User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2012 May

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Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 51

Template: . *

Edits by:

1. Rich Farmbrough at 01:06, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Never edited by BAG.
Last edit by me at 01:06, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Rich Farmbrough at 01:06, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Rich Farmbrough at 01:06, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 01:07, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 48

Template: A user has requested the attention of a member of the Bot Approvals Group. Once assistance has been rendered, please deactivate this tag by replacing it with {{t|BAG assistance needed}}. . *

Edits by:

1. Rich Farmbrough at 02:14, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
2. CBM at 02:18, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Hellknowz at 11:16, 31 March 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 02:14, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by CBM at 02:18, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by CBM at 02:18, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 02:47, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

{{Incomplete}}

Since you modified {{Incomplete}}, you may be interested in Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_April_28#Template:Incomplete. — This, that, and the other (talk) 00:38, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 48

Template: A user has requested the attention of a member of the Bot Approvals Group. Once assistance has been rendered, please deactivate this tag by replacing it with {{t|BAG assistance needed}}. . *

Edits by:

1. Rich Farmbrough at 01:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
2. CBM at 01:23, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Hellknowz at 11:16, 31 March 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 01:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by CBM at 01:23, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by CBM at 01:23, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 02:03, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 51

Template: . *

Edits by:

1. CBM at 01:39, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
2. CBM at 01:39, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Never edited by BAG.
Last edit by me at 01:06, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by CBM at 01:39, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by CBM at 01:39, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 02:04, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 48

Template: A user has requested the attention of a member of the Bot Approvals Group. Once assistance has been rendered, please deactivate this tag by replacing it with {{t|BAG assistance needed}}. . *

Edits by:

1. Rich Farmbrough at 02:52, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
2. CBM at 03:20, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Hellknowz at 11:16, 31 March 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 02:52, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by CBM at 03:20, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by CBM at 03:20, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 03:45, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 51

Template: . *

Edits by:

1. Rich Farmbrough at 02:55, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
2. Rich Farmbrough at 02:55, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
3. CBM at 03:19, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Never edited by BAG.
Last edit by me at 02:55, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by CBM at 03:19, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by CBM at 03:19, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 03:45, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 51

Template: Denied.. *

Edits by:

1. Snowolf at 08:20, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
2. Snowolf at 08:21, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
3. Beetstra at 08:45, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Snowolf at 08:21, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 02:55, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Beetstra at 08:45, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Beetstra at 08:45, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 08:48, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 52

Template: . *

Edits by:

1. Rich Farmbrough at 03:44, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Never edited by BAG.
Last edit by me at 03:44, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Rich Farmbrough at 03:44, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Rich Farmbrough at 03:44, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 03:45, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikimania 2012 scholarship

Hi Rich, I have contacted you recently by email about Wikimania 2012. It would be great if you could get in touch to discuss further - either talk page or email is fine. daria.cybulskawikimedia.org.uk Thank you! Daria Cybulska (talk) 10:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

BD2412

Can someone tell them that there's a dab problem with Ellis Bent‎. Rich Farmbrough, 20:27, 2 April 2012 (UTC).

Diana Francis

• Should be restored as it's original redirect.
• The Ricardian Poets need a review, together with the associated works
• A Key to Uncle tom's Cabin needs italics.

Too trusting?

[15:10] <UserX> Hello, can a Administrator delete http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:UserX/monobook.js [15:10] <AdminY> Done.

Rich Farmbrough, 17:57, 27 April 2012 (UTC).

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 50

Template: A user has requested the attention of a member of the Bot Approvals Group. Once assistance has been rendered, please deactivate this tag by replacing it with {{t|BAG assistance needed}}. . *

Edits by:

1. Chrisrus at 04:25, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Headbomb at 14:53, 28 March 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 01:11, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Chrisrus at 04:25, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Chrisrus at 04:25, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 04:29, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

An outing

"Aunt Jane!" said Tom, hurrying to keep up, "Do you think that one day I could be an Arb Clerk like you?"

"You can be whatever you want, Tom, even an Arb if you put your mind to it." she replied, striding down broad gleaming template namespace.

Tom liked his Aunt Jane, she was never flustered, or too tired to play a game of quick-diff with him, as his father was after a long day at MfD. And today she had taken him out for some new headers and footers. He watched the other editors move out of her path, touching their hats or avoiding her gaze, even the bots making minor edits to the illumination system seemed in awe of her. He was sure the mean boys who had kept reverting him on the school trip to the Commons, every time he tried to stop them making incivil remarks about Mona Mumpkin's bandwidth from the back 16 bits of the bus, would have quailed had they known she was his aunt.

"In here." she said as they came to a very expensive looking templating shop - gnomes were overpainting the signage but Ludwigs and Co was still visible under some blanked versions. While his aunt discussed the finer points of hair shaping with the proprietor, Tom took in the array of meta-templates, each with the distinctive Spork imprint, the shiny CC-by-Sa 17.2 mirrors and the custom python scripts apparently asleep on the floor of their cage.

Tom's mind wandered as the matching headers and footers were attached with a touch of CCS adhesive, adjusted, revised and tweaked until both his aunt and proprietor were satisfied, then, after polite farewells and sigging, back into the busy namespace one more.

"Aunt stop!" he said suddenly realising.

His aunt turned brought her face down to his level "What's the matter?"

"You didn't pay the man..."

She smiled, "Oh no dear, he does my jobs as a favour. You see a few years ago he was caught eating yogurt, and I was able to pull a few strings... avoided a lot of unpleasantness, probably a 1RR at least... for templater that would have been his livelihood."

"Yoghurt" Tom looked puzzled, then remembered his history lessons. ".. oh yogurt.." he said quietly, then quickly reverted himself before anyone else could watch.

"Anyway we are nearly there." Tom brightened, his aunt had taken him on a number of unusual outings recently, so it seemed there was another destination this morning, and while he was proud of his new gear, he was a more practical boy then fashion conscious. There had been the Harvard Hall where editors known as referrers were sitting trance-like, their neural nets linked by superconducting mono-filaments to the world library, abstracting and cross referencing for portals and projects. The trip to the wreck of the Esperanza had been the best, but he knew that the riskiest had been the back rooms of the sock-puppet centre, where in a large factory millions of socks were being attached to the heads of animated camels. He had been puzzled, but his aunt had refused to explain, telling him to think about it, and not to breathe a word to anyone.

The boy and his mentor crossed through a small, unlit, and rather insalubrious sub-namespace labelled Bjaodnally, and to his surprise came out right next to the Bot Museum. "Never go that way without me" she said "there are all sorts hanging around there, survivors form the old times, revert warriors, truthers even maybe sangeristas." The boy nodded, a delicious chill passing through him at the forbidden words, but nonetheless a little disappointed to be at the Bot Museum, which he had visited so many times before, often on a Saturday morning when his parents gave him a few electro-groats and hung a merge tag outside their user page.

They wandered down the vast echoing halls, past the hulking Cydebot and SmackBot - twin behemoths dwarfed in their turn by thousand armed Siebot, the steam powered Rambot - due to be powered up for a day at Easter, the sleek darting forms of HagermanBot and SineBot, the serried ranks of the py-bots facing the rows of slightly more customised awb-bots, like armies of pawns across a gigantic chess board. Skipping the policy room, where talking headsets would guide you through the dry and convoluted history of the documents framed around the walls (an urban legend said that every millionth visitor was taken over by the headset and changed into a bot) they arrived at the hands-on-section.

Here children of all ages, but mostly younger than Tom, operated simple revert bots, played some messy games, while in the sandbox two older boys with obvious competence problems were building a massive history tower. Tom admitted to himself that, deep down, this was his favourite room. Despite his age he liked playing with the toys and making them go further than they were designed to, getting them to interact with each other, the younger children's disruptive games simply adding to the challenge of controlling the devices without upsetting them, and at the end of the session, he liked to operate the sandbox cleaner to reset the unoccupied parts of the room to their initial state or "pre-set" as the controls described it.

Tom moved, almost automatically towards the stub builder, seeing some spare space where he could lay down a nice pattern, but his aunt took his hand and turned him to face a small triangular man in a curator's uniform. "This is my nephew, Tom. Tom this is.." she paused a heartbeat "...old Nab." The man's mouth twitched as she introduced him, as if a smiley had almost occurred.

"Very pleased to met you Tom, this way" - Old Nab opened a door marked Project staff only rollbacking the lock quicker than Tom could follow. Down a short, brightly lit corridor was a workshop, one wall was a large one-way watchlist where the children could be seen playing in the hands-on centre "just in case" as Old Nab later explained, the rest of the room, apart from the two doors, was crammed with junk, all sorts of glorious junk. Everything from almost complete robot carcases, to big tubs of mis-matched parentheses were scattered across the floor, over the workbenches, on shelves, and the ceiling was festooned with templates and meta-templates - not the burnished Spork imprinted tools of the high street, but hand made, custom templates, some possibly made for one job, then never used again, or not without further customization. Tom gaped, staring around, then his eyes fell on a regular expression lying, disassembled, on the bench next to him.

Before he could stop himself, he had re-arranged a couple of greedy wild-cards, and had just picked up a glowing delimiter, when Old Nab gently said "Here, I'll take that, my lad" relieving him of the object, which he now saw had intricate involuted methods running through it. "You're right Jane, he certainly does have an eye for these things. And I have been keeping an eye on him, here, from time to time" Old Nab glanced up at the watchlist, and Tom blushed at the thought of Nab applying intricate filters to his childish experiments and games. "I've put together the items you wanted." Half turning to Tom, "You're a lucky boy, to have an aunt like that."

Tom nodded "I know sir." he said, a little confused, watching, his hand still tingling from the delimiter, as Old Nab zipped, compressed and tar'ed a collection of components into a package small enough for Tom to carry.

"You know how to unpack, boy?" Nab said, and without waiting for an answer linked the package, with dual calling conventions for safety, to Tom's back. "Now I have to get on... the exit is over there. Nice to see you again Jane, Tom." Nab sigged and turned back to the workbench, muttering about vowel shifts and serial verbs, apparently oblivious to them as they sigged and left through the talk page.

Once again Jane set her rapid pace back towards the Project where Tom lived. Tom, carrying his load and hurrying to keep up, still managed enough breath to ask "Aunt? Um.. what is it?"

His aunt smiled enigmatically "You'll know once you unpack it - or if you don't then it's not for you."

And so half an hour later Tom found himself in his freshly archived home, carefully opening and unpacking the somewhat convoluted module the old man had created so effortlessly. As he extracted the components he added them to the growing collection, his mind putting together the puzzle "This links here - maybe if I glued that on there - oh I didn't see he'd added one, no two of those!" until finally all that was left was some stub code which he G6'd.

Tom looked at the tangled pile of metal, conduits and rulebases in the corner of his sub page. A bot of his very own. One day, one day soon, he and his bot would visit a real article.

Rich Farmbrough, 21:00, 25 April 2012 (UTC).

Comments welcome. Rich Farmbrough, 16:53, 26 April 2012 (UTC).

I shall be forced to set a quiz. Rich Farmbrough, 01:34, 28 April 2012 (UTC).

Quiz

1. List as many science fiction or fantasy references as you can. 5 points each.
2. List as many Wikipedia cultural or technical references as you can. 4 points each.
3. List as many referenced Wikipedia accounts as you can. 3 points each.
4. List as many technical or Internet references as you can. 2 points each.
5. List as many real-world (non-trivial) references as you can. 1 point each
6. List as many morals as you can. 12 points each

Target, at least 180 points. Rich Farmbrough, 21:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC).

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 52

Template: Withdrawn by operator.. *

Edits by:

1. Rich Farmbrough at 12:09, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Never edited by BAG.
Last edit by me at 12:09, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Rich Farmbrough at 12:09, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Rich Farmbrough at 12:09, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 12:37, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 April 2012

• Paid editing: Does Wikipedia Pay? The Consultant: Pete Forsyth

• News and notes: Showdown as featured article writer openly solicits commercial opportunities

• Recent research: Barnstars work; Wiktionary assessed; cleanup tags counted; finding expert admins; discussion peaks; Wikipedia citations in academic publications; and more

• Discussion report: 'ReferenceTooltips' by default

• WikiProject report: The Cartographers of WikiProject Maps

• Featured content: Featured content spreads its wings

• Arbitration report: R&I Review remains in voting, two open cases

• Technology report: What Git means for end users, design controversies and pertinent poll results

• Read this Signpost in full
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• EdwardsBot (talk) 05:15, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

WP:RFBOT

Your recent bot approvals request has been denied. Please see the request page for details. I've left the request unclosed so that my colleagues can comment on the decision if they wish to do so. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 08:36, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually disregard this and the section below, it's clear my understanding of the policy was incorrect and the closure has been self-reverted and the BRFA will proceed normally, sorry about the mess. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 09:36, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

No problem. If all I had to deal with was ephemeral mistakes life would be a breeze. Rich Farmbrough, 14:37, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 50

Template: A user has requested the attention of a member of the Bot Approvals Group. Once assistance has been rendered, please deactivate this tag by replacing it with {{t|BAG assistance needed}}. . *

Edits by:

1. Rich Farmbrough at 01:11, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Headbomb at 14:53, 28 March 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 01:11, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Rich Farmbrough at 01:11, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Rich Farmbrough at 01:11, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 02:04, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Pixie bot is broken

Kindly fix Pixie bot to NOT interfere with clearly marked tags saying that they're undergoing major edits, such as Brabourne Stadium which was tagged with the {{Template:GOCEinuse}} template. I now need to unnecessarily merge my edits with that crappy bot's maintenance edits. Easwarno1 (talk) 01:06, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• I don't think anyone can rightfully claim a bot is broken because it didn't detect a template custom made for a particular wikiproject. How many other custom templates are out there for all the dozens or even hundreds of wikiprojects we have? To expect the bot to be aware of all of those is unreasonable, and calling the bot "crappy" because of that is improper. Perhaps you'd like to request Rich to modify the bot to be aware of Template:GOCEinuse in the future? I'm sure a polite request would be well received. --Hammersoft (talk) 03:30, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• (talk page stalker) As a member of GOCE this is quite embarrassing. Easwarno1 as Hammersoft suggest, a simple request will probably solve this issue for everyone. Cheers, Mlpearc (powwow) 03:49, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
• P.S. You might also want to mention {{in use}} as it is pretty much the same template. Mlpearc (powwow) 03:54, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I do intend that the bot should skip these articles, so I will raise a bug.[1] In these cases (ongoing bot maintenance tasks) I would say a rule of thumb is to simply overwrite the bot's changes, it will be back in due course. Indeed it appears that this is what you did, so everything is (should be) cool. Rich Farmbrough, 04:36, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Thank you for your response. Cheers, Mlpearc (powwow) 04:46, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

The persecution continues

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Queen's Award for Enterprise (mass nomination). Note:

1. Listed while I was blocked.
2. No message.
3. Fram joins in, 3 minutes after Headbomb finishes his nom.

Is this collegiate editing or someone being a WP:DICK? You decide. Rich Farmbrough, 23:24, 30 April 2012 (UTC).

In case you were having difficulty getting the answer the nominator said "You're blocked/banned from editing anything except your ARBCOM cases and own talk page. There's no point in notifying you." Nice! Rich Farmbrough, 01:37, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Wait, are you still blocked? I'll ask for the AFD to be put on hold if you are. 64.160.39.217 (talk) 04:57, 1 May 2012 (UTC) Welcome back. 64.160.39.217 (talk) 06:41, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, and thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 05:11, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Helpful Pixie Bot bug # 101

Bug number: 101 System: Component: perl source Blocks: none Blocked by: none
Resolution: {{#switch:fixed |fixed= Fixed |not a bug= Not a bug |closed=Closed |outdated=Outdated ||pending=pending

Hi! I noticed an apparent bug with Helpful Pixie Bot:

Task

Dating maintenance tags and associated clean up.

Example(s)

• en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brabourne_Stadium&diff=490221375&oldid=490218626

Explanation

Should skip the article because it contains {{GOCEinuse}}.

Rich Farmbrough, 04:42, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Notes. What if the last edit was over 2 hours ago? Ask GOCE about that? Rich Farmbrough, 04:42, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Build KC.  Fixed Rich Farmbrough, 08:09, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 47

Template: A user has requested the attention of a member of the Bot Approvals Group. Once assistance has been rendered, please deactivate this tag by replacing it with {{t|BAG assistance needed}}. . *

Edits by:

1. Rich Farmbrough at 07:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
2. Rich Farmbrough at 07:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Hellknowz at 11:16, 31 March 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 07:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Rich Farmbrough at 07:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Rich Farmbrough at 07:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 10:06, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 51

Template: . *

Edits by:

1. CBM at 11:38, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Snowolf at 09:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 16:04, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by CBM at 11:38, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by CBM at 11:38, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 11:47, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 47

Template: {{BAG assistance needed }}. *

Edits by:

1. CBM at 11:19, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
2. Rich Farmbrough at 12:19, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
3. CBM at 12:22, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Hellknowz at 11:16, 31 March 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 12:19, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by CBM at 12:22, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Rich Farmbrough at 12:35, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 12:45, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 51

Template: . *

Edits by:

1. Rich Farmbrough at 12:14, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
2. CBM at 12:24, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Snowolf at 09:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 12:14, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by CBM at 12:24, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by CBM at 12:24, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 12:45, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 51

Template: . *

Edits by:

1. Snowolf at 08:58, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
2. Snowolf at 09:04, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
3. Beetstra at 09:07, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
4. Hellknowz at 09:06, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
5. Snowolf at 09:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Snowolf at 09:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 02:55, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Snowolf at 09:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Snowolf at 09:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 09:44, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 51

Template: Withdrawn by operator.. *

Edits by:

1. Rich Farmbrough at 21:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Snowolf at 09:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 21:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Rich Farmbrough at 21:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Rich Farmbrough at 21:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 21:36, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 47

Template: {{BAG assistance needed }}. *

Edits by:

1. Kumioko at 15:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Hellknowz at 11:16, 31 March 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 12:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Kumioko at 15:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Kumioko at 15:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 15:13, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 50

Template: A user has requested the attention of a member of the Bot Approvals Group. Once assistance has been rendered, please deactivate this tag by replacing it with {{t|BAG assistance needed}}. . *

Edits by:

1. Rich Farmbrough at 05:19, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
2. Kumioko at 15:09, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Headbomb at 14:53, 28 March 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 05:19, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Kumioko at 15:09, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Kumioko at 15:09, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 15:14, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 47

Template: Withdrawn by operator.. *

Edits by:

1. Rich Farmbrough at 13:23, 3 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Hellknowz at 11:16, 31 March 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 13:23, 3 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Rich Farmbrough at 13:23, 3 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Rich Farmbrough at 13:23, 3 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 13:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 50

Template: A user has requested the attention of a member of the Bot Approvals Group. Once assistance has been rendered, please deactivate this tag by replacing it with {{t|BAG assistance needed}}. . *

Edits by:

1. Chrisrus at 03:50, 3 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Headbomb at 14:53, 28 March 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 05:19, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Chrisrus at 03:50, 3 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Chrisrus at 03:50, 3 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 04:41, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 51

Template: . *

Edits by:

1. Kumioko at 14:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Snowolf at 09:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 12:14, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Kumioko at 14:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Kumioko at 14:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 15:14, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Cattrack

Instead of adding this to hundreds of pages, wouldn't it have been a lot easier to add it to Template:Monthly clean-up category directly? Fram (talk) 08:56, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I did, it didn't work. Rich Farmbrough, 12:10, 3 May 2012 (UTC).

THANKYOU Op47 (talk) 19:13, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Most welcome. Rich Farmbrough, 19:16, 3 May 2012 (UTC).

WP:BOTACC

You should already be more than familiar with WP:BOTPOL, especially when there's an ongoing ARBCOM case about you and your bots. This is probably an accident, but in case you forgot, please read WP:BOTACC again and edit from your own account when making BRFAs, rather than from Femto Bot's account, as you did here. And also, while we're on the topic, please use the preview button / at least make sure the links you give work (WP:Bot requests#faulty names correction in HPB 52, http://www.orchidspecies.com [which, BTW, is not a link to a previous discussion] in HPB 51). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:34, 1 May 2012 (UTC) [X] copied from User talk:Femto Bot by Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 16:38, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I guess you forgot Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Femto Bot 4? Rich Farmbrough, 16:43, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Welcome back!

I'm glad to see the shackles have been removed.

Given your years of faithful service to Wikipedia, I feel the decision to block for a whole month was excessive and made a bit hastily.

Your dedication to the project, indicated by your patience through all of this, I find inspiring.

Many under your circumstances would have simply quit. Thank you for not doing so.

I hope our arbitrators will allow you to continue applying your rare skill set to improving Wikipedia. The project will suffer otherwise.

Good luck. The Transhumanist 22:47, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks! Rich Farmbrough, 08:09, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Two more

Turns out Grutness left in 2011, and Fastily a few days back. Both cite persecution. Both were incredibly productive. Rich Farmbrough, 04:31, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

Kind of a rhetoric question: 'Who cares?'. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:09, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Library of Alexandria

ISBN format please. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 14:38, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

 Done Rich Farmbrough, 14:52, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

Thanks. This is being typed manually. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:10, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Well a new offence of "hiding automation" is being created. Rich Farmbrough, 15:20, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

Incidentally if you add {{Pixie me}} to a page the bot will visit it in about 18 minutes. Rich Farmbrough, 15:21, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

(ISBN format, continued)

Today you revised hyphenation and inserted template at Silent to the Bone: | isbn = ISBN 1-68983-601-5 {{Please check ISBN|reason=Check digit (5) does not correspond to calculated figure.}}. Previously I have deleted the template request after "confirming" the flagged number (no hyphens) with some source. Now I infer that the algorithm is more reliable than the source ... Today in this case I revised initial '1' to '0' per LCC; that catalog entry does not hyphenate this one (0689836015) so I retained your hyphenation. Do you hyphenate reliably and in a way editors might do manually? I have been using 1-3-5-1. --P64 (talk) 17:59, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the hyphenation algorithm is reliable. The way the numbers hyphenate is unfortunately not just something you can remember. The numbers have meaning, the first part is the "language area code" - clearly there are many languages so the "big" languages get a large range: 0- and 1- are English, 2- up to about 6- are French, German, Chinese ... (or similar) ... then the smaller language codes get the numbers starting with (say) 71- ... and smaller still 801- .. and then things like 9998. The same tactic is used with the next "chunk" which is the publisher code.

So if you want some ISBn's hyphenated and checked, simply add the (invisible) {{Pixie me}} template to the article and the bot will come along in 18 minutes or so, and fix them up/check them.

Rich Farmbrough, 18:15, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

Thanks for the explanation and the assist. I'll try to remember {{Pixie me}}, which is reasonably memorable ;-)

I see that my correction of the leading digit to 0 led Pixie to restore my habitual 1-3-5-1 hyphenation. (For this publisher(?) and a few others, I think I recognize -689-). That is encouraging yet Pixie/ISBNs is all over my watchlist today :-( --P64 (talk) 21:01, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

ISBNs

Hello Rich, the current ISBN run is only picking up the first ISBN of consecutive pairs[2][3][4][5][6]. Hope it helps, —Sladen (talk) 19:31, 6 May 2012 (UTC) (BTW, the bot flag is not set too.)

Yes it does. I should do something about that. Rich Farmbrough, 19:39, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

Done... BTW Rich Farmbrough, 21:03, 7 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 50

Template: A user has requested the attention of a member of the Bot Approvals Group. Once assistance has been rendered, please deactivate this tag by replacing it with {{t|BAG assistance needed}}. . *

Edits by:

1. Spinningspark at 14:25, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Headbomb at 14:53, 28 March 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 05:19, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Spinningspark at 14:25, 8 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Spinningspark at 14:25, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 14:35, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

my userpage

thank you. i will behave. :D -badmachine 03:49, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Friendly notification regarding this week's Signpost

Hello. This is an automated message to tell you that, as it stands, you are set to be mentioned in this week's Arbitration Report (link). The report aims to inform readers of The Signpost about the proceedings of the Arbitration Committee in a non-partisan manner. Please review the draft article, and, if you have any concerns, feel free to leave them on the talkpage (transcluded in the Comments section directly below the main body of text), where they will be read by a member of the editorial team. Please only edit the article yourself in the case of grievous factual errors (making sure to note such changes in the comments section). Thank you. On behalf of The Signpost's editorial team, LivingBot (talk) 00:00, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

"Correct typo" includes a minor typo

You are changing "deos" to "does " instead of to "does", as far as I can see. Not really a major issue of course... Fram (talk) 09:21, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

 Fixed Rich Farmbrough, 10:13, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

Three hares

FYI, Missed an isbn. Thank you. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 22:40, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

And it's one of my favourite articles! Rich Farmbrough, 22:47, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

Thank you. I worked my arse off on it, and its good that somebody else is entranced by the subject as I. It is (I think) the kind of article on an obscure subject that doesn't exist in other encyclopaedias, and makes Wikipedia particularly useful. But I have an WP:COI, and my objectivity is unquestionably compromised at this point. So my opinion is discounted, if not entirely worthless (as I now know more about this subject than all but a select few).

FYI, I was just admonished by User:LadyofShalott, as apparently on at least 2 articles I summoned your help where you had recently been. I apologize for the imposition on your resources. It was an unintentional human error and I will try to be more attentive in the future. Thanks for all of your help. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 23:26, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Helpful Pixie Bot bug 102

Bug number: 102 System: Helpful Pixie Bot Component: perl 642/643 Blocks: Blocked by:
Resolution: {{#switch:fixed |fixed= Fixed |not a bug= Not a bug |closed=Closed |outdated=Outdated ||pending=pending

Hi! I noticed an apparent bug with Helpful Pixie Bot:

Task

ISBN hyphentation

Example(s)

Three hares

Explanation

Skips one ISBN

Resolution

Fixed in build 644.

Rich Farmbrough, 22:54, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

St. Florian Church (Hamtramck, Michigan)‎

Rich, I have repeatedly googled the Gozdak book and keep coming up with the ISBN 0738507972. This is the number that is in the article, and which pixiebot thinks is wrong. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 03:42, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

OK I used the ISBN Amazon gave. Rich Farmbrough, 04:00, 7 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

Commons cat

Edits like [7] (and the similar ones you have made today) are technically a violation of your editing restriction (they don't change anything in the output of the page, nor in how it works) and are very unlikely to ever make a difference (e.g. in this case only if the page Ford Mustang would be moved would it possibly make any difference). If you take the trouble of explicitly changing this, wouldn't it be more useful to put the actual destination in, instead of a redirect like here? Fram (talk) 12:59, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually it does the same as this edit: it takes away a maintenance category. I do agree that it would be good if the mechanism would check whether the Commons Category is a redirect. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:42, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

It does indeed (thanks, I hadn't noticed it), but the difference is of course that that "maintenance category" was created yesterday by Rich Farmbrough... Do we really need new maintenance categories for things that in reality don't need maintenance? It was "discussed" less than a day, i.e. one edit made to the talk page of the template, no response, and implemented in the fully protected template, creating a maintenance cat with over 50,000 pages... Seems like serious overkill and a rather hasty implementation to me. Fram (talk) 14:05, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction of your initial post. It does indeed change the situation quite a bit - it does make sense on one side, but on the other side .. Maybe more discussion is needed at the template talkpage. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:15, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 07 May 2012

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• WikiProject report: Say What?: WikiProject Languages

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 01:25, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Rich

I notice you've put back the ISBN hyphens I've been leaving out, I didn't think it mattered but I'll start adding them now. Thanks, Keith-264 (talk) 08:34, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Great! Rich Farmbrough, 17:16, 9 May 2012 (UTC).

Kay Martin (technologist)

Hi, Don't forget that if you create an article like this which needs a disambiguation, you need to provide an access route via a dab page entry or a hatnote. I've done the hatnote while stub-sorting, but please do it yourself another time! Thanks. PamD 17:11, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, as ever, Pam. Rich Farmbrough, 17:15, 9 May 2012 (UTC).

Slow down

Rich, please slow down. Going at it like John Henry taking on the steam shovel is resulting in you making errors at an even faster rate. All you are doing is nailing down your own coffin lid at this rate. For Pete's sake stop for a bit, and show that you understand the concerns that people are raising. If the task doesn't get done, it doesn't get done, but if you keep this up they are going to decide that you'll never abide by any editing restriction, and they'll just ban you. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:05, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Must say I'm getting a bit pissed off with half my watchlist being full of HPV correcting a fairly irrelevant hyphen. These edits make it harder to spot the edit which actually matter.--Salix (talk): 15:00, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

It will be up to date shortly, meanwhile you might find WP:HIDEBOT helpful. Rich Farmbrough, 15:05, 10 May 2012 (UTC).

I've yet to see a tool which can show the last non-bot edit on the watchlist, as opposed to just hiding the page if the last edit was from a bot. (You see how that creates a problem in terms of tracking real changes, don't you?) Does the HIDEBOT script do this? (bugzilla:9790, as you know). Rd232 ^talk 20:05, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if Uncle Douggie's code does that. But, looking at this image it seems it does.

Implying that it is "not a real change" to fix the ISBN isn't helpful. As well as detecting some 10,000 incorrect ISBNs, correcting the format of others is a good thing, and there have been a number of discussions endorsing it.

Given that, the rate of corrections is irrelevant, up to a first order smallness. (I.E. we can wait and if articles to have more errors added before we fix them we reduce the number of fixes - but this does not make sense in the real world.) The only difference is seeing the 100 fixes in your watchlist for 4 days instead of 4 fixes in your watchlist for 100 days. The amount of other changes "hidden" is exactly the same.

Rich Farmbrough, 20:24, 10 May 2012 (UTC).

I wasn't implying anything... but now you say it, yes, fixing the formatting of an ISBN is not a very important thing, and I'd rather not have it cover up a substantive human edit (maybe vandalism or unsourced BLP vio) too often. (Detecting incorrect ISBNs is different.) If bug 9790 were fixed, this wouldn't be an issue. Rd232 ^talk 20:55, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, perhaps we had better ban typo fixing, stub sorting and categorization then? Rich Farmbrough, 21:25, 10 May 2012 (UTC).

"look before you cross the road" - "oh, perhaps I'd better glue my eyes open!". Yeah. Rd232 ^talk 21:50, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

While you play Beethoven’s 9th symphony, no thank you. Rich Farmbrough, 21:54, 10 May 2012 (UTC).

Crushing a statistical shibboleth

While "The Rise of Warnings to New Editors on English Wikipedia" caused consternation back in May 2011 - "40% of all initial edits to new user talk pages in our sample were negative templates" - but the previous research blog "How much do new editors actually improve Wikipedia?" showed that over 40% (42.6%) of first edits were either vandalism (about 25%) or unacceptably low quality. The level of warning therefore, seems pretty much on the nail. Why was this not picked up in the blog? I suspect it is because the "take out" from the previous research was

The key thing to note in comparing the two samples is that the percent of acceptable edits made by newbies did not dramatically decrease from 2004 to 2011.

This is a strange item to identify as key, since the changes are far more important than what remained the same. The percent of excellent edits fell roughly from 25% to 10%, while vandalism rose from a couple of percent to about a quarter of all new user edits.

Given this analysis, we need to look harder for the reasons for lower new editor retention, and certainly not assume that there is good evidence that templating is the cause, at least at present. Rich Farmbrough, 03:47, 22 April 2012 (UTC).

Now that you are back, here's an invitation...

I would feel honored if you joined the Perl WikiProject. The Transhumanist 22:54, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Rich Farmbrough, 04:37, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 48

Template: A user has requested the attention of a member of the Bot Approvals Group. Once assistance has been rendered, please deactivate this tag by replacing it with {{t|BAG assistance needed}}. . *

Edits by:

1. Kumioko at 15:20, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Hellknowz at 11:16, 31 March 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 02:52, 1 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Kumioko at 15:20, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Kumioko at 15:20, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 16:11, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee

I feel that I should inform you that it looks like you will be facing a one year minimum ban, administrator rights revoked for a minimum of one year, and indefinitely restricted from using any automation tool including assistance scripts and bots.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 20:25, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

You have to be kidding. Rich Farmbrough, 20:45, 5 May 2012 (UTC).

Not according to ArbCom. I don't see you around that often so I don't know you well enough to judge you. As a result, I'm neutral about this and Wish you the best.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 20:54, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Well thanks for the wishes. Rich Farmbrough, 20:55, 5 May 2012 (UTC).

ArbCom hasn't fully voted yet on this but it may interest you to look at this.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 20:57, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Does seem rather one sided and extreme. Even the guy who brought the case said de-sysopping was "too harsh". Rich Farmbrough, 21:52, 5 May 2012 (UTC).

The rest of the community has yet to decide so hope for the best. At this point it can still be overturned.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 21:54, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Fortunately I am an optimist, so I can deal with things that might happen. Unfortunately I'm also a chronic depressive, so I'm not so good with things that will definitely happen or have happened. Rich Farmbrough, 21:58, 5 May 2012 (UTC).

Where did I say that desysopping would be too harsh? That was the main reason I requested the case. I may have said a ban was unnecessary, although I can understand why it's been proposed. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 03:13, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I beg your pardon, I obviously thought too well of you. You only said that banning would be too harsh - that was probably in the withdrawn section of the workshop. I find it curious that, when the case was ostensibly brought for creation of categories you would even consider desysopping relevant. Perhaps you could explain that. Rich Farmbrough, 03:32, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

I've explained my reasons for this elsewhere, but the reasons for wanting you desysopped were twofold - first, because your persistent violation of your restrictions and conduct were unbecoming of being an administrator, and second, because removing your admin rights would at least hamper your efforts to use AWB, preventing you from continuing to cause problems. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 03:40, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Hm, conduct unbecoming - I've seen worse from all concerned. And the AWB thing is crazy. If BAG or ArbCom asked the AWB devs would code a special exception to exclude me. Rich Farmbrough, 03:44, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

(Rich, there's a pattern. Please, please, try to break the cycle. —Sladen (talk) 09:03, 7 May 2012 (UTC))

Looks like you're losing your adminstrator privileges and rights to automation so, enjoy them while you still got them. You are also 2 votes away from being banned for a minimum of one year. At this point I would get ready to expect the worst to come and already start doing necessary before leaving Wikipedia in my honest opinion.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 19:47, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

It has been brought to my attention that the comment above may come across as heartless. I just want to let you know that I feel what you are going through. If you need me, you know where to find me.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 21:00, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Hey, no I took it in the spirit it was meant. Rich Farmbrough, 21:17, 7 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

WikiProject rename Help!

Help Rich! We have a consensus to rename WikiProject Thoroughbred racing to Wikipedia:WikiProject Horse racing. However, moving and renaming everything is getting complicated, especially the template that is on 1000s of articles. Froggerlaura did the basics and then I took a shot at some of the technical stuff, but may have screwed up everything, so could you be so kind as o help us all out and make everything that now is part of the TB racing into just "horse racing" instead? Help! (talk on project talk page) Montanabw^(talk) 20:43, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your help, have one more question about un-redlinking some additional stuff. Montanabw^(talk) 23:38, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, nothing like going in and screwing up everything to get proper attention! Yipes! I will keep this in mind next time, though. Hope no one gave you any blowback. Montanabw^(talk) 02:14, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually it seemed a pretty good start to the process. And no "blowback" apart form one sarky edit summary. Rich Farmbrough, 02:21, 7 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

Automation

Is every post you make partially automated? If so, how? Are you perhaps an artificially intelligent robot? ;)—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 23:04, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I have a bundle of Javascript going on. Not to mention the edit filters, post save transforms, spelling checkers, etc. Rich Farmbrough, 23:06, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

Can you show me?—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 23:14, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

User:Rich_Farmbrough/monobook.js is the javascript. The edit filters and post save transforms are built into WikiMedia. Spell checkers are browser embedded client side, of course. If you want to get fancy you can use Scriptish but I have only played with that. Rich Farmbrough, 23:18, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

Jesus!!! Did you write all of that?—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 23:25, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

The bit that does units is borrowed from User:Lightmouse, and the original skeleton was from somewhere else, but most of the rest, yes. Rich Farmbrough, 23:41, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

So let me get this straight. You hit the save button when performing an edit and it goes through all of that first?—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 23:54, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Not all of it. Most of it is triggered by extra tabs on the edited page. Even the function described as "always" doesn't happen outside article space. Oh there's also a whole chunk to deal with closing AfDs, that's borrowed too. Rich Farmbrough, 23:57, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

There's so much code that I don't think I'm going to be able to grasp what does what. I think I'm going to go to bed now.—cyberpower ^Chat_Offline 00:03, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Me too! (To both statements!) Rich Farmbrough, 00:06, 7 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 50

Template: A user has requested the attention of a member of the Bot Approvals Group. Once assistance has been rendered, please deactivate this tag by replacing it with {{t|BAG assistance needed}}. . *

Edits by:

1. Chrisrus at 23:31, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Headbomb at 14:53, 28 March 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 16:49, 8 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Chrisrus at 23:31, 8 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Chrisrus at 23:31, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 50

Template: A user has requested the attention of a member of the Bot Approvals Group. Once assistance has been rendered, please deactivate this tag by replacing it with {{t|BAG assistance needed}}. . *

Edits by:

1. Spinningspark at 15:43, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Headbomb at 14:53, 28 March 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 05:19, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Spinningspark at 15:43, 8 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Spinningspark at 15:43, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 16:35, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Template question

Could you look at template:Monthly clean up category as used inc categories like Category:Articles needing cleanup from February 2008, please? It is displaying oddly and seems to be adding a redlink category at the bottom. Is it just that an update hasn't taken affect yet due to a backed up queue? RJFJR (talk) 12:38, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

 Fixed - I self reverted and went back too far. Thanks for letting me know. Rich Farmbrough, 12:49, 5 May 2012 (UTC).

The Black Twig Pickers

I'm having a reference format problem. See the discography. If I try to put the label as publisher it is invisible. If I include it in title, it ends up in quotes (see first two examples) Can you tell me what my error is and how to correct? Cheers, --Beth Wellington (talk) 04:35, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing!--Beth Wellington (talk) 23:18, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

BTW, see the following from my Talk page where you were referenced--Beth Wellington (talk) 23:34, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

• Saw your note at User talk:Rich Farmbrough. I do not see any error. Have you spotted that the first two <ref>s are not in the Selected discography section? (If you wish to respond, please do so here.) HairyWombat 16:49, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

• HairyWombat, You see no error because Rich Farmbrough has fixed that problem as well as some others. (Check the history of the article.) The first two references are not to the discography, but to the box and the intro...If you'd like to work on the discography or the rest of the article, let me know. Otherwise I'll work on the article a bit at a time after I get back from WV. Cheers, --Beth Wellington (talk) 23:29, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Helpful Pixie Bot bug

Bug number: 107 System: Helpful Pixie Bot Component: hyphenation tables Blocks: Blocked by:
Resolution: {{#switch:fixed |fixed= Fixed |not a bug= Not a bug |closed=Closed |outdated=Outdated ||pending=pending

Hi! I noticed an apparent bug with Helpful Pixie Bot:

Task

Checking for invalid ISBNs

Example(s)

diff

Explanation

The ISBN here has been marked for checking, with the reason that it was invalidly hyphenated. The problem is that not only does the ISBN match the one given on the first three pages I checked from a Google search, but while two of them don't hyphenate the ISBN, the third one is on the publisher's website and does - giving precisely the hyphenation that Helpful Pixie Bot is querying.

This may, of course, not be a bug. Even Springer is presumably capable of not only wrongly hyphenating their own ISBNs, but then including them in the URL for the page for the book concerned - and one can't criticise an editor who assumes that a publisher would know how to hyphenate their own ISBNs. But it might be worth double-checking this one. PWilkinson (talk) 19:07, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this is interesting. Springer are usually pretty good on detail like this, but the number itself is rather odd. The book is in English, and Springer usually dual-code their Lecture Notes in Mathematics and similar with an English (0- or 1-) and a German-area (3-) ISBN. ISBNs starting with 9.. are generally small language groups, the bot is saying that it does not know about numbers starting with 94007, they are not in its hyphenation tables, which probably means an error. The hyphenation tables are updated form time to time, but not for English or German. Rich Farmbrough, 19:19, 9 May 2012 (UTC).

There may be a clue here "Language: English, German, Latin, Greek" Rich Farmbrough, 19:22, 9 May 2012 (UTC).

Looks like 978-94 was assigned to the Netherlands. I'll update my tables. Rich Farmbrough, 19:30, 9 May 2012 (UTC).

 Fixed A working nicely now, thanks for the notification. Rich Farmbrough, 19:45, 9 May 2012 (UTC).

HPB

Just a heads up: HPB has been blocked by Elen of the Roads (Special:Log/Elen_of_the_Roads). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:21, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Hm. What would you call an admin who blocks someone she's in an ArbCom with? A rogue admin? So would I. Rich Farmbrough, 14:51, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Indeed, so would I. But I just temporarily stopped your bot, in the hopes that you might avoid trying to cram your third foot in your mouth - I assume that the bot does so much stuff that it's hard to keep track of the items it doesn't actually have approval for. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:55, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Anyway, I have unblocked it. It is up to you what you do with it. Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:31, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

• There's something of an apology here, and as noted she's unblocked the bot. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:42, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the updates. I would have been totally ignorant of the block. Rich Farmbrough, 08:44, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Teahouse

Hi Rich! Thanks so much for participating in the Teahouse - it's always great when experienced editors come by and help out. I encourage you to consider being an "official" (for lack of a better word!) Teahouse host! If you'd like to learn more about that, and the basics about how the Teahouse is proceeding during this pilot period, then I encourage you to take a look at this page! It has tips and can inform interested participants seeking to help new (and experienced!) editors on how the Teahouse works differently than other help places on Wikipedia. Thanks Rich, and see you at the Teahouse :) Sarah (talk) 14:59, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Helpful Pixie Bot bug

Bug number: 109 System: Helpful Pixie Bot Component: Blocks: Blocked by:
Resolution: {{#switch:closed |fixed= Fixed |not a bug= Not a bug |closed=Closed |outdated=Outdated ||pending=pending

Hi! I noticed an apparent bug with Helpful Pixie Bot:

Task

At the moment ISBN fixes.

Example(s)

The bot contribs page

Explanation

Howdy. I wasn't sure if this was the right place to put this, but your bot appears to be editing quite fast. For example, at the 0257 time, there were 33 edits. The number does appear to fluctuate a bit minute to minute, but 33 edits seems a bit much. The bot policy shows 1 edit every ten seconds for non-urgent tasks. If I'm missing something, I apologize.--Rockfang (talk) 03:07, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes it is quite fast, typically around 12 edits per minute (though it was much slower for a few hours). The reason I'm going fast is that there are four years of backlog of ISBN cleaning to do, and possibly a limited time to get it all done (so there is some urgency). The reasons that I'm not too concerned even when the speed peaks are based on experience: 1) many accounts have edited much faster with no ill effect 2) PixieBot respects maxlag 3) I have monitored [8] as many of the server parameters as I can, and while I see interesting anomalous events, these have never tied into pattens in bot activity, even when it hs been much higher 4) respect for the database designers suggests that a dated consumer desktop on a domestic Internet connection is unlikely to be able to have a significant accidental impact on a 6278 CPU system. Thanks for the bug report. Rich Farmbrough, 12:13, 10 May 2012 (UTC).

Thank you for replying. You definitely make some valid points. Thanks for explaining them.--Rockfang (talk) 05:48, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Minor planet redirects

Bug number: 110 System: AWB Component: Blocks: Blocked by:
Resolution: {{#switch:fixed |fixed= Fixed |not a bug= Not a bug |closed=Closed |outdated=Outdated ||pending=pending

Hi! I noticed an apparent bug with one or some of your recent edits:

Example(s)

[9] [10]

Explanation

These redirects are incorrect (the part between the @signs is the problem, probably). Furthermore, a minor problem with as far as I have checked all the redirects you created is that the section element of it (the part after the "#") doesn't work, because the page doesn't have sections but is composed from transcluded subpages (which I tried to get rid off but which was rejected by you...). Fram (talk) 13:17, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Yep, the 49000s needed special measures. The sections are out by one, and do actually work.Rich Farmbrough, 13:56, 10 May 2012 (UTC).

By the way, any reason why you delete the other, informative categories from these redirects? Wouldn't it be more useful to let things like Category:Asteroids named for people, Category:Discoveries by Eugene Merle Shoemaker, Category:Discoveries by Carolyn S. Shoemaker and Category:Astronomical objects discovered in 1988 (all from 48416 Carmelita) stand? It seems like useful information, even for a redirect. Fram (talk) 13:52, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

It seems to be consensus to do so. Personally I would prefer to keep the stubs, as you know. Rich Farmbrough, 13:56, 10 May 2012 (UTC).

Any link for that consensus? It seems strange. I don't have a problem with the redirects as such though, they don't seem to contain much (if anything) not included in the lists; but I don't see a reason why a category like Category:Discoveries by Carolyn S. Shoemaker should be nearly-emptied because of the creation of these redirects. Fram (talk) 14:03, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes that was my feeling, but take a look at this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONUSP23cmAE you can see the scale of the discoveries. The transient illuminated patches are indicative of studies, you can even see "fingers" representing something more fine-grained (not days, I think) later in the video. Were we to go down this road we would need to maintain the addition of new redirects for new discoveries. Discussion, mainly between HEADBOMB and RJH here. Rich Farmbrough, 14:38, 10 May 2012 (UTC).

Thanks for the link to the discussion, I hadn't seen that one yet (it is all rather fragmented). Again, I can find no one there advocating clearly for the removal of the categories, and RJH in doubt about what to do. I would personally prefer letting them stay (as it doesn't seem useful to remove this information), but getting a more clear consensus for the removal of them is also an option of course. Fram (talk) 14:46, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Note in particular that only about half of the C Shoemaker items are listed in the category as are listed at Carolyn S. Shoemaker#Asteroids_discovered. An I suspect this list is outdated. Rich Farmbrough, 18:03, 10 May 2012 (UTC).

Looking further, I can find no reference to anyone asking to remove or agreeing with the removal of the categories, I can find User:Headbomb at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 50 asking "Also should categories be preserved on the redirects, or can they be scrapped without any great loss?", to which no reply was given as far as I can see. According to Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects, I see no problem (and a few advantages) in keeping those categories, which can not be introduced in the main lists. Can you please get consensus about the removal (or not) of these categories before continuing with this task? Fram (talk) 14:27, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello. You have additional search suggestions at User talk:Tedder's talk page. Maile66 (talk) 18:09, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Citation/core

You were WP:INVOLVED as the proposer for the change, so you should not have taken administrative action. Please reverse yourself. Imzadi 1979 → 02:07, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

 Done Rich Farmbrough, 02:51, 13 May 2012 (UTC).

Addition of templates

Hi Rich. When HelpfulPixieBot is adding {{Please check ISBN}} templates, I think the template needs to added outside the {{Cite book}} template, to avoid corrupting the display of the ISBN, as occurred here (look at the second book listed in the References section). Regards. DH85868993 (talk) 02:20, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that may be a good idea, although it makes parseing much harder (I have to avoid adding another template if I edit the article again). OTOH I'm thinking about the way the cite template does it (and have been for some time) and I'm not sure that's the best. If you look at Nye and Alan, which use the old syntax "id = ISBN 0-905138-37-6" the ISBN is linked in one hit, as per the rest of WP. Where we have transitioned to the ISBN = 0-905138-37-6 we get two linked entities. Given that cite templates are the friction in the wheels of WP rendering, the simpler method may be better. I'll raise a bug, anyway, unless someone else wants to do it? Rich Farmbrough, 03:56, 7 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

OK plan is to separate the template with a | and maybe a dummy parameter name. Rich Farmbrough, 16:08, 7 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

Of course this doesn't work since the template is not rendered... Rich Farmbrough, 01:17, 11 May 2012 (UTC).

Note this is User:Rich Farmbrough/bugs/103. Rich Farmbrough, 03:26, 13 May 2012 (UTC).

Alexander Turgenev

I noticed that you unreffed tagged my new translation. The ref, which I've inlined, states that the text is based on (taken from) the Brockhaus-Efron pd dictionary. On the ru.wiki page for Alexander Turgenev at the bottom the tag

"При написании этой статьи использовался материал из Энциклопедического словаря Брокгауза и Ефрона (1890—1907)"

indicates this. Do you know where I can find the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary tag or template for the bottom of the Alexander Turgenev page to indicate pd here in this translation? INeverCry 00:36, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I'll have a look, it may be a generic attribution tag. Rich Farmbrough, 00:39, 12 May 2012 (UTC).

Category:Attribution templates is the appropriate category,I can't see anything immediately apparent, you might be best to use {{Cite encyclopedia}}. Rich Farmbrough, 00:42, 12 May 2012 (UTC).

Thanks. I used that and bulleted it under the translation ref. INeverCry 01:02, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 53

Template: . *

Edits by:

1. Rich Farmbrough at 04:01, 7 May 2012 (UTC).

Never edited by BAG.
Last edit by me at 04:01, 7 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Rich Farmbrough at 04:01, 7 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Rich Farmbrough at 04:01, 7 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 04:02, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Helpful Pixie Bot bug

Bug number: 103 System: Helpful Pixie Bot Component: Blocks: Blocked by:
Resolution: {{#switch:closed |fixed= Fixed |not a bug= Not a bug |closed=Closed |outdated=Outdated ||pending=pending

Hi! I noticed an apparent bug with Helpful Pixie Bot:

Task

ISBNs (Build J9)

Example(s)

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Loratadine&diff=next&oldid=481941483
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Insulin_glulisine&diff=490877261&oldid=488506409

Explanation

Adding {{Please check ISBN}} inside a {{cite book}} seems to break the latter – see refs 4 and 5 in the first of the example links. And there's a typo in the output, "deos" instead of "does". BTW, the ISBN the bot flagged is actually in the book. What should be done in such cases? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 06:54, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for logging a bug.

• Looking into the best solution.
• The typo is corrected a few builds back.
• Amazon gives 3-85200-183-8 although being 2007 and later the 13 digit number 978-3-85200-183-8 should be used.

Rich Farmbrough, 07:47, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

OK I had a think and maybe ISBN 3-85200-181-1 / ISBN 978-3-85200-181-4 volume 1 (A-C) and ISBN 3-85200-183-8 / ISBN 978-3-85200-183-8 is the complete work or vice versa. I'm guessing that ISBN 978-3-85200-181-4 got converted to the invalid ISBN 3-85200-181-4 somewhere along the line. So I'm going to put ISBN 978-3-85200-181-4. Do, of course, change it if I'm wrong. Rich Farmbrough, 08:04, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

I suppose ISBN 978-3-85200-181-4 is correct; the 183 number is the Stoffliste = "List of substances", an index to accompany the Austria-Codex. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 08:30, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I thought that was a subtitle for the whole work. Good, all cleared up then. Rich Farmbrough, 08:35, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

I am also fixing the remaining mis-spellings. I have to do this slowly, though. Rich Farmbrough, 09:07, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

 Fixed Rich Farmbrough, 10:13, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

Thanks for the help :-) ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 15:55, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Bug closed since I am "automation banned". Rich Farmbrough, 15:25, 16 May 2012 (UTC).

Green stars?

Why on my watchlist are there green stars beside articles you have recently edited? No objections, I'm just curious. Smallchief (talk) 21:07, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm curious too. Maybe they are WP:Autopatrolled? Wikipedia:VPT#Seeing_stars for discussion. Rich Farmbrough, 21:14, 10 May 2012 (UTC).

From WP:WATCHLIST

When viewing a page, click the star sign between the 'View history' tab and the search box at the very top of the page (for the default appearance: in some other versions, click on the "watch" or "unwatch" tab), to respectively add or remove the page from your watchlist

Rich Farmbrough, 21:21, 10 May 2012 (UTC).

(talk page stalker) It's nothing special about Rich's edits (sorry Rich). It's also nothing to do with the white or blue star which forms the "watch" tab on Vector skin. It's due to this edit (which has since been reverted): the green star was intended to indicate in a watchlist that the page had been amended since the last time you visited it. The boldface page names (suppressed on en.wikipedia but default at commons) have the same meaning. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:56, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

So that helpful bot...

Rich, you mentioned a couple weeks ago that it might be possible to bot-tag a series of articles, yes? Say, for example, the swimming event pages for Swimming at the 1996 Summer Olympics (i.e. men's 50 free, women's 50 free, men's 100 free... women's 4x100 Medley Relay): all 32 event pages are missing the preliminary results for those that made it back for finals. Each page has a "Non-Qualifiers" section, that could/should have an expand list tag inserted (and maybe even a note about the finalist prelims times are missing?). Is that something a bot could do? -- Hooperswim (talk) 02:52, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, once I overcome the "little local difficulty" of an Arbcom case and a month's block.... Rich Farmbrough, 03:37, 5 April 2012 (UTC).

Cool, cool. Thanks. -- Hooperswim (talk) 15:06, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Ernest Sutherland Bates

If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.

You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.

A tag has been placed on Ernest Sutherland Bates requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be about a person or group of people, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is important or significant: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, such articles may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable.

If you think that the page was nominated in error, contest the nomination by clicking on the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion" in the speedy deletion tag. Doing so will take you to the talk page where you can explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. You can also visit the page's talk page directly to give your reasons, but be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but do not hesitate to add information that is consistent with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, you can contact one of these administrators to request that the administrator userfy the page or email a copy to you. Ryan Vesey Review me! 01:44, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Question about Helpful Pixie Bot

Hello,

I have a couple questions about Helpful Pixie Bot in regards to this edit. Why does it change "Image:..." to "File:..."? When it makes this change along side an ISBN change, why does it only mention the ISBN change in the edit summary? Bender2k14 (talk) 12:57, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I see my second question is the topic of the section directly above. Still curious about the answer to my first question. Bender2k14 (talk) 13:00, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Image is an alias of File, we changed the name of the namespace many years ago. Migrating to the new name without extra edits is a good thing. Rich Farmbrough, 14:27, 11 May 2012 (UTC).

Rich, are you able to point to a policy that supports such an a change as being "a good thing" AFAICR, Wikipedia:Image namespace#Image_syntax states The "File:" prefix may be used interchangeably with "Image:":. —Sladen (talk) 14:43, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

As far as you can remember? Technically it's identical, but operationally it helps to have one syntax instead of two, and all the documentation for the last four years has used File:. Of course since that sounds like an objection I shall remove it from the coding (Build KH and onwards). Rich Farmbrough, 15:05, 11 May 2012 (UTC).

Given Bender2k14's raising of the topic, I think it would be wise. —Sladen (talk) 15:22, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I can see references to "Build KH" (aswell as KE, KG, …) in the log. Could you clarify the versioning scheme works and how you use it. Understanding this version would help in the reporting of errors, and explaining how you edit to others. Looking at the latest set of page edits to hit my watchlist, "KH" is in the wild, yet Bender2k14's highlighted issue of File:↔Image: conversion is happening. Please could you share and clarify how exactly the build version numbering scheme works, and how you deploy it? —Sladen (talk) 18:07, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes sure, basically the parent entity creates drones to execute the actual work. These will be initiated with the current version of (build and sub-build) of the main software, and the associated extra-somatic information. Due to the transient nature of these entities the majority of configuration items will be static through their life, though not necessarily tied to a version number, whereas other configuration items have a tiered cached structure, and are effectively dynamic, reflecting changes in the real world, although not necessarily in real time. Therefore anyone wishing to report an error, bug or issue should cite an example. Since the version number is recorded in the edit summary it is available to me if needed. The value of a third party attempting to analyze which version a problem applies to is only to their own intellectual satisfaction. On the other hand, if I say "fixed in build X" it is an indication that for build X and later the issue should not occur. This avoids the issue being brought up again while it is actually fixed, and conversely makes regressions identifiable. The fact that the fix may not actually be in the version X software, but be in another piece of minor software, a correction in a table, or even a template fix on WP is relatively irrelevant. The component will, however, be logged in the bug record if one is raised. Rich Farmbrough, 19:07, 11 May 2012 (UTC).

Thank you. For how long does one of the transient ('drone') sub-processes stay around? (eg. is it 1,000 edits per thread, or 24 hours per thread, or something else?). What causes the re-spawning of updated threads, is that a manual process? —Sladen (talk) 07:43, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

MOS, is it, isn't it

Here is an example from 19:48 UTC, after your last post [11]. If there are previous versions running (e.g. that edit is labeled KG), they ought to be stopped... — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:52, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I support Rich on this edit. We changed the entire namespace from image to File about 3 yers ago. There is no reason in the world why we need to continue to leave image: lying all over the Wiki when the entire namespace has changed. I sort of agree that it doesn't need to be done as a standalone edit, or rather I don't care to do it as a lone edit, but we shouldn't be bickering about this. Unless there is some rational reason why we should continue to have multiple variants of a renamed namespace lingering for the next 20 years. I often do this edit too. It again seems like some users are finding any reason to pick at Rich's edits. This to me isn't worth the time to argue about. Kumioko (talk) 20:32, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Sladen linked to the relevant MOS page which explicitly says that "Image" and "File" are both acceptable - even for newly added images! The reason that the namespace title was changed is that some files are not images. But most of them are, and for those there's no reason not to use 'Image'. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:36, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes I understand that the MOS says that either will work and is ok. It works in much the way as a redirect does. But, it is confusing for new editors. I have seen and participated in several discussions over the last several months where some new editor asked what the difference was and then asked why we didn't replace it with the new one. In every case someone had to tell the editor that due to wikipolitics we cannot get rid of an outdated system of identifying images and files. Will it work, sure, but do should we be continuing to perpetuate a cycle of outdated crap, absolutely not. Kumioko (talk) 20:55, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

The way to solve that is to change the MOS, not to randmoly decide as a bot operator that your judgment takes priority over the MOS. This is not just existing articles; the MOS lets me make a new article using 'Image', that usage is not in any way deprecated. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:00, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Of course! The point is we don't want to restrict editors. Hedging people in with rules is anti-wiki. all we do is gently replace the obsolescent version with the shiny new version. Soon people stop using the old version. If one or two continue it's not a big deal, a bot will change them at some point. This is about culture not law. As I have said before if you care about rules more than the project and the community, then go play gnomic. If you care about the community and project then buck your ideas up.Rich Farmbrough, 21:05, 11 May 2012 (UTC).

It's very clear that this is for backwards compatibility. And you are missing the basic point, something can be acceptable without being ideal. All the guidance pages use File. But if people are going to be obsessive about it, fine. Continue to break all of the Wikipedia by being an obstacle to progress. Eventually progress will happen whether you and I like it or not, so it seems foolish to me to fight over this stuff, but whatever floats your boat. Rich Farmbrough, 21:01, 11 May 2012 (UTC).

Kumioko makes the point eloquently, how this sort of obsessive otiose obduracy brings the project into disrepute. Rich Farmbrough, 21:01, 11 May 2012 (UTC).

It is false that "all the guidance pages use file". The MOS linked above explictly says that "Image" is interchangable with "File". Using "Image" does not "break" anything, nor does it bring the project into "disrepute". It's just a stylistic variation, like using "Notes" or "References" as a section title. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:06, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

It's not a stylistic variation, its outdated. And of course using "Image" doesn't bring the project into disrepute. "In every case someone had to tell the editor that due to wikipolitics we cannot get rid of an outdated system of identifying images and files." They think "what idiots" - and so would I. If they knew that an established admin had reported such a thing to the highest court in the land, they wouldn't just think "idiots" they'd know it. Rich Farmbrough, 21:20, 11 May 2012 (UTC).

I also agree it isn't just a syle variation its a change in methodology and an update to the Wikiframework. The fact that we made it backward compatible was simply for ease of use and so that the change didn't break anything. There is no reason why we need to keep using the old outdated style. Kumioko (talk) 21:27, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

The MOS does not say it is outdated; the MOS simply says the two styles can be used interchangeably. Neither is preferred over the other because they both have exactly the same effect. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:19, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Carl I understand what your saying, I really do but the MOS is a guideline, not the ten commandments. Its not meant to be a rigid inflexible set of rules that are all powerful and unyielding. Yes technically image and file do have the same effect but its stuff like this that makes articles messy and inconsistent and confusing. I have a lot of crap in my garage i need to throw out too, I admit that, but I am not using the excuse that I'm keeping it because its perfectly useful. Its junk I just haven't gotten around to going through and getting rid of yet. This is that kind of junk. It doesn't hurt anything per sey where its at but it sure is a hassle when you are working on something and you keep having to step around this little crap cause you haven't bothered to clean it up yet. Kumioko (talk) 03:43, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

The thing to do surely (in all of these cases) is to change policy by consensus, and link to that updated unambiguous policy in the bot edit summary. —Sladen (talk) 07:43, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

The difference is that CBM believes everything that is not compulsory is forbidden. Whereas I believe everything that is not forbidden is allowed. Rich Farmbrough, 12:14, 12 May 2012 (UTC).

Again I say that the MOS is a guideline, not law. I think there are times when we should deviate from it but I don't think this is one of those times. I also don't think that we need to change it just to do a simple edit. Anyone who's been around here for any amount of time knows that it is notoriously hard to change anything related to a guideline or policy. I would also agree that at times Rich does changes that are controversial. I do not believe that this is or should be one of them. Kumioko (talk) 14:34, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Re Rich: The lede of WP:MOS is where the community has documented that editors should not change articles from one optional style to another. This is a longstanding community rule, it isn't something I have simply made up. Moreover, this is not bot-specific, it is an expectation for human editors as well.

Re Kumioko: you realize that Rich is deviating from the MOS, right? — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:03, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Carl I have read the MOS and contrary to popular belief I understand what it says. I merely interpret its meaning differently. For example, In the very beginning the MOS says that its a Guideline. Its in a shaded box at the very top. If you click on the blue link for Guideline and read that (which is a policy, not a Guideline) If you read that it says "Use common sense when interpreting and applying policies and guidelines; there will be occasional exceptions to these rules." of course in true Wiki style that then contradicts itself by continuing "Conversely, those who violate the spirit of a rule may be reprimanded even if no rule has technically been broken." So we are left with a conundrum, do we employ common sense and gradually eliminate the Image and go to File. Or do we we continue to perpetuate the cycle of having outdated crap until the end of time. Kumioko (talk) 14:10, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

We are going to have outdated crap until the end of time, and still discuss about it. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:12, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

For what it is worth, I would like to add my opinion. I eventually figured out on my own through examples that "File" and "Image" are exactly the same. I prefer "Image" when the file is an image because it makes the source more readable. I don't have a problem using "File" instead of "Image" if the that is either required or recommended by official policy. However, Carl and Sladen have made it clear that neither is the case. By the way, bots should only be making edits that are CLEARLY supported by the community (otherwise we have to have discussions like this!). I agree with Carl and Sladen that these edits need to be officially justified in the MOS simply because they APPEAR stylistic, even if one thinks and tries to argue that they are improvements since they replace "outdated crap". Rich and Kumioko, don't you think there will be less uses of "Image" if you say in the MOS that using "File" is better and why? Kumioko, since the "MOS is a guideline, not the ten commandments", what is stopping someone from making a bot that goes around changing uses of "File" to "Image"? The way I see it, many of your own arguments could be used to justify this. Rich and Kumioko, all Carl, Sladen, and myself are requesting is that the MOS be changed to say "File" is preferable to "Image", then we would agree with you. Is this not an acceptable compromise? Bender2k14 (talk) 12:59, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Link to diffs from dates on clean-up tags

Would it be possible to link the date to a diff showing the edit that tagged an article. Something like This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: See talk page. Please help improve this article if you can. The talk page may contain suggestions. (2007) As far as I can tell Helpful Pixie Bot (talk · contribs) adds the dates to these tags, so I was hoping it could link to the diffs at the same time. There was a discussion started at the clean-up tag talk page about doing this for that tag, but it could possible be useful on all all the tags in Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup. As you run Pixiebot I was hoping you would have some ideas on how this could be implimented (it would be good if it could be added to old tags as well as new ones, but even just new tags would be a start) and steps needed to achieve it. AIRcorn (talk) 04:28, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes it would be possible. Generally it is the edit before HPB or another bot dates the tag. Rich Farmbrough, 16:58, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Thanks. I put a note at WP:Bot requests#Link to a diff when clean-up tags are applied to try and get the ball rolling. AIRcorn (talk) 08:49, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Request

Hi I was wondering if you could code something to copy the lists of municipalities and communes into the articles by Provinces of Morocco from Italian wikipedia like this. Basically its the same format, same source, but just copying the lists?♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:00, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Hmm looks doable. Did you notice there are four Morrocan flags on that stub? (BTW I am currently sorta-blocked and at arbitration, so I will not be able to implement until the block expires on the 31st, unless I get an unblock earlier.) Rich Farmbrough, 22:32, 22 April 2012 (UTC).

BTW if you want to do that later, you should check out the charts I already made at User:Calliopejen1/WIP/Morocco communes on the doctor's behalf, which is pretty duplicative. Calliopejen1 (talk) 01:09, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Template:Ref expand

Hi I created this as I believed we needed a template like Bare URLs to encourage editors to add full citations not to just the websites. Can you improve this properly and sort out the documentation and take care of adding it to some articles where the refs need filling out like Alogia (band)? I'm thinking of organizing a bot to add this tag to all articles on wikipedia which needs refs filling out properly as in browsing it makes a big difference if sources are adequately filled out with details consistently.♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:58, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Well??♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:42, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Template looks fine. I think the bot should have a go at filling the detritus out, several successful bots have done just that. It's somehting I am interested in, but since I am about to be blocked, banned, de-botted and de-sysopped, I am not likely to be doing it. Rich Farmbrough, 17:48, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

230 page moves

Please have a look at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility)#duc to Duke. There are about 230 page moves that have to be reversed. Is there a way to [semi]automate page moves? -- PBS (talk:ye4s) 17:28, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes it can be simplified, into a three/four click process using a browser, or a script could be used. Rich Farmbrough, 19:17, 30 April 2012 (UTC).

Astrobots

If I may; one question for you about the articles slated for redirection to List of minor planets:

Speaking totally theoretically now, let's take no action yet, would it be possible to somehow swipe the infoboxes from all those articles, and then somehow store the infoboxes into List of minor planets, and how difficult or complicated would that be?

I ask because have a hunch if we did that, it would help to overcome resistence to Helpful Pixie Bot 50.

So whaddaya think? Would it entail a long and tendious overhaul of the entire List of minor planetsto get it ready to accept the infobox information? Chrisrus (talk) 04:06, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Well I have been thinking about that, since it's a shame to loose information. The only complicating factor is that the LOMPs would then have more data, and we would have to be careful of their size. Rich Farmbrough, 04:15, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

(Of course I would prefer to see each stub made into an article, but the worry is that at some point they will just get swept away, as is being tried with some of my skeleton articles, where there is known information to fill them). Rich Farmbrough, 04:17, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

I'm not sure I understood what you said about the only complicating factor, but I think you are saying it would make LOMP too big, somehow, and that's bad for some reason. All I care about, and if I may just at this point use a visual aid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_d-gs0WoUw, that these be dealt with individually in someway other than an article for each. It's three minutes long, that video, so if you'd rather please skip to the middle where we start using new automated searches, and then to the two-thirds point or so, and then to the end, which was more that two years ago, so keep in mind how many more they may have found since. There is no way very many of these (though some can, will, and do) have articles without calling into question certain fundemental principles of Wikipedia, not to mention what such articles would even say, other than just that each was detected moving in a certain way, because there's nothing to say about most of them. There is no end to them, because there is no low end to their size. The only limit to their numbers on Wikipedia is the maximum sensitivity of our instruments in the future, or limits of the human ability to care about finding more, whichever maxes out first. We must limit article status to only those with notablity as per WP:NASTRO.

Anyway, back to my main point, although they mustn't have articles, they may be dealt with on lists or charts, and if my idea doesn't work, then perhaps you or another has some idea what, if anything, to do with all those infoboxes. Chrisrus (talk) 05:25, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikibook? 64.160.39.217 (talk) 05:41, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

That's a good idea. But I don't understand exactly something you said about the LOMP. Why do we have to be careful about "their" size? Did you mean "its" size, i.e.: LOMP? The way it's done, you can't open up the whole list at once, you open a subsection of a much, much smaller size.

But about the Wikibook idea, I don't see any reason you shouldn't go ahead and store them there if that's what you want to do. It could be at least a place to store the infoboxes and then later place them into LOMP or whatever, so I like that idea. My eye is on getting those articles converted to redirects, so if creating an asteroid infobox storage book if it's easy to do or otherwise the best way to get that done then I'm ok with that and don't understand how anyone could object to taking that step at this point again if that's what you'd like to do, as far as I'm concerned I encourage it.

But just one more time about LOMP, why is it important that it not be too big? It's not as if the user opens the entire document. Would it be lighter to make a bunch of collumns for each fact in the infobox? Then you'd lose the infox formatting making it lighter. I'd imagine.

Before signing off, I just want to remind everyone that this is going WAY over and above what WP:NASTRO or even WP:GNG say we should have to do. There is no reason we have to save these infoboxes, we have full authority to convert them all into redirects without saving the infoboxes. We're just being extra nice and careful, but if it turns out that this isn't worth doing it shouldn't block the redirection bot going ahead because the referents of these articles are clearly not notable enough for Wikipedia. Chrisrus (talk) 16:58, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely, we can get the data from JPL or a number of other sources. I do have a slightly long term view that each of the significant sized hunks of rock will be notable, indeed very important, as we start to get serious in space in the next few decades. But for now they probably need to be listified, as planned. A careful approach might make later de-listifying easier. For example the data can be stored in templates which can be re-purposed for a short article or a list entry.

The LOMP parts are still fairly large and the size selection is based on the amount of data for each item. But no biggy.

The Wikibooks suggestion is an IP, not me editing logged out. Rich Farmbrough, 17:08, 1 May 2012 (UTC).

Ok, you sound ("Absolutely...") optimistic, but what exactly about? I think you are opitimistic about the wikibook idea. But the "no biggie" sounds like you are optimistic about using LOMP idea. I have no idea about "..is an IP, not me editing logging out". Chrisrus (talk) 20:02, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Rich was just indicating that he thought you interpreted the wikibooks suggestion as coming from him while logged out. It actually came from me (an unregistered user who is not Rich). The LOMP entries without the stuff from the infoboxes (orbital elements etc). look pretty useless to me. If the infoboxes were produced from JPL data, then maybe a wikibook that's an expanded version of LOMP could be made the same way. 64.160.39.217 (talk) 03:43, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Ok, thank you. I understand better now..

Question for the both of you, is there a way to store orbit infobox data off articles such as 4445 Jimstratton so it would be more useful to futurebots to make graphic interfaces, like maybe like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_d-gs0WoUw but could project future orbits and be interactive and such? Because you seem to be saying that JPL is exactly that database now, and I don't know anything about bots so I don't know if putting the orbits into a Wikidatabase is at worth doing; at all improving furturebot access to this orbit information, given that JPL exists already, but maybe with your backgrounds, you might know something I don't about how doing this would be helpful to such futurebots. It seems they would surely just prefer to use the JPL than our database but maybe you know of a way to store it so they can later be assembled and stored in mass more easily or in some superior way than JPL does it now.

Also, how many in the category "Minor planet" even have orbitboxes? I had to poke around quite a bit just now to find one that had an orbitbox. Chrisrus (talk) 04:09, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

There's stuff at Wolfram that creates graphic interfaces. Right now it's more sense to link there, but we could create 150,000 animations.... maybe Lua will give us more capabilities, I'm not sure that the community would welcome "interactivity" though, and I'm not sure the technology is up to doing it in decent way yet, for the purposes of a general encyclopedia. Rich Farmbrough, 18:20, 10 May 2012 (UTC).

Can we please just put them somewhere for now? If any on the proposed list have orbitboxes, let's have the redirection box set the orbitboxes aside for now in such a way that they'd be accessable later. It doesn't matter if it's LOMP or a Wikibook or whatever. We just want to preserve that stuff for anyone who wants it preserved thereby clearing the way for the redirection to move ahead. Chrisrus (talk) 13:54, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Request for comment

Yobot is blocked again. Check User_talk:Yobot#Blocked. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:01, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Favour

Hi Rich. I hope you remember me... ;) Would you please take a look at the question I filed at the bottom of Wikipedia talk:As of and let me know whether there's anything preventing a merge of these two templates? Kind regards, Osiris (talk) 12:22, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

 Done Rich Farmbrough, 13:45, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Thanks. I don't think that thread is likely to garner any other responses. Would you do the honours? I'm not sure whether you'd like to sort to both categories or just the one {{when}} generates. Osiris (talk) 06:48, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

FYI

I just noticed that a user who complained about your bot has not bothered to notify you about it (see WP:BON). It seems that the ISBN fixing code may be editing at an excessively high rate, so could that perhaps be slowed down to once every 5-10 seconds? Thanks! Reaper Eternal (talk) 01:56, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, thanks I noticed. It's operating more slowly now. Rich Farmbrough, 01:58, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

language templates

Hi Rich,

Are you still willing to bot the language templates? I've removed the request for a ref section, which was the sticking point.

Hope things go well with ArbCom. — kwami (talk) 02:43, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes I'd be happy to. Unfortunately ArbCom looks pretty grim right now. Rich Farmbrough, 02:52, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

Yeah, I just took a look. Doesn't look good. Well, I've never had a problem with your edits. — kwami (talk) 03:11, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Kwamikagami, may I ask you to reflect that to the ArbCom? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:43, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Is there a place for outside/community comment there? — kwami (talk) 06:49, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

There are the respective talkpages (e.g. Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rich Farmbrough/Proposed decision), and the Workshop is technically still open. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:07, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Category:Pages with missing references list

It looks like Helpful Pixie Bot has not run Category:Pages with missing references list in quite a while. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:06, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes that's true. I'll try and schedule a run before I get banned from running bots. Rich Farmbrough, 14:14, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

Done. Rich Farmbrough, 16:38, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

Thanks! ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:36, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Status update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 50

Template: A user has requested the attention of a member of the Bot Approvals Group. Once assistance has been rendered, please deactivate this tag by replacing it with {{t|BAG assistance needed}}. . *

Edits by:

1. Chrisrus at 14:53, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

Last edit by BAGGER was by Headbomb at 14:53, 28 March 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by me at 05:19, 2 May 2012 (UTC).
Last edit by anyone was by Chrisrus at 14:53, 8 May 2012 (UTC).
Bottom edit was by Chrisrus at 14:53, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world) 15:35, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Helpful Pixie Bot bug

Bug number: 104 System: Helpful Pixie Bot Component: Blocks: Blocked by:
Resolution: {{#switch:not a bug |fixed= Fixed |not a bug= Not a bug |closed=Closed |outdated=Outdated ||pending=pending

Hi! I noticed an apparent bug with Helpful Pixie Bot:

Task

(ISBNs (Build KE))

Example(s)

Matthew Hopkins in popular cultureas well as Mathew Hopkins are two examples.

Explanation

it queries the zero at the start if the isbn but [12] shows that it does start with a zero - 0 - Thanks Edmund Patrick – confer 16:04, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi, thanks logging a bug. The check digit is the last digit, that should be 5. Someone copied the last 10 digits of the 13 digit ISBN, which doesn't give the right check digit. Rich Farmbrough, 16:13, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

Helpful Pixie Bot bug

Bug number: 105 System: Component: Blocks: Blocked by:
Resolution: {{#switch: |fixed= Fixed |not a bug= Not a bug |closed=Closed |outdated=Outdated ||pending=pending

Hi! I noticed an apparent bug with Helpful Pixie Bot:

Task

Checking for invalid ISBNs.

Example(s)

An example is the last edit in this bunch.

Explanation

This is only a minor bug, but the bot destroyed the existing hyphernation in the ISBN. That is to say, it replaced "|isbn=978-0-670-02053" with "|isbn=978067002053". The problem with this particular ISBN (now fixed) was a missing check digit. The hyphenation information was therefore good, and it would have been better had the bot preserved it. I appreciate that another task of the bot is to add hyphenation so that, eventually, this loss will be corrected. This is why the bug is only a minor bug. HairyWombat 17:17, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Hm, good point. There might indeed be clues to help the ISBN detectives. I'll look at this one when I get back tonight. Rich Farmbrough, 17:28, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

Helpful Pixie Bot bug

Hi! I noticed an apparent bug with Helpful Pixie Bot:

Example(s)

diff

Explanation

You're placing a template to check the ISBN number ... inside a template which is not going to show the template at all. See the output. This is the third time this bot has done this... needs fixing. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:25, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

And another here ... Ealdgyth - Talk 18:06, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I hope to resolve this one later today (about 8 hours). Will update then. Rich Farmbrough, 01:47, 9 May 2012 (UTC).

Here's another for your pile to fix diff. Doesn't look like it happens that often, thankfully. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:53, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

 Done Seems like people "converting" from 13 to 10 is the new most common problem. Rich Farmbrough, 21:12, 9 May 2012 (UTC).

Still doing it ... just now here. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:24, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) It's not supposed to produce anything visible at the point of transclusion... instead, it puts the article into WP:HIDDENCAT Category:Articles with invalid ISBNs, and that categorisation works whether or not the {{Please check ISBN}} is inside a {{cite book}} or outside. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:02, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but he's right that there is a slight problem, I was hoping that the proposal at Template:Citation/core#ISBN woudl fix this as a side effect, but there is not consensus so I'm coding a fix now. Rich Farmbrough, 00:22, 11 May 2012 (UTC).

ISBNs

How does HelpfulPixieBot know how to parse ISBNs? -- Evertype·✆ 19:52, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't know how the bot does it, but see [13] and [14] for some possible answers. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:47, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

It has a full set of (slightly optimised) hyphenation tables, if that's what you mean. It knows the checksum algorithms, and the un-assigned ranges. It is smart to 10 and 13 digits, and to most ways of laying them out. It could be smarter, for example, converting 10 digit post 2007 to 13 digit, doing lookups to check against titles, publisher, language and so forth. Rich Farmbrough, 23:11, 8 May 2012 (UTC).

As far as converting 10 to 13 goes, given that many sites still don't deal with ISBN-13 very well (I don't know why), especially when both are present on a book, I've generally found it far better to stick with ISBN-10 so that links to external book sites continue to work properly. --Tothwolf (talk) 10:38, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Some books now have only 13 digit (979-) numbers. It was interesting when we fixed everything up for the switch over to see how slow major sites were in switching. Most have both systems now, because the software suppliers have caught up, and it is central to their business. I'd be interested to know which sites are still behind. Rich Farmbrough, 11:36, 10 May 2012 (UTC).

As it stands I'm not sure how accurate corrections to ISBN-13 code formatting made using HelpfulPixieBot can be? Of the five elements, (Prefix, Registration Group, Registrant, Publication and Check Digit), only the first and last elements are of fixed length while the other three are variable. The Registration Group can be up to five digits. The Registrant element can be up to 7 digits and the Publication element up to 6 digits, both varying in direct relationship to the anticipated output of the publisher. Consequently for elements two to four, surely the Bot can only really be used to check that the upper limits for each of them and the sum total of the number of digits used for all of them aren't exceeded. I've seen examples of the Bot re-formatting ISBN-13 codes which were already 'legal' in terms of permissible element length, to produce a result other than that found in catalogs and printed on the publication itself. I'm not sure that's helpful. 85.210.176.104 (talk) 16:44, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

ISBN error ignored

Hi, re this edit - there are two invalid ISBNs there, but only the first one was marked as invalid (ISBN 0-86095-050-5 should have been ISBN 0-86093-050-5). The second one, ISBN 090288-12-9, was one digit short (it should have been ISBN 0-90288-812-9) but Pixie didn't give it a {{Please check ISBN|reason=Invalid length.}}. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:05, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I need to check the code, but I suspect I am being cautious, since 9 digit numbers can possibly be SBNs. Rich Farmbrough, 21:10, 9 May 2012 (UTC).

There's a fairly simple test to see if a 9-digit number is a valid SBN: prefix it with 0- and then run your standard ISBN-10 test on it. The check digit calc is definitely the same; but I believe that the hyphen pattern differs. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:19, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Yep, the hyphenation is the same too. Rich Farmbrough, 00:26, 11 May 2012 (UTC).

Helpful Pixie Bot bug

Bug number: 108 System: templates Component: Wikipedia documentation Blocks: Blocked by:
Resolution: {{#switch:fixed |fixed= Fixed |not a bug= Not a bug |closed=Closed |outdated=Outdated ||pending=pending

Changed "|3=date=May 2012" to "|3=date=May 2012|date=May 2012"

Hi! I noticed an apparent bug with Helpful Pixie Bot:

Task

Dated Expand section. (Build KF)

Example(s)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Annie_Get_Your_Gun_-_1986_London_Cast&curid=35769188&diff=491660573&oldid=491657455

Explanation

The bot changed "|3=date=May 2012" to "|3=date=May 2012|date=May 2012". i.e it added a date when there was already one present. There are three valid date formats in the Template:Expand section documentation. I suspect that the bot does not yet know about the second date format.

I wonder what the article would look like in a few year's time. (:-)> Peter Loader (talk) 21:16, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the bug report. This is actually Jarry1250 messing up the documentation. Rich Farmbrough, 21:58, 9 May 2012 (UTC).

Listed invalid ISBNs

Will Helpful Pixie Bot recognize and ignore ISBNs tagged with {{Listed Invalid ISBN}}, as I have done at D.M. Ananda (diff)? Regards --ShelfSkewed Talk 14:18, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, they should not get re-tagged. Rich Farmbrough, 14:24, 10 May 2012 (UTC).

Great. Thanks.--ShelfSkewed Talk 14:31, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

WomensHistory searchresult

Hello, Rich Farmbrough. You have new messages at Maile66's talk page.
Message added 17:59, 10 May 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Category:Commons category template with no category set

You should know that I added a Table of Contents template to your Category:Commons category template with no category set. That way it'll make it easier for users to fix the commons tags. ----DanTD (talk) 00:52, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 00:54, 11 May 2012 (UTC).

Adding the phrase "and other fixes" to edit summaries

Hi. When you have Helpful Pixie Bot make edits like this one please don't forget to have the bot add the phrase "and other fixes" to the edit summary. Cheers, Unforgettableid (talk) 03:10, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

OK I'll see what I can do. Rich Farmbrough, 04:25, 11 May 2012 (UTC).

Another question about Helpful Pixie Bot

Purely out of idle curiosity, how does the bot determine what order to deal with articles in? In my watchlist recently, it's done Appleby Frodingham Railway, Lad in the Lane‎, Pye Hill and Somercotes railway station and Malton railway station in that order. It doesn't seem to be alphabetical, or by category, so how are they picked? Or is it simply jumping to random article? Whatever it is, keep up the good work!  An optimist on the run! 21:05, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

For ISBN numbers it has analysed the March data dump, and for the purposes of the exercise, identified the likely candidates for ISBN fixing, these are being processed in chunks, almost at random but with a slight preference to going backwards (most recent articles first) so that any problems manifest in the backwaters rather than the key articles. Meanwhile it continues to perform other tasks dynamically, and will fix ISBNs on these articles as it goes. The main "catchup" task is virtually complete, and in future it may use the same strategy, or may move to a dynamic process. And thanks, we will! Rich Farmbrough, 21:12, 11 May 2012 (UTC).

ISBN bot problems

In this edit, your bot converted two ISBNs that were followed by years into invalid ISBNs. Could you fix the problem, and go back through your bot's edits to find and fix other places where it made the same mistake? --Carnildo (talk) 01:58, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Yep. Rich Farmbrough, 02:03, 12 May 2012 (UTC).

All other instances fixed, I'll rescan presently. Rich Farmbrough, 03:20, 13 May 2012 (UTC).

Suggestion for Helpful Pixie Bot

Hi Rich. I was wondering if it would be possible for Helpful Pixie Bot to indicate in the edit summary whether it found any problems when checking the ISBNs. At the moment, I need to visually inspect each change the bot makes to see if there was a bad ISBN that I could possibly fix. If the edit summary said something like "ISBN check-no problems found" when all it needed to do was reformatting, but something like "ISBN check-issues detected" when problems were found, then I could safely ignore all the "no problems found" edits and only examine the "issues detected" ones. Just an idea, anyway. Regards. DH85868993 (talk) 02:42, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Good idea. I'll look into it. Meanwhile the articles you are most likely to be interested in, with apparent errors, are:

• 1962 Australian Touring Car Championship
• 1982 Commonwealth Games
• Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
• Chess endgame
• Chess middlegame
• Culture of Australia
• Dentition
• Erich von Manstein
• Gretel Killeen
• Jacques Burtin
• Lamborghini
• Lincoln-Zephyr
• List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft before 1925
• List of C-130 Hercules crashes
• List of common misconceptions
• List of Jews in sports
• Michael Walker (knifemaker)
• Michele Alboreto
• Mika Salo
• Savoia-Marchetti SM.79
• Scuderia Ferrari
• Skins (TV series)
• Supermarine Spitfire

Rich Farmbrough, 02:59, 12 May 2012 (UTC).

Thanks! DH85868993 (talk) 08:18, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Me again - have just spotted this. I go by the increase in page size: if we assume that |reason= might be absent from {{Please check ISBN}}, then detection of any error will cause an increase of 21 characters at the very least. Thus, I assume that where the increase is 20 or less, it's merely a reformatting. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:33, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Hats off! Rich Farmbrough, 17:03, 12 May 2012 (UTC).

Video "ISBN"

Hi Rich. Several articles use the 1995 Formula One season review video as a reference, specifying an ISBN of "5-017559-034955", which matches the information specified here. Helpful Pixie Bot identifies this number as an invalid ISBN, as it did here. If it's not an ISBN, do you happen to know what kind of number it is? Thanks. DH85868993 (talk) 08:14, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) My guess is that it's the EAN-13 uniquely identifying the product. You can confirm this by looking at the barcode on the back: if you see the figures "5 017559 034955" below this, with some of the bars extending into the spaces between the three groups of figures, it's definitely an EAN-13.

All ISBN-13s are also EAN-13s, but not all EAN-13s are ISBNs. They both have a 13-digit form, and the last digit is a check digit calculated in the same way. However, an ISBN-13 always begins 978 or 979; if the EAN-13 begins with any other figures (in this case 501), it's not an ISBN.

Since the {{cite video}} template supports the |id= parameter, my suggestion is to use that instead, i.e. replace |isbn=5017559034955 {{Please check ISBN|reason=13 digit ISBN should start with 978 or 979.}} with |id=[[EAN-13]] 5 017559 034955 --Redrose64 (talk) 10:07, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the info/advice Redrose64. (And thanks Rich for hosting the discussion). DH85868993 (talk) 10:35, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

WHS. There's a place you can check EANs too, it's not so great. However there is also an international moving picture number(?), which we don't use as far as I know. Rich Farmbrough, 12:03, 12 May 2012 (UTC).

Helpful Pixie Bot bug

Bug number: 111 System: Helpful Pixie Bot Component: perl source Blocks: Blocked by:
Resolution: {{#switch:fixed |fixed= Fixed |not a bug= Not a bug |closed=Closed |outdated=Outdated ||pending=pending

Hi! I noticed an apparent bug with Helpful Pixie Bot:

Task

ISBNs (Build KH)

Example(s)

Diff 1; diff 2; diff 3.

Explanation

When validating ISBNs, the bot changed {{Closed_stations_Northamptonshire}} (with two underscores) into {{Closed_stations Northamptonshire}} (with one underscore and one space). The bot should either have changed both into spaces, or left both alone. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:51, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that is a curious one, a fix is coded and will be released soon. Rich Farmbrough, 12:03, 12 May 2012 (UTC).

Helpful Pixie Bot bug

Bug number: 112 System: Helpful Pixie Bot Component: Blocks: Blocked by:
Resolution: {{#switch:closed |fixed= Fixed |not a bug= Not a bug |closed=Closed |outdated=Outdated ||pending=pending

Hi! I noticed an apparent bug with Helpful Pixie Bot:

Example(s)

[15]

Explanation

Adding a duplicate second 'please check this ISBN' notice immediately before an existing one, previously and only seven weeks ago added by HPB: [16]. JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 13:36, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the bug report. HPB avoids adding duplicate notices, but this one had been moved. I have found the correct ISBN and removed the notices.

Germans

This photo?

Hi. I found an error in the article (see photo). Copernicus was not a German, he was from Poland. --Top811 my talk —Preceding undated comment added 13:50, 12 May 2012 (UTC).

This photo? I don't see Copper Knickers in it. Rich Farmbrough, 02:54, 13 May 2012 (UTC).

Helpful Pixie Bot bug

Bug number: 113 System: Helpful Pixie Bot Component: Blocks: Blocked by:
Resolution: {{#switch:closed |fixed= Fixed |not a bug= Not a bug |closed=Closed |outdated=Outdated ||pending=pending

Hi! I noticed an apparent bug with Helpful Pixie Bot:

Explanation

In the edit of British boys' magazines‎ the ISBN number has been altered to extend the publisher/series part by one digit so that the book number is now -4 instead of -44. I have checked the actual printed book and it is definitely -44. In addition the second reference (The 30's Scrapbook) refers to it both by title & ISBN

DonJay (talk) 15:03, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Resolution

Hi, piglobal are a small publisher, either is possible, and publishers do sometimes get the hyphenation wrong. On the other hand I converted the hyphenation tables to regular expressions by hand, so mistakes are possible. I'll check the hyphenation tables and Amazon. Rich Farmbrough, 17:18, 12 May 2012 (UTC).

IS Robert Opie related to Iona and Peter Opie, by the way? Rich Farmbrough, 17:19, 12 May 2012 (UTC).

Table

Here's the hyphenation table for the English area codes:

Area code	Publisher range	Digit 2nd hyphen comes after
0	00-19	3rd
0	200-699	4th
0	7000-8499	5th
0	85000-89999	6th
0	900000-949999	7th
0	9500000-9999999	8th
1	55000-86979	6th
1	869800-998999	7th
1	9990000-9999999	8th

Rich Farmbrough, 17:26, 12 May 2012 (UTC).

Conclusion

ISBN 0-9547954-4-X falls under the 9500000-9999999 range, and hence should be hyphenated as shown. Rich Farmbrough, 17:44, 12 May 2012 (UTC).

Template bug

Bug number: 114 (Duplicates 103 System: templates Component: Blocks: Blocked by:
Resolution: {{#switch: |fixed= Fixed |not a bug= Not a bug |closed=Closed |outdated=Outdated ||pending=pending

Hi! I noticed an apparent bug with a template:

Template name

{{Please check ISBN}}

Example(s)

This HPB change introduced it: [17]; the change looks OK but it broke the rendering of Death#References, No. 6.

Explanation

The 1-4495-9420-6 appears as [[Special:BookSources/1-4495-9420-6|1-4495-9420-6]], i.e. as if it's no longer interpreting it as a link. It was working fine in the version before HPB's change. I've tried purging the page to no effect.

JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 17:42, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this is a tricky problem, there's a number of possible fixes that will solve it. Thanks for the notification. Rich Farmbrough, 17:46, 12 May 2012 (UTC).

Incidentally I fixed that ISBN. Rich Farmbrough, 17:51, 12 May 2012 (UTC).

And again [18]. I've fixed the ISBN this time but this is 2 for 2 of ones I've checked inside templates that it's broken. Can it either be fixed, as you write is possible, or disabled until it is? --JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 01:53, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Yep. I'll get on to it, once I've grabbed a few hours sleep. Rich Farmbrough, 03:36, 13 May 2012 (UTC).

Continued over at Tedder's house of bot talk

Talk re our efforts over there.Maile66 (talk) 15:49, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

ISBN proposal

Hi Rich, Thanks for asking about this. The proposal did not receive any comments. It is now archived here. I was a bit discouraged, so I haven't yet done anything to follow up on it. Should we try to take it to Bugzilla anyway or just let it drop? --Robert.Allen (talk) 16:58, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes we should. It's a good idea, so it should be part of the core software, or part of the ISBN magic module. Rich Farmbrough, 22:23, 14 May 2012 (UTC).

Fempto bot

This may have been mentioned already, but Fempto bot does not seem to be using a bot flag; all the other bots on my watchlist do, buut femptobot does not.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 21:02, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I'll put this on my todo list, after I have been banned/not banned. Rich Farmbrough, 22:50, 14 May 2012 (UTC).

Bade Achhe Lagte Hain

You added the plot template to Bade Achhe Lagte Hain but Wikiproject Soap Opera says that the plot may be just 700-800 words and in the mentioned article it is so. So I think that the template is not needed. Please give a reason that why do you think that it is too long, as it is not so. When you are replying please leave me a Tb template. --Jagadhatri(২০১২) 08:18, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

This was added by someone else https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bade_Achhe_Lagte_Hain&diff=492482490&oldid=492475319. Rich Farmbrough, 22:25, 14 May 2012 (UTC).

Some words of advice

The case against you is about to close, with you losing your sysop bit and being prevented from using automation. There's quite a bit of talk on the PD page along the lines of last chance, being on the edge of a cliff, etc.

There are people out there who will look for whatever means they can to find a way to nudge you off of that cliff. You can't give them even a millimeter of rope with which to hang you. I strongly, strongly urge you to shut down any and all bots you have, any sort of automation you have, any sort of edit assisting scripts RIGHT NOW, before the final decision is posted. Do everything (and I mean everything) manually, by hand. Delete any .js subpages you have in your userspace. Wipe it all out. If this means you go from a million edits a week to 1 edit a month, so be it. If you want to be part of this project for the foreseeable future, you have got to do this. Otherwise, you will be shoved off of that cliff.

Decisions in this community are hate based. If enough heat is generated, it doesn't matter one iota if the target of the heat has done absolutely nothing wrong. It doesn't matter if the target is perfectly, 10000000000% in line with policy, with prior consensus supporting them. Generate enough heat, and a target will go down. That is how 'justice' works around here. I'll give you a speculative example; people have been criticizing you for changing the capitalization of templates in use on an article. If, from this day forward, you do that again...even if you use one finger to hunt and peck around the keyboard to conduct every detail of the edit...you will be found at fault for doing it. It does not matter that plenty of people are doing exactly the same thing, without anyone saying peep. It does not matter that changing the case is right, or wrong, or indifferent. If you do it, you will be found at fault for it. People will demand you link them to the consensus that permits you to do this. People will insist you are using some undeclared tool to assist you in making the edit. People will insist you are doing it to bait the people watching your every twitch, and are thus being disruptive. Since you are the subject of the heat, it will be you who is found at fault.

You are going to have to change the entire nature and style of the editor you are on this project in order to remain here. It is a monumental, probably impossible task. I wish you the best of luck, and hope for the best. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:07, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I concur. Do be careful Rich. As is said in the legal profession. What happened is not justice, it is the law. Kumioko (talk) 16:51, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Sadly, all that advice is not going to be enough. Wikipedia is broken. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:43, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

It is highly unlikely that I will continue my level of input to Wikipedia after this case. I already have invitations to a number of other projects, but regardless of that I may restrict myself to manual editing at Teahouse and Policy areas. Rich Farmbrough, 03:48, 15 May 2012 (UTC).

I really doubt if thát is going to be enough, but it is a good start. I can only hope that the community sees how much they are shooting themselves in their feet. Your not the first to leave because of this - you'll not be the last, and for sure, you'll not be the only one. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:59, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Oh - not because I am worried that there will be another attack. Because given the dysfunctional nature of the encyclopaedia, the important thing is to fix the processes, reduce the rules, and encourage fresh blood. Rich Farmbrough, 04:03, 15 May 2012 (UTC).

One bad thing about new blood...it attracts sharks and there are too many sharks in the waters here already. Good Luck. Kumioko (talk) 04:12, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

And you think that this will 'attract fresh blood'? Nah. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 04:58, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

For what its worth I also think that you withdrawing from editing is exactly what the Arbcom wants. They couldn't get enough support to ban you from the pedia so the next best thing is to tell you that you can't edit. Kumioko (talk) 11:21, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

RF is not banned from editing, or even unwelcomed on Wikipedia. RF is simply banned from using automation, because he can't be trusted with it. There's a difference, but you refuse to acknowledge it. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:55, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Well your right he's not banned but his restriction says that if he makes any edits that give the appearance of automation then they'll come after him. What does appearance mean? No one knows. Not me, you or Rich and certainly not Arbcom. It is an open door for someone to come running back to Arbcom saying he violated the conditions of his restriction. Not that it will matter cause in all likelihood he will take the hint that Arbcom has given him and take his skills elsewhere. A terrible loss for the pedia and a pretty big increase in workload for the other bot operators if they even bother with picking up the tasks at all. Kumioko (talk) 22:31, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

It's a rather obvious thing to determine. That you can't distinguish between someone going through a category and making tiny changes, vs. someone expanding an article is your problem, not ours. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 00:51, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

• During the case it was rather blatantly proven that "appearance" of automation was ridiculously vague, and that a human could easily maintain a rapidity of editing that at least one person thought was proof of bot operations. It's completely vague, and leaves the door wide open for people to hang Rich, unless he makes less than one edit a minute on average, or something absurdly low. Even then, if he does a few dozen edits that perform the same type of operation, he'll be accused of automation. --Hammersoft (talk) 00:56, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's very possible to have high editing rates. But all such cases mentioned were done with semi-automation and scripts, which RF is also banned from using. Solution, don't use scripts, don't use AWB, and don't behave like a WP:MEATBOT. It's rather easy to see e.g. The Bushranger edits very differently than from a bot, and there is no reason why it's will not be equally easy to distinguish between a restriction-compliant RF and bots. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:39, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

• Umm, no. I can maintain a rate well in excess of 10 edits per minute for quite some time, most especially if they are repetitive tasks, and do it all manually. I noted this on the case. In fact, I've been able to produce more than 40 edits in a minute in short bursts. Under this abortion of an arbcom decision, if I were subject to such sanctions I would be blocked for using automated tools. --Hammersoft (talk) 03:15, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

• Me too. I guess we'll see what happens. Maybe I'm just being dramatic but we'll see how the next few weeks/months progress. Kumioko (talk) 03:22, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Headbomb if you still have a problem with me that's on you and you'll eventually need to deal with that. But the bottom line is this decision by Arbcom is going to have a lot of consequences for the community. But judging by the discussion at the Bot noticeboards you already know that. I am guessing that hundreds or more hours are going to be spent recreating Rich's bot tasks, if the tasks get done at all. I also think that its unlikely that these new bots are going to do the amount of work that Rich and his bots were doing. Whether you like it or not this decision is going to cost Wikipedia dearly. If Rich continues editing at all its only a matter of time before someone comes running screaming foul play. Kumioko (talk) 01:09, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Response

Hi, Rich. :) You have a response at my talk page on Meta. Thanks! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:38, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib

Good tigings to you from a believer in One Creator of the Heavens and the Earth!

i see that you have edited the page Ali_ibn_Abi_Talib on Wikipedia, i must say to you that in Islam it is not allowed to put nor draw nor see the picture of a man

i strongly encourage you o remove the picture from the page of Ali_ibn_Abi_Talib

if you have any queries or questions on that please e-mail me asap, my email is saken_k@hotmail.com

With warmest regards, Saken ibn Amankeldi

Hello Saken. I am aware of this interpretation of Islam, also prohibitions on depicting any living thing, or indeed depictions at all. I had brought this matter up already, when we were discussing Image Filters, but was told that I was being foolish.

I suggest you investigate your browser settings and turn off "images".

All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 16:32, 16 May 2012 (UTC).

How many categories are there?

(Not including redirects). The Transhumanist 11:34, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

A lot! It depends partly on whether you include empty categories and red-linked categories. There are approximately 15,419 soft redirected categories. I'll have a look at the stats by namespace later. Rich Farmbrough, 17:07, 26 April 2012 (UTC).

Unfortunately we don't have a dump for all page titles, only all main-space titles which currently runs at about 9.3 million. Rich Farmbrough, 11:35, 28 April 2012 (UTC).

Namespace	Count
Main	9,375,576
Talk	4,540,406
User	1,457,343
User talk	7,775,605
Wikipedia	721,450
Wikipedia talk	144,174
File	810,359
File talk	138,924
MediaWiki	1,608
MediaWiki talk	937
Template	424,551
Template talk	177,834
Help	956
Help talk	463
Category	852,775
Category talk	587,880
Portal	109,930
Portal talk	25,669
Book	3,113
Book talk	2,904
Total	27,152,457

Articles become less important over time

Basically a tad over 1/3 of Wikipedia is actual article pages, and more than half of those are redirects. Rich Farmbrough, 21:35, 16 May 2012 (UTC).

At User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 99#How can I find this out?, User:Fram reported "850,875 categories on the English Wikipedia" at 12:43, 5 March 2012.

—Wavelength (talk) 23:51, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Here is a graphical representation of the change of emphasis as the encyclopedia has grown. The namespaces are numbered from the bottom. Rich Farmbrough, 01:12, 17 May 2012 (UTC).

Where is the legend to interpret the colors?

—Wavelength (talk) 01:34, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

• I don't know that we need one. All we need to know is the bottom solid blue is articles. Less than 40% of the project is actual articles. We're here to write articles. We have absolutely no other reason for being here. That's it. Yet, almost 2/3rds of the project is non-articles. In the corporate world, this would be called corporate bloat. Virtually by definition, it's heinously inefficient, top-heavy, failure prone, and severely handicapped in terms of progress. Nicely done graphic Rich! --Hammersoft (talk) 13:47, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Namespace, the colored bands in order from the bottom are:

0 = Main (blue)

1 = Talk (green)

2 = User (red)

3 = User talk (light blue)

4 = Wikipedia (purple)

5 = Wikipedia talk (brown)

I am not convinced that the large number of non-article pages are evidence of bloat. According to Wikipedia:Wikipedians, there are 16.8 million named accounts. Yet the above chart (and table) shows there are 7.8 million user talk pages. So fewer than half the registered accounts have a user talk. Also, if there were one talk page per article, the green and blue areas would be the same width. To justify 'bloat' you would probably want to count edits rather than pages. - EdJohnston (talk) 14:17, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

That would be worthwhile,as would looking at size and splitting out redirects, dabs and stubs. Rich Farmbrough, 14:24, 17 May 2012 (UTC).

Thanks. My first effort in marrying Octave and Perl (and a tiny bit of The Gimp). A key would be nice, but would be a fair amount of work, even as a separate plot. I think there is more work needed on the main plot before that. Rich Farmbrough, 14:24, 17 May 2012 (UTC).

The percentage share of the namespaces measured in bytes.

The same general trends, user talk is the growth area, the big difference here is Wikipedia and Wikipedia talk - substantial, and the category and template namespaces become very small components. Rich Farmbrough, 18:17, 17 May 2012 (UTC).

Teahouse talkbacks

Hey Rich! Thanks for helping out at the Teahouse. Just an FYI, we created a lovely little talkback template that is Teahouse specific. You can find a link to it here. It's pretty valuable when letting folks know that you answered their question, since not everyone watches the Teahouse question page. Thanks again for all your contributions - Teahouse and beyond! Sarah (talk) 19:40, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, nice template. I made some suggestions on the templates talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 20:08, 6 May 2012 (UTC).(Using some automation)

Some baklava for you!

Thanks for helping me improve Generation time Trashbird1240 (talk) 14:41, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

If WP bans you its a case of them shooting themselves in the foot. I really mean that.

...William 20:00, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! Rich Farmbrough, 22:17, 14 May 2012 (UTC).

Women's History redux

Do you have time to do some adjusting at User:AlexNewArtBot/WomensHistory? It's better, but still needs to be narrowed. And most of the articles this time don't seem to be about women.Maile66 (talk) 23:11, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 May 2012

• Special report: Wikimedia and the "seismic shift" towards open-access research publication

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• Featured content: Featured content is red hot this week

• Arbitration report: R&I Review closed, Rich Farmbrough near closure

• Technology report: Cross-wiki watchlist controversy; and is "go file a bug" really a useful response?

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Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rich Farmbrough - "Closed"?

An arbitration case regarding Rich Farmbrough has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above.

The following remedies have been enacted:

1. Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) is indefinitely prohibited from using any automation whatsoever on Wikipedia. For the purposes of this remedy, any edits that reasonably appear to be automated shall be assumed to be so.
2. Rich Farmbrough's administrator status is revoked. At any time after the closing of this case, Rich Farmbrough may request that his administrator status be restored by filing a request for adminship.
3. Elen of the Roads (talk · contribs) is reminded that an administrator who is a party to an arbitration case should not block another editor (or their bot) who is a party to the same case.

For the Arbitration Committee,

--Guerillero | My Talk 19:27, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Truly a sad day on Wikipedia. I for one am truly disappointed at this decision. Good luck Rich regardless of whether you decide to stay and edit or not. Kumioko (talk) 19:33, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

If at some point you are brave/stupid enough to Rfa again I'd support your candidacy. Nobody Ent 19:48, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, Rich. At least you're not banned. I will support your RfA sometime in the future.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 19:49, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to hear this. Dsp13 (talk) 20:52, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Although I believe you've badly misused automation, I'd support your RfA. I really can't think of anything disruptive you've done with the mop, except possibly (temporarily) breaking the vast majority of article tagging templates. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:09, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, count me in too. — kwami (talk) 21:24, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Agree with the above. This is a shame. :( Acalamari 22:28, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

It's not heartening to be part of project whose highest body is malfunctioning to the extent that Arbcom is so obviously doing. On the brighter side Richard it's clear you're not the problem but an Arbcom that would be out of depth in a puddle. Obviously would support your RfA anytime. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 22:51, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I would support an RfA as well, though I caution that standing for RfA any time before at least six months has passed will almost certainly not succeed. --Hammersoft (talk) 00:58, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

This is a very black moment in Wikipedia. The community has broken Wikipedia. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:49, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

• I'm not sure I would say "community" in this context, but more that a highly vocal bully-like minority within our community stood upon its pulpit and hoodwinked a marginally larger portion of the community into somehow believing that Rich Farmbrough had somehow truly done something horribly evil.

  Anyone who had made tens of thousands of edits is always going to have a few edits that someone, somewhere won't agree with or like, just as they will have also made a number of edits that someone else will really, really like. It is the balance that is important here, and it seems that a minority within the community seems to think that everything must be perfect and be in accordance with their own personal preferences.

  Any edits that certain people don't like will always become a major focus during any sort of community discussion or ArbCom case simply because every editor has at some point attracted the attention of someone who doesn't like something they've done, and what better way to "get back at" someone then try to dig up any dirt they can find during such a discussion? This often results in collateral damage to other parts of the project however when such individuals take things even further.

  My own message to the larger community is thus: Take what a highly vocal minority within our community has to say with a grain of salt, but do not ignore them entirely, otherwise they will grow even louder and their party will gain even more dissenters. --Tothwolf (talk) 05:09, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

• Rich .. to be honest- I don't know enough to say what is right or wrong here. What I do know is that you have dedicated a lot of time and heart to the project; and I personally do appreciate that very much. I can't imagine how difficult it was to endure an AC case, but you do have my sympathies, as well as my appreciation for all you have done (and hopefully will do in the future) for the project. All my best. — Ched :  ?  04:36, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
• It's closed unless we re-open. This case should be re-opened again but this time the committee should be instructed to give appropriate weight to testimony from RF supporters. A full investigation into the other side of the coin, his achievements and important ongoing activities, should be presented. Have them weigh the both sides properly before a final decision is made. Re-open the case and let supporters be heard in full this time. Save PixieBot! Chrisrus (talk) 23:03, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks for all the support. Rich Farmbrough, 16:37, 16 May 2012 (UTC).

• I too would support an RFA if Rich should decide to re-run, and this is coming from someone who tries to avoid RFA like the plague.

  Clearly quite a number of people have absolutely no idea what it takes to make regular expressions and substitutions work. I give it two to three weeks tops before the backlog piles up and questions begin to arise as to "What happened to Helpful Pixie Bot and Femto Bot?" and "How do we now handle all the housekeeping work that these two bots previously took care of?"

  I personally see this similarly to what would happen if we were to shut down ClueBot.

  While there have been edits Rich has made that I've not agreed with, Rich appears to have always had Wikipedia's best interests in mind when he made changes, and I do not feel that this was considered at all during his ArbCom case. It would have been far far different if Rich had a history of attempting to cause problems, was a known troll, vandal, etc, but this is far from the case.

  From my own point of view, it was clearly wrong of ArbCom to go full-out and heavy handed sanction a long term valued contributor who has been instrumental in standardizing and automating so many tedious and pain-in-the-ass tasks as Rich has. The very idea that Rich should be indefinitely banned from using any sort of automation is simply absurd. It could also be that ArbCom doesn't really know what all Rich has done for us here on the English Wikipedia since so much of his work has involved changes to things that work behind the scenes, yet have a very widely felt effect. For that fact, perhaps a large portion of the community doesn't know either.

  The way I see it, Wikipedia is just about at a fork in the road. Many of the people with the technical know-how and knowledge of how and why things work the way they work have become disillusioned with the direction the English Wikipedia has been heading. Many of these individuals have left or slowed down in terms of their contributions, and/or have ended up sanctioned like Rich has. If things continue in this direction, the English Wikipedia is going to find itself without the technical backing that has allowed it to grow in the first place, and it's growth will stop and/or it will begin to regress (we are already beginning to see signs of both such scenarios).

  From that point, if people don't decide to step up and work towards changing these trends, one or two things will ultimately happen. The first is that Wikipedia will begin to be seen as irrelevant in the eyes of the general public. The other is that those technical minded individuals who have felt alienated will organize, possibly leading to either a fracture within the community or even a new form of "Wikipedia" that will make the current "Wikipedia" entirely irrelevant and obsolete.

  For those who don't think what has happened to Rich here can't happen to you or really has little long term impact on Wikipedia itself, think again. --Tothwolf (talk) 05:18, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

You would have my support at RfA as well. A dark day for Wikipedia.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 09:34, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

A cold one

You need this more than I do – Lionel (talk) 05:37, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Jovan Despotović

Thanks for the comments. I checked and it is these ISBN numbers are in the publications.--Despotović (talk) 14:02, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I am grateful for improving the text and for cleanup article to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. It is obvious that English is not my first language and that for any help are welcome because of all necessary changes by some editors which are modifying the article.--Despotović (talk) 20:13, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

A pleasure. Rich Farmbrough, 14:02, 26 May 2012 (UTC).

--

It's My Birthday

	My B'day Cake
	Hi!! Today is my b'day and I though of sharing this sweet gift with you!! Arnesh(২০১২) 16:09, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the Women's History New Articles

	The We Couldn't-A-Done-It-Without-Ya Award
	Thanks for stepping up to the plate and helping get this off the ground. Good luck with that you have on your shoulders right now. Maile66 (talk) 17:14, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

The procedure was a success, but the patient died

I'm glad you're still here It's a silly accident that you and I have been mentioned in the same breath a lot lately and the two of us have hardly interacted in the past, but once I found out about your ArbCom issues I started to pay attention. Everyone on the English-language Wikipedia has benefited from your work and although it might be prudent for you to have a break in your administrator and bot-running responsibilities, you have doubtlessly been a real asset to the project and I'm glad that the members of ArbCom did not see fit to block or ban you outright. This tacitly acknowledges that your years of service have made this a better encyclopedia and I think that's inarguable, irrespective of any further issues with your methods or style.

I look forward to the time when you've proven to all your accusers and interlocutors that you're a responsible user, having made irrefutably good edits for several months, then apply again at RfA, make new bot requests, and get back to doing what you've been doing but without any associated drama.

For what it's worth, I'd like to ask you to reconsider whether or not you want someone else to run or curate User:Helpful Pixie Bot and User:Femto Bot.

By the way, welcome to the club (2,308 edits ago.) —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:23, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! I had forgotten that was going to happen. Rich Farmbrough, 01:21, 17 May 2012 (UTC).

I've already asked Rich about that but I think he is having a tough time thinking about this.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 01:27, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I can't blame him. I would be wrestling with it too frankly. Kumioko (talk) 01:35, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Resilient Barnstar
	You are handling this situation very well. Don't let this get you down. —cyberpower ChatOnline 21:41, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

The arbfail award.

		The Arbfail Award
		For being one of the most helpful (former) bot-ops, and then fucked by Arbcom, I award you the Arbfail award.

Frood! ^Ohai _{What did I break now?} 23:13, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Seconded. You are the only one who took up my translation-template-linking bot task after multiple requests, and now the bot is dead. :( Thanks for at least generating the links for the ones that existed previously... I'll have to figure out what to do going forward. Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:16, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Same here. It does seem like the people who go out of their way to help others are the first in line to face the firing squad. Viriditas (talk) 21:29, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

The Torch and Pitchfork award.

		The Torch and pitchfork Award
		As someone who has also been pursued by the mob (in this case also sometimes referred to as "the Community" and/or "Arbcom") I present you with this time honored Torch and Pitchfork award. “ A torch and pitchfork, tools traditionally wielded by large groups on a Witch hunt or those attempting to get rid of an editor they don't like, have been used for centuries. Whether pursuing an Evil wizard, mad scientist or Bot operator, the mob ends up coming after the good guys, for one reason or another, eventually (like if we are providing aid to a Renegade Wikipedian). In these cases the best defense is to Shame The Mob. The next time Arbcom or the community mob comes after a Wikipedian, just do what any Wiki-hero would do...give a speech, and the mob is ashamed. Dejected, they turn and leave. ” --Kumioko (talk) 23:56, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Congrats on making the millionaires club

I also just wanted to say congrats on making the millionaires club. Only 2 editors in the history of Wikipedia have hit a million edits, you being the second. Kumioko (talk) 01:28, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

support

I found out on reddit that you had your privileges taken. I wasn't aware of the situation. Anyway, you have my support, so if there is anything I can do to help you, let me know. Be well. Greg Bard (talk) 02:08, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Oh I made it to reddit. Shame it wasn't about something good. Thanks for your support, Greg. Rich Farmbrough, 13:39, 17 May 2012 (UTC).

No good deed goes unpunished. Here is the link to the Reddit discussion. Be well, Greg Bard (talk) 16:22, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Category:Think Fast! Records albums

Category:Think Fast! Records albums, which you created, has been nominated for discussion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:21, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

After recent times...

Are you going to stay with us? Wether you have your tools and bots or not, you're still a valuable asset to this project. I hope you stay. MrLittleIrish ^(talk) 申 13:16, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I am still editing, because I still use Wikipedia, so I still see things that need fixing. What I have been able to contribute in the past, where there is a shortfall, is template wrangling, automation, and having the patience to fix long runs of pages, together with, I hope, a little insight into how things can be arranged to improve over the longer term without breaking stuff now. So all that has been removed, and one of the arbitrators has protected 7,000 more templates, effectively removing them from the area where I can contribute. Rich Farmbrough, 13:45, 17 May 2012 (UTC).

That's great to hear. I look forward to working with you on the project in the future. And, even if you do not wish to, I will support your RfA if you choose to run again. Again, you are a valued asset to this project. Keep up the good (even if manual) work :) MrLittleIrish ^(talk) 申 14:02, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Wait, what is this about protecting 7000 templates? Someone did that unilaterally? There was a huge ANI about something like that a year or two ago, that I did a lot of work to clean up,[19] so it's not good if someone did that again. Re RFA: I can't !vote but I'm fine with your staying on as an admin / becoming one again, as I said in the arb case. I have a much different view than yours about the proper role of automation on Wikipedia, but I respect your dedication. 66.127.55.46 (talk) 04:34, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it was AGK, the arb that said he wouldn't be voting on the case, but did. I am aware of the previous mess-up with protecting then unprotecting all "high use" templates. I just find this now typical, even without any ill will Arbs seem to consistently mess up. I am told some of them have a legal background. Maybe that means they had a parking ticket once, I don't know. Maybe the arb-com workload is too great (though there was only one case running). We all screw up from time to time, but when someone's reputation (and more) is at stake, it would expect more care to be given and taken. Thank you for your kind comments. Rich Farmbrough, 21:00, 18 May 2012 (UTC).

Thanks. I found some mention of the protections on the PD talk page but I'm amazed nobody has kicked up a fuss if that many templates were affected. I've been meaning to leave AGK a note but I've been 1) busy IRL; 2) feeling near-total apathy about Wikipedia at the moment. Even WT:HRT hasn't noticed these protections despite a few earlier posts complaining that there was already too much protection. 66.127.55.46 (talk) 10:48, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

mass creation of stubs with errors

Hi Rich, you were involved in this conversation a few months ago, so may be you want to take a look at the updates: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#.27Jaguar.2FSandbox.2F3.27_edits Azylber (talk) 15:38, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

• I also need to notify you of this AN discussion Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive235#Rich Farmbrough. It's not too bad, just wondering why you had the edit filter manager flag taken away as well when ArbCom just said revoke the admin bit. You can contribute if you want. Rcsprinter (talkin' to me?) 18:38, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar (or two) for you!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	For being only the second ever person to get to a million edits, especially under the circumstances. Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 18:47, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

	The Brilliantly Weathered Barnstar
	A real-world barnstar that has seen countless seasons, complete with barn, for a brilliant milestone and for braving the weather in style. – SJ + 06:06, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Rich Farmbrough, 10:43, 24 May 2012 (UTC).

Heads up

An editor trying to abide by an ArbCom decision?

I see you've been given the rollbacker userright, but I would advise you not to use it (just asked at the AC talk page and apparently that counts as automation). On a more important note, hope the decision hasn't hit you too hard – btw, your self-control is amazing, if it were me I think I would have absolutely lost it at some of the arbs who clearly hadn't even bothered to read all the information. Best, Jenks24 (talk) 22:23, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I removed it since the arbs included it in their view of automation and in hopes that a misclick will not result in you being blocked. If you have any questions or want it back anyways, feel free to drop me a message on my talk page or an email. --Guerillero | My Talk 17:00, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I guess you should also expect File mover to go soon too because I suspect its only a matter of time before someone presents th argument that its automtion as well. I think its compleltey absurd and outside the scope and bounds of arbcoms power to make the decision that these are considered automation but who can tell them no right? Kumioko (talk) 17:15, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

• Have to agree with this. Rich, if I were you, I'd strip any and all rights classes from your account. I have none, and it has served me well. If they have nothing to take away from you left except to ban you from the site, they have no power. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:18, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

• See Rich? This is just one of innumerable ways in which traps will be set, whether inadvertently or not, to trip you up. You won't even know you're doing something wrong. You won't have anything that says "don't do this", but you will be retroactively found at fault for doing it. The ArbCom decision failing to identify the Rollbacker right as part of the ArbCom decision is just one of many pitfalls. At the noticeboard thread, one arb (SilkTork) thinks using rollback would be automation, so your rights to that are removed by Guerillero. Then Elen and Silk can't seem to agree as to what counts as automation. Granted, Elen wasn't sitting the case (as a named party) but it's obvious there's no consensus from ArbCom, or any indication that SilkTork is speaking on behalf of all of ArbCom in stating that rollback counts as automation. Then Courcelles chimes in and agrees with SilkTork, again without stating if it is personal opinion or the opinion of all of ArbCom. Not to worry, your rights are stripped anyway, and can not be restored on pain of ArbCom.
• ArbCom can't screw their heads on straight, but it's not them that is at fault, it's you. Isn't this fun? Not to worry though; ArbCom are professionals who are vetted for their skills in arbitration.
• I can readily imagine what someone's going to come after you with next; you're using the edit summary "Copyedit." quite a bit in your mainspace edits since the close of the case. In fact, this edit summary comprises 25% of your mainspace edits since the case was closed. Nevermind that the edits are spread out over days. It's "slow automation". Get it? That'll be one of the things they come after you with. Slow automation. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:16, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
• "that counts as automation" - hm, maybe using browser or computer also counts as automation Bulwersator (talk) 19:47, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

• It can easily be argued. See, rollback requires you to click a link. If you click "Save page" you are likewise clicking a link. In the rollback case, it undoes an edit. In the save page case, it applies changes to a database. Both are, to an extent, automated. Rich, I think you're going to have to request direct database access so you can make changes to articles without having to click the automating "Save page" button! --Hammersoft (talk) 19:52, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
  • And direct access to database, as using internet is also automation. But unfortunately database is also automated :) Bulwersator (talk) 20:17, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

• Hmm. Wikipedia-by-mail? Oh wait, the postal service uses automatic sorters, and Rich would know that, so he'd be taking advantage of automation. Oops. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:24, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

• Heh, you can't escape automation, can you? I think they meant automation without human intervention. AWB bots do it automatically by themselves, but RF will have to click the save button on a normal edit. They're not going to pick holes quite that far down, or everyone they've automation-banned would be under this situation. Nice to have a joke after the stress of the case, I expect for you, Rich. Rcsprinter (lecture) 20:34, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

To be frank, I will take the same approach I have always taken, that if something cannot be objected to by a reasonable person I will do it. The fact that there are unreasonable people on Wikipedia has rarely mattered, because 99 times out of 100 the reasonable folk tell them they are being unreasonable. I pointed out in a previous discussion that statistically I was likely to eventually run into this sort of problem, even if my "behaviour" was average or above average. I am not always proved right, but on this occasion I was.

As to editing by sending carrier pigeons to the server room, I had already run through those possibilities as rhetorical devices to use on ArbCom, but decided against using them. The final decision (which I have not read - even the proposed decision I was still working on detail) I imagine is worded in a nonsensical way, of necessity, since both the sentiment and logic that underlie it are nonsensical. That doesn't bother me much.

Rich Farmbrough, 21:16, 18 May 2012 (UTC).

• I can't help but wonder if this "no automation" bit means no regular expression text substitutions in an external editor? [Not that anyone could technically enforce this...but still...] Or even the very "automated" task of cut-and-pasting text to and from an external editor? While I said my bit above in a much more verbose manner, this whole concept of "no automation" is quite silly. This is ironically coming from someone who makes almost no automated edits here on the English Wikipedia, with the exception of the very very occasional use of HotCat. --Tothwolf (talk) 05:14, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Rich .. many editors on the Workshop and Proposed decision talkpage said things were unreasonable. Most of them telling that seemed quite reasonable (corroborating your 99 times out of 100') .. nonetheless .. you are restricted and desysopped. I am surprised that you still are considering that you will be saved by reasonable people - especially when people tell you that you will be caught in unreasonable situations, they will take you down, 3 typos repaired over 3 different days in a spree of 1000 edits .. AU-TO-MA-TION - 4 times the same edit summary. Do you really think that YOU can type those by hand - of course not.

@Tothwolf: does your browser have red wiggly lines under words it considers misspelled? Do you repair those typos? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:20, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Dirk — Depending on the text input mode, yes it underlines things it considers misspellings, clicking on the underlined text would allow me to change it (I wonder if this too would be considered automation?), but 99.9% of the time it is wrong, especially when I'm editing technical stuff. I generally do all of my major editing in an external editor though, which with a simple hotkey can spell check everything with a custom dictionary. Another hotkey allows me to reformat/preformat wiki markup. I can't imagine going back to using the normal edit box for anything but small edits. Say...what about web browsers that save frequently used text for text input boxes such as the edit summary box? That too could technically be considered automation, and I suspect the majority of editors have used this browser feature at least once.

Rich — Dirk and the others are correct, your detractors are going to try to find absolutely anything they can to use against you. Having had that done to me while under a different sort of edit restriction (that the individuals involved attempted to game over and over again while trying desperately to have me banned), the best advice I can give you is to refocus the majority of your time on something else (even a different wiki-project) until you can get this mess resolved. --Tothwolf (talk) 07:35, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Well using the same edit summary has been cited as "proof of automation" by Xeno, using different exit summaries has been cited as "proof of automation" by Hrsefold. "Too funny", as we say in on-line parlance. Rich Farmbrough, 19:26, 19 May 2012 (UTC).

• Rich has been given advice, all of it unsolicited :), by a great many of us. A very significant portion of that advice has essentially said "don't trust the system". Despite this, Rich has maintained a sense of optimism, of belief in his fellow wikipedian that the masses will see the day through and reason and intellect will prevail. I find that refreshing and laudable, even though I maintain a great deal of cynicism. Thank you Rich. You epitomize why Wikipedia has and can work. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:09, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Warmly seconded. Rich, you are certainly an inspiration, optimistically, statistically and otherwise. Thank you. – SJ + 05:52, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
• So you're aware, your rollbacker right has been restored. Though, that doesn't mean using the right will not be without controversy. Be careful. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:46, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

CfD confusion

Please see here I think you mixed up two separate CfDs. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:00, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Yep. It came up with the incorrect section once and I did something different... got it wrong it seems. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 21:18, 18 May 2012 (UTC).

Humour

Shakespearean Tales

I happened across this in the archives! —Sladen (talk) 11:11, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, hilarious isn't it. maybe we should ask for a second episode. Rich Farmbrough, 21:21, 18 May 2012 (UTC).

Template:Celan-up listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Template:Celan-up. Since you had some involvement with the Template:Celan-up redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). Bulwersator (talk) 18:28, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I'll let someone else celan that up. Thanks for letting me know. Rich Farmbrough, 21:22, 18 May 2012 (UTC).

A cup of coffee for you!

You were recently removed from the administrator class. I do not know enough about that situation to be able to comment on it, but I am familiar enough with your non-controversial work to be able to thank you for everything non-controversial you have done for the Wikipedia project. I am sorry to have to qualify my thanks, but I simply do not understand enough to be able to say more. I appreciate what seems to be your stated intent to continue to support the Wikipedia project. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:52, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I can assure you the case is very boring and could have been done in 10 lines and 15 minutes. Rich Farmbrough, 18:54, 19 May 2012 (UTC).

Hi Rich Farmbrough, I just noted that your Helpful Pixie Bot was blocked. Whenever I noticed this bot on my watchlist, I found these edits indeed helpful and want to thank you for that. I find that gratitude is often missing in this project and your Arbcom case appears to confirm that. Regards, AFBorchert (talk) 16:41, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your support. I hope we can fix ArbCom into something more constructive in future. Rich Farmbrough, 00:39, 21 May 2012 (UTC).

arbcom amendment filed

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Amendment#Request_to_amend_prior_case:_Rich_Farmbrough Nobody Ent 15:31, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Interesting response. Rich Farmbrough, 19:16, 19 May 2012 (UTC).

I have also made a request in the same thread - see Amendment 2. Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:27, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

User:Badmachine

You recently unprotected the page User:Badmachine. That page now reads "FOREVER DEATH TO TH3J35T3R", a reference to The Jester, who, although unidentified, is a living person. The comment was added on 17 May. This is only the latest in a series of incidents relating to the user page - perhaps it is time to say enough? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:34, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

You do realise that Rich was desysopped by ArbCom? --Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 19:39, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I knew there was a case involving him, but I wasn't really following it. Sorry, Rich, I'll take this elsewhere. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 20:51, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

wow. -badmachine 20:44, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

May 2012

Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to contribute to the encyclopedia, but when you add or change content, as you did to the article Toynbee tiles, please cite a reliable source for your addition. This helps maintain our policy of verifiability. See Wikipedia:Citing sources for how to cite sources, and the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. SummerPhD (talk) 23:19, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

• Huh? He filled in a citation where one was asked for and you template a regular? A regular discussion asking him what his intent with that citation change might get you results more in line with what you're looking for? --Hammersoft (talk) 01:07, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I seem to have templated a regular. At first glance of this talk page, there is no obvious indication ze's a regular. Sorry if that's problematic, but I really can't poke around much to figure that out.

Yes, ze added a source. The text in question connects a work of fiction (that does not mention the tiles) with the tiles. The cite to the work of fiction merely serves to cloud the issue. Whomever added the text may have had a source. The edit I reverted, however, changes this from an unsourced statement to original research. (This would be similar to running across a claim that the Declaration of Independence contains elements in common with the Bible and mentions God several times and adding a cite to the Declaration of Independence.) - SummerPhD (talk) 02:25, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

The solution would be to add a {{Citation needed}} to the uncited part of the sentence, not to remove the cite for the second part. And you can also use the template {{Ze}} if you wish, it will render gender according to the editor upon who's page it is used, or the user name given as an argument. So it refers to me as "ze" for instance, but Elen of the Roads as "she" and you as "ze". I have even set my gender preferences so that this works. Rich Farmbrough, 11:48, 22 May 2012 (UTC).

What is wrong with 'they'? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:16, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

"They" as a singular fell out of use until recently. On Wikipedia it might be taken as implying a role account for example. Most people are able to infer my gender from my first name, though I am sure there have been female Richards they were probably mostly mediaeval nuns. Had I wanted to conceal or obfuscate my gender I would have registered as R Farmbrough, if I wanted to proclaim some QUILTBAG status then I would do so clearly and unequivocally. Rich Farmbrough, 16:20, 22 May 2012 (UTC).

I still like it more than 'ze' .. however, I did think you were a medieval nun, but I never had a chance to look under your tunic to check. You should stop impersonating, people have been banned for less. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:26, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Welcome to wikipedia??? One of the dumbest messages I've ever seen on wikipedia..♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:55, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Templating a regular is "one of the dumbest messages" you've seen? Wow. - SummerPhD (talk) 18:52, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

hmm I'm not sure it's the template that does the trick. Penyulap ☏ 20:39, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 21 May 2012

• From the editor: New editor-in-chief

• News and notes: Two new Wikimedia fellows to boost strategies for tackling major issues

• WikiProject report: Trouble in a Galaxy Far, Far Away....

• Featured content: Lemurbaby moves it with Madagascar: Featured content for the week

• Arbitration report: No open arbitration cases pending

• Technology report: On the indestructibility of Wikimedia content

• Read this Signpost in full
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• EdwardsBot (talk) 03:40, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Toolserver

Rich, can any of your former bot work be ported to the toolserver? Viriditas (talk) 07:42, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Possibly. I'm thinking about alternative strategies. Rich Farmbrough, 21:51, 23 May 2012 (UTC).

That's good to hear. I see someone has offered to run Femto Bot, which is great news. When you have some free time, I would like to discuss some ideas with you about how we can track statistics for DYK/GA/FA and other types of projects, specifically user statistics. Right now, TTBOMK, this is done manaully, which frankly is ridiculous. After all, it is now 2012 (going on 2013), and we should be able to see what types of work users have done, whether it is nominating DYK's, nominating and reviewing GA's, or participating in peer reviews and FA nominations and reviews. This information is not only valuable for telling us about a user (how many DYK's did they nominate vs. how many were declined, etc.) but most importantly, for giving us insight into which parts of the project need improving. For example, there is a huge backlog in the GAN review process (459 listed with 368 waiting to be reviewed). Since we have topic categories already in place, it would be helpful to see which topic areas are reviewed first and last, which have more passes than fails, and the length of time for reviews, etc. I think you see where I'm going with this, and I'm wondering how we can collect this data, or if it is already being collected. So there are two parts to this query: how do we collect data about user contributions to the article nomination and review process for display (like this), and how do we use that data to improve Wikipedia? No hurry on this, so take your time. If other areas of the project are already working on this, then let me know and feel free to disregard. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 08:54, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

It's time to start rebuilding your rep, and transcend...

There are those of us (many) who would like to see you get your adminship and bot status back.

Once the concerns in the ArbCom case have been remedied by you, and you have reformed your ways (in the eyes of those critical of your previous approach) for a healthy period of time, restoration of your bot privileges should take place in due course.

My guess is that a year would be enough. I think you can and should go for it.

But how? I have some suggestions...

First, swallow your pride and lose the attitude. Drop the defiant demeanor. Stop arguing. Avoid making snide or cynical remarks.

Second, publicly take responsibility for your actions and openly dedicate yourself to mending your ways. Post apologies to individuals. Post an apology to the community in general (in closing remarks of or as an amendment to your Arbcom case, so that everyone can see it in context).

Third, throw yourself into the project, into the very areas that have caused concern. You'll have to be creative, since you can't engage in bot tasks yourself...

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Join who? The bot department for one. The AWB team for another. Participate in the discussions there.

Many areas concerning Wikipedia automation have been neglected...

You could help with programming bots. And making code examples available to help others learn how to program bots.

Wikipedia should have an army of expert AWB users, but as of yet, it does not. You could help build and lead a corps of AWB volunteers.

Currently nobody reaches out to welcome and offer guidance to new AWB registrants.

The documentation on AWB leaves something to be desired. There are a lot of features that have no support documentation whatsoever. The AWB manual needs a programming-savvy editor to drive its completion.

You could provide further guidance at The AWB Task Page. Who knows better than you what needs to be done with AWB? Post (uncontroversial) tasks. You can also help by providing suggestions there on how to use AWB to accomplish the tasks posted by others.

You could help build Wikipedia's script resources:

There is almost a complete lack of Wikipedia-focused Perl scripts available. Wikipedia:Scripts/Perl scripts has a single script in it, and that was provided by you. How else can you help us here? My guess is there are a lot of editors besides me who would love to see the scripts you have used over the years.

The rest of the script department is in disarray. It needs someone to make sense of the chaos.

Many editors would like to make suggestions for MediaWiki features, but they do not understand Bugzilla. My guess is that most feature suggestions made at the Village Pump never find their way to Bugzilla, despite the referrals. How can you remedy these situations?

You are the expert on Wikipedia automation. Share your expertise. Help others get automated. And most importantly, help them avoid making the same mistakes you did.

If you can do this, productively in a cheerful and cordial manner, over the next year, I would be very surprised if ArbCom did not overcome its nervousness concerning you and welcome you back with open arms.

Wikipedia needs you. I look forward to seeing you rise to the occasion.

Good luck.

Sincerely, The Transhumanist 00:46, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

You know the plan was to deal with the backlog at requests for bot assistance then do some serious work. What I am interested in is applying serious AI concepts to Wikipedia (and in I have just finished doing some academic research, using some of these types of tools for analysis) and actually making a significant and substantive difference. Unfortunately there are too many people active on Wikipedia who would not just rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic if it was sinking, but argue about the colour they should be, and even form a subcommittee to ensure that the spelling of the colours was doen in an even handed manner, to make any serious progress.

Your support has been appreciated throughout this process, as has that of many folk.

It's important though to understand other people's motivation. My motivation here is mixed, primarily I'm interested in improving the actual articles. In doing so I have found many other tasks that it actually makes sense to take on, in order to achieve that. Of course I get a sense of satisfaction in fixing 932 articles that broke GFDL, even though I had to do it manually. My motivation is not, however, to make Arbcom or the community think of me as a great guy, yes barnstars are nice, yes acknowledgement from established figures is nice, and from fresh starters sometimes even more so. But if the options open to me were effectively to continue improving the encyclopaedia until someone stopped me, or stop myself, my choice was to continue. There was always a chance that ArbCom would see sense, though with the case being effectively brought by two arbs, it may have seemed slim.

There seems to be considerable feeling that the ArbCom result is at best dubious, and at worst downright wrong. Apart from the actual flaws in the process and the evidence, which all seem to have been ignored by Arbcom (except one, which I received an email apology for) there is no recognition that I put in place three systems to deal with the alleged problems, in response to NewYorkBrad's questions (NewYorkBrad was the only Arb to get involved positively, as far as I can see- as drafting arb):

1. A log of current work
2. A full bug tracking system
3. A bot control panel

This is all more wasted work, to throw after a month working on the Arb case that was supposed to be contributed to the project.

Given all this, and while I'm sure it is meant well, I do not intend to "throw myself into the project" to try and "regain the respect" of those that ran this case.

I do other voluntary work, I have my own life to lead, there are other projects out there (such as the Singularity Institute) that I am interested in.

Bear in mind also that Arbcom refused me time to draft my defence, despite prohibiting me from doing so during the majority of the case.

They did not reply to my enquiry as to how many hours a day I should be expected to donate to the case.

So I will continue to edit Wikipedia, and maybe work at the Teahouse, and do some policy stuff. When and if I return as bot-op and/or admin, is not something I am worried about.

Rich Farmbrough, 02:07, 23 May 2012 (UTC).

AI? Sounds interesting. What were you planning to try on Wikipedia with AI? The Transhumanist 08:32, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Basically the sky's the limit. There are no reasons that an AI cannot understand the majority of information in WP articles and from RS (NLP). Then it's simply a matter of data verification, re-purposing to other languages and the like (the construction of a "simple" for each language for example). The next step would be customiɀed articles. Rich Farmbrough, 13:46, 26 May 2012 (UTC).

• "All your articles belong to us" :) Sorry, couldn't resist. Seriously, as the number of contributors to Wikipedia inexorably declines, routine maintenance work must be taken on by bots. This has already happened. It needs to become more and more pervasive if the resource is to be maintained. One of the greatest threats to the project is the ever reducing lack of human contributions. We have to counter that somehow, else the project is doomed. That's my take on AI type stuff. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:31, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

It's not quite that bad. The possibility exists for en:WP to continue run by a skeleton staff, covering a limited (albeit large by previous standards) amount of knowledge, and with timely updates in the major areas (new countries, disasters, deaths, sporting events, majhor scientific breakthroughs). Rich Farmbrough, 15:38, 26 May 2012 (UTC).

Arbitration

Sorry about that mate "Rich Farmbrough is indefinitely prohibited from using any automation whatsoever on Wikipedia. For the purposes of this remedy, any edits that reasonably appear to be automated shall be assumed to be so. Rich Farmbrough's administrator status is revoked. At any time after the closing of this case, Rich Farmbrough may request that his administrator status be restored by filing a request for adminship." Just when you think the atmosphere is improving things happen all at once which makes you seriously question others users on here.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:54, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Boo, hisssss... --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 12:27, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

For what its worth Arbcom is taking a lot of heat over the decision too. Too many aspects of the case are dodgy, poorly written based on incorrect assumptions and generally just not sitting well. Kumioko (talk) 13:10, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

• And they've already shown how the community is going to screw this up. They themselves have been in a disagreement as to whether rollback counts as automation or not. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:29, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

For what it is worth, I thought your bots were making a constructive contribution. I guess some people just did not like the large number of edits showing up on their watch lists over and over. If you had just put in something to check before you saved the edit that it would affect the reader-visible article, that might have reduced the complaints against you. JRSpriggs (talk) 14:17, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't think there any "invisible" bot edits for a very long time (years). Mainly one user made ongoing complaints about tiny fixes done at the same time as other fixes - that person has reverted over 1000 such changes, not just by me but by a significant number of editors. Rich Farmbrough, 14:31, 23 May 2012 (UTC).

Rich, please could you expand on what you mean by '"invisible" bot edits'? Are you describing wikicode changes, or running without a bot flag, or undeclared automation, or something else? AFAICS, Helpful_Pixie_Bot has been recapitalising templates[20] right until the very last edit[21] (and without a WP:BOTFLAG in sight). —Sladen (talk) 17:50, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

There is a perception, repeated even as far afield as Reddit, that I make edits solely for the purpose of deleting white=space. This has never been the case. There were technical reasons when SmackBot was running under AWB that some tiny percentage, less than 2-3 per thousand were like that. FUD, however has a life of its own. Rich Farmbrough, 22:17, 23 May 2012 (UTC).

Yes, there is a perception, and yes, it will be hard to supersede that perception. The percentage (even if "tiny") was presumably large enough to be noticed, and to bring the perception into being. That will be extremely hard to tackle; although overtime I hope it will be possible to demonstrate that it is no longer the case. Manual review before saving, more personalised/encompassing edit summaries, and avoiding "hot potatoes" are probably a good route to being able to demonstrate that the perception is no longer the case. That probably means no template case changing, no white-space removal (or anything you can recall remember as ever having been controversial). After 10–12 months of that I hope that it should be possible to point to a track record more easily disprove the perception (whether it was right, or wrong in the first place). —Sladen (talk) 14:41, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

It hasn't been the case for some 2+ years. Edit summaries are a route to blocking, that has been made quite clear. I am pretty much only editing articles I am reading. On Wikipedia everything is controversial. Dating maintenance tags was when we started out, and even now there are people who disagree with it - in fact there are people who actively try and get maintenance tags deleted, causing massive damage to the encyclopaedia for no benefit. "All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost." Rich Farmbrough, 15:34, 26 May 2012 (UTC).

Archiving

Hi Rich. I saw your request to let Femto Bot continue to archive your talk page. I know you'd rather run it yourself, but if you're willing to send me the code I'd be happy to drop that into my bot's task list. If you'd rather not, no worries, I understand, but the offer's there if you're interested. Cheers, 28bytes (talk) 07:29, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer. I am scratching my head over the various ways forward. Maybe the simplest is to re-submit the amendment. Rich Farmbrough, 13:24, 26 May 2012 (UTC).

No worries. Let me know if I can be of service. 28bytes (talk) 13:56, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Rich, it might be wise to accept the assistance offered by 28bytes. Doing so would help demonstrate that you are genuinely interested in the end the end-goal of archiving, and not simply after "I can haz automation". —Sladen (talk) 14:28, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Two points.

1. Firstly if you think that Arbcom are paying any attention to this, when they can't even count votes properly, you are a starry eyed dreamer.
2. Secondly there are technical problems, my bots are developed to have the required functionality and no more, and are constantly being improved in line with the principles of Kaizen. This task is designed to run from my desktop, it will need re-purposing to run on the tool-server, and will need extra functionality that is currently extrinsic.

Rich Farmbrough, 15:23, 26 May 2012 (UTC).

Can you not use User:MiszaBot III to archive your talk page as many users do? JRSpriggs (talk) 04:34, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes I could, I used to use it but it archives stuff I want to keep , and keeps stuff I want to archive. Also it does not move stuff to my to-do list (though of course I am not allowed to do anything much now, so that could be moot). Rich Farmbrough, 06:33, 28 May 2012 (UTC).

I do my own archiving manually which gives me total control. However, I have configured some other talk pages for archiving bots, so if you want to use MiszaBot III but are afraid that doing it yourself might get you in trouble (considering the ban on your use of automation), then I would be willing to configure your talk page for you to use MiszaBot III. Just ask and specify what parameters you would like. JRSpriggs (talk) 11:53, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Femto Bot has the benefits of manual archiving and automatic archiving. I simply mark a section, and it gets archived to the appropriate place. Generally this is the archive, but it may also be to my to-do list. Future enhancements would have dealt with bur reports differently. Miza-bot also inserts un-needed spaces in headers which I find a bit ironic, since doing that automatically would have me hung drawn and quartered.

Many thanks for the offer.

Rich Farmbrough, 13:38, 30 May 2012 (UTC).

Lake Washington (Melbourne)

They are trying to delete Lake Washington (Melbourne) article. Can you help? Student7 (talk) 12:58, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Helped Rich Farmbrough, 15:40, 26 May 2012 (UTC).

Unsigned comment templates

Hi, I noticed your comments on Template talk:Unsigned and thought you might be able to help with this. Thanks. --xensyria^T 19:25, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately I do not have an admin bit at the moment. Rich Farmbrough, 15:24, 26 May 2012 (UTC).

Sorry to hear it. I just read a comment below that said how much of a better place you've made WP; I agree completely, and wish you all the best. --xensyria^T 11:56, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

replacing references temporarily

Using Perl, I've slurped an article.

I need to match the first sentence of the article, but intervening references with a period in them create an ambiguity so the script does not find the period at end of the sentence (it finds the period in the embedded reference instead).

So, I'd like to be able to save references off, and put them back again into the first sentence after I've extracted and processed it.

How can this be done?

This message is a copy. Please reply to the original at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#replacing references temporarily. Thank you.   The Transhumanist 22:02, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

P.S.: Rich, I'd like to shove all the references in the article off into an array or something, replace the references with XXXXX or some other code, and then after processing, substitute the codes with the original references. Those references not in or trailing the first sentence can just go bye-bye. The Transhumanist 22:05, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

P.P.S.: I've run into problems having regex strings inside array elements, as they don't seem to be interpreted literally in the regex. Unescaped special characters seem to be wreaking havoc. The Transhumanist 22:10, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I have answered in general at VP(T). Since I know the background I can answer more specifically here.

/^(([^\.]|<ref[^>]*\/\s*>|<ref[^>]*[^<]*<\/\s*ref>|)*\.)/

will probably match what you want. Rich Farmbrough, 13:17, 26 May 2012 (UTC).

Thanks

Hey, Rich, I haven't been following that Arbcom stuff closely (certainly not enough to express an opinion either way about its justness), but I've heard of it a few times. I just wanted to say thanks that, despite all the negativity and assorted crap you seem to be going through, you can still find the time to complete my answer at the Teahouse a bit. So, thanks! :) Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 21:10, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Most welcome. I like Teahouse. Tea is a civilising influence, that's why the role of Lord High Teaboy is most coveted at the WP:Committee for getting things done - which you are cordially invited to join. Rich Farmbrough, 21:45, 26 May 2012 (UTC).

Dev changes

Hello, Rich Farmbrough. You have new messages at Kaldari's talk page.
Message added 05:32, 27 May 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Replied on my talk page. Kaldari (talk) 06:15, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Appreciation

Hi Rich. I don't think we've ever interacted, but I've seen you around for years. I've always found you to be thoughtful, considerate and helpful. My perception has always been that you've gone out of your way to help others. At least that's what I've seen. And your generous help is all over the template namespace, which I am very thankful for. I followed the ArbCom case and was disappointed with the result. I'm sure it's not fun, but you've hung in there and that's commendable. I just wanted to let you know that there are a lot of people that appreciate all you've done for the project. I personally want to thank you for all your template work, but even more for hanging in there and staying with the project. It's actually an inspiration to me. So thanks for everything. Best of luck to you. 64.40.54.186 (talk) 09:11, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Well that's a nice high note on which to log off and attend to some Real Life matters for a while. Thank you. Rich Farmbrough, 09:16, 27 May 2012 (UTC).

Checkuser

Hi Rich, just a small clarification: I'm no longer a clerk. I stepped down when I was appointed to the AUSC. Cheers. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 09:53, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for that. I had got somewhat confused. Rich Farmbrough, 13:01, 27 May 2012 (UTC).

If you're interested

As I see you have a 'Things that stayed too long' section on your userpage: Evan Schwenger (and subsequently Mr. E) was a Captain Regent of San Marino (replacing Orbello di Vita Giannini) for a considerable amount of time due to this edit [22] from December 2010. The articles could do with a bit of work, but this is hilarious nonetheless. RoyalMate1 21:58, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

You have a reply...

I've replied at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#replacing references temporarily.     The Transhumanist 11:49, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rich Farmbrough

Resolved by motion that:

FoF 8 (Unblocking of SmackBot) changed to:

Rich Farmbrough has on many occasions, after another administrator has placed a block on his bot account, used his administrative tools to unblock his own bot without first remedying the underlying issue to the blocking admin's satisfaction or otherwise achieving consensus for such unblock (see block logs of SmackBot, Helpful Pixie Bot).

For the Arbitration Committee,

-- Lord Roem (talk) 15:10, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Amendment request rejected

This is a courtesy notification that the request for amendment you are involved in or are a named party to has been declined.

For the Arbitration Committee

-- Lord Roem (talk) 15:21, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Slander

Your recent edits to WT:AC/N could give Wikipedia contributors the impression that you may consider legal or other "off-wiki" action against them, or against Wikipedia itself. Please note that making such threats on Wikipedia is strictly prohibited under Wikipedia's policies on legal threats and civility. Users who make such threats may be blocked. If you have a dispute with the content of any page on Wikipedia, please follow the proper channels for dispute resolution. Please be sure to comment on content not contributors, and where possible make specific suggestions for changes supported by reliable independent sources and focusing especially on verifiable errors of fact. Thank you. Making this edit in light of the previous counsel about Wikipedia:NLT#Perceived legal threats is inappropriate. Please do not reintroduce terms that assert or imply legal wrongdoing unless you intend it as a legal threat. Jclemens (talk) 19:35, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Don't template the regulars. Rich Farmbrough, 19:41, 28 May 2012 (UTC).

I second that! Templating the regulars...grr.MONGO 20:35, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

To quote WP:DTTR, "However using a pre-existing template as a guide, re-wording it or adding a personal message to it, is allowed." In the case where the notification could lead to a block, an outcome undesirable to everyone, I added a personal note to the attention-getting and explicit boilerplate verbiage--not as an insult to Rich, but to make the gravity of the situation as clear as possible. It appears to have been effective, but if my message was overkill in making it effective, you have my apologies for the excessive precision with which it was delivered. Jclemens (talk) 04:48, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Let's be clear, you choose to publish false statements giving a negative impression of me, and, knowing them to be false do not retract them. You then want to hide behind NLT. It simply won't wash. Rich Farmbrough, 12:35, 29 May 2012 (UTC).

furry

hello, i will look and see what i can do. would you mind linking me to them plz?

by the way, i didn't know you were interested in that wikiproject. i have serious concerns about the logo used in the furry wikiproject and portal, and have started a discussion here. i hope my asking you about this is not canvassing, but nobody else seems to give a shit about subtle advertising on wikipedia, or perhaps i posted my concerns in the wrong place, and i couldnt help but notice that you have 983,000+ edits, so you know the place better than i do. -badmachine 23:52, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm interested in everything, for my sins. It's a quiet project I think. I saw your post (I was looking at my watchlist to help one of the people who have just desysopped me - what a nice guy I am) - that's why I dropped the note to your page. I'll have a quick look. Rich Farmbrough, 23:58, 28 May 2012 (UTC).

The logo was used because it was available under a free license, and because an upright blue paw has commonly been used to indicate furry informational sites; for example, the favicon of PeterCat's Furry Infopage. badmachine is welcome to raise the issue at WikiProject Furry, which seems to me to be the appropriate venue. GreenReaper (talk) 02:15, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Ah I saw your username when I was checking the facts at WikiFur. It's interesting how a whole bunch of wikis peeled off from Wikia when they changed the skins. Something that the WMF should take into account when pushing cosmetic upgrades through. Doubtless the discussion can be moved there, to advantage. Rich Farmbrough, 03:56, 29 May 2012 (UTC).

i was visiting my mom in ohio, and travel back to sacramento tomorrow. i will try to remember to do that when i get back to my home ip, to keep my IP usage low. if anyone else is inclined to open it for me, id appreciate it, and if not, i can take care of it on Thursday. many thanks, -badmachine 04:52, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fæ opened

An arbitration case involving you has been opened, and is located at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fæ. Evidence that you wish the Arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence sub-page, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fæ/Evidence. Please add your evidence by June 12, 2012, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can contribute to the case workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fæ/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Lord Roem (talk) 01:33, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

My word

I'm bored. I shall have to go to sleep. Rich Farmbrough, 03:38, 29 May 2012 (UTC).

If you are looking for something to do, perhaps you feel like adding turtle species or subspecies synonym to the infobox?

• Open the following cited pdf {{cite journal | journal = Verterbrate zoology | title = Checklist of chelonians of the world | year = 2007 | first = Uwe | last = Fritz | coauthors = Havaš, Peter | volume = 57 | issue = 2 | pages = | id = | url = http://www.cnah.org/pdf_files/851.pdf | archiveurl = http://www.webcitation.org/5v20ztMND | archivedate = 2010-12-17}}
• Move down the pdf past contents and higher taxa to about page 186 or higher. Find a species(two word binomial name subheading in bold italics) or subspecies(three word trinomial name subheading in italics), find the corresponding article on wiki(search for binomial name/trinomial name), the synonyms are the listed items in the pdf, add the synonyms to the infobox in the format, *''synonym'' -<small> person(s), year<small> for each one, add the synonym_ref(cite the pdf above with page number) and optionally add the binomial/trinomial name reference.
• See example diff of one I just did.
• There are about 305 turtle species/subspecies of which about 280 articles still require the synonyms adding.
• It takes a lot of time(5-25 minutes per article) to extract the names precisely and format the display nicely, but writing skills aren't required, nor is researching as the pdf has the information. Any questions please ask. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 12:42, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Synonyms was on my to do list. I'll take a look. Rich Farmbrough, 12:46, 29 May 2012 (UTC).

In the edits you have made you are missing a close for the small text </small>. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 13:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting that. Rich Farmbrough, 14:02, 29 May 2012 (UTC).

Furthermore, the binomial name and first synonym are the same in Escambia map turtle, the "ex errore" is located at the wrong synonym in Yellow-blotched map turtle, and the synonym "Emys megacephala" has the name instead of the year in Northern map turtle. Fram (talk) 14:13, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Having the binomial/trinomial name and the synonym the same is not a problem. I know it confuses me also. If Fritz lists it in the pdf, then it's good enough for me. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 14:20, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Funny how all these biologists are either called "Ann" or have a first name beginning with J. Rich Farmbrough, 14:36, 29 May 2012 (UTC).

They should either all have the binomial name in the synonyms list, or none of them. To include it with some but not with others is not the best solution. I prefer to exclude them, no need to duplicate this immediately, but that is less important than having some consistency. Fram (talk) 14:41, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes I noticed that, I'll take your word for it. There are a number of advantages including it, clearly, which is doubtless why they do so. Rich Farmbrough, 14:49, 29 May 2012 (UTC).

I have been a little distracted, but at some point it will be turtles all the way down. Rich Farmbrough, 03:12, 30 May 2012 (UTC).

You forgot the "|synonyms" parameter here, with a poor layout of theinfobox as a result. Fram (talk) 07:34, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

A consequence of manual editing. Rich Farmbrough, 16:11, 30 May 2012 (UTC).

Turtles all the way down, Turtles All the Way Down, Turtles all the way down. Rich the redlink ex errore is not going to be notable, it seems to be a concept of the pdf your using, made up on page 169(If a genus-group name was misspelled, it is indicated by adding the epithet “ex errore"). The lower case use of the reference title "Checklist of chelonians of the world", rather then the journal case was derived from an FA discussion -"At the moment it's higgeldy-piggeldy with title case. The original case is irrelevant." - User:Tony1. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 13:18, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

There needs to be a glossary, I'm just looking at the best place for that, and to see if one already exists. Ex errore is also used by Reptile Database. The case, I think is fairly clear from the MoS, so no worries, I also have picked up the typo in Verterbrate. Rich Farmbrough, 13:27, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

But the Reptile Database is using the Fritz reference as a source, so I think it's only being recycled. Is there a none turtle use of "ex errore"? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 13:58, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Mountain Salamanders of the Genus Ranodon, Volume 6 uses it, along with number of other volumes and papers. Maybe they all derive from work by Fritz, it seems very much reptiles and amphibians, but certainly they go back as far as the 1980s . Rich Farmbrough, 14:54, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

Typos and stuff

At Spiny turtle, you changed the correct bluelink Testudines to the incorrect redlink Testudinesa([23]). And here ninteenth should be nineteenth. Please check your edits more carefully. Fram (talk) 13:38, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

If you see an mistake, hit edit and make a correction. Wikipedia isn't about making perfect edits. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 13:58, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

But if the errors give the impression of being errors in a script, then we have a problem, no? In the next edit at that page, he makes the exact same error, changing "19th" to "ninteenth" again. If you make that many errors, you aren't being careful enough; and if you make the exact same error a few times in a row, things get suspicious. And I am quite busy correcting other mistakes he made, so please don't tell me what to do with these further errors. Fram (talk) 14:05, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Don't worry about typos, I've checked around 1/4 million articles myself and had to stop when a database list got finished. So when new typos are made some of us are pleased to correct them! Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 14:21, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Fram, your being an edit stalker and these mistakes are petty. May I suggest you walk away and maybe edit something else for a while. You are clearly watching Rich's every edit waiting to drop a comment and start a new discussion and maybe even try to get him banned. Thats the only way you would have found these. Its getting a little old. Everyone makes errors and no one likes a tattle tail. Kumioko (talk) 14:23, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Instead of making his errors automatically, he now makes them manually (one hopes). My posts above have helped him find errors in the template he uses to edit the turtle articles, and made him aware (if necessary) that his century edits aren't supposed to be done. meanwhile, I'm still correcting hundreds of errors made by Helpful Pixie Bot at the end of March. As usual, some people are quick to defend RF, but very slow in actually doing anything about the problems he created. Fram (talk) 14:35, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Well I can say for certainty that if his bot was still running he would have fixed the errors himself if they were really errors. If you can provide an example of the types of errors you are correcting I might be willing to help fix them. Kumioko (talk) 14:48, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

By the way, any reason that you changed all instances of 6th century, 5th century, 19th century, ... to sixth century, fifth century, nineteenth century, ...? According to WP:ORDINAL, both are acceptable, and the general rule on Wikipedia is that when two methods are acceptable, we shouldn't change articles from one system to the other without good reason. Of course, if there is such a reason in this case, no problem, but otherwise such edits can best be avoided. Fram (talk) 14:23, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Reference

• Fritz, Uwe (2007). "Checklist of Chelonians of the World". Vertebrate Zoology. 57 (2). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-12-17. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

Concerned Wikipedian

Rich, I don't think we've ever crossed paths on Wikipedia before, but I have noticed a great many contributions of yours pop up on my watchlist in the past few hours. While I understand that you feel hurt and wronged by what has happened to you in the recent past, I am concerned that your present actions will not lead to the resolution you desire, but rather to further sanction and further hurt. Good luck and take care. N419BH 03:48, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

You are probably right. However it seemed that presenting the facts to the committee would, if they were honourable, cause them to change their opinion. Of course people are very reluctant to change their opinions, so I may be onto a looser. As to the other matters, they mainly concern things I have uncovered as a result of being on the receiving end of the process, and the committee is already taking steps to rectify some of them, which is most gratifying, and even a little encouraging. Rich Farmbrough, 03:53, 29 May 2012 (UTC).

Perhaps the rest will come with time once cooler heads prevail. Everyone is dug into their trenches right now, which is not particularly conducive to the process of constructive dialogue. N419BH 03:58, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, maybe. Had they left me my admin bit (loosing which is worse than being banned, though of course they don't understand that) I could at least do "clever template stuff" while things cooled down. As it is they removed my four main fields of activity, bots, clean up, templates and vandal fighting. Rich Farmbrough, 04:01, 29 May 2012 (UTC).

There are always other wikis where Arbcom does not have jurisdiction. A history of positive contributions there subsequent to an enwiki sanction has in the past been used as evidence to re-welcome users back into the fold here. N419BH 04:09, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. The writ of Arbcom is very narrow. But unfortunately my language skills are also very limited. I also have a naive faith in human nature, and hope triumphs over experience time and again. (Also escaping en:wiki is hard, since I inevitably want to look something up, and that means I am going to be editing.) But I am really off to bed now. Thanks for your support. Rich Farmbrough, 04:15, 29 May 2012 (UTC).

All roads lead to Rome

Emotion is not in the equation, I compute the logical outcome and it is always the same regardless.

I like bot armies :), I only have one, and his hamster doesn't count for anything really, not even a 1/2, and doesn't annoy but a few people. (I guess loading him into some kind of mechanism that uses him as a projectile would change that, bah!)

So are you interested in making the changeover to the replacement when it arrives ? It is important to try to collect everyone, just to stay in touch for that new bright morning which inevitably follows the night. A new site would be fresh air to suffocating lungs.

Hey, are any of your dead bots easy enough for a moron like me to operate in the meantime ? I can't imagine for a moment that operating a bot to improve wikipedia completely within guidelines and community expectations wouldn't shit the living daylights out of some of your critics, and I'm just the editor to do it too. I lost all heart to turn wikigreen, but making positive edits solely out of spite seems right up my alley right now. Penyulap ☏ 20:21, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Yep, I'm ready to breathe space and a lot of people are, most hoping that it won't be necessary. There are many downsides to such a move, notably that, for example, if ArbCom did not exist it would be necessary to invent them.

As far as running the bots, there have been several offers, for which I am grateful, but I am looking at other strategies.

Rich Farmbrough, 21:29, 29 May 2012 (UTC).

breathe space. I know the real crew up there have considered killing each other before, but I wonder if it ever came to blows like that in zero-g (only read that far). I think I will finish this one.

I can't see the need for arbcomm in all of the successful models I have considered, which are all closer to existing schemes and boards, it was the wrong answer when it was created. Ha, I like those boards where they give the positions made up names, like king jackass and overlord. Penyulap ☏ 23:43, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Well you should consider joining the WP:Committee for getting things done. Rich Farmbrough, 00:43, 30 May 2012 (UTC).

reminiscent the movement to end all movements which began with itself, I'm not criticising implosions mind you, I like them, I just worried for a moment it was a diabolical plot to shut me up, but you're not the oracle of the equation, so that can't be. hmmm. So you really want to get things done? Penyulap ☏ 03:06, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

It was historically the advantage of Wikipedia. Provided you weren't doing something stupid people got out of your way, and even facilitated each other. Of course we have always had the rules lawyers and what Elen so prettily describes as the "anal retentive obsessive compulsives" but up til now they didn't run the show and were merely tolerated. Rich Farmbrough, 03:09, 30 May 2012 (UTC).

sounds like my old userpage. pawning wikipedia is a snap, there is no avoiding that reality, no limit to the resources available to do so, any Neanderthal could write a mask to sort the good from the bad, retentive is to think it can be saved.the party crashers can't be shown the door when the deed was signed over to them at the very start. Starting again isn't starting from square one, everything has already been done. Penyulap ☏ 03:37, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Incidentally oracles are the most crazy branch of mathematics going. But who knows, with quantum computing they may becme relevant. Rich Farmbrough, 03:11, 30 May 2012 (UTC).

my own 'beautiful mind' is more akin to Nash in the practical applications (not the other stuff). Penyulap ☏ 03:37, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

And of course the problem with space flight is that these puny ships kill you pretty fast. Rich Farmbrough, 00:43, 30 May 2012 (UTC).

Ha! Puny American! the Soyuz 18a lads, including one who designed the craft and was screaming at GC to hit the abort button after the craft lost it (they didn't have one at that time), they show you how it's done, barrelling out of control into what would be oblivion for the nasa shuttle. Anything you can walk away from. Still, taking out ejector seats (from the nasa shuttle), now there is a novel idea to improve safety, from the inventors of the facepalm. Penyulap ☏ 00:55, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

When seat belts became compulsory in the UK the number of accidents went up. Rich Farmbrough, 22:05, 30 May 2012 (UTC).

The only thing that matters

Re: this But what happens when we get to a billion, Rich? Keep your chin up, mate. Be seeing you. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:43, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

{{Odometer long}} - but even then I will not be a number. Rich Farmbrough, 01:52, 30 May 2012 (UTC).

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 09:03, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Arbitration

For anyone half-following this sorry tale, the current situation is:

• ArbCom is stone-walling any amendments supportive of me, while approving any that make the case look worse.
• ArbCom and the Aduit subcommittee is ignoring all communication from me
• Some small steps to ArbCom reform have been taken as a result of things that have been pointed out as a result of the case.
• Individual Arbs continue (at least until recently) to publish untruths about me in various fora.
• One Arb says I can have an apology or re-litigation.

So much for independent committee of trusted and wise users.

Rich Farmbrough, 13:33, 30 May 2012 (UTC).

Speaking only personally, though as a member of the AUSC, I'd like to point out that we are not ignoring your e-mails; we are discussing your request, but we have informed you we have received your email (28.05.12, 21.32 UTC). Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 14:10, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I only have the automated response. Rich Farmbrough, 16:05, 30 May 2012 (UTC).

Apologies, I have received a we have received your email email. Rich Farmbrough, 16:38, 30 May 2012 (UTC).

But the important fact, of course, is that you are discussing it. Thank you for letting me know. (See how I nearly got trapped in the game of "form over substance" there?) Rich Farmbrough, 16:13, 30 May 2012 (UTC).

• Like (I don't like what's happening, but like your summary of what's happening) --Hammersoft (talk) 14:13, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Well I was hoping we could take baby steps back to sanity. But refusal to discuss is rearing it's head. Presumably a deep seated fear of being proved wrong is coming into play. Where is Lord Denning when you need him? Rich Farmbrough, 16:08, 30 May 2012 (UTC).
    
    • Probably losing his head at Tyburn. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:48, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

• Amusing update. I just came across a 2009 conversation where two of today's arbs were having a pipedream about s system that would deliver what it was they banned me for. Rich Farmbrough, 19:59, 31 May 2012 (UTC).
  

• !!! Link? --Hammersoft (talk) 20:01, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

You want life easy! I'll give you a clue, it's Kirill Lokshin and Roger Davies.

I stated looking at the arbcom election statements to see if any of them had promised to be be impartial or anything, but they are too boring to read. I was slapped in the face by this:

“ I'm in the process of answering all my questions, and setting aside about an hour per day to do so. I submitted my candidature early in the election, so I am not attempting to answer them all at once; as a result, there may be a small delay. If you have posted a question, I will respond soon, and thank you for your patience. ”

This from the arb that said:

“ For my own part, I cannot agree that it could reasonably take you a fortnight to respond to the past few days' edits to the proposed decision. Frankly, I am at something of a loss as to why you have been regularly participating at the proposed decision talk page, but only now have much more to say. Perhaps you might explain this to me. Perhaps my colleagues will look less dimly on your request, in which case we will be in touch. ”

Funny that they never replied to my question about how many hours a day I should set aside for the Arbcom case. Incidentally AGK never did reply to all his questions, although he said he did. Rich Farmbrough, 20:08, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

The previous page mentioned is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/Archive 24#Infobox capitalisation. Rich Farmbrough, 22:46, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

Amendment requests declined

This is a courtesy notification that two amendment requests filed by you have been declined.

For the Arbitration Committee,

-- Lord Roem (talk) 19:33, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

• Also be aware that two arbitrators have now said you are abusing the process because you (1) made a request for fembot, (2) made a reconsider attempt because ArbCom's information was wrong, and (3) asked for a wording on an unrelated (to 1 and 2) finding that was favorable to you. This apparently counts as abuse of process. This is ArbCom. When they speak, they are right. When they are wrong, you're abusing the process. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:26, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
  • By their fruits shall ye know them. Rich Farmbrough, 22:05, 30 May 2012 (UTC).
    
    • Well, not so much evil, me thinks. --Hammersoft (talk) 22:08, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Moving evidence to workshop (WP:RFAR/Fae)

Hey Rich,

I just wanted to let you know I have moved yours, as well as Isarra's in a moment or two, evidence submission to the workshop page. Given the lack of diff's or supplementary links to evidence, the workshop page is a more appropriate place for what you posted.

Many Thanks
Seddon ^talk 22:16, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

If you would like to add diffs and then subsequently re-add then you are free to. As much trust as the arbs may have in you, I have to be fair in my judgement on this page and want one rule applying to all. Seddon ^talk 22:23, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

• A workshop page. A page even some ArbCom members admit they never read. Where were the dutiful clerks when false evidence was applied against Rich? --Hammersoft (talk) 03:02, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

The issue of non-cromulent evidence was raised at the time. At that point it was all "we are pretty relaxed about this stuff". Rich Farmbrough, 03:25, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

I need to look in more detail. Rich Farmbrough, 15:57, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

Bot request

Commons I just spent several minutes doing this at Commons--it seems like something that would be perfect work for a bot. Are you interested in it? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:06, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

As you can see from the discussions above on this talk page, Rich is no longer allowed to run bots. Are you asking him to write one and send it to you for you to run? Obviously you would have to debug and maintain it yourself. JRSpriggs (talk) 08:11, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Note that Koavf wrote Commons several times. Jenks24 (talk) 08:21, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, it did not occur to me that the ban did not extend to Commons. JRSpriggs (talk) 08:28, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

• By policy, ArbCom's jurisdiction does not extend to Commons. Though, they've ignored that jurisdiction policy before. --Hammersoft (talk) 12:35, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Certainly there are a number of other projects such as Commons where Rich could do a lot of good work. Just because some of the folks in the English Wikipedia doesn't want his help there are plenty of others who would. Simple Wikipedia is another possibility. Kumioko (talk) 13:46, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

• I agree. However, ArbCom has and will consider the actions of an editor off of en.wikipedia. They can't stop Rich from doing it, but they could permanently ban him from this project if he does something off this project which they do not like. I would think this is a good moment for requesting clarification from ArbCom about their intentions vis-a-vis Rich's use of bots on other Foundation projects. However, two arbitrators have made threats against him, should he request another clarification. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:08, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually, the opposite has happened in the past...a user has been sanctioned on enwiki, gone off to other projects, and their good work there has led to reduction/elimination of restrictions here. N419BH 17:11, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

• Which further goes to show the inconsistency of ArbCom. :) --Hammersoft (talk) 17:15, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Well basically it seems the group culture (W.R.Bion, 1938, et seq) of the committee is such that once they have made a decison they are bound to it. Weakening is seen as "against the group". Even where they have admitted error they have not seen fit to change the ruling. Rich Farmbrough, 17:18, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

This is just my simple minded opinion but I would postulate that Arbcom has no authority outside En-wiki other than to refer the issue to whatever Arbom would apply to that Wiki (like Commons). It could be argued that if that Wiki didn't have an Arbcom that their authority is inherited but I would argue that since the Arbcom members are voted in by the "community" the community of the applicable Wiki would have to at least vote to agree that an Arbcom decision would have cross jusrisdictional authority. With that said the Arbcom has made some pretty broad and vague decisions of late so they might well think that their decisions apply to Facebook or twitter feeds. I would also like to state clearly and in no uncertain terms that the members of Arbcom should not be threatening Rich for asking for clarifications of their decisions. If they would have written them clearly and understandably, which they did not, clarification would not be needed. As it is they are written in such a way that they are almost unintelligable. Kumioko (talk) 17:31, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

This has been decided and is pretty clear...what you and I know as "Arbcom" is really the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee. Their dispute resolution jurisdiction is the English Wikipedia only. They have no jurisdiction in this area over any other wiki, hence their remedies apply to English Wikipedia only. However, they can and do take known behavior, positive or negative, on other wikis (and other sites for that matter) into account when making decisions. For Rich, this means that he is free to operate a bot on any wiki he desires (obviously excluding English Wikipedia) provided of course he complies with that wiki's local bot policy. If he performs this task well, it can be presented as evidence to Arbcom as to why an automation restriction is no longer necessary. N419BH 17:47, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

• (edit conflict with above) Just to make it perfectly clear, Rich is welcome to run bots anywhere that will have him, just not currently on the English Wikipedia, which is the only place Arbcom's jurisdiction runs. This would mean any crosswiki bots would be out if they made edits here. Evidence that he can run bots elsewhere to spec, without drama, and with an effective system for managing errors would count in his favour if he were requesting automated editing back here at any time. Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:50, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Evidence that I could do it here for 4 million edits, with drama from only two users, doesn't count then. Rich Farmbrough, 18:26, 31 May 2012 (UTC).
    

We've noticed you've been editing Wikipedia

Welcome to Wikipedia! It's great that you're having a go at editing but we notice that you've made a few edits that have angered the crosspatches here at Wikipedia. As you've only been here eight years, perhaps if you'd like to try the Wikipedia paddling pool you can experiment all you want without actually making improvements. We feel this would be best for all concerned.

Congratulations on your million! I would give you a barn star if I knew what one was. In the meantime, please accept this satirical patronising message as a reward for your hard work :-) DavidFarmbrough (talk) 08:36, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

BTW I was sent here because the stats from one of my pictures showed 1638 views, some of which were courtesy of your user page [24] DavidFarmbrough (talk) 08:39, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, and yes the cinemas, theatres and dance halls of England have an interesting history and some curators here on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, since some have become night-clubs, folk have sometimes assumed that articles can only exist for promotional purposes. Rich Farmbrough, 12:48, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

OIC. BTW Am I the only person who thinks that directing newbies (and oldbies!) to the "sand box" which is American for sand pit is a very patronising way to treat someone? I bet a few people don't bother to do anything else after being sent there. Couldn't they call it "test page" or something? DavidFarmbrough (talk) 18:13, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

That's a good point. It's a term from computing, but probably is less welcoming than intended. It also has less savoury connotations. Rich Farmbrough, 18:24, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

(edit conflict)It's not even a 'Sandbox', it's a sandbox page. A sand box is, at least in my experience outside Wikipedia is a full test copy, although often outdated and already messed/tested on by others. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 18:47, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Oh I'm sure. Many people here in the USA say things to me which have no meaning outside computing and innuendo...but to them they're quite normal things. eg people here talk of a "bulletin board", well they mean a noticeboard, but to us, the only bulletin board we know is an electronic one. DavidFarmbrough (talk) 18:32, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

• There are 10 types of people who understand Wikipedia; those who do, and those who don't. :) --Hammersoft (talk) 18:40, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Question

After just renaming an user (I have requested for mine) will all my edit counts and contributions be moved in the new account? And, what will happen to my signature? After renaming I may be able to log in with my new username and old password..right?--Jagadhatri(২০১২) 14:09, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Your edits will all be attributed to the new name. You can edit your sig in "My preferences" but the places you have already signed will have the old sig. You can request to have them changed at WP:BOTREQ though historically people have not been very receptive, there is some sign this attitude is changing. Rich Farmbrough, 14:12, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

So I will not need to start from beginning as my edit and contributions will automatically me transferred. But what do you mean by "this attitude is changing"? --Jagadhatri(২০১২) 14:29, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Well a few years ago a user suffering form Real Life Stalking requested their sigs changing - no one took it up. I changed some when I was doing other edits, and some senior bot people bitched to each other on a talk page about it. A more recent request received a more favourable reception, though I can't remember if it was actually actioned. Rich Farmbrough, 14:36, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

What is real life stalking? --Jagadhatri(২০১২) 14:41, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Stalking. I.E. not just following your edits whining about typos, complaining on noticeboards, interfering in processes you are involved with, making snide remarks and so forth, but extending that to often physical presence, phone calls, legal attacks, smear sites and so forth. Some of us just think that's part of life, but it's not a very nice part. Rich Farmbrough, 16:10, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

This quote sums it up well: "Stalking is a form of mental assault, in which the perpetrator repeatedly, unwantedly, and disruptively breaks into the life-world of the victim, with whom they have no relationship (or no longer have). Moreover, the separated acts that make up the intrusion cannot by themselves cause the mental abuse, but do taken together (cumulative effect)." Rich Farmbrough, 16:12, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

Barnstar

		The Special Barnstar
		For helping out by adding turtle synonyms! Regards, SunCreator (talk) 18:35, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I've scarcely started. Rich Farmbrough, 18:54, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

Getting things done , -my ass

I'd like to, I really would, but considering that some of my inclusions add like 1GB for every 1k of article space, are you like looking at this the right way? I have serious doubts if I'd be the right person to do anything but set off avalanches.

Mmmmm the snow-covered mountain of stupidity Penyulap ☏ 19:52, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

1G! that's a good multiplier! How did you figue it out. Rich Farmbrough, 19:57, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

The multiplier being 8 million I suppose. If k=kb. Rich Farmbrough, 20:09, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

Same way you calculate interest in banking. I took into account compound stupidity. Penyulap ☏ 21:19, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

KC

Hi
I've arrived here via the 'talk' bit for 'Helpful Pixie Bot' on the 'Rowhedge' page. The reason I am here is its edit summary, i.e."ISBNs Build KC". I know what an 'ISBN' is, but what does 'KC' mean? The nearest I have come is "Knights Cross", but I don't think that is the answer. And what does 'Build' in this context mean? Do you know?

Thanks in advance.

RASAM (talk) 21:30, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

It's the build number of the bot source code. It enables me to explain to people, in the event of a problem, at what version the problem was cured, so that we can work together in, on the one hand, avoiding duplicate reports of the same problem, and on the other, being aware if a problem has recurred. The majority of builds either address obscure issues or add new functionality. Rich Farmbrough, 21:37, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

Nicholas Savin

Hey, Rich, I'm wondering what happened in this edit and which tools, if any, you used to make that edit. Thanks. Courcelles 22:03, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

• Here it comes... --Hammersoft (talk) 22:08, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I used an Apricot keyboard, that replaced the Dell one where the characters were worn off the key-caps from editing Wikipedia and an irreplaceable Logitech TrackMan Marble Wheel trackball. Rich Farmbrough, 22:20, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

It's the hand that presses Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V in the moment the mouse moves the selected text that people don't understand. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 23:16, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

PS Also, with Firefox and a dozen tabs perhaps? I've done that in the past but then been accused of things, so I don't that anymore. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 23:18, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't know what-all Coucelles is thinking, but doubtless it will become clear in due course. Should and Arb wish he can see what browser I am using, and which URLs I am hitting, so the obvious implications don't stand up. OTOH Courcelles only discovered what a "Hello World!" program was relatively recently, so who knows what is crossing his mind. Rich Farmbrough, 23:23, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

Well, I think it's wise to be clear. Few editors looking at the diff may realise it's a simply cut/paste duplicating much of the article, perhaps thinking you wrote three new sections all in the time from your last edit. I know it sounds crazy but this is how misconceptions start and on Wikipedia due to the current climate, what should be a trival nothing instead grows into a huge unstopable snowball. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 23:33, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

AGK is claiming that I am using AWB. He has not told me which edits he refers to, so I have no defence obviously. Rich Farmbrough, 00:00, 1 June 2012 (UTC).

Basically there's four possilbities

1. He's making it up (unlikely)
2. There's a technical problem at the server end (very unlikely)
3. There's a technical problem with AWB (slim but not completely impossible)
4. I did something by mistake. (Meh.. pretty unlikely I think. Wait til I get the alleged diffs before I judge.)
5. Someone is faking edits - could that be related to the web bug I reported on VP(T) (again pretty unlikely)

I suppose I'll have to wait for more information. This sucks big time. Rich Farmbrough, 00:07, 1 June 2012 (UTC).
(Note I knew there were 5 possibilities, I forgot to write down mistake.)

Ah.. I can I think relax. He is not claiming that I have edited with AWB - well he is, becasue he assumes I am faking the user agent - but he has no evidence for that, since it is untrue. He is just claiming that I have used AWB to make lists and the like, which I would have thought is perfectly OK. I will have to wait for confirmation of this. Of course the edits he is claiming are "masked AWB" will turn up clean because they were made by browser, and therefore will show up with a normal URL, whereas an AWB edit would show up with an api URl.

The gotchas are if:

1. ArbCom doesn't care and bans anyway (2%)
2. ArbCom can't understand the evidence and bans anyway (1%)
3. ArbCom decides that even "assisted looking" is evil and bans anyway (5%)
4. One of the above 4 has happened (8%)
5. I have heart attack before the motion is defeated. (15%)

Rich Farmbrough, 00:23, 1 June 2012 (UTC).

Also an edit which fixed a typo was referred to as "only changing white-space" when I asked for details it was "apart for the typo, only fixing white-space". Rich Farmbrough, 00:35, 1 June 2012 (UTC).

Hm, looks like I may have saved an two AWB edits, bugger. Rich Farmbrough, 00:43, 1 June 2012 (UTC).

You have e-mail

I've sent you an e-mail. AGK [•] 23:20, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

That's nice. My email client is frozen at the moment, but I expect I'll be able to read it soon. Rich Farmbrough, 23:25, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

You could try re-booting, or I could post the e-mail here. Its nature is not particularly private; I simply wanted you to save face. AGK [•] 23:28, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Courtesy notification: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions#Motion to ban Rich Farmbrough. AGK [•] 23:51, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Hm.. not sure how that saves any face. Rich Farmbrough, 23:59, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

In fact mail a query then move for banning, seems pretty damn odd. Rich Farmbrough, 00:10, 1 June 2012 (UTC).

Abide With Me

Is a great song for funerals. Either that or The Day Thou Gavest. Stay Another Day might be more honest though. Rich Farmbrough, 23:27, 31 May 2012 (UTC).