User talk:Lightmouse/Archives/2008/November

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Dates of birth and death

Moved to Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Can_the_MOS_be_changed_because_an_RFC_to_change_it_failed.3F. Lightmouse (talk) 19:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Relief at last

Lightmouse, think of all the people who've been annoying you over the past few days. I can think of quite a few. Here's the remedy. Tony (talk) 14:45, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Lool. I have done those before. Yea you both need to go for picnic to relax. --SkyWalker (talk) 14:57, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Tick the "Manic model" box. Like a machine-gun. Tony (talk) 15:27, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I have done that. Pretty cool. I have send the link to my sis. She is one who keeps doing it whenever she finds that sort of cover. Not sure what is the name of such cover. Do you know?. --SkyWalker (talk) 19:18, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Bubble Wrap. –xeno (talk) 19:20, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Xeno. :D I will remember that. --SkyWalker (talk) 19:32, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Haha, funniest thing I have ever seen here. Lightmouse, I'm glad you have a sense of humour. As do all your fans. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:39, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

References

Linking dates within <ref>sections, as you did [1] is somewhat inappropriate. The proper correction is to turn a non-templated reference into a templated one. The templates have date fields, and any date issues can be dealt with automatically in the template. This also allows using the date in the template to pick the correct link in the Internet Archive if the original link goes dead. --John Nagle (talk) 17:41, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

You are mistaken, I didn't link those dates. Please look again. Lightmouse (talk) 18:31, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what John was speaking about, but the script did kind of muck up one date delink. Check the very last changed item...someone tried to apply date formatting inside the external link code, which I assume is what cause the error. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 20:35, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Aha. Thanks, I see that now. The script uses a built-in function that protects web references. There is a known issue with that function and it reveals itself like that occasionally. I reported it and have spent several hours trying to fix it myself but on balance, the protection of web references is still worth tolerating that issue. John was talking about templates and referred to me 'linking dates' so I think he was talking about something else. Lightmouse (talk) 00:03, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Where in the script is the code for this? Gimmetrow 04:07, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Search for the term 'Hide'. Lightmouse (talk) 09:39, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Can't find in User:Lightmouse/monobook.js/script.js. Gimmetrow 15:32, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Correct, you won't find it in there. You can see that the edit quoted was done with an AWB script (probably User:Lightmouse/javascript conversion/delink full years), not the monobook script. Lightmouse (talk) 12:48, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Reading Royals Roster

I'm guessing this was a bot that did this, but on the Reading Royals page there were edits that removed all the spaces between the players in the roster. Please do not do this as the spaces are there to make editing the roster easier. There are almost daily roster moves made by the ECHL team which require moving chunks of the template around, so please leave the spaces between each player. Thanks. Shootmaster 44 (talk) 04:51, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

That's an AWB general fix. You might want to put comments in those spots to prevent that from happening. --Closedmouth (talk) 05:16, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Date links

Can you please stop removing links to dates as there seems to be more discussion about this at WT:MOSNUM of late (and IMO, there doesn't seem to be consensus for removing date links at this point)? —Locke Cole • t • c 12:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

If you are right that there is no consensus for removing date links then there are a lot of editors that need to know. Please can you announce this at WT:MOSNUM. Lightmouse (talk) 13:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The style guides are quite clear about this: dates and date fragments should not be linked. Please stop criticising editors who are working hard to improve WP. Locke, perhaps you'd like to offer to assist rather than sniping from the sidelines. Tony (talk) 14:12, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The style guides reflect what I can only describe as a small group of people trying very hard to push through their point of view. Also, I don't appreciate that you believe simply because you (and a handful of others) insist on unlinking dates that it automatically means people who don't are "sniping from the sidelines". What work would you have me do? Perhaps I should follow Lightmouse around and revert his edits? Afterall, that's my position, but then I'd be no better than you or Lightmouse. So I ask again, please stop until this has been sorted out rather than forcing your point of view. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:38, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

As you may or may not be aware there is actually already ongoing discussion at WT:MOSNUM. In the interests of keeping people from having to revert your edits should it be decided to keep date links you really should stop (it's borderline disruption since you are now aware that there's an issue with the lack of consensus). —Locke Cole • t • c 00:38, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

If you believe that the MOS is a small conspiracy to make Wikipedia worse, then it should be easy for you to get a larger group to support a change to the MOS. It is not an issue for my talk page. Lightmouse (talk) 11:26, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Locke Cole, I wish you'd give it a rest. A lack of consensus appears to be very much part of the way you see it, but strategic linking is just too great a trend on WP for that to matter. Tony (talk) 11:54, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I've gotten a dev to respond to me about making autoformatted dates work for IP editors/users, and as that was the primary concern with linked dates (AFAICT) that should be enough to warrant stopping for now. See WT:MOSNUM. —Locke Cole • t • c 23:13, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Would that involve every single Wikipedia reader choosing which date format they would prefer? --Closedmouth (talk) 02:58, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Not at all. A default could be chosen by the community which could possibly be overridden on an article by article basis. My point is that carrying on with unlinking dates is not consistent with carrying on a good faith discussion for other options... —Locke Cole • t • c 03:32, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I fear that the developer's time is being wasted. The IP-sensitive route has been discussed to death and the realisation was that there's a viper's nest of technical and other issues that will never be solved. What will you do for Canada, or India, where both formats are in use, for example? Above all, you seem to be fixated on the order of the month and the day. I never saw you riling against the international date that appears after everyone's signature, nor the one at the bottom of every WP page. Do they cause nausea? Tony (talk) 02:30, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
- First the devs wouldn't respond to you people. Now that I've gotten a devs attention you're saying it's a "waste (of time)"? Did you even read my messages on WT:MOSNUM? I explicitly stated that we may be able to add a magic word/syntax to specify the time format for an article and use a default where no specifier is present. Others have suggested using the headers sent by a readers browser, though this may require using Javascript (since doing it on the server side might have cache issues). There are options and if you'd step back and take a breath, we might be able to move forward with something the community will accept. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:32, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

You haven't answered my key question. Tony (talk) 13:21, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

As I indicated at WT:MOSNUM (BTW, thanks for flaming the ForestFire) I'd rather we agreed on one format for all articles and then provide a tag/markup to change the format on specific articles (something like __NOTOC__ which could be stuck at the top of the article but obviously with a way to specify an alternate date format). Unless there was some other "key question" I missed. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:45, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

The "key question" is why you invest so much emotion in the order of month and day, and why we're wasting time talking about this stuff. Tony (talk) 03:02, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
- I'll answer it as soon as you do Tony, because your own arguments apply to yourself just as much as they do to me. Specifically why do you invest so much emotion in the linking of dates and the lack of order in the formatting of dates? Why are you wasting our time on something this trivial that should be left alone or fixed properly rather than being removed? —Locke Cole • t • c 05:09, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Because I care about what our millions of readers see—not what makes only a few editors complain, for some reason. Tony (talk) 10:51, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I care about what they see as well, but I have the ability to understand that there are technical solutions that are far better for those millions of readers than simply removing date formatting altogether. —Locke Cole • t • c 20:02, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I would like to point out once again that your bot isn't qualified to make the call whether a wikilink to a date is relevant or not. This requires human judgement. --dab (𒁳) 13:18, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Please provide an example from the contributions of Lightbot and I will let you know what my human judgement is. Lightmouse (talk) 13:29, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Date-auditing script

I've been using your script for a while, and have noticed that the [delink ISO to dmy] and [delink ISO to mdy] will only delink correctly if the ISO date has two sets of square brackets (ie [[2001]]-[[01-20]] will become 1 January 2001); it merely de-links a date is surrounded by only one (ie [[2001-01-31]] will become 2001-01-31). Is this by accident or by design? Ohconfucius (talk) 15:04, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I think it should give the same ouput for both input formats. Please give me an example page and I will investigate. Lightmouse (talk) 16:42, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I haven't looked at the script in a while so I'm not sure about the order it does things, but the delink_ISO_to_dmy function doesn't convert unlinked ISO dates. If they're unlinked first (by script design or user choice), nothing else will change. Gimmetrow 16:56, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Aha. I think I have the explanation. The delink_ISO_to_dmy function is new. I created it for a few users to test it. It is intended to operate on both input formats when links are present. If the links have been removed by another function, then it has no effect. Once we are confident that it works as designed, I intend to merge it into the other buttons. Please provide feedback on this function and it will help our confidence grow. Lightmouse (talk) 17:12, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I set up a test page at my sandbox. Therein, you will see that I formatted alternate dates thus:[[yyyy]]-[[mm-dd]] and [[yyyy-mm-dd]]. Running the [delink ISO to dmy] and [delink ISO to mdy] scripts will only delink correctly if the ISO date has two sets of square brackets. Nothing happens if there is only one set. So, unless I substitute the intermediate hyphen with ']]-[[' before running the script, the ISO dates never become 'prose-style dates. Ohconfucius (talk) 16:57, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
PS, I have found an annoying number of articles with citation templates where editors have inserted ISO dates. So far, I have been getting rid of these by inserting the prerequisite number of square brackets. It would be useful to have the script automatically convert the '|date= yyyy-mm-dd' or '| date= yyyy-mm-dd'(with space) also to dmy or mdy. And what about '|accessdate= yyyy-mm-dd'? - people seem to have this parameter default set to ISO. Should we change these to dmy or mdy too? Ohconfucius (talk) 17:09, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

*ahem* editors inserted ISO dates because it is what the instructions said to do at the time. And now, unfortunately, thanks to people just running around delinking all those templates without making a bot to fix articles, a HUGE number of articles have screwed up references. SO I agree, we need something that can convert both date and accessdate from ISO to mdy whether they are linked or not. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 16:16, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

There's a line which "protects" dates from the script, but the regex only seems to match [[yyyy-mm-dd]] style. It actually does convert ISO dates linked as [[yyyy-mm-dd]] outside date= fields. Gimmetrow 02:34, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I successfully used the script before to convert ISO dates to mdy, but tonight it isn't working anymore. I tried both "all dates to mdy", then tried relinking the ISO dates and using "delink ISO to mdy" but neither worked. I was trying to use it on List of InuYasha episodes (season 1)‎ as part of a need to fix all of that series episode lists to use mdy instead of ISOs with the removal of autoformatting, as ISO dates are to confusing for readers. Any idea what I'm doing wrong? -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 06:19, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I certainly think there's a case for retaining the ISO links on the article mentioned above. Japan uses yy mm dd like China; also, the dates are within tables. Simply de-linking without conversion would be appropriate, IMHO. Ohconfucius (talk) 10:42, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

You are doing nothing wrong. It is the script. It is not working for me either. --SkyWalker (talk) 06:33, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks guys. I am very busy but will work on this soon. Lightmouse (talk) 08:33, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

In the meantime, I would suggest you put the installation and usage instructions onto the monobook page. Keep up the good work. Ohconfucius (talk) 11:48, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Done. Lightmouse (talk) 12:12, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Is there any way of seeing how many people are using the script? Ohconfucius (talk) 11:50, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Just go to the script page and select 'What links here'. Lightmouse (talk) 12:12, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I have now updated the code for 'delink ISO to dmy' and 'delink ISO to mdy'. I removed the protection for 'date='. It should now work as you expect. The protection was put in place because of some weird issue with citation templates. I don't know if it still applies. Citation templates make my head spin and I have no idea how they work. Please test this out on citation templates and check with the citation people to see if they are ok with it. Lightmouse (talk) 15:44, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Delinking ISO is working for me in regular linked ISO text(yay!), but it is only partially working with the citation templates[2] It doesn't work at all on unlinked ISOs. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 16:16, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Try now. Please check that the citation template people are ok with this. Lightmouse (talk) 16:29, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

That's the fun part. Half the templates have been delinked without fixing the date format, while the rest are still using autolinking. Its frustrating how half-way its being done :( And yay, that worked![3]-- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 16:54, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I ought to mention that my preferred citation format is

Author (dd Month year). Title. Publisher. Accessed yyyy-mm-dd.
Author (dd Month year). "Title". Publisher. Retrieved yyyy-mm-dd. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help); Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)

This clearly distinguishes publication date from accessdate, and I object to changing the ISO accessdates to non-ISO styles. Gimmetrow 17:14, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I quite like that visible form too. As I said (twice), I don't want to be drawn into discussing acceptable citation formats. As you know, the code did check for 'date=' and I removed it on request. I would be quite happy to put it (or something more focussed) back. Would it be enough to check for the term:

'|accessdate='
'|accessdate ='
'|date='
'|date ='

Lightmouse (talk) 17:27, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I can agree with no ISO in the text, but you would need to distinguish non-template cites. You could have a function which excluded anything between ref tags. Some articles have date=ISO consistently in the references section, and these probably shouldn't be changed automatically. Gimmetrow 18:50, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

It would also be good if "All dates to mdy/dmy" could be made to ignore the title tags of references, since those may not be using the same format as the article which is fine since its the exact title. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 18:52, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

While you might like the accessdate to remain ISO, but isn't what is currently actually called for by the template. Cite web now specifically says to use the full date rather than ISO. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 17:28, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

As a statement of fact, fine, but what's your point? Gimmetrow 18:50, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

If you don't agree with it, you need to request the change at the template, not ask that the script go against existing consensus. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 18:52, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I think you're overstating the weight of template documentation. I'm one of the invested parties here, and I'm reminding other invested parties (who likely have this page watchlisted) that changing certain ISO dates doesn't have consensus. Gimmetrow 19:12, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think I am, but if changing ISO dates have no consensus, please show this, as the dozens of people running around changing it all over the place seem to think it does, including admins who are (not always correctly) trying to fix the templates to automatically reformat the dates without the need for the script to run. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 21:04, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

This is looking like more than I want to take on. I think I will remove the 'delink ISO to dmy' and 'delink ISO to mdy' options. The other functions delink ISO to unlinked ISO. That seems a safe option for now. Lightmouse (talk) 00:48, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I think having it as is fine, since it gives the choice. The delinking options are proving extremely helpful for episode lists where folks used ISO and they now have to be changed to regular dates, so I hope you won't remove these functions. The only minor contention seems to be ISOs in citations, so maybe as an alternative, make those separate functions so they can be used or not used based on editor choice? -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 01:00, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

It is not just citations, there are quite a few templates that use ISO. I am actually very pro-ISO but was persuaded by popular demand to include this function. I would like to see agreement to permit ISO in citations and agreement as to which search strings I need (see my suggestions above). If we can make progress on that, I will turn it back on. Of course, it would be much better if the citation people took this task on for themselves. Lightmouse (talk) 01:08, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I like ISO myself, use it all the time in my web applications. However, it was agreed in the Anime and manga project that they should never be used in our episode and chapter lists due to the potential confusion for readers who may not be familiar with them, and for readers who may read yyyymmdd as yyyyddmm, and thus be perceiving incorrect information. Before you added this function to the script, we were having to manually correct dates in older lists (not fun for a 200+ series), but after you added it, those lists could be fixed in just seconds! -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 01:14, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

LM & C, how about the function which only work on |date=yyyy-mm-dd, |date=yyyy-mm-dd, and |date=yyyy-mm-dd? ISO conversions are OK for article which are inconsistent, but I would hope script users wouldn't change an article like Pilot (House) which is pretty consistent. Gimmetrow 01:20, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

The issue for me is the inconsistency: we have accessdates which are almost universally in ISO within the templates. However, the 'date' fields are often in a mixed format 'mmm dd, yyyy', 'dd mm yyyy' 'yyyy-mm-dd' within the same article, even for example in the Pilot (House) article referred to above, where we have ISO dates in the '|date' field. That 'mix' makes little sense to me because it implies that date presentation in templates would be exempt from the WP:MOS guideline. I certainly think that the script should act on square bracked dates in '|date=' even if we all agree to leave '|accessdate=' alone. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:56, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh, on that we can certainly agree! Of course, the big reason is the whole "no more autoformatting, no more datelinking" came down, and now all the different templates are in various states of change making things, IMHO, way worse than they would have been if the autoformatting had just been left in. For now, I'm just converting all to the appropriate mdy or dmy depending on the article, since it seems to be the only way to get that consistency back. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 14:17, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Corporate:Founded

I am going to create a "Founded" template to act like Birthdate and Deathdate...Can you rig the Lightbot to "not" de-link them. (They should only be once from the Infobox...)Mjquin_id (talk) 19:02, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Please give me a link to the template and I will investigate. Thanks. Lightmouse (talk) 00:44, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Stopped the bot

Please stop making edits that only remove four brackets like this or this. They're fine edits if done in conjunction with other helpful changes, but alone, they're an unnecessary waste of resources that clog page histories, among other things. Thanks! --MZMcBride (talk) 16:25, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I am happy to do so and I think AWB 'general fixes' is a great function. I will restart the bot with general fixes switched on. However, I left it off because I have seen a couple of comments where people said bots were not permitted to include 'general fixes'. Can you reassure me on that point please? Regards. Lightmouse (talk) 16:40, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I think it depends if the changes are manual or automatic. General fixes with an unsupervised (automatic) bot are discouraged. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:45, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Lightbot was running in automatic mode when you stopped it. I will restart the bot in automatic mode with general fixes off. If you want me to switch 'general fixes' on, let me know but if I get into trouble for it, I will have to refer people to you. Lightmouse (talk) 17:53, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

What about just going more slowly and making the edits manually with general fixes enabled? That seems like the best solution to me. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:17, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I am not that fussed about general fixes. They are a nice to have but not essential for me. Lightmouse (talk) 18:25, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

But those of us who think these edits are a spurious waste of expensive resources and a source of bad edits are that fussed. It is not the idea of delinking silly datelinks that I have objected to, but your unwillingness to slow down and edit with more care. You appear to be hiding behind a guideline, when the problem is that you are making programmatic changes without adequately overseeing them. See, up at the top of the page...words to the effect that "Wikipedia needs $6million..."? Wasting that $6 million on resources for massive and unsupervised edits is a Bad Thing. sinneed (talk) 04:25, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

You used the phrase 'bad edits'. Please tell me which edit is bad. Lightmouse (talk) 10:15, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. I, too, would like to know where the trouble lies. Lightmouse's bot has done superb work—a lot of it—and saved our editors a lot of trouble, for relatively few errors, which are usually fixed after the event. Bad edits? Tony (talk) 10:49, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Lightbot is consistently disruptive. If it is activated again, without absolutely clear consensus what it should be doing, and consensus that it should be done in a quasi-automatic fashion, it will be time to request that it be blocked. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:30, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Generally supportive

From what I've been able to see, Lightbot is performing well and I hope that any glitches remaining can be worked out.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 03:09, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Jonestown, Demerara

Your Bot, seems to be in a monthly dug-of-war with Lonewolf BC. I hope things work out, there. GoodDay (talk) 18:39, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Year in subject links

I have stopped your bot. I don't see anything wrong with creating links for "year in subject". I can understand delinking them if the target page is a redlink though. This is one such edit that shows what I am referring to.--Rockfang (talk) 17:08, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Aha. That is an excellent example. The format [[October 6]], [[1995 in radio|1995]] breaks autoformatting. It is a fairly common error that is difficult for a human to detect but easy for a bot. If autoformatting is to work, then we need full-time bots to track down and fix errors like that. I am surprised that more people don't complain when autoformatting is broken like that. Lightmouse (talk) 17:18, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in but, for what it's worth, this is a very similar edit to the ones I was discussing here. Mlaffs (talk) 17:51, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

There are two issues here:

A concealed link that breaks autoformatting such as: [[October 6]], [[1995 in radio|1995]]
A concealed link that does not break autoformatting such as: First air date = [[1995 in radio|1995]]

I believe that you were talking about the latter. Lightmouse (talk) 18:22, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

FYI, I have reverted your bot again on the same article I linked above.--Rockfang (talk) 21:48, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

You are breaking autoformatting. It is a common error and you are not alone in being unaware that it is wrong. Please check this with somebody else (e.g. at wt:mosnum) if you don't believe me. I am not making it up. Lightmouse (talk) 23:29, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't really care about autoformatting honestly. But what your bot is doing is ruining links.--Rockfang (talk) 00:54, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Lightmouse, I swear that I'm not trying to be a smart-ass, but now I'm really confused as a result of your comments here regarding autoformatting. If I'm understanding the diffs I'm reading correctly, Lightbot is removing bare day/month and bare year links citing mosnum/overlink, which makes sense to me - if there's no contextual reason to have the link, it can come out. The script-assisted edits in your own account previously have been removing links around date components that were adjacent, which appear to have been for the purpose of autoformatting, again citing overlink - again, this makes sense to me, since autoformatting has been deprecated. However, Lightbot is also removing piped links as in the example above, still citing overlink, with your explanation now that those edits are being made because the piped links are breaking autoformatting.

The latter set of edits is where I'm lost, because making an edit solely to support autoformatting would seem to be discouraged by overlink, and you !voted in support of that change to MOSNUM when the big, huge discussion was going on.

Given the example above, wouldn't the correct edits in support of overlink have been to turn [[October 6]] into October 6, but to leave [[1995 in radio|1995]] alone, since the former is only useful for autoformatting but the latter provides context? Mlaffs (talk) 01:47, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Support. I wholly support your suggestion. :) Rockfang (talk) 01:59, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
Support. The {{avyear}} infobox template is in limbo at the moment (recently partially unlinked by Lightbot), 100 plus 'year in aviation' articles are now not easily accessible, the template is used totally in context. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 02:43, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

It is no good voting on my talk page. Lightbot can't do it. Remember, the error was caused by an editor that turned [[1995]] into [[1995 in radio|1995]] within a full date, thereby breaking autoformatting. Lightbot merely undoes the error. If you want something other than undo, then you have the following options:

simply fix the broken autoformat yourself as a manual edit. Any editor that understands that it is a broken autoformat should know what is possible. Your suggestion is one method available to you.
seek approval for a bot that will use your method to fix broken autoformats. Lightbot is not currently able to use your method.
put a clause in the MOS that describes your method to fix broken autoformats. This will, in effect, create approval for Lightbot

I don't care which option you choose. Lightmouse (talk) 11:07, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Tony1: Rockfang, I fully appreciate your desire to have gateways in the article to the year-in-radio set of pages (I myself am a member of the WikiProject Years, and have an interest in the improvement of all chronological pages). But what concerns me is the "concealed" nature of the display of the links. When a year-in-X link look like part of an autoformatted date (which is a quite separate function from linking), readers are highly unlikely to "get it".

Even when the (now deprecated) autoformatting mechanism is not broken, a "concealed" piped link to a year-in-X page ([[1995 in radio|1995]]) is likely to be ignored by many readers who might be tempted to click instead on an explicitly piped, or in this case, simply unpiped, equivalent in the "See also" section. Since a single important year-in-X page (chosen by you, the expert) leads to all sibling pages via a prominent navigation box at the top, this appears to be a much better way to provide a gateway as a service to the readers. Tony (talk) 12:35, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Script bug

Hey Lightmouse, don't know if you've fixed it already but your script buggered up a bit in this edit. - kollision (talk) 22:56, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Second regex after //month+day piped to number in fix_common_errors - includes a $2 in the replace text. By the way, should it match Jun and Jul just in case? Gimmetrow 23:15, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks guys. Lightmouse (talk) 00:44, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Lightmouse and Gimmetrow: is this the same issue? Dollar signs still there. I wouldn't have expected the script to correct the screwed-up formatting. Perhaps it can be made to do so easily? The issue remains as to how best to deal with the large number of script edits I did yesterda in the "music/literature/poetry in year" articles. [4] Tony (talk) 10:31, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

My script does not produce the dollar sign. If yours does, then your script is out of date. Try clearing your cache.

If you have a friendly admin, they can do a mass rollback. Otherwise, you and I can do it by hand. Lightmouse (talk) 10:37, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I can use AWB go through your contributions and fix these errors. Leave it to me. Lightmouse (talk) 10:40, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that would be good. Yes, you're perfectly right—my intransigence in not updating my version of the script is to blame. It works beautifully now. Tony (talk) 10:53, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Done. Lightmouse (talk) 13:10, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

In Tony's diff above, [[29 September]] [[2007]] becomes September 29 2007 (no comma). Is that fixed? Gimmetrow 17:54, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I see an instance in Tony's diff where |last=NZPA|date=[[29 September]] [[2007]] becomes |last=NZPA|date=September 29, 2007 (with comma). Where is the instance that you are talking about? Lightmouse (talk) 18:26, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I think that's the same case. I don't see a comma. A few paragraphs down there is one with last=Djamoos|first=Anton|date=[[18 October]] [[2007]]|publisher=Absolute Punk to last=Djamoos|first=Anton|date=October 18 2007|publisher=Absolute Punk, also no comma. Gimmetrow 21:35, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, your code still has this bug; all_dates_to_dmy_or_mdy works does this right and delink_dates_to_dmy_or_mdy does this wrong.

Starting with 29 September 2007

function part_dates: 29 September 2007

function LMdayMonth(2): September 29 2007

function all_dates: September 29 2007

In the all_dates_to_dmy_or_mdy script, the function LMaddDLinks() restores the link around 2007. LMdayMonth was designed to make the date format consistent back when linked dates were the norm - it only works on linked dates or the linked parts of dates. Gimmetrow 02:59, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

 txt.value = txt.value.replace(/([^,\]] |[^,\] ])\[\[([0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9])\]\]/g, "$1$2");

The added comma in #Glitch below comes from the same issue. My regex to delink isolated years only delinks 4 digit years with a non-space, non-comma or non-bracket character before, or with a space before and a non-comma, non-bracket before that. (That will falsely delink the relatively rare case of a year with two+ spaces between month/day and year; if it came up much I would fix it.) Gimmetrow 03:15, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks guys. Gimmetrow, you provided a line of regex. Are you suggesting that will solve it, if so where would it go? Lightmouse (talk) 08:42, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm suggesting that more restrictive handling of linked years in part_dates() might handle this problem. Gimmetrow 12:14, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I will work on this. Lightmouse (talk) 15:16, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I think I have fixed this but I need feedback from beta testers. All you have to do is go to your monobook replace the current script with:

importScript('User:Lightmouse/monobook.js/test_script.js');

The two scripts won't work together. Lightmouse (talk) 15:46, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Autoformatting Dates

I've seen some references to autoformatting in relation to complaints about your bot, but I can't seem to find any current information about wikipedia formatting dates based on user preferences when they aren't linked. I know I worked on a solution for the pages I am most concerned about to switch them from ISO YYYY-MM-DD to DD MMMM YYYY (since we - or at least I - didn't realize that those dates were displayed as YYYY-MM-DD to anonymous users even when linked. Now we don't have linked dates (good) and they are readable (good) but they don't format according to user preferences (bad - though they do format to my personal preference ;).

Can you point me in the right direction for programming/style changes that will allow dates that are not wikilinked to be autoformatted? TIA

BTW - I created a template today that converts dates formatted as DD MMMM YYYY to ISO format for use in tables with class sorting {{ISO date}} ----Trödel 18:39, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't really know. You could try asking the same question at wp:mosnum. The people that like to modify dates are probably all there. I did see something about autoformatting at https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4582

I hope that helps. Lightmouse (talk) 18:43, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I now realize that hidden links can negatively affect date autoformatting but I thought since such autoformatting was deprecated anyway that the bot would be stripping the links off of the month-day portion. Instead, it's now taking links like [[1976 in radio|1976]] and stripping them to much less useful or informative links to 1976--and leaving the rest of the date link intact so it's now a simple deprecated autoformatted date. This is not acceptable behavior from the bot. Strip the bare date links, that's apparently consensus, but leave the useful "year in radio" links intact, please. There's been no such consensus to strip those of their meaning. - Dravecky (talk) 16:37, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

The bot can't do that. As you now know, the error was caused by the addition of a concealed link. All the bot can do is detect and undo the error. You are welcome to help improve Wikipedia by finding and fixing these common errors now that the bot has resulted in you being better informed. If you want to work together on this, we can but I am disappointed that you are suggesting the bot is wrong for correcting an error caused by somebody else. Lightmouse (talk) 16:57, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

The bot is wrong for deliberately converting a useful link into a known deprecated link. If the bot can't handle it, the bot should just leave it alone. As it is, I'll be spending all morning undoing the wreckage caused by the bot...and that's only if the bot stays shut down or stops stripping "year in radio" links down to bare "year" links. - Dravecky (talk) 17:18, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Try not to be so aggressive. You would not have known about the hidden error if Lightbot had not fixed it. If you want to put the blame for the error on somebody and use the word 'wreckage', blame the person that caused the error, not the person that fixed it. I don't seek your gratitude for fixing errors caused by others and/or allowing you to become better informed but I do expect you to avoid attacking me. If you disagree with the activities of the bot, there are plenty of places you can go to complain or to lobby for an increase in its scope. Lightmouse (talk) 17:25, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm asking very politely that the bot stop acting outside whatever mandate you believe it has and stop unlinking "date in radio" links, especially as it's converting them to specifically deprecated autoformatted dates. The bot itself it creating hundreds of shiny new deprecated autoformatted dates by breaking existing links to a more useful article, one that is relevant to the radio station article from which it is linked. I don't seek your gratitude for alerting you to the errors caused by your bot but I do expect you to avoid creating new problems or to fix the bot before reactivating it. - Dravecky (talk) 17:36, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

ADDENDUM: Consensus had previously been reached that 1) "year in radio" links were not to be unlinked by this bot and 2) that the sort of autoformatted dates the bot is currently creating are deprecated. Given these two facts, the behavior of the bot is against consensus and thus the bot should either be fixed (to strip the links from the month-day set instead) or to simply leave the "year in radio" links for manual correction. - Dravecky (talk) 17:43, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you that autoformatting is not good. Lets be clear, somebody else created the autoformatted links and somebody else broke the links. You clearly do not believe me so please ask for a third party opinion at Wikipedia_talk:CONTEXT#suggestion_re_year-in-X_links. Lightmouse (talk) 17:46, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Just to be clear, in many cases I personally added a link pair like "[[July 4]], [[1976 in radio|1976]]" to an article so 1) I created that link pair, 2) I did not realize that it broke autoformatting, and 3) I acknowledge that date autoformatting is now deprecated and is being removed by the bot. Also to be clear, Lightbot is converting my example above to "[[July 4]], [[1976]]" which 1) created a new yet deprecated autoformatted date link pair and 2) removes the useful, on topic link to 1976 in radio. Given that there is no consensus for an urgent removal of date autoformatting, I'm simply asking that the bot not undo "date in radio" links if it can't, as you note, handle them properly. - Dravecky (talk) 18:00, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: A conversion to "July 4, [[1976 in radio|1976]]" would be completely acceptable and meet both of our goals. - Dravecky (talk) 18:02, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah, now we are getting somewhere and we can talk a bit more calmly. This issue doesn't just apply to radio articles, you will find the same error with all 'year in blah' concealed links. There are many editors that acted as you did and there are also many editors that take a bit of convincing that there is an error that needs addressing. If you remove the day+month, the bot won't touch the radio link. I am not sure if it is possible for the bot to do it but you could easily do it with a script. If you don't have a script, I can help you set one up that will do exactly as you suggest i.e. convert to July 4, [[1976 in radio|1976]]. Lightmouse (talk) 18:14, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I would, perhaps, be calmer if I hadn't just discovered that you've reactivated the bot and concealed the stopping mechanism while this discussion is taking place. I've been working hard to assume good faith up to this point but your behavior in this matter is testing that resolve. Please have your bot cease this improper unlinking of "year in date" links immediately. - Dravecky (talk) 18:19, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I was not concealing the stopping mechanism. I was struggling to get you to understand that placing concealed dates in full dates is an error. You were sounding more aggressive. The only way that I could see of getting you to investigate was to direct you to a page that gives you a third party opinion. I have been complaining about this error for months, if not years but the error never got fixed. Well, it looks like now we might finally get some action. I have made a small change to the bot so that it is much less likely to encounter the error in radio articles. I will make a bigger change if we get some progress on fixing radio articles. I hope that helps.

I see that you have started making some changes to radio articles along the lines you have suggested. If you would like, you can use my monobook script that will remove autoformatting. Just let me know. Lightmouse (talk) 18:38, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

The only aggressive component to this conversation has been the behavior of your bot towards valid links in violation of consensus. I've been making fixes as I edit, as would any good editor, but I am not comforted by the tone of your 'offer' to fix your own bot to stop breaking proper links only if you feel that others are moving at a pace of which you approve. - Dravecky (talk) 22:17, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Glitch

Is it possible to exclude image links from the very useful ISO delinking function? See here for an example of what I mean. Thanks for all your good work on this. --John (talk) 18:27, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

There has always been a problem with:

image links
quotes
references

Examples are always useful to see if a class of false positives can be eliminated. In that example, there is a period followed by a letter ('2005-06-10.j'). I had been permitting period characters because it might be the end of a sentence but I can make it check the next character to see it if is a space character. I don't think I will ever eliminate the possibility of false positives entirely. Thanks for the feedback. Lightmouse (talk) 18:45, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm using an older version of the script so it will do the cites as well. However, I'm not sure how to tell it to ignore the URL fields, so its breaking links to ANN news articles, which we heavily use in anime/manga articles. Could you tell me how to ignore those and maybe reference titles? -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 19:25, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

On a separate issue, I used the 'delink date to dmy + common terms' script, which produced the result here. As you see, it inserted a spurious comma which may have been a relic from the 'delink date to mdy + common terms' script. Date delinker (talk) 02:24, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

See #Script bug above. Gimmetrow 03:22, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I think I have fixed this but I need feedback from beta testers. All you have to do is go to your monobook replace the current script with:

importScript('User:Lightmouse/monobook.js/test_script.js');

The two scripts won't work together. Lightmouse (talk) 15:46, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Beta testing complete. Use the normal script. Thanks. Lightmouse (talk) 11:16, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Blocking your bot

Hello. I have started a section on the admin notice board to try to get your bot blocked. Thought you should know.--Rockfang (talk) 18:47, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I have stopped the bot's operation per the above mentioned discussion. I hate to do this again, but I am going to have to warn you against resuming the bot's operation until the issue is resolved. Ideally I would like to see a permanent resolution (ie. consensus that it is OK to use the bot to remove year and date links) so that these discussions don't keep coming up from time to time. Please note that if the bot is resumed while the discussion is ongoing it will be blocked. Shereth 22:34, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I note that 'Lightbot' is still going strong per this diff [5]. The article 1920s has an 's' in it and is not piped or hidden. I am very worried about irreparable damage that is being done to many projects. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 02:10, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the example. Lightbot delinks decades in accordance with Wikipedia:Context#Dates:

Chronological items—such as days, years, decades and centuries—should generally not be linked unless they are demonstrably likely to deepen readers' understanding of the topic. Articles about other chronological items or related topics are an exception to this guideline.

Many human editors would delink it too. Lightmouse (talk) 08:37, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I note that the implication of the comments above by Shereth, Rockfang and Nimbus is that users at large and our readers should be denied the benefits of the technological editorial support that bots can provide, where their operation concerns points in our style guides with which certain people take issue. Perhaps we should all go back to using manual telephone exchanges because telephonists were put out of jobs and deserve to have them back in a time of rising unemployment. It seems a fitting analogy. Sure, bots cause false positives, but the benefit they bestow on the project is huge by comparison with the occasional nuisance of a false positive. I do not want to see WP forced back to the last century. Tony (talk) 09:02, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I concur. However, while this discussion continues, the bot should stop; what is the rush? If there is ever consensus for this bot to operate, it will catch up with these few days in a couple days; if there is consensus to block it, it should be stopped to avoid doing more harm. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:05, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your supportive comment, Anderson. The "rush" is to make WP better after years of very bad formatting. Fortunately, we have quite a few dynamic, hard-working editors who are keen to put in the time. They see no reason to be confronted by road-blocks at every intersection. Tony (talk) 13:15, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Delinking common terms

Lightmouse, I reverted an edit by Lightbot that delinked some common terms at Wicca, namely the seasons of the year, because it is felt these have relevance to the article itself (Wiccan festivities and observances are closely tied to seasons). After seeing instances of edit warring between your automated bot and editors on other articles, I would strongly suggest that you somehow create a blacklist for articles already visited, so the bot will not return for a specific amount of time (say, one or two years). Such automated activity is entirely inappropriate. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 02:49, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

It may be appropriate to have a list or category of articles which are never visited by a bot for the reason you suggested, I do not feel there should ever be a 'one visit only' limitation on a bot. The whole point of a bot is that it goes around repeatedly to automatically clean up, as articles are continually "improved", these changes need to be given the once over. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:18, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

While I would normally agree, the possibility for endless conflict (eventually won by the bot after the human gives up) is just too great. Unless the bot could log exactly what it has done on every specific page so it won't do it again (which seems exorbitantly difficult), a non-permanent Do Not Edit list seems the best route. Bots should not be the instigators of conflict with regards to such controversial issues. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 03:46, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for updating Wicca. If you go back in the history, you will see that I also did the same on 21 October. I do have several methods for avoiding false positives but nobody sees the false positives correctly avoided, of course. It may be possible to use a whitelist on smaller runs. However, in this case we are talking about the seasons and I think the best solution is to simply stop delinking seasons in this mass run. Lightmouse (talk) 08:33, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Wicca is a real problem: the high-value links, of which there are quite a few, are diluted by silly ones like "Europe" (where's that?), "British" (Huh? Never heard of it.), "religion" ("mystery religion" is a good link, but why dilute it with a common dictionary term?), and links to the whole of articles such as "Sun", "Moon", and the seasons, where if they're retained at all, section links to more relevant information should be considered. Why is the linking in such an amateurish state in this article? Hunsterit, please explain how the season articles add to a reader's understanding of the topic "Wicca"? I'd appreciate examples and specific locations. Tony (talk) 09:09, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Look at the first sentence in this section, I think I made that clear. Seasons are a fairly integral part of the religion. Personally, I think linking them is a good idea in this situation...of course, they aren't valid links in any given article, but here I think they are. Lightmouse, I should point out that the bot *again* delinked them just a few minutes ago. Odd, however, that in all cases, only Summer, Autumn and Winter were delinked...not Spring. As for the rest of the overlinking issue, I will go through the article soon and kill off some of the extraneous ones like Europe and such. Tony1, it isn't necessary to be so condescending when you reply. At the moment, the article is in a state of flux...other editors are considering ways to rearrange and clarify things. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 09:18, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I was still working on the code that will avoid seasons. I will stop the bot and upload the new code now. Lightmouse (talk) 09:41, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Uploaded and running. Lightmouse (talk) 09:45, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Very nice, thank you. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 10:10, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Hunster—I apologise if I seemed to be condescending. Perhaps I've become a little defensive in the face of continual attacks by those who want to maximise linking. Let me know if I can be of assistance. Tony (talk) 11:01, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Hunster, I don't know if you are reading this section any more but just to answer your comment: "Summer, Autumn and Winter were delinked...not Spring". It would have delinked 'Spring (season)' but 'Spring' is ambiguous. Look at the 'Spring' article and you will see. Lightmouse (talk) 11:21, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, don't I feel silly for not noticing that, lol. Thanks :) — Huntster (t • @ • c) 12:12, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Date auditing edits

Lightmouse, I notice you have been editing articles to conform to a particular clause in mosnum. I object to these changes, and I have started a discussion at the mosnum talk page, which you can find here. I would appreciate it if you desist from making any further such changes until the issue has been debated. Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 23:32, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand. Can you provide an example article? Lightmouse (talk) 10:24, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Look at the first change in this edit. You have changed the date from "December 4, 1864" to "4 December 1864". Now as it happens, I think that's fine if you do that in an infobox, for consistency, but I don't think it's fine to make the same sort of change in article body text. Gatoclass (talk) 10:46, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

People want articles to be consistent. The decision has been made that USS articles are supposed to be dmy. Neither of those were my decision, but that is how it is. Perhaps you need to raise the issue of dmy versus mdy with Wikiproject Ships. Lightmouse (talk) 10:51, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Where was that decision made? Can you point me to it? Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 15:16, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't know. It is apparent from the articles themselves. Perhaps we should ask at Wikiproject Ships. Lightmouse (talk) 16:19, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I can safely say that almost all articles on US ships use international format; apparently the US military does, too. It's a widely accepted exception to the US-related formatting rule. You may wish to peruse the battleships category. Tony (talk) 13:11, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

There is no hard-and-fast guideline specifically about U.S. Navy ships. You are right that in practice, many are d-m-y format, probably because many are based on the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships which uses that format. This sort of thing (changing date formats) is why a lot of people object to automated (or very nearly so) date "audits" from editors uninvolved with the writing of articles. As much as many of us would like Wikipedia (or life, for that matter) to conform to specific rules, the reality is usually more complicated than that. — Bellhalla (talk) 00:30, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Knots

You are converting Knot into Kn again! You have been asked not to do this in the past, and have agreed. Now you are doing it again. Please stop.--Toddy1 (talk) 20:14, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Where? Lightmouse (talk) 20:14, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

HMCS Restigouche (DDE 257) Revision as of 19:00, 15 November 2008
HMCS Kootenay (DDE 258) Revision as of 18:52, 15 November 2008
HMCS Terra Nova (DDE 259) Revision as of 19:06, 15 November 2008

I guess you have done it in many other places.--Toddy1 (talk) 20:23, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand why you make such a big fuss about the template form invisible to readers. I also see that you relinked the dates which has made the article worse. If the 'kn' form is wrong, perhaps we should go to template:convert to see if they want to ban it. Lightmouse (talk) 20:27, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't know why you make such an effort to change the "template form invisible to readers". People like "knot" because it's easier to understand. It works. So remove it from your script or automated tool that you are using and just deal with the fact that some people want it spelled out. (Unfortunately, it's that kind of attitude that gets a lot of editors riled up about your and Lightbot's date unlinking activity.) — Bellhalla (talk) 00:20, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

This has been explained to you before by various users. Abbreviations like Kn makes the text opaque.--Toddy1 (talk) 20:36, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Even kn (as you used) is opaque. Editors with a limited knowledge of SI units will be tempted to think "kilowhat?" rather than "knot". Best to spell it out in the wikitext.LeadSongDog (talk) 20:59, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

I have proposed a change at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Knots--Toddy1 (talk) 08:59, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Good. Instead of criticising people that implement the MOS and the template standard, you are better off addressing the guideline itself. Lightmouse (talk) 11:32, 16 November 2008 (UTC)