User talk:Tim Starling/Archive 7

WikiDB great idea

Hi Tim,

I was super excited to see your recent post on wikipedia-l about considering coding a wikidb capacity. I've been searching for that feature for a long time. Mediawiki has been a great help in organizing and maintaining institutional memory for some groups that I am a member of. It's great, but I have long wanted a better, wiki way to organize structured data.

Lunchboxhero 19:43, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)

Password

Hi Tim. What is the SQL query to find out users who share the same password? Mintguy (T) 07:57, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Mintguy (T)

Ah.. I see querries are not currently available. Mintguy (T)

Reciprocal System of Theory

(William M. Connolley 10:59, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)) Hello. Having come across Reciprocal System of Theory (ominously in removing a link Reddi added on the gravity page) I am inclined to list it on VfD or just possibly revert to a much earlier version, perhaps [1]. I see it was VfD listed and unlisted (in aug 2002) but don't know what happened then.

But I would be interested in your opinion first, since you have extensively worked on and commented on it.

(William M. Connolley 13:22, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)) OK, thanks: its now listed.

Hi Tim.

For http://wikimedia.org/wiki/How_you_can_help, I would like that we find the information about Major Donations. Among the major ones were recently servers. Could you summarize this (who gave them, how many, and if they gave publicly ... their name). Thanks :-) SweetLittleFluffyThing

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Indonesian Wikipedia

Hi Tim, I see that you are also a sysop on the Indonesian Wikipedia as well as a developer. Can you please help us installing the new translations and the new logo of the Indonesian Wikipedia? The current ones are actually Malay ones.

These are the locations for the Indonesian language file:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LanguageId.php The logo should read: "Ensiklopedia Bebas"

Thanks in anticipation! (Please reply to my Indonesian Wikipedia userpage). Meursault2004 12:19, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Fire / Ronny

Why has Fire/Ronny had his shell access denied? When was this decision made, and by whom? - Mark 13:49, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There were two reasons: firstly because it was granted mistakenly, due to a misunderstanding between Jimbo and Jason. Secondly, it was granted (and extended to wikidev group access) without consultation with the existing developers. The decision was made on August 10. IIRC the decision was made by JamesDay, Jeronim, Brion and myself. It was unanimous. -- Tim Starling 00:29, Sep 6, 2004 (UTC)

The discussion lasted some two hours, to be sure that all angles were considered. I expect we all regret that it hurt Fire, but miscommunication isn't a sufficient reason for shell access. Jamesday 08:00, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Links to User:

Hi, thanks for User:Tim_Starling/Redirects_from_:_to_User:. I thought I might ditch a bunch of them, ones that refer to ordinary people. Does that sound OK to you? Noel 15:06, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's not really my decision. List them on VFD under a single entry and see what everyone thinks. -- Tim Starling 07:21, Sep 6, 2004 (UTC)

Deleting user subpages

Tim

Please see my response at Wikipedia talk:Deletion of user subpages#Voting is bad.

I'd appreciate some advice as to what you consider a suitable timescale, and I'm waiting for your reply before doing anything else. Andrewa 03:55, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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Spam filter on et:

Hi Tim,

I don't know where to complain. On et: it is impossible to edit the page et:Vikipeedia:Üldine arutelu. An announcement on a spam filter appears. I don't understand this and don-t know what to do. Recently something similar appeared on et:Mongoolia. Can I read somewhere about spam filters on Wikipedia? Please look at it or tell someone who could do it.

Thank you. Andres 17:37, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This is fixed now. You should get a more informative error message if it happens in the future. -- Tim Starling 01:45, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you Tim. Andres 06:09, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

WikiQuote Logo

Hello Tim,

I put this in Nanobug's and Kalki's talk page, but I thought I'd messge you too, as you are also an admin.

Just noticing that the logo is not transparent, and I can provide a transparent one if you like so that it sits better with the page. If there are any other little tidbits that I can do to improve it, let me know. You might also want to suggest updating the logo on the wikimedia.org site. It still is the old disproportionate arcs logo. ([2])

Transparent PNG logo: q:Image:Ncwikiquote2trans.png

I darkened the text a little so it would stand out more against a non-white background.

Cheers,

Neolux 06:18, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I had meant to reply earlier to Neolux, but got caught up with other things. I simply didn't know if I could change the logo, and I don't know how to do so at any rate. The transparent design is certainly okay with me. Also User:Shallot / User:Joy at Wikiquote had asked for a name change, and I thought that simply moving the User pages would work, but someone has informed me that it wouldn't, and a developer with acess to the shell needs to do it. Could you handle that matter? Thanks for all the work with the software around here, and I hope I didn't complicate things too much with my attempt at moving User:Shallot to User:Joy. ~ Kalki 23:28, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for adjusting the logo. The transparent version does look much better. ~ Kalki 18:46, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

Fundraising message

Hi Tim, please set the default sitenotice to <div name="fundraising" id="fundraising" align="center">'''Wikimedia Fundraising Drive'''. Help us raise $50,000. See [http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/fundraising our fundraising page] for details.<br /> [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_site_notice Information on this message] - [{{SERVER}}{{localurl:MediaWiki:Sitenotice|action=edit}} Edit this message]</div>

Thank you. Angela. 16:43, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia Logo

Hey Tim, can you install this wikipedia logo on the faroese wikipedia. I am a sysop at the faroese wikipedia, and have protected the image to prevent vandalism. Quackor 15:51, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Done -- Tim Starling 16:09, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Help need on technical question of database/server load

There's a discussion across Template talk:imdb name and Template talk:imdb title about whether it would be appropriate to add an internal link to IMDb to each template, causing each article containing either one to link thereto. Apparently some people think this might impose an impossible load on the links table, or maybe on the server. I reckon that the system could easily cope. Could you please drop an informed opinion into the conversation—either to reassure the nervous that I'm not talking cobblers, or to tell me that I am talking cobblers (I won't mind honest :-)—or if necessary point me to a more appropriate expert. --Phil | Talk 07:58, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Thanx, that seems to have done the trick. --Phil | Talk 08:11, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

Issues with enrc.wikipedia

Hey Tim, has anyone been talking about #enrc.wikipedia and the bot in there? I know when I first joined back in March it would flood out maybe once or twice a day, but now it's a dozen or more times an hour. Any potential solutions (adding another bot, getting IRCops to tweak some parameters, etc.) being discussed? CryptoDerk 22:05, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Data Management Wiki Committee

Thank you for your contribution to one, or more, articles that are now organized under Data management.

Because of your previous intrest, you are recieving an invitation to become a founding member of the Data Management Wiki Committee.

The members, of course, will form and solidify the purpose, rules, officers, etc. but my idea (to kick things off) is to establish a group of us who will take responsiblity to see that the ideas of Data management are promoted and well represented in Wikipedia articles.

If you are willing to join the committee, please go to Category_talk:Data_management and indicate your acceptance of this invitation by placing your three tilde characters in the list.

KeyStroke 01:26, 2004 Sep 25 (UTC)

LanguageFo.php

Hey Tim, can you install this wikipedia LanguageFo.php file on the faroese wikipedia. I am a sysop at the faroese wikipedia. Quackor 09:42, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Done -- Tim Starling 16:18, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

WikiSource interlanguage for German and Spanish version

User:Kaiser Bob from WikiSource requested de.wikisource.org about 3 weeks ago. See [3] and [4]. Any chance this could be done already?

And, any chance that es.wikisource.org be set up for the Spanish Wikisource? User:Eclecticology and myself could be set up as admins there. My username on WikiSource is User:Maio.

—Joseph | Talk 20:03, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

There was no clear consensus in favour of this action. Although there is a consensus among the people who wish to start the wiki, it has always been the wider community who decide if a new wiki should be created. Accordingly, I've created a vote on the proposal at Wikisource:Wikisource:Scriptorium/Language domain proposal. I suspect there were more people supporting the proposal than opposing it, but it's best to make sure. I'm not in a position to make these kinds of decisions. -- Tim Starling 09:17, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

The voting is over since more than a week now. There is no clear result: There are more votes supporting the language domains (22:13), but it seems that (on both sides) some people voted more than once. And most of the active people are against language domains. But what does this mean? People, who are not satisfied with Wikisource the way it is now, certainly aren't active there, and people who are contributing, do so, because there are satisfied with Wikisource as it is now.

Could the decision be moved to a kind of higher level? Are there some "bosses" at international Wikipedia, or anything else, who could decide? Or should the voting last until there is a clear majority? 80.133.87.121 14:56, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You make really funny decisions. Because of this who speak English are against splitting and are distributing, the not englisch speaking are closed out. Sorry, but this is without any sense. Make a voting with not english-Speaking editors and you get 100% pro de.wikisource.org. Why there wasn't votings for de.wikipedia.org and de.wiktionary.org, ...???? I beg for setting up de.wikisource.org or making the www.wikisource.org -User-Interface (Menus, Discussion) only in German and then start a new voting!! Otherwise there is shown another time the american ignorance on other languages. --80.128.40.37 17:23, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Jamesday, Dovi, Maoi, Phil Boswell and CdaMVvWgS all voted in favour of splitting, and they all speak English. Yann, Shin-改, Khzr, Shizhao, Suisui and Christian S all contribute either very rarely to the English projects, or not at all, and they all voted in favour of staying together. So I fail to see how this is an English versus non-English thing. -- Tim Starling 00:08, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

Na und, was sagt das? Wenn das Interface und die Diskussionen in Deutsch ablaufen würden, dann wären es vielleicht 20 für den Split und nur wenige dagegen. Ihr schließt ja die nicht englischsprachigen schon von vornherein aus. Frag erst mal Chinesen, Franzosen oder Russen, die kein Englisch können? Wieviel Editoren dieser Art gibt es denn in Wikisource? Ich schätze, keinen einzigen.

Oh come on, you're claiming that just because I can only speak English, I'm excluding the non-English speaking people? The proposal was translated into German, and the vote itself was translated into German, French, Japanese and Dutch. There was some discussion in German, conducted between the 25th and 27th of October. It was the responsibility of bilingual people like yourself to translate the discussion. I don't have translators on staff. Of course, you can also use a machine translator, like I'm doing now. -- Tim Starling 00:00, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

If you can't read the text above it's your problem. It's same problem for non-englisch-speaking people in Wikisource. That's what I mean with english-speaking ignorance. You don't want recognize, that there are many people (for example in de.wikipedia.org) which can't talk in English or even read English. How many editors you think are in wikisource, who can't even read Englisch: exact none!! So they couldn't vote! And even, if they vote (because one of us sent them the link), they wasn't counted by you, because they didn't make a distribution. Sorry, that's not the way, I understand wikimedia: as an open and free for all system. --80.128.41.213 17:17, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You have to argue on their behalf, it's your job to convince the regulars on Wikisource that there are a significant number of non-English-speaking people who are put off by the English interface. As someone who has contributed to a number of discussions on non-English wikis, I fail to see how a non-English interface is that much of a problem. After all, the wikisource main page is language-neutral, allowing non-English speakers to easily get their bearings. I didn't lay down any rules preventing discussion in other languages. If the anonymous people who voted gave their names and explained that they wished to contribute to Wikisource only if the interface was in their language, then perhaps it would have been a different story. But without an explanation, I could only apply the standard voting rules. There's no reason democracy can't enforce the rights of people who can't vote, it just requires sympathy. -- Tim Starling 00:00, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

Anglo-Saxon Wikipedia

Hey Tim...I've put a languageang.php file up, and the wiki wouldn't require any interface customizations. I'm now able to contribute to the wiki more now that I've completed moving.

[User:JamesR1701E]

I said on the list "I'll happily create any wiki if the potential contributors agree in advance to use a language file which is already mature." [5] I'm not going to install a new language file for Anglo Saxon. I'll add ang to the language list though. -- Tim Starling 08:13, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

How to install EasyTimeline in an own MediaWiki project?

Hello Tim!
Erik Zachte referred to your person, since you know much more about the MediaWiki setup:
I am running my own MediaWiki project (inspired by the Wikipedia) and I like the graphs, generated by Erik's tool "Easy Timeline" very much. I would like to have it included into my wiki, too (like in Wikipedia), but I can't find any documentations about it. I've looked at SourceForge and found the content of the folder wikipedia/extensions/timeline. Since I am not the "expert admin" (I am happy when I can install/modify some scripts at my website without errors *g*) I have some - I think easy (for you) - questions:

1. If I want to use EasyTimeline in my wiki project I have to upload the extensions/timeline-folder?
2. Do the scripts need special rights by using chmod (p.e. "chmod 755 EasyTimeline.pl").
3. As far as I understood the source code the tool "ploticus" must be installed locally at the server (like per example Perl has to be installed on a server). Am I right? (because if this is true I will have to contact my administrator, since I don't have the "pure" control of the server)

Perhaps you can answer here or on my German talk page...
Yours, --Erlando 18:23, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You need to move the timeline directory into the extension directory of your wiki, and then load it by including the file from your LocalSettings.php, e.g.

require_once("$IP/extensions/timeline/Timeline.php");

You don't need to set the execute bit on anything. Ploticus must be installed, you can set the location of the binary by putting a line like this after the require_once:

$wgTimelineSettings->ploticusCommand = "/usr/local/bin/pl";

Tell me if you have any problems -- Tim Starling 07:54, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

Okay, thanks... I will ask my admin to get ploticus installed on the server... and then I'll see. ;) --Erlando 17:36, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Problems with irritating logout and monobook-skin

Hi Tim, several users of the german Wikipedia have problems with irritating logout and monobook-skin. Instead of the fact that we´re all log-in, after a few minutes, especially in the moment, when we´ve been editing some article or jumping to annother item, the wikipedia smashes us out of "the race". So we also have to log in. (Special operative bullshit) A minor problem is that monobook-skin shows "kleinschreibung": for example "einstellungen" instead of "Einstellungen". We think that monobook is however very buggy. Do you have any solutions for this problems? Please look also on de:Wikipedia:Ich_brauche_Hilfe#Wikipedia = lahmarschig und unzuverlässig - de:Wikipedia:Ich_brauche_Hilfe#Rechner_langsam. My own Browser is Mozilla 1.7 and works with DSL. Local Cookies are allowed... CU --Herrick

Stolen Username

Hi Tim, I've left a message at m:Non-development_tasks_for_developers#Stolen_username for a developer but Angela told me it might just be quicker to message you directly. I'm not too fussed about losing the edits already at that username in meta, are you able to just email me the password for it so that I can take that username over? Cheers. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 19:59, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Suggestion I posted on the Village pump

There was a discussion about spelling and punctuation AE vs. BE etc.. on the village pump. I put forward the following suggestion. Tell me what you think.

This whole AE/BE preference problem is something that has probably got up the nose of very many Wikipedians over there years. I'm certainly one of them. I have a proposal for a relatively simple software solution that may be useful in other areas too. Some time ago we managed to kill off the debate about whether to use [[DD Month]] [[YYYY] or [[Month DD]], YYYY by implementing a system whereby wikified dates appear in one or other format depending on what the user has selected in their preferences. This works great but it only works for wikified dates. My solution world also work for unwikified dates. If we had a BE/AE option in preferences we could then have the flag checked when an article is displayed. Problematic words or phrases could be tagged e.g. "... he came to her {[defense/defence]} as soon as he could and ..." - and the appropriate word could be chosen as required. Mintguy (T) 14:15, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've copied this to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Queen's v American English. If i'm wrong in thinking Tim knows that most people will consider this a policy question, and that plenty of them will consider it as terrible an idea as i, no doubt he'll say so. --Jerzy(t) 01:46, 2004 Oct 27 (UTC)

It was suggested on a mailing list that we could use Zhengzhu's SC <-> TC translation software to convert between British and American English, but I think most people who commented on it were opposed. -- Tim Starling 01:59, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

I posted this comment here, because I wanted to get Tim's views on the feasability. I was not suggesting the Tim just go ahead and implement it without it being put forward to the community. This software flag option could be used to display pages the way the reader wishes to view them for other differences aswell as AE/BE. Metric and Imperial or US units for example. Mintguy (T) 09:00, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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hi tim. Xtra 11:38, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Help!

Hi there, Tim. I know you're a developer, and you've helped me in the past, so I figured you were the best person to turn to. Special:Undelete/Wikipedia shows that I have deleted the page (which I do not believe I have), and it says "00:24, 30 Oct 2004 Frazzydee deleted "Minisink Middle School"...", which is obviously something that should be fixed. I asked Grunt to go to that page, and he got the same results, so it's definately not a caching problem on my end. Thanks! -Frazzydee|✍ 00:39, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It no longer shows my name, but somebody else's. The problem is still there ("...Wile E. Heresiarch deleted "The Quartermaines"...". -Frazzydee|✍ 05:24, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Never mind...JamesDay has informed me that the delete/undelete code is going through a major rewrite, so it might get fixed. -Frazzydee|✍ 05:50, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Link table corruption?

Hi Tim. Has the link table corruption problem been fixed? Following the proposal at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day, Template:Pic of the day now uses {{Wikipedia:Picture of the day/{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}_{{CURRENTDAY}},_{{CURRENTYEAR}}}}. Is this going to cause any problems? Angela. 02:25, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

Lost password

Hi, Tim!

My nickname is DIG. I am a contributor for some number of wiki-projects. Recently I've lost my password for FR wikipedia, and I am trying to recover it. I've tried to do it through "Creer un compte ou se connecter" without success: apparently, the address that I gave at the registration either not valid anymore, or I did not give any e-mail address at all. What kind of options do I have? I also have some contribution under the nickname DiG (at FR wikipedia), which I registered in a meantime. I do not mind to loose it, if I can recover my old nickname, but I would like to save some information.
Thank you in advance,
--DIG 08:20, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC) (I check more often my RU-account DIG (ru))

Thank you very much, Tim! It worked. --DIG 09:43, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Rampages and chunked history

The recent vandalism spree by some random p'tak have lost about three months of my talk history and a couple weeks or so from my user page. User and talk Tracing through all the redirects got me nowhere. Its not a big deal about my personal talk history, but Im more concerned that page moves be limited somehow. The sysop pool might be too small, but in anycase this problem has been known for a while, and Im sure youve thought long about how to deal with it. Gday -SV 23:37, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

We can restrict the move page function to users who have been around for a while, that's what we did with Wik. We switched it off after he left. If you want it on permanently, I suggest you argue your case with the rest of the community. I'd prefer to just make it easier to undo page moves, but such a feature hasn't been written yet. -- Tim Starling 07:39, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Arbitration elections

It has been suggested that it might be a good idea to use the Condorcet method for voting; would it be possible to modify the Special:Boardvote software for this, and if so, in the next week or so? Jimbo suggested that it could be linked in to use a GPL module or something...
Yours,
James F. (talk) 16:00, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, that should be possible. -- Tim Starling 07:30, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Test images

Do you still need these, or can I delete them? Image:Tstest.png and Image:Tstest2.png – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 21:08, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Don't do it! They're the only thing that is keeping the wiki running! If you delete them, the wiki will implode, creating a black hole in Tampa, Florida. The entire Earth will be sucked into it! -- Tim Starling 23:37, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Um, I see. Well. Looks like I'll be taking over the world then. – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 01:05, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

TLA

What's 'silly' about describing AES, a TLA, as a TLA? Seems appropriate to me. In any case, I copied the usage from the TLA page PAL. -- Jpotherington, 18 Nov 2004

Template:Quantum computing

Why did you remove the underscores from the QC template? I inserted them to stop the phrase breaking across two lines, which it does on the screen resolution. that I use. Noisy | Talk 09:23, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing

I was looking at the U.S. city and county articles and noticed that you've made some number of changes. I've chosen to multi-license all of the rambot contributions under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License so that other projects, such as WikiTravel, can use our articles. I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all your contributions (or at minimum those on the geographic articles) so that we can keep most of the articles available under the multi-license. Many users use the {{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}} template (or even {{MultiLicensePD}} for public domain) on their user page, but there are other templates for other options at Template messages/User namespace. If you only prefer using the GFDL, I understand, but I thought I'd at least ask, just in case. If you do want to do it, simply just copy and paste one of the above two templates into your user page and it will allow us to track those users who have done it. For example:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. State]] article as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain (which many people do or don't like to do, see Wikipedia:Multi-licensing), you could replace {{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}} with {{MultiLicensePD}}

I've read the essay on your user page dealing with copyright and free software. You rarely release things into the public domain, but I have some questions about the User:Template namespace initialisation script. Did you write and run it? If so, would you consent to licensing its changes into the public domain or at least in the CC. It's had its hands in a wide swath of the U.S. city/county articles and so causes a widespread problem for dual-licensing. And the changes it made are relatively minor (I think). -- Ram-Man 14:09, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Trying to create an account on de:

Tim, I was trying to create an account on de: with my username, but got back the message that the user name "Lupo" was already taken. However, I cannot find any such user on de:. Just trying to log in without creating a new account tells me that the password was wrong. Could you please check whether there is indeed already such a user on de:, and if not, tell me what to do to be able to create that accout? Thank you. Lupo 10:03, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC) (P.S.: Cookies are enabled. The only usernames using the string "Lupo" on de: that I can find are de:Benutzer:NeroLupo, de:Benutzer:LupoW, de:Benutzer:Bluelupo, and de:Benutzer:Lupo6. Lupo)

There's a Lupo, s/he just doesn't have any contributions. Note the contributions (benutzerbeiträge) link on de:Benutzer:Lupo, missing on de:Benutzer:Askjgshdge -- Tim Starling 10:45, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer. I had missed that. Lupo 11:21, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Re: email

Thanks for catching that, my email setup was a bit broken. I did get the email, and hopefully the reply I sent to you managed to get out OK. Shane King 06:22, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

Sockpuppet check request

Would you run a check to see if User:Hilary_Duff, User:JGal2004 and User:Mike Garcia are editing from the same IP address? Is there somewhere else I should request this? Thanks. JesseW 13:33, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

voting software

Hi Tim,

I don't know how easy python and php are to interface, but Jeff O'Neill has coded a pretty good STV module in python:

http://stv.sourceforge.net

It handles the many different types of rules regarding transfers and generates quality output so people know exactly what's going on. It might be useful for using or emulating. Released GPL.

DanKeshet 22:40, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip Dan, that will make my life easier. -- Tim Starling 00:05, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC)

Interwiki link question

Hi Tim,

Would you happen to know how to form an image link to images which only appear in en.wikipedia and not in the Commons, within articles in other spaces?

I am trying to link to an image on Wikipedia from an article in the Wikinews space, and all my guesses at the prefix/suffix qualifier have been incorrect.

I went through the picture tutorial and it seemed focused on how to link to pictures in other spaces from within Wikipedia, but not the other way around.

(I can't use an external link as a workaround, because those appear to be disabled.)

I'll keep this page on my watch list in case it is more convenient for you to reply here.

Thanks.

--DV 13:31, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You can't. You just have to copy the image to Commons.

(P.S.: Do you have a favorite PHP book that you can recommend? I write in C++ at my day job, and I'm finding the differences significant enough that I probably need a book or two to learn PHP efficiently.)

I just learnt using the manual. Experience with Perl helped. Make sure you learn the behaviour of the == operator and conversion to boolean by rote, that's what I found most difficult. There's lots of books around, but I can't vouch for any of them. -- Tim Starling 00:05, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for those tips.

I hope that everyone at this site appreciates the value of the contributions of you and the other developers.

Although I appreciate the online docs, I prefer paper documentation, so I decided to pick up the 2nd Edition of the O'Reilly book, "Web Database Applications with PHP and MySQL", which covers PHP 5 and MySQL 4.1 (the Platypus book). While I was in the bookstore, I noticed O'Reilly also had books on Apache 2 and Cascading Style Sheets 2 and 2.1, (the White Horse and Fish books), so I picked up those as well.

I've been writing C/C++ for just over twenty years, and it's time for me to learn something new. Seems like it might be a good idea to get up to speed on developing software for this internet thing, as it appears that it's not going to be a passing fad after all. :)

Thanks again for your kind assistance. I hope more users see fit to contribute to your "food on the table" fund.

--DV 15:11, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Nauruan Interwiki link name

Hi Tim,

maybe you know the Nauruan language or the Nauruan Wikipedia. There used to be false interwiki link names for it. For example, "Nauruose" was a false name for the word "Nauruan" in Nauruan language. Currently, there's another false name for it, "Nauri". But since I've got a very rare grammar about the Nauruan language, I know now the real and only correct name. It is "Ekakair~u Naoero". If it's possible, could you please change the false name "Nauri" to the correct name "Ekakair~u Naoero" ?? Thank you very much for your help. Best wishes -- CdaMVvWgS 16:43, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

PS It seems that English Wikipedia can't read the letter U with a tilde (N with tilde = ñ) because it declares it as a "bad title". The German Wikipedia doesn't do so. Please check out the last letter in this template. Thank you and best wishes -- CdaMVvWgS 16:43, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

OK I'll change it. You can't have ũ in titles on en because it's ISO 8859-1. However you can have it in text using the character entity &#361;. Most browsers will convert to a character entity if you type the character itself. -- Tim Starling 00:05, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you very for your assistance. Now it's definitely correct :D I'll be back soon with a logo to be installed in the Nauruan Wikipedia. Greetings -- CdaMVvWgS 19:00, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Inorganic chemical substances

Tim,

I am a chem professor working in the USA, I recently started making contributions to Wikipedia, such as cerium(III) chloride. I'm interested in sorting out a system for chemical substances, and inorganics seem like a good starting point (even though I'm an organic chemist, I use a lot of inorganics). I like your template for these, at User:Tim_Starling/Inorganic_compound_project and I'd like to work with you & others on refining it if possible. I notice that someone has used this or a similar template over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals under the Format/Expand section, I suspect this has been borrowed from you. Can we recruit you for this project? I'm very much a newbie, so I recognise that I have a lot to learn.

Thanks, Walkerma 22:32, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

portals voor NL en BE

Hallo,

I've tried to copy the portal at http://www.wikipedia.ch for NL and BE. I had to learn about css and JavaScript in the process, but I think the versions at http://members.home.nl/p.h.vd.muijzenberg/wikipedia/portal all work now. I've tried to make the pages as general as possible, so they could easily be adapted for another country. One thing though: I had to use http://portal.wikipedia.be for a URL that pointed to Wikipedia portal with all the languages. Whom do I contact to ask for an international solution for that - a http://wikipedia.wikimedia.org or similar? nl:gebruiker:Mysha 13:42, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

More election issues

When you have a moment, would you be able to take a look at Special:ArbComVote/list? My impression from scanning it is that I see a suspiciously large number of voters who have had accounts for somewhat over 90 days but have accumulated very few edits (for simplicity's sake, I'm inclined to focus on those with fewer than 100 edits). Unfortunately, since the current voter list appears to have replaced the list from the last election, I'm unable to determine how this compares to last time.

A few of these I can recognize as people who mostly contribute on some other language, which is fine. Nor do I have a problem with less-active editors voting, but I don't think all of these fall into that category. I could put a name to these suspicions, but that might be a little premature. However, since you have more technical capability to investigate this, I wanted to find out what your take is on the situation. --Michael Snow 00:18, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Socketpuppets

Hi Tim, I e-mailed you recently with a query about sockpuppets, but didn't hear back from you, so I was wondering whether you received it. If not, is there an e-mail address I can reach you on? Many thanks, Slim 09:24, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

Can you do a sock check on user "Cribcage"? Contribs show (practically) nothing but votes, for a very long time. -- Netoholic @ 22:58, 2004 Dec 9 (UTC)

You can see on Special:ArbComVote/list that Cribcage's vote is already crossed out. Danny and I already noticed it. The voting software has a kind of sock puppet checking built-in. -- Tim Starling 23:05, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

Sock puppets

Hi, could you possibly take a look at this and see whether you think these are sock puppets? If so, could you consider banning them for vandalism (and the use of sock puppets), so that, by use of the autoblocking, it becomes possible to work out who they really are?

• John johnson (IP), John johnson (2nd IP) contributions for 1st IP contributions for 2nd IP (only contributions are against me)
• User:148.136.141.172 contributions harrassment

[6] (note the phrase "cheesecake"), [7] (warning - this is an extremely large (but rather repetative) edit of over 1MB in length - some browsers, and computers, may have significant problems viewing it)

• User:Baffinisland contributions harrassment [8] (note the similarilty to the first at the previous IP address user)
• Nasse/Piglet contributions harrassment [9], [10], [11], [12] (note the phrase "cheesycake")
• Lady Tara contributions harrassment [13], [14], [15],

[16]

CheeseDreams 15:49, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Question about IP addresses

Hi, Tim. I'm Tom Haws, User:Hawstom. I have a question and possibly a request. You did a check for Cyrius on User:Jimmyvanthach and User:Tran Van Ba. You reported that both had used IP address 192.108.235.6 . Question: I have reason to doubt that the "Jimmy Van Thach" ever used the User:Tran Van Ba account. Is this 192.108.235.6 IP address one of those that shows up on a lot of people? This Tran Van Ba is located in Columbus, Georgia. "Jimmy Van Thach" says, "I know I use Aol server and I am aware that Chancellor Tran Van Ba, also uses Aol." Is this, from your technical understanding, a plausible explanation? If necessary, perhaps you could do a user and server report on IP address 192.108.235.6. Thank you for your trouble. Tom - Talk 18:00, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Whiter than White?

If an active arbitrator admitted that they are a right wing POV warrier who has, in real life, even acted in such a way as to have been suspended from practicing law, are they fit to continue in their post and meet out judgements on others.

Wikimeet

Is that Sydney Wikimeet idea still going ahead? I haven't really heard much about it... CXI 18:33, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Technical problem

Something wierd is going on with the "edit"-this-section link at -It seems to be half way through the text.

Christian art#Sexuality and Christian Art

CheeseDreams

Anti-Semitic sockpuppet

Tim, there's what seems to be a sockpuppet operating as user:Wiesenthaler anduser:Goldberg, who appears to be making anti-Semitic remarks in several articles and is deleting properly referenced material from pages (e.g. Yasser Arafat. See Wiesenthaler's edits here. Can you or another admin help with this? Slim 04:52, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

Disable escaped characters in user names?

Hi Tim,

It seems that one or more individuals are trying to act as an imposter of various user accounts by creating a like-named account with an [[Special:Contributions/Grunt%AD|escaped character tacked onto the end]]. (<-- You may have to look back into the logs if this page is deleted by the time you read this.)

I noticed that the tool tip that is generated when passing the mouse over these names, as well as the destination URL that shows in the status bar, gives no indication that anything is amiss, and you wouldn't know that it was an imposter unless you clicked the link and read the URL once you arrived at the user's page.

If the account appears to be hijacked, an admin who was not diligent enough to check the URL, by first clicking on it, could inadvertently block the wrong person.

I am wondering whether you would endorse changing the Wiki software to disable the use of such invisible characters in user names?

If you think this warrants immediate attention, great. However, if you rather build more consensus for such a change, would a software poll help?

— DV 09:52, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

commons

Hello Tim, could you please add licence tags to all your images from the 21C3 which you´ve stored in the commons? Thanx --Bdk 19:20, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikinews question

Hi Tim,

I left a message on your Wikinews user talk page. Regards, — DV 03:47, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

New name for Tom

I apologize for failing to log in to do my little friendly take-over of the User:Tom pages. It is an experiment that I finally decided on after months of consideration. The User:Tom account is old and has zero contributions. In fact, I am not sure I didn't create it myself. Tom @ 07:13, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

That account was created in roughly March 2002, did you know about Wikipedia back then? -- Tim Starling 07:17, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

I doubt I would have created the account back then. Like I said above, I can't be sure, but I have always assumed it was more likely somebody else created it. Of course you, the IP address man, probably know better than I. If it's going to be generally unpalatable to others that I take-over the pages of the anciently inactive (actually apparently never used) account, which is what I was trying to do, I understand. At the same time, if there is any way you can figure out for me to do something more palatable, whether that would be to take over the account entirely or something else, I would really appreciate it. Thanks. Tom Talk 15:24, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)

Change of Username

Hi Tim, I noticed that you used to be in charge of changing usernames on Wikipedia:Changing username. Since October 2004 no names have been changed. Maybe you could have a look at the growing list of unchanged usernames, or else recommend someone to me who could do the job? Thanks in advance! --Hippalus 09:08, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I started the page, but the workload got too much for me and I stopped doing it. Various other people have had a go at it from time to time, but nobody is doing it at the moment, as you have noted. -- Tim Starling 12:22, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the fast answer! I guess I'll just have to wait 'till someone else feels like taking up the job? Or is there a way to change my username myself? I already moved the page User:Pauldavidgill to User:Hippalus, but I would like to have the edits I made mentioned as User:Hippalus as well. -- Hippalus 16:15, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)

Spyware Spam

Hi Tim. I replied to your post at chongqed. I had never heard of that before but will investigate it. -- JoeChongq 04:03, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

LanguageRu.php

Hi ;). You wrote about problems in meta:LanguageRu.php (see meta:Talk:LanguageRu.php). They have been corrected. LanguageRu.php has been greatly updated. Now file is based on Language.php 1.411 and LanguageDe.php 1.98 (I tested it on 1.4beta4 revison). Also translation of some namespaces (talk pages) is changed!!! Re-import the messages to MediaWiki namespace is necessary (because of hard-coded namespace used in it). You can contact me at ru:user_talk:.:Ajvol:. or you can contact our bureaucrat at ru:user_talk:Maximaximax. --.:Ajvol:. 16:44, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sockpuppets

Are you able to merge the accounts (i.e. the contribution history) User:Cheesedreams, User:Cheese dreams, and User:Cheese Dreams, into User:CheeseDreams ?

CheeseDreams 03:00, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sockpuppets

My userpage was vandalized by User:Espirit10. Can you check whose sockpuppet that is? OneGuy 14:31, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

ArbCom sock check request

When you have time, could you check the user accounts at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/168.209.97.34/Evidence#Sock_puppets for sock puppets? --mav 18:47, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You're banned!

Hey Tim!

As far as I'm concerned, you're banned! What I mean is: get your PhD back on track. I've been there, I know what you're saying. I won't try to convince you to come back, because I know you will anyway. :-) But come back on your own terms after you get things straightened out with your school/work stuff, and if you'd like, we'll kick you from IRC after a few hours each day. :-)

Now, if only someone would ban me. :-)

--Jimbo Wales 01:50, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

---

I agree. Now, if you're reading this, go away! Go study and stop reading your @#%#^% ta;k page! ;) Neutrality^talk

---

You're a great fellow, Tim, and I'm sorry to see that right choice for your life right now means at least a temporary loss for this community. I wish you well on the Ph.D. work, and while I would never dream of begging you to come back after you made it so clear you wouldn't stand for it, I will say that it will be a happy day for me when I see you hanging around here again, even if it's only occasionally. Best of luck to you with your career! Jwrosenzweig 18:28, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

But before you go... can you upload the new Wikinews logo?

We think you may have uploaded the old logo, can you upload our new one? Ta Dan100 09:17, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

LanguageJbo.php

Could you install LanguageJbo.php on jbo:? It's been missing its language file since the software was upgraded, and images, categories, and templates are broken. -phma 00:43, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC) aka pier

Wikipediyaa ci Wolof - Wikipedia in wolof

Hello Tim,

I’m writing you from Dakar, Senegal (West Africa). We have initiated the integration of some African languages to the Internet...

Could you help us ? We need to install the logo for the Wikipedia in wolof (a national language of Senegal and the Gambia). http://wo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

We have chosen the following name : Wikipediyaa (with respect to wolof phonetics) With the subtitle: Booloo-bokk géeju xam-xam (where 'géeju' means 'ocean', and with 'xam xam' denotes an 'ocean of knowledge'...) If the title is too long feel free to separate it into two lines, dividing after 'booloo-bokk'.

Thanks a lot !

Yannick Duchesne

Sock Puppets and Cliques

Hi, I'm just trying to figure if there is any way to identify sock puppets. The assumption seems to be that puppets only do small numbers of edits.

Last Apr/May while Wik & John_Kenney where edit warring the West Papua articles to dumb down Melanesians in the articles; I found where John was instructing Wik on how to prevent Tannin or myself from editing the pages. Upon checking their Wikipedia activity at the time I got the impression they were both pro-Palestine in Israel articles, and pro-Indonesian government in West Papua articles - or in other terms anti-jewish and & anti-Melanesian (black). It looked to me that they had formed a very small clique to enforce their POV though John was intelligent enough to be careful how he did this, but he did also jump to Wik's defence.

A few weeks ago upon my return to the West Papua page, John starts reverting again, then Gzornenplatz waged in just like Wik use to. Later, when John was lossing ground in the discussion page & Jmarbel was not accepting his POV, suddenly this OneGuy jumped in to break up that discussion and get it back under John's control.

To me OneGuy sounded like John when he's upset, then I checked their contribution lists and it looked more like someone who sometimes switched between two accounts. For a new user, OneGuy seems very active just like John was last year. So is OneGuy John's sock puppet? And dare one mention it?

John's activity last year was typically 1600 edits/ month (1100 to 2400); it will be interesting to see if John & OneGuy can both maintain their levels at the same time. But how can one show proof of a sock puppet if the puppeteer is intelligent ?--Daeron 04:49, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

BTW: I notice OneGuy is defending Gzornenplatz, just like John use to defend Wik. But how to know who is who ?--Daeron 04:49, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

P.S. I've listed some problems with John at AMA Requests for Assistance, but what do you think is the better Wikipedia title? Papua (Indonesian province) or Papua Province, Indonesia

Võro Wikipedia

Hi Tim!

I asked for creation of the Võro Wikipedia last month in foundation-l and in request page. Angela forwarded it also to the Wikipedia-l.

It was proposed in the discussion that the code for Võro Wikipedia could be for the first time fiu-vro or fiu-voro. There was no objections against creating.

Mark Williamson (in Wikipedia-l Feb 13) suggested to ask you or Brion to create it. I asked Brion on his talk page and in bugzilla request to do it but no reaction was followed.

I hope you can do it. If there is something I must do before, please say me. Text on the Võro Wikipedia logo could be:

"Vikipeediä"

"Vaba entsüklopeediä"

Regards Sulev --Võrolang 13:39, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks from One Salient Oversight

Thanks for removing the history of my personal details from that weirdo. I owe you one. See my talk page for the reasons why I don't think he tracked me down via the White Pages. --One Salient Oversight 21:17, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Banyumasan Wikipedia

Hi Tim, Banyumasan Wikipedia has been approved probably two months ago, I do not know what next I should do but a user said that it's ready to online and ask a developer to developed it. Some said it's a very large Test-Wiki, I hope it wouldn't bother you.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Approved_requests_for_new_languages#Banyumasan_.288.29

Thanks Tim, Slamet Serayu 07:37, 17 November 2005 (UTC)