User talk:Xeno

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This user knows that whether she's killing you with her mind or just plain terminating you, Summer Glau kicks some serious ass.

Do not archive

Threads in this subheader shall not be archived because my botservant will be confused by this fake timestamp. –xeno^talk 04:20, 21 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Standardize stub template to use {{asbox}}

See also: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Xenobot 6.1

Stubs icons and Web accessibility

Hello. Since you are working on accessibility, could you take a look a this proposal? I see you also have Xenobot, so maybe you could help me. Thanks. Dodoïste (talk) 18:43, 4 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you achieve consensus for this, let me know what you need done and I can see if Xenobot can perform these edits. –xeno^talk 02:43, 5 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. Do you think there is enough consensus already ? Thanks for helping. :-) Dodoïste (talk) 20:01, 5 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take another look in the next day or so and file a BRFA if I think consensus exists. –xeno^talk 15:45, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: BRFA filed: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Xenobot 6.1. –xeno^talk 18:15, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re You did great, everything is well explained and accurate. Thanks. :-) Dodoïste (talk) 18:38, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. My bot thanks you for the work! =) –xeno^talk 18:40, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just as an update, the bot has completed two trials of 34 and 80 edits. –xeno^talk 20:19, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well done! I check the evolution of this pretty big task through my watchilst every day, and it seems to go on smoothly, so I am only observing for now. The english-speaking community is pretty dynamic and skillful. You guys are doing most of the work and discussions, and it allows me to prepare carefully the next improvements I would like to suggest. When this task will be completed, I will review the usability of the home page and a few important templates (such as Template:Navbox). I will also review the color contrast of the most used templates, such as Template:taxobox and other infoboxes. :-) Dodoïste (talk) 22:41, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'll do what I can when the time comes =) Incidentally, can you double check any stub using asbox and ensure the default alt text is working? P.S. See also bugzilla:19906 (and vote for it). –xeno^talk 22:51, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The HTML code produced by Mediawiki contains the proper alt text (<img alt="Stub icon" src="http://... ), so it is working fine and it meets the W3C's requirements. I saw bugzilla:19906 yesterday and voted for it. I also send an e-mail to the french accessibility expert working on the french Wiki, the one who introduced me to accessibility and usability, to ask him his opinion about this bug. I hope he will respond soon, but he doesn't always answer since he's busy enough already. Let's hope we'll be lucky. :-) Dodoïste (talk) 23:18, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Add name paramater

Hi Xeno, just thought I'd float an idea by you. Might it be possible to add an extra parameter to those templates you are converting? Something along the lines of name=<name of template>. For example on Template:USAF-bio-stub you would have the additional parameter name=Template:USAF-bio-stub. This would allow the navbar functionality I suggested at Template talk:Asbox and might well have other uses in the future. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:25, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Replied @ Template talk:Asbox#Navbar. –xeno^talk 17:12, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your bot is sometimes removing <noinclude></noinclude> codes e.g. categories and interwiki links for templates. See example here. Mind you, it left this one. - Fayenatic (talk) 09:26, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is occurring when the interwiki is (erroneously) placed up in the middle of the stub code. (Interwiki above Category:* stubs) However, I believe I have come up with an appropriate skip option; so it should not re-occur. Thanks for the note. –xeno^talk 15:22, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Estimate number of pages seems low

Your Estimated number of pages affected on Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Xenobot 6.1 seems a little off at 2,500+. It looks to me like there are over 10,000 stub templates. -- WOSlinker (talk) 22:02, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, I only counted the stubs linked on Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types (including the culture subpage) and subtracted any that were already using asbox. How did you come to the conclusion there are 10,000 stub templates? Seems like a lot of rogues stub types! –xeno^talk 22:04, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I used Special:WhatLinksHere/Wikipedia:Stub to find them. I've put the list of them over at User:WOSlinker/stublist. -- WOSlinker (talk) 22:17, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

d'oh! Rogues abound. –xeno^talk 00:07, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

7082 not yet using asbox. –xeno^talk 00:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just tried using [1] and there is actually more than 10,000. Just under 13,000 actually. -- WOSlinker (talk) 07:17, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Included non-stub categories confusing bot

Resolved

– Mark 8/8/9 as the day I learned about one of my bots' seven deadly sins: greed. –xeno^talk 20:41, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what's wrong, but your bot is making some type of error. All of the X-OR-geo-stub templates (like this one) were 'standardized' and don't work anymore. For example, see this page (or any Oregon stub page) at the bottom. Thanks, Little Mountain 5 15:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just noticed this too (but great scoop, LM5 :) Here's one example of one of the "bad edits." -Pete (talk) 16:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank both, for the notes. These diverge from any kind of stubs I've seen before (in that they sort the stubs and the template both into another, non-stub, category) which is why the bot handled them poorly. Checking to see if any other states are affected by this... –xeno^talk 16:15, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the stub template itself should put the article directly into the county category; rather, the stub-county category should be within the county category. This may be an error in the templates as they existed when your bot encountered them. However, I'm not really an expert in stub categorization, so my understanding may not be correct. May also want to check with YBG (talk · contribs), who created these stubs. -Pete (talk) 16:39, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It does appear to be somewhat of a local anomaly. Only Oregon county stub templates and two sports venues so far have been identified by my error-correction parsing. But I'm glad this was pointed out so I can add a new skip criteria and look at this in greater detail after I finish all the 'standard' stubs. –xeno^talk 16:44, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I added those categories about a month ago, because a lot of the articles with these templates transcluded onto them did not have the categories. I could easily remove them if they are a problem, (which they seem to be), but right now I'm leaving for a vacation and won't have internet access until next Monday UTC. Thanks, Little Mountain 5 17:23, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not a problem, per se, I can code around it. The bot got confused because the templates themselves are categorized into the same category with a template-only sortkey. (See the <noinclude| </noinclude> that you must have mimicked from the Category:* stubs part). Instead, non-stub categories included with a stub template should probably be wrapped with 'includeonly' so the templates don't get sorted into them; though, I think it would be better for them to be hard-coded onto the members so that when they graduate from stub they remain in the category. –xeno^talk 17:28, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, hard-coding will be my next project, unless someone else gets to them first. :) Thanks, Little Mountain 5 17:36, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

← So it turns out my bot was being greedy. Fixed [2]. Thanks for the indirect regex lesson =) –xeno^talk 20:41, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Stub templates should never do any non-stub categorisation - for this will be lost when the stub-template is removed from the article. Rich Farmbrough, 21:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Yea, that's what I meant above about them being hard-coded so they remain when the articles graduate. Though, I think it was more of a bandaid that stayed on too long. –xeno^talk 21:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Peculiar code in original

Resolved

– User reported error: [3] matched criteria (?s)\{\{asbox.*\<noinclude\>.* = .*\}\} found 1 page (fixed) of last 6221 edits prior to [4] matching error criteria. Thanks again! –xeno^talk 00:41, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Don't know if it has just happened with {{US-keyboardist-stub}} or if it has haapened elsewhere but your bot appears to have broken this template. I have reverted it, may be you could look to see what the problem was. Waacstats (talk) 22:30, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have learned a new trick since August 5, so my bot will not make that mistake again (proof ;>). However, I will examine this failure and see if I can do a search for other similar errors. Thank you for the note. –xeno^talk 22:39, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The reason was a user inserted some peculiar code: [5], which confused the bot. I checked their contribs, and they only inserted this code once. I'll run a check just in case, but I think this is case closed. Appreciate the catch! –xeno^talk 23:07, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Miscategorizations

It appears that Xenobot (talk · contribs) has made an error while standardizing some stub templates. See for instance this edit. The bot omitted one word in a category. As a result, just about 400 articles and templates were added to Category:European football club instead of Category:European football club stubs. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 21:30, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is a layer 8 error in the parsing of stubs that use "icons". Thank you for pointing it out, I will have this fixed shortly. –xeno^talk 11:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to have happened only in those with two categories (on the "category1=" line), which is a relief. I found most of the problems in Special:WantedCategories. –xeno^talk 12:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Doing... Checking through Xenobot's ~10k contribs for more of this error. –xeno^talk 13:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed 194 errors. Thank you so much for catching this! –xeno^talk 14:19, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from BlazerKnight

Questions from Tim1357

Transcluded from User talk:Tim1357/adoption

edit

You seem to be getting on fairly well, so I'm going to untransclude this from my talk page. Ask me questions there if anything comes up. Cheers, –xeno^talk 02:34, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Signature

This is hopefully the final time I'll resurrect this. I've recreated my sandbox to have all of the potential colours shown. I've given up any hope of trying to decide. Can you narrow down the list for me, getting rid of colours that don't show up all that greatly on your screen/don't look green? --Thejadefalcon (talk) 10:52, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think 13, 14 and 22 would be nice together. –xeno^talk 12:37, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

e.g. - Thejadefalcon^{Sing your song}_{The bird's seeds}

Hey, thanks. Idiot that is me, I hadn't even considered having alternate colours. I think I prefer this one though, now that I think about it.

Thejadefalcon^{Sing your song}_{The bird's seeds}

Or is that middle one too bright? Thanks for your help. Just... err.. is there any way to cut down on the code? Looks overly long to me. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 15:39, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's slightly on the bright side... Not much you can do to cut down on the code, no. It's not that bad. –xeno^talk 15:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So, this is the final then?

Thejadefalcon^{Sing your song}_{The bird's seeds}

Now, all I do is copy-paste it into the Signature section in my preferences. I read something about raw signatures somewhere, do I need to do anything for that (if mine is raw). Finally, in the signature area, it says "Also, please use & # 1 2 4 ; (spaced out) or <nowiki> tags for the pipe ("|") character; it can otherwise cause templates to fail." You, though, have | in your signature. Is this rule something that appeared after your signature was made, or does it appear normal on an edit page regardless?

Meep! Had to add in nowiki tags around the nowiki thing or I burnt the rest of the page. Thank God I previewed. --Thejadefalcon (talk) 15:51, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That caution is for people that actually want to use the pipe character in their sig... I'll have to modify the message as its confusing. Yes, check off "raw sig" (I think it's called something else now). Sig looks good! –xeno^talk 17:38, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

T3s

Hi Xeno - stubs types that have had their names changed from names that fit in with normal stub naming (e.g., Diving-bio-stub) are usually kept but with a note on the template explaining what should be used instead. Not sure who started the practice but it does make some sense, since it means that an editor doesn't need to go hunting for the list if they get a redlink. The same this is done with a handful of othr deprecated stub types like {{China-geo-stub}} and {{Football-stub}}. Grutness...wha? 00:19, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

k, just wanted to double check. cheers, –xeno^talk 00:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think such stubs should include the article in a hidden category, Category:Articles using deprecated stub templates? –xeno^talk 00:27, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Might be a good idea- that's certainly worth running past the rest of WP:WSS - possibly as a proposal at WP:WSS/P (that page is normally for stub types, but we have used it occasionally for things like template categories). Grutness...wha? 01:09, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On the subject of these deprecated templates, BTW, I had to undo a change made by Xenobot to {{China-geo-stub}} - it needs more than the standard asbox conversion - see [6]. Any ideas how to get asbox to handle that? Grutness...wha? 01:42, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I will have the bot skip anything with the word "deprecated" on it and do those manually. I'll see if Xenobot over-wrote any similar deprecated texts. Thanks for the note. –xeno^talk 01:48, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For asbox to handle it, you would just use a note= paramater like [7]. –xeno^talk 02:13, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

5 other deprecated templates wouldn't get picked up by Xenobot:

Add {{CentralAm-geo-stub}} to that list. Grutness...wha? 22:48, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reporting possible bug in Xenobot

Note this edit by Xenobot: [8] to a stub template affected the flag image size. -- œ ^™ 04:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Found another edit error by xenobot here: [9] Might want to fix this. Nasa-verve (talk) 04:07, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is happening when the border came before the px. I've written a fix for that and will run a check to see if any other articles are affected by this. Thanks both. –xeno^talk 04:08, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Several other stubs were showing huge flags,

Fixed. Thanks again for the reports. –xeno^talk 04:35, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Broken markup in an edit by Xenobot as {{NewZealand-school-stub}}. I've reverted the edit rather than try to work out the proper syntax.-gadfium 06:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. It came up with a handful of others with similar errors. –xeno^talk 06:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All

Fixed , I believe. –xeno^talk 06:34, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:Ratel warring? vandalizing? bad faith?

User Ratel is trying to archive an active discussion in Aktion T4. This User Ratel is clearly involved in the discussion.

comment made by 190.25.101.144 (talk) 05:36, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The code will only archive conversation without inactivity for four days. I agree with what the user who started this thread: Talk:Action T4#Talk page etiquette. –xeno^talk 05:43, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the discussion it was asked for a "reliable" (according to Wikipedia Policies) source, supporting that Aktion T4 was euthanasia and that any euthanasia is not unlike Aktion T4, because the current article claims the contrary in this section: Aktion_T4#T4_and_euthanasia.
There are a lot of sources, but at least one "reliable" (according to Wikipedia policies) source was provided in this post:Talk:Action_T4#propaganda_pro_euthanasia_.3D_crime_apology. This source (Alexander Leo, Medical science under dictatorship, New England Journal of Medicine, No.241, pages 39-47, 1949) states that Aktion T4 was euthanasia and that any euthanasia is not unlike Aktion T4
User:Ratel claims euthanasia has nothing to do with Aktion T4 and he is involved in the mentioned dicussion.
Therefore: why is he allowed to archive exactly all the discussion including the post providing the demanded source?
Note that User:Ratel posted his first attempt to autoarchive the discussion some hours after the post providing the demanded source.

comment made by 190.25.108.250 (talk) 05:56, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Somebody agrees with me and bugs, etc., that the article is already on probation

so it's hidden just cos you think it doesn't pertain? This is plainly out of order since I in good faith think it pertains, as I've indicated. Rather, if you think it doesn't pertain, you should simply amend the discussion to provide your take and let readers decide. ↜Just M E here , now 15:28, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We can unhide it if you want, (

Done) but you shouldn't duplicate it below another statement. –xeno^talk 15:30, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. OK. Looks great! (Such as it is, I guess.) ^{:^)} ↜Just M E here , now 15:42, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Mags

Yeah I think that's fair. I'm in the east end; I'm nowhere near downtown. Typically the person is located near downtown though. Gary King (talk) 17:24, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

sighs

would it have really harmed the project for more editors to see the template and comment on it. i deleted once and you twice. if many editors agree, you should have awaited another's showing up. (sheesh -- we NON- edit warriors lose when only we're the only ones who decline to edit war.... where's a police officer when ya need one!!!) ;^) ↜Just M E here , now 18:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes - it looks ridiculous. A pair is not a series (ok, I know technically it is, but let's be reasonable) and internal links serve this purpose to direct readers to the other articles. It also gives undue weight to the arrest incident on his bio. By the way, I waited until another user reverted one of the pair before reverting the other one; to give others a chance to weigh in. –xeno^talk 18:29, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So you only edit warred on one article instead of two? By the way, I know this isn't a requirement, but just a word to the wise: in the future, linking someone's well-wrought template and mentioning [emended: on the talkpage] your rationale for its bold deletion might keep this colleague's feathers less unruffled, too. ↜Just M E here , now 18:45, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I waited until the template was removed from one of the two in the "pair" (I am loathe to call it a series, because it's really not) and then removed it from the other for consistency. I shall not remove it again should you choose to put it back up, but I would advise against it and further bet a year's Wikipedian administrators' wage that the template will be deleted. Sorry for not linking the template in the edit summary, I was short on room and wanted to explain why I was removing it. –xeno^talk 18:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. (Anyway, oops! I'd meant to write "mention on talk." In any case, no harm, as Wikidemon was gracious enough to have done so. ^{:^)} (PS How much are admins paid these days? ^{;^)} ) ↜Just M E here , now 18:56, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, that would've probably been a good idea. Mea culpa. How much are we paid? Can't tell you, NDA and all. It's juicy tho! I promise. You should apply ;p –xeno^talk 18:57, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thx (for the flattery: I can barely contribute a semi-grammatical sentence!) ↜Just M E here , now 20:32, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd love it if probation was adopted project-wide (along the theory of a culture of strong editorial ethics among contributors, helping each other edit in that mode, helping newbies learn to do so and chiding those that stray)....

Xeno, as an admin, what is your opinion wrt the folowing? Supposing the ANI thread's closing admin doesn't discern a consensus: since I'm in favor of it, the three options I can think of for me to pursue in that case would be

(Bold) just go ahead and try re-templating just to see if it might well hold?
(Rvt) drop the matter, figuring that a mixed consensus should default to not trying to retemplate its talkpage as the article's being under article probation? or
(Discuss) post a poll on the topic on Gatesgate's talkpage (eg similar to the "in/out, arrest-photos poll" that's going on there at the bottom of the discussion page there at the moment)?

Which way would would serve "me" best (that is, the project, I mean, of course!), in this scenario, for me to proceed, would you think? ↜Just M E here , now 12:48, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I still think those kind of things should be placed by an admin willing to enforce it. I haven't had a chance to review the ANI thread again, I'm putting out a forestfire I made with my bot. Given that I was the one that removed it, I don't have a problem with you boldly putting it back. I thought it was a far more restrictive probation. Thanks for the note. –xeno^talk 12:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for your response, xeno. ↜Just M E here , now 17:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ward3001 left the wikipedia

I really feel a little sad about it I wish I could wish him well. I will send you a private message on this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dela Rabadilla (talk • contribs) 01:55, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I guess we can only hope it's a temporary break. –xeno^talk 12:56, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]