User talk:Thumperward/Archive 82

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Talk back

Hello, Thumperward. You have new messages at Yogesh Khandke's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:40, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Essay

Very nice. Do you want to volunteer for any other British colloquialisms? WP:TRIPE, WP:TWADDLE and WP:BOLLOCKS spring to mind, and that is just me, neglecting the extensive Malleus lexicon. Yikes, preview tells me we already have something for WP:BOLLOCKS Might need a rethink there but I need to read it first.- Sitush (talk) 00:42, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

"Put up or shut up" is not a "British colloquialism". Take your false equivalences elsewhere, please. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:11, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

User recovery template

Oh, now i get it. its shorthand for including this paragraph, to save typing. for some reason, this wasnt obvious to me, now it is. sorry i didnt catch that. i havent seen the template function used in this manner before. I was thinking about userboxes indicating a person is an advocate for personal recovery, and just couldnt see what this was for. thanks for helping.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 06:32, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

No problem. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 07:39, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Your edits to Help:Infobox

In this edit, you stated "use a more up-to-date infobox example". But both Norwegian Elkhound and Norwegian Lundehund use the same {{Infobox dog breed}}, so how can one be more up-to-date than the other? -- DanielPenfield (talk) 00:13, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Because the example is a static image of the infobox, and {{infobox dog breed}} has been completely rewritten between the first and second images being taken (which is why the output looks so different). That the dog breed depicted in the two differs is incidental (I happened to have the Lundehund page loaded in a different tab at the time). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:53, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

AH problems

Problems have come to my attention as a result of the AH move you "proposed" a couple months ago. As a matter of formal record, in that discussion you promised to address and fix any issues that may arise. Please provide as soon as possible your plan to address and fix all issues. Thank you. Gimmetoo (talk) 14:14, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

This? That's a social rather than a technical problem. Gerda Arendt prefers that your bot use the template's new name, and you don't; either actually works perfectly well. or are you referring to a different problem? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:31, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Are you not aware of the problems surrounding this template? Please provide as soon as possible your plan to identify, address and fix all issues. Tbank you. Gimmetoo (talk) 15:59, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Who exactly do you think is going to consider this deliberately obtuse "communication" as a good-faith effort to report problems? Either explain what the problem is or point to where it's been highlighted. If you do neither, I wouldn't expect any reasonable third party to consider me to have reneged on my promise. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 16:07, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm thinking of edits such as this which I am sure you are aware of, because it's one of your edits. Gimmetoo (talk) 16:13, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

So far as I can see the template is still working exactly as planned in that revision (and in the current revision of the same page). So what's the actual problem, and how is it impacting on the project? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:52, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

You asserted your "proposed" change would have no effect on any script. You were wrong. It affects my script. No more games, You made a formal promise. What is your plan? Gimmetoo (talk) 17:52, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

In what way does that edit affect your script? Programatically the output is identical save for some repositioning. Do you have a log file with some detail? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 18:34, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

The script does not recognize the template on that page. That's a serious problem. And that you are making such edits yourself is a behavioral issue that needs addressing. Gimmetoo (talk) 18:41, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I made edits like that for several years prior to the move: the {{article history}} redirect has existed since at least August 2010. If you are saying that your bot recognises only ArticleHistory and not article history then that implies that the bot has been missing these for over two years. The first thing to note here is that the page move has not caused this problem, but simply highlighted it. The second is that it should be a trivial fix to the bot code to be able to handle either (and other redirects such as {{articlehistory}}, if the bot presently misses them as well). If you can point at the bot source code I'll be happy to look into that issue and either fix it directly or endeavour to find another editor who can. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 21:00, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

At the point of the move there were 21 instances of "article history" in use, and as I recall only 2 of them were your edits, and they were quite recent (the rest being someone else's edits in February-April 2012 as I recall). In addition to creating inconsistency which causes more branches and more code that would need to be maintained, you also format the template name with spaces. Now how to you plan to fix the issues you created? Gimmetoo (talk) 20:14, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I think the above establishes that this isn't a new issue, nor one caused by the page move. (in fact, as the example code in the template doc uses the old title, new instances of it should still work if people follow the documentation.) The root cause is that the bot only checks for invocations of "ArticleHistory" and yet there are long-standing convenience redirects at other titles. I am more than happy to work on the bot's code to check for additional titles if you point me at the relevant source. That was the promise I made at the time. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 23:21, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

There may be "convenience redirects" but 21 instances, 19 of which were installed 6 months earlier, and 2 installed by you at the time of your proposal, show that they weren't being used. It is your move proposal, and your edits that created more of these uses. Dealing with any of those options would create more branches. You promised to fix all issues. Since you don't have the code, how do you plan to fix issues? Gimmetoo (talk) 23:39, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Access to the code is implicit to my being able to directly fix the code. If that's not possible, then the best that can be done is to add a notice to the template documentation detailing the bug (which, as noted, was present before the page move and is not correlated to it). I'll do that tomorrow. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 00:03, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

There is no bug. Code does not need to be written to handle non-existent conditions. The problem most certainly is a result of your move "proposal", during which you unequivocally stated the the move would not affect any scripts or bots, and formally promised to fix any issues that may result. You can fix the problem by moving the template back to the name it had for years, and which was consistently used on the wiki prior to your actions. Gimmetoo (talk) 00:25, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

It's a bug. There's a well-described situation in which GimmeBot fails to notice an {{article history}} template; that situation has a trivial remedy in the form of checking for alternative titles (as User:AnomieBOT does when dating maintenance templates, for example). Had I access to fix that bug myself I would do so. But regardless of that, it has nothing to do with the page move; there had been a redirect at that title for at least two years and articles had been using it prior to the move. Moreover, the move does not affect in any way GimmeBot's ability to add {{article history}} to articles that don't already use it, nor to update those which use the old title. We're going round in circles here. I'm going to post to WP:VP/T with technical details on this issue; please follow up there instead of here. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 00:37, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Now done: please follow up at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#user:GimmeBot and template:article history. Thanks. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 00:42, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Moving talk page

Dear Chris, on Nov 16th, you moved Preference tests (animals) to Preference test. Unfortuantely, the Talk page was not also moved at the same time. I do not know how to do this, and I believe this requires administrator status. Please can you assist.__DrChrissy (talk) 19:36, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Moving the talk page would not require admin rights, as talk:preference test is currently empty. However, I'm not actually sure the article had a talk page at its old title to be moved: are you sure that one existed? I've checked both the deletion logs and our contributions lists from that period and can't find any reference to such a page. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:57, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

OK - perhaps one never existed - thanks for looking into it for me. __DrChrissy (talk) 20:00, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Re: San Francisco burrito

I removed the drive-by tagging. I would be happy to help "rewrite" the article to meet any concerns you might have, but you will have to detail them on the talk page. The more specific you can be, the easier it will be. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 00:22, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

"Notable taquerias"? Really? Simply removing that section would probably do the trick. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:00, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

The section is sourced and these taquerias are world-famous. The only problem with this section at the moment is that it is somewhat narrow in scope. In other words, it needs expansion. I see that you are currently in Scotland. Are you aware of the history of the San Francisco burrito and its importance in California culinary history? It has an entire subculture as well as a 51 year-old history and an enormous amount of sources. The topic itself is a subset of the Mission District and San Francisco/California cuisine articles. Describing the notable taquerias here is no different than any number of our articles that describe notable attractions and landmarks. Viriditas (talk) 10:44, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I have never seen a section consisting of restaurant reviews, especially of current restaurants, which was written in a style more appropriate for an encyclopedia than for a restaurant / travel guide. It's an elementary style problem in an (otherwise well-written) article. I'm not sure what qualifications you expect me to pull out, here. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:00, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, the quality of the article has been greatly weakened over the last few years due to multiple editors adding and removing material, so the current version needs a lot of work. Looking at the current section in question, I don't see any reviews or style problems. I see three listings, one for El Faro, a claimant for the original Mission burrito style dating back to 1961, another for La Taqueria, a famous taquerias notable for the "super" burrito style, described in prose, noting their unique stylistic variation of not adding rice. I do notice that it also mentions what kind of drinks they serve, which is superfluous. Then we have a listing for El Farolito, noting the types of customers and other items. Some of this can be trimmed, but the cultural aspects of the people who buy Mission burritos is part of the topic. Viriditas (talk) 11:07, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

At the very least it needs completely reformatted. A tag helps editors interested in that sort of work to locate areas that they can help with. As I usually say to people, a tag is as much a reminder to myself as to anyone else, and while "drive-by tagging" has a low reputation with some I reckon I've got a pretty good track record of eventually doing the work myself if nobody else steps up. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:12, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I suppose everyone has a different approach. Best practice is to list the problems on the talk page and tag the main article if you can't fix it yourself. I think part of the problem is that most people have no idea how huge the San Francisco burrito subculture is, how long it has been active, and how influential it has been on cuisine in the United States and in the rest of the world. One source claimed that these types of burritos might very well be the heaviest fast food in the world. Some Mission burritos can weigh in at anywhere from 1-2 pounds. Viriditas (talk) 11:16, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I am not arguing that discussion of the culture surrounding the subject is not notable. I am stating that a section which consists of a big table of illustrated blurb on selected restaurants makes the article look like a travel guide, and that this needs cleaned up. One does not need an advanced degree in burritology to come to that conclusion. For what it's worth, an advanced degree in burritology would have the best coursework ever. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:25, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

We actually have lots of articles, both good and featured, which use a similar layout (images and descriptive captions) to describe historical points of interest, attractions, and landmarks. Is there a reason you are singling this particular article out? I don't see it as a "travel guide", but rather as an encyclopedia article about food history and regional cuisine. Yes, changes can be made and the article can be improved. Viriditas (talk) 11:31, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, I eliminated the section per your request and merged the images into other sections while trimming the captions. If I restore the section, I'll follow best practices from GA and FA articles. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 12:32, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Great. Cheers. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:12, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

COM stale drafts

Thanks for taking the time to see and explain what COM was doing (i guess you remember, i just found these and figured it out). assuming good faith on behalf of another editor, as many commenters are doing in these discussions, is a fantastic policy, EXCEPT when the editor in question is clearly acting in bad faith, as COM obviously was back then. Also, thanks for your comments on blanking userpages (i didnt know there was a template, thats a very polite thing to do, i think ive left personal notes if ive done it at all). I agree, blanking is more of a courtesy, easily reversed, to keep info up to date on pages not easily confused with articles, and even sometimes to alert editors they have old info floating around. stale forks of articles, i have found, are enthusiastically supported for deletion by the actual user, once they are notified of it, if they are good editors. In case you were curious, i went through every COM/ page i could find, and chose CSD if completely in violation of policy (they rescued content just prior to deletion on some, even after voting to delete, and even said what they were doing in their comments), or MFD (if there a good faith userfication from an admin), as appropriate, being careful to check for any signs that might justify my just recreating an article. i didnt find anything.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 21:06, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

No problem. Yeah, I remember CoM from his very early editing history. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 23:23, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

All the...

...best to you and yours in this season and the ones to come!

From Portugal, keep it up --AL (talk) 15:24, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Buttered toast phenomenon

I noticed you left a notability tag on this article. Why do you think its not notable? -- YPNYPN ✡ 16:30, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

It's less a scientific phenomenon and more a whimsical observation. Being the subject of an Ig Nobel Prize thesis is not, so far as I can see, an adequate claim of standalone notability. (Much of this also applies to buttered cat paradox.) Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:31, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Template:Official website icon

Hello. Thanks for your input here: [1]. I don't understand the point you're making, however – almost certainly because I'm still pretty new to all this – so could you unpack it for me? CsDix (talk) 19:33, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

You wanted to have a comment added after {{official website}} in the style of {{registration required}}. The latter is a warning; the former is simply a note, and isn't really required, so your request was declined. it was therefore inappropriate to create a new template for the same purpose. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:22, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you're saying now. However, that's not what I had in mind. I've commented accordingly back at the thread linked above. Thanks for clarifying. CsDix (talk) 11:55, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Your submissions at RfD

Hello. I have been cleaning up old deletion candidates and I have come across two which you have nominated for deletion but an error appears to have occurred. Gallery of flags with animals and Gallery of religious symbols both have deletion tags but neither appear to be on the RfD log. I have done some digging and found that Twinkle appears to have added one nomination over another, these are the edits: here and here. I am letting you know so you can either re nominate them/add them to the log, or remove the deletion tag if you don't feel they should be deleted anymore. -- Patchy1 09:03, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Eek. Thanks; I'll renominate these and log a bug with Twinkle. Sorry for any trouble caused. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:46, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Not a problem, I was working my way through this database report and found them. I know its often hard, sometimes very hard, to find these kinds of mistakes unless you know its happened and are looking for them or someone else points them out. -- Patchy1 10:48, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Honorfics in Infobox officeholder

Could you revisit Template talk:Infobox officeholder#Formatting of name & honorifcs, please? A bot is removing the inline markup from instances of the template (see progress reports on my talk page) and there is a renewed debate about how the template should format its content. Conversion to {{Infobox}} may help. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:40, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Season's tidings!

To you and yours, Have a Merry ______ (fill in the blank) and Happy New Year!FWiW Bzuk (talk) 13:43, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Holiday cheer

		Holiday Cheer
		Michael Q. Schmidt my talk page is wishing you Season's Greetings! This message celebrates the holiday season, promotes WikiLove, and hopefully makes your day a little better. Spread the seasonal good cheer by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Share the good feelings.

Cookies for you!

		Viriditas is wishing you Happy Holidays!
		Enjoy your cookies and have a great 2013!

"some dunging out"

You added a {tooshort} template to the Asus Eee PC article per 12:43, 31 October 2012 (as part of a greater edit), but you did not provide any clues specifically regarding this addition.

I'm scanning the text without finding anything obvious, so I'll return in some time to remove the template unless there's some discussion by that time. (Such as: What are your misgivings regarding the article's lead? What do you feel is missing? Alternatively, are there any details you feel doesn't belong in a lead?) Cheers, CapnZapp (talk) 16:40, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

It's only six sentences long, and as such omits any mention of vast sections of the article body. In particular, the "history" and "hardware" sections of the article (both several pages long) are assigned a single sentence each in the present lead. It needs significant expansion. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:19, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Infobox referendum

This is scary: {{Infobox referendum}}. All the best for 2013. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:52, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh my. There's also {{infobox Referendum pending with map}}, {{infobox Referendum approved with map}} and {{infobox Referendum rejected with map}} (just from the doc page referenced in the creation summary). Looks like this needs thorough investigation. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:22, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

And {{Infobox Referendum with detailed key}}. Transclusions and, FWIW, dates of creation & last (trivia excepted) edit:

• {{Infobox referendum}} = 27; 17 July 2009‎; 7 May 2011‎
• {{infobox Referendum pending with map}} = 1; 25 December 2008‎; 28 December 2008‎
• {{infobox Referendum approved with map}} = 15; 24 December 2008‎; 15 July 2009‎
• {{infobox Referendum rejected with map}} = 20; 24 December 2008‎; 6 November 2009‎
• {{Infobox Referendum with detailed key}} = 7; 8 May 2011‎; 8 May 2011‎

Also, note the use of red/ green to distinguish data types - that;s inaccessible to people with the commonest form of colour-blindness. Clearly ripe for merging and improvement. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:30, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Gee

Can you expand on your LEAD tag in Gee (navigation). What do you feel needs to be expanded on? (generally you should put an explanation in the check-in note, otherwise its difficult for other editors to understand the context of the tag) Maury Markowitz (talk) 13:36, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

The bit of extra context you added helped. I've removed the tag. Thanks. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:17, 3 January 2013 (UTC)