User talk:Wbm1058: Difference between revisions

For discussion of RMCD bot edits, see User talk:RMCD bot. For Merge bot edits, see User talk:Merge bot. For Bot1058 edits, see User talk:Bot1058.

For help with getting started creating bots, see User talk:wbm1058/Creating bots.

Disambiguation link notifications

As these are generated by a bot, and I occasionally check or patrol the status of these, I moved them to a special archive: /Disambiguation link notifications. Wbm1058 (talk) 13:11, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

My content creator's to-do list has items so old they've grown mold

...so I moved them to the /Content to-do items subpage. Someday maybe I'll get to these... Wbm1058 (talk) 03:00, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia "Merge" like WP:RM or WP:AFD

There are a lot of tumbleweeds rolling over at Wikipedia:Proposed mergers... the last edit added a {{backlog}} template. Now that I'm an administrator, I've decided to focus on clearing the Wikipedia:WikiProject History Merge and Category:Possible cut-and-paste moves backlogs first. If Proposed mergers were busier, I'd make this a higher priority.

• Older discussions are at /Automating proposed mergers. Wbm1058 (talk) 03:40, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Proposed Mergers

Since you run MergeBot and RMCDBot, I was wondering, if it were possible to create an auto generated list like WP:RM has but for WP:PM, that links to the centralized discussion area, and lists the topics to be merged (from/to/with) ? As the current MergeBot already generates arrows indicated from/to/with, it would seem a modification of template:requested move/dated/multi would do to handle such an automated listing based on a standardized talk section header.

-- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 04:42, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

See § Wikipedia "Merge" like WP:RM or WP:AFD above. Still on my back-burner. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:37, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Adding permalinks to block log entries for 3RR

Discussions are consolidated at /Adding permalinks to block log entries. – Wbm1058 (talk) 14:44, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Cross-namespace redirects

Deep gratitude

A big thank you for your help to clear Category:Cross-namespace redirects into its subcats. Really can't thank you enough! Joys! – Paine Ellsworth ^CLIMAX! 03:17, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome. One final push to clear most of the rest, and then it will be time to take a break. Wbm1058 (talk) 03:30, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Break? Whassat?! – Paine Ellsworth ^CLIMAX! 05:06, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

• Just a note that Category:Redirects to user namespace is significantly underpopulated. I was working off the list at User:Largoplazo/WP Redirects to further populate it, and worked my way through the A's. It's on my patrol list, so I may get to it eventually. Wbm1058 (talk) 02:42, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

  I finally used AWB to populate Category:Redirects to user namespace; it now has over 900 members. My technique was to Make list from source Special page: All Redirects in namespace Wikipedia: – the category hasn't yet been fully populated for other namespaces. I think all of the cross-namespace redirect categories can and should eventually be populated by bots... AWB may be able to do that with a sufficiently sophisticated configuration. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:53, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

  See HERE for the regex find & replace used for this. I manually monitored this and had to skip some that were already rcat templated; also may have missed some. wbm1058 (talk) 17:09, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

  Or the database query method used to generate User:Largoplazo/WP Redirects may be a more efficient method than my AWB special page walk-through. I need to figure out how to do that myself. @Paine Ellsworth: FYI. – wbm1058 (talk) 17:31, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the ping, Wbm1058! That's pretty cool stuff you're doing – and waay outside my full comprehension. Please keep up the great work!  OUR Wikipedia (not "mine")! Paine  15:26, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Redirects from namespace 1 to namespace 0

SELECT concat( "*[[Talk:", p.page_title, "]] redirects to [[:", r.rd_title, "]]" )
FROM redirect r
INNER JOIN page p ON p.page_id = r.rd_from
WHERE p.page_namespace = 1
AND   r.rd_namespace = 0
ORDER by page_title;

• Query – User:Wbm1058/Talk-to-mainspace redirects – wbm1058 (talk) 00:23, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

VisualEditor

Numbers

Hi Wbm1058,

You asked a while ago about how many editors were using VisualEditor each month, rather than the each-day stats that are given on the dashboard. It appears that the most recent answer is that a bit under 1800 editors here at the English Wikipedia saved an edit with VisualEditor during the month of June. This represents about 5% of the people who have (ever) opted in to VisualEditor (most of whom are not currently active editors) and almost 1.5% of all registered editors who made any edit at all last month.

@Risker:, you might be interested in these numbers, too. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:11, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Invitation

Thank you for using VisualEditor and sharing your ideas with the developers.

Hello, Wbm1058,

The Editing team is asking for your help with VisualEditor. I am contacting you because you posted to a feedback page for VisualEditor. Please tell them what they need to change to make VisualEditor work well for you. The team has a list of top-priority problems, but they also want to hear about small problems. These problems may make editing less fun, take too much of your time, or be as annoying as a paper cut. The Editing team wants to hear about and try to fix these small things, too. 

You can share your thoughts by clicking this link. You may respond to this quick, simple, anonymous survey in your own language. If you take the survey, then you agree your responses may be used in accordance with these terms. This survey is powered by Qualtrics and their use of your information is governed by their privacy policy.

More information (including a translateable list of the questions) is posted on wiki at mw:VisualEditor/Survey 2015. If you have questions, or prefer to respond on-wiki, then please leave a message on the survey's talk page.

Unsubscribe from this list • Sign up for VisualEditor's multilingual newsletter • Translate the user guide

Thank you, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:56, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Setting magic words

I've done some analysis of VisualEditor's setting of behavior switches, see the archived discussion. I intend to follow up on this. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:03, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Duplicate template parameters

• File:Haut-Brion 1931 chateau card.JPG
• File:Petrus 1931 chateau card.JPG
• File:Margaux 1931 chateau card.JPG
• File:Cantemerle 1931 chateau card.JPG

Your edits reverted my fix to remove duplicate parameters and these files will soon be placed in Category:Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls. I'm not watching them, nor am I watching this page, so I leave it to you to fix the issues. --  Gadget850 ^talk 22:08, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

@Gadget850: Right, already taken care of. See Template talk:Non-free use rationale logo#Override fields. Wbm1058 (talk) 22:14, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

To do: possible merge of {{Non-free use rationale}} and {{Non-free use rationale 2}}

For that matter, {{Non-free use rationale 2}} and {{Non-free use rationale logo}} are also somewhat redundant, as show by the usage of both here. Wbm1058 (talk) 01:31, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Generate automatic summary /* blah */ when I manually add a section heading

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T22307

Consolidated discussions are at my subpage /Generate automatic summary /* blah */ when I manually add a section heading when editing. Hopefully solutions are on the way soon. – wbm1058 (talk) 23:37, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Talk pages consultation 2019/Phase 2 §Marking separate discussions – wbm1058 (talk) 12:16, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Module documentation and test cases

There's really no point to having test cases for data modules, since there's no code to test. Also, doc pages that contain a #invoke of the module itself exist so that TemplateSandbox can be used to preview changes of the module. It's fine to add "real" documentation, but the #invoke must not be disabled or removed when doing so. Jackmcbarn (talk) 20:47, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Module:Syrian Civil War map is in Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded.

I edited Module:Syrian Civil War map/doc, and created Module:Syrian Civil War map/testcases.

Cities and towns during the Syrian Civil War used to transclude {{Syrian Civil War detailed map}}, until substituted.

Template:Syrian Civil War detailed map loads Module:Syrian Civil War detailed map.

Template:Syrian Civil War map (created 21 February 2015‎) . . . Wbm1058 (talk) 03:02, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Module:Syrian Civil War map/testcases

Module:Syrian Civil War map/testcases has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the module's entry on the Templates for discussion page. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 01:33, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Accuracy

Your comments about the state of accuracy in the world on Jimbo's talk page are very interesting. I would like to explore this topic further. I'm particularly fond of your statement, "Society as a whole perhaps doesn't value accuracy as much as it should, and indeed Wikipedia editors should strive for a higher level of accuracy." Heck, I think some kind of variation on this should be our guiding principle. You've really nailed something here, and I think it's worth pursuing. One counterargument to pursuing accuracy, however, might attempt to appeal to the blind men and an elephant analogy. How would you respond to this? Viriditas (talk) 08:49, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

The best we can do is report the truth as best as we know it, and be open-minded to new information that can give us a better vision of the truth. As more "parts of the elephant" become known to us, the more accurate our "truth" becomes. Wbm1058 (talk) 14:28, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Whisperback

Hello. You have a new message at Kudpung's talk page. 17:10, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

• Wikipedia talk:XTools
• The xTools Archives
• wikitech:Help:Tool Labs
• How to log in to my account via SSH using PuTTY
• User:Σ tools on labs
  • Article revision statistics
• WikiHistory
  • https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikihistory/ (original German version)
  • https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools/wikihistory/ (xTools English port)

So many things needing fixed, so little time time get to more than a fraction of them, sigh. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:06, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Timeline of DOS operating systems

I remember that you once intended to take your Timeline of DOS operating systems article to featured status, but did not take time to familiarize yourself with the process. Looking at that article, the only thing that is not compliant with the featured list criteria is the lead section. Basically, the only thing required to promote it to FL status would be to expand the lead section by adding an introduction to DOS operating systems. After that, you are good to go and can nominate it according to the instructions on WP:FLC. (Since this article is a list, the Good Article process does not apply.) Good luck! sst✈ 04:24, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

I see, apparently there is no "good list" equivalent to Good Article, so I can skip that step and go straight to becoming a member of Category:Featured lists, where around a couple dozen featured timelines can be found. Thanks! As I haven't made any significant updates to that since February, I suppose I'm due to get back to it and finish it off soon. Wbm1058 (talk) 11:40, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Race Against the Machine

Hi wbm, I see you mention this book on your user page. Does the main thesis have implications for how Wikipedia works, and if so, on what time scale? - Dank (push to talk) 15:57, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

A main thesis of the book is that accelerating technology improvements will reduce employment, and over time this will effect more higher-skilled occupations. We see this already with jobs coming back to the US from China... because they are replacing people with bots. Yes, a few more jobs for Americans who are skilled at bot development, operations and maintenance. But way fewer jobs than were displaced in China. Of course, at Wikipedia there are relatively few editors that work for money. We already have very intelligent bots such as ClueBot NG that help tremendously with tasks such as vandalism reversion. That one has over 4 million edits now! Bots also help with spelling corrections. There could be further enhancements to these tasks that could reduce the need for new page patrollers and spelling correctors. Time scale is dependent on volunteer contributions, or possible funding by the Wikimedia Foundation. wbm1058 (talk) 17:29, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. The future seems to be coming at us pretty fast. I try to stay informed-but-neutral. - Dank (push to talk) 17:50, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Templates for deletion for deletion

Implement multiple parameters to prefix: operator on fulltext searches

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T159403

See also: Wikipedia talk:Requested moves/Archive 29 § Archive and search, Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 152 § Search prefix:, and mw:Talk:Wikimedia Discovery § Search prefix:

See also: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 152 § Search prefix revisited – search with multiple prefixes?, and Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-02-27/Op-ed § Discovery

{{Search deletion discussions}} and {{Search prefixes}} and all that authors other stuff should probably be deleted after emailing him. His {{Create parameter string}} is used but not well.

For now, I'd fix wp: Deletion process § Search all deletion discussions with a search link for each of the fullpagenames in wp:Deletion process § Step-by-step instructions (all discussion types).

I would. And I'd be glad for an invite to help you with any queries or discussions on this matter. — Cpiral§Cpiral 05:57, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 61 § is there a way to search several sections with one search? – June 10–17, 2009

And User talk:Rainman § modification to search several Wikipedian sections at one time – June 15–17, 2009

And User talk:Stmrlbs/Archive/001 § multiple prefixes – June 15–17, 2009

June 17, 2009 Help:Searching documentation update, alas documentation of this multiple-prefixes-separated-by-pipes feature was removed on October 11, 2009 when this was rewritten, to try to improve usability

"To search multiple sections of Wikipedia with different prefixes, enter the different prefixes with a pipe delimiter."

"This should be especially useful for archive searching in concert with inputbox or searchbox."

• MediaWiki search engine improved, 10 November 2008
  • en.wiki migrated to new search backend, June 2, 2009. Wikitech-l
• Initial import of rewritten Lucene-Search extension
  • History No commits between August 2007 and March 2010. So where is the June 2009 change to support this?

@Cpiral: so clearly prefix did at least briefly take pipes. Unfortunately, the volunteer developer of that, Rainman, isn't active any more either, and I haven't been able to locate his code changes that implemented that feature. – wbm1058 (talk) 02:48, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the history lesson. Interesting. Maybe useful.

Anyway, for now we have wp:deletion process#Search all deletion discussions. Hope that helps. — Cpiral§Cpiral 07:59, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Those missing templates

Hi Wbm1058

I'm guessing that it was this edit[1] by you which produced the flurry of Category:ISO 639 name xyz-type categories currently listed at Special:WantedCategories. Is that right?

If so, is there any guidance on how to create them? It would be handy to have them cleared before the next update of Special:WantedCategories brings in another flood of new stuff. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:06, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

@BrownHairedGirl: Right, this was my clunky attempt to solve a problem. See Template talk:ISO 639 name#Return empty string for codes not on the list. Sorry about cluttering up WantedCategories; that was a side-effect that I didn't think of. These categories are not actually supposed to be created, but rather templates with the same name. The idea was to avoid degrading the reader experience by showing redlink-templates, but provide an easier way for patrolling editors to find the problem. I guess I should revert that, but it would be nice to replace it with a better solution, if we can come up with one. wbm1058 (talk) 00:30, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, my post was a bit unclear. What I meant was: any guidance on how to create the templates? I'd be happy to help if I knew how.

This looks fine as a way of getting a list of needed templates. But now that Special:WantedCategories has created the list, it would be helpful if the template could stop generating these categories, prferably before the next update (which is likely on 11 April or 12 April).

I have gotten a it of practice at quickly grabbing a categ list from the oddly-formatted Special:WantedCategories, so I made a list of the ISO 639 categs, at User:Wbm1058/ISO 639 categs. I hope that helps; if it's a nuisance, pls delete it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:04, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

BrownHairedGirl, this is kind of like the blind leading the blind to repair issues caused by other blind. There is Category:Articles containing unknown ISO 639 language template, which was created by Jonesey95. Then there is also Category:Lang-x templates with other than ISO 639. Some editors have used these "language" templates for dialects of languages that do not have ISO 639 codes, thus the attempts of templates to look up ISO 639 codes fail with errors implying an ISO 639 template needs to be created. Well, there is none to be created. My solution for cases like that is edits like THIS and THIS. We need to sort these dialect "languages" out from the real languages that actually have ISO 639 codes where a template really does need to be created. I'm not an expert in any of this, and got involved with it when the new Category:Pages with template loops was created, and that snagged the poor design of these "language" templates. See also Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 154#Category:Pages with template loops for background on what led me into this rabbit-hole. Template:Language with name and Template:Lang were never intended to be used for dialects, but how can we expect editors other than the ones who designed these templates to know that? – wbm1058 (talk) 12:01, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

What an almighty mess. My immediate question is to ask what purpose this whole system serves, and whether any of this necessary? I know little about the topic, so I make no attempt to try answering that pair of questions ... but I do think that when something gets so complex, it's time to re-evaluate the cost-benefit ratios.

I'm afraid that I have neither the skills to get that deep into these templates nor the inclination to do so, so I think i'd better withdraw my offer to help. Sorry!

In the meantime, please could you revert the edit which populated the categs? It does seem to have served its purpose, and the ongoing slog of clearing the 100–200 daily additions to Special:WantedCategories is impeded by these categs. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

BrownHairedGirl, you are wise to move on to somewhere that makes more sense. The whole lang template system is a bit of a mess and in need of a rethink. In the meantime, I am slowly (five weeks so far) clearing out the errors and creating needed templates based on Category:Articles containing unknown ISO 639 language template. I should be done in a couple of weeks.

In answer to your "what purpose this whole system serves", tagging text with {{lang}} can affect how the enclosed text is rendered. It also adds a tracking category, which may be useful to some editors. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:50, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

• I'm not sure edits like this are the optimal solution – whether something is a language or a dialect is irrelevant, we want the text string to be formatted properly and bypassing {{Language with name}} doesn't help with that. I've had a look at User:Wbm1058/ISO 639 categs and most of these appear to either contain typos (in which case they need to be fixed in the specific pages that use the lang template), or to be of the type aaa-Bbb, which is the format for the language (aaa) + script(Yyyy) combination. Pinging Erutuon whom I've seen working on this. – Uanfala (talk) 14:57, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

I am working on Category:Articles containing unknown ISO 639 language template and expect to have it mostly cleared out in a few days. When I started a month ago, there were something like 2,000 pages in the category. It's down to 332 right now. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:24, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

I would replace all the templates with modules. The module could check to see if the code string is valid character-wise – either xyz or xyz-Abcd – using regular expressions. It could also check if the script and language codes are correct using the MediaWiki language library or a data module that lists language codes. And it could create linked language names by adding the articles as an entry in the data module. Wiktionary does all this language-related stuff using modules (see wikt:Module:languages, wikt:Module:scripts, wikt:Module:script utilities). I've begun such a module at Module:Language (see also Module:Language/scripts/data), though it does not currently do everything mentioned here. — Eru·tuon 18:03, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Sounds great to me. I see that you have already seen this discussion from six months ago. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:56, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

If you need any help, you can ask for it at Wikipedia:Lua/To do. While I've self-taught myself enough PHP to support two bots and even write one from scratch, I've yet to make time to study Lua, so I can only do so much with that. wbm1058 (talk) 20:43, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Task to switch between new and old interface of "search for contributions"

This section is a followup to an earlier discussion I initiated at the village pump.

Hello. For notification, the task to switch between new and old interface of user contributions page was rejected. Izno suggested personal gadget/script or something. I would prefer that the switch between old and new be proposed at WP:village pump (proposals). Thoughts? --George Ho (talk) 16:12, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

George, I wouldn't know how to write a script to change the interface, and I'm not keen on switching between two less-than-ideal interfaces. There should only need be one, fully-functional interface that's adequate for efficiently handling all use cases. What we have now is not such an interface, and we should focus on getting that one improved. I'm frustrated with the current means of interacting with the developers – there is a confusing array of different "phabricators" on this, I'm not keen on the phabricator editing interface, and I don't know whether I should add to an existing phab or start a new one, so I prefer using Village Pump where I can use Wikitext. As I need to use this interface to perform specific tasks, I may report issues I have with the current interface that make it more difficult to get the job done. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:55, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Hmm... How about Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab), where we can discuss the user contributions interface? --George Ho (talk) 16:03, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Maybe. But, per "defines a solution rather than a problem" I don't know if solutions developed in the idea lab would be welcomed by the developers. I'm not happy with the "handcuffs" placed on us with regard to modes of interaction with developers. Maybe if I just present problems to WP:VPT, and let them either tell me how to achieve my desired result, or make changes to the interface that allow me to achieve my desired result. wbm1058 (talk) 16:15, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

No offense, but IMO I don't think WP:VPT is a place for general feedback on any software or something. VPT is used for technical difficulties, bugs, glitches, and other tech issues that need immediate attention (not sure whether I phrased it correctly). One complaint describing none of these, and they'll either advise you to write a personal script/gadget or write one for you as they did before. But you're welcome to choose any appropriate venue. I still think the "idea lab" is best bet. --George Ho (talk) 16:33, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

At the top of WP:VPT there is a notice "Bug reports and feature requests should be made in Phabricator" but that's just redirecting us back to an interface I find less than ideal. I don't understand why they have such an aversion to Wikitext. I think that's easiest as all active editors are intimately familiar with it. Almost everything the developers in general try to pawn off as "easier" to use, I find to be more of a pain. But venue should be secondary to getting the issues raised, so if you want to start an idea lab thread, feel free. wbm1058 (talk) 16:45, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

On second thought, I just realized that you can go to meta:Tech and then post your concerns there. The developers changed the interface all over the wikis. --George Ho (talk) 17:04, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

I see, meta:Tech#"Search for contributions" date range. So, let's let the latest bug fix settle in before we try using it again. That page seems like a good place for reporting issues with the Special:Contributions interface, as I hate to go to the trouble to submit a new bug report, only to find that one's already been submitted. wbm1058 (talk) 17:25, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T172041

The major bug is fixed. George Ho (talk) 06:52, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Great! I complained about the new widget date-picking interface after futzing with it and not figuring out how to efficiently make it work to actually select a specific date range. I assumed that it was working as designed, and that I was just too dense to figure out the secret for making it work. So after this bug fix, which I see involves other developers than those designing the widgets (go figure, I don't exactly understand the bug report), I'm happy to report that the widget now works for me with minimal fuss. There's more than one way to skin this cat, so while this might not be my preferred way, I'm not going to fuss about it much if it works. wbm1058 (talk) 13:42, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T91148

 There is still an open task to consolidate the "date pickers".

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T183107

 @George Ho: FYI. After letting this settle in for several months, I'm still not satisfied with its behavior. I've entered a new Phabricator task. wbm1058 (talk) 19:37, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Talk:AR-15 (disambiguation)

Can you look into the "Update Redirect" discussion on the Talk:AR-15 (disambiguation) page. I don't like where User:Shaded0 is taking this discussion.--Limpscash (talk) 05:27, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Can you look at the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#RAF910 discussion where User:Shaded0 is making some very serious accusations. He tried to ping you but I don't think it worked.--Limpscash (talk) 06:00, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your recent articles on the noticeboard page and the talk page discussions. I am at a bit of a loss on what the correct action should be taken next. The stated points seem to be reasonable arguments, but I feel like this argument is going to keep going in circles. Take a look also at Talk:Colt AR-15. Does it make sense continue pursing AR-15 arguments, seek additional input? I feel like I might have not too much to add here besides another vote for consensus, but any further discussion seems that it will likely further inflame opinions rather than coming to some sort of resolution. Shaded0 (talk) 20:59, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Shaded0, I'm not sure what your goals are here, i.e. specifically what you would like to accomplish. I added the {{WikiProject content advice}} template at the top of Wikipedia:WikiProject Firearms § Guidelines since that advice section co-mingles both style and content advice. My sense is that you are more concerned with content than style, so it might be helpful to spit that section into separate style and content sections, if you want to focus on one but not the other. Looking at Category:WikiProject content advice I see that there are relatively few topic areas where such content-specific advice is given. I think the recent changes to Wikipedia:WikiProject Firearms § Criminal use were not well thought out and too-hastily pushed through. I prefer the more longstanding previous version of that advice, and would have opposed this change. I'd like to revert to the former version. I suppose the way to overrule that local consensus would be to appeal to a wider audience with a request for comment. I'm not sure there is a well-trodden path for such appeals; it's something I'm not that familiar with as I don't often engage in high-level content debates. In any event, the Bushmaster XM-15 article still has Notoriety, Sandy Hook, and Legality sections, so if this advice-change was an attempt to remove all that in favor of nothing more than "see also" links, the advice change hasn't stuck in that article. Given that, I'm not sure how much time it's worth to pursue this. wbm1058 (talk) 17:39, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

HEADS UP!

We are being targeted by someone call Lightbreather on Twitter. Please see the sites below:

https://twitter.com/Lightbreather?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

https://lightbreather.com/wikipedias-promotion-of-pro-gun-lingo-more-about-ar-15-v-modern-sporting-rifle-e3b6a7625621

I'm not sure what to make of this. Is this the same Wikipedia User:Lightbreather that has been blocked?--Limpscash (talk) 06:37, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I had not seen that blog. I've heard of LB but am not familiar with the details of her block. She says she's a Cronkite School alumna, and I can believe that as it shows in the quality of her blog. I welcome good criticism, and she makes some good points. No comment on the merits of her arbitration case, but, in general it's a shame when we lose editors like this for whatever reason.

Here's the 36 edits I made on November 7 related to this. It's not immediately apparent from that how I became involved in this. I patrol Category:Articles with redirect hatnotes needing review. This 6 November 2017 edit which changed the target of AR-15 caused Colt AR-15 to land in that category by rendering its hatnote {{Redirect|AR-15}} untruthful. When I work that category, I determine how to fix it; usually that's done with only an edit or two – it's an unusual case where I end up making as many as 36 edits to correct a navigation structure that's so badly munged. LB helps explain how it got that way. This was just the beginning of my involvement in this topic area to date. A couple days later, in respose to #Talk:AR-15 (disambiguation), I made 7 more edits. Then a comment that basically wrapped up an AN/I incident.

All of this participation is time-consuming. I'm not exactly happy with the status quo, there seems a strong case that AR-15 has become a genericized trademark, and that "modern sporting rifle" is an invented term designed to forestall that genericization. So LB shouldn't take my edits as an endorsement of the status quo. I'm keeping this on my back burner. wbm1058 (talk) 02:46, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Please take note

Greetings! I have re-copied your prior comment supporting or opposing the move of Modern sporting rifle to AR-15 style rifle to a new Requested Move section here: Talk:Modern sporting rifle#Requested move 22 February 2018.

I wanted to stop by and give you this courtesy notice, in case you want to add, delete, or amend your comments in any way. Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 03:44, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Awwww....

...please don't give up on us, yet. 😞 I know you're busy, and I'm not expecting you to devote a whole lot of time to this project, but your input is highly beneficial and I was hoping you would keep helping us work through some of the kinks when you can, especially regarding admin factors we know little to nothing about. What we're hoping to accomplish will focus primarily on clarification and consistency in our WP:Blocking policy with the ultimate goal being editor retention. ^{Atsme📞📧} 02:02, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

I've had some ideas about this on my back burner. Posting some relevant links here. wbm1058 (talk) 01:20, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

• m:Community health initiative/Measuring the effectiveness of blocks
• User:JamesR/AdminStats (show Blocks)
• Daily counts of blocks and unblocks
• Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Audit/Statistics (CheckUser and Oversight use)

Ha!! I forgot all about this, Wbm1058! ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:21, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

@Atsme: It's still on my to-do list, as is replying to your email! Eventually... I keep a lot of burners going on my giant stove, alas some I have to keep down low for a long time. But I let other ppl cook my Thanksgiving dinner ;) wbm1058 (talk) 01:27, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Somewhat related to this, i.e. the area of community health and dealing with behavioral issues, is Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log. Something I haven't really paid much attention to.

There's a helpful search box at the top of that page. "Enter a username into this box to check if they have been sanctioned." e.g. Hmm. DUE, BALANCE, NPOV, RS talk. Followup. More followup. I'll try to help resolve this if I can. – wbm1058 (talk) 22:50, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Oh my. wbm1058 (talk) 14:27, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Hello wbm

Hi Wbm, hope you're doing well. I noticed you declined the move I had requested. I have initiated a discussion at Talk:Synchronised_swimming#Making Artistic swimming the primary article for any opposes to the proposed move. I shall contact you again in a week or so if there's no opposition. Warmly, Lourdes 03:16, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

TOC experiments

I tried putting it after the first paragraph. That seems to be the best look. Free-roaming horse management in North America Lynn (SLW) (talk) 20:09, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

English Heritage lists breaking transclusion limits

Scheduled monuments in Mendip

Thanks for your fixes on Scheduled monuments in Mendip. I don't quite understand the code of what you are doing but if it is about the number of reference templates breaking the maximum size, would your fix work on Grade II* listed buildings in South Somerset where the last few references don't display - possibly for the same reason?— Rod ^talk 08:19, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Rod, yes, similar issues there, though InternetArchiveBot hasn't visited that page recently. There is a discussion about the solution to this at User talk:cyberpower678/Archive 60#English Heritage website changed the URL syntax for accessing its site database. – wbm1058 (talk) 12:52, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

New problem reported at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Historic sites#Recent template changes broke a few list-type articles, recommend splitting them to fix the problem – wbm1058 (talk) 17:10, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Re: Your edit at Template:English Heritage listed building row

In regards to the edit you made at Special:Diff/974562485, the fact that the module output is transcluded by Template:English Heritage listed building row not only means that invoking the module directly matters, it actually means that it matters twice as much! Per Wikipedia:Template_limits#Nested_transclusions, any bytes produced by the module will be counted once if {{#invoke:delink|delink}} is invoked directly, they will be counted twice if {{delink}} is used to call {{#invoke:delink|delink}}, and they will be counted four times if {{English Heritage listed building row}} calls {{delink}} which calls {{#invoke:delink|delink}}. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 00:25, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Bill of rights page

Thank you for the changes you made to the hatnote on the Bill of rights article. I think it looks perfect! Rockstonetalk to me! 18:59, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

How about a Wikipedia Editors' Bill of Rights? wbm1058 (talk) 19:00, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

With the current situation with Fram, that sounds like a great idea. . Rockstonetalk to me! 19:20, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Mass removal of cleanup tags

Hello. I noticed that you recently removed a large number of {{cleanup}} tags dating back over 10 years. As you noted, these tags were indeed stale, and didn't have reasons listed, but I would say that in most of those cases, the need for cleanup was completely obvious from a cursory glance at the rest of the article. As the blurb for the "Articles needing cleanup" category states: "If you're sure the article has been cleaned up, addressing any obvious flaws as well as any specific problems mentioned on the talk page, feel free to remove the tag. There's not much harm in leaving it on if you aren't certain what to do; the tag will alert someone else to come by later and check up on the article." I spend most of my time on wiki working through these articles trying to sort them out, and without those tags, the article are now "on the loose" in the wikipedia with no warning for readers of their poor quality or way of editors finding them to address their problems. Please bear in mind before deleting any more that editors do actually use these tags and categories. Cheers. Jdcooper (talk) 23:33, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi Jdcooper, OK. Here are my relevant 34 edits. I removed a total of 31 {{cleanup}} tags. I did notice that several had been proposed for deletion, and I suppose by removing the tags I'm keeping them from someone else noticing them and putting a PROD tag on the top. Not sure why anyone would want to spend much time to cleanup up a page that was proposed for deletion. I did make a few obvious fixes, but feel free to review them, and if you restore the template and add a reason to it, please also update the date to the current month, which will clear them out of the back end of the queue. I also noticed that in the talk archives the possibility of using a bot to remove these tags had been discussed. But, I'll move on for now to resume working on my more usual tasks, and maybe check back in on this later. – wbm1058 (talk) 00:19, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, but the problem is articles like Dick Brooks (magician) where the creator has now removed the PROD tag and a horrible mess of an article is left untagged. I've gone through and added more specific tags to the ones with obvious problems, but I feel like dumping them in the July 2019 cohort (though that is what I've done) will just leave them unloved for even longer. The reason I poke about in this area of the encyclopaedia is specifically to find the long-term worst articles. But there are always plenty more repositories of such articles, obviously! Have a nice day. Jdcooper (talk) 22:56, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

This backlog still seems to be growing faster than it's getting cleared. Category:Articles needing cleanup from December 2008, which is where I was working in July, was deleted in October 2019, and I just coincidentally found that Category:Articles needing cleanup from January 2009 was ready for deletion. So this has been getting cleared at a rate substantially slower than one per month. On to February 2009. wbm1058 (talk) 05:20, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

List of shipwrecks in April 1917

Re your edits to remove the list of shipwrecks in April 1917 from the template limit exceeded category, probably the easiest way is by replacing {{flagcountry|UKGBI|civil}} with [[File:Civil Ensign of the United Kingdom.svg|22px]] [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|United Kingdom]]. This produces the same result visually. The UK civil flag is likely to be the most used in any shipwreck list at least until the 1950s, so changing the flag removes a large number of templates and guards against the list subsequently falling into the category again. AFAIK, no other shipwreck lists fall into the template limit exceeded category, but if you do come across any others, give me a shout and I'll fix the issue. Mjroots (talk) 07:41, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

@Mjroots: I don't know about that being the "easiest way". To unpack {{flagcountry}} I needed to make a series of three substitutions, which left behind a bunch of programming logic (#if and #ifeq statements) transcluded into the article (see my recent edits to List of shipwrecks in April 1917). It's not immediately clear whether making your suggested edit loses any of that embedded functionality, though it seems not. Whereas by simply bypassing a template shell that transcludes the output of a Lua module, I'm guaranteed not to lose any embedded functionality. I think the "best" solution would be to rewrite at least some of the template logic into a Lua module, and someday I'll get around to becoming more proficient with Lua so I can more readily do that.

But there's more than one way to get the job done. Feel free to revert my edits and solve the issue another way, if you feel that's better. – wbm1058 (talk) 12:19, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Agree that there's often more than one way to get the job done. As I understand it, there is a finite number of templates that can be used in an article. Not sure of the number but being computer code it's probably a power of 2 (1,024, 2,048, 4,096 etc). Changing the flags in the way I described does remover a larg number of templates from the article. I'll not revert your changes as they had the desired effect, but I feel that the article is probably still very near the template limit. Should it fall into the category again, then we'll change the flags. Mjroots (talk) 13:54, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

@Mjroots: FYI. There are several technical limits. The limit this article hit was the Post-expand include size. Currently the article includes (transcludes) 2,007,669 bytes, and the limit is 2,097,152 bytes. So yes, it is still close to the limit. You can see this in Show preview, under "Parser profiling data" (help) – you may need to click on that if it isn't showing by default. wbm1058 (talk) 14:12, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Now 2,044,834 of 2,097,152 bytes – wbm1058 (talk) 05:42, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

The system is timing out with an error message when I try to see the diff of my edit, but I see that {{coord}} was transcluded 242 times; I believe I replaced those, e.g. {{coord|48|20|N|6|00|W}} with {{#invoke:Coordinates|coord|48|20|N|6|00|W}}. There is no difference in output: 48°20′N 6°00′W vs. 48°20′N 6°00′W – wbm1058 (talk) 14:46, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

And now it appears that four more shipwecks have been added to the list, transcluding {{coord}} rather than directly invoking the module. wbm1058 (talk) 14:54, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Category:Redirects from incorrect disambiguation

Note to myself. On my back burner is to followup on the purpose for Category:Redirects from incorrect disambiguation. See the edit history of Assassin (movie). Also User talk:Anomie/linkclassifier#Some suggestions. Hopefully will follow up on this a few moons from now, after working through several higher-priority tasks. wbm1058 (talk) 21:28, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

LinkClassifier

I saw your complaints at User talk:IJBall#Please fix these links immediately, and I wanted to let you know that this should work for you:

mw.hook( 'LinkClassifier' ).add( function ( linkClassifier ) {
    // Delete the "incorrect-title" code
    delete linkClassifier.cats['incorrect-title'];

    // Add the "linked-misspellings" and "linked-miscapitalisations" codes, with appropriate categories.
    linkClassifier.cats['linked-misspellings'] = [
        'Category:Redirects from misspellings'
    ].sort();
    linkClassifier.cats['linked-miscapitalisations'] = [
        'Category:Redirects from miscapitalisations'
    ].sort();
} );
importScript('User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js'); // Linkback: [[User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js]]

Anomie⚔ 00:14, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Maybe one day in P.R.

	Biked in 50 states!
	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqdkqABDETY Hoping one day you make it to P.R. - Jose Valiente (radio MC) and bike shop owner's son- can hook you up- just need a translator. The Eloquent Peasant (talk) 18:08, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Ohio Wikimedians User Group: May 2020 newsletter

Newsletter is archived at m:Ohio Wikimedians User Group/Newsletter (m:Ohio Wikimedians User Group/Newsletter/2020/May

List of GANs per nominator

Hi Wbm1058, I hope you are well. About this topic, did we get any further with this? I feel like it was a bit forgotten and archived, but I'd be very interested in continuing to find a full list of GANs by nominators. I'd love to help get something like this off the ground (I should be a little bit closer to the top 40 now, I've promoted another 30 or so since the discussion)! Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:00, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Sorry Lee I lost momentum on this and let it drift to my back burners. I'll keep it on my to-do list and try to get back to it. Juggling a lot of balls, as usual, and as you can see from the sections above, new requests for my time keep coming in, making it harder to stay focused on more time-intensive projects. – wbm1058 (talk) 21:50, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Not an issue. I thought about it earlier, and I didn't know if anyone was actively looking at it or not. I've also been busy, so haven't had much time for much! Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:56, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

GANs

Hi Wbm1058, you did some great work in listing GAs per user a while back. I wondered if you'd consider doing it again and/or doing it periodically? The Rambling Man (Hands! Face! Space!!!!) 22:08, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski and The Rambling Man: – I'm running a new report now, using the last version of my PHP program from 26 July 2020. I started one last night, and it almost completed but died because the drive-by editor Sai5839448 put Category:Lists of good articles back into Category:Good articles, after I had previously removed it. A category is neither an article nor a Good Article. I removed the category and restarted my program from the beginning, and hopefully it will generate a report several hours from now. It will still have the inaccuracies I have yet to get around to addressing, but perhaps is "good enough" for your purposes. – wbm1058 (talk) 17:32, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, thank you. The Rambling Man (Hands! Face! Space!!!!) 17:39, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Great work - it's certainly a start, and good for rough amounts. :) Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:44, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

• @Lee Vilenski and The Rambling Man: Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#List of Wikipedians by number of Good articles, as of 17 November 2020 – wbm1058 (talk) 21:48, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

• This is some great work! I was wondering why this credits me with 88, but I credit myself with 96, but then I realised it isn't including articles that went through GA and later became FAs. This seems like a sensible conclusion, but worth mentioning.

For me, the next point would be how we go from here, to a full list similar to user:GA bot/Stats lists reviews done by user. This would be with the view to have a bot maintain a full list similar to how Legobot does now. At least with a full list, we can identify the GAs with issue nominators, and come to a conclusion as to whom should be credited; and get a pseudo-definative list.

Once again though, fantastic work, I'm very happy to see this. I'll try my best to move up the order a bit! Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:09, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Error?

Why should this result in an error per Special:Diff/913468459/977902992? What was that change trying to accomplish? –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 04:23, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

@MJL: It's telling you not to put that template on that page, because Nira Tandon, which I just tagged with {{R from misspelling}}, is not an article, it's a redirect. Template:R from remote talk page is only intended for placement on redirects to centralized talk pages, i.e. Talk pages where the content of multiple articles is discussed. There are just a few pages tagged this way: see here For example, the content of the article List of Intel Pentium M (Yonah)-based Xeon microprocessors is discussed on Talk:List of Intel Xeon processors rather than Talk:List of Intel Pentium M (Yonah)-based Xeon microprocessors, which is where the template is placed. – wbm1058 (talk) 05:17, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

[Thank you for the ping] Okay, well can you clarify that in the template documentation at least? The difference between {{R from remote page}} and {{R for convenience}} has always been kind of hazy for me because it isn't really explained anywhere. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 05:47, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you very much ...

... for all of the effort you put into cleaning up Wikipedia:Database reports/Linked misspellings. For a long time, I had kept track of the litterally millions of items that I always skipped over when patrolling the list, so it's quite a pleasant surprise to see a compact list of items that can actually be fixed. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 23:13, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I try to drop by now & then to clear out the more troublesome items there, as I juggle the many tasks jockeying for my attention. A longer-term project of mine is to get Wikipedia:Database reports/Linked miscapitalizations down to manageable size as well, but just when I feel like I've made some real progress there I find more litter has been dumped on that pile. – wbm1058 (talk) 02:24, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

If I see one I'll fix it, but you've just moved it from one disam page to another, why not fix the disam use at the same time ? SydGaz|SydGazandAdv ?? Dave Rave (talk) 07:22, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Dave Rave, I have no idea what you're talking about or what prompted you to make that comment which is your first edit in two weeks. Please explain. Oh, after noting that you're Australian, I think you mean Sydney Gazette ← The Sydney Gazette And New South Wales Advertiser. An Australian editor apparently doesn't understand that "and" shouldn't be capitalized in newspaper titles. Sorry, I still don't understand what your issue with my edit(s) is though. – wbm1058 (talk) 13:32, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I'm Australian, and I do understand, you must be a wiki editor and don't. you've just moved it from one disam page to another. that's a hard line to comrprehend
The trouble with Trove is they don't listen when I try to tell them things like why bother providing a link to a ref that has incorrect details. But when a wiki editor trying to fix things some can't see that using a disam pag isn't the best idea and why not fix it can't see the logic in the offerering ...
click your link you provided to the SydGazAndNSWAdv and look at it, it's a disam page Dave Rave (talk) 18:01, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

@Dave Rave: The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser is not a disambiguation page, it is a redirect. The Sydney Gazette And New South Wales Advertiser is another redirect. I used Template:No redirect to link to them so you can see the actual redirect pages. Sorry, I'm still not finding the disam page you're trying to direct me to. I have noticed that a lot of Australian articles use Trove for a reference; that's a very nice database! – wbm1058 (talk) 18:32, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Template talk:Football squad player

Further information: Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Holding cell § Other

Hi, in your opinion what's missing for the merge to go on? Is there anything that should be dealt with? Nehme₁₄₉₉ 23:59, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

I took some time off from this task to wait for any possible response to my work so far, and to catch up on my usual work queues. I'm back on this now. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:05, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Sorry to revert you on the template, but I've started a discussion on the talk page on what form of country name to use. Thanks for all the work you've been doing on this though. Cheers, Number 57 22:18, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Template Parameters : Football squad player

I noticed your edit to User:Bamyers99/TemplateParametersTool. Wanted to let you know that the March parameter report is ready. There is a new link for the pos parameter called errors which takes you to the error list. --Bamyers99 (talk) 01:32, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Bamyers99, your tool is really nice. I have a question: why isn't Cheng Fung on that list? |pos=DF,MF isn't one of the four valid valures for {{{pos}}}. wbm1058 (talk) 23:15, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

That page plus others were not displayed because of a bug. The bug has been fixed. --Bamyers99 (talk) 15:50, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! What a speedy fix it was too! You're the best! wbm1058 (talk) 16:26, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Flagicon

@Johnuniq: re: "the ultimate problem appears to be flagicon" – there have been multiple attempts to address this issue:

• Template talk:Flagicon/Archive 1#Template:FlagiconLua started (5 June 2013) – now named Template:Flags
  • "This template provides a clickable icon flag with options to define the size, the link and the label. Its usage is especially recommended in articles with many icon flags. This project is under development." – Development seems to have stalled soon after it started.
• Flagg – Is there a list of pages that are approaching the WP:PEIS limit that haven't converted over to the new module-based {{flagg}} system?
  • "{{Flagg}} (flag general) is a flag template with variable output format. Using Lua instead of the standard mechanism."

My work on this is on hold pending teaching myself more Lua and maybe JavaScript as well. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:53, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Log for Articles for creation?

...on potential improvements for WikiProject Articles for creation: What is missed? That's probably better answered by more-experienced AfCers, but one thing as an outsider admin I'd very much like is improved data on how drafts flow around the system. A log of all AfC submissions & reviews (accepts & declines); a log of individual reviewers' records (similar to the CSD log of NPPers); more clarity on the project's stats. ETA: I've just found Template:AFC statistics but it needs a proper historical log. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:08, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

As another "outsider admin", I'm interested in this too, and have the skills needed to create such a log. Adding this to my potential to-do list. – wbm1058 (talk) 17:14, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

United Kingdom

Hi WBM, can you please stop adding "the" before United Kingdom in infoboxes? We use short country names per ISO-3166. Hope you can revert all these edits, too. Cheers, — kashmīrī ^TALK 23:59, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

@Kashmiri: List of political parties in United Kingdom was declared to be a high-priority misspelling by WT79. Perhaps they are willing to revert my edits since they decided to take on an executive role and demand that I "fix" this non-problem. Or maybe you can move List of political parties in the United Kingdom to remove the "the" which is not in conformance with ISO-3166. – wbm1058 (talk) 00:18, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

I didn't refer to that article. I meant your mass edits to infoboxes of ~160 different articles over the last 2.5 hours. — kashmīrī ^TALK 00:22, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

I understand that. The purpose of my edits was to bypass the redirect from the "misspelling" that WT79 could not tolerate, in order to clear this item from Wikipedia:Database reports/Linked misspellings. Evidently they ran into one of these in an infobox. – wbm1058 (talk) 00:26, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

OK, this sounds a bit odd to me, I'm not seeing any connection between WT79's list and parameter values in infoboxes. Anyhow, would you mind self-reverting that? — kashmīrī ^TALK 00:41, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

What exactly did I break by making those edits (please explain how it was broken). The infobox links now directly go to List of political parties in the United Kingdom rather than via a redirect from the alleged "misspelling" List of political parties in United Kingdom. I need a reassurance from WT79 that they won't revert my edit which reverted theirs. wbm1058 (talk) 00:48, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

I'd rather move on to fixing more things which are broken than fixing something that isn't. wbm1058 (talk) 00:51, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: Sorry – didn't think about standard title forms when adding that rcat. Thanks for reverting. WT79 ^{(speak to me | editing patterns | what I been doing)} 08:41, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Soda-lime glass

At Soda-lime glass, regarding incorrect and alternative. I don't dispute that in the broadest sense, the hyphen/endash thing is an alternative, but I mark it as incorrect for this reason: per the style guide, the hyphen is not the correct way. It is in need of correction to the endash. Marking it as such will allow an intrepid editor to follow those links and make the corrections in the articles where it is used incorrectly. In the same way that typos and other misspellings are, broadly speaking, alternative ways of writing a word, But they are marked as misspellings (errors needing correction) to facilitate the ongoing improvement of our encyclopedia.

I have not made the change back to incorrect, because if my understanding of the usage of incorrect punctuation is wrong, I'd like to know that before foolishly asserting I must be right. I have tried to think of examples where the punctuation is truly incorrect and not alternative. Perhaps a question mark, asterisk, or other non-dashy line would be incorrect, but such redirects would be deleted as not being useful or necessary. The only ones worth keeping are those that have a similarity in form or function.

I write too much now, so I'll stop. Plus the call from the kitchen comes that dinner is ready. I value your response. Senator2029 ❮talk❯ 23:53, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

@Senator2029: Flagging it as a linked misspelling pushes it into the highest-priority work queue – note that there are 28 items in today's report, and every one of them has been fixed already, except the item you prioritized. "what links here" to "Soda-lime glass" It is not necessary to mark these to "allow an intrepid editor to follow those links and make the corrections". As I said in my edit summary, feel free to fix those 54 links yourself before you mark it. If you do it in that order, then I won't notice, and won't be bothered. The editor(s) who routinely clear away the linked-misspellings take care of the easy ones, and leave behind the "hard stuff" for someone more experienced to take care of (that would be me, see #Thank you very much ... above). My second-level priority list is the linked miscapitalizations, which has been a bear to tame, as people keep dumping more heaps of marginal miscapitalizations onto that pile. If I ever get that one down to size and have the luck to find a volunteer to keep it under control, then I might turn my attention to the hyphens and dashes. Right now they are so low priority that I don't see myself getting to them any time soon, if ever. Unless you want them to be fixed by a bot and can get a consensus to do that, then I might be willing to write and operate the bot. Then our armies of executive-level editors could force the bot to edit-war with itself by edit-warring over whether to "R from hyphen" or "R from en dash". – wbm1058 (talk) 00:42, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Module:Adjacent stations/Busan Metro

The Busan Metro module shouldn't be linking to Dongdaegu Station; wrong system? Mackensen (talk) 22:30, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Mackensen, yes, I guessed wrong; I reverted my edit that didn't fix it for me. The rail template systems are highly complex, making it a very annoying and time-consuming task to fix miscapitalized links to rail stations. So I guess it's Template:S-line. How do I fix

Template:Korail stations

toward Template:Korail stations

so that it links directly to Dongdaegu Station rather than the {{R from miscapitalisation}} Dongdaegu station? wbm1058 (talk) 23:24, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Wbm1058, it's Korail that has it wrong, so you'll want {{Korail stations}}. Mackensen (talk) 23:28, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

@Mackensen: Thanks. THIS was the edit I intended to make earlier. It worked (on e.g. Gijang station). – wbm1058 (talk) 00:41, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Also needed to edit {{KSR stations}} – wbm1058 (talk) 16:18, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Rcat shell

Sorry about that; I had meant to add the other rcat (alternate capitalization) to the shell instead. jp×g 02:15, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

One-child policy in China

Thanks for the message on my talk page, and sorry about the confusion. I intended to fix a misspelling of "Chicago" and to correct two references to DOIs and one URL that were rendered incorrectly; I didn't intend to revert anyone else's changes or edits--I apologize if I did so unintentionally. It looks like everything has been sorted out now. Oaxacanalia (talk) 20:12, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

However did you escape...

...knowing about Crossfire Hurricane? The entire right-wing media bubble has obsessed over it for years, and the mainstream and left-wing media are not far behind. I envy you! Guy (help! - typo?) 18:31, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Guy, I knew they were investigating Trump & Russia, but I didn't know it had a Code Name. I'm familiar with the military using code names (e.g. Operation Desert Storm, can you believe it's already been 30 years!) but not the FBI. I suppose because they're supposed to be secret code names. Hmm, Midyear Exam, which I just learned of from that New York Times piece about FBI code names, is still a red link! – wbm1058 (talk) 19:33, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Talk:Armenian Genoicde

Hi wbm1058, I'm guessing you want to engage on the capitalization topic, since you pinged me, but you're right that it's probably outside the scope of the section where you posted. My talk, your talk, or the RfC section would all be appropriate. Let me know! Firefangledfeathers (talk) 20:09, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

@Firefangledfeathers: actually, I don't enjoy engaging on this topic. To give you more of an idea of where I'm coming from, look at the page history of Wikipedia:Database reports/Linked miscapitalizations which I am virtually single-handedly responsible for taming (well, it hasn't been tamed yet, but I've made progress). Also § NFL Draft/draft article names and link above, where the efforts of the "MOS mob" were successfully repelled. National Football League Draft is still a proper name. – wbm1058 (talk) 20:26, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

No worries then! Firefangledfeathers (talk) 20:34, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Pages linking to the Education Program namespace

A tag has been placed on Category:Pages linking to the Education Program namespace indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 13:49, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

See Template talk:Course assignment#Links to education program. – wbm1058 (talk) 12:47, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

U.S. Highway redirect talk pages

@Wbm1058: why did you redirect the talk pages of some of the U.S. special routes to that of the list articles? For example, you redirected Talk:U.S. Route 15 Alternate (Chapel Hill, North Carolina) to Talk:Special routes of U.S. Route 15. The talk pages of redirects such as these are supposed to be assessed just like regular articles. Please, ping me for replies. Morriswa (Charlotte Allison) (talk) 22:01, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

@Morriswa: U.S. Route 15 Alternate (Chapel Hill, North Carolina) redirects to Special routes of U.S. Route 15 so its talk page should as well. I don't really see the point in maintaining the page for potential discussions about the target of the redirect.

I reverted myself on Talk:U.S. Route 15 Alternate (Chapel Hill, North Carolina). See the red error message? "Page is not a redirect, misplaced Template:R from move". That's what caught my attention, and I won't be happy until it's gone.

You shouldn't usurp a redirect by placing project tags above it. If you insist on tagging it, then remove the redirect. wbm1058 (talk) 23:11, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: I know these are redirects, but you really should take this issue up with Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Roads to get a project consensus about this. Morriswa (Charlotte Allison) (talk) 18:38, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Morriswa (Charlotte Allison), look, this isn't some complex matter that should need a big group discussion. This edit you just made is all I was asking for. If you remove the redirect when you place the project tags, then I won't notice and won't care. I don't really see any point in doing that and can think of a lot of more important and productive things an editor could be working on, in my opinion, but OK. wbm1058 (talk) 18:52, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Your close at Frente de Todos

Hi. You reverted my move closure at Talk:Frente de Todos (2019 coalition), and then closed it yourself. I've gone over WP:RMNAC and I don't see anything that supports your actions. There is this: If an administrator notices a clearly improper move closure, they should revert the closure and re-open the discussion., but it doesn't apply here in two ways:

• My closure wasn't clearly improper; it was supported by consensus and not against any policy or guideline.
• You did not revert the closure and re-open the discussion; instead, you immediately re-closed, based on what seems to be a non-policy-based supervote (there is no policy that we should follow any other project, including eswiki, with regards to anything at all).

So I would like to ask you to either respect my closure, or, if you can demonstrate that my closure was in fact clearly improper, to re-open the discussion. Unless I'm somehow wrong about all of this, then just explain why. Thanks! Lennart97 (talk) 15:44, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The discussion was too thin (insufficient participation) to simply close it. I disambiguated the links and found one that would have been targeting the wrong article. The 1996 coalition lasted for about a decade so I don't see the basis for making the new coalition the primary topic as it hasn't been in existence that long yet. I'd be more inclined if Spanish Wikipedia had a primary topic at es:Frente de Todos, but it doesn't. Your closure was simply "moved" without further explanation of your closing rationale. If you disagree with my rationale, I can reopen and relist, but I'm trying to short-circuit some bureaucracy here. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:02, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

"Insufficient participation" doesn't hold. Per the closing instructions, No minimum participation is required for requested moves. If no one has objected, go ahead and perform the move as requested unless it is out of keeping with naming conventions or is otherwise in conflict with applicable guidelines or policy. No one objected, and the move did not conflict with any conventions, guidelines or policy. In fact, a primary topic can be established almost by pageviews alone ([2]), with the 2019 coalition consistenly getting hundreds of views per day over the past 1,5 year, and the 1996 coalition consistenly getting 0, 1 or 2 - and that's on top of the 1996 coalition being regional and defunct. I can only conclude that my closure was not improper (let alone clearly improper) and should be restored. Lennart97 (talk) 16:19, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

OK, the page views make a convincing case, as does the argument that the old alliance was of some minor province vs. the new one is a national party, which I admit having glossed over at first. Transitioning from one primary topic to another is tricky; these should at least go through a "disambiguation step" as part of the transition, which I've taken care of. wbm1058 (talk) 16:50, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. I appreciate it. Lennart97 (talk) 17:37, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

List of Wikipedians by good article nominations

Hi! Remember our conversation at Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations/Archive_24#List of Wikipedians by number of Good articles, as of 17 November 2020? I was wondering if any follow-up has happened after that? I see Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by good article nominations is still a red link. I recently wrote some code (using the Wikimedia Eventstreams API) to easily keep such lists up-to-date (by listening to additions/removals of {{good article}} from articles, so that there is no need to regenerate the whole thing on every run). So if you don't mind should I file a bot request to turn that link blue? Just wanted to make sure I haven't missed any further developments on this. – SD0001 (talk) 15:44, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

@SD0001: no, I haven't done any more work on this since November. Go ahead and file your bot request. Maybe some time I'll try to improve my code to make the look-ups more efficient as you suggested so I can double-check your results. But I still have more tasks on my to-do list than time to do them all. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:23, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Philip Kitcher edit

It makes no difference to me, but I'm curious why you made your most recent edit to the link to "Secular Humanism." Since Secular Humanism automatically jumps to Secular humanism, what is wrong with leaving it as Secular Humanism?Maurice Magnus (talk) 00:52, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

I did that to clear the link from the Wikipedia:Database reports/Linked miscapitalizations report. It was there because User:WurmWoode marked it as a miscapitalization with this 29 December 2018 edit. The alternative would be to revert WurmWoode's edit. You will note that there are a lot of uses of title case on that list and I wish other editors were less hardcore about marking such things as flat-out wrong in all usage on Wikipedia ({{R from miscapitalisation}}) rather than simply cases of {{R from other capitalisation}}. – wbm1058 (talk) 02:40, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

I made that edit according to the body of the article, as well as the very text of the Declaration, the only capitalization occurs when secular begins a sentence— it seems akin to discussing a good christian versus the Christian religion. Correct me if I am wrong. WurmWoode^T 10:47, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Your explanation is over my head, but that's ok. The more important question is, in general as opposed to in this specific instance, when linking a phrase to its Wikipedia entry, if the capitalization in the Wikipedia entry is different, is it necessary to do what you did even though the link takes you to the Wikipedia entry without doing what you did?Maurice Magnus (talk) 09:55, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

@Maurice Magnus:Is it necessary to change John A. MacDonald to John A. Macdonald or Lebron James to LeBron James, or should we not care whether a person's name is capitalized differently than in the article title of their biography? If we don't care about that then we can eliminate the Wikipedia:Database reports/Linked miscapitalizations report and ask editors to work on something different. – wbm1058 (talk) 21:08, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

@MZMcBride: Can Wikipedia:Database reports/Linked miscapitalizations/Configuration be tweaked to disregard cases where the linked miscapitalization is not actually displayed to the reader but is just piped to different text? I could play with the SQL in Quarry to try to make that happen but you can probably do that faster than it would take me to figure it out. FYI, THIS is my edit which was questioned above. wbm1058 (talk) 21:08, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

4 min youtube

You might find this quite LOLish. FeydHuxtable (talk) 17:34, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Not fixing it

Hi, wbm1058, I hope you are keeping well in these dangerous times? I saw this edit (I watch a number of dog articles), and wondered a little. Doesn't our advice here suggest that we avoid by-passing redirects? Anyway, just to let you know that I've moved the target page back to Dogo Cubano, the same capitalisation as all our other dog breed articles. Regards, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:40, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

@Justlettersandnumbers: as a fellow sysop you should have noticed the history of the redirect that you moved over the top of. Actually I should have looked at that myself:

• at 13:57, 20 February 2020 SMcCandlish moved page Dogo Cubano to Dogo cubano (MOS:LIFE, MOS:FOREIGN; this is not a Standardized breed name in English, so lower-case.)
• and, edit of 13:57, 20 February 2020 tagged the redirect as {{R from incorrect capitalization}} which declares this form to be a flat-out, blatant error demanding to be fixed, as a high priority.

Tagging it with {{R from other capitalization}} puts it in the "DONOTFIXIT" category.

So your issue is with Mr. McCandlish, not me. Though had I noticed it was him who tagged it, I probably would have wanted to double-check for a consensus on the matter.

I'm rather annoyed at the clan of editors who are so sure of themselves that they fail to recognize potentially controversial moves when they see them, and act boldly rather than starting a discussion. – wbm1058 (talk) 01:12, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Should remain lower-case, since it's Spanish, and cubano (like other adjectives derived from proper names) is not capitalized in Spanish; and we have zero evidence of this ever being established as a standardized, formalized breed with such a name, rather than simply being a landrace of dogs common at one time on Cuba. This is the same kind of case as people wanting to over-capitalize "Roman War Dog" on the WP:OR hypothesis that it's a breed in the modern sense. The only reason we capitalize modern standardized breeds (and took years of squabbling and a WP:VPPOL RfC to even permit that exception to MOS:LIFE) is because the authoritative sources on them, the written breed standards that establish them in the first place, do so. Such breeds are akin to published works. If there is no written breed standard for some extinct variety, then there is no basis for capitalizing it (especially not against standard usage in the actual language of the phrase).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:07, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

How can I help with - Should the template display the table in one or two columns?

Python, Flask, CSS developer here. Unemployed and would love to get my hands dirty and gain some more experience. Would like to improve on the above, and learn more about JS and SQL. I also have an art background, so maybe illustration too. Tamccullough (talk) 14:42, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

@Tamccullough: I see you were referred to me from the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football#Regarding the SPLIT table used in the SQUAD sections of the Club manual of style. Our expertise doesn't overlap too much. I don't know any of Python, Flask, CSS, JS and SQL particularly well. I know Wikipedia template coding and PHP. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:16, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

See #Template talk:Football squad player above. wbm1058 (talk) 16:17, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

wbm1058 I'll look into this then - Wikipedia template coding - and see if I can be of any use at some point. Cheers! Tamccullough (talk) 16:33, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Solution

I see that you are on a campaign to remove the use of "solution" in the sense of "an answer to a problem ". Clearly, this is a legitimate meaning of the word. You even used this meaning yourself, multiple times, on this talk page. What's up? Leotohill (talk) 00:04, 23 June 2021 (UTC) Oh, crap, sorry, my bad. I see that you are just addressing overlink. Ignore me. Leotohill (talk) 00:08, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Leotohill, most of those links would be OK if they linked to Solution selling rather than the article about homogeneous mixtures composed of two or more substances, one being dissolved in the other. But the word is an everyday word which is well-understood when used in this context. If I was on a campaign I'd have tagged them all with {{Buzzword inline}}. – wbm1058 (talk) 01:37, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

This 09:50, 14 November 2014 failed attempt to "tone down promotional material" was nicely recovered by this 10:41, 12 January 2017 edit. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:17, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:On Wikipedia, solutions are mixtures and nothing else. Comments left by new page reviewers:

Pages that link to "Solution selling" in article-space wbm1058 (talk) 15:38, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't agree with Wikipedia:On Wikipedia, solutions are mixtures and nothing else at all, and just added comments on its talk page. AFAICT you don't agree with it either. Leotohill (talk) 18:59, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

@Mean as custard: Congrats on winning Editor of the Week earlier this month. I'm not keen on spoiling the celebration on your talk, hence pinging you here. Please read from the start of this section to see what I've been working on. After doing that a while, I noticed that many of my edits were cleaning up after you. I found that another editor complained about your multiple links (DIFF) which is counter to MOS:REPEATLINK. Also, are you really not aware that on Wikipedia, solutions are mixtures and not things to solve problems? It's hard for me not to think that you were disrupting articles to make a point. If so, your point wasn't taken as there were still hundreds of mislinks to the wrong meaning of "solution". I've mostly removed the links as WP:OVERLINKs to an everyday, well-understood word when used in that context. You would have made your point less disruptively by piping the links to [[solution selling|solution]]. I'm hoping this is all water under the bridge and that you aren't making this sort of edit anymore. And also, thanks for what I think is your generally good work otherwise in cleaning up after promotional edits. I had been seriously considering making the move suggested at Talk:Solution#Rename this article to Solution (chemistry) as needed to combat all these mislinks by what I thought were clueless drive-by promotional editors, but now that I see who's responsible for a lot of them I'm having second thoughts about the need to pull chemistry off of primary topic status. wbm1058 (talk) 02:41, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Jürgen Ehlers has been a featured article since 2013 yet had this mislink since 24 May 2008, until I just removed it today. wbm1058 (talk) 18:28, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Affine focal set had a mislink since its 17 August 2008 creation, until I just now disambiguated it: Solution (mathematics). – wbm1058 (talk) 15:56, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

1970s Dutch rock band – Solution (band). – wbm1058 (talk) 18:12, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Another math fix – numerical solution – wbm1058 (talk) 12:57, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Yay! Finally  Done wbm1058 (talk) 18:22, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Saddam Hussain

Are you sure about that deletion, considering earlier revisions? ~ ToBeFree (talk) 16:48, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Silly me, that wasn't you. Sorry. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 16:49, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

No problem, I took care of it. Some speedy patrollers need to slow down a bit. wbm1058 (talk) 17:06, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks very much

..for the alert. Had I known I would have been happy to stop yesterday. As I said, it seemed OK as there were a number of such talkpages created a couple of years ago. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 22:30, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

not sure what to do about a hostile editor

hello. I am visually impaired. I am new to Wikipedia and I have no idea how to report people who are being hostile. it's very difficult for me to type in HTML so I am really out of my league here.

A help page suggested I contact an admin, it sent me to an admin page, I saw your account, so I thought I would ask for help.

Anyway, some guy made changes to a Wikipedia page, and I pointed out his mistakes to him on a "talk" page, I told him I was visually impaired and wasn't able to undo all the stuff he had done, and then he attacked me and accused me of not being visually impaired.

I looked at his talk page and he seems to be hostile to a lot of people.

I don't use wikipedia enough to learn how to do all of these things. I can barely type this message to you. I don't even know how to find this page again to see if you reply. I am really not built for this kind of computer work.

But if there is some way to report this person for being hostile, I hope you will help. Thank you.

Here is the talk interaction:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Yappy2bhere#richard_cheese

And here is the wikipedia page I noticed was being modified incorrectly:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Cheese&action=history

thank you for any help you can provide.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:8001:9442:6d00:9038:8a8c:a80:dabc (talk) 00:54, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi. I've needed corrective lenses since a rather young age. I stopped wearing contact lenses several years ago when my need for progressive lenses became more than what contacts could handle. My optometrist recently referred me to an eye specialist because I've developed a particular condition related to aging eyes. Fortunately though I'm still able to pass the eye test required to renew my drivers license. So I can sympathize. Someday my eyes may deteriorate to the point where I'll need to retire from Wikipedia, though I hope that day is still many years off.

The end credits in that YouTube video are low-resolution and not well-focused. If you can read those, I think your eyes are fine for editing Wikipedia. I wouldn't play up your impairment. Other editors really have no need for knowing that. I edit Wikipedia on a relatively large high-definition desktop monitor and that wasn't much help for making that video better-focused. The other editor let your revert stand after you pointed out the reference in those blurry credits. Don't sweat the small stuff. – wbm1058 (talk) 03:43, 14 July 2021 (UTC)