User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2011 December

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 45

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Edits by:

Slakr at 22:09, 29 November 2011 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Slakr at 22:09, 29 November 2011 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 21:08, 17 November 2011 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Slakr at 22:09, 29 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Bottom edit was by Slakr at 22:09, 29 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 22:38, 29 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 45

Template: A user has requested the attention of the operator. Once the operator has seen this message and replied, please deactivate this tag.. *

Edits by:

Rcsprinter123 at 17:16, 30 November 2011 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Slakr at 22:09, 29 November 2011 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 22:46, 29 November 2011 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Rcsprinter123 at 17:16, 30 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Bottom edit was by Rcsprinter123 at 17:16, 30 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 17:32, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 45

Template: . *

Edits by:

Rich Farmbrough at 17:36, 30 November 2011 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Slakr at 22:09, 29 November 2011 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 17:36, 30 November 2011 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Rich Farmbrough at 17:36, 30 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Bottom edit was by Rich Farmbrough at 17:36, 30 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 18:04, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Another template

From this edit it follows that you didn't have Template:Refcleanup as a redirect of Template:Citation style. Debresser (talk) 21:39, 1 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perfectly correct. Rich Farmbrough, 14:52, 2 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

About bird classification

Something to think about while you are blocked. Do you have any thoughts on using data in lists or websites to add details to bird pages with bots or semi-automatic tools. We have been discussing how to update many bird pages at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject_Birds#Repetitive_work. I hope to hear from you in about two weeks time. Snowman (talk) 20:14, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Funnily enough I was just reading the example "Birds of Zanzibar" at the RFC over lists. One I have acquired, prpeared and consumed a little something, I'll take a closer look. Rich Farmbrough, 20:29, 14 November 2011 (UTC).

Good, you can use your talk page when blocked. Yes, it takes a methodical approach to do these tasks. Snowman (talk) 20:49, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK pulling the genus author off Wikispecies does not look hard. The mono-specific genera are easy enough to identify from IBC, should we be noting monogeneric families? (E.G. Limpkin.) I presume IBC is authoritative enough to cite for this. The IOC spreadsheet is golddust - do you know the licensing of the notes? Rich Farmbrough, 22:47, 14 November 2011 (UTC).

I will transcribe your question to the WP bird talk page. Please indicate if you would like any further questions copied to there. Snowman (talk)

Is IBC a typo for IOC? What notes do you refer to? Would you agree that there are 903 monotypic bird genera (including monotypic families) listed in the IOC spreadsheet? The IOC taxonomy might be controversial for some birds. The HBW list (here) might be slightly different, because of controversies. Erudite ornithology editors might clean the list manually, if they know where the controversies are. Snowman (talk) 00:43, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

IBC=International Bird Collection =HBW. The IOC spreadsheet has a notes column - we could quote this if it is freely licensed. Rich Farmbrough, 00:59, 15 November 2011 (UTC).

I expect the notes would be copyrighted, but see with the others think on the WP Bird talk page. I used the shorter spreadsheet. A list of monotypic genera from IBC might be useful somewhere. Snowman (talk) 01:09, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I did a quick check on monotypic genrea, I get the same result. Rich Farmbrough, 14:19, 15 November 2011 (UTC).

That is reassuring. Snowman (talk) 22:02, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to get a similar list of monotypic genera according to HBW. It looks like I will not be able to scrape their website for this list; perhaps, I have missed something. Do you have any observations on data scraping ibc.lynxeds.com for a list of monotypic genera? You say; "the mono-specific genera are easy enough to identify from IBC". This is for monotypic genera, not monotypic species. It looks difficult to me, their might be other websites that are easier to scrape. The HBW spreadsheet might be available - see discussion on the WP Birds talk page. Snowman (talk) 00:51, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I made a list from the HBW page last night, I'll post it here later. Rich Farmbrough, 13:56, 16 November 2011 (UTC).

As well as redirect creation, interesting questions arise - is Acanthidops bairdi a typo for Acanthidops bairdii or vice versa? Is the Golden Bulbul two species or one? Etc. Rich Farmbrough, 15:14, 16 November 2011 (UTC).

Thank you for making the list. I suppose you could park it in a sub-page or remove it leaving it in the page history, if you wanted to. I have copied all 9,918 to a txt file on my PC. Interesting that the IOC list has well over 10,000. For clarity: is this list a list of every bird species on the HBW website? If so, then I could list the monotypic genera separately from it. I have not focused on the queries that you raised as yet. Did you come across a lot of listing problems? Some apparent listing anomalies might be due to taxonomy controversies, and some might be typos and other errors. The HWB list could be quite a lot different from the IOC list, partly because of the different functions of the lists. Snowman (talk) 17:00, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have not looked it up elsewhere, but Acanthidops bairdii is the name on the en Wiki species article. In brief outline, I would be interested to know how you made the HBW list. Snowman (talk) 17:28, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's where I got he "ii" spelling. Google gives 17k with "i" and 4.5k with "ii". I created the list by scanning all the family pages from HBW. Rich Farmbrough, 17:48, 16 November 2011 (UTC).

Brilliant. How did you scan all those pages? I presumed that the list was alphabetical without any exceptions. Is that assumption correct. Do you agree with 929 monotypic genera according to HBW? I got a perl script to grab the genus name one line and compare it with the genus name in the line above and below. Snowman (talk) 19:28, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I get 923/926

might be causing some confusion. Rich Farmbrough, 21:10, 16 November 2011 (UTC).

IUCN has 10029 aves species. Rich Farmbrough, 21:28, 16 November 2011 (UTC).

Well spotted. I think that they are the only ones listed like that on the full list. I have got all four on my derived list, so subtracting four, I get 925, which still is not the same as yours. What is "923/926"? I am expecting your count to be an integer not a range. I am subtracting one more, because Marsh Antwren (Stymphalornis acutirostris) might not be monotypic if there is a new Stymphalornis sp in that genus. That leaves 924. If there is a difference I could use a list comparer. Snowman (talk) 21:48, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose it is worth doing a monotypic genus list for IUCN. Can you get there birds as a list? Snowman (talk) 21:57, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I have not made a list, but merely counted them. The number depends on the rule one uses. Rich Farmbrough, 23:01, 16 November 2011 (UTC).

Can you get the IUCN url (with the page number) and the corresponding species? Doing something with these would be useful for WP Birds. I do not think I could fix the IUCN links in the cite references of the on bird pages quickly, so I hope that you will be able to help and liaise with the others soon. Snowman (talk) 21:54, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I have requested an export of the full AVES search from IUCN. This should provide all the desired information. Rich Farmbrough, 23:01, 16 November 2011 (UTC).

Page move

Hello. When you moved Template:Infobox UK Legislation to Template:Infobox UK legislation, you did not move its talk page, Template talk:Infobox UK Legislation with it. I assume that this was a mistake. I am unable to fix it myself because the target page Template talk:Infobox UK legislation has a page history, and it does not appear to be possible to request the move of a talk page at Wikipedia:Requested Moves, unless I have misunderstood the instructions there. James500 (talk) 22:08, 4 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Answered on user's talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 22:25, 4 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Violation of edit restriction

In this edit [1] you changed "Infobox Military Unit" to "Infobox military unit". This is not listed at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects and is thus a violation of your editing restriction. Additional examples of this sort of violation are [2] [3]

In the same edit you changed "portal" to "Portal". AWB does not change the capitalization of first letters of templates, so this is also a violation of your editing restriction. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:11, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, in these edits you changed <references/> to {{reflist}}. You just marked for archiving a discussion on your talk page admonishing you to avoid doing this. As it is not built into AWB and does not affect the rendered page, it is also a violation of your editing restriction. [4] [5] [6] [7]. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:30, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lol, Looks like you better reset the counter back to 0 Rich!. I didn't look through every edit example but I don't see a problem with the first four provided that other more significant edits are done at the same time. That's just me personally though and my opinions don't usually carry much weight. --Kumioko (talk) 01:36, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is no exception in these edit restrictions for edits done at the same time. The changes I mentioned are simply forbidden outright. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, this is surely a case of "thou dost complain too much" – not entirely inconsequential changes bundled with at least one consequential change. As to the 'reflist' change, I suggest:
(/(References ?==\n)[\n\s]*(?:\{\{[Rr]eflist\}\}|<references\/>)/g, '$1{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}') would make the change 'consequential' --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:05, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If the change was made consequential, it would violate WP:CITEVAR. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:50, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll let it pass until something actually dramatic happens. Getting these kinds of messages after a 12 hour work day followed by 6 hours volunteering is more pathetic than dramatic. Rich Farmbrough, 02:07, 30 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]

<Sigh> Rich Farmbrough, 01:48, 30 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Carl, I am with Kumikio on this one. An editor is allowed to make cosmetic changes, even with automated tools, as long as they are made alongside some more significant edit. If this wasn't specified in those edit restrictions you mention, then such was their intend, no doubt. Debresser (talk) 05:53, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, the intent was not to allow Rich to make whatever unnecessary/disputed cosmetic changes he feels like as long as he is making some significant edit - it was to prohibit Rich from making cosmetic changes of any kind unless they were built into AWB or had demonstrable consensus. –xeno^talk 13:38, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(Otherwise, no restriction would be needed at all because cosmetic changes on their own are already prohibited by AWB's rules of use. It would be like an editing restriction prohibiting vandalism - pointless.) –xeno^talk 13:50, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Xeno, do you still feel sufficiently uninvolved as an administrator to block for these sorts of violations? — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:46, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that further violations should be reported to a noticeboard for discussion so that any block based on the editing restrictions cannot simply be unilaterally overturned. –xeno^talk 13:50, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion at AN was just archived, and the editing restrictions were not removed. So it is not clear what another discussion immediately after that one would accomplish. At the same time Elen of the Roads indicated she might be willing to handle enforcement of the restriction. I will ping her again. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:52, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And these changes have demonstrable consensus. Which is why only a select few object to them. Rich Farmbrough, 13:55, 30 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Wikipedia:Citing sources#How to create the list of citations indicates that <references /> and {{Reflist}} are interchangeable. I do not see demonstrable consensus that the former should always be replaced by the latter. Nor is there any consensus that template should always have their first letter capitalized, this is simply a change that you make because YOULIKEIT. –xeno^talk 14:00, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

MOS says to minimise markup. Consensus. Usage is in favour of the template 6:1. Consensus. When I consolidated several portal boxes into one it is a standard change for which there is consensus. For capitalisation of infobox names there is consensus. Rich Farmbrough, 14:06, 30 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Can you provide some links to back that up? For example, where is the guideline, policy, MOS page, or whatever that describes a consensus on how to capitalize template calls? — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:08, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Don't put words into my mouth. Rich Farmbrough, 14:18, 30 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Usage numbers aren't really that compelling when we both know the usage numbers are where they are because you have been doing these edits for months or years. So the usage numbers are where they are at because you engineered that situation. –xeno^talk 14:09, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We also have (I'm sure) a preponderance of US spelling over UK spelling, but that does not mean there is a consensus to change one to the other. The general rule is that optional stylistic things should be left alone unless there is a specific consensus to change them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:11, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not-isomorphic. Rich Farmbrough, 14:18, 30 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]

You over-estimate me. I have only made 1% of the edits in en:. I will crunch some numbers this evening though. Rich Farmbrough, 14:18, 30 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]

I analyse 110 Gb of diffs (roughly 1% of the total) and found 9 cases where I had made such a change. Sine the total number of instances is about 1.4 million, accusations of fait accompli would appear to be as empty as the rest of them. Rich Farmbrough, 22:32, 30 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]

My biggest problem in all this is that if Rich's edits are so bad then why is it the same 4 or 5 editors crying wolf every time. I agree that some of the edits in the past were unnecessary and I also support the blocks due to the actualy errors that were introduced breaking certain articles. But when he bundles the inconsequential edits in with other more meaningful ones I don't think there is a problem. Even if there are 4 or 5 editors who are adminsn and self professed guardians of the Wiki that say other wise it doesn't make it against consensus. Additionally, by and large I think there is consensus for most of the changes with the exception of the same 4 or 5 editors. As for the UK to US spelling thats mixing apples and oranges into an already problematic discussion so lets try and stay on point. I also think arguments of edit volume are mostly kinda stupid BTW. Yes he did some edits that some thought to be pointless, so what, with the exception of the changes that actually broke the article the changes arguably made the article better, incrementally a little at a time. Just because one editor spends more time editing and less time discussing shouldn't be used as a blunt instrument in which to bludgeon them verbally! If he actually makles errors or does truly fruitless edits alone thats one thing but badgering him for this is nonsense and a waste of 99.99998% of the communities time. --Kumioko (talk) 14:38, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Xeno, the process of improving AWB is so bureaucratic and tedious. They still disconnect after some 15 seconds of idle time, even though that makes using it almost impossible, and many editors (!) have expressed their strongest feelings about it. Now, after that you can hardly expect anybody to take AWB as a standard. Debresser (talk) 15:49, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

AWB has a large collection of "general fixes". Since the problem is R.F. making up his own general fixes without broader consensus, using AWB as a standard for which general fixes have consensus makes some sense. Also, the AWB devs try to incorporate as many useful changes as consensus will allow, so if a change is not well enough supported to be in AWB, it is hard to justify making it on a semi-auto basis over large numbers of articles. A history of doing that is what led to the current restriction that R.F. is not allowed to make these changes at all. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:57, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't support that argument and heres why. AWB is used by a lot of projects besides Wikipedia and the logic AWB must also take into account these other projects. There have been plenty of times when the devs wanted to make a change for the betterment of WP but couldn't because they had to account for the other projects and sister wikis. Also, bare in mind that several bots use AWB and the edits they perform are not "built in". Using myself as an example also, I do a lot of edits that aren't built into AWB (at least not yet) such as rearranging sections (see also goes above References, external links and Further reading) based on the guidelines in the MOS. I also do this based on the MOS guidelines for talk pages. Many, many other editors also have logic they do thats not part of AWB. Before you argue that these limits are because of his edit restriction, which may be true, that is not how you phrased it above and the tone above sets a bad precedent to be used in future arguments above what kinds of edits can be done in AWB for all editors. So as I mentioned above, if he is careless andn breaks something fine, if he goes willinilly making changes for spacing and casing alone that seems to be so aggravating to some users fine, but when he is incoporating these insignificant changes with others that are more meaningful that should allowed. Otherwise these minor changes that you hate so much will stay on the article forever. --Kumioko (talk) 16:22, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If someone does something with an AWB bot that is not built in, they need to have explicit bot approval for it. If someone manually reviews their AWB edits, they can do many things that are not built in, if they have consensus. But R.F. is under a special editing restriction that does not allow him to do even as many things as a normal AWB operator would be able to do. In particular he is not permitted to make the changes I linked in the first post of this thread. This section is not about whether to lift the editing restriction, which is what you seem to be getting towards with language like "should". The restriction is in place, and the point of this section was to document that it was violated. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:26, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

IMO the point of the restriction was to stop him from doing these edits individually and to get him to pay closer attention to the logic so pages don't get broken. Or am I missing the point. And I'm not asking for the restriction to be lifted or limited I don't see these as a problem since there being done with other edits is all and there are quite a few of us that are getting a little tired of the little boy who cried wolf act that goes on here every couple days. If you would have brought a bunch of cases where he was breaking pages and doing inconsequential edits (like removing blank spaces) I woudln't have bothered to comment at all and simply gone about my merry way as I have done in the past on such occassions. This just isn't one of those times. --Kumioko (talk) 16:39, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See Xeno's comment above dated 13:38, 30 November 2011 (UTC). — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:46, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Blocking Rich for this IMO is utterly useless and I do not believe is in the spirit of the restriction. I personally think that creating this discussion over such petty things is more mischievous than the edits performed. I find it a little irritating frankly that the same users pull these shenanigans over and over. If he does something truly grievous like breaking articles then ok but otherwise your just wasting our time with this discussion. --Kumioko (talk) 17:04, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion discussion about Between Chaos and Creation (film)

Hello, Rich Farmbrough, and thanks for contributing to Wikipedia!

I wanted to let you know that some editors are discussing at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Between Chaos and Creation (film) whether the article Between Chaos and Creation (film) should be in Wikipedia. I encourage you to comment there if you think the article should be kept in the encyclopedia.

The deletion discussion doesn't mean you did something wrong. In fact, other editors may have useful suggestions on how you can continue editing and improving Between Chaos and Creation (film), which I encourage you to do. If you have any questions, feel free to ask at the Help Desk.

Thanks again for your contributions! Gaijin42 (talk) 16:13, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

References to IUCN on bird pages

See discussion at Template talk:IUCN and on WP bird talk page. These links have plagued the WP Birds project for a number of years. I guess that it would need scraping the website. Any thoughts. Snowman (talk) 20:17, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See above section: I have the data, Just need to firm up exactly what is needed - maybe some thinking time would be good. Rich Farmbrough, 14:25, 30 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Could you please elaborate on your answer in this RFC. It seems it is interpreted differently by me and User:Gerardw. Thanks. — Christoph Päper 08:19, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reverted your changes to Template:Sockpuppet category

I have reverted your changes to Template:Sockpuppet category, since it created errors on lots of Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets pages, i.e. every page with a user name longer than about 15 characters. E.g. Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of We had wheels on toast in the freezing rain started with Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of We had wheels omax index is 50 for str_sub=Suspected sock puppets of <span id="We had wheels omax index is 50 for str_sub" and so on, and was listed on Category:Pages with incorrect formatting templates use, which has at the time of writing still 580 pages, or more than one out of ten pages from the category. Fram (talk) 15:42, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I thought of that, and probably would have investigated in more detail, but I had all sorts of other stuff going on onmy talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 16:54, 7 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

You had plenty of time to do all kinds of other stuff, like creating dozens of categories (some of which had this problem, by the way), so that's hardly an excuse to create errors on hundreds of cat pages for nearly a day. If you don't have the time to check your changes more thoroughly, don't make them. Fram (talk) 19:37, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Back to automated edits

We've got to find some way to resolve this. You're driving people mad, and they seem to be driving you mad. Can you stop doing some of the stuff that drives them mad, so you can carry on doing useful stuff? There was a lot of support for taking some sort of action to stop you making automated edits, and the final terms are actually milder than those supported by a lot of people.

Will you agree to the following

run the script off another account, not your main account.
not fix things that are not broken. No changing capitalisations and redirects unless they are actually causing something not to work. No fiddling with non-visible whitespace. Changing them otherwise is mere cushion-straightening, and the only tolerable error rate is zero, something you have never achieved.
and on that subject, do more error checking. Apologies, I know you probably already do some, but believe it or not I run a technical team, and they only ever error check for the errors they can think of. We always also get three or four lasses in the call centre to check the output - you'll be surprised what they spot. Obviously you don't have that luxury, but there does seem to be a consistent if low error rate in your scripted edits.
get a clear approval before using reprogrammed AWB, because the consensus seems to be that you need to do that. If you can get clear approval to do a task, it will get people off your back.

If you can't agree to these, then as the restrictions were as far as I can see legitimately imposed after proper and thorough discussions, then the consequences listed can legitimately be applied.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:02, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thing is, we're talking a different language here. Well several different languages. It makes it hard to know where to start.

First off my last 153 edits (not counting this one) have been standard Firefox edits, I'm scarcely touching AWB, because, yes, the illegitimi are carborunduming me somewhat. Before that there's two - count them - AWB edits on the 6th December.

Secondly you miss the fact that, even if we allow that the ER is binding (I worked with RD-232 on the basis that it was, to keep the mob off my back, because he was actually pretty sane, and I add, worked successfully - except when Fram kept jumping in the middle of conversations shouting "look look!") then 99% of the changes you mention are allowable - which is why it is so ludicrous to be opposed on thing like "we MUST preserve {{tocright}}" and "We must keep confusing markup". Let me stress again it's pretty much the Fram and CBM show, here, with a little Xeno thrown in from time to time.

Thirdly I am not clear what you mean by a "reprogrammed AWB." The fact is that I never even downloaded the source for AWB until CBM basically forced me to do so, to remove something that he doesn't like. It is frustrating that these tall tales are being put about - I even came across someone on IRC calumniating me. Of course its funny as well, but it does fit in nicely with the "signs of mobbing" that, I think it was, Hans Adler recently linked to.

And finally AWB is not automated edits.

On the matter of the alleged ER, it was brought about by a totally crazy discussion, arising from some really shameful behaviour on the part of several editors, and mobbing on AN/I. At one point I left simple queries on the pages of 18 editors who had chipped in with "ban him!" type comments, to the effect "On AN/I you said X, can I ask what your reason for this was?" Only one had the decency to respond, and that one withdrew their comment from AN.I and apologised. Another editor adduced these gentle enquiries as further proof of my diabolical nature. It was against this sort of background that I was initially willing to work with R2-D2 who I believed had actually put some effort into understanding the dispute, although his conclusion was completely wrong. It turned out later that he had simply cut and pasted the poorly thought out text someone else had posted. For which there was no consensus. The salient matter had all already been dealt with, in the first brou-ha-ha. He has now retired, having seen through the type of posturing and mobbing that was going on in those AN/I disputes. Unfortunately he has left me with two unilaterally imposed ERs, and a comics addict, a mathematician and a bureaucrat still hanging around my talk page making a nuisance of themselves.

It is fairly clear to the meanest intelligence that this is no longer about the encyclopedia as far as they are concerned. Fram reverts my edits, takes me to every forum he can think of, deletes articles and redirects, wheel wars, opposes everything I post where he can and generally makes a nuisance of himself. CBM has for years been doing inane reverts of users, edit warring and breaking templates, and yet he has the cheek to say I am "wasting edits". And although Xeno and CBM have some technical competence, they still are quite happy to go off half-cocked (though Xeno has the grace to apologise) on matters they don't understand. Fram - technically - just doesn't get it. And that I think is the most annoying part. It's all very well to politely point out an error on a subject where one is knowledgeable, but a lot of the criticism is over things that I know about and Fram doesn't. And it's not even worded in any way other than a command. I have long ago given up trying to teach Fram anything, which is a sad sate of affairs. I then asked him not to interact with me, several times. He has steadfastly refused.

And in case you still think, as you expressed on Arbcom (which comments still mystify me, both as to why you believed them and why you thought that was a good place to enunciate them) that I have "poor customer skills" don't forget that I had several years of frequent questions, sometimes very angry as to why "You have tagged my article." when the bot had simply dated the tags.

So really there is a lot more to this than just some nut who likes articles to look good. These are carefully thought out improvements, most of which are now built into AWB and hence "permissible". The fact that I don't feel like rolling over and dying under the bullying tactics that I have seen over that last year or so, I think should be considered commendable rather than otherwise.

Rich Farmbrough, 02:04, 7 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Oh and just a postscriptum, "run the script off another account" among other things leads me to suppose that there is off-wiki lobbying going on here. I prefer to keep as much as possible in the light of day, and would appreciate knowing if this is the case. Rich Farmbrough, 10:02, 7 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

The reason I brought this up is that creating another account for larger projects is something I was bullied into doing sometime ago, it was then used as a stick to beat me (or sock to beat me - think Death Wish perhaps). So I wondered where the meme had come from. Rich Farmbrough, 16:49, 7 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Couple of immediate points. First, no-one is off-wiki lobbying *me*. Secondly, a lot of the objections seem to be related to introducing errors in the attempt to fix an error. This is a problem for automated edits obviously. If you do it with manual errors, while other editors may request that you be more careful, I know that I myself keep two Wikignomes permanently employed running round fixing up my bad code, failure to complete clerking, lack of signage etc, so I don't feel I can say a word about it.

There is some discussion on my talkpage, but you can read that anyway, and in fact I'd be interested if you'd read Carl's points here, and respond if you feel led in either location. I suspect people use the old/wrong/redirect names because (a) they remember them, (b) they keep a subpage of code snippets, or (c) they cut and paste out of an existing article that works the way they want, rather than go to the template documentation. I've b0rked a good many templates that way, so have learned my lesson and always look at the documentation, but if all the versions work, and the end user never sees the code, there really is no point in changing it. I agree that fixing bad code (FrontPage's approximations of html, or the junk generated by using the Macro Recorder to create your VBA), cleaning up code that the developer stopped looking at as soon as it worked (leaving 15 commented out iterations behind), documenting undocumented code, etc are all important activities. But if I can use {{TOCright}} or {{TOC right}} and get the same effect, it isn't broken and doesn't need fixing. Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:49, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll address Carl's point on your talk page to avoid muddying the debate here.

Well I'm certainly pleased about the first point, it keeps thing simpler.

The second is undoubtedly correct, people probably use all these methods to apply templates. And two more are typos and short-cuts. Indeed I extensively used {{wfy}} in the sure and certain knowledge that it would be replaced by something meaningful when it was dated. However the conclusion does not follow - for a whole bunch of reasons. Firstly we want to provide a simple interface to users, when we have some hundreds of clean-up templates and some thousands of redirects it is much easier to lean the smaller set than the larger. Moreover if we consistently use spaces in template names, and consistently use sentence case we really do lighten the cognitive load. Secondly not all redirects are benign, {{Fact}} was changed to {{Citation needed}} because the first was too bitey - it says, more or less, "Liar!", there were redirects to different templates that differed only by a space or a capital letter, there are redirects that are misleading. Because I approached this on a very gentle incremental approach, rather than making runs just to replace template redirects, this is something the community was (an is, despite a recent attempt to derail consensus) happy with. There is no problem with many hundreds of redirect replacements. There's a couple, mainly done by hand that have been picked on. This is where my patience runs thin, instead of coming and saying "Hey Infobox blah isn't on the AWB list, or better, adding it a WP:POINT message is left on my talk page with very condescending instructions "not to do it again".

In fact really WP:POINT is the crux of what Fram and CBM are doing. Really if you saw I had changed, in the course of another spelling correction edit {{Infobox UK Legislation}} to {{Infobox UK legislation}} would you go and look through a long list of allowed and almost identical infoboxes, then come back here and post that I was in violation of editing restrictions? It passes the quack test as pointy behaviour, and it's only because I cut them extra slack, being mathematicians and comics addicts, that I haven't classified it this way before.

Rich Farmbrough, 16:31, 7 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Note: to highlight the lunacy, examine this edit by Fram where he fixes a date (substantive edit), removes un-needed white space, changes {{cn}} to {{Citation needed}} and changes a hyphen to an en-dash. Rich Farmbrough, 01:06, 8 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Yes, I use standard AWB changes while making substantive changes. You are allowed to do the same. Those times that I complained about an edit you made, and it turned out to be standard AWB, I acknowledged my mistake and stopped complaining about you making that kind of edit. So what "lunacy" are you actually highlighting? That I use AWB as intended and without problems? If you do the same, you won't hear anything from me. Fram (talk) 07:49, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You clearly don't understand that while to you that type of edit is completely different in nature from replacing "tocright" with "TOC right" while fixing a spelling error, to the vast majority of sane, technically literate Wikipedians the two are basically indistinguishable. Indeed some of the things Elen asked me to agree to stop doing are precisely things that you do - that are "allowed". And even my three wise monkeys have got it wrong, as you comment above. So if no-one can tell the difference between an allowed change, and a disallowed one, without going off and doing tests, then really there must be something wrong if someone is proposing blocks based on this - or even taking any notice of it at all. Rich Farmbrough, 11:19, 8 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Dear Elen of the Roads and Rich. I understand that I am only a simple editor, but I hope my two cents will help here. I know Rich here on Wikipedia from working together on several occasions. I mention this to make the point that Rich is an approachable and friendly editor, the point of which will become clear soon enough. In general we share the same opinions as to the desirableness of having pages (articles, templates and categories foremost) look technically elegant, well-ordered and understandable. This I add to explain that my "defending" him here and in other sections above is not without a personal interest. All the same, I'd like to remind Rich that I am waiting for him to continue the discussion above on the subject of dating format templates (where we seem to disagree).

I'd like to make a few observations, related some more some less to the issue.

Some editors do more thorough test than others before saving the page. This is a matter which depends on the editor's character. I, for example, often reread what I wrote only after saving, and then fix typos, etc. This is not ideal, but that is the way I work. Perhaps the same is true in a certain measure for Rich.

On this same subject I'd like to make another two observations

There is a Dutch saying that wherever people work, flints fly. Meaning that the laws of statistics dictate that the more one works, the more one errs. In view of the large number of edits Rich makes, being the most active editor on Wikipedia, it is only normal that he makes a lot of errors.
Rich is very conscientious about replying to messages on his talkpage, and replies seriously to any and all notifications of errors made by him (in automated as well as semi-automated and hand-made edits).

And two more general comments

I for one disagree with the editing restriction against Rich. Moreover, I don't think there is any justification for such a restriction. Especially in view of the way this restriction came about, if we may take Rich's word for it.
As to the level of technical versatility of the editors involved I have no opinion. I did notice that Fram's posts here are sometimes less than detached. Unfortunately, even Rich sometimes gets irritated by the many critical comments here from a select group of editors, and that also doesn't help. Personally, I am a fan of the English sense of humor, and would like to use this occasion to thank Rich for "a comics addict, a mathematician and a bureaucrat". With all due respect, of course, for said editors. 21:06, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

In defence of Fram

Contrary to what Rich Farmbrough states above, all I usually do is point out errors he makes, and do it here, not on noticeboards. In those cases where I was mistaken, I acknowledged this. I don't drag Rich Farmbrough to noticeboards for every edit I don't like, I don't post here every time he changes references/ to reflist, I don't post here even for every mistake he makes and I corrects. I only drag him to noticeboards when he makes a lot of errors and refuses to correct them or otherwise creates serious problems or seriously misuses tools. In nearly every case where I started a thread on a noticeboard, general (not unanimous) agreement was that there indeed was a problem with his edits, and some corrective action was taken. Only the ArbCom case, which I started in the hope of getting more eyes on this and putting this to rest, was rejected, but with a majority of arbitrators willing to take on the case (which doesn't mean that they saw a problem with Rich Farmbrough's edits of course). Apart from that, in most cases outside review of my actions resulted in agreement with me and disagreement with Rich. E.g. he recently complained about my deletions of some improbable redirects he made. To test this, I tagged three redirects he created for speedy deletion, and all three were deleted, by three different, uninvolved admins: Template:Jewish Encylopedia, Iran (Islamic Republic of ), and Bolivia (Plurinational State of ). Please also take a lok at other things I noted here, or things I reverted: I don't believe that is a case of me not getting things on a technical level, it's just Rich Farmbrough being careless (or stubborn or whatever other reason he has to continually create so many errors). Fram (talk) 15:25, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Everyone knows CSD is broken. The rest is observer bias and mobbing behaviour. Rich Farmbrough, 16:31, 7 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

I also see here some more unfounded accusations "when he makes a lot of errors and refuses to correct them"- I have never refused to correct errors I make. For example I recently went through 18,000 edits checking for a particular error, that occurred on maybe 4 or 5 pages. Rich Farmbrough, 16:31, 7 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

"More" unfounded accusations? Please list the ones I haven't provided evidence for, or acknowledged that I was wrong. For this one, an example would be User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2011Oct#Please don't change correct links to redirects (or worse, to redlinks), don't "correct" quotes, and don't remove the end of lines, where you continue to create the exact same error I posted about repeatedly, or with Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography/Archive 2#Cite DNB and the previous WP:AN section (Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive227#Rich Farmbrough violating editing restriction about this, where even after I pointed out the pages with errors (content, cats, wikilinks, ...), you didn't correct them (you claimed you did, but a simple search showed that even errors I pointed out as examples weren't corrected, never mind the other similar ones). Or take a look at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Rich Farmbrough/January 2011#Automated creation of incorrect categories, one of these discussions which you feel lead to unwarranted editing restrictions; you continue creating the same problems while multiple editors explain why they are problems and clean up after you, until you finally get blocked. Fram (talk) 19:57, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Everclear_%28album%29&diff=next&oldid=457308794 for example makes your first example moot.

And I never claimed not to make errors, moreover not only did I not refuse to clean up errors, I often create a list of similar errors and fix them as the same time. For example I fixed a number of incorrectly capitalised WSOP headers that other people had created.

And I'm not having a diff war with you over this, you need only find one example where I agreed something was an error and said "I'm not fixing it". Which if course you won't because that is not the type of person I am, despite your pathetic attempts to paint me otherwise.

Rich Farmbrough, 20:15, 7 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Of course you are not having a diff war, you hardly ever provide diffs for your accusations (see e.g. the Betacommand 3 case, or the rejected Arbcom case about you). And I'm not talking about what you "say", I'm talking about what you "do". I have also "corrected" your section header above, since making it a level 2 hader removes the context (the section starts with "Contrary to what Rich Farmbrough states above", which can become meaningless once you start archiving here). Fram (talk) 20:49, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't provide diffs, because its a waste of my time, I know it's true and so do you. Whether you refuse to admit it to yourself or just to others I can't tell, nor does it greatly matter. The fact is I have never refused to correct a genuine error, nor would I. Rich Farmbrough, 00:13, 8 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

I don't believe that it is true at all, please don't pretend to know what I think. All I see is time and again you are asserting things and making accusations, and time and again you refuse to back them up with diffs when requested to do so. This makes them baseless accusations and personal attacks. Fram (talk) 07:49, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well I re-read some of the stuff you point to, including a lot of your ranting and demands for blocks and other general stirring, and remembered just how bad your interactions have been. I have really run out of good faith with you. Unless you can find an example of me refusing to fix agreed mistakes, then please depart this thread, and preferably this page and the project, which you are not a net benefit to. Rich Farmbrough, 11:10, 8 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Rich. Please reflect on what you're saying. There are people who perhaps feel the above statement precisely reflects your own behaviour. Regardless of whether that's the case or not, your account is the one that has been subject to editing restricts and blocks, not anyone else's account. —Sladen (talk) 12:51, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have reflected on it. And I nearly came back and retracted it. I even thought perhaps I should suggest some project that I should work with Fram on, so we could diffuse the tension. But I am human, and to be frank, there is nothing that Fram could do to redeem himself in my eyes, it has gone far beyond that. That's not to say I don't understand, partially, Fram's point of view. I don't say that he is without ability. However he has a talent for rubbing people up the wrong way, he has no grasp of the big picture, and has been pestering me for over a year. The fact that some of his bug reports are correct and even significant no longer matters. I just don't want to see his name. Had he stuck only to real errors, been polite, non judgemental and also listened to my responses, I would have welcomed his comments, as indeed I did at first. It is, now, too late for that. Rich Farmbrough, 13:10, 8 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Reconstructing how we got here: our interactions were few and far between, until he started editing some (protected and unprotected) templates to remove cats he didn't like, deleted them out of process, and was very dismissive and uncivil about anyone and anything opposing him, which lead to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Rich Farmbrough/October 2010. Note that only a few weeks before, there was Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive643#Rich Farmbrough and unnecessary capitalization changes, which basically is a prime example of most RF discussions since, and which wasn't started by me (or any of his other current regular posters), but by totally different people. What have we there: "totally unnecessary capitalization changes", "He said that he fixed the problem, but a day later, it was back." (anyone wanted evidence of the "refuses to fix problems?" statement), "Communication with the bot owner is going to be exceedlingly hard,", "RF has a long history of controversial mass-actions and refusing to discuss them or even consider that anybody else might possibly be right. ", "Since RF can't now (and before the block, seemingly wouldn't) change this behaviour," "In my experience the user in question is unfit to be combining adminship and botting. ", and so on and so on. All this without my prompting or interference. Perhaps, just perhaps, the problem is with you? Fram (talk) 14:09, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Even then you were there to be a member of the mob. As I have repeatedly acknowledged, blanking my talk page, simply because some editors though it was funny to jump onto every thread and turn it into a battleground was a mistake. Doing it without a clear explanation of what was happening, from some misplaced desire not create conflict with said editors even more so. Although you may have only started being disruptive at that point, it didn't take more than a few days until you were making a nuisance of yourself on BRFAs and elsewhere. Anyway.. . enough time wasted on you already. Rich Farmbrough, 14:35, 8 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Let me also state that I have not contacted anyone about this, either on or off-wiki. I don't email other users, I don't use IRC, all my wiki-related things are conducted on Wikipedia and free for everyone to check. Fram (talk) 15:25, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination for deletion of Template:Singles category

Template:Singles category has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Bulwersator (talk) 09:28, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Protection

Please don't protect templates before they are even in use anywhere, like you did with Template:Page name sub. Fram (talk) 15:56, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How about you stop deleting useful content for a few weeks, then we talk? Rich Farmbrough, 16:15, 6 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Examples? Fram (talk) 16:18, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Example where you wheel-warred is a good start. Rich Farmbrough, 16:31, 6 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

So, as I expected, none. Anyway, problems you preceive with my editing are no excuse for problems with your editing (and vice versa, of course)... Fram (talk) 11:59, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Funnily enough, in human relations, your behaviour does impact on whether I want to respond to what you say, whether I care about it, and whether I even want to see your sig on my talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 16:42, 7 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

In defence of Fram

Contrary to what Rich Farmbrough states above, all I usually do is point out errors he makes, and do it here, not on noticeboards. In those cases where I was mistaken, I acknowledged this. I don't drag Rich Farmbrough to noticeboards for every edit I don't like, I don't post here every time he changes references/ to reflist, I don't post here even for every mistake he makes and I corrects. I only drag him to noticeboards when he makes a lot of errors and refuses to correct them or otherwise creates serious problems or seriously misuses tools. In nearly every case where I started a thread on a noticeboard, general (not unanimous) agreement was that there indeed was a problem with his edits, and some corrective action was taken. Only the ArbCom case, which I started in the hope of getting more eyes on this and putting this to rest, was rejected, but with a majority of arbitrators willing to take on the case (which doesn't mean that they saw a problem with Rich Farmbrough's edits of course). Apart from that, in most cases outside review of my actions resulted in agreement with me and disagreement with Rich. E.g. he recently complained about my deletions of some improbable redirects he made. To test this, I tagged three redirects he created for speedy deletion, and all three were deleted, by three different, uninvolved admins: Template:Jewish Encylopedia, Iran (Islamic Republic of ), and Bolivia (Plurinational State of ). Please also take a lok at other things I noted here, or things I reverted: I don't believe that is a case of me not getting things on a technical level, it's just Rich Farmbrough being careless (or stubborn or whatever other reason he has to continually create so many errors). Fram (talk) 15:25, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Everyone knows CSD is broken. The rest is observer bias and mobbing behaviour. Rich Farmbrough, 16:31, 7 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

I also see here some more unfounded accusations "when he makes a lot of errors and refuses to correct them"- I have never refused to correct errors I make. For example I recently went through 18,000 edits checking for a particular error, that occurred on maybe 4 or 5 pages. Rich Farmbrough, 16:31, 7 December 2011 (UTC).[reply]

"More" unfounded accusations? Please list the ones I haven't provided evidence for, or acknowledged that I was wrong. For this one, an example would be User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2011Oct#Please don't change correct links to redirects (or worse, to redlinks), don't "correct" quotes, and don't remove the end of lines, where you continue to create the exact same error I posted about repeatedly, or with Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography/Archive 2#Cite DNB and the previous WP:AN section (Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive227#Rich Farmbrough violating editing restriction about this, where even after I pointed out the pages with errors (content, cats, wikilinks, ...), you didn't correct them (you claimed you did, but a simple search showed that even errors I pointed out as examples weren't corrected, never mind the other similar ones). Or take a look at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Rich Farmbrough/January 2011#Automated creation of incorrect categories, one of these discussions which you feel lead to unwarranted editing restrictions; you continue creating the same problems while multiple editors explain why they are problems and clean up after you, until you finally get blocked. Fram (talk) 19:57, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Everclear_%28album%29&diff=next&oldid=457308794 for example makes your first example moot.