User talk:Wbm1058/Automating proposed mergers

Wikipedia "Merge" like WP:RM or WP:AFD

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Wikipedia "Merge" like WP:RM or WP:AFD -- PBS (talk) 03:06, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I've been sleeping on this, and dreamed up some ideas which I'll post there in a while. – Wbm1058 (talk) 12:28, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

That is very good news. Village pump proposal archive fairly quickly. If it does I'll copy the discussion somewhere else. I think the best place to do so is Wikipedia talk:Proposed mergers as that seems to be roughly the equivalent of RM. If I do I'll let you know. -- PBS (talk) 21:54, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I have posted some ideas of my own. -- PBS (talk) 16:56, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I see that you were involved with automation of requested moves. Sorry, I'm still tweaking things at RM (I'm a bit of a perfectionist). Eventually I'll get to it, but merges are a big bite to chew and I don't want to spread thin and lose too much focus. Wbm1058 (talk) 20:56, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Note to myself – look at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 67#WP:Requested merge – Wbm1058 (talk) 21:09, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Are you familiar with {{Requested move old}} (originally named {{Movereq old}})? As far as I can tell, it wasn't documented anywhere, until I just added it to WP:Template messages/Moving#After (potentially) controversial move requests are closed. Although it's been around since 24 December 2010‎, when Rich Farmbrough created it (what I've seen of his work is of highest technical quality), I haven't found any talk page discussion of it anywhere. But some editors have used it—it's transcluded on some 59 talk pages (the last two are my doing). Just amazed that I haven't noticed this template until today. Wbm1058 (talk) 21:42, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

How Rich announced his new template: diff – Wbm1058 (talk) 21:53, 11 January 2013 (UTC) ...it stayed in the instructions until this edit. Wbm1058 (talk) 22:10, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

personally I don't see the point of Richard's template. I would suggest that automating the merge procedure would be a much better bang for the buck than further perfecting the automated RM procedure, particularly as the algorithms for mulit-move requests and proposed merges are similar and proposed merges are such a mess -- some of them have been around for may years. -- PBS (talk) 00:11, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

His template could be used to eliminate some redundancy and in my opinion is more elegant than harej's solution for archiving closed RMs. Eventually I would like any similar solutions for merges to be implemented consistently with the RM solutions. But, yes, further teaking here need not hold up some temporary solutions for merges, since that's such a mess... Wbm1058 (talk) 15:52, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I am missing knowledge of what harej's solution is, and why it is thought necessary. Surly to close a RM one just uses {{poll top}}. Why is anything else needed? -- PBS (talk) 18:02, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually you should use the more specific {{subst:RM top}}. The old and new page names are included as parameters in {{requested move/dated}}. Closing instructions call for removal of {{requested move/dated}}. It needs to be removed so the bot doesn't pick it up, as the bot looks for transclusions of that template. So, to keep a record of the old and new page names in the archived section on the talk page, harej created {{subst:Requested move}}, which creates the {{requested move/dated}} template, and redundantly writes a list of old and new pages outside of the /dated template, so the list will still be there after /dated is removed. Now, if instead of removing it, we simply change its name to {{requested move old}}—or {{requested move/old}}—voila, now we don't need to write the redundant list outside the template. The redundancy can cause issues, when an editor corrects their typo or changes their mind about what the new name should be, they need to make the change in two places. – Wbm1058 (talk) 21:52, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I also just observed that until June, 2011 User:RFC bot created an Automated list of proposed mergers at Wikipedia:Proposed mergers/Log, which were nominated for deletion. Why did RFC bot stop creating these lists? – Wbm1058 (talk) 15:52, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

No idea I'll look into it. -- PBS (talk) 18:02, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

RFC bot's last Proposed mergers list updates were on 29 August 2011. The Wikipedia:Proposed mergers/Log revision history shows that harej was having trouble getting the bot to "Behave, please.", and about this time he was turning over the bot to a new operator. Looks like a ball was dropped. I'll see if I can pick it up. –Wbm1058 (talk) 21:52, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Bookmarking an old Feature request Pending Approval. – Wbm1058 (talk) 17:38, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Archived at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 98#Wikipedia "Merge" like WP:RM or WP:AFD. If I didn't keep branching off into other directions, I'd get to this sooner. So much to do. :} Wbm1058 (talk) 21:15, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Merge/Archive 2#Automation of merge proposals -- PBS (talk) 10:22, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Well duh. The bot was working off of Category:Merge by month, which became a soft redirect to Category:Articles to be merged on 30 August 2011. No wonder the bot's last successful run was 29 August 2011... I patched the program with the new category name and it seems to be happy. Time to file the bot request for approval. Wbm1058 (talk) 03:51, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Here's an example of what I mean by "they need to make the change in two places": diff. – Wbm1058 (talk) 13:34, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I am rather busy at the moment fixing hundreds of pages that use EB1911 as a source, so I have not been following the merge discussions for the last month or so. What is the state of play at the moment? Has the system been automated yet? -- PBS (talk) 16:16, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I see, {{EB1911}}, Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition – looks like a worthy project. Recently added to the public domain because it turned 100 yrs old? Merge bot is running every 24 hours, and awaiting approval. See Wikipedia:Proposed mergers#Tagged articles. Also on my plate is supporting multiple tags on a single talk page, see #Cannot get RMCD bot to trigger and Wikipedia_talk:Requested_moves/Archive 25#Add section title for adding automatically. A solution here can be leveraged to merge proposals, as I'm sure there will be some proposing merge A into B, then below that someone else will propose A into C. Wikipedia:Proposed mergers#Requests for assistance and feedback remains moribund, mostly supported by a single editor. Probably the next step is to change the current manual process there to another manual process in the form that is desired to be automated. In other words a process that is maintained manually in a similar manner to how requested moves is maintained manually when the RM or RMCD bot is down. Then I can work on automating that manual process. Should be easier to do here than at RM because the activity level is so low. Getting closer to that, hoping to get to it soon. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:50, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

• This long-deferred item is still on my to-do list. See Analysis of merging processes on Wikipedia. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:20, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
• I've reserved Template:Proposed merge for this purpose. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:56, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Re: Proposed merge template

Why do you keep removing a standard redirect and replacing it with a ridiculous, non-standard template message? What policy or guideline allows you to do this? I've reverted you until I hear a rational reason for this bizarre edit. Viriditas (talk) 23:57, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

The template you are looking for is called {{Requested merge}}. Please use it. Viriditas (talk) 00:02, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

@Viriditas: I thought I made it more clear by starting a template documentation page. See #Wikipedia "Merge" like WP:RM or WP:AFD. It's a long-term project, maybe I'll make some progress on it in 2015. There are already 15 other redirects to {{Merge}}, and the Merge bot program has all of them hard-coded, but "Proposed merge" is not in its list. This means that anyone who uses that alias won't find their proposals in the bot's lists. I'd rather not use the "requested" name which is for moves, as the processes may not end up being identical, so the same name may be misleading. This would be designed to be a replacement for Wikipedia:Proposed mergers, or an automated generation of that page. Wbm1058 (talk) 00:15, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm confused why you and others create unique process requests instead of following a simple, logical consistency across the project. If an editor wants to request something then it should be simple to find the appropriate template by typing it in the search field. Instead, we see that a "request" or a "proposal" for anything has a different naming convention. This makes no sense. Second, there is no accepted usage of reserving a template by typing "This template is reserved for future use" where the redirect should go. None. Only admins can reserve (or rather, "protect') a title. Third, you have many options open to you, all of which I'm sure you know about, from using a sandbox template (outlined at Wikipedia:Template sandbox and test cases) to using a new template, to making a simple request for deletion of the redirect so you can recreate it. I'm frankly confused why you would go down a route not reflected by our best practices. Viriditas (talk) 02:32, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Now I see that someone forked {{Requested move/dated}} to create Template:Merge discussion. Half-baked implementations such as this are part of the reason this issue is so hard to deal with. Wbm1058 (talk) 21:46, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Nomination of Warren (Porridge) for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Warren (Porridge) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Warren (Porridge) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. -- Toshio Yamaguchi 21:41, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Merge of Newtonian fluid and viscous stress tensor

Hi, apparently you have restored the merge tag in Newtonian fluid assuming that it had been deleted by accident. Actually the tag was deleted because it was posted 6 months ago, and since then there have been no arguments for the merge, but two against it. Besides the article has been edited heavily in the meantime, so it is dubious whether the editor who put the tag there would still want to do it.
That said, I must complain about the tag being placed on the article (and at the *top* of the article) rather than on the talk page. Please do not quote the manual of style. (Some years ago I looked closely at how MOS pages get created, and saw that they are generally the work of half a dozen people, who declare it "consensus" without any input from the other 10,000 editors.) There is an older fundamental and eminently sensible rule saying that messages to other editors should be placed on the talk page, never on the article itself. Article-side editorial tags were apparently first invented for biographies of living people, with the excuse that they were a warning to readers as well as to editors. But then other people started inventing other tags for all sort of banal editor-to-editor messages, and apparently felt that for being enclosed in a flashy frame those messages were somehow exempt from that fundamental rule. So now we have hundreds of millions of obnoxious tags that hog the articles for years on end, thanks to a few dozen editors who enjoy creating tags and pasting them by the thousands, but never take the time to fix the articles or discuss them in the talk page. Of course, those are the same editors who write the Manual pages that "legalize" the use of such article-side tags, "by consensus"...
Sigh. Can't people see how ridiculous and yucky Wikipedia articles look with those post-its all over the place? Can't people see what will inevitably happen when editors can tag an article with a few mouse clicks, but it takes at least half an hour of work to remove a tag?
Sorry for the rant but I had to try. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 02:21, 13 March 2013 (UTC)