User talk:Rich Farmbrough

Spelling

Hi Rich,

I noticed an edit of yours [1] had the summary (Manually checked and maybye modified clean of pages listed via Wikipedia:Bad links#Encoded_characters using AWB).

Did you mean "maybe", or is it meant to be a pun? Andjam 01:12, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly it is not a clever pun... Thanks. Rich Farmbrough 01:23 1 April 2006 (UTC).

Smackbot

Thanks for being receptive to criticism. I hope to be able to support future bot requests for Smackbot (of limited scope) since I do believe that the non-contentious edits performed by Smackbot were helpful. Kaldari 02:08, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sep11 wiki

Thanks for your comments. I've read through the various proposals to delete, move, etc. the wiki somewhere other than sep11.wikipedia.org. However, I'm not sure if anyone is moving toward a decision, and don't want to put too much work into cleaning up articles if they will just end up being deleted. I know memorywiki has taken the testimonials, but don't think they have taken the sep11:Tributes_to_individuals. Many of these presumably were articles originally written on Wikipedia, but moved to sep11 wiki (per WP:BIO). If the sep11 wiki is just completely deleted without moving or archiving these articles, then I think it leaves a void. Perhaps, the bio articles about the victims could be moved back to Wikipedia (with my watchlist growing accordingly), and the tributes to memorywiki. In my opinion, each victim is as notable and worthy of an article as the 19 hijackers are (and a few of the victims do have Wikipedia articles). Or, as a very last resort, I might be willing to take the database, buy a domain, hosting for it. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 02:37, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've actually tried moving some of the more encyclopedic articles back into Wikipedia, but was met with harsh resistance. They were summarily deleted under the chant "Wikipedia is not a memorial". If the sept 11 wiki is ever closed (which is a big "if") I very seriously doubt the content would be deleted outright. At the worst, it will get archived into a big zip file. Kaldari 04:27, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regex (cont'd)

See User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough/Talk_Archive_8#Re:_RegEx and User_talk:Mathwiz2020#RegEx

I was thinking about the regex script you wrote and, as soon as SourceForge CVS is back up and I can download the latest code, I'll work on adding your regex, plus the requested modifications, to AWB's general fixes. I just have one question. For the regex:

\[\[([^\]\|]+)\|(\1)([^\]\|\-\'\s]*)\]\] => [[$2]]$3

Why can't there be a hyphen or apostrophe after the pipe? Why not change [[Tom|Tom's]] to [[Tom]]'s and [[Tom|Tom-Jerry]] to [[Tom]]-Jerry? I understand, though, why you don't want to change [[Tom|Tom and Jerry]] to [[Tom]] and Jerry. Thanks. --M @th wiz 20 20 19:33, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

I am conducting a survey on Wikipedia and would like to invite you to participate in the study. I've posted a message on wikien-l, but here is the link again in case you are not subscribed to that list-serv. Thanks a lot for your time! --Mermes 01:23, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Expand / stub

So many articles are marked stub that the system is a waste of time. "Expand" at least offers some hope that something will get done as it is less used. 62.31.55.223 05:05, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please block

Notice you're an active admin. Can oyu please block: 64.160.211.191. Posted "I love the cock" in American Civil Rights. thanks. Avraham 15:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That was fast, thanks. the vandalism was actually sitting there for about 20 minutes.

Transwiki "Periodic Report of the United States of America to the United Nations Committee Against Torture" to wikisource?

I recommended that Periodic Report of the United States of America to the United Nations Committee Against Torture be moved to wikisource. Like you I made some good faith edits to that article without realizing that it was not a summary of the document, but a cut and paste of the original.

Since you did some work on the article I thought you might want to voice an opinion on the transwiki. Have you ever been involved in a transwiki?

Cordially, Geo Swan 21:21, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Flag size

To my knowledger the flag size has consistently been 20px. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 14:38, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No problem - this is just one of a number of IP based, unannounced, undescussed edits being done also in an inconsistant fashion. Yours was just the first "Named" user envolved. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 14:45, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Smackbot

I don't think putting the catgories into alphabetical order instead of a sensible order is "minor", I think it is considerable damage. If you are going to do this, please disclose that you are not making "minor edits", but it would be much better to stop doing it IMO. Osomec 20:09, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Block of 204.184.95.250

I noticed you temporarily blocked this IP address. Since his/her block has expired he/she has started vandalising again. I have issued a warning. Perhaps we can consider a more long-term ban? TydeNet 15:11, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Smackbot de-flagged

Hi Rich, as you may have noticed SmackBot was de-flagged a few days ago (see m:Requests_for_bot_status#en:User:SmackBot and [2])

Is it OK for you to move SmackBot's listing on WP:BOTS from Wikipedia:Bots#Bots with a flag to Wikipedia:Bots#Bots running without a flag?

Also, I'd be interested to know what your intentions are re. submitting a new bot request? If the tasks are well described and non-controversial, I don't see why I wouldn't support such request! --Francis Schonken 16:29, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Further I'd like to invite you not to use any other account at bot speed, for instance your most recent edits with the Rich Farmbrough account show:

13:51, 8 April 2006 (hist) (diff) m John D. Barrow (spelling) (top)
13:51, 8 April 2006 (hist) (diff) m Balata (spelling) (top)
13:51, 8 April 2006 (hist) (diff) m Tokusatsu (spelling) (top)
13:51, 8 April 2006 (hist) (diff) m Walther P99 (spelling) (top)
13:51, 8 April 2006 (hist) (diff) m Spennymoor (spelling) (top)

Five edits in less than a minute is at bot speed; and doing spelling corrections at bot speed is in itself a bit controversial... (it was one of the given reasons - not by me - why modbot's bot approval request was denied not so long ago...).

Sorry to make a fuss again, but please, behave ;) --Francis Schonken 16:35, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Shock and Awe

Hello Mr. Farmbrough, I don't want to cause any trouble because I'm new here (at least as an editor), so I'd like to talk off the record to a few good contributors about a problem I see on an article that you've edited. Your contributions seem solid, so maybe you can help me. I've been using the Wikipedia definition of "Shock and Awe" for several months because I like how it described the type of warfare that "Shock and Awe" is and also how it gave a link to a definition of "rapid dominance" (of which it claims to be a subset).

In the last couple of days, however, a user called JW1805 edited the article and I think he made the definition much worse.[3] It now says that "Shock and Awe is a military doctrine," whereas is used to say exactly what type of military doctrine it falls into: "Shock and Awe is a method of unconventional warfare." Isn't the old definition more informative? According to the definition of Conventional warfare, I don't think anyone could call it that. So, I think it's safe and informative to say that "Shock and Awe" fits into the definition of unconventional warfare, don't you?

Also JW1805 removed the link to "Rapid dominance," deleted the "Rapid dominance" article and redirected it to "Shock and Awe." Yet the "Shock and Awe" article still says, "Its authors label [shock and awe] a subset of Rapid Dominance." Does that make any sense to you? According to RUSI Journal 141:8-12 Oct '96, "Rapid dominance" is an "intellectual construct" whereas "Shock and awe" is one "method" of implementing that construct. Obviously they are not the same thing. So, why would JW1805 redirect "Rapid dominance" to "Shock and Awe?" Why would he delete the "Rapid dominance" article and the link it?

I went to JW1805's talk page to speak directly to him, but I read what others have said to him, and it seems to be the same story: if you are only one person complaining, JW1805 considers you a troublemaker and has his friends ban you, but if more than one person gets together and says the same thing, he listens. If you feel the same way as I about his edits to "Shock and Awe" and "Rapid dominance," I'm sure we can work together to get the best definition back in place. Are you up for something like that? --Larnue the dormouse 20:23, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]