User talk:Bluemoose/archive4

I might reply here or on your page, I'm a bit crazy like that.

Err why did you delete my FACT on communism??

So here's the deal[edit]

This has been a particularly bad week for me on Wikipedia. And it's not the big things that get under your skin, it's the little things—like the unregistered user who removed one of my edits, with no explanation, and regardless of the fact that I provided a footnoted reference from a published work (and he/she also unintentionally, I assume, deleted the footnote too, which messed up the rest of the footnotes in the article)...but I digress. I was also (somewhat strongly) rebuked by another user for incorrectly using the speedy renaming page (and, upon reflection, deservedly so). I think this is called "death by a thousand cuts".

I will admit that the way I was using templates was impractical, but most likely I would have eventually figured this out anyway. In the case of the "intro" templates, I was just trying to save on typing. After you've typed A '''Cthulhigoth''' is a [[fictional character|fictional]] [[extraterrestrial|alien]] in the [[Cthulhu mythos]] of [[H.P. Lovecraft]]. for the nth time, it's hard to resist the urge to look for shortcuts. As for the category template, I was simply ignorant of the fact that categories are hierarchical (and unfortunately the overuse of categories is rampant in Wikipedia!). In fact, I'm actually relieved to find this out, because it means that now I won't have to type in as much.

RlyehRising 20:07, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

P S I appreciate your reply. RlyehRising 20:07, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A little job for Bluebot?[edit]

The pair of you helped me out before, so I wondered if you and your faithful bot could do me another favour. I would be much obliged if Bluebot could possibly run over this lot and touch each one: I've edited the infobox replacing {{ifdef}} with {{if}} and the former's "links here" list is still hopelessly jammed with albums, making it very difficult to see what should be my next target. Thanks (hopefully) in advance. —Phil | Talk 17:49, 24 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'll run Whobot on it for awhile and see if I can't get some of them done while I'm online today. «»Who ?¿?^meta 18:02, 24 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ok cool. Wasn't sure if you was online or not, and I had written code just for doing this type of thing awhile back :) Oh well. «»Who ?¿?^meta 18:07, 24 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks chaps, that's excellent: {{ifdef}} is now ripe for deletion. <coughs> Any chance one of you could do the same to {{if2}}? (It's been replaced in {{if}} by {{show1}} but obviously the links are still extant.) —Phil | Talk 09:09, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers[edit]

Thanks are now due, not only for the nom but also the support. I'm now an admin and hope I don't go mad with the power. Jokes aside, feel free to keep an eye on me and my logs, especially while I'm learning the ropes with the new buttons. I am indebted to you, so extend the offer that anything you need a hand with, please let me know, Steve block talk 10:18, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your support.[edit]

Hi, Martin. I just want to thank you very much for supporting my RfA, and to say also that I hope I'll make a good job of it. I'm supposed to be working on an assignment at the moment, and had delayed thanking people, but I'm finding the new rollback button so easy to use that I'm just keeping Wikipedia open on my browser while working on other things, and I thought I'd like to thank at least a few of my supporters while I'm here. Cheers. AnnH ^(talk) 19:25, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Could you help me with a touch job[edit]

I have removed all usage of {{if equals}}, could you touch [1]? –AzaToth ^talk 19:59, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Serial commas[edit]

Hi, you just left the following on my talk page:

Hi, I noticed you have added some commas to articles such as changing;
grit, determination and tenacity.
to
grit, determination, and tenacity.
The original way is (almost always) correct so please don't change it, thanks.

I disagree. Authorities differ on whether the serial comma is correct or not, so the preferred format is a matter of opinion, much as the preferred way to phrase a sentence is. Over time, the stylistic choices that obtain in Wikipedia articles should and do reflect the varied opinions of the Wikipedians who encounter them and choose to make changes. Dhochron 23:42, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, you replied on my talk page with "If it is matter of choice, then it is bad form to actually change what is already there to your own choice". As I think there are important points here, both grammatical and Wikipedian, I am copying you on the reply I posted there:

That can't be right. That would mean that, for any matter for which there's not a consensus, the initial form should be frozen for all time. I think that runs counter to a central Wikipedia idea: each person acts boldly. Acting in that spirit, there is a chance for consensus to form. For example, maybe most people attentive to details of style prefer the serial comma's inclusion, or its exclusion, or some more complicated rule.

That said, I was perhaps too generous (in my attempt to be diplomatic) to the position that it is ok to leave out the serial comma. Both the Chicago Manual of Style and Strunk and White recommend a mandatory serial comma. The New York Times (along with some similar authorities) does not, but its historical reason is for saving space, hardly compelling on the Internet.

Let's see how the Encyclopedia Britannica does it; that should be a decent guide for an encyclopedia. Here are some excerpts:

Microeconomics: "... study of the economic behaviour of individual consumers, firms, and industries..."

Labour economics: "The labour force comprises all those who work for gain, whether as employees, employers, or as self-employed..."

Religion: "...human beings' relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, spiritual, or divine... Worship is probably the most basic element of religion, but moral conduct, right belief, and participation in religious institutions are generally also constituent elements of the religious..."

As you can see, Britannica includes the serial comma. So does Encarta:

Economics: "... concerned with the production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of goods and services. Economists focus on the way in which individuals, groups, business enterprises, and governments seek to achieve efficiently any economic objective they select."

Religion: "These powers may be in the form of gods, spirits, ancestors, or any kind of sacred reality with which humans believe themselves to be connected. Sometimes a spiritual power is understood broadly as an all-embracing reality (see Pantheism), and sometimes it is approached through its manifestation in special symbols. It may be regarded as external to the self, internal, or both."

I expect, over time, that a similar consensus could develop at Wikipedia. Dhochron 19:18, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bluebot mistake[edit]

Hi Bluemoose. Your bot seems to have made a little mistake on an oddly formatted table here. 12.170.208.6 01:24, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Shit, I fixed that bug, but I thought i had found all occurances or it. thanks Martin 10:21, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sean Black RfA[edit]

Thank you very much for your support of my RfA. Thanks, in part, to you, I am now an Administrator, and I pledge to use my newfound powers for good rather than evil. Thanks again!--Sean|Bla ck 07:59, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Use of "Sources"[edit]

Following our little spat, it seems that there is further discussion going on in this area at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#References/external links headers name-change proposal and Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#References title misread as non-web External links. Care to stroll on over and see if the wider audience has opinions? User:Noisy | Talk 12:41, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

bot suggestion[edit]

Using a list of Wiktionary and Wikipedia articles, an overlap list can be compiled. How about running the bot to add link boxes at the bottom of each page of each site?

Lotsofissues 15:38, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bot removing sort key[edit]

Hi, I think your bot is removing the sort key when updating categories. See Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for example. Cheers, Talrias (t | e | c) 12:35, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

if none touch[edit]

there is about 2000 pages refering to {{ifnone}}, could you touch all of them? ifnone is to be deleted _→AzaToth 15:13, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Massachusetts touch[edit]

I would appreciate it if you could have User:Bluebot touch everything using {{Massachusetts}}. Thanks in advance! Mike Dillon 18:16, 3 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your help. The touch was intended to remove dangling links to Cape Cod and the Islands and it worked as expected. Mike Dillon 00:20, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

RFA for TheParanoidOne[edit]

Hello Bluemoose. Thanks for the vote of confidence in my RFA. I have now officially received the badge, so I shall try my best to be a good administrator. Thanks again. --TheParanoidOne 19:46, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bluebot request[edit]

Just a suggestion: When renaming categories, can you leave off the {{cfd}} tags on the newly created cats? Thanks! --Kbdank71 15:48, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

User:Wookbot[edit]

Yes, it is mine. Actually, I was toying with the idea of a bot. I'm actually not very sure how to use or create one. Do you think you could point me in the right direction of how to start and use one? The Wookieepedian 13:39, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I did that mainly to test everything out. It just happened to be your bot that I copied from. The Wookieepedian 13:52, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have now removed your info from User:Wookbot (that I had originally copied from Bluebot). The Wookieepedian 13:55, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bluebot touch request[edit]

Please could Bluebot do his/her (?) usual excellent job on {{High-traffic}} and {{Talk Spoken Wikipedia id}}?

I'm slowly replacing usage of {{articlespace}} with {{ARTICLESPACE}}. The former relies upon about 15 or 16 sub-templates, one for each namespace; the latter uses just one: {{switch}}. Maybe this could also be a job for Bluebot? Obviously you would want to check for yourself that I'm not wrecking anything here ;-) —Phil | Talk 17:09, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks anyway: it worked a treat. Those two particular templates are comparatively small beer: I wanted to give {{ARTICLESPACE}} a bit of a run before getting ambitious. Next stop, {{todo}} and its multitudinous cohorts ;-). HAND —Phil | Talk 11:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bluebot suggestion[edit]

How about changing all date -'s into —'s?

Lotsofissues 20:57, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bluebot's capabilities?[edit]

I'm interested in how complex Bluebot is capable of being, and what—if any—calculations (s)he is capable of performing.

I've constructed {{todo priority}} (which is currently capable of replacing {{todo2}}, {{todo3}}, {{todo4}}, {{todo5}}, {{todo6}}, {{todo7}}, {{todo8}}, and {{todo9}} (whew!), and will be capable of replacing {{todo1}} with a bit of tweaking: it uses a single parameter to specify the priority. It could actually be used to replace {{todo}} itself, since it defaults to "no priority defined" but that's a stage or two further on ;-).

So far I've simply been mechanically replacing the templates, using the currently-stated priority. However, if you take a look here, you will see that there is a well-defined basis for calculating the priority:

1 for articles with more than 500 references or more than 12 pages
2 for 200 to 500 references or less than 12 pages
3 for 100 to 200 references or less than 6 pages
4 for 50 to 100 references or less than 3 pages
5 for 20 to 50 references or less than 2 pages
6 for 10 to 20 references or less than 1 page
7 for 5 to 10 references
8 for 2 to 5 references
9 for articles with 1 or 2 references

where "references" refers to inbound wiki-links (i.e. the number of entries on the "What links here" list) and I have no idea what they mean by "pages";-).

Is Bluebot capable of counting these references for a given article? If so, would it be possible for Bluebot, or maybe a dedicated fellow-bot, to regularly update the priority of articles using a to do list?

Am I over-egging the pudding? HAND —Phil | Talk 10:02, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've tweaked {{todo priority}} to handle the special case where priority = 1 (the category names are non-uniform, would you believe!). I would appreciate a sort of peer-review whereby someone could check I've not buggered everything up. Are you available to take a peek? —Phil | Talk 12:44, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've downloaded the AutoWikiBrowser zip file: is that a self-contained executable, or will it try to install stuff? —Phil | Talk 12:54, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Crown Jewels/jewels[edit]

What the heck are you doing lowercasing Crown Jewels? Crown Jewels (uppercased) means jewels that are part of a specific crown regalia. Crown jewels (lowercased) means general jewels, not necessarily part of the regalia, that are owned by the Crown. Your bot has completely mucked up a deliberately designed form of words. Please undo the mess you have created immediately. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 19:25, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You are mixing up two totally different things. Obviously illiteracy and ignorance of regalia is widespread on WP. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 19:31, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Number 9 complaint...[edit]

Hi,

I'm complaining about your "BlueBot". I put an extra space between the stub template & an article link like this:

External links

American Crime at IMDb

Then the bot did this:

External links

American Crime at IMDb

It just looks so much more crowded & crammed! Why does your bot not allow for space & can it be fixed? Regards, Spawn Man 23:07, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What article are you talking about? Martin 23:35, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My stupid article, American Crime (film). Spawn Man 23:54, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I'm adding the nowiki formmatting so this page will stop showing up on the film-stubs page. Kerowyn 08:45, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hebrew writing templates[edit]

Please do not robot subst the templates that begin with "hbr"—they are used intentionally because of Wikipedia's mangling of niqqud so that they do not combine properly. When you change the "hbr" templates to Unicode, it does change the appearance of the article. Example for "Issachar":

using the templates:
- {{hbryod}}{{hbrhiriq}}{{hbrssin.}}{{hbrqamaz}}{{hbrshin.}}{{hbrkaf}}{{hbrqamaz}}{{hbrresh}}
without templates, using the same order of niqqud and letting Wikipedia autoformat it:
- יִשָּׂשׁכָר

It is very important that these templates remain in place, as I developed them all specifically for this reason. - Gilgamesh 23:44, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I was doing it on request though. Martin 23:46, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Regalias et al[edit]

Mmm. Yes. The problem is how to create a category that is exclusively focused on Crown Jewels (Regalias) rather than crown jewels (jewels owned by the crown). International English uses capitalisation to clarify the different between specific terms and generic ones. That is what was done here, to specify Crown Jewels (a narrow band of crowns, sceptres, orbs etc used for state ritual and seen as a set) from mere ordinary jewels owned by the crown; diamond necklaces, for example, worn by a queen when she wears a crown. But American English users don't use capitalisation to do that. So when IE/BE users capitalise to distinguish types of term, AE users decapitalise things, in the process causing edit wars all over the place. I don't know how we untangle the mess now, given that two different meanings of the one term are now bunged in together. And regalia is already being used in the same messy 'everything bunged in together' form.

Sorry if I was sharp earlier. It is just that the bot removed a careful distinction and produced what is in reality a mess of a category. Unfortunately users who did understand the distinction weren't aware of the vote, and even if they were would probably have been outvoted by people who don't understand the distinction. I'll sleep on it and see can I come up with some new term. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 01:00, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]