User talk:Amorymeltzer

Hey

Hi Amory, of course I remember you! No worries about the Rose and the Gray. I should have put more attention and time into it, but I think it was a bit unrealistic of me to think alums would want to post on it so often. It was a good idea in theory at least. Sorry if I'm not sending this message right—I'm new to the backend of Wikipedia and just made an account after expanding the page for The Misc, but I can see how this is addicting! Rubycramer (talk) 04:22, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

It was a great idea! We're just lazy swine. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 22:49, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

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3O Award

		The Third Opinion Award
		Proposed by HelloAnnyong for outstanding service at WP:3O. Congratulations and thanks! TRANSPORTERMAN (TALK) 20:21, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Cheers, thanks! Fantastic work on both of your parts as well! ~ Amory (u • t • c) 22:49, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Rollback question

Hello. I have found your user-page because you are an administrator who grants rollback privileges. I am performing academic research and I am particularly focused on usage of the rollback feature. I have imported en-wiki dumps into MySQL for analysis, and flag RBs by parsing revision comments for the "automatic comment" left by RB edits.

My question: In February 2009 and the months preceding it, about 200k RBs were being performed a month. Beyond that, usage of the RB feature seems to decline sharply; in September 2009 I show only 1k RBs. Can you help me understand this? Did the automatic revision string change? Did the use of anti-vandalism bots (with their slightly altered RB strings (which I don't try to parse)) become so prevalent that no one does it 'manually' any more?

My current research has found no reason for this 200x change, and I hope you can help. Of course, your help will aid my research -- which in turn will help the Wikipedia community in combating vandalism. West.andrew.g (talk) 16:37, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I think there are a number of issues at play:

• Revert bots are definitely a big part of it. The big one right at that time, I'd say, is User:XLinkBot, approved for a second task at the end of January, and has definitely made a HUGE amount of reverts. Of course, User:Cluebot remains extremely active and has, I think, improved over the past 11 months.
• You're probably also ignoring the other tools users can use, namely WP:POPUPS, WP:TWINKLE, and WP:HUGGLE (in order of increasing count). The Twinkle doesn't even require the Rollback right, but can do essentially the same thing. Huggle, on the other hand, is extremely fast, and many people easily rack up thousands of reverts a month using it (such as User:The Thing That Should Not Be).
• Probably not a big deal, but there are scripts that can change the default Rollback edit summary (mentioned on WP:ROLLBACK).

Those are my best guesses, hope they help. People are also sometimes content to just do undo sometimes. Also, be advised that deleted edits won't show up, and many pages have been deleted this year. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 22:49, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

If you don't mind my butting in, March 2009 is about when the edit filters started to kick in as well. These filters can prevent certain edits from being committed (saved) to the database, which means they don't need to be reverted at all. This could also be having a notable effect, although I rather doubt it's the only cause. Risker (talk) 04:33, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for your assistance. I am now parsing for (1) Huggle and (2) Twinkle rollback strings. Further, at some point, it seems a (3) Wikilink was added to the 'standard' RB string. Taking these 3 factors into account, I have monthly-counts that don't look so anomalous. There is still a slight valley in the graph at the described time, but this could well be bot related -- and I'm not particularly interested in those edits. Thanks again. West.andrew.g (talk) 21:18, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the smile

[1] A truly priceless edit summary. Thanks for the memories... Risker (talk)

Signatures

Please change your signature, as it indicates that you are the deceased author and animal-rights activist Cleveland Amory. Dead people are not allowed to have Wikipedia accounts. DS (talk) 20:11, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Nash Reference Q&A

Amory -- after reviewing my response, I wanted to thank you for your post and apologize if I was too harsh in my rebuttal. All the best. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 13:46, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Too harsh? You complimented me (okay fine, it was sort of backhanded) and then said what you thought! I'd have to have some real thin skin to take offense at that, but thanks for the check regardless. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:21, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Regarding deleted redirect

Would you consider undoing your deletion of the Xerodermi pilaire symmetrique de la face redirect? Within English sources, that term is actually a well documented synonym for the condition keratosis pilaris atrophicans faciei. Additional synonyms and citations for that condition synonym can also be found within the article itself, or also within the list of cutaneous conditions. Please let me know if you need any additional information. Opps... I did not see the solitary quotation mark "Xerodermi pilaire symmetrique de la face... sorry about bothering you with that request!! ---kilbad (talk) 14:20, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

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Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 22:46, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

RTV and Basket of Puppies

I had been keeping a casual eye on this poster since before the last run for admin, just a funny feeling. Apparently it panned out. But, I'm confused. It seems odd for an editor to be able to abuse RTV and then go on editing with nary a word nor link to the old account. Isn't this considered socking? Was there discussion publicly on the wiki where plain old editors could see it or was it one of those private IRC deals? IOW, do I have any business at all inquiring about this or what? Auntie E. (talk)

No, you're right to be curious; most editors would admit that it is a tad... unorthodox, if you will. If you check through BoP's talk page history, you can read through the events as both blocks unfolded; clearly some thought it counted as "deceptive sockpuppetry." ArbCom is dealing with it now, so there's no need to worry or care too much at this point in time (it could, even, be counter-productive). Also, not quite sure why you chose to ask me, as I was decidedly uninvolved (maybe that's why?). ~ Amory (u • t • c) 22:08, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, right. My question at the RfA was used as evidence. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 22:11, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Duh, Sorry, misread the tags and thought you were the blocker. That was Prodego. It's just my day for screwing up. Is today Monday somewhere in the universe? Auntie E. (talk) 01:01, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you!

		The Guidance Barnstar
		I haven't been able to thank you for all your help, your kindness and guiding me through my articles' completion. So here's a little way of showing you how I appreciated it. I hope my "thank you" is not too late. Best of luck to your adminship. I hope you'd keep your kind ways of assisting newcomers or just-started, not-so-wiki-knowledgeable editors like me. Thanks again! Jxc5 (talk) 01:48, 11 January 2010 (UTC)