User talk:Rich Farmbrough

User:Helpful Pixie Bot main backlog
Total	155

• This page has been viewed 383949 times. Plus one when I wrote this, plus you looking at it now.

Femto's Box Th 3 Ed 5 Ms 7

Links FAQ Talk Archive Index follow my blog

This page- Drama free days 67

From SignPost

Approximately 3% of editors account for 85% of contributions to the project, according to the statistician, and participation among this group has declined "even more sharply" than the active registered userbase in toto.

Funny that. Rich Farmbrough, 16:22, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

Unchallengeable take downs?

Rich, On the talk page for the proposed terms of use, you mention a takedown that is unchallengeable. While it's possible, I think it's more likely that it's a symptom of our bad communication about it or something (for which I would take responsibility). I don't think we have any that are unchallengeable right now. So, I want to write to ask if there's something I can clarify, or whether I'm missing something on my list? Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 01:14, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the matter has come up a couple of times, both on the Talk:Texas_Instruments_signing_key_controversy talk page of the article in question, and in the commentary to a recent (July) SignPost. The issue is that there only people who can issue a counter notice are the anonymous editors who originally posted the material. On most websites another person could post the material, wait for a challenge and respond to that. Here, since take-down has been implemented as an office action no one can repost the material without going against the office action (and in fact, even if they did, it would be removed by editors in support of the office action) therefore the material, which is freely published elsewhere, since the DMCA was challenged and the challenge not responded to, cannot be posted on Wikipedia. Effectively this makes Wikipedia the most censored forum for this information. Rich Farmbrough, 01:32, 11 September 2011 (UTC).

Interesting. My understanding from the legal team is that a DMCA takedown must be challenged by a party with legal standing, which would mean that it has to be someone who had posted the content. If we were to then suggest or passively allow someone else to post it, we would not be in full compliance. However, I'll confirm that. If that's the case, then we're in compliance with the regulations and others arguably are not. If it's an issue of interpretation, I'll find out why we're not more broad, but since Mr. Godwin structured those originally, I tend to think we're at the broadest level that he (and then Mr Brigham) felt was legally possible. But I'll get an answer and try to report back. Thanks for clarifying. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 05:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Birds summary

Ref: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject_Birds#Repetitive_work

There are 3 lists:

• IUCN
• HBW (IBC)
• IOC

These can be used to ref montoypic genera.

Moreover the IUCN website has changed and the refs need updating. Rich Farmbrough, 20:33, 4 December 2011 (UTC).

Signpost and hlist

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-11-21/Technology report#Horizontal lists have got class

fyi... Alarbus (talk) 12:05, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

• • Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 21:48, 21 November 2011 (UTC).
    

• • • You're welcome. Hope you can whack a lot of these a bot or script. fyi, Edokter added some cell padding, so the inline padding and div-tricks should all be simply cut, too. Alarbus (talk) 06:03, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Date templates

In this edit your AWB again added a date template without any intrinsic cause. Please Stop That! Debresser (talk) 15:43, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

So if someone were to add a reference with a different date style, that would be a good thing? Rich Farmbrough, 16:28, 26 November 2011 (UTC).

Шn my understanding, these templates are first and foremost for the date formats as they are used in the text of the article itself. And even then, and regardless of that, if there is no intrinsic reason for an article to use a certain date format (e.g. an article about an English township should use dmy, and an article about a Canadian province mdy), I don't think incidental usage of a certain type of date format should be used as an indicator. Perhaps if there were five instances, e.g., all in the same date format, that would qualify as more than incidental usage. Has this been discussed somewhere? Debresser (talk) 22:53, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually Canadian usage varies even more widely than American (our Canadian colleagues have told us), although there seems to be a surprising consistency in the WP articles. In terms of difference between ref dates and content dates there is a red-herring in that when wee were writing the MoS we did not want to prohibit (preferably uniform) 1999-12-31 date style in references. On a later discussion proposing that all access dates be in that style, at least two otherwise intelligent editors swore blind that they were incapable of understanding dates in that format, until they were explained to them - otherwise I would have backed that proposal to the hilt. In terms of first usage there is no de minimus requirement, and nor should there be one, it would result in (even more) endless squabbling ("yes there were x dmy dates. but only because you converted my x-1 mdy and one ymd"). If there is a good reason to change (which is really only "national ties") it should just be changed with a suitable edit summary. Extensive discussions on date styles will be found in the archive of MoSNUM talk. Rich Farmbrough, 13:13, 27 November 2011 (UTC).

So here you are, saying the same thing as I do. So then why did you add a date format when there was no good reason? Pray tell. Debresser (talk) 14:59, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm saying that the reason for accepting different date formats in refs is to allow (DMY, YMD) and (MDY,YMD) not (DMY,MDY) or (MDY,DMY). Rich Farmbrough, 15:04, 27 November 2011 (UTC).

I see. But that still doesn't resolve our argument. Should a date format template be added in a case where 1. there is no substantial reason to prefer one date format over the other, and 2. the only practical uniformity is in references, while the article itself does not have any dates? Debresser (talk) 13:30, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

<I haven't forgotten this, I'm just hoping to get the messy threads put to bed fairly soon> Rich Farmbrough, 00:16, 8 December 2011 (UTC).

I read that before. :) Debresser (talk) 22:44, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

OK the principle is one of broken symmetry. Once a style is established it should not be thoughtlessly changed. There could be various criteria for "established", however there is no reason I can see over and above a complete cromulence with one or other style. Making more complex rules would, to my mind, be counter-productive. Rich Farmbrough, 19:32, 28 December 2011 (UTC).

That sounds reasonable. But you should also take into account that once the bot tagged an article as using this style or the other, all coming editors will be expected to adhere to this style. Therefore I think that the bot should be reluctant in tagging articles, and tag them only in the most clear of cases. Date formatting used in citation templates does not count as such, IMHO. Debresser (talk) 20:06, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Could you please check this?

Hi Rich Farmbrough. As an experienced admin, I kindly ask you to check these edits of user MarshallBagramyan. ([1], [2], [3]) That clearly seems like edit war to me. While the source insists that this incident has happened and was the main reason behind these clashes, MarshallBagramyan clearly wants to erase this fact. Could you please help me in this, as I am very reluctant to engage any edit war against him. Regards, --Verman1 (talk) 07:52, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Forum shopping. You already reported this at WP:ANI --Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:46, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually I think it was User:MarshallBagramyan who did that. Rich Farmbrough, 14:38, 8 December 2011 (UTC).

I'll let him off then. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:44, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I have had a brief look, and certainly there is a slow motion edit war going on, involving a number of editors. I suspect I can guess their nationalities by their edits. I don't see an urgent need for action, so I'm going to think about this a little more. Rich Farmbrough, 15:12, 8 December 2011 (UTC).

There is some mediation going on at [4] not sure if this could be wrapped up with that, or if it would sabotage the process. Rich Farmbrough, 21:03, 8 December 2011 (UTC).

Hi Rich. As you have some previous experience about the topic, could you please check this out and leave some comment about what you are thinking about? Some admins are trying to ban me for the things that I have not done. --Verman1 (talk) 06:32, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Re:Stats

Okay, I've been studying Perl, and today I finally took a crack at the script you sent me:

use LWP::Simple;
 
$month = "09";
$year = "2011";
$lang="en";
 
while (<>){
    s/ /_/g;
    print "$_";
    $page=get ("http://stats.grok.se/$lang/$year$month/$_" );
    $page =~ /has been viewed (\d+) times in/;
    $total+=$1;
    print " $total\n ";
}
 
print "\nTotal: $total";

It's a command with the syntax perl script list

You use LWP, because that's the module where "get ()" is.

The "$" lines set literal variables to the values provided.

while is a looping command, and in this case works on the default variable $_. The default here appears to be each successive entry in the list specified.

The angle brackets <> turn the script into a command that is executable from the command prompt in the same way that a Unix command is.

In the loop, you substitute all spaces for underscores, to make the entries work in URLs.

Then you print the current entry to the screen, but print; would have done the same thing.

You follow that with pulling in the output from toolserver. For example http://stats.grok.se/en/201109/Outline_of_geography. In the same operation, you assign the output to the variable $page.

Then you employ the bind operator to specify a pattern (regular expression) match from toolserver's output (taking the match from the content of the $page variable), for the purpose of using the automatic match variable $1. The \d matches digits and the + means one or more of them in a row.

Then you assign the matched string to $total using a cumulative numeric assignment operator. Because it's a numeric operator, Perl automatically strips out the non-numerical stuff from the string (well, not quite, the stuff on the left of the numbers is set to zero, while the stuff on the right is dropped).

Basically, you've scraped the monthly page views from toolserver's output.

Then you print that value to the screen and advance to a new line.

And the loop repeats on the next item in the list.

When the loop is done, you repeat the final total at the end.

I'm ready for my next one. Please send me another simple but useful Wikipedia-related script. The Transhumanist 01:48, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

P.S.: Thank you for the Strawberry recommendation. It works fine.

P.P.S.: is there a collection of perl scripts on Wikipedia somewhere?

Good work. The angle brackets actually take next line of input. If you ran this without the list file, the script would take input from the command line, one item at a time. The input from the angle brackets is automatically assigned to $_. (As you can see, perl does a lot of stuff automatically for us.) I'll ferret around for something tomorrow, and see what I can find.

I'm not sure if there's much simple perl floating around, perhaps we should start a library. But there are quite a few bots, Anomie's code is rather beautiful, if a little obscure. Rich Farmbrough, 02:32, 9 December 2011 (UTC).

In fact a little challenge:

1. get the stats for the previous year for one page
2. output the data in a format suitable for a wiki-page - using a by-month table and a year total on the right.
3. do the same for a list of pages

We could build this into a little bot.

Rich Farmbrough, 02:36, 9 December 2011 (UTC).

Yes, I'm intersted.

On a similar vein, a script or bot that I have great need for is one that builds a chart (similar to this) of subjects, with columns showing comparitively the monthly traffic for outline, portal, and category corresponding to each subject listed. It could take input from a list similar to the script you sent me.

Is that something you'd be interested in helping to create? The Transhumanist 03:50, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

OF course, that is where we started, wasn't it? Rich Farmbrough, 11:12, 9 December 2011 (UTC).

What's the plan? To pass code back and forth, or wiki-develop it on a project page? The Transhumanist 00:45, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Request for help

I have a few Ambox and Fix related issues that I'd appreciate help with, if you have time, and if you have no reason to not want to interfere, of course.

• There is still a problem with template loops, see Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Article_message_boxes#Template_loop.
• Should there be a temporary category added to {{Fix}} to locate all templates that use the substcheck parameter, or are there other ways to do this? That is, simply said, how to locate those template that use the substcheck parameter?
• Also, I'd be happy if you'd have an opinion whether it is a good suggestion to replace the substitution check of {{Fix}} by that one of {{Ambox}}, or at least, which basically comes down to the same, remove Category:Templates needing substitution checking, which I think is not practical. Debresser (talk) 21:14, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I commented on the template loops. The rest I'll have to look at. I did have an alternative method for subst:checking, but it was pretty much obviated by AMALTHEA's self-substituting tricks. Rich Farmbrough, 00:10, 11 December 2011 (UTC).

Thanks, I'll look at it right away. I have just had a long look at the way substitution checking works on Ambox and Fix, and am proud to say that I understand precisely how they work. Debresser (talk) 00:17, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood my before-last question, and have added a sentence to it, to make my intent more clear. Debresser (talk) 04:05, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Rich, I found the reason for the template loop, and I know what needs to be done to solve it, but don't know how to do that. I wrote there on the Ambox talkpage linked above. Can you have a look at it? Debresser (talk) 19:07, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Rich, the second and third question are now quite urgent... Debresser (talk) 14:53, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

You took care of the second today, thank you. The third is on Template_talk:Fix#Progress.Debresser (talk) 00:09, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 December 2011

• Opinion essay: Openness versus quality: why we're doing it wrong, and how to fix it

• Recent research: Psychiatrists: Wikipedia better than Britannica; spell-checking Wikipedia; Wikipedians smart but fun; structured biological data

• News and notes: Fundraiser passes 2010 watermark, brief news

• WikiProject report: The Tree of Life

• Featured content: Going through the roster with Killervogel5 and a plethora of featured content

• Arbitration report: Three open cases, one set for acceptance, arbitrators formally appointed by Jimmy Wales

• Technology report: Wikimedia in Go Daddy boycott, and why you should 'Join the Swarm'

• Read this Signpost in full
• Single-page
• Unsubscribe
• EdwardsBot (talk) 04:06, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Please

Please see the updated Request for help section. Debresser (talk) 17:29, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Article Feedback Tool - notes and office hours

Hey guys! Another month, another newsletter.

First off - the first bits of AFT5 are now deployed. As of early last week, the various different designs are deployed on 0.1 percent of articles, for a certain "bucket" of randomly-assigned readers. With the data flooding in from these, we were able to generate a big pool of comments for editors to categorise as "useful" or "not useful". This information will be used to work out which form is the "best" form, producing the most useful feedback and the least junk. Hopefully we'll have the data for you by the end of the week; I can't thank the editors who volunteered to hand-code enough; we wouldn't be where we are now without you.

All this useful information means we can move on to finalising the tool, and so we're holding an extra-important office hours session on Friday, 6th January at 19:00 UTC in #wikimedia-office. If you can't make it, drop me a note and I'll be happy to provide logs so you can see what went on - if you can make it, but will turn up late, bear in mind that I'll be hanging around until 23:00 UTC to deal with latecomers :).

Things we'll be discussing include:

• The design of the feedback page, which will display all the feedback gathered through whichever form comes out on top.
• An expansion of the pool of articles which have AFT5 displayed, from 0.1 percent to 0.3 (which is what we were going to do initially anyway)
• An upcoming Request for Comment that will cover (amongst other things) who can access various features in the tool, such as the "hide" button.

If you can't make it to the session, all this stuff will be displayed on the talkpage soon after, so no worries ;). Hope to see you all there! Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 04:50, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 02 January 2012

• Interview: The Gardner interview

• News and notes: Things bubbling along as Wikimedians enjoy their holidays

• WikiProject report: Where are they now? Part III

• Featured content: Ghosts of featured content past, present, and future

• Arbitration report: New case accepted, four open cases, terms begin for new arbitrators

• Read this Signpost in full
• Single-page
• Unsubscribe
• EdwardsBot (talk) 16:13, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

The Great Arkansas Barnstar

		The Great Arkansas Barnstar
		Thanks for your help editing Arkansas Confederate Unit Histories Aleutian06 (talk) 16:35, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

My pleasure! Rich Farmbrough, 17:06, 2 January 2012 (UTC).

perl table construction script

I don't have a clue where to start.

I'd like the table to list subjects down the left, with columns for traffic on the right. One traffic column for the corresponding outline, category, and portal for comparison purposes.

And totals at the bottom of each column.

If you whip something up, I'm sure I could help refine it.

I look forward to any perl code you can throw at me. The Transhumanist 02:29, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

P.S.: Happy New Year!

OK so here's the (untested) basics in pseudo-perl. (There's two approaches, storing everything then making the table,or making the table line by line. Both have advantages, the latter is simpler.)

let us suppose we have a config file with the subject, outline, cats and portals listed thus:

Stamford,Outline of Stamford, Category:Stamford, Wikipedia:WikiProject Stamford

(We could just have the word "Stamford" - if we could be sure that all three entities follow the naming convention.)

print_headers...
 
while (<>){
    chomp;
    if (/^([^,]*),([^,]*),([^,]*),([^,]*)$/){ # Note: this could be also done with the split function, in a different way
       $name=$1;
       $outline=$2
       $cat=$3;
       $project=$4;
   }
   else{
       print "$_ does not match pattern; skipping.\n";
   }
   $outline_count=count($outline);
   $cat_count=count($outline);
   $project_count=count($project);
   print "\|$name\|\|$outline_count\|\|$cat_count\|\|$project_count\n\|-\n"; # make a line of the table....
   # keep track of the totals....
   $outline_total+=$outline_count;
   ...
}
 
print_footers....
 
sub count{
    # in some circumstances there would be error checking code here - what if the page doesn't exist,or the server is down?
    $url=shift;
    get the page...
    $count= find the number..
    return $count
}

Rich Farmbrough, 11:01, 3 January 2012 (UTC).

I'll see if I can figure out how it works. Thank you! The Transhumanist 21:24, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Data extraction & insertion

Let's say I have the wikicode file "Outline of Stamford" saved on my computer, and I want a program that goes through the outline, finds the first bulleted entry lacking an annotation, pulls the article from Wikipedia for the subject in the entry, extracts the first two sentences of the lead paragraph, then inserts those two sentences as the annotation for that entry, then repeats for the next missing entry, until the all the entries have annotations.

This would be very helpful, as it would save tons of manual cutting and pasting.

How would you go about doing that with perl?

The Transhumanist 22:05, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what "un-annotated" means but at a guess you could use something like:

while ($page =~ /\n\*\s*\[\[([^\])]*\]\]\s*\*/s ){
   $bulleted = $1;
   $entry =   get ($bulleted);
   $entry =~ s/.*?'''.*?'''//;
   $entry =~ s/([^\.]*.[^\.]*.).*/$1/;
   $page =~ s/(\n\*\s*\[\[$bulleted\]\]\s*)\*/$1 $entry/;
}

here the handwaving is in the assumption that the Wikipeida articles are well-formed, and not exceptional. Rich Farmbrough, 22:27, 4 January 2012 (UTC).

You would need to get the source of the article. You need a module for that, which comes with examples. MediaWiki::API I think is the name. Rich Farmbrough, 23:33, 4 January 2012 (UTC).

Entries in outlines look like this:

• Architecture – art and science of designing buildings.
• Crafts – activities and hobbies that are related to making things with one's hands and skill.
• Drawing – visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. As a verb, it is the act of making marks on a surface so as to create an image, form or shape. As a noun, it is the image produced, or the visual art form itself.
• Film – also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects. The process of filmmaking has developed into an art form and industry.
• Painting – the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface (support base) with a brush or other objects. The term describes both the act and the result of the action.
• Photography
• Sculpture –

Concerning list entries, an annotation is a dashed comment.

The entries "Photography" and "Sculpture" above lack annotations. Would the program you wrote above home in on those and add an annotation for each?   The Transhumanist 03:41, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

It would pick up the first, fail on the second for two reasons: it would count the endash as an annotation, and there's no following list item. Rich Farmbrough, 11:13, 5 January 2012 (UTC).

Outline of Perl

Here's a new outline.

You could help us Perl newbies by adding anything you think would be helpful. The Transhumanist 19:21, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Article Feedback Tool - things to do

Hey guys! A couple of highly important things to do over the next few weeks:

• We've opened a Request for Comment on several of the most important aspects of the tool, including who should be able to hide inappropriate comments. It will remain open until 20 January; I encourage everyone with an interest to take part :).
• A second round of feedback categorisation will take place in a few weeks, so we can properly evaluate which design works the best and keeps all the junk out :P. All volunteers are welcome and desired; there may be foundation swag in it for you!

Regards, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:53, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Request for Interview Regarding Wikipedia Bots

Greetings-

My name is Randall Livingstone, and I am a graduate student at the University of Oregon, currently collecting data for my dissertation on Wikipedia editors who create and use bots and assisted editing tools, as well as editors involved in the initial and/or ongoing creation of bot policies on Wikipedia. As a member of the bot community and bot operator, I would very much like to interview you for the project at a time and in a method that is most convenient for you (Gchat, another IM client, Skype, email, telephone, etc.). I am completely flexible and can work with your schedule. The interview will take approximately 30-45 minutes.

My dissertation project has been approved both by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the University of Oregon, and by the Research Committee at the Wikimedia Foundation. You can find more information on the project on my meta page.

Please let me know if you have any questions, and I look forward to hearing from you to set up a time to chat. Thank you very much.

Randall Livingstone, School of Journalism & Communication, University of Oregon

UOJComm (talk) 04:10, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 09 January 2012

• Technological roadmap: 2011's technological achievements in review, and what 2012 may hold

• News and notes: Fundraiser 2011 ends with a bang

• In the news: Wikipedia ends annual fundraising drive; Monmouthpedia launches

• WikiProject report: From Traditional to Experimental: WikiProject Jazz

• Featured content: Contentious FAC debate: a week in review

• Arbitration report: Four open cases, proposed decision in Betacommand 3

• Technology report: December in more detail; and why the MediaWiki codebase was "slushed" this week

• Read this Signpost in full
• Single-page
• Unsubscribe
• EdwardsBot (talk) 04:51, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Coord display parameter errors

I'm seeing a number of instances of {{Coord}} with two |display= parameters. Could your helpful pixie fix these, please? The rules would be:

• If |display=inline and |display=inline, use |display=inline
• If |display=title and |display=title, use |display=title
• If |display=inline and |display=title, use |display=inline,title
• If |display=inline and |display=inline,title, use |display=inline,title
• If |display=title and |display=inline,title, use |display=inline,title
• If |display=inline,title and |display=inline,title, use |display=inline,title

Any values other than "inline", "title" or "inline,title" should already throw an error message.

Note that |display=title,inline is a valid equivalent of |display=inline,title in all of the above.

If you need testcases, some, but not all, of the articles on User:MaxSem/Duplicate_primary have this problem.

Cheers, Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:14, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I fixed these up, where they had that problem. Rich Farmbrough, 18:42, 16 January 2012 (UTC).

Manually? Thank you, but it's likely to recur, hence the request that your Bot watch for such cases. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:45, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Using AWB - so I'm good to go again. I need to set up some bot infrastructure to support once-dumply tasks. Rich Farmbrough, 20:49, 16 January 2012 (UTC).

Running off MaxSem's list? Not sure he'll be recreating it regularly. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:07, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

No, running of the regular data dumps. Rich Farmbrough, 21:20, 16 January 2012 (UTC).
21:20, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Less asked

As to the issues in a section above:

1. Do you have a solution for the template loop problem of {{Ambox}}? It has been suggested to remove the auto-documentation feature if this issue can't be resolved. Please see Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Article_message_boxes#Template_loop.
2. {{Fix}} now can use both "substcheck" and "subst". I replaced most instances of "substcheck" by "subst". Could you check whether I missed any, and then remove the "substcheck" parameter from Fix? Debresser (talk) 03:36, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for doing the first. I am hoping you will take the time to do the second as well. Debresser (talk) 16:23, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for doing that also. Please feel free to comment on Template_talk:Fix#Progress. Debresser (talk) 00:07, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 16 January 2012

• Special report: English Wikipedia to go dark on January 18

• Sister projects: What are our sisters up to now?

• News and notes: WMF on the looming SOPA blackout, Wikipedia turns 11, and Commons passes 12 million files

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Beer

• Featured content: Lecen on systemic bias in featured content

• Arbitration report: Four open cases, Betacommand case deadlocked, Muhammad images close near

• Technology report: ArticleFeedback moves into new trial phase; and how MediaWiki integrates with Facebook, IPv6, and PostgreSQL explored

• Read this Signpost in full
• Single-page
• Unsubscribe
• EdwardsBot (talk) 06:42, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Article Feedback Tool

Hey guys; apologies for the belated nature of this notification; as you can probably imagine, the whole blackout thing kinda messed with our timetables :P. Just a quick reminder that we've got an office hours session tomorrow at 19:00 in #wikimedia-office, where we'll be discussing the results of the hand-coding and previewing some new changes. Hope to see you there :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:47, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Your AWB edit to 1996–97 Birmingham City F.C. season

Hello. This edit removed the names of templates {{Fb rbr footer}} and {{Fb rs footer}} from calls to those templates, leaving the article in a bit of a mess. On a lesser point, it also added a date parameter to those template calls. I thought this parameter was only used if no source (s=) parameter is present; am I mistaken? I've undone the edit. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:02, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. The first is a mystery which I'm investigating (also checking for other cases - none so far.). As to the second, it's just a matter of simplicity to give these templates dates regardless, if there is a source then the date is ignored. Rich Farmbrough, 13:42, 20 January 2012 (UTC).

And you've removed those template names again with this edit to 2008–09 Birmingham City F.C. season... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:18, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, fixed. Thanks again. Rich Farmbrough, 15:24, 22 January 2012 (UTC).

Ted Nelson

PixieBot is flagging a dead link on Ted Nelson. The link isn't dead -- at least not when I've checked it. I reverted, and PixieBot reverted my change. MarkBernstein (talk) 18:07, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is reapplying a date to the {{Dead link}}. the {{Dead link}} was added by an IP, see history. I reverted the IP. Rich Farmbrough, 18:11, 20 January 2012 (UTC).

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 46

Template: Denied.. *

Edits by:

1. Rich Farmbrough at 21:44, 16 January 2012 (UTC).
2. Madman at 21:09, 20 January 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Madman at 21:09, 20 January 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 21:44, 16 January 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Madman at 21:09, 20 January 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Slakr at 21:09, 20 January 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 21:21, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Template:Bah Rich Farmbrough, 22:47, 21 January 2012 (UTC).

Blackford County

Hello Rich. I noticed you recently ran the AWB on Blackford County, Indiana, making some minor cleanups. Bots are currently beyond my ability, but can be especially helpful fixing my en–dash problem. Could you please run the same AWB on the Blackford County Courthouse article? TwoScars (talk) 21:41, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Of course. Rich Farmbrough, 21:57, 21 January 2012 (UTC).

Wikipedia:Peer review for Pope John Paul II

Hi Rich, I was wondering whether you'd be interested in this? Kind Regards -- Marek.69 ^talk 02:57, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I added a couple of comments and made a couple of changes. Rich Farmbrough, 00:54, 26 January 2012 (UTC).

Just a heads up...

Hey, you might want to figure out why Smackbot did this, as there is a big possibility that it has done other edits similar to this, messing up a lot of pages in the process. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 16:48, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. The underlying cause was resolved at the time. Someone futzed with a redirect. It is possible to do a retroactive search, but it will take some time. Rich Farmbrough, 12:15, 24 January 2012 (UTC).

Ok 60,000 of the maximum window of 160,000 edits are checked. So far only a handful of affected, all fixed now. Rich Farmbrough, 19:48, 28 January 2012 (UTC).

This is a great example of a bot operator taking responsibility for their edits. Good work. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:07, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

All done. Rich Farmbrough, 00:29, 8 February 2012 (UTC).

A barnstar for you!

	The Barnstar of Diligence
	Thanks for the help with the Tom et Lola article. :) Ganymede 901 (talk) 22:04, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Rich Farmbrough, 01:33, 25 January 2012 (UTC).

office hours

Another notification, guys; Article Feedback Tool office hours on Friday at 19:00 UTC in #wikimedia-office :). If you can't attend, drop me a note and I'll send you the logs when we're done. We're also thinking of moving it to thursday at a later time: say, 22:00 UTC. Speak up if that'd appeal more :) Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 January 2012

• News and notes: SOPA blackout, Orange partnership

• In the news: World watched as Wikipedia shut down for SOPA blackout

• WikiProject report: The Golden Horseshoe: WikiProject Toronto

• Featured content: Interview with Muhammad Mahdi Karim and the best of the week

• Arbitration report: Four open cases, proposed decision in Muhammad images, AUSC call for applications

• Technology report: Looking ahead to MediaWiki 1.19 and related issues

• Read this Signpost in full
• Single-page
• Unsubscribe
• EdwardsBot (talk) 18:56, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Unexplained template move

Hi there. Could you please assist me in reverting a template move done by an editor without first seeking community consensus? I've tried to revert the move, but somehow I must have done it wrong. Here is the template: Template:Infobox African Movie Academy Awards Thank you. Amsaim (talk) 17:43, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I think you did the move back correctly. I'm not sure quite why you moved it back, a template that can be used on hundreds of pages is better than a template that can only be used on a handful. Rich Farmbrough, 17:48, 27 January 2012 (UTC).

see Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_January_27, and I am contesting the speedy deletion of the generic template, since it is under discussion. Frietjes (talk) 17:57, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

This is what you ought to have done in the first place: sending the template to tfd to get community consensus first. thank you. Amsaim (talk) 17:59, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

It's "Bold, Revert, Discuss", so it's all good. Rich Farmbrough, 11:45, 28 January 2012 (UTC).

WP:JAPAN Barnsensu

		WikiProject Japan Barnsensu Award
		You've been doing all kinds of work recently to clean up the persondata and defaultsort on Japan-related articles (which is a very large, long, and thankless job...at least until I gave you this award). You also created the {{Vertical text RTL}} and {{RTL scroll}} templates, which will prove very useful, I believe. Your efforts to improve Japan-related content, even though mostly behind the scenes, is greatly appreciated. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 08:39, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 January 2012

• News and notes: Update on Global Development, Wikipedia Day NYC is a success, JFK audio on Commons

• In the news: Zambian wiki-assassins, Foundation über alles, editor engagement and the innovation plateau

• Recent research: Language analyses examine power structure and political slant; Wikipedia compared to commercial databases

• WikiProject report: Digging Up WikiProject Palaeontology

• Featured content: Featured content soaring this week

• Arbitration report: Five open cases, voting on proposed decisions in two cases

• Technology report: Why "Lua" is on everybody's lips, and when to expect MediaWiki 1.19

• Read this Signpost in full
• Single-page
• Unsubscribe
• EdwardsBot (talk) 03:59, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Template:multiple issues

A while back a placed a request on Template talk:Multiple issues that hasn't received any feedback. The request was that the linkrot issue of multiple issues be changed to resemble template:linkrot in including a link to the reftool. As someone who has worked on this complicated template could you comment on my request? RJFJR (talk) 17:21, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Y Done Rich Farmbrough, 20:33, 2 February 2012 (UTC).

Thank you. RJFJR (talk) 00:12, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

RIP to the "incomplete" template

The incomplete template (see discussion Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_January_22) will likely go away soon. Would it make since to run a bot on the articles it's tagged to and:

1. if it has an old date, remove it
2. if it's in a section, replace it with the Expand section tag
3. if it's over a list, replace it with the Expand list tag
4. other tasks...

Is that practical? Who might have a bot that could handle that? Sparkie82 (t•c) 20:36, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh.. great. Expand was deleted partly on the grounds that "incomplete" was available. Rich Farmbrough, 20:38, 3 February 2012 (UTC).

They're both toast now -- with about a half-dozen more of those expansion-type templates ready to walk the green mile. So, does it make since to run a bot on those articles? What have you done to articles in the past when transcluded templates were deleted? Sparkie82 (t•c) 02:54, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes it's one way of doing it. Rich Farmbrough, 20:12, 4 February 2012 (UTC).

Incidentally it is not "toast" until the TfD is closed, and even then there might be a DRV. Rich Farmbrough, 20:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC).

Femto for WikiProject Christianity

Hi Rich! Been a while since you setup WPConservatism with Femto--and it's working marvelously btw. WP:CHRISTIANITY has been without a RecentChanges update since SQLBot went inactive in 2008 Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Watchlist (OK to change the title). I forget whether Femto uses a template or a category. Anyway we don't have a cat for all articles (although easy enough to modify the template). The template is {{WikiProject Christianity}}. If you could setup Femto for us that would be great!!! – Lionel ^(talk) 11:03, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

'Tis done. Rich Farmbrough, 18:27, 4 February 2012 (UTC).

Thanks Rich for the fast work. It is always a pleasure and a delight working with you. You are one of the most valuable editors we have on Wikipedia. – Lionel ^(talk) 23:46, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I'll second the thank you (perhaps, as it's WP:CHRISTIANITY, an "amen" would be more apropos). • Astynax ^talk 00:24, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm getting a warm glow inside. Rich Farmbrough, 00:25, 5 February 2012 (UTC).

With any luck, it isn't heartburn. Anyway, although some may consider this a bit over the top, I think it is called for.

		The Christianity Barnstar
		Thank you for your recent work in helping the Christianity WikiProject keep track of its content. It is very much appreciated. John Carter (talk) 20:08, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia articles with citations needing edition

Hi, a month ago, you created Category:Wikipedia articles with citations needing edition. It's currently empty and there is no indication what template fills it. Is the category actually used by some template or not? If it is, I think the category page should link to that template. If it's not used, I think it should be deleted. User<Svick>.Talk(); 18:28, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• Y Done Rich Farmbrough, 20:06, 4 February 2012 (UTC).
  

UnHelpful Pixie Bot

Fix cleanup tag - typo in month Feruary => January. Feruary 2012 => January 2012 -- PBS (talk) 22:44, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, fixed, changed from Hamming to Levenshtein. Though I miss my old AWB regexs... Rich Farmbrough, 23:51, 7 February 2012 (UTC).

The Signpost: 06 February 2012

• News and notes: The Foundation visits Tunisia, analyzes donors

• In the news: Leading scholar hails Wikipedia, historians urged to contribute while PR pros remain shunned

• Discussion report: Discussion swarms around Templates for deletion and returning editors of colourful pasts

• WikiProject report: The Eye of the Storm: WikiProject Tropical Cyclones

• Featured content: Talking architecture with MrPanyGoff

• Arbitration report: Four open cases, final decision in Muhammad images, Betacommand 3 near closure

• Technology report: October's coding challenge: results now in; progress on 1.19 steady; and why for a while interwiki links were no more

• Read this Signpost in full
• Single-page
• Unsubscribe
• EdwardsBot (talk) 00:19, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Out of Interest

I noted your delisting of the RfC/U after it was already relisted. I actually went to Tarc's userpage and asked him to explain himself.

He never did answer my question and basically told me to, uh, "sit down, put a cork in it".

Needless to say, I believe this is one of those occasions where my response was justified. CycloneGU (talk) 00:39, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Attribution required

As was explained to you a number of times (e.g. in Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive227#Rich Farmbrough violating editing restriction and the subsequent Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography#Cite DNB, your copies from DNB, assuming they are not copyright violations (see the end of the discussion you started at Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems#Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers), need to be correctly attributed, i.e. indicating that the DNB is not only the source for the information, but the actual source for the text. This can easily be done by using the "vb" parameter with the Template:Cite DNB, or by changing to the DNB template, as shown here. Wikipedia:Plagiarism has more info on this. Please also take care with your links, which often go to the wrong article or a disambiguation page, and please remove the DNB drafts category once the articles are in the mainspace. Fram (talk) 09:29, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Multiple issues template usage suggestion

I have started a discussion about making the Multiple issues template the new cleanup template here. Since you have edited this template several times in the past I thought you might have some insight into this idea. --Kumioko (talk) 20:33, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

555-Crazy-1234

Check this diff! |mob= contained a mobile telephone number! -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:26, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

<ROFL> Rich Farmbrough, 22:28, 10 February 2012 (UTC).

Template:Rescue

Could you handle restoring the history and talk page of {{Rescue}} as was done with {{Expand}}? I asked Ironholds about it, but he is swamped with other community stuff right now and doesn't have time to work on it. --Tothwolf (talk) 03:50, 11 February 2012 (UTC)