Amalthea

Template:Multibox

Hi, I'm just wondering what this template is? I'm only seeing two actual uses of it, and it's not at all clear what the advantage is over using {{editnotice}} or {{fmbox}}. PC78 (talk) 22:31, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

The goal was to use the same text both in an editnotice and in a talk page banner (specifically Template:Editnotices/Group/Wikipedia talk:Contact us and Wikipedia talk:Contact us/header), without having to maintain it in two places, while showing them in the customary styles of each context (most notably 80% width on talk page, 100% width in editnotice). There are a couple of ways to do that, like extracting the text into a third template and transcluding from there, or passing a fixed width in the talk page transclusion. I think the cleanest and easiest way is to pass in the box type on the talk page header transclusion, so that all the styles and features of either box are automatically used, and all future template changes are automatically applied. That's what multibox does.
That's also pretty much the only place I can think of where it is useful: In editnotices, if you want to use the same text in another context.
Amalthea 22:55, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

That may be useful for keeping {{BLP}} and {{BLP editintro}} in sync. But could this flexibility not be added to {{mbox}}? PC78 (talk) 23:12, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

That would be nice, but from the top off my head I can't think of a way to figure out whether a template is currently displayed in an editnotice, let alone arbitrary header message. Mbox only switches on namespace, at the moment, and I don't think we want to allow passing in a box template variable there. Amalthea 00:00, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I've had a crack at using this template at {{BLP/sandbox2}}. Do you think you could add support for {{tmbox}}? This would be preferable to using {{mbox}} in this case. PC78 (talk) 22:25, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Alright. I've kept the text in {{BLP editintro/sandbox}}, which is then pulled into {{BLP/sandbox2}}. Texts need to be consolidated, they have minor differences in the live versions of the templates.
Cheers, Amalthea 09:32, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I have no opinion on the variations in wording, though the wording in the editnotice is perhaps better; I will of course be starting a discussion for this in due course. However, I'm not sure what you're doing with {{BLP editintro/sandbox}}. {{BLP}} is the primary template here, so the idea would be to deprecate {{BLP editintro}} in favour of {{BLP|boxtype=editnotice}}. Unless you have a better idea? PC78 (talk) 01:47, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

You can't deprecate the edit intro template, MediaWiki displays an edit intro page as is, meaning you can't pass any parameters into it. And I wouldn't deprecate {{BLP}} either but turn it into a meta template transcluding the intro, it's simpler to maintain the talk check and categorization that way, and much easier to use, with the advantage that the same text is used both times. Amalthea 08:49, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Ah, ok. But in that case, why not replace the content of {{BLP editintro}} with {{BLP|boxtype=editnotice}} instead? PC78 (talk) 13:56, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

It's a tiny bit simpler. For example, {{BLP}} currently transcludes {{check talk}}, which displays a big warning if ever rendered in a namespace other than Talk. That warning would have to be suppressed in the edit intro, i.e. wrapped in some odd {{#ifeq:{{{boxtype}}}|editnotice||{{ckeck talk}}}}. The same goes for the categorization, the __NOINDEX__, the {{documentantion}}.
Certainly possible, but it's just simpler and more readable the other way around. :)
Amalthea 14:01, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Okey-doke. :) PC78 (talk) 14:17, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Discussion here. PC78 (talk) 20:12, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

new sock

new sock puppet of DavidYork71 --->User talk:Reingelt again same edits.Moxy (talk) 14:56, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Opened up at WP:Sockpuppet investigations/DavidYork71. It's generally better to go through WP:SPI with suspected socks, not least because you will usually get a faster response there. Thanks, Amalthea 18:15, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Suggested changes at MOTD

Hello fellow motto contributor. Discussions arer still open on Wikipedia talk:Motto of the day/Nominations#Suggested changes and still require further input especially on ideas 10-17. Please could you voice your opinion as this is going to be closed in early November. Please help out or even make any new idea suggestions.

On a separate but related note, both August and September need deleting. Simply south (talk) 15:06, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Brexx/Bellsouth ADSL modems

I've blocked a few IPs in the Bellsouth range for behaviour that screams "Brexx!". Still, they are too snugly packed for me to think they are random proxies, so either I've screwed up, we have an impersonator, Brexx moved to Atlanta, or something mysterious is going on. It's 74.240.31.157, 74.240.2.73, and 74.240.31.155. Perhaps with your magical powers you can make more sense of it than I can.—Kww(talk) 02:18, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

An odd one. Has a fake UA, certainly some kind of foul play. I can't really trace it anywhere though. Matches two accounts you recently blocked as Brexx-socks, one of those accounts also had a few stray edits from apparently Wisconsin, Ohio, California, New York, Norway, and Slovakia, I still need to look into all those.
Note though that {{blocked proxy}} is only for open proxies, and I find no evidence at all that any of these are open proxies. In general, a proxy block over many month only makes sense if the IP is largely static. In this case I've replaced them by range blocks to stop the block evasion, whether it's Brexx or not. Ip contribs you may want to look at are:

• 74.240.16.156 (talk · contribs)
• 74.240.16.211 (talk · contribs)
• 74.240.16.28 (talk · contribs)
• 74.240.16.98 (talk · contribs)
• 74.240.31.112 (talk · contribs)
• 74.240.31.13 (talk · contribs)
• 74.240.31.152 (talk · contribs)
• 74.240.31.181 (talk · contribs)
• 74.240.31.232 (talk · contribs)

Amalthea 19:35, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

How does 212.194.46.37 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) look for being a candidate for fitting into this access pattern?—Kww(talk) 22:06, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Further edits confirmed it, so I blocked. Expanding it into a range might be appropriate, but you can judge better than I.—Kww(talk) 22:32, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

81.225.0.121 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) as well.—Kww(talk) 22:40, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

• 66.229.195.121 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 76.110.249.39 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I'm just letting him expose as many of these as he is willing to.—Kww(talk) 22:50, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Kick

Just making sure you had noticed my updates to our previous conversation a few paragraphs above.—Kww(talk) 15:29, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Noticed yes, forgotten … yes. Can't really make anything of it, with the little additional information I see, besides that the edits appear to have been made by the same person, but you knew that already. Aren't looking like your typical open proxy, but I am asking around. Amalthea 16:11, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Don't know anything new, sorry. Zzuuzz thinks that it might be an anonymizing service. Dynamic IPs though, which would be somewhat annoying. Amalthea 13:29, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

From behaviour, that's my best bet too: an anonymizer with a botnet. Is the fake user agent unique enough that we could request a Wikimedia patch against it?—Kww(talk) 14:23, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure who's breaking it, and it's not 100% consistent. But that's all so odd. How convinced are you with Teenagebrand (talk · contribs) (I see the one edit summary, but …)? And what do you make of the edits from 98.95.103.0/24 (rangecontribs)? Or Antonellicollege (note antonellicollege.edu, which is also in Jackson, Mississippi)?
Maybe he really has moved, or he's found his soulmate. Amalthea 15:32, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

The 98.85.x.x IPs, not so much. TeenageBrand/Onlygirlintheworld is a behavioural match on the Ne-Yo articles, where he has been extremely annoyed at people refusing to honor his editsemiprotected requests. As always, there aren't retinal scanners, so it is possible that he has a disciple. Given that he was using hotspotshield.com earlier and has always had a mix of proxy abuse in his edits, a new anonymizer (or even just a smarter hotspotshield.com anonymizer) seems very plausible. Another alternative is the Brexx himself is gone, and I am chasing ghosts. That would surprise me. He's had a dedication to getting his edits in that I associate with our Asperger Syndrome editors, and I don't expect him to give up before I do. Despite rumors to the contrary, I do have a life, and I do get bored with this.—Kww(talk) 15:48, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

This diff from 98.95.103.13 stands out, obviously. Have you seen him editing from home the UAE lately? Amalthea 16:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Don't know how I missed that one. Yes, that's pretty likely. His regular 86.96 range seems quiet for him, ever since the hotspotshield original problems.—Kww(talk) 18:04, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

help

Dear Amalthea,

Can you help me to learn German language please??

regards

ashfaq —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.10.17.27 (talk) 21:57, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I can help by giving you a link: wikiversity:Topic:Learning German. Amalthea 22:44, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

ACC inactivity

Hallo Amalthea, your name has come up for ACC tool suspension due to inactivity. I thought I'd ping you first and see if you wanted to log in, before I click the suspend button, :) Maedin\^talk 12:05, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Geez, 45 days already? Thanks for the ping, I'd like to stay active so that I can at least react if the CU list gets chastised again for ignoring its queue. :) Thanks, Amalthea 12:23, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome. I figured you were still interested in having tool access, as one of our few checkusers. Maedin\^talk 12:41, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

re:SPI

Hey thanks for the heads-up - I only did it cuz it's been so wonky in the past and I got used to doing it manually. - eo (talk) 12:48, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

More..."pledge"

Hey, just noticed this "pledge" made by Greenock125 and your response [1]. Wanted to make sure you saw that this person was given pledges and deals many many other times: [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] (you may have already been aware, but just in case you were not). People have tried repeatedly with this guy, to no avail. - eo (talk) 17:18, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

I didn't actually realise it was a talk page, I usually see when they are, sorry minor mistake I'll try to be more careful. EarthCom1000 (talk) 19:25, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

No worries. :) Amalthea 19:27, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Template

Hello Amalthea. Months ago the Template:Countries of Central America was blocked for what it then seemed like an edit war from one party with an anonimous IP that wanted to include Mexico there. So an edit war started and the template got protected. Other related template with Central America was recently unblocked by request (Template:Central America topic) and now there is a consensus so I'm asking that the template is unprotected or semi protected so we can edit it again and reflect the changes. Gracias. Guate-man (talk) 23:54, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Unprotected now. Thanks, Amalthea 16:54, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much Guate-man (talk) 22:29, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks and have a Barnstar.

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		For speedy enhancements to Twinkle. (I expected a long list of barnstars on your User page, but it seems you don't collect them!) Trafford09 (talk) 11:14, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Flag of the African Union 2010.svg

I certainly don't remember it but I'll do a search and see if I can find it. Lexicon (talk) 20:22, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

The press release can be found at the African Union website, in Word format, here. Lexicon (talk) 20:29, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Great, thanks! I had searched their page, but only found a document noting that a new flag was approved and the designer was awarded IIRC $10.000 for it, but nothing on the actual flag to properly source the image (and it was odd since they still use the old flag on their website).
Cheers, Amalthea 20:07, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:SPI for dpeedy deletion?

See CAT:UCSD. I'm not sure why Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations and these other pages are appearing in the "speedy-deletion requested by user" list. There seem to be bot operations going on - I don't know if that has confused something? Regards, JohnCD (talk) 19:58, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Webfan29 was transcluded on some other SPI page. I've deleted the case page, should be good now.
Thanks, Amalthea 20:02, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

ArbCom Election RFC courtesy notice

A request for comment that may interest you is currently in progress at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2010 ArbCom election voting procedure. If you have already participated, then please disregard this notice and my apologies. A Horse called Man 19:00, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
You received this message because you participated in the earlier ArbCom voting system RFC.

SPI

[8] No, because of the cocky it's me attitude, the similar interests, and the fact that it was active at the same time he was yesterday using a new IP. Perhaps it came up unrelated because it was a range he hasn't used before? Grsz¹¹ 19:24, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi,
I heard about the new range, but it still isn't Grundle, as certain as I can be.
Cheers, Amalthea 19:39, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

Xeno archives his talk page really fast, but I wanted to say thanks for the suggestion you gave me there yesterday; I did see it. I found another set of css/js code somewhere else and spent a few hours goofing around with it (trying to learn by osmosis), to the point where it does about 80% of what I want; if I ever get another few free hours, I may fiddle with Ioeth's code, just to see what the differences are. Cheers. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:41, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Talk:List of Cambodian singers

Hi. I see you restored content to Talk:List of Cambodian singers with the comment "restoring discussion, no reason to throw it out." The IP editor had archived it, at Talk:List of Cambodian singers/Archive1, and hadn't actually thrown it out. I did think it was perhaps a bit premature to archive, but I left it. What do you think - revert the Talk and keep the archive, or empty the archive? (I'd favour the latter, as the Talk isn't too long) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:32, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I really don't care. :)
In general archival was certainly unnecessary, but in this particular case I'm just as happy to leave it be.
Have added a talk header now and renamed the archive so that it is at least easily accessible, but feel very free to undo.
Cheers, Amalthea 10:09, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Sounds fine :-) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:32, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Unprotect

Can you please unprotect SEPTA Route 15 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and SEPTA Subway–Surface Trolley Lines (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)? There has not been much "action" since you put Pending Changes on the articles in June. — Gfoley4 Wanna chat? 21:17, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Wow, that was quick! Thanks! — Gfoley4 Wanna chat? 21:21, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Sure. :) Amalthea 21:28, 30 October 2010 (UTC)