User talk:R'n'B

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Category redirects

Hi, there has been some discussion recently about whether there are bots handling category redirects, and I've been informed that RussBot does it. Can you explain its modus operandi? How often does it perform this task? And does it search all existing redirected categories for possible stray pages, or only new ones, or only soft redirects, or only those that have been specially requested, or...? It would be useful to know, since knowing there's a bot doing this would enable us to be more flexible about the naming of categories (e.g. including dashes, with redirects from hyphens). Grateful for any information, cheers--Kotniski (talk) 13:20, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, RussBot does category redirects. The algorithm, generally, is as follows:

1. Iterate through all category pages that are hard redirects.
   1. If it is a hard redirect to another category page, convert it to a soft redirect (unless the page already has {{category redirect}} on it, in which case skip it).
   2. Otherwise, log the problem.
2. Iterate through all pages that are in Category:Wikipedia category redirects, and --
   1. If the target of a soft redirect is also a soft redirect, bypass the double-redirect.
   2. If the target of a soft redirect doesn't exist, log it and don't process any articles that are in that category.
   3. If a soft redirect has been edited within the past 7 days, skip it (cooldown period).
   4. In any other category that is a soft redirect, try to move all the articles into the target category (sometimes this can't be done automatically because the category link is buried in a template call).

The bot normally runs once daily, and its log is at User:RussBot/category redirect log.

If you want more gory details, you can see the source code at http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/pywikipedia/trunk/pywikipedia/category_redirect.py --Russ (talk) 13:34, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

That's great, thanks! Just one question: is there a reason why hard redirects have to be converted to soft ones?--Kotniski (talk) 14:36, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Because, otherwise, any pages that were mistakenly assigned to the redirected category, instead of the target, would be effectively invisible until the bot got around to moving them. Plus, the hard redirects need to be put into Category:Wikipedia category redirects so they get picked up on the second pass. (For what it's worth, I was prepared to write the bot to convert all the soft redirects to hard ones, with {{category redirect}} left on the page for categorization purposes, but that idea did not gain consensus.) --Russ (talk) 15:17, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like it would have been a good idea. The arguments you cite against doing it don't make sense (they are invisible anyway; hard redirects can also be categorized). Do you remember where it was discussed so we can perhaps raise the idea again?--Kotniski (talk) 16:00, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Error

I'm sure you've since fixed it, but someone point out this error [1] with Russbot. MBisanz ^talk 15:36, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

• Why do you say it was an error? Worcestershire County Cricket Club squad was a redirect to Template:Worcestershire County Cricket Club squad at the time the bot made the edit. --Russ (talk) 15:46, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

• Hmm, ok. MBisanz ^talk 16:01, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

CSD

Hiya.. where did I mess up? [ roux ] [x] 17:24, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

• On this article, you added {{db-notability}} although the article is about a book, and the deletion criterion only applies to articles about persons, organizations, or web content (and, anyway, the article does make claims about notability). On this article, you added {{db-nocontext}} even though the article was not "very short" and quite clearly stated to be about financial accounting standards. I know it's easy to get carried away with speedy deletion, as I've done it myself; but when I do, someone else always points out that these criteria are meant to be applied only to very specific situations. --Russ (talk) 17:33, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

• Doh. Thanks! [ roux ] [x] 17:36, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Le Train Bleu (passenger train)

RussBot changed [[English]] and [[French]] to [[English language|English]] and [[French language|French]], which is correct for the context, but probably it would have been better just to unlink them, per WP:OVERLINK#What generally should not be linked,

Items that would be familiar to most readers of the article, such as the names of major geographic features and locations, historical events, religions, languages, and common professions.

There;s no reasonable likelihood that anyone would actually click on those links, so they're just clutter. BTW, how does a bot manage to do that kind of disambiguation? Colonies Chris (talk) 14:27, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Overlinking is a fair point. As to how it works, see User:RussBot. --Russ (talk) 14:56, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Bad bot edit

Your bot's edit to Birmingham was inappropriate, as the "Reformation" referred to is the English Reformation, not the Protestant Reformation. I've fixed it, but please watch for that, in future, Thank you. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:03, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Why can't you just edit the link if you disagree with it, instead of characterizing it as "bad"? It's not wrong. The Reformation in England was Protestant, wasn't it? Being more or less specific is a different matter than being wrong or inappropriate. --Russ (talk) 20:06, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

By the way, how do you know it's referring to the English Reformation? It says first "in the United Kingdom" since the Reformation; the Scottish Reformation was about 20 years after the English. --Russ (talk) 20:13, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Good edit and one I forgot to make. Thanks. ^Law _shoot! 01:44, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Radical

You may have already changed this, but I just came across a Russbot edit from 2007 which used a link to extremism for the word "radical". diff That's really not a good choice for a default dab link for radicalism when there are multiple meanings/interpretations -- much better to use "Political radicalism" as the default setting, which provides concise explanations for each, along with links to the main articles. Cgingold (talk) 19:35, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

This edit

[2] shouldn't you be fixing the links rather than just unlinking ? Gnevin (talk) 01:48, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Generally, yes, but in this specific case, no. That template has huge numbers of links that are useless to readers. On Wikipedia, article titles are nouns, not adjectives, so linking to all the adjectives (that correspond to the nouns in the immediately preceding column) is not beneficial. --Russ (talk) 10:48, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Ok that's grand Gnevin (talk) 18:03, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition page

Hello there! I see you’re a patroller of the Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition Bible page, and was hoping you could answer a few questions. Why - if you are patrolling the page - are you not answering the questions posed on the talk page? Anyone who tries to amend the article only seems to have his or her edits reversed. User talk:Pete unseth is also disturbed in relation to this situation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sacred_Scriptures_Bethel_Edition If you are patrolling the page, please give reasons why you are not happy with the edits which are made to improve the article and also why you are not discussing your inaction over the page. Have a nice day...

83.100.146.147 (talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Cheers, and Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition page

Hello there! I see you’re a patroller of the Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition Bible page, and was hoping you could answer a few questions. Why - if you are patrolling the page - are you not answering the questions posed on the talk page? Anyone who tries to amend the article only seems to have his or her edits reversed. User talk:Pete unseth is also disturbed in relation to this situation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sacred_Scriptures_Bethel_Edition If you are patrolling the page, please give reasons why you are not happy with the edits which are made to improve the article and also why you are not discussing your inaction over the page. Have a nice day...

83.100.146.147 (talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Cheers, and Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.