User talk:Bobblewik

This user is subject to a one month block for removing year links quickly

Archive

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Wood Preservation

Please review the changes that I have to the article Timber treatment. --Lumber Jack 17:40, 4. Jul 2006 (CEST)

Please stop

Your bot is indescriminately delinking dates at random. Some of which seem potentially useful in context. I don't think you've got it set up very well. Kevin_b_er 11:21, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Can you say which ones you think are useful? bobblewik 11:29, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Blocked

You've been blocked for editing with what appears to be an unapproved bot. Seeing as you have been blocked for indiscriminately delinking articles before (the last block being a week long), I've blocked you for 1 month.

I would suggest that if you consider this an important issue, to do the edits by hand and provide an explanation on why a particular year should not be linked. If your removal of links is contested, don't just change them again, but engage in conversation with people to come to an agreement. - Mgm|^(talk) 14:04, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Possible unblock

I got a message from User:Rich Farmbrough asking me to reconsider your block. If you are willing to leave more descriptive edit summaries or talk page messages on your delinkings (with reasonings on why you removed a particular link) and throttle the number of such edits down to something below 6 in a minute, I'd be happy to unblock you immediately. Otherwise, I'll have to wait until Rich provides me with some info I asked him for. - Mgm|^(talk) 23:17, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I will happily accept the speed limit of 6 per minute. Although for practical reasons, I would be much happier with the equivalent per hour limit.

I will be happy to use a different edit summary. Although I don't think it will make much difference. I have tried many different edit summaries and you may also want to look at User:Quadell's edit summaries. If you suggest an acceptable way of describing the improvement of an article by removal of excessive links to non-preference dates, I will try it.

I appreciate your willingness to discuss this. There are many editors that are interested in finding a way forward on this issue. bobblewik 07:46, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, afaik at WP:BOTS "bot speed" is defined as not waiting 30-60 seconds between consecutive edits: for "6 per minute" you need bot approval;

Bobblewik has been denied approval of a date delinking bot twice (that is at any speed), I would advise against superseding that community decision by the decision of a single admin;

What is perceived by many Wikipedians as Bobblewik's insensitivity to "context" of date links is the real issue I suppose.

Anyway, here I quote myself [1]:

"what I'm looking for is a commitment to undo the contentious edits as described above. I don't see that commitment. Sorry, I can't help you with your block under these circumstances (if that is what you'd like – I'm not even certain about that). On the contrary, I'd recommend to extend the block to indefinite, there is even no commitment to refrain from such contentious edits in the future, although you've got plenty of people that have explained to you exactly what is so contentious about them. --Francis Schonken 15:04, 21 May 2006 (UTC)"

What the majority of complainants say they want is an edit speed of less than 1 or 2 per minute (but rarely say which). I would suggest that past experience would show Bobblewik will be prepared to accept this - I will look at technical assistance if it's possible. I will also give some thought as to how I can help with what I see as the substantive problem, re-applying the process to articles (or ideally links) that have proven controversial in the past. With over 400,000 dubious date links, there are plenty more to chose from. Hope this helps. Rich Farmbrough 22:15 17 July 2006 (GMT).

Rich, please let everybody speak for him/herself. Your interpretation of what the "majority of complainants say" is not near to what I learnt from months of discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). Several archives were filled with talks on which I was active too for a considerable amount of time. But all of that does not summarize to what you say. Similarly on the WP:BOTS-related talk pages.

And I resent your "400,000 dubious date links" while you write it down as if it were a statement of fact. It isn't. It's an opinion of some people. Nothing more, nothing less. There is no policy or guideline giving the tools with which you would be allowed to unlink 400,000 dates, no matter how "dubious" you appreciate them being linked. And if something is contentious, you don't make a (semi-)automatic process to proceed indiscriminately with an action that is perceived as contentious by many, and not covered by guidelines or policies (while the guideline *deliberately* expresses that Wikipedians have different views on this). The speed at which this is done is not the issue. The fact that the (semi-)automatic process, and in particular Bobblewik who operates it, don't capture differences in significance of date links according to context, is what this is about.

There is no commitment by Bobblewik to refrain from such contentious edits in the future, that settles it for the present block, as far as I'm concerned. --Francis Schonken 23:42, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

From my experience, the vast majority, over 90 % of year links, are superfluous. Shall we say 360 000 +? I support unblocking Bobblewik, but I also think we need to properly revisit policy on this. --Guinnog 23:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Bad edit creating an image redlink

Hi Bobblewik,

In Mark McNee, your edit created an image redlink.

Thanks for catching that and correcting it. That class of error is predictable, I am hoping to find a solution. bobblewik 18:00, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

With regards to your block for date delinking, I think it'd be better if you just give up on date delinking, even if you think it's legitimate to delink dates. There's more to wikipedia than delinking dates. Andjam 09:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Although legitimate, it is not the most important thing. Regards bobblewik 18:00, 20 July 2006 (UTC)