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::::::There are a lot more uncivil things in Wikipedia every day done by admins and other editors than that comment. Like blocking an editor for a year for simple non automated edits, refusing to follow policies like [[WP:Harassment|Harassment]], Article ownership, blocking editors due to COI, etc. If that comment seems uncivil then something needs to be done to fix the culture that embodies that comment rather than call me uncivil because it hurts some feelings. [[User:KumiokoCleanStart|KumiokoCleanStart]] ([[User talk:KumiokoCleanStart|talk]]) 10:49, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
::::::There are a lot more uncivil things in Wikipedia every day done by admins and other editors than that comment. Like blocking an editor for a year for simple non automated edits, refusing to follow policies like [[WP:Harassment|Harassment]], Article ownership, blocking editors due to COI, etc. If that comment seems uncivil then something needs to be done to fix the culture that embodies that comment rather than call me uncivil because it hurts some feelings. [[User:KumiokoCleanStart|KumiokoCleanStart]] ([[User talk:KumiokoCleanStart|talk]]) 10:49, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
::::Rich, I do not think you should have fought it—I do not think it would have helped. It is the fighting that loses credibility. I regret to say, but I don't think it ''was'' merely two clicks. A few months ''after'' the automation ban was in place, and ''before'' things reared up again, I saw an edit involving removal of trailing whitespace (sequences of <code>"\x20*\n"</code>), but ''not'' the removal of trailing whitespace which was a mixture of tabs and spaces (<code>"[\x20\t]*\n"</code>). These are indistinguishable inside the browser textarea editor. I drew my conclusions at that point, and also kept quiet. Time took its course anyway. —[[User:Sladen|Sladen]] ([[User talk:Sladen|talk]]) 11:01, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
::::Rich, I do not think you should have fought it—I do not think it would have helped. It is the fighting that loses credibility. I regret to say, but I don't think it ''was'' merely two clicks. A few months ''after'' the automation ban was in place, and ''before'' things reared up again, I saw an edit involving removal of trailing whitespace (sequences of <code>"\x20*\n"</code>), but ''not'' the removal of trailing whitespace which was a mixture of tabs and spaces (<code>"[\x20\t]*\n"</code>). These are indistinguishable inside the browser textarea editor. I drew my conclusions at that point, and also kept quiet. Time took its course anyway. —[[User:Sladen|Sladen]] ([[User talk:Sladen|talk]]) 11:01, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
:::::Considering that I am Rich's friend, I should mention that I agree with user Kumioko CleanStart on his commnent about it being ''Socialist Republic'', I should add that its actually worse than that, its actually ''Fascist Republic'' to be exact, pardon my French. I will fight for you Rich!!!!!!!!--23:20, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
:::::Considering that I am Rich's friend, I should mention that I agree with user Kumioko CleanStart on his comment about it being ''Socialist Republic'', I should add that its actually worse than that, its actually ''Fascist Republic'' to be exact, pardon my French. I will fight for you Rich!!!!!!!!--23:20, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
::::::Another thing to mention, and please don't take it the wrong way any of you, I heard somewhere that Wikipedia was founded by liberals to push their liberal ideas. Now, I am not saying it as either good or bad thing, just trying to get the point across.--01:59, 11 June 2013 (UTC)


== "Buggy script" woes? ==
== "Buggy script" woes? ==

Revision as of 01:59, 11 June 2013

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Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement

I have started a section regarding your edits at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement. Fram (talk) 10:25, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

March 2013

To enforce an arbitration decision, and for violating the editing restrictions that apply to you as described in the arbitration enforcement request mentioned above,
you have been blocked from editing for 1 year. You are welcome to make useful contributions once the block expires. If you believe this block is unjustified, please read the guide to appealing arbitration enforcement blocks and then appeal your block using the instructions there.  Sandstein  23:08, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reminder to administrators: In March 2010, ArbCom adopted a procedure prohibiting administrators "from reversing or overturning (explicitly or in substance) any action taken by another administrator pursuant to the terms of an active arbitration remedy, and explicitly noted as being taken to enforce said remedy, except: (a) with the written authorization of the Committee, or (b) following a clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors at a community discussion noticeboard (such as WP:AN or WP:ANI). If consensus in such discussions is hard to judge or unclear, the parties should submit a request for clarification on the proper page." Administrators who reverse an arbitration enforcement block, such as this one, without clear authorisation will be summarily desysopped.

You were in a rush, was there consensus at AE? Did you not want your question answered? Do you think one Arbitrator represents the whole committee? Do you think it right to wreck an Arbitration process by you desire to be a part of a Milgram experiment? Rich Farmbrough, 23:50, 25 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]
When you blocked me previously you said "You are welcome to make useful contributions once the block expires." Why did you say that if you are going to block me for making useful contributions? Rich Farmbrough, 23:57, 25 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Aside from Sandstein, who else rendered this decision? I am not well versed in the arbcom case, so I don't want to jump to conclusions, but I always thought AE cases usually had 3 or more administrators chiming in.--MONGO 02:32, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]


WP:IAR.

If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.

Using "rule" semi-loosely as standard (somewhat inflexible) arbcom procedure, this is ridiculous. I fail to see how this block does anything but prevent the improvement or maintainence of wikipedia. I'm really tempted to post this on Sandstein's talk page too, but alas, discresion is the better part of valor. Tazerdadog (talk) 03:36, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Rich, the ice has been thin for many moons, I'm not sure if you understood quite how microscopically thin it has been over the last year. I guess you eventually fell through—although as always it was likely not your intention, just a consequence of stepping heavily. I have been hoping it would not be the case. Lets try again in a year; you already managed to get a year more out of it than I expected. —Sladen (talk) 10:09, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is, Sladen, that stepping heavily is not needed. The restriction I am under states "anything that appears to be automation" - to Sandstein this edit appears to be automation. If changing a single character is automation, I am effectively banned from editing anyway. I was ridiculed by Coren for saying this. I was ridiculed by Risker for saying that I shared her distaste for having to constantly look over my shoulder. Can anyone say there is not dysfunction here? Rich Farmbrough, 12:01, 26 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Tazedadog, IAR works, when if tested, the consensus of the community or those making difficult judgements agree with the decision to IAR. So, IAR is about ignoring red tape, not about ignoring the will of many. In this case, IAR doesn't really help Rich, and neither does the arguing/attacking of Sandstein above. Rich can try, but based on past experience I can make an educated guess about the outcome. —Sladen (talk) 10:09, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A whole year? That's too severe. GoodDay (talk) 11:15, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • According to the notice above, this can be amended or overturned, "following a clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors at a community discussion noticeboard (such as WP:AN or WP:ANI). If consensus in such discussions is hard to judge or unclear, the parties should submit a request for clarification on the proper page". Already three people have posted here supporting Rich. Surely nobody is perfect; admins. are human and so sometimes make errors. LittleBen (talk) 14:08, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It should be noted that a one year block is what Sandstein wanted to impose when Fram submitted the AE last time but was talked down by community uproar. The fact it was a year this time can be attributed to the short time frame (only 13 hours) which limited the amount of dialogue from the community. Virtually everyone who watches AE knows that Sandstein favors the extreme end of the spectrum and rarely takes comments into consideration. Its also well known that he is pretty much the only one who participates in AE making it a one man show. It goes without saying that this decision is too severe, it goes without saying that it was going to happen because no matter what Rich did, Fram was going to watch until Rich did something that would justify a block. He's been trying for years to get Rich banned from the project and its unfortunate that the Arbcom and AE fell for this rope a dope. Rich, a lot of us do not agree with this, that much is obvious. My suggestion would be to show ENWP their loss and do what you do best on the other wikis. Simple always needs help as does commons and Wiktionary. There is a lot of work to be done at Wikidata and Wikivoyage too. Good luck and I hope someone with a level head sees how truly stupid and punitive this block is. There is absolutely nothing preventative about a one year block of a longn time user for frivilous edits. KumiokoCleanStart (talk) 01:02, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What an appalling block. Having just been through his contributions, I see no edits even close to vandalism or even automated. The fact that a block has been imposed on the basis of one edit is just WP:BOLLOCKS as far as I'm concerned. Rich Farmbrough is a very useful editor here and for some editor to unilaterally impose a site ban on him for editing using external tools (what exactly is wrong with that, by the way? When I used to edit Wikia, copying and pasting sections into Microsoft Word and making numerous replacements via the "Find and Replace" function was a common task!) is absolutely outrageous. This is not the Wikipedia I used to edit four years ago.--Launchballer 22:37, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

wikilove

User:Slowking4 has given you a Gerard Langbaine award! By your becoming a target of the "malignant assiduity" of those who level charges of errors.

They read wikipedia "only to detect plagiarisms." [1]

Spread the goodness of Gerard Langbaine awards by adding Gerard Langbaine, award to someone's talk page with a friendly message! slowkingFarmbrough's revenge⇔ †@1₭ 00:12, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nice. Rich Farmbrough, 00:19, 26 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Milgram experiment

Hi, Rich. Your point about a Milgram experiment was well found and striking. I have featured it as "wikiquote of the week" on my talkpage. Bishonen | talk 11:23, 26 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]

I would have felt a little unkind mentioning, but Sandstein admits that he doesn't understand why he's making blocks, and is just a tool of authority. (He also suggests that I can appeal the restriction, but blocks me for a year when I try to do so.) Rich Farmbrough, 13:41, 26 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]
<redacted what might appear to be a personal attack, but less so than the statement you made above.> Sandstein says doesn't understand why the original restriction was made, but he blocked you for violating it. That's different than saying he doesn't understand why he's making blocks. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:46, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes of course, that was exactly my point. "I'm electrocuting you because the man in the white coat said so." The Milgram experiment has been reconstructed over the decades, in different countries and in different demographic groups. Consistently a significant portion will follow the instructions. Rich Farmbrough, 22:07, 26 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]
Actually 'understand' is probably the wrong word here. They simply said they didn't know. What they do know as they expressed is there is a process which we can presume they trust leading up to the restriction and which allows the restriction to be lifted. It's far more similar then a law enforcement officer enforcing an arrest warrant then the Milgram experiment. In many cases, the details they know about the case are limited and often they will have no desire to engage in discussion with the person they are arresting about the alleged unfairness of the case. Nil Einne (talk) 22:50, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That is exactly the point of the Milgram experiment. People obey authority, including (and especially) those in positions of lesser authority, despite their moral qualms, if any. And they don't examine the reason behind those orders, they don't even ask what the reason is. Rich Farmbrough, 16:42, 27 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]
It worked out pretty well so far for the lemmings! Oh wait! KumiokoCleanStart (talk) 22:28, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt anyone pressured Sandstein to block you. Sandstein has a more legalistic approach to Wikipedia DR than I personally agree with, but he goes about it in a thoughtful way and he reaches his decisions independently of what other people tell him to do. And, I doubt he has any moral qualms about the block. So the Milgram experiment isn't a good analogy. You might be thinking of the Zimbardo experiment, which describes an awful lot of Wikipedia these days. I wouldn't single out any particular editors. 50.0.136.106 (talk) 06:43, 28 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Guidance for people terrified of block

So, at this point, we need to know where to respond to an appeal against the one-year block, or is it some technical loophole to be overturned within a few hours of review? News of this "one-year block" is likely to terrify many other editors. I am an uninvolved editor who is willing to review this case. Meanwhile, I wanted to ask Rich his advice about methods to apply Lua script to massive improvements of Wikipedia, now that the system-wide feasibility of Lua-based templates been demonstrated. Rich's ideas have been instrumental in creating fast-cite markup templates which rival the speed of Lua script, but without the complexity. Anyway, long story short, we need to include Rich in discussions about writing Lua script modules to solve massive quality problems in Wikipedia data. This is not the time to block him, even for 48 hours. So, where do we respond to overturn this block decision? I suggest people repeat the "Hawthorne experiment" for improved productivity, rather than the Milgram experiment. -Wikid77 (talk) 01:36, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • My message above points out that—according to the block notice—this block be amended or overturned, "following a clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors at a community discussion noticeboard (such as WP:AN or WP:ANI). If consensus in such discussions is hard to judge or unclear, the parties should submit a request for clarification on the proper page". Already several people have posted here supporting Rich. (A discussion has also started here). Surely nobody is perfect; admins. are human and so sometimes make errors. Maybe WP needs a paid full-time Ombudsman/lady who has the power to review overly-hasty admin. or community decisions and send them back for review. LittleBen (talk) 01:50, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, I have spoken with several users who are afraid to even start a bot for fear of being banned. Some don't even want to edit right now. That's part of the reason I came back. A flurry of editors I talk to off wiki that don't like how this and other things are playing out. KumiokoCleanStart (talk) 01:45, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wikid77, Rich effectively got his indef enwiki site-ban a year ago. The deal agreed was that Rich could instead make pure-manual edits. Because it is effectively a suspended (delayed) sentence, I think it is likely to be harder to overturn. —Sladen (talk) 10:24, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And indeed I should have fought that, but I was mortified by the two mis-clicks that caused it. Looking back I should have been far more robust in my own defence - this was really a very human error, which I would never have censured another editor for. Maybe you feel that two mis-clicks out of several hundreds was too many. Maybe you feel that ArbCom has (as they seemed to suggest) control over the reading as well as writing of Wikipedia. Currently this block is somewhat irrelevant while that restriction stands. Sandstein characterised insertion of a single character as automated - on that basis any editing is forbidden me. Somewhat strange that T.Canens should encourage blocking of an editor who has made an appeal to ArbCom, though. Perhaps he hadn't thought it through, or perhaps that will be the new modus operandi. Would you do that? I wouldn't. Rich Farmbrough, 16:15, 27 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]
Welcome to the Socialist Republic of Wikipedia - The Encyclopedia anyone we like can edit as long as they only post what we tell them too, how we tell them too and when we tell them too!KumiokoCleanStart (talk) 16:44, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Kumioko, per WP:CIVIL, I do not think this is appropriate. —Sladen (talk) 10:45, 28 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There are a lot more uncivil things in Wikipedia every day done by admins and other editors than that comment. Like blocking an editor for a year for simple non automated edits, refusing to follow policies like Harassment, Article ownership, blocking editors due to COI, etc. If that comment seems uncivil then something needs to be done to fix the culture that embodies that comment rather than call me uncivil because it hurts some feelings. KumiokoCleanStart (talk) 10:49, 28 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Rich, I do not think you should have fought it—I do not think it would have helped. It is the fighting that loses credibility. I regret to say, but I don't think it was merely two clicks. A few months after the automation ban was in place, and before things reared up again, I saw an edit involving removal of trailing whitespace (sequences of "\x20*\n"), but not the removal of trailing whitespace which was a mixture of tabs and spaces ("[\x20\t]*\n"). These are indistinguishable inside the browser textarea editor. I drew my conclusions at that point, and also kept quiet. Time took its course anyway. —Sladen (talk) 11:01, 28 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Considering that I am Rich's friend, I should mention that I agree with user Kumioko CleanStart on his comment about it being Socialist Republic, I should add that its actually worse than that, its actually Fascist Republic to be exact, pardon my French. I will fight for you Rich!!!!!!!!--23:20, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
Another thing to mention, and please don't take it the wrong way any of you, I heard somewhere that Wikipedia was founded by liberals to push their liberal ideas. Now, I am not saying it as either good or bad thing, just trying to get the point across.--01:59, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

"Buggy script" woes?

You're not the only one. [2] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.67.164.188 (talk) 14:51, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ban him! Funnily enough there was a bug in Horsefeld's ArbBot while "my" case was being hears. He gave me a lot of grief for mentioning it! (Lese majesty again?) Rich Farmbrough, 21:49, 27 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]

hi

I was just looking at[3]

I don't know if it matters but the 3 sources I see are the same url. If you like I can update them. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 20:59, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks: the second should be 533431126 and the third 533580322 . It might be best to ask a clerk to make the changes. It is interesting that no-one else noticed. Rich Farmbrough, 21:47, 27 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]

The Signpost: 25 March 2013

Dafuq?

You are actually still blocked? I give up, I thought I had seen everything. Anyway, a drive-by note in the unlikely event you had not spotted it, the delightful Giovanni di Stefano is spending much of the next 14 years as a guest of Her Majesty. I'm sure he would want us to represent it as such, rather than the coarser terms "banged up" or "jailed". Made my week. Guy (Help!) 01:19, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is a shame, he is undoubtedly a very capable man, and could have made significant contributions to society had he chosen to. Moreover, though I am relieved he will not be able to threaten or harass people for some time, his bolt was shot as a fraudster. Rich Farmbrough, 16:09, 29 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Script advice

Rich, After some extensive testing of my sources script, I'm still slightly concerned about how slow it runs. Occasionally I get a windows error message when the script seems to stall, I click to continue and it invariably finishes the job without a problem. So long as I know there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the mechanics or programming I'm OK, but it's annoying nonetheless to have that popup on long articles.

I was wondering how I can make it run more efficiently, and eliminate the stalling. I had some advice on this script, but my programming skills are limited so I don't know how to even implement it. Any other help or suggestions would be appreciated. -- Ohconfucius ping / poke 01:41, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at User:Ohconfucius/test/Sources_subscript2.js, (1) Avoid compiling the Regex more than once. (2) Consolidate the regexes to avoid compiling variants, so that you end up with (Ukrainian Independent Information Agency|United Press International|Xinhua News Agency). —Sladen (talk) 02:04, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that. I'm afraid I need to explain that I didn't actually write the code myself. I borrowed the backbone and plugged my regexes into it mechanically. Aside from applying a bit of layman's logic, I don't really understand where it may be compiling twice, for example. -- Ohconfucius ping / poke 02:31, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
new Regexp() is the compliation, which is saved into re, and then executed once with regex(). The for(;;i++)for(;;j++); loops are causing several hundred compilations. The regexs are similiar that they can probably be combined, thus causing only a total of three compilations and executions. —Sladen (talk) 04:05, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So you mean I should start by making my regex more efficient, like what I have just done, or that I can simplify the loops further. or perhaps both? -- Ohconfucius ping / poke 04:54, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This edit increases the complexity of the regex, but with the advantage of compiling a fewer number of regexes overall. My suggestion (see two paragraphs above) is go further and to concatenate all of the strings into a single (very complex) regex, and then to have less iterations of the loop (which is the expensive part). You could use a loop to the concatenation, then compile the resulting lengthy regex at the end of the loop. Ideally you'd go even further into compiling each regex once, then cacheing the compiled form and then executing them against multiple pages. That said, please ensure that if it is made to run faster, there is still time to adequately review each change before saving. —Sladen (talk) 13:36, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The speed of the compilation and running are effectively independent of review time. Go => wait => diff => review => save or not - the machine parts run in series with the human parts not in parallel. RF
You will (should) get a modest speed-up by expanding stuff like (Fox (?:News(?: Channel|)|Business Network|Broadcasting Company)) - this is because bayer-moore-horsepool is faster with longer strings. You can also get a speed gain by listing the elements of the match in decreasing probability of matching. Having said that there are two other factors, one is that we are searching the entire article (as far as I can see), in many cases, rather than just the text in the citation template, say - this could get you a factor of between 10 and 100. Another matter is that the "bits" server which serves the .js scripts and other "bits" (I suppose) seems to have been struggling for about a year - this seems to have caused problems for me from time to time, that manifest as you describe. Rich Farmbrough, 16:31, 29 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #51

Extended content
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • The first 11 Wikipedias can now include data from Wikidata in their articles (If you want to see it in action see the infobox at it:Torino)
    • Worked on automatic summaries for statements
    • Worked on making properties accessible from the client using their label so you can use {{#property:executive director}} instead of {{#property:p169}} for example
    • Made qualifiers ready for the next deployment (Please test. See details further down.)
    • Selenium tests for qualifiers
    • Fixed some issues related to QUnit testing
    • Worked on improved handling and code design of multiple snak lists in the UI (qualifiers, references)
  • Discussions/Press
  • Events
    • Newline 2013
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
    • We’re currently carefully monitoring performance after the deployment of phase 2 on the first 11 Wikipedias. There seem to be a few small issues. As soon as they are resolved we'll deploy on English Wikipedia. All other Wikipedias are planned to follow very soon after that.
    • Bye and a big thank you to Anja, Silke, Jens and John who are leaving the development team at the end of the month and will work on other cool things. You’ll be missed!
    • Ever had any doubt about the possibilities of Wikidata? Talk to Wiri!
    • We worked on reducing the time it takes for Wikidata edits to show up in the Wikipedias and made some progress. Daniel posted an analysis
    • We started running a script on the database in order to make search on Wikidata case-insensitive. This should be finished in a few days and then search should be more useful.
    • In addition to the above we have rolled out a new search box that suggests items. This should also make finding things on Wikidata a lot easier for you.
    • We’re making some progress with Internet Explorer 8 support but there are a lot of issues with it (some outside our control). It’s unclear at the moment how much we can improve it still without spending an unjustified amount of time on it. You can follow the progress at bugzilla:44228
    • Edits are now auto-confirmed for users with more than 50 edits and account age 4 days: bugzilla:46461
    • Do you need old-style interwiki links for a sister project for example? This is for you
    • The Wikimedia Foundation applied as a mentoring organisation for Google Summer of Code again. We have proposed some Wikidata projects for students to take up if the Foundation is accepted again. At least 2 other organisations that applied also propose Wikidata ideas. More details on that once we know which organisations are accepted.
    • Denny hacked together a tree of life based on data from Wikidata
    • Wikidata was added to wikipulse
    • A template to retrieve data from Wikidata if no local value is set
  • Did you know?
  • Open Tasks for You
    • See note at the end of this weekly summary
    • Help test qualifiers (m:Wikidata/Notes/Data model primer#Qualifiers - see also example statements there) on the test wiki so we can roll it out with the next release
    • Did you file a bug report for Wikidata or did someone else do it for you? Please take a minute to check if it is still valid. (Thanks for filing it btw!)
    • Add some missing descriptions to those items with the same label?
    • Hack on one of these

Could I have 2 mins of your time? As I’ll be working on some other projects for Wikimedia Germany as well from now on the time I can spend on Wikidata will be reduced. This means I’ll have to figure out what is useful to spend time on. If you’re reading this could you let me know for example on this discussion page? Also if you have ideas how to improve the weekly summaries please post them. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk)

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 20:38, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
Sorry to hear that you were blocked again. Makecat 13:25, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Barnstars cheer me up in these dark days. Rich Farmbrough, 14:51, 30 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Error needs fixing

An accidental deletion of some text by a new user. Rich Farmbrough, 14:53, 30 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Fixed, thank you, Rich. An error made over a year ago..! I guess it's not one of our most intently-watched articles. Bishonen | talk 15:16, 30 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Notification regarding you at 28bytes.

Hi. I feel as if you were treated unfairly by 28bytes when you questioned his motives. I have engaged him in combat. Please peruse his talk page for recourse efforts. Greetings. Mr. barbers773 (talk) 19:19, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your efforts, but I really have no issues around 28bytes motives. I merely feel the block was wrong. Note that 28 bytes made a reasonable offer to unblock, and Kumioko is now commenting from a different account. The only outstanding matter is the abuse of checkuser.
On the English Wikipedia, CheckUsers asked to run a check must ask for (and be given) clear evidence that a check is appropriate and necessary.
This seems to be endemic, in that I have run across two clear examples without looking for them. Rich Farmbrough, 19:37, 30 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Not a copyvio

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Evidence/William Joseph Hammer was probably not a copyvio, it was taken from text written by an employee of the Smithsonian Institution as part of his job, and is therefore almost certainly probably {{PD-USGov}}. Rich Farmbrough, 20:16, 30 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Hi, Rich. I saw link to this comment elsewhere and just wanted to let you know that SI claims copyright, as an independent trust instrumentality. :) publicdomainsherpa.com explains a bit more. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:30, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's actually a little more subtle than that. Except for the bit about SI giving the impression that everything is copyright. That is why I said "probably" (I have changed the second part of my statement to match). I was aware of the trust, and I will attempt to find the reference I was using, as it has relevance from the point of view of content. From the point of view of Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) it should be considered at the very least not an indictment that he used this source. Rich Farmbrough, 01:37, 1 April 2013 (UTC).[reply]
I'll look forward to seeing your source. According to Fishman's Public Domain, the only works of SI that are PD gov are those that are produced by staff paid directly by the U.S. Government; content by staff paid by the SI itself and outside contractors is copryighted to SI.(Fishman, Stephen (16 April 2010). The Public Domain: How to Find & Use Copyright-Free Writings, Music, Art & More. Nolo. p. 49. ISBN 978-1-4133-1512-7.) I didn't actually follow the ArbCom hearing here - did Richard claim somewhere that he believed the copyright tag on that source was fraudulent? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:59, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(Just to add - I have been trying to find any information to confirm the employment status of the author of that work, but so far no luck. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:18, 1 April 2013 (UTC))[reply]
Indeed, that is the distinction (though whether it has been tested in court I don't know), the work of "Federal Employees" is PD-US-Gov and the work of "Instrumentality Employees" is (effectively) cc-by-nc. Misra v. Smithsonian Astronomical Observatory indicates that the SI is considered Federal regardless of the source of funds (citing Expeditions Unlimited Aquatic Enters. v. Smithsonian Inst.). I can't find the source, but the distinction between Federal and Instrumentality funds is the key, so it would add little. Rich Farmbrough, 02:26, 1 April 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Look further afield?

Without automation, you were wasting your potential here anyways.

Based on your skill set, you have options others do not...

  • Build, make available, and maintain tools at toolserver
  • Join Round Two of the Individual Engagement Grants. It begins August 13, 2013.
  • Or help the Round One grant recipients who submitted software development proposals:
  • Fork Wikipedia, or a subject from it of your choice.
  • Build the next generation wiki platform
  • Expand the wiki-paradigm
  • Build wiki-tools
  • Increase wiki-automation
  • Extend Firefox's wiki-functionality by creating new add-ons
  • Run for the Wikimedia foundation board of directors
  • Develop a Jarvis-like browser (ala Tony Stark, aka Iron Man)
  • Create a mindmap program for site map creation and viewing
  • Make a script or program that creates tag cloud views of a subject or webpage content
  • Automated web-page design

You've outgrown Wikipedia. Now would be a good time to transcend it.

In a project of your own, you can make the rules. The Transhumanist 01:28, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

i agree. i would add:
  • an upload wizard or tool for texts to wikisource. i recently got some feedback from an archivist, that they are swamped with handwritten texts that they would love to upload, but are deterred by the opaque process. anything would be an improvement.
let the incompetent have their small pond, there's work to be done. slowkingFarmbrough's revenge⇔ †@1₭ 02:34, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Let me chime in and concur as well. Meanwhile we shall continue to tell them at every opportunity how truly stupid the decision was to invoke a 1 year block over something so minor. Kumioko (talk) 02:45, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And there have got to be better ways to access or view the material on Wikipedia. The encyclopedia has grown so extensive that its navigation systems cannot keep up.
Which reminds me, the sister projects also provide relevant information, but it is not well integrated with Wikipedia. If you want to survey them all, you've got to click 20 or 30 times just to get to and from each of them. A program to view the treatment of a subject by all the Wikimedia projects would be a very useful viewer. Something as simple as entering a subject name, and then the program loads the matching entry from each into a separate tab. That would be much faster than following links to each one.
Rich, based upon your ability in building bots, you should be able to blow minds in the overall wiki-arena, relevant to Wikipedia and the rest of the wiki-community. It certainly would be a way to make time pass more quickly during your block. The Transhumanist 06:14, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
How about creating an app or extension that allows us to create a global watchlist? Or maybe just have some way (through wikidata or elsewhere) to have a centralized userpage without having to create/update one on each project individually? Maybe even update the new pages app with some improvements. There are countless things that can/need to be done. Although personally I think I would use my time off wiki but you should try and remember that although there are a few powerful editors that are controlling your block, they are not the only editors here and there are a lot of us that wish you were here editing. Kumioko (talk) 12:50, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
i believe that's the idea behind the liquid threads [4] flow [5] work. but there's lots to supplement, tool requests that users need. slowkingFarmbrough's revenge⇔ †@1₭ 18:19, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There are some great ideas here, the universal user page would have been achievable with Mirror Bot. Another area I am interested in is redesigning Checkuser to be more public in its logs: at the very least showing who preformed each checkuser action, and under what category (here on en:wp that would currently be WMF/SPI/Own initiative/private request/checkuser abuse), and in some cases more detail. Rich Farmbrough, 22:28, 31 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]

H'm! Nice ideas indeed. Lots of human processes lacking better automation and transparency. – SJ + 17:48, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Just stumbled onto Wikipedia:Editor engagement/Echo. I guess my Watchlist suggestion is being worked on already. Kumioko (talk) 02:08, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A kitten for you!

I can't believe you were blocked for something so minor. Have a kitten to cheer you up.

Revolution1221 (talk) 16:58, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Kittens are fluffy and cheerful and one can never have too many (though I did once get reverted with the edit summary "...too many cute kittens..."). Rich Farmbrough, 22:31, 31 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Here's a beer to go with that kitten!

I saw that you got a kitten to play with while you are in exile for the next year so here is a beer to help as well. Kumioko (talk) 17:05, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! ("I can haz beer?" Drunk kitten is drunk... ) Rich Farmbrough, 22:21, 31 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]

CC-BY-SA3 and Wikipedia graphs please add

I have been interested in getting some of the community's graphical products released under free licenses. There are issues, of course, there always are. But they may be resolvable. Here is a list of graphs and their status - please feel free to add. Note that WMF data is released under a free license.

Item URL Current license Free license requested
Page views https://www.stats.grok.se None stated 1 April 2013 RF - by email
Server stats nagios "probably free" 2103 RF on Meta
Ganglia [=db33 Example] RRDtool is open source. Data is released

Rich Farmbrough, 22:38, 31 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]

A kitten for you!

Sorry about the confusion about my semi-protection of Five Ws. I never meant to take sides in your dispute, nor impune anybody. See my comments at User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#As_to_my_motives.

Bearian (talk) 14:40, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So he's not blocked then after all? Cool. Basket Feudalist 14:47, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sadly that's not what Bearian is referring to. Rich Farmbrough, 22:13, 1 April 2013 (UTC).[reply]
It's not a problem, I am not in dispute over the article and wasn't even aware of the page protection - or the revert - until they were brought up elsewhere. Thanks fo the kitten Rich Farmbrough, 22:13, 1 April 2013 (UTC).[reply]

-kittens--

Nomination of UUA (disambiguation) for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article UUA (disambiguation) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/UUA (disambiguation) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 15:46, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Closed Keep. Rich Farmbrough, 00:32, 2 April 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Thanks to Sjö

This "short story" is very reminiscent of what can happen on Wikipedia. Rich Farmbrough, 05:20, 2 April 2013 (UTC).[reply]

A random calendar for you!

A random calendar for you!
365 days is a bit too drastic... Nevertheless, I still trust that you can knock Koavf off the top! Stay strong ☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 04:47, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks: maybe I'll be using the Newgate Calender for a while... Rich Farmbrough, 16:55, 3 April 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Nomination for deletion of Template:DoD detainees ARB

Template:DoD detainees ARB has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Tom B (talk) 15:09, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If someone could kindly add to the discussion on my behalf:
Keep helps guard against link-rot, see this update for example. Rich Farmbrough, 16:53, 3 April 2013 (UTC).[reply]

 Done. Nice template – Wbm1058 (talk) 17:04, 4 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Talkback

Hello, Rich Farmbrough. You have new messages at Template talk:Fix.
Message added 19:33, 3 April 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Jason Quinn (talk) 19:33, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely agree, this change is a WP:SNOWBALL obvious improvement. Rich Farmbrough, 22:55, 3 April 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Arbitration amendment request

Hi Rich, this is a coutesy notice to inform you that the Arbitration Committee has declined the amendement request you submitted. You can view the archived request here, or the orginal version here. For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 03:24, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This makes me very sad. The comments from arbitrators seem to say "block him, we're not going to change the sanction" (T. Canens) and "we're not going to change the sanction because he's blocked" (Cacheroth and Risker). This is on a par with previous decisions, but I had hoped for better. Moreover, as usual, any discussion has been held in secret. Rich Farmbrough, 03:45, 5 April 2013 (UTC).[reply]
Hi Rich, well I feel bad for your decline, unfortunately it was kept in secret, because people like to hide stuff here... Either way I should be quiet now, because I was under a gun.--Mishae (talk) 01:03, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is typical. I wish you were here too Rich, now Fram has turned his attentions on me.:-( I am not nearly the gentlemen you were though. I am getting to the point I don't even care if I get blocked anymore. The community wants to keep bullies and miscreants but wants to block the ones doing all the work. And the WMF wonders why spending $4 million anually (roughly 10% of their annual budget) to recruit new users doesn't seem to help. Kumioko (talk) 01:11, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What, you are blocked too? Either way, I heartly agree with the fact that they do keep bullies in, look at the Russian Wikipedia for example. In other words, Wikipedia is buroucratic dictatorship (thats as far as I can tell from your point of view)! Its funny how no one realiases that Wikipedia have become a center for breakaway Wiki projects, which most Wikipedia users hate (again, Russian example). Further more, I think Jimbo Wales will turn in his grave one day, when he will realise that his dream of "perfect society" have failed!:) I don't want to insult the founder, but even Hitler had a dream of "perfect society", and then look what happened to that guy.:( I do appreciate him for creating a site though, what I sometimes don't appreciate is that people need to donate money to a site that hires bullies most of the time! Question: Does any of you donate this project even a cent or pence?--Mishae (talk) 03:25, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 01 April 2013

Wikidata weekly summary #52

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • The first year is over. Thank you everyone for being amazing and helping to build Wikidata and making it more than we could possibly have hoped for already. <3
    • Put a lot of work into improved support for Internet Explorer 8
    • Worked on improving recent changes code in client
    • Finished valueview refactoring. Created new extension “ValueView”
    • Implemented string formatter
  • Discussions/Press
  • Events
    • upcoming: GLAM-Wiki 2013
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
    • Deployment of phase 2 on English Wikipedia is currently planned for April 8. The remaining Wikipedias are scheduled for April 10. As usual this might change if we run into problems along the way.
    • There is now a page showing the current lag for changes propagating to the Wikipedias so they can show up in watchlists and recent changes for example. This should ideally be in the range of a few minutes. Right now it is higher because of some abnormally high bot activity but decreasing. Should be down to a few minutes soon.
    • There’s now a badge you can add to Wikipedia articles to indicate there is data about it on Wikidata
    • We hit Q10000000
    • A Wikidata item in the wild ;-)
  • Did you know?
  • Open Tasks for You

Based on feedback for last week’s call for comments we will continue this newsletter. However more community help will be needed. From now on they’ll be drafted at d:Wikidata:Status updates/Next and your help is very welcome.

Mail

You have mail. —Neotarf (talk) 08:30, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Rich Farmbrough, we moved your Teahouse host profile

Hello Rich Farmbrough! Thank you for being a host at the Teahouse. However, we haven't heard from you lately, so our bot has moved your Host profile from the host landing page to the host breakroom. No worries; you can always just Check in and our bot will move your profile back. Editing any Teahouse-related page will do the same thing for you. If you would prefer not to receive reminders like this, you can unsubscribe here. Thanks for your help at the Teahouse! HostBot (talk) 03:50, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Cowboy halls of fame inductees

Category:Cowboy halls of fame inductees, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. DexDor (talk) 05:19, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 08 April 2013

Wikikids

Hi Rich Farmbrough, you droped your name on m:Wikikids#People interested in 2012. I've been updating and expanding the proposal (which runs in French and Dutch right now), are you still interested in it ? Bye ! Astirmays (talk) 19:53, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

question about time bot uses

Hi, I noticed this edit to the article Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department from March 2010 back when the bot was still named Smackbot. The revision time of that edit was "23:22, 31 March 2010" but the bot was dating templates as "date=April 2010". This is probably because the bot was using local time instead of UTC time. It ought to use UTC time and for this particular edit caused the month itself to be different than the actual month of the tag. Anyway, I'm not sure if this bug still exists in the present form of the bot but it's the kind of thing that can go unnoticed for a long time so I thought I'd mention it. Does it still exist? Do you agree with me that it's a bug? Jason Quinn (talk) 17:19, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is a complex question which contains a bit of bot history to answer fully, but the three key points are:
  • Revision as of 03:22, 1 April 2010 - you are using local time, not the bot.
  • It would be a bug but not a significant one, I.E. I would fix it, but I wouldn't worry if someone else's bot was doing it, the important thing is to a) Allow careful evaluation of which tagged problems are unlikely to be fixed b) Support workflow and prevent (ideally) problems remaining unfixed in perpetuity c) Provide management information that shows the scale of the backlogs. Note that a good portion of this has been thrown away with the deletion of Expand and Wikify and others. If a few articles move across a bucket boundary it is not important. (Arguably this belongs in March because that's when the tag was added - we've discussed this at length and in some cases retroactive dating was used when a tag became categorised by date for the first time, in other cases not - again, in general, it's not ciritcal.)
  • The bot has used various dating mechanisms, a plaintext date, {{CURRENTMONTH}}, a recompile of the AWB settings, and now (having moved from AWB in 2010) the internal UTC time.
Rich Farmbrough, 18:19, 12 April 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Come to Commons

Hi Rich, I see that you have foolishly been all but declared persona non grata on this project. Why don't you come across to Commons where I am sure that we would be able to utilise your bot skills to our benefit, and you won't have to worry about being bound by a ridiculous decision as you are here on this project. If you want some suggestions on how we could benefit from you on Commons, feel free to get in touch. Russavia (talk) 19:48, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Rich, I do not think going to commons is a good idea. See, on commons admin russavia is as abusive as admin sandstein here, maybe even more. Better forget about wikipedia, go out and have some fresh air. Let risker to write articles. Maybe then he would think twice before marking your request as "moot".199.241.30.239 (talk) 00:15, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #53

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Got some external professional review of our code and architecture and started working on their feedback
    • Worked on reducing the dispatch lag (the time it takes for changes on Wikidata to be sent to the Wikipedias for display in watchlist, recent changes and to purge affected pages)
    • Worked on using Redis for job queue to improve the lag situation even further
    • Created new Wikibase Query extension for phase 3 functionality
    • Autocomments & Autosummaries for SetClaim module
    • Worked on the GeoCoordinate parser
  • Events/Press
    • right now: GLAM-WIKI 2013
  • Discussions
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
    • Deployment of phase 2 on the remaining Wikipedias was delayed because of a high lag of changes being propagated to the Wikipedias. The lag has been reduced considerably now and is going down even more. The new date for deployment will not be next week because there are other large changes on Wikimedia infrastructure scheduled that we do not want to interfere with. It will hopefully happen very soon after that though.
    • Next code update on wikidata.org is planned for Wednesday. This should include qualifiers and bugfixes.
    • There will probably be a short outage/read-only for wikidata.org on Tuesday (database is being switched to MariaDB)
    • If you're a student and interested in coding on Wikidata consider applying for Google Summer of Code.
    • There is a new user right: property creators
    • There is now a page to request deletion of a property
    • We now have Bureaucrats
    • Reasonator was improved and extended (1 2)
  • Open Tasks for You

Based on feedback for last week’s call for comments we will continue this newsletter. However more community help will be needed. From now on they’ll be drafted at d:Wikidata:Status updates/Next and your help is very welcome.

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 23:28, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Helpful Pixie Bot: ISBN

Helpful Pixie Bot is adding {{Please check ISBN}} to the 'isbn' field of citation templates. This function is no longer needed as the Citation Style 1 templates now test the ISBN and will show an error. Placing the template in the 'isbn' field corrupts the display and always has:

Cite book comparison
Wikitext {{cite book|edition=3|first=James|isbn=1-4144-0140-9 [[Category:Articles with invalid ISBNs]]|last=Trager|location=Detroit|notracking=true|publisher=Gale|title=The People's Chronology: A Year-by-Year Record of Human Events from Prehistory to the Present|year=2005}}
Live Trager, James (2005). The People's Chronology: A Year-by-Year Record of Human Events from Prehistory to the Present (3 ed.). Detroit: Gale. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/1-4144-0140-9 |1-4144-0140-9 [[Category:Articles with invalid ISBNs]]]]. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); Unknown parameter |notracking= ignored (|no-tracking= suggested) (help)
Sandbox Trager, James (2005). The People's Chronology: A Year-by-Year Record of Human Events from Prehistory to the Present (3 ed.). Detroit: Gale. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/1-4144-0140-9 |1-4144-0140-9 [[Category:Articles with invalid ISBNs]]]]. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); Unknown parameter |notracking= ignored (|no-tracking= suggested) (help)

--  Gadget850 (Ed) talk 00:35, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hasn't run for a year.
  • Good.
  • I know and no it hasn't always. The over-linked ISBN is a relatively new bug.
Rich Farmbrough, 19:40, 14 April 2013 (UTC).[reply]
You may care to fix
  • Patterson, Lyman Ray (1968). Copyright in Historical Perspective. Vanderbilt University Press. ISBN 0-8265-1373-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |unused_data= ignored (help)
on the Copyright page. Rich Farmbrough, 15:14, 15 April 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Delta function (disambiguation) listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Delta function (disambiguation). Since you had some involvement with the Delta function (disambiguation) redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). RockMagnetist (talk) 04:28, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Speedily kept as it should be. Rich Farmbrough, 14:51, 15 April 2013 (UTC).[reply]

The Signpost: 15 April 2013

Wikidata weekly summary #54

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Dispatch lag is now down to 0 so changes should show up very quickly on the Wikipedias in watchlists and recent changes
    • wikidata.org now always redirects to www.wikidata.org. This should among other things solve the issue where people were not able to edit when on wikidata.org (bugzilla:45005)
    • Fixed weird blocked-user/protected-page handling in UI (bugzilla:45140)
    • Final meetings for the external professional review of our code and architecture. They were quite happy with the quality of the codebase and gave useful tips for improvements
    • Worked on automatic summaries for editing claims
    • Investigation of different JavaScript frameworks dealing with date and time
    • Worked on using Redis and the job queue for change notifications to clients
    • Work on the storage code for answering queries
  • Events/Press
    • GLAM-WIKI 2013
    • upcoming: office hour on IRC about sources
    • upcoming: Opensource Treffen
    • upcoming: intro to Wikidata at the British Library
  • Discussions
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • Open Tasks for You
Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 22:53, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 April 2013

Wikidata weekly summary #55

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 21:54, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Category:Imperial Roman senators

Category:Imperial Roman senators, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. ❤ Yutsi Talk/ Contributions ( 偉特 ) 12:17, 29 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 29 April 2013

Wikidata weekly summary #56

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

Oxford Meetup 5

Thank you for attending the fourth Oxford Meetup, and it was a pleasure meeting you. We have decided to hold the next Oxford meetup in one month's time, rather than two, so that it falls within Oxford term-time. A page has been created about the fifth Oxford Meetup; please sign up if you think that you are able to attend - if the date or venue are unsuitable, please comment at its discussion page.

Please spread the word to anybody else who you think might be interested. The next UK meetups are at: Glasgow; London; and Nottingham, all on 12 May 2013. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:51, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I'm concerned about the low level of support for the fifth Oxford Meetup. Are you unable to attend, or is it that you haven't seen the geonotice? --Redrose64 (talk) 12:23, 28 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
I OrangesRyellow hereby award thee this barnstar in recognition of your massive improvement to the List of Other Backward Classes article. Although I am late in doing so, I could not stop myself .... OrangesRyellow (talk) 14:22, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
... and one more, to emphasize the point that just one is nowhere near being enough ... OrangesRyellow (talk) 14:26, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you so much! Rich Farmbrough, 15:29, 22 May 2013 (UTC).[reply]

This Month in GLAM: April 2013



Headlines
Read this edition in full • Single-page

To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 21:53, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #57

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

The Signpost: 06 May 2013

The Signpost: 13 May 2013

Wikidata weekly summary #58

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

Notice

We demand that you update our Wiki entry to say "Private University" - our true classification - and stop labeling us a for-profit career college. We will not hesitate to subpoena all of your true identities again in federal court. We've already been assisted in bringing down the Controversy section of our page due to our cyber-stalkers spreading lies about us. Just because our investors are Mormon does not mean we are a Mormon school. And just because one of our directors was investigated for fraud and bribery years ago does not mean our school deserves a Controversy section on Wikipedia. We will continue to fight anyone who attacks our school on the internet. You have been warned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lymani (talk • contribs) 18:15, 19 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you truly represent Neumont University you will be aware that I have some months ago, pursuant to your previous legal shenanigans, contacted both you and your legal representatives, pointing out where you may have been in violation of US law, and advising you to take a more constructive approach. You might consider other Law too: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.
Rich Farmbrough, 14:44, 22 May 2013 (UTC).[reply]

cleanup total

Per this discussion: How do I get the 'total' to update correctly in Template:EngvarB progress? the counter seems to be stuck at zero. Regards, -- Ohc ¡digame!¿que pasa? 14:54, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The category "All Wikipedia articles written in EngvarB" exists, but is empty. Simply delete the category and all will be well. Rich Farmbrough, 15:12, 22 May 2013 (UTC).[reply]

The Signpost: 20 May 2013

Wikidata weekly summary #59

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Events/Press
    • Linked Data in Business
    • currently: Hackathon in Amsterdam
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • Did you know?
    • Newest properties: catalog code (P528), runway (P529), diplomatic relation (P530), diplomatic mission sent (P531), diplomatic mission sent (P531), port of registry (P532), target (P533), streak color (P534), Find a Grave (P535), ATP id (P536), twinning (P537), fracturing (P538), Museofile (P539)
    • Newest task forces: Ship task force
    • d:Template:Constraint:Item allows to check if items using a given property also have other properties. To find items to fix, it links to one of Magnus' tools and to a daily report. Sample: items with property mother should also have main type (GND) with value person.
  • Development
    • A lot of discussions and hacking at the MediaWiki hackathon on Amsterdam
    • Worked on content negotiation for the RDF export
    • Bugfixing for editing of time datatype
    • Added validation in the api for claim guids. This also resolves bug 48473, an exception being thrown in production, whenever a bot or api user requested a claim with an invalid claim guid
    • Improved error message popup bubbles to show HTML and parse the links correctly
    • Fixed bug 48679, to hide the view source tab for item and property pages
    • Testing on Diff extension and SQLstore
  • Open Tasks for You

Undo button

Greetings Rich, you need to be more careful with your edits. I noticed you used the undo button, some editors may constitute that as "using automation". :-) Seriously though, I hope things are going well for you these days. Kumioko (talk) 01:15, 31 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Coming from anyone else, like some of Rich's 'friends' watching this page and every move Rich makes, the above comment could be construed as either a warning as a prelude to ANI or taking the piss. Of course I know you better than that. Personal computers have changed the world by allowing things to be done much, much faster than purely by the human hand. I guess one might call that invention "automation" in itself, never mind what humans use it for afterwards. ;-) Have a good one! -- Ohc ¡digame!¿que pasa? 01:32, 31 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Anybody who imposes sanctions on Rich for this undo should themselves be sanctioned, because it is not a crime to revert your own edit. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:02, 31 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It shouldn't be a crime to do a lot of things around here. But I have seen some pretty outlandish decisions by Arbcom, AE and even individual editors that somehow don't get overturned. The vagueness of the sanction against Rich is where the crime lies where anything in the judgement of the admin can be construed as automation. Excel, cut and paste, twinkle, etc. have all been identified as automation. Kumioko (talk) 14:52, 31 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Arbcom was very specific in what types of edits Rich was forbidden to engage in, including cutting and pasting. There are many sad things about this situation. Rich's prolificity is lost to use for a year. But hopefully we can tap his expertise. After all, he still has this talk page. The Transhumanist 08:25, 1 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Rich, remind me again, was one of the problems that you were mass-creating Category talk: pages? --Redrose64 (talk) 23:05, 2 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 27 May 2013

A beer for you!

I am sorry to see that you have been forced on vacation. It's the community loss, clear and simple, when such an active editor as yourself is forced to retire. I hope you'll find a more welcoming home on one of our sister projects. My hat is off to you, Mr. 2nd To Have Reached 1 Million Edits on English Wikipedia. This project is poorer without you. Cheers, Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 11:07, 31 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #60

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

ISBN 0-596-00027-8 listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect ISBN 0-596-00027-8. Since you had some involvement with the ISBN 0-596-00027-8 redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). 108.56.232.165 (talk) 03:10, 1 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oxford Meetup 6

Thank you for attending the fifth Oxford Meetup, and it was a pleasure meeting you. I intended to send this message on Monday, but I've been a bit busy, sorry.

Several of us would like to continue with the monthly plan, since trying to make a two-monthly cycle fit into the University terms doesn't work very well. A page has been created about the sixth Oxford Meetup; please sign up if you think that you are able to attend - if the date or venue are unsuitable, please comment at its discussion page.

Please spread the word to anybody else who you think might be interested. The next UK meetups are at: London, 16 June; Manchester, 22 June; and Coventry, 7 July. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:15, 5 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 05 June 2013

Wikidata weekly summary #61

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

A barnstar

The Purple Barnstar
Normally, I'm not a fan on giving out barnstars for "nothing much", but feel the description of this fits the case - "The Purple Barnstar is awarded to those who have endured undue hardship on Wikipedia but still remain resolute in their commitment to the project and its ideals." Mdann52 (talk) 13:06, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I personally feel jellous, wish I can get one of those, considering purple colour is my favourite!--Mishae (talk) 22:55, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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