18:03, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

You are quick - but it's sorted. Rich Farmbrough, 18:06, 25 July 2010 (UTC).

WikiProject Meteorology and Weather Events

All sub-projects of WikiProject Meteorology and Weather Events would be better handled as paramaters into a main template and not with separate templates, don't you think so?

Yes, there are three two of interest. Adding the taskforces would be good, I think, but I'm not against renaming the templates in the meanwhile. Rich Farmbrough, 22:10, 25 July 2010 (UTC).

Do whatever you find best. If possible contact WikiProject Meteorology and Weather Events. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:15, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I guess the 4-5 tram templates could also merge to one. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:47, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

They are wrappers, they do no harm. Rich Farmbrough, 00:01, 26 July 2010 (UTC).

Need to update Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Trams/Banners with the new names. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:20, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 26 July 2010

• News and notes: New interwiki project improves biographies, and other news

• In the news: Wikipedia leads in customer satisfaction, Google Translate and India, Citizendium transition, Jimbo's media accolade

• WikiProject report: These Are the Voyages of WikiProject Star Trek

• Features and admins: The best of the week

• Discussion report: Controversial e-mail proposal, Invalid AfD

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Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 03:51, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank's for Ally and may I have another?

Sacramone page needs an update to reflect Cover Girl classics breakout performance:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2010-07-26-athlete-of-the-week_N.htm?POE=click-refer —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.127.138.199 (talk) 04:50, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

You can edit that page I believe? Rich Farmbrough, 14:17, 27 July 2010 (UTC).

No, I can't. It's silver-locked.  :( —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.248.6.25 (talk) 20:03, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Should be unlocked now. Rich Farmbrough, 22:31, 27 July 2010 (UTC).

Template:Congbio

I modified {{Congbio}} in its sandbox and left a comment on the talk page. Please let me know what you thoughts are on the changes I made! --Kumioko (talk) 15:09, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

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