User talk:Rich Farmbrough

User:Helpful Pixie Bot main backlog
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Femto's Box Th 3 Ed 5 Ms 7

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Wikilove guest post?

Dear Rich,

I am starting a blog about wikilove and the wiki nature. Not necessarily mediawiki or wikipedia, but with guest posts from wikipedians and others who clearly get and are inspired by it. (one of my favorite personal examples is someone who went around tagging everything with 2d barcodes that linked to a webpage where he would write about it... during the initial surge of enthusiasm about cellphone barcode-readers)

Would you be willing to write a guest post about something that has inspired you recently? It would be extra cool to have an additional post about things that inspire your bots ;-) I like to think of them holding secret meetings on the small language wikis, protected from rc patrollers by their bot flags...

Regards, –SJ+ 19:38, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Not feeling the Wikilove right now.... but I'll keep this in mind nonetheless. Rich Farmbrough, 17:54, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

Buatan Silver Strip

Richard Farmbrough, in regard to this article, I cannot verify the sources:

• Peralta, Jesus T. "The Butuan palaeograph: ethnographic implications of an ancient script," in Archipelago 6:A-55 (1979): 31-33.
• Santos, Hector. "Artifacts with writing revisited" in Sulat sa Tansô, 2:5 (June 1995), 1.
• -----. "Other pre-Hispanic writing artifacts" in Sulat sa Tansô, 2:2 (February 1995), 1.
• -----. "The Butuan Silver Strip" in Sulat sa Tansô, 2:2 (February 1995), 3.

The last three are circular, in that the online version Sulat sa Tansô is on the same web site as the one linked reference on the article page. I cannot find any academic articles by Santos or Peralta in lexis/nexis, Jstor, Muse, or Google scholar, and only one passing mention of the strip in a hindustan times article that reprints a report from the Asian News International, apparently a wire service, in lexis/nexis. I cannot find a journal named Archipelago that treats this kind of topic. There's a book which google says contains the term, but there are only a few copies in libraries. I'm not sure it is notable, but I thought I'd run the issue by you. --Nuujinn (talk) 11:01, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

This sort of stuff is frustrating, I might be able to get a copy of the book from the Bodlian some time thins month, can you note the details here. Rich Farmbrough, 11:08, 3 August 2011 (UTC).

Also might be worth trying ot contact Peralta if he si still around, he may be able to sebd a copy of his article. Rich Farmbrough, 11:10, 3 August 2011 (UTC).

I'll see about Peralta, that's a good notion. A link from worldcat about the book, I'll put in an interlibrary loan, I might be able to get it from florida or georgetown. Thanks for the help, --Nuujinn (talk) 11:13, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

WikiHistories

Here are some relevant links regarding the WikiHistories project:

• WikiHistories fellowship
• The Russian Wikipedi history (English version)
• WikiHistories fellowship announcement
• Example of one of the individual stories

HTH,--Eloquence* 08:46, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Mirrorbot

I just wanted to let you know that one of your bots was being mentioned again recently on the Bot requests page. Not sure if your still interested but thought I would let you know. --Kumioko (talk) 14:16, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Rich Farmbrough, 00:25, 21 August 2011 (UTC).

Diacritics redirects

I haven't seen any pages categorized by smackbot with "Category:Redirects from titles with diacritics" since 2008.... am I just missing something? Pages like Novak Đoković had to be done by hand. I think the reverse of yours User:RjwilmsiBot goes through at least twice a month. Thanks. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:52, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Hm yes, there's a number of tasks that need refreshing. Rich Farmbrough, 22:59, 8 September 2011 (UTC).

Does that mean this is something that will be added to the to-do list in the immediate future or something that will take some time? How often does this bot run to add a category like diacritic redirects? Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:12, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Basically a lot of this sort of thing was run off database dumps, so could be done with that sort of frequency. Database dumps died for a couple of years. However it's not that hard to catch up, if one has a recent dump, the September dump is, however giving me problems decompressing. Rich Farmbrough, 23:41, 8 September 2011 (UTC).

Looks like the uncompress is fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 18:08, 9 September 2011 (UTC).

Note that not all non-ASCII characters are diacritical. Per Category:Redirects from titles with diacritics only redirects that actually have diacritics and that target articles without diacritical titles should be given {{R from diacritics}}. Non-ASCII-titled redirects without diacritics that target ASCII-titled articles should be given {{R to ASCII}}. Specifically, æ, œ, ð, þ, ə, ʼ, ʻ, ı, and ß, and probably others, are not diacritical. So before you run SmackBot again it would be very nice if you could update it. Thanks! ☺ 155.33.149.25 (talk) 02:17, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

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).

To do

1. fix up broken archives  Done
2. import main todo list (or build a new one off-wiki)
3. fix the following minor edits

Stephen Skinner

Birth and graduation dates need sourcing. Rich Farmbrough, 21:30, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

Archibald Skirving

Needs refs and parentage. Rich Farmbrough, 21:41, 10 September 2011 (UTC).

• Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth
• Michael Slattery (priest)
• Foulis Baronets
• Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin dob etc.
• Banastre Tarleton
• Thomas Pingo
• John Purchas

Oreb and Zeeb

Should reflect on the meaning and historicity of the names. Rich Farmbrough, 18:37, 11 September 2011 (UTC).

Acts_of_the_Apostles#Speeches

• Ced. Rich Farmbrough, 18:54, 11 September 2011 (UTC).
  
• Gospel of the Twelve link JM. Rich Farmbrough, 19:03, 11 September 2011 (UTC).
  

Dinah

Redlinked template

Mughrabi Gate ramp reconstruction (February 2007)

Repetition.

Daniel Avery

m. Alice Brwon, Bristol 1 s etc.. http://mssa.library.yale.edu/obituary_record/1859_1924/1870-1880_supp.pdf p. 425

• Mahmood Hussein Mattan - tidy up.
• Elymas expand

James Robertson (British Army officer)

• Needs sources.

William Roper (biographer)

• Birth year 1496

   Done – I corrected the birth year in the article to match the sources given.

• Also that "Biblical City" link if I can find it
• Template:Fr Site du Conseil général de Mayotte.
• Template:Fr Les communes de Mayotte sur le site de l'Insee

The Reader

"The warden expresses the disappointment of Hanna in her anger towards Michael for not communicating with Hanna in any way other than the audio tapes." We can do better than this. Rich Farmbrough, 10:51, 13 September 2011 (UTC).

• Ruth Franklin should be a redlink
• equally... as...

Bash shell

Keyboard shortcuts:

• Don't cap "Forward" etc.
• Don't Wikt to foreground, WP to Foreground process
• Possibly use a table

Synonyms : http://www.hypexr.org/bash_tutorial.php#emacs

John Paulet, 5th Marquess of Winchester

link first occurrence of Basing House, not the second

Continuous spontaneous ventilation

Spurious caps all over the place. And may be a good merge candidate. Rich Farmbrough, 00:15, 14 September 2011 (UTC).

Ceibal project

May need moving, certainly needs massive cleaning up. Rich Farmbrough, 00:21, 14 September 2011 (UTC).

Luigj Gurakuqi University Library

Replace body with

Luigj Gurakuqi University Library (Albanian: Biblioteka e Universitetit të Shkodrës “Luigj Gurakuqi”) is the library of the Luigj Gurakuqi University of Shkodra in Shkodër, Albania. It traces its history to the establishment of the Pedagogical Institute in 1957 with a stock of about 1000 books, mainly in Albanian. Today, this library has about 150,000 books.It includes a holding of thirty two rare volumes form the early part of the sixteenth century. The older stick is in the process of digitization to ensure longevity of the items, and improve advisability. The library runs exchanges with Albanian and foreign libraries.

Bibliography

• World Guide to Libraries, Thomson Gale, K. G. Saur.

Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso

1. $ - dollars
2. conversion
3. Caps
4. missing link around pipe?
5. PoV

William Wynne Ryland

1. dob
2. Last hanged at Tyburn
3. paper evidence

Other stuff

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)

Use dmy

In this edit your bot again added the {{Use dmy dates}} template without any good reason. Actually, the writer of this book is American. As I have said before, the incidental usage of a dmy type date is not reason to add the template. Please stop your bot from adding this template automatically. And I am serious about this... Debresser (talk) 12:50, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I see the bot is still making these errors ([1]). There has been time for this to be addressed as the operator has been online and making edits as well. And the bot does not seem to stop anymore when its talkpage is edited. So I am going to block the bot until this issue is resolved. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:48, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

[X] copied from User talk:Helpful Pixie Bot by Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 16:03, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

The talk page was set up as a redirect to my talk page. I am just too busy (and too annoyed at the situation) right now to make further comment. Rich Farmbrough, 15:57, 23 September 2011 (UTC).

It would be incredulous that you were not watching your bot's talk page ... and if it was on your watchlist I'm not quite sure how you could miss that many posts. Anyway no big problem, I can unblock when the issue is resolved. Question: why does editing the talk page not stop the bot? It might be a good idea to re-add this feature to avoid the need to block the bot in cases like this. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:00, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Because that was an AWB feature I used for years. All the AWB features have been wasted since it was decided that the bot could be blocked if it made a "non-render changing" edit, since AWB is not capable of distinguishing between rendering and non-rendering edits, and I had to recode everything in perl. You may think that it was a stupid, short sighted decision. I couldn't possibly comment. Rich Farmbrough, 19:22, 23 September 2011 (UTC).

Oh and I don't use the watchlist system. Incidentally: wikt:incredulous. Rich Farmbrough, 19:22, 23 September 2011 (UTC).

Rich, if you're too busy (your words) to care for your bots, then please don't run them. —Sladen (talk) 12:32, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not too busy to care for the bots, just too busy to care for every rules junkie that thinks rules are more important than the encyclopaedia. Rich Farmbrough, 13:18, 24 September 2011 (UTC).

This is all very well, but don't you agree that the bot should stop adding these templates on an automatic basis? I think I gave a very good reason, and a reply to the issue would be in order. Debresser (talk) 07:13, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Possibly a stupid question, but why shouldn't {{use dmy dates}} be added to articles that only use dmy dates? Jenks24 (talk) 22:36, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

In this edit [2] the article doesn't seem to have any dmy dates in it. One of the cleanup templates did, but the bot removed that at the same time it added the dmy tag. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:36, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

This one is another example, I think that the script caught the phrase "the set containing 3, 4, and 5 may be ..." and though that was a date. I don't think there are any dates at all in the article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:39, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Good spotting, though since I will be removing that feature, a little late. :) Rich Farmbrough, 03:56, 26 September 2011 (UTC).

Feature disabled. Rich Farmbrough, 21:17, 3 October 2011 (UTC).

Excellent. Could you also disable the whitespace adjustment (as discussed in #Please make helpful pixie a little less eager to be helpful and as necessitated by certain editting restrictions) and add a 60 min waiting period as has been requested? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:37, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure why not? The bot will then do nothing, but that's what it's doing now. Consider it done for version p615. Rich Farmbrough, 10:57, 4 October 2011 (UTC).

I did see your response a while ago but have been waiting for a clarification because I am not sure about your stance on the issues raised. It is a unfortunate that one has to use a block to force you to make your bot work correctly, but that seems to be the case. Please could you confirm, without any possibility of doubt, that you have enabled a waiting period (as discussed) and that your bot will no longer contravene your editing restrictions. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:35, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes I have increased the waiting period to 1 hour. I have also disabled the white-space reduction, which did not contravene the so called editing restriction. Rich Farmbrough, 19:59, 8 October 2011 (UTC).

Okay I have unblocked the bot, although it was disappointing that its very first edit seemed to put the 1 hour waiting period in some doubt. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:35, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't wait for IPs. Or for me. Rich Farmbrough, 20:37, 8 October 2011 (UTC).

By "It doesn't wait for IPs" I assume you mean the bot doesn't wait after an IP's edit before acting, whereas it waits an hour after a logged-in user's edit. Why not wait after IP edits? It seems to me that an IP edit is as likely to be followed up quickly as are logged-in edits -- maybe more if you believe IPs are more likely to vandalize, and therefore more likely to be reverted, making an intervening bot edit just confusing clutter. I suggest the bot wait an hour in all cases (except edits by you, if you wish). EEng (talk) 01:20, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. Rich Farmbrough, 18:35, 9 October 2011 (UTC).

---

Mirror Bot

I see you filed an RfA for Mirror Bot at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Mirror Bot which has since expired. Do you plan to file a new RfA for this bot? I think this bot could be very useful. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 09:29, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Eventually. I had the full spec written, but I was getting so much hassle on-wiki that I lost the time and inclination. Rich Farmbrough, 18:32, 9 October 2011 (UTC).

Notice it took a month to get any response from BAG for that BRFA, whereas other bot operators were getting full approval in 3 hours. Rich Farmbrough, 18:34, 9 October 2011 (UTC).