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2014 posts

May 2014

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Reference Errors on 21 May

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I wish I could be of more assistance, but I don't know anything about running a bot and have just started studying RegEx, which is baffling to me at the moment. I'm afraid I would only do more harm than good. In hindsight, perhaps it would have been better to have bots ready to do cleanup before |coauthors= was deprecated; but I'm sure it will all settle down eventually! Have good days.—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 16:13, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

May 2014

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  • admiralties-fm.htm| location = Washington, D.C. | year = 1990 |edition=reprint |origyear=1946)| accessdate=16 June 2010| archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20100615173840/http://www.

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Input on image decision

Hi you are invited to vote for the image to be used on the LG G2 infobox page at Talk:LG G2. Thanks! GadgetsGuy (talk) 09:25, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Two archived sites

Hi! About This edit

The idea is not two archived sites but two working links. A site with a working original link and one archive link is okay, because both links work. But since the original link is dead it's not necessary to have a hyperlink of it when we can put in another archive link. Three reasons:

  • In China, web.archive.org is blocked but webcitation.org is not blocked. Many Chinese don't have access to tools to get around it, so that revert means Chinese users with less technical knowledge are unable to see the report. The English Wikipedia serves everyone around the world, including China.
  • Many people do not have the technical knowledge needed to "find" the webcitation link or to add things to webcitation, or to get around government blocks
  • What if web.archive.org is down, or the server has a problem with the machine holding that particular file? (this happens!) You want redundancy! If web.archive.org's link doesn't work, that's okay, because you can just click the webcitation link.

Trying to stick to a rigid "it must be the dead original link and one archive link only" is harmful. When I do archive links, I stick to two working links for the above reasons and that is how I want things to work. WhisperToMe (talk) 01:42, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

I decided to switch around the archive links to better fit the way the archive template has things described. Now "Mass Shootings at Virginia Tech April 16, 2007: Report of the Virginia Tech Review Panel (Massengill Report)" (main link) points to webcitation and the "archived from the original" points to web.archive.org as it did originally. WhisperToMe (talk) 01:59, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

I have moved this discussion to Talk:Virginia Tech massacre#Two archived sites.—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 14:16, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

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2014 IVK refs reorg

Greetings,

I have done a little in continuation of your efforts to reorg the refs at 2014 Isla Vista killings. Having all the refs together in the reflist is a great thing that I didn't know was possible (or I would have already done it).

I could finish the job of changing the refnames if we could establish concise conventions. There's a certain amount of inconsistency even among the new refnames. The refs fall into four groups, and I'd need a convention for each group:

  • Refs with no author. No consistent pattern established here yet.
  • Refs with one author. Refname = author's last name.
  • Refs with two authors. Currently refname = authors' last names separated by a comma (although I think there may be a few exceptions).
  • Refs with more than two authors. No convention established, most are still using the old refname.

Thanks. Mandruss (talk) 03:35, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

   Hi, and thanks so much for the assistance. As for naming "conventions"; I was making it up as I went along. I like to avoid having to use double quotes in reference names; if you visit Wikipedia:Footnotes#Footnotes: using a source more than once, you'll find the rules about named references. (That same article explains the process of List-defined references in another section; it's handy information).
   Briefly, names are case-sensitive; must be unique (they weren't; previously, there were two references with the name "Breitbart1"); they cannot be purely numeric; and it's possible to use an array of punctuation, in addition to letters A–Z/a–z and numbers 0–9; however, spaces are not allowed unless you use double quotes:
  • Quotes are optional if the only characters used are letters..., digits..., and the symbols ! $ % & ( ) * , - . : ; < @ [ ] ^ _ ` { | } ~
  • Inclusion of any other characters, including spaces, requires that the name be enclosed in double straight quotes (")
  • Quote-enclosed names may not include a less-than sign (<) or a double straight quote symbol (")
   For articles without authors, I started using the name of the publication, or, in cases where more than one article from the same source was used, a piped name with a shortened version of the publication name and a key word in the title, such as "ABC|Identified" and "ABC|Lonely". (To follow the conventions precisely, "Bigotry" should be renamed "NPR".) Where there is more than one author, I only included the second author if there were other articles with the first author's name. The comma is handy, in that it doesn't require double quotes for the reference name. If there are articles with more than two authors, pick two (or three if absolutely required) to make the reference name unique. I personally dislike enumerating reference names ("NYTimes1", "NYTimes2", etc.); I also like to use upper- and lower-case to make the name more readable (so, for example, "cbsnews1" could become "CBS|Improvised").
   Hopefully this makes some sort of sense; it's not terribly important what the references are named; I find it's much easier to re-use them, however, if the names are keyed to the author name(s) and/or invoke some sense of what the source covers. It would be just as valid to use only the first author's name followed by a key word in the article title, for example, rather than two names separated by a comma.
   In reviewing the references, I found different references pointing to the same article at different places (former reference names "AP" and "Dillon" were the same article by the Associated Press, no longer available at the SF Gate website) and there are still duplicate reference names to the same article ("Darcy" and "Darcy2" are the same article, for example; there are others).
   Other clean-up:
  • I was accessing each citation to ensure that the site was still "live" and adding the |archive-url=, |archive-date=, and |deadurl= parameters where possible. (Some sites, such as The Washington Post, do not allow archive.org to cache their pages). This is important for preventing link rot; there is more information at that link about using internet archiving sites, if you're not already familiar with them.
  • I was also re-entering each citation using the RefToolbar gadget to ensure the order of the parameters within each citation template was the same. This was really "anal" editing on my part; the order of the parameters doesn't affect the rendering of the citation at all; it just makes it easier to see if a particular parameter is included if they're all in the same order.
  • Additionally, I was using the {{cite web}} template rather than the {{cite news}} template. If the source is available online, I use {{cite web}}; I personally reserve the use of {{cite news}} to citing actual printed newspapers, but this is an unnecessary distinction. Both templates employ the same, or similar, parameters and render the same, as far as I can tell.
  • I was adding |author=<!-- No byline given --> or something similar to citations of articles without listed authors or ones that were written by the publication's staff. This also isn't crucial, but it gives future editors the information that the |author= parameter wasn't skipped inadvertently.
  • This is all much easier for me because I have modified the refToolbar code to include the archive-related parameters. You're more than welcome to use my modified version; in order to do so, you'll need to create the page User:Mandruss/common.js (you can do so by clicking the link) and add the following line to the page and save it:
importScript("User:D'Ranged 1/script/CustomRefToolbar.js");
  • You'll also need to go to your Preferences page and check the "Show edit toolbar (requires JavaScript)" option on the "Editing" tab and check the "refToolbar, adds a "cite" button to the editing toolbar for quick and easy addition of commonly used citation templates." option in the "Editing" section on the "Gadgets" tab if they're not already checked.
   I'm more than happy to continue with clean-up as time permits; the next few days are not good for me, but I should be able to do more next week. Whatever clean-up you accomplish is greatly appreciated, believe me.
   I've outlined a possible re-naming scheme in a separate sub-section below (to facilitate skipping the section when making comments); I'm not "married" to any reference names or naming scheme, as long as they're valid and unique, it's all good. I started the renaming to make them more "intuitive" and get rid of the ones that were a repetition of the article title (names need to be short); any improvement is a bonus, as far as I'm concerned. You'll note below that some reference names need to be merged with others, as the same article is referenced two different ways.
   I apologize for my verbosity; I'm not known for being succinct. If I've overloaded you with information, the only really important information is that your efforts at improving the article's citations are very, very welcome! Thank you so much! Happy editing!—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 04:00, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
I have completed some of the list and marked them done. Now that we have both invested hours into this new scheme, I would like to at least discuss whether it's the best scheme. For those refs that come from a news/opinion outlet of one kind or another, would it not be better to use the names of the outlets exclusively, rather than the authors? How is Mozingo preferable to LATimes, or Ellis,Sidner more meaningful than CNN? It's not like many editors have ever heard of any of these authors. It seems to me the NYDN|Retribution scheme would work well for 95% of the refs. This would simplify the scheme; being easier to understand without close study, it would be more likely to be maintained over the long term. What do you think? Mandruss (talk) 09:09, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

On a separate topic, WP:LDRHOW says that "any unused reference will generate an error". This is important for keeping things clean, but when I tested this in my sandbox it only omitted the unused ref from the References section. There was no error that I could see. Mandruss (talk) 11:47, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Sandboxes don't always behave the same way as articles. I can say from experience that leaving a named reference in the list and not calling it in the article results in an error. To test it yourself, try this:
  • Click the edit tab at the top of the article so that you can edit the entire article
  • In the edit field, navigate to the "References" section
  • Copy the ABC|Identified named reference paragraph
  • Insert a new line for spacing and paste the copied paragraph in the references list
  • Rename the pasted reference ABC|Identified2
  • Preview the article and scroll to the end of the References section in the preview area
You will see this error message:
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "ABC.7CIdentified2" is not used in the content (see the help page).
  • Click "Cancel" at the bottom of the edit field to avoid saving the error
Again, many, many thanks for your caring about the citations! Save the rest for me to do in a couple of days, if you like. Take care.—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 22:35, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
I'll take your word for it. Did you see what I wrote above my outdent? Mandruss (talk) 02:06, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
No, I had missed that entirely; I assumed you did the outdent immediately after my comments. I must say I had reached much the same conclusion, but hesitated to suggest the change because of the additional work involved. It does make much more sense to use the publication name and a key word in the title as the reference name; even simpler would be to just use a key word. The drawback with using just a key word would be that so many articles have similar titles, so perhaps Publication|Key would be best. I can draw up another table relatively easily, if you'd like.—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 02:14, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
So glad you agree. I always have enough time to do things right (and I'm more than willing to do all of the added editing work if you'll do the table). We can use "Fox" for Fox News; I used "FoxNews" only to clarify that it wasn't an author named Fox; that's no longer necessary under the simplified scheme. Mandruss (talk) 02:26, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
I think it might be best to include the pipe and a key word in all names, even if the source is only used once. That would convert BBC to BBC|Drive-by, for example, and FoxNews would become Fox|Father. What do you think?—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 02:31, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
Totally agree. Consistency=simplicity. And, the existing Fox would otherwise have to be changed if a second one were added, in order to maintain the scheme. Mandruss (talk) 02:40, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
    One more thing, just seeking consensus here. I like using the pipe (|) between the source and the key word, but other punctuation is available and might be easier on future editors. A colon (:) is acceptable; the pipe might be confusing since it's used in the citation template. I thought about a hyphen, but I'd rather reserve that for use in the key word. This means all the names would have to be changed, you realize; however, that's not such a big deal with search and replace. BBC|Drive-by would become BBC:Drive-by, for example. Thoughts?
    One last "picky" thing. When I customized the refToolbar tool for my own use, I added spaces before the pipes in the template. This allows for more line breaks and keeps the pipe with the parameter name, instead of having the pipe on the previous line and the paramater name on the following one. (Some users put the space between the pipe and the parameter name, which I think is confusing.) The standard tool doesn't add any spaces, so you often get citations that have a small amount of text on one line and then the long url or other parameter starting a second line. Just a heads up as to the way I do things, not necessarily the way they should be done.
    I have some time to work on the table now, so I hope you're still around and can get back to me on preferred punctuation. Thanks!—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 02:52, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
From an ease-of-editing standpoint, the best separator would be one that doesn't require Shift. (That's why I was using all lower case letters, although I can see the benefit of mixed case for readability, too.) That would eliminate the pipe character and narrow the list to the following: name=BBC,Drive-by, name=BBC-Drive-by, name=BBC.Drive-by, name=BBC;Drive-by, name=BBC[Drive-by, name=BBC]Drive-by, name=BBC`Drive-by. We could eliminate hyphen to reserve it for the keyword, and we could eliminate the last three because they're ugly and/or hard to find on the keyboard. That leaves comma, period, and semicolon, and I'd lean toward period.
As for the formatting of the ref parameters, I agree with you and will work toward that after we've completed the renaming, which is about all I can handle at one time. Mandruss (talk) 03:24, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The references have all been renamed using periods; the list is re-alphabetized; and I added some notes about using named references at the top of the article and notes about the reference "naming convention" at the beginning of the References section. I bowed to your preference for the period; I still prefer a colon, but it's a small matter, and I understand your reasoning behind the selection. In light of that, I took out the ".org" in the Hastags.org reference name to avoid any confusion; I hope you like my naming choices. Please feel free to change any names you care to; they're not written in stone, by any means! As for the parameter name spaces, I made those changes when I first started the clean-up; I changed the spacing of a new reference that had been added since then, so all the templates should be spaced "correctly". It occurred to me while I was creating the table for renaming that I am an authorized AutoWikiBrowser user; it made all the changes in two passes; much easier method. I will come back in the next few days and continue to review the citations and add archive information where possible. In this renaming, I found another error in one of the citations that was citing the Slate website but credited Salon in the citation. Oops! (Yet another good reason to re-visit each of the cited sites.) Thanks again for all your help; it's rare to find another editor who cares about this stuff as much as I do, but you seem to share many of my same concerns. Many, many thanks!—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 05:29, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

That was major fast; I blinked and you were done! Good catch on Slate/Salon.
I removed all the bullets/asterisks from the reflist. Until I read your comment in the reflist, I thought they were required. With the white space, they don't add any readability. It was really killing my eyes until I added the white space, possibly because I'm using different, less automated methods than you are.
I also did some miscellaneous corrections and updated the reflist comments.
it's rare to find another editor who cares about this stuff as much as I do You're right about that, we're a rare breed. In my case at least, I've long suspected the difference was because I'm somewhere on the autism spectrum (ADD?). This stuff matters to me more because I notice it more. Or, put differently, I seek neatness, organization, and simplicity because my poor ADD mind can't cope with much messiness, disorganization, and complexity. It's been both a blessing and a curse, depending on the situation. Mandruss (talk) 06:51, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
Excellent catches; sorry about the typos and failing to change the Author.Key to Source.Key with the Kindy references. I notice that you've eliminated hyphens and updated the comments in favor of CamelCase. I heartily approve; however, that raises the question of whether the separator in the reference name should be a period or a hyphen. For editing ease, the period is closer to home row for touch-typists; however, I think the hyphen is more readable. Your call; it's an easy thing to change them. As for the non-displaying bullets, I'm in the habit of putting asterisks before each reference listed because, invariably, some editor comes along and removes the extra line between references to "save space" and then you really can't tell where one ends and the next one begins. If that should happen, we can easily restore the asterisks. I definitely fall into the ADHD spectrum (formally diagnosed); I, too, notice inconsistencies and they drive me mad(der). I totally get both the blessing and the curse aspects. If you give any credence to astrology, I'm a Virgo with moon in Scorpio, which generally means I'm passionately anal-retentive!—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 07:59, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
I don't necessarily object to hyphen in the keyword, but I didn't feel that it was necessary in that case; CheckUp looks fine to me. Until someone comes across a case that justifies it, I'd rather leave it out of the comments.
Re hyphen as the separator: I think period is better. In DailyBeast-Princess, is that DailyBeast or Beast-Princess? DailyBeast.Princess avoids the potential visual ambiguity.
Re bullets: Yeah, but no matter what we do, the refs situation in the article will deteriorate over time, since the majority of people don't care, and won't care even if they happen to see and read the guidelines. It's simply easier to do things the way they always have; and, if it works, that's good enough. Then there are the folks who care but are unable to understand and follow even the clearest of instructions. So there will always be a certain amount of work for someone like us, anyway, and that could include putting white space back in where necessary. I have no problem serving that function as long as I actively edit here (no telling how long that will be, since some of these personalities seriously make me crazy).
Re astrology: Don't believe in it, but I was born on June 22, which I understand to be Cancer on the cusp of something or other. Mandruss (talk) 08:25, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Re colon as separator: On the one hand, colon requires that pesky Shift key. On the other, as you say, colon separates better than period. And the editor is already using Shift for some of the letters, so what's one more Shift press. I guess your case is stronger than mine and I wouldn't object if you changed to colon. I definitely like colon more than pipe. Mandruss (talk) 10:16, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Possible renaming plan

Here is a proposed list of renaming; the only ones that are critical are the ones that are duplicates and should be merged.

2014 IVK refs further reorg

I decided to start a new section; the previous one was getting too cumbersome to navigate. I'm fine with the periods, actually. While the colons might be slightly better visually in separating the elements of the reference name, I don't think it's enough of an improvement to expend the time changing them all.

I went through each citation in the article and found missing parameters in some; most notably |date=! I added blank parameters for archive information—|archive-url=, |archive-date=, and |deadurl= (which I pre-populated with "no"). I also inserted line breaks before each parameter in need of data to make them easier to find in the list. Once the data has been added, the line breaks may be removed; I've left a space at the end of each line so the spacing for the pipes in front of parameter names will be correct once the citation is "reassembled". I also ordered all the parameters the same way in each citation; the parameter order is illustrated in the blank template I put in the comments at the beginning of the section (in hopes that folks will use it if they're not using a tool to add references).

Since the references were renamed, the alpha order changed, so there are some citations that are completed in the midst of those that aren't. Others I completed because I was checking a spelling or url (one was very broken) and went ahead and filled in the missing data while I had the website called up. If you get a chance, please try to access the archive site for the SPLC citation: https://web.archive.org/web/20140525200801/http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2014/05/24/elliot-rodger-isla-vista-shooting-suspect-posted-racist-messages-on-misogynistic-website/ My internet connection has been quite dodgy during all this (which is quite frustrating); I could never get the page to load. If it's truly not available, I'll update the information in the citation. (I suspect there's something wonky about the original site; I just tried archiving it at WebCite.org, and can't get that one to load, either: http://www.webcitation.org/6Qid4lMfs.)

I'm beat; I will do more, but I need a break for quite a few hours. Carry on if you feel to; please keep me posted on progress if that's convenient; I can always check the page history if you don't have time to post here. Thanks again for all the help; hopefully I didn't make too many typos this time!—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 14:27, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

2014 Isla Vista killings

Ive gone ahead and filled in all of the cites that have archives. If you need more pages filled in let me know. Werieth (talk) 20:48, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, but many of your edits are unhelpful. Changing valid parameter names was unnecessary; template parameter names are being standardized to include hyphens, not remove them. (See Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 5#RFC: Citation Style 1 parameter naming convention.) If you read the previous discussion here, you will note that I use {{cite web}} for web-based sources and {{cite news}} for physical newspapers. You, therefore, undid edits that I had made previously. The dates you inserted for archive date need to match the style of all the other dates in the article; additionally, it is preferable to use the archived copy that is dated closest to the original source's publication date. You deleted spaces that were deliberately used to separate the citations in a consistent manner and added spaces that will also disrupt consistency. (I note that you did this in the article body as well; spaces before pipes are needed so that if the template is compressed to one line there are spaces between the parameters; there is no need for a space on either side of a pipe, only before it.)
Unfortunatley, the quickest "fix" for your changes is to undo them all. Please read the previous discussion before making any more edits to the references. Thank you.—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 21:12, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
As a general rule, imho, the accepted usage of anything should be what's in the help files, not what has been agreed to by a few experienced editors "behind closed doors" in RFC discussions, etc. The vast majority of editors know nothing of those discussions, and shouldn't be expected to go hunt them down to verify what's in the help files. I especially object to the use of a critical tone with an editor who went by what was in the help files. The "senior editor" community is way too lax in keeping help files current and complete. Mandruss (talk) 05:35, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Please be more specific about which edits were correct according to the help files. There is no documentation to support replacing valid, working parameter names with other versions of the parameter names. |archive-url= and |archive-date= are existing, valid parameters, unaffected by the RFC. They are listed with hyphens in the examples on the {{cite web}} page. If they were invalid and in need of changing, an error message would have appeared and the citation template would not have rendered. No error message was present and the templates rendered correctly. The help files don't support making unneeded corrections to articles; specifically, replacing valid parameter names, replacing {{cite web}} with {{cite news}}, or changing spacing that is part of an infobox's template. The editor also ignored the notes in the article itself about formatting; there was no need to access any other Wikipedia articles, policies, or essays. There is a very good reason for using {{cite web}} rather than {{cite news}} in distinguishing between online and hard-copy sources; the same can't be said for reversing the change. To illustrate, note that the end of articles on The New York Times website often will reference how the same article appeared in the print edition of the paper. The print version is usually a day later than the web version and sometimes has a different headline; the two are cited differently:
  • Web-based:
Medina, Jennifer (May 26, 2014). "Campus Killings Set Off Anguished Conversation About the Treatment of Women". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 27, 2014. Retrieved July 1, 2014. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  • Print-based:
Medina, Jennifer (May 27, 2014). "Campus Killings Set Off Anguished Conversation". The New York Times. p. A1.
It's possible that the editor felt the hyphenated parameter names wouldn't work in the {{cite news}} template; that documentation doesn't show the hyphenated versions. I am tasked with updating the documentation of the templates once the changes resulting from the RFC are made; one of the things I will specifically address that is sorely lacking in current documentation is parameter aliases. Absent that possibility, I find no support in existing documentation for the changes the editor made; which admonition was incorrect?—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 07:06, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
My comment was about the hyphenated archive parameters. Before writing it, I consulted WP:CITE, which refers to archivedate and archiveurl but not archive-date or archive-url. If the hyphenated form is now preferred, that needs to be reflected in all related help files. One shouldn't get different answers depending on which help file he happens to look at. Again, I wasn't privy to the RFC discussion until you linked to it above.
As for cite news vs. cite web for a news website, I haven't seen a help file that specifically says cite web is preferred for that case. I once posed the question in Teahouse and got opposing answers from two senior editors. If the choice is that clear to you, then you should seek consensus for changing the help files to reflect that. Until and unless the help files are changed, I'd certainly be very gentle with people who have the opposing opinion, maybe even deferring to them in some cases. More help file guidance will always mean more consistency and less opportunity for conflict and wasted effort. Mandruss (talk) 09:10, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Template:Cite book/testcases3

The memory error you're seeing on Template:Cite book/testcases3 isn't your fault, so you don't need to cut down anything on the page. The module's going into an infinite loop for some reason. I'm working on fixing it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 18:06, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Jackmcbarn Thanks! If it helps at all, articles seem to be functioning properly; all the templates on the Help talk:Citation Style 1 page show the Script error, but the Help:Citation Style 1 article does not. It seems to be limited to Talk pages and Sandboxes, if that makes any sense? Good luck, and thanks for your help!—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 18:11, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Actually, it turns out it was your fault, just not on that page. You forgot the #'s when you added the new formats. I've fixed it now though. Jackmcbarn (talk) 18:29, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Jackmcbarn My sincerest apologies! I'm sorry you had to do clean-up behind me; I really appreciate your help. Thanks so much!—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 22:29, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Bot rescue of orphaned ref from a different article

I noticed something odd that you might be able to explain to me. Yesterday evening, Libertarian12111971 copied some text from 2014 Isla Vista killings to Isla Vista, California. They brought with the text the ref tag, CNN.Rampage, but not the ref itself, thereby creating an orphaned ref in the target article. A couple of hours later, a bot came along and "rescued" the ref from the source article, adding it to the target article. How did the bot know where to look for the ref? Given that refnames don't have to be unique wiki-wide, how did it know it was actually the same ref? Mandruss (talk) 10:25, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm not omniscient; I had to go looking for an answer. According to the User:AnomieBOT page, it looks for orphaned reference names in previous article revisions and in linked articles. If it had not been in the linked article, I don't know what action the bot would have taken. Pretty clever, eh?—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 21:17, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
Don't be so modest, you're as close to omniscient as anybody around here. Yeah, pretty clever except for the fact that two refs with the same name aren't necessarily the same ref, even if in linked articles. I guess if it gets it right more often than wrong it's a net positive. It's a good thing to know, thanks for checking it out for me! Mandruss (talk) 02:35, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
Even I have lots to learn. Currently, I'm tackling the Lua scripting language ( ! ). If you want to see what lovely non-article-related projects I'm currently working on, visit User:D'Ranged 1/parameter naming sandbox and click on a few of the checkmarks. Then visit Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 5#Transcript parameter for cite podcast for my efforts to get the code to work the way it was intended to in one particular template. I'm learning that it's dangerous to make proposals around here; you wind up creating all sorts of work for yourself. On the other hand, hopefully when all is said and done the CS1 templates will be much more intuitive and consistent in use. Hopefully. Fervently wished, anyway.—D'Ranged 1 VTalk
Am I supposed to understand any of that? LOL. But as an ex-longtime software developer I can recognize and respect your systematic and organized approach to a project. Btw, somewhere I got the idea that there are full-time paid Wikipedia developers, is that correct? If so, where is the line between what they do and the kind of thing you're doing? Mandruss (talk) 03:49, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
I don't know where the demarcation point is for paid/volunteer efforts lies. I know that the Wikimedia Foundation has paid staff/developers, but I don't know that the English Wikipedia does. The core of the programming languages is maintained by Wikimedia, not Wikipedia. I think WP counts on the ingenuity of nerdy users to improve upon what they've imported from WM, but I can't be sure; I'm not all that concerned about it. I'm not looking for a job, lol! Enjoy your day.—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 15:28, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

<ref name=name />

Hi! As you probably know, no one has responded to our comments here. I'm considering pursuing it further, seeking consensus at Wikipedia:Citing sources for changing that on that page and all others that have the same problem (I've found a total of three pages). If there's still no response, or consensus were reached, I'd go ahead and make the changes myself.

However, I note that other doc pages show things that aren't required, such as a blank before each pipe character in usage examples at {{cite web}}. That seriously weakens the case for the changes, unless I could argue that the cite web thing is a different animal, one that actually has value in wikicode. Just wondering what you thought about it. Mandruss (talk) 13:50, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I plan to make some changes when I clean up the documentation for the CS1 templates after the new parameter aliases go live. There actually is a reason for a space before the pipe, but no reason for spaces after the pipe, nor for the space on either side of the equal sign, both of which are present in the vertical parameter lists. The space before the pipe offers additional opportunities for line breaks in the template text in editing view. If not present, the text only breaks at spaces between words; sometimes those are few and far between. Putting the space before the pipe, rather than after, avoids having the pipe at the end of one line and the next line beginning with the parameter name, which I think can be confusing for editors. A side benefit of adopting hyphenated parameter names as the naming convention is that they also provide additional line-break opportunities. Here's an example:
No spaces before pipes:
<ref name=200Rounds>{{cite web|title=Va. Tech gunman had 200 more rounds to fire|url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18789921/|publisher=MSNBC|agency=Associated Press|date=May 21, 2007|archive-date=November 4, 2012|archive-url=//web.archive.org/web/20121104083840/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18789921/|deadurl=yes}}</ref>
Space before pipes:
<ref name=200Rounds>{{cite web |title=Va. Tech gunman had 200 more rounds to fire |url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18789921/ |publisher=MSNBC |agency=Associated Press |date=May 21, 2007 |archive-date=November 4, 2012 |archive-url=//web.archive.org/web/20121104083840/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18789921/ |deadurl=yes}}</ref>
Note that the first example shows that the next opportunity for a line break after the one between the words "to" and "fire" would be between the words "Associated" and "Press". With the spaces, not only does the entire title fit on the first line, but also the entire url (in my browser, at least).
As for the space before the virgule in reference names; be bold and just go ahead and change the three pages you found. Since no one has responded to queries, making the edits is the surest way to spark a conversation, if any is required. I think seeking consensus in this instance is a waste of time. As you have pointed out, there is a lack of consistency between help documents on WP; someone pointing to the {{cite web}} documentation to bolster a claim for the space at LDR doesn't have much traction, either. Just my opinion.
I doubt anyone will revert you, but they might be standing on thin ice if they do—there's no reason for the spaces that I can think of; however, someone else may have more information. It's possible that this is a leftover from when a space was required in the <br/> tag. That was needed for older browser support; see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/462741/space-before-closing-slash/463692#463692. I just learned that the virgule isn't required in that tag; that's strictly an XHTML feature. WP uses HTML, which doesn't require it. I hardly think we need concern ourselves with coding to comply with IE 5 and Netscape 4.—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 18:06, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
I was already sold on the blank before the pipe. I thought you knew that, but I can see where my language would be misleading if you didn't. What I meant to say was that someone might claim that <ref name=name /> has value in wikicode too, so the cite web thing isn't "a different animal". And I thought you might know what that claimed value is. Or something. I tend to overthink sometimes. Moving right along...
It's interesting that you see the possibility of line-breaking a parameter name as a good thing. I would have thought a parameter name would be something you would always want to keep intact. If I see url=http://... at the start of a line, I'll have to look at the previous line to determine whether I'm looking at url or archive-url. Same for date=.
Ok, so I'll be bold. The three pages are: Help:Footnotes - Help:List-defined references - Wikipedia:Citing sources
Do you know of a page devoted to doc for the <ref> tag? Or any other places I should look?
By the way, how are you and that Lua chick hitting it off? Mandruss (talk) 03:20, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Unsigned comment on deletions at North Carolina

[Note: I added this section header; the poster didn't leave any information.]—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 17:24, 26 July 2014 (UTC) Do not change the story, when you know that the Spaniards 200 years toured the English east coast and all united states founding strong, villages, you gain nothing by changing not write good history falsehoods, read some history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Josetoom (talk • contribs) 23:49, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Virginia Tech massacre

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Virginia Tech massacre you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Scalhotrod -- Scalhotrod (talk) 16:41, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for helping the newcomers :)

Thank you very much for helping me in my edits and messages. Greatly appreciated!

JackGann (talk) 07:24, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

You're very welcome; I think some editors forget that none of us was born knowing this stuff. It's a constant learning process. Happy editing!—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 07:27, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

July 2014

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Ocey Snead genealogy

Are you also working on her genealogy at Familysearch, the Mormon website? If you register for free her record is at: https://familysearch.org/tree/#view=ancestor&person=LZZ7-M7C It could really use your help, I am migrating over the images, and linking the people to the documents. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:10, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

No, I'm not into the geneaology per se; I just re-formatted a bulleted list into a chart.—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 13:40, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Do you have a full date and place of death for Fletcher Wardlaw Snead. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:05, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Please indent your comments under the previous comment by adding an additional colon at the beginning of the line. A quick look at Ancestry.com shows he died in California after 1940; the 1955 date was already in the article. The photo is misnamed. I will check further.—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 15:11, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
According to a search at http://vitals.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ca/death/search.cgi, Fletcher Warlaw Snead died January 12, 1955, in Los Angeles, California.—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 15:28, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Ref naming convention

I'm a little over halfway through converting to LDR and our naming convention at Shooting of Michael Brown. I'm finding that, in developing news stories like this one, web news outlets often rewrite article titles after their initial release. I guess that's because the articles are being updated with new developments. Very often a keyword chosen from the original title doesn't exist at all in the current title. This makes the use of keywords from article titles problematic, and I'm wondering if our naming convention needs more thought. Any ideas?   Mandruss |talk  15:21, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh my

I'm sure you have your reasons. Wikipedia's loss. I'm going on a Wikibreak due to Wikistress. Pleasure knowing you for a short time. ‑‑Mandruss (talk) 21:28, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Snead genealogy at Familysearch

Do you have a free account at Familysearch? I added the Martin-Snead genealogy there. I am loading the documents there too. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:44, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Here is her profile there (you need to be registered to view): https://familysearch.org/tree/#view=ancestor&person=LZZ7-M7C&section=details

Your GA nomination of Virginia Tech massacre

The article Virginia Tech massacre you nominated as a good article has failed ; see Talk:Virginia Tech massacre for reasons why the nomination failed. If or when these points have been taken care of, you may apply for a new nomination of the article. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Scalhotrod -- Scalhotrod (talk) 12:02, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Virginia Tech shooting

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Virginia Tech shooting you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of SNUGGUMS -- SNUGGUMS (talk) 08:01, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Virginia Tech shooting

The article Virginia Tech shooting you nominated as a good article has failed ; see Talk:Virginia Tech shooting for reasons why the nomination failed. If or when these points have been taken care of, you may apply for a new nomination of the article. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of SNUGGUMS -- SNUGGUMS (talk) 18:25, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

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