User talk:Robchurch/June 2006

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Bot use request

I am looking for a bot that can fix lots of links...Eagle scout rank (Boy Scouts of America) became Eagle Scout rank (Boy Scouts of America) which became Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America). As a consequence, dozens, if not hundreds of pages have links which could go to the final name but don't. Any help would be appreciated. If you check these, you can see how many: Special:Whatlinkshere/Eagle scout rank (Boy Scouts of America) and here: Special:Whatlinkshere/Eagle Scout rank (Boy Scouts of America), you'll see there are many left. The first one is a double redirect now and the second a single, but I see no reason to leave a link that merely redirects. Any help would be appreciated. These links should all preferably go directly to Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America). Rlevse 16:28, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A haiku of thanks

Thanks for your support

In my RfA, which passed!

Wise I'll try to be.

Good reasoning, I hope that I can live up to it. :)

-- Nataly a 04:31, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Protection bug

Shortly after you logged off, I found the problem. When deleting and restoring pages, protection information is lost. See bug 6202. Ral315 (talk) 02:41, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your experience requested

Hi Rob, we need some informed opinion re the AOL issue on whether the Wiktionary solution is at all feasible on Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship. Thanks - Taxman ^Talk 16:50, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Idea for MediaWiki

Have you guys ever thought about making smilies for talk pages? So like, if I made a :), then MediaWiki could automatically detect that and turn it into one of those little smiley pics? That would be cool. Oh by the way I installed the software on my server and it runs perfectly. You guys did a good job with it. W IKIPEE DIO 02:33, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would be opposed to that on several levels. robchurch | talk 12:08, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nazi Vandalism

Sorry for having edited one of your comments but bad jokes and other nonsense about Hitler and the Nazis should never ever be seen on wikipedia (non-negotiable). There are German wikipedians even on this wikipedia (such as this one) and they would almost inveriably be deeply insulted by such remarks. Myrtone@Robchurch.com.au:-(

Would be nice if you'd tell me what comment, where, since I remember making no such comments lately. robchurch | talk 13:41, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If I were inclined to bet I'd say maybe it was the optional question about secret nazi space bases on some RfA or another (too lazy to dig up the ref) you made... but I think Myrtone has bigger issues to concern himself (like his obnoxious sig, or his "interesting" oppose reason on RfAs) than jawboning other editors about flippant comments. ++Lar: t/c 15:28, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, that. Well that's what we British call a joke, however, I'll go strike it through now and do the whole public apology thing again. robchurch | talk 16:37, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Na, don't bother. **I** thought it was funny. You should leave it. Going all soft and friendly now is just going to mess with your rep, man... ++Lar: t/c 17:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

bot flag request

Hi! Since you seams to have taken upon your self to look at the Bots/Requests_for_approvals backlog, can you have a look at my bot flag request, it have been very long time and no respons. When running monthly update runs I'm running it to fast for having no botflag. Stefan 02:41, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Inputbox

I saw that you mentioned something on the inputbox talk on meta quite a bit ago, and saw that you are a developer, so maybe you'd be able to answer the question I had there. Thanks! Chris M. 16:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't quite understand the question, to be honest. robchurch | talk 12:57, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For some reason when preloading a page, includeonly works as it should, but noinclude does not work as it should, as text is loaded with the other contents, and the <includeonly> tag is not loaded. Is that a bug with the inputbox, or with preload in general? Chris M. 16:49, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RfA/Gurch

Thanks for the support, not too sure about the question, though. (At least it wasn't a difficult one) – Gurch 17:12, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Tdxiang/Subject to Change

Hi Rob,

I recall you commented on this page on IRC a while back. Just thought you'd like to know I put it on MfD at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Tdxiang/Subject to Change. Cheers, Kimchi.sg 04:40, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BITED

Assuming no humourless bastard has deleted it before you get to see it, I thought you might be amused by this. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 11:32, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! :D robchurch | talk 11:52, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Demiurge and User:Ali-oops

Dear Rob:

The above users are harrassing me constantly. They seem to be engaging in a vendetta against another Wikipedian and are editing or deleting all my edits for no valid reason. User:Ali-oops who appears to be a friend of User:Demiurge sent me a nasty message calling me "Robert". Even if I weren't a woman I would be offended at someone intentionally calling me by someone else's name.

User:Bobcheezy (Member's Advocate) refuses to do anything more than tell me I am right and they are wrong. Meanwhile I have to redo my edits. Is this fair??!!

Is their behavior permitted on Wikipedia? If it is I am not sure I wish to be part of Wikipedia.

Here are some of the edits they have deleted for no valid reason:

Irish neutrality Winston Churchill Simon Towneley Peregrine Worsthorne Piaras Beaslaí (re Douglas Hyde)

Marylou 14:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please review my edit history for the day and judge accordingly. I've no problem seeing this go to arbitration - Ali-oops ^✍ 16:06, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Update

Please see the nasty message that User:Ali-oops left for me on my home page.

This is a copy of the message (professional, I thought) that I left him after he referred to me as "Robert":

Dear Sir:

My name is Marylou. If you ever address me as Robert again I will cite you for harrassment. Douglas Hyde was a Unionist -- check your history books. Just because he was an Irish language enthusiast does not change that and I will update his site to that effect if you have changed that important element.

Marylou 13:24, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Don't threaten me. And don't call me sir. Clear? Or do I have to cite you for harrassment? - Ali-oops✍ 13:37, 13 June 2006 (UTC) I even tried to compromise and have your edit to Piaras Béaslaí re-instated, but it's obviously not good enough for you. And you're starting a revert-war again. I think it's coming up time for WP:RCU - Ali-oops✍ 13:44, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Do I have to endure this from this pack?? Marylou 14:24, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Administrator_intervention_against_vandalism#User:Demiurge_and_User:Ali-oops for my answer - Ali-oops ^✍ 16:05, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to waste admin's time, but the above user should now subject to WP:RCU if they've nothing to hide. Note that their recent complaint to WP:AIV has not been upheld - Ali-oops ^✍ 16:12, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

- User:Demiurge initiated a CheckUser. Here's the prelim result [1] - Ali-oops ^✍ 22:02, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Image display issues

Hi,
Please take another look at WP:VPT#Image won't display. I'm having another, similar problem, and purging doesn't seem to fix it. --Smack (talk) 20:15, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of subpages

Hi Robchurch. Did you get a chance to run that query on the toolserver for the list of all subpages on Wikipedia (all namespaces)? There's no rush... I'm just anxious :). ~MDD 46 96 21:43, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The script's knocking about. I'm waiting on us having a non-corrupted data set that's replicated again. We're still discussing how to fix the recurring issue; something might get done soon. robchurch | talk 21:53, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A little help

Hi Rob. Brion has already been informed, but I thought I might ask you to look into it as well: Special:Renameuser has been inoperative since yesterday (14 June). We have tried at different hours to make sure it wasn't server load, but every time an error message is returned. We'd appreciate any help. Thanks, Redux 21:40, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hint. When including the words "an error message is returned", include also the text of the error. Since I can't reproduce this on the test Wikipedia, I need more details if I'm to help track it down. Like what kind of errors, at what stage, doing what. robchurch | talk 21:49, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, sorry, I forgot that this is a restricted tool. The interface is two windows, one for the old username and other for the new username. When we click on "Submit", the page should load a message confirming the change. Instead, it stalls for a while and then loads an error page, saying that the Wikimedia Servers are experiencing technical difficulties (except that everything else is fine) and the following error message:
Request: POST http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Renameuser, from 0.0.0.0 via srv10.wikimedia.org (squid/2.5.STABLE13) to 10.0.5.3 (10.0.5.3) Error: ERR_ZERO_SIZE_OBJECT, errno [No Error] at Thu, 15 Jun 2006 21:54:46 GMT

I hope that's it. Redux 21:59, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I know how the tool works, I just couldn't reproduce the problem on the test wiki. OK, now I need to know who was being renamed, and to what, and who was doing the renaming, and when. robchurch | talk 22:11, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In order to be able to copy and paste the error message here, I attempted a new rename, so the time stamp on the message above should be accurate for my last attempt — but that's just for this latest attempt, as I said, the tool stopped working on the 14th, as it was working normally until the 13th. In this last particular attempt, I tried to carry out one of the requests still open at WP:CHU, by trying to rename User:Eric2k to "Death+". That was also the rename I was attempting when I first noticed that the tool was not working, over a day ago, but during this time, I also tried to rename User: KellyKinsella to "MichellePollock" (another open request), and was equally unable. In addition, at my request Taxman also attempted a rename (I don't know which request he tried to fulfill) and did not succeed. Redux 03:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Rob. The tool seems to be working again. I don't know if it was you or Brion who fixed it, but thanks for everything — although I'm still hoping that it won't go offline again. Thanks, Redux 04:08, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RE: Unless someone here can show me a damn good reason to remove it

See Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Agateller

Not necessarily because Agateller would do anything bad as an admin, but because adminship should be worked for. Because giving adminship to anyone who would help Wikipedia with the admin tools dilutes the meaning of being an Administrator. Because those who view their adminship as a token of great gratitude from the community would feel let down. Adminship is kind of like the Purple Heart - it only means so much because it's given to so few.

I'm not an admin, so I can't say how true the last one is. But I think the first two are behind many people's instinctive need to judge RfA's by a criteria, be it 1000+ edits, a Featured Article, or whatever. I also realize that this flies in the face of the common "Adminship is no big deal" truism. But I think that, right or not, this rationale deserves to be looked at. Λυδ α cιτγ 00:51, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Adminship is no big deal
Giving admin tools to people who would help Wikipedia with them is exactly what we should be doing
Administrator status is not given as a reward for good editing and shouldn't be

I absolutely refuse to remove my support for that candidate based on those points. I'm sorry. You seem to completely misinterpret what administrator status is for. robchurch | talk 01:12, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You make valid points, and I'm not saying that your approach is in any way bad or wrong. I'm saying that you might want to take into consideration giving more weight to an adminship - that this might be even better. Think about the people who apply for adminship - for the most part, they're pretty dedicated Wikipedians, and have shown a willingness to work for us. Could we not harness that work ethic by asking that they put in a little more work before becoming admins? Would that not benefit the encyclopedia even more than giving them admin tools at the moment?

Before you toss me to the sharks, I'd like to disclaim that 1) I'm not fully convinced by my own argument, and 2) I'm not trying to get you to change your vote, I'm just giving you something to think about. I'm certainly learning from this, and I hope you will too. Λυδ α cιτγ 03:45, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Audacity: There's an admin mentorship program organised by Esperanza. Have you ever considered joining up? At worst you might learn more about how wikipedia works. :-) Kim Bruning 01:48, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but I think I'd prefer to explore by myself, at least for now. Λυδ α cιτγ 03:46, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wish you much luck on your explorations. I'd love to see you back on requests for adminship when you're done. :-) Kim Bruning 12:49, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you rob (and disagree with Audacity) but still worry about confering Admin status on people who have not demonstrated knowledge of Wikipedia process and policies. Unfortunately that generaly mean relying on edit counts because there is no way to test if a user has read and understood the policy/guideline pages. And, since there are lots of housekeeping tasks that you can do without an admins bucket, doing them before its given seems to me a good way of preparing for adminship. Not that I begrudge you your vote, editcountitis is evil and does unfairly limit the admin pool. Eluchil404 02:27, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Eluchil404. Adminship isn't a big deal, but you do need to prove yourself first. This candidates answer to question 1 didn't fit their experience. There is no evidence that they know how to do the things they said they want to do (ignoring the ones that don't require admin powers, which suggest either not reading the question carefully enough, or not knowing what the admin powers are). I must say I'm very pleased to see a candidate with less than 1000 edits that isn't getting piled on with "Oppose - too few edits". Most of the opposition votes are for valid reasons. --Tango 11:53, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

blocking policy proposal

Hi. I understand that you're working on WP:BPP. I'm periodically affected by my proxies (1, 2) getting blocked ([2][3]) - I hereby undertake to buy you a pint when BPP is implemented, and I can edit wikipedia when my proxies are soft-blocked. --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 19:59, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your facts are a little incorrect, but the basics are there. :) At some time during this July - August, I will be reviewing the blocking system and making improvements based on a number of notes I have compiled, gleaned in part from discussion with users and other developers. I am not obliged, nor have I promised, to follow the precise wording of WP:BPP and the final product, whatever I produce, might well deviate from it in terms of behaviour, although the fundamentals - allowing autoconfirmed users to edit from blocked IP addresses - will remain the same. robchurch | talk 11:34, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're wrong

You're wrong, you made some uncovered remarks and I tottaly disagree with you. --Brasoveanul

Oh, what a shame. robchurch | talk 12:10, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're just being rude. --Brasoveanul

No, I'm being blunt. Deal with it. robchurch | talk 12:25, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

CHU

Thanks for the note. I didn't know that there were more people to the Special:Listusers/developer. But it was just a prod for the user who wished to have his old username back. But I'm perplexed why I would say that a developer and a system administrator would be the same person. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 16:58, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The case in question was resolved earlier, as it happens. robchurch | talk 18:56, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Organic compounds database

Is it posible to create script that will use the values for the parameters of OrganicBox_complete to insert them into a database? This database will allow a new type of search for organic compounds articles (or their "data_page"s - we could make searches based on say molecular weight value/range, occurence of a particular structural element in the formula, pharmacological properties, etc.) and can also have an educational purpose when used to create quizes with a different level of dificulty. Please post your replay on WikiProject_Chemicals. -- Boris 06:05, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Broke the world

Sorry about the breaking of the world. Wish me luck, I hope I don't get in trouble --Steve-o 12:47, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You appear to have broken Wikipedia. There will be a small charge. robchurch | talk 13:12, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your attitude

I find several of the comments on Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal to be extremely poorly worded; the attitude conveyed by them is appalling. For a mediator, and someone who wishes to be part of Wikipedia's dispute resolution process, this is totally unacceptable behaviour. You're patronising and insulting other users. Please stop, calm down - and apologise to anyone you have behaved offensively towards. Thank you. robchurch | talk 23:51, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You aren't in med cabal
I've been tough on one member who I think is way out of line. We don't need our members shooting their mouth off about things they know nothing about
Who are you relative to mediation. You aren't on committee, you aren't on cabal. When have you been involved in this?

jbolden1517 ^Talk 02:54, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To address points one and three in a fell swoop; while I haven't been involved in mediation efforts for a considerable time, I don't think it's relevant at all. I don't need to be a mediator, cabalist, arbitrator or anything else in order to ask another user to calm down and tone down.

I observed, from reading the talk page, that you had made patronising comments to Nicholas Turnbull; your responses to several of your co-cabalists' points of view were less than desirable in nature - your argument is that they don't know anything about the issues involved. So explain it to them. Don't be downright rude about it; don't give them the cold shoulder - that's the wrong thing to do.

I must protest as to the terse and defensive nature of this response. You seem to have clammed up, which is not the desired effect. I observed something and fed back that observation, hoping it would be taken as constructive criticism. Please think again about how you're interacting with other users on Wikipedia, as it's sometimes borderline incivil and rude. robchurch | talk 03:10, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've just hit him much harder this time. You now have the context of my previous comment. The only other guy I'm rude to is a junior mediator that is rapidly becoming a problem. As for Cowman he is a co-leader and we are cutting a deal regarding policy. And no I don't feel bad that a guy with 12 days experience and 0 successful cases doesn't get equal say. Nicholas is a different story but you now see where I'm coming from on him. jbolden1517 ^Talk 03:26, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'll monitor here, lets stop going back and forth between pages

No, I don't "see where [you're] coming from" with respect to any of it. Furthermore, this edit worries me - you just up and blanked my perfectly reasonable request for an apology.

Rob you aren't a medcab member. And you sure aren't a part of medcab leadership. You have no idea what the issue being discussed is and you completely lack history on the issue. You shouldn't be posting to that discussion at all. That's a debate about what template format should be used.

Irrelevant. I wasn't posting on the issue, I was asking you to tone down.

Please don't do that in future, ever. Removing or messing about with other people's comments in discussions is plain wrong.

Don't post to closed conversations.

I'll post to what I like; there was no indicator that the discussion was closed. Furthermore, the comment given when removing it made no mention of closure, rather, it was "removing post from non-member." You do not own any page on Wikipedia; not in the article namespace, nor the project or user namespaces or any talk pages.

"I've just hit him much harder this time" - why? You have no right to be rude to any user of this web site, ever. I hope this is perfectly clear. There are plenty of wonderful project namespace pages dictating this, but let's try common sense first.

How exactly is it your business how medcab is run and when mediators get fired and for what?

It becomes anyone's business when you start treating it like a private cliqué, and when you start behaving unacceptably towards other users.

I'm still completely at a loss as to why your reactions are so defensive, and I'm starting to wonder how productive this discussion is. robchurch | talk 03:33, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why am I defensive. Read your original comment to me. You gave me a direct order, insulted my competency and assessed my actions as misbehavior. You better believe that doesn't start "a conversation" on friendly terms. You want to start over and have a conversation maybe something like "I thought your comments to Nicholas seemed a bit strong. Was there some reason you felt you needed to engage him in that tone?" And you do it privately so as it not to start a pissing match. jbolden1517 ^Talk 03:43, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion is becoming unproductive. I don't really have time to escalate it to dispute resolution, but if I have to, I will - and the code I'm writing will have to wait. robchurch | talk 14:44, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

IRC

hi there - why can't I get into IRc for #wikipedia and #wikipedia-en. Looks like I have been banned.Blnguyen | rant-line 01:07, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies; it was a misunderstanding. robchurch | talk 14:03, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Optional language selector links for user login/registration forms"

Hey Rob, I saw this mentioned in the latest Signpost. At the moment on Commons we're using a template thing we hacked up. How can we go about getting the mulitlingual options installed there? Should I open a bug request?

cheers, pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:53, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Contact a Wikimedia system administrator to have the option switched on. robchurch | talk 14:03, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Question

Hey Rob, I'm getting a completely different format. Do you know why? The Grasslands

This is the format I am getting. GrasslandT

Do you know why? GrasslandT

I'm not quite sure what you're referring to. Could you have changed your skin? Does accessing //en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Robchurch/June_2006&useskin=monobook "fix" the problem? I'm afraid the pasted page doesn't convey your meaning well either. robchurch | talk 08:37, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How do you change your skin? Yeah...the pasted page didn't help. GrasslandT 16:14, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First of all Robchurch why I sent you the message in the first place is, I changed the skin. But what is the normal skin of Wikipedia? I still have no clue what the top says. First the big Wikipedia ball is covering GrasslandT then it says something I don't know, when I click on it, it's not even my talk page. GrasslandT

Trifecta? What trifecta?

Thank you very much for your support on my recent RfA, which I'm quite happy to announce has passed with a consensus of 67 supporting, 0 opposed and 0 neutral. I'm glad you took the time to consider my candidacy, and I'll be working hard to justify the vote of confidence you've placed in me. Let me know at my talk page if I can help you with any admin-related tasks (not that you would need help), or simply if you have any comments on my performance as an admin. Thanks! TheProject 23:16, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]