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Meta:Babel/Archives/2007-04

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Special:Userlogin translations

Can I suggest borrowing some from Commons:Special:Userlogin. We have some 20 languages there.

Again I wish there was better co-ordination between Meta and Commons specifically, especially on issues of multilinguality, since these are the only two multi-language wikis (at least that I'm aware of). :( --pfctdayelise 07:45, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Incubator is multilingual in theory, but in reality the language used for administration is English. The same applies to Species. Daniel (‽) Check out Wikiscope! 14:46, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikiversdad Beta is multilingual, Wiktionaryz is multilingual. In fact only few languages (<20) are actually being used, and the main language is english (at the moment, as everywhere in the internet). --Purodha Blissenbach 20:31, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

a common page for Wikipedias without standardized language?

Hi. There are now many Wikipedia projects in languages that don't have a standardized language, for instance the Scots wikipedia, the Low German wikipedia or the Sardic wikipedia. All these projects have to deal with some common questions, for instance: What to do about the variation in dialects and spellings and how to justify these projects? Therefore, I think it would be nice if there were some kind of portal for these projects, a page with links to the different projects and with a kind of non-standardized-language-FAQ that provides an overview of the different answers that have been found to the common problems. I have to say, however, that this is just an idea and don't know anything about what to do in order to make that idea come true. Or maybe there is already something alike? -- j. 'mach' wust ☞ ☏ 17:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea, and I doubt that something like this already exists. All you need to make it come true is to set up a page for it on one of the relevant projects, and put out the message to everybody you think would be interested. Daniel (‽) Check out Wikiscope! 20:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Sock puppets suspicion in meta.wikimedia

Hello,

I have been taking a look at the contributions of the users Axx and Laqab, being both the only supporters of two new wikipedias. I have noticed that Axx seems to be a sock puppet of Laqab (as you can see, they have made almost the same contributions with just a few minutes of difference, and Laqab is the only who has a user in the Italian wikipedia), but I don't know how to report that here (I have read about how to do it in en.wikipedia, but it seems that here it is made in a different way).

Thank you! Eynar Oxartum 00:20, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Wik Bullies, Thugs and Ferals

Howcome the Australian editors with the help of some offshore admins are beign totally rude and ignornat to new editors and claimign they are using 'sockpuppets' when I had to look up what that was, and am not etc?

Registered user 'Gretaw' has been blocked along with my block when Gretaw is totally absolutely nil to do with me. The admins who did this are either Gretaw or they have attacked a totally not involved reg wik user.

Whatever, the go at me on wikipedia has been pretty disgusting and bad form wik that you allow this bully stuff to happen on your site. Check out that Gretaw stuff and what Thatcher131, Golden Wattle, Longhair/Durova, and any other whinney ones - oh I forgot the pompous Sarah Uhart. There was the spree slope Grahame something also.

Bad show wik. Poor form and disgusting org.

Copyscape

http://www.copyscape.com/ - I used this tool quite often to fight against copyright infrigment and it was most helpful, but now i see that its no longer available for free. I'm greatly dissappointed by this situation and looked for an alternative, yet i couldnt find.

Do anyone has an idea about what we can do? Any suggestions? Do you know any alternative free tools? Thanks in advance.

I even think about asking the company to let the tool run for free under wikipedia.org domain, but I'm not hopeful.. -Tembelejderha 08:28, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Well you can always use plain old Google... — Edward Z. Yang(Talk) 18:06, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Eml.wiki

Hi. We, the users of eml.wiki, would want the interlink which link to eml.wiki, now called Emilià , becomes Emiliàn e rumagnòl. Thank you very much and excuse me for my wrong english. --Ottaviano 20:55, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Please do it. In fact, "Emilià" does not make sense in _any_ E-r variant. eml:User:Piffy 22:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Localization of trademarked names

I wonder if anyone can give some advice for those of us who work on smaller Wikipedias about any potential legal problems that arise from "localisation" of trademarked names in various languages. What I mean by localisation are whatever changes are necessary to a name in order for it to conform to the normal form of names in the target language. For example, in English, this requires that non-Latin character sets be switched to the Latin alphabet, e.g., zh:福州 becomes en:Fuzhou. Esperanto requires that nouns end in -o, so en:Microsoft becomes eo:Mikrosofto, and so on. On the Lojban Wikipedia, (Here—conveniently in English) it has been suggested that it is legally problematic for us to localise trademarked names to fit Lojban phonotactics unless the holder of the trademark has specified a Lojbanic name (which is never). Thus, Microsoft must be referred to constantly in Lojban text as "Microsoft", Nintendo must be referred to as "任天堂", and the Saudi Binladen Group would be something like, "بن لادن السعودي" ... heck, I don't even know what it would be. This can be very awkward in Lojban, to say nothing of the reader who is subjected to all of these character sets. Although this issue came to my attention vis a vis Lojban, it seems to me that it is equally a problem with regard to many of the obscure natural languages that Wikipedia exists in, if they have their own requirements for localisation. I would very much appreciate some advice on whether there is a real legal issue here.—Nat Krause 19:59, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Question regarding the size of Vietnamese Wiktionary

Does anybody know how Vietnamese Wiktionary have grown that big? Please see Talk:List_of_largest_wikis#How_did_Vietnamese_wiktionary_got_that_big.3F. --Acepectif 00:11, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know why as Chinese Wiktionary has also grown similarly big.--Jusjih 16:31, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Image copyrights on en.wikibooks

We seem to have over 3,000 untagged images, some dating from the earliest days of the project (see toolserver page). We don't have enough admins to take care of this ourselves.

I proposed a strategy for dealing with this on the staff lounge, but I'm wondering if there really are any stewards with image-deleting bots? --SB_Johnny|talk|books 13:28, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Sep11 Wiki

Will User:WikiSysop on the September 11 Wiki please edit MediaWiki:Mainpage so that the underscore doesn't show up in the sidebar? Or can someone contact WikiSysop to get this done? Thanks. Timrem 19:29, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Important: Please notice

Hi all. Please notice this thread. Any input would be important. Thank you. Redux 13:44, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Daily newsletter

Hi Babellers. I'm wondering about the daily bulletin email thing/mailing lists/whatever it is called. We have on Wiktionary a neat little Word of the Day (WOTD) thing, which I reckon would fit in nicely on the daily bulletin/mailing list. How would one go about suggesting the WOTD be included on the newsletter? --Dangherous 10:51, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Humm, I suppose it would depend on which channel you are referring to. Each mailing list has its administrators, so any regular mail or newsletter that is being sent through them would have their involvement at some level. For instance, if this were a newsletter that was being distributed on foundation-l, the mailing list of the Foundation, it would probably be productive to talk to Anthere or Austin, the admins of this channel. See Mailing list for a comprehensive list of mailing lists, figure out who distributes the newsletter you are interested in and talk to the relevant admins. They should be able to direct you on how to get your idea included. I hope this helps. Redux 20:49, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Bot status for User:RoboMaxCyberSem

RoboMaxCyberSem (talk · contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Hi, I'd like to request bot status for this account on Meta to accomplish task of mass page moves and recategorisation according to results of this discussion. It will use AWB and pywikipedia. After this is complete it will probably be used for maintenance tasks. Since there is no specific page to request community approval for bot, I've submitted my request here. MaxSem 11:30, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm no expert in bot programming, but this one would appear to be no big deal. Should be ok. Redux 16:27, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
  No objections. Korg + + 15:43, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Can we assume that discussion is over and proceed? MaxSem 17:49, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

From where I'm standing, I'd say yes. It doesn't look like there's going to be any opposition to it. Maybe wait until tomorrow, 11:30 am UTC, which will be a full 7-day period since the request was posted, which is the minimal duration of RfAs (seeing as there's no procedure for this particular request on Meta). But barring the surfacing of any opposition, I don't believe there's any need to wait any longer than that. Redux 20:13, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Hiding revisions

I'm wary about editing the policy section of this page without giving notice, so I'm posting here. The page currently reads:

Removal of nonpublic personal information such as phone numbers, home addresses, workplaces or identities of pseudonymous or anonymous individuals who have not made their identity public.

This should be edited to reflect the fact that oversight is commonly used not just for pseudonymous or anonymous individuals who have not made their identity public, but also for public individuals (i.e. people with articles) who have not made that personal information posted public. When a vandal posts a public person's non-public personal phone number or address, it is oversighted. Dmcdevit 07:51, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. Redux 18:22, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Links from wikimedia to wikibooks and wikiversity

Wikimedia does not currently have links to wikibooks or wikiversity; maybe it should? Indeed123 16:20, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean Wikimedia home page? If so, it should indeed have a link to Wikiversity (which is currently missing), but it already contains a link to Wikibooks. – rotemliss – Talk 16:30, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
  Done. Added links to Wikiversity and Meta-Wiki, which was missing too. -- mzlla 17:20, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Meta main page

There are no links from the meta-wiki home page to the other projects. Can someone post the template at the bottom? Indeed123 20:32, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry no. They were removed - too many links. I don't think it a good idea to put them back again. You can reach each project through one click to the list of parent projects.--Aphaia 04:21, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

How about removing "From Meta" written under every title?

  1. These two words are redundant with the logo, only one centimeter left, and seem to me quite useless.
  2. "From" is an English word and has nothing to do, say, on a Spanish page where it should be translated as "de Meta" or "desde Meta"... (Von Meta in German, and so on...)
  3. We don't have "From Wikipedia" written on the top of every single Wikipedia article, do we ?

Teofilo 00:58, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

To 3.: Yes, we do. There is "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" shown below every page title in the English Wikipedia and a similar line appears on every Wikimedia project. — Timichal 01:01, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I had not noticed this sentence appeared on the English language Wikipedia. There is none on the French language or on the German language Wikipedias. Teofilo 13:06, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand why it should be removed. That text is visible also in printed versions, the logo isn't. And are there any harm with these two words? -- mzlla 13:20, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
These words are not inside the wiki and you cannot translate them into other languages, harming the multilinguality. Is there any harm removing these two words ? Teofilo 16:44, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, if you change your interface language (changing the preferences or using the parameter uselang in the URL), it is translated. – rotemliss – Talk 17:04, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
It is hidden by default, but Meta (and English Wikipedia) was configured to show it (probably in MediaWiki:Monobook.css or MediaWiki:Common.css). Note that it is shown when printing in all the wikis. – rotemliss – Talk 16:23, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Wik Bullies, Thugs and Ferals

Howcome the Australian editors with the help of some offshore admins are beign totally rude and ignornat to new editors and claimign they are using 'sockpuppets' when I had to look up what that was, and am not etc?

Registered user 'Gretaw' has been blocked along with my block when Gretaw is totally absolutely nil to do with me. The admins who did this are either Gretaw or they have attacked a totally not involved reg wik user.

Whatever, the go at me on wikipedia has been pretty disgusting and bad form wik that you allow this bully stuff to happen on your site. Check out that Gretaw stuff and what Thatcher131, Golden Wattle, Longhair/Durova, and any other whinney ones - oh I forgot the pompous Sarah Uhart. There was the spree slope Grahame something also.

bad show wik. Poor form and disgusting org.

What does Wik have to do with this? He was banned ages ago... 68.39.174.238 00:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion re handling long interwiki (interlanguage) lists

I have a suggestion/request. Note on the English Wikipedia Main Page, at the bottom of the list of interwikis on the left, it now says "Complete List" in bold type, and you can click there and get to all 250 Wikipedias. This was done in reponse to a suggestion from me, and I think it's very important, because otherwise people who don't happen to scroll to the bottom of the Main Page were getting the impression that Wikipedia was in only 33 languages. It's not a great long-term solution because apparently it only displays for people with Java enabled.

Well, I'm thinking something like that may be useful on other pages, too. So my suggestion is this: that the mediawiki software have a feature added like this: if a Wikipedia article, say Vitamin for example, contains a link like [[meta:Interwiki/Vitamine]], then at the bottom of the list of interwiki links it would display a link called "Complete list" or "more languages", and if the user clicks on that, then they would see a list of links contained in the file "meta:Interwiki/Vitamine". This file could then contain a lot of interwiki links to Vitamin pages in various languages that wouldn't have to be added one-by-one to each language version of this article. An editor creating a version of the same article in a new language could just link to the one file with the list of interwiki links.

To illustrate the usefulness: suppose in a few years there are 1000 languages in Wikipedia and 500 of those have an article about Vitamin. Then people may start complaining that there are "too many" interwiki links on the Vitamin page. Personally, I don't think there's such a thing as "too many" interwikis. But it will happen, as it did on the English Main Page where they were first cut down to 33, then sometimes completely deleted. I think it would be better to provide an easy way for an editor to put in a link to "more languages", similar to the "Complete list" link now on the English Main Page. And another advantage: when the 501st language is added, with the current system 500 edits would have to be done (possibly by 500 different people) to insert the new language into the interwiki list on all the Wikipedias. With the system I suggest, the new language could just be added in one place, in a file on Meta, and would automatically be accessible to readers of Vitamin articles on all the Wikipedias. I don't know whether this idea is feasible, or is considered a good idea, or whether this is even the right place to suggest it, but thanks for listening. --Coppertwig 03:18, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

The right place for that is a feature request in bugzilla. – rotemliss – Talk 08:48, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I've been told by more than one apparently knowledgeable person that this is two separate issues: (1) A change in mediawiki software to facilitate custom sidebars. I've put in a bugzilla request for this but suspect it'll wait a long time while other more urgent things are done. (2) A movement to store common lists of interwikis as I described, including a further software change. In my opinion, discussion needs to happen first about how it would work, (e.g. where would the interwiki lists be stored) so the software can be modified appropriately. Any comments? Is it a good idea? Bad idea? How might it work? Would meta be the appropriate place to store the common links, as I suggest above? --Coppertwig 02:54, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

A bot?

Well, look this pages: Special:Uncategorizedcategories, Special:Uncategorizedimages and Special:Uncategorizedpages. All of them has no categories, and I think that a bot can include provisory categories (category:!Categories, category:!Images and category:!Pages), until someone categorize them correctly. --Slade ♠ 19:14, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

What would be the point? It's useful to know which pages aren't categorised, which is the reason we have Special:Uncategorizedcategories. Pages should be properly categorised, not given fake categories to remove them from that special page. Angela 05:49, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I proposed it because these pages just grow and grow. It's a possible solution. Thanks for your comment. --Slade ♠ 01:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

One Meta Login?

Would it be possible to have it so that one meta login will work for all official MediaWiki sites?

See Help:Unified login. —{admin} Pathoschild 05:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Colaboration between the community of lmo.wiki, Wikimedia Italia and Wikimedia CH

All people concerned are kindly invited to discuss the issue at Proposed colaboration between the community of lmo.wiki, Wikimedia Italia and Wikimedia CH. See you there. --Snowdog 18:08, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

1000 done this evening

On December 18th in the evening we have 1000 pages (congratulations will be accepted on our Scriptorium - thx. -jkb- 20:18, 18 December 2006 (UTC) and the team of the Czech Wikisource

Attempted linkspamming in fundrasing comments

Browsing through the fundraising comments [1] I saw several entries like the one below.

Name Date Time Amount USD equivalent Comment
Anonymous 2006-12-20 23:00:00 JPY 1 0.01 www.example.com

The format was always the same, a very small donation (typically $US 1, $CAN 1 or JPY 1) from an anonymous donator. The comment consists solely of a url, with no leading http://

While we must and do welcome small donations, how do we stop the system being abused like this? 1 Japanese yen is worth 0.8 US cents (US$0.008), and even if it were rounded up to 1 cent, the processing fee from PayPal/Moneybookers/WMF's bank will be 100% of this - see [2]. A 1 USD donation nets the Foundation $0.60-$0.70, which is better than nothing. Should we therefore not accept any donations that are less than the approximate equivalent of 1 US Dollar (JPY120, €0.80, £0.55, CAD1.20, AUD1.30 based on today's exchange rates)?

If this is not the right place to discuss this, please let me know where is. Thryduulf (en,commons) 03:04, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, I dunno. There isn't really anything we can do about that, unless we took out the field completley, which might not even be possible. Thunderhead 03:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Inflected languages

I wrote a proposal to simplify work for inflected languages (available at User:Eleassar/Inflections). I wanted to post it on Bugzilla at first, but then I thought perhaps we should discuss this more thoroughly as many languages are inflected and perhaps we could find a solution that would be more optimal. This is the first time I wrote something like this, so any help and input would be more than appreciated. What else should I do? Whom should I contact too? --Eleassar my talk 15:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

What happens on the arabian wikisource?

What happens on the arabian wikisource? They deleted over night some 200 pages, and there are no other activities. And I am not sure, if the image on their main page is published by them. -jkb- 11:53, 28 December 2006 (UTC) (better here: oldwikisource:User:-jkb- or s:cs:User:-jkb-)

Just a vandalism spree, I've fixed it. MaxSem 12:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I have seen it, :-), -jkb- 12:58, 28 December 2006 (UTC) - - - bzw, once I made interwikis on ja: and also ar: - it is quite funny, isn't it? Здравcтвуй, -jkb- 13:02, 28 December 2006 (UTC)


Two questions

  1. Talk:EasyTimeline
  2. Why help pages are repeated on Meta and on other wikis?

And sorry if it is the incorrect place, but I posted this also on Meta Talk:Babel --Nethac DIU 20:49, 29 December 2006 (UTC)



Questions by Nethac DIU

Moved from Meta talk:Babel. —{admin} Pathoschild 20:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  1. Talk:EasyTimeline
  2. Why help pages are repeated on Meta and on other wikis?

--Nethac DIU 20:49, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

You should ask your first question of the extension developer; you probably won't get any more answer here. The help pages are often mirrored on local projects to make them easier to read and refer to. Not all projects mirror them; the English Wikisource deleted them, for example. —{admin} Pathoschild 04:13, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, but who is the EasyTimeline extension developer? I don't know where look it. --Nethac DIU 13:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
The developer seems to be Erik Zachte. —{admin} Pathoschild 20:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  1. Why, when I edit, almost everything is in bold face?
  2. There are two spanish messages untranslated in preferences, watchlist tab: "Hide minor edits from the watchlist" and "Add pages I delete to my watchlist"
  3. In what do Meta:Babel and Meta Talk:Babel differenciate from each other?

--Nethac DIU 13:37, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

  1. Please clarify the question. You can attach a screenshot.
  2. There are new and were not yet translated. They can be translated here locally, and can be translated globally – see MediaWiki localisation.
  3. The first is for general discussions. The second is for discussions about the first page. Therefore, this page is not the place for your questions.
– rotemliss – Talk 16:51, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  1. Image:Bold face error.PNG
  2. Thanks for saying that. I asked that because I wanted those messages to be translated... (only locally, in Wikipedia they are translated as "No mostrar ediciones menores en la lista de seguimiento" and "Vigilar páginas borradas", although if is the same as here, it should be "Vigilar páginas borradas por mí"). They are at tog-watchlisthideminor and tog-watchdeletion.
--Nethac DIU 19:02, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, I've updated these messages. MaxSem 19:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, but I found other two errors:

ADVERTENCIA: Estás editando una versión antigua 

de esta página.

Si la grabas, los cambios hechos desde esa revisión se perderán. (editingold)

And in my tools, it says "my preferences" instead of "mis preferencias" (mypreferences). And thanks for updating those messages. --Nethac DIU 19:01, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Top ten guidelines

Would it be possible to have a page that summarizes all of the guidelines that are currently spread out on many pages, aka have a page that says

  1. Be courteous to other people; do not insult the other people who work on the wikimedia project
  2. Do not put down material that degrades from the page; do not put down redundant information, overcomplicated information, information that is to prove a point, or pointless information
  3. Respect the source of your information: cite your source and don't plagarize your source.
  4. Avoid edit wars; don't undo the changes of other people endlessly. Color is colour is color!
  5. Stay unbiased; keep debates for the discussion page
  6. Always put material onto the appropiate wikimedia project
  • Encylopedic material goes to Wikipedia
  • Dictionaries of all sort go on Wiktionary
  • Learning material goes on Wikiversity
  • Textbook material goes on Wikibooks
  • Species material goes on Wikispecies
  • Quotes go on Wikiquote
  • Uploaded material goes to Wikicommons

Etc., etc. Indeed123 19:23, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Eml.wiki 2

Hi. We, the users of eml.wiki, would want the interlinks which link to eml.wiki, now called Emilià , becomes Emiliàn e rumagnòl. Thank you very much and excuse me for my wrong english. --Ottaviano 16:03, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

PS: Please do it. In fact, "Emilià" does not make sense in any eml-variant. It's quite horrible... :)
Bug the devs --.anaconda 17:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Restricting page moves to autoconfirmed

Hello. Meta is a place where many vandals come and vandalize using page moves [3]. What about restricting page moves to autoconfirmed (users registered for 4 days)? Would there be any inconvenience setting that up? guillom 09:22, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so. There doesn't really seem to be a need for relatively new users to abuse Meta by going on page-move sprees. I'd support this being enacted. Nishkid64 23:56, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Willy on Wheels or his impersonators do this. --.anaconda 16:27, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
  Support --Slade ♠ 22:37, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
  Support --Nethac DIU 17:14, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
  Support Thryduulf (en,commons) 20:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
  Support--Aphaia 14:28, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
  Support--Jusjih 14:26, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Support. --.anaconda 14:32, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
  Support --Brownout (msg) 04:14, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
  Support Cbrown1023 talk 21:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Support We've done this on en:wp: and rarely have issues with it. xaosflux Talk 18:16, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
On en-wiki, we have page creations restricted to logged-in editors as well. Cbrown1023 talk 18:38, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
  Support drini [es:] [commons:] 22:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
  Support --Filip (§) 22:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
No objection. I think we can request this at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org --.anaconda 16:27, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Added as Bug 9014. – rotemliss – Talk 17:14, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Please help and voice your opinion on sysop abuse of very small Wikipedia

The Yiddish Wikipedia has virtually no community at all, and we need your help in a conflict. please comment here Thanks--יודל 08:02, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Request for admin assistance

The Interwiki Map contains several links that no longer work, are barely in use because of narrow scope, or are possibly inappropriate linkspam. A project has started on enwiki to examine this. For starters we've identified about a dozen defunct mappings that should arguably be removed, but of course the map page is protected. Would it be best if I requested temporary adminship to deal with this, given that I'm an admin on enwiki? Or could one of the existing admins here take a look at it? The request is at Talk:Interwiki_map#Nonexistent_sites. Thanks, Radiant! 09:07, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Latin Wikipedia + Bess = blocked

I cannot access Latin Wikipedia or who knows how many else from school because the filtering software, the infamous Bess, blocks it under the heading of Personal Pages. Isn't there someone who contacts places like filtering companies to tell them to unblock it? There's no facility from my end to do it since we're the ones being filtered and they don't want us to request that. I didn't know where to post this, so I posted it here. Luigi30 18:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

ang.wikisource needs a help (or a closure)

Since the start of the proposal for closing ang.wikisource I see the vandalism increasing on that wiki. The page W/index.php is now the second most edited page (with 4 revisions; the first is Hēafodsīde, the Main page, with 9 revisions). Please someone do anything on that wiki: del/revert the vandalized pages, close the wiki and make a redirect to en.wikisource... please, anything.

Also, if possible, del the W/w/index.php and W/index.php pages on ht.wikisource, W/index.php on fo.wikisource and W/index.php on zh-min-nan.wikisource. 555 04:24, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Strange! WP:EN and WP:FR have different policies (nothing to do with cultural or linguistic differences)

I have written an article that WP:EN policy allows but WP:FR does not allow. If there were linguistic or cultural reasons for this, I'd have no problem with this. But it is not the case. It would appear different languages have different basic policies. And I find that quite bizarre!

It seems natural to me to have the same basic principles. If an article is allowed in one wikipedia it should be allowed in another. I presume this issue has been discussed before - could someone point me in the right direction to read up on it. Thanks! Pgkr 13:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Could you please cite the policies in question? I agree that if an article is allowed in one wikipedia it should be allowed in another, though verifiable sources are vital, sometimes unavailable in certain languages.--Jusjih 14:11, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
This is the discussion and vote that led to the deletion of the article. The WP:EN policy is cited below. The vote seems to have overridden the WP:EN policy even though it was cited in discussion.

Individual chapters of national and international organizations are usually not notable enough to warrant a separate article unless sufficient notability is established through reliable and verifiable sources. However, chapter information is welcome for inclusion into wikipedia in list articles as long as only verifiable information is included. [4]

Sorry for the external links, I haven't mastered interwiki links yet. Pgkr 14:33, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
I see what you mean, but did the deleted French article have any interwiki links? When you have no userpage here, I cannot readily determine which Wiki sites you use.--Jusjih 18:31, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, Jusjih, there were some interwiki links (maybe half a dozen). Although I put some effort into creating a page that was deleted, I'm not interested in focusing on that. The general issue is more interesting: does each Wikipedia have its own set of guidelines? Was that a deliberate choice or just a natural progression? Should each wikipedia be re-inventing policy? Is there a general guideline like: use EN:WP policy unless there are cultural or linguistic reasons to do otherwise? As I said before, I'm sure this issue must have come up before. PS Updated my user page. Pgkr 10:41, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
There should be interlanguage coordination, but everything is not so ideal. As my French is limited to very basic skill, I am not ready to administer any French-language Wiki sites. Otherwise, I could read the deleted materials in non-public areas limited to admins only. I suggest that you appeal undeletion at French Wikipedia while your French skill is much better than mine.--Jusjih 15:03, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree some kind of interlanguage coordination would be a good idea. Thanks for the appeal suggestion, I'll mull it over. Pgkr 18:34, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Notability criteria are decided by local communities. The vote seems to have overridden the WP:EN policy even though it was cited in discussion. Exactly; fr:wp doesn't have to follow en:wp policies. Does en:wp follow the banning of fair use images of de:wp? guillom 15:37, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Exactly my point. I agree with Jusjih that some kind of interlanguage coordination (assuming it doesn't already exist) seems a logical and sensible thing in the long run. Is it productive for different communities to be re-inventing policy on the different language sites?. It obviously wouldn't be right for any one community to dictate policy to others, but some kind of policy alignment is desirable.
One approach might be a comparison table that compares policies across different languages. This would highlight differences and might encourage alignment or provoke debate. Waste of time or not? Pgkr 18:34, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Policy comparison across languages/projects was suggested sometimes (not here but on foundation-l mainly) but not has realized until now. You can begin it here on meta, if you want. --Aphaia 22:57, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
It is an excellent idea to compare policies among different Wiki sites. An example is fair use. As I administer eight Wiki sites and use many others, I have gathered as many as I can. Speaking of policies and guidelines, fair use is a very important copyright policy, but notability is a less important guideline. As I have translated some articles from Chinese Wikipedia to English Wikipedia (shown at w:en:User:Jusjih#Newly_created, I have not seen any of them deleted. Why would I create w:en:Sixty-Four Villages East of the Heilongjiang River with just around 100 Google hits? The answer is simple as its Chinese version w:zh:江東六十四屯 has about 34000 Google hits with some historical importance. Chinese people know 江東六十四屯 well even though typical English-speaking people may not even know what Sixty-Four Villages East of the Heilongjiang River are. Even so, my article has not been nominated for deletion. Based on your opinions, I now consider it more important to coordinate notability criteria, i.e., if someone or something can be proved notable in a language subdomain, articles should generally be admitted in any Wikipedia subdomains.--Jusjih 17:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Foundation issues

I recently found this page, by a link from enwiki. It seems often referred to at enwiki; I am note sure that is true about other projects. I wonder what kind of status does this page have, currently? Is it important? Is it forgotten? Has it been replaced by the mission statement, or some other pages?

This page is one of two I have found that mentions the "wiki process" as important. The other one is Jimmy Wales's Statement of principles, on a subpage of his user page. Is this concept lost? I think it is important, somehow, especially what concerns the various tries to define what is "consensus" on a wiki. // habj 01:22, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I think this page is outdated, while the core concept could survive still today. Mission statement is a bit different, I think, since "Foundation issues" seems more to intent more practical matters; what the Foundation does. As other documents, it tries to handle the middle area where the volunteer world of community/wiki process and the responsibility and obligations of the real-life entities and to explain how the latter affects the former. --Aphaia 03:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Please unblock Template:Information thread ; Template:Announce Foundation List Summary

Template:Information thread is being blocked. How are people supposed to write news if the Information thread is blocked ? Teofilo 22:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Please unblock Template:Announce Foundation List Summary. I have to edit it.

The error message displayed when one tries to edit these templates refers to "cascading block" of the Main Page.

Teofilo 22:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

You should be able to edit these templates now. Please, use WM:RFH if you need help from an administrator. Thank you. --.anaconda 23:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Thank you, Anaconda. I feel relieved. This edit in Template:Announce Foundation List Summary was the last one in a long series of syntax changes and page renamings, and not being able to make the final change was quite frustrating. I'll try to remember to use WM:RFH next time. Sorry for bothering "babel" with this request. Teofilo 23:40, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikijunior objective

I have persistently attempted to build a series of mathematical books though I thought their location was no suitable. I have now seen Wikijunior at Wikibooks but I have been deterred by its niche target audience. I would like to discuss if the age range of 8 - 11 could be widened to 4 - 16/18. I can be contacted at under the alias of Herraotic at Wikibooks. --82.10.202.139 15:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Wiktionary

Hi. I'm a student at Colorado State University. Whenever I try to edit Wiktionary, I get this message:

Your user name or IP address has been blocked by Connel MacKenzie.
The reason given is this:
reblocking CSU now that identity has been verified

Does this mean that my university is blocked from editing? I waited a week and the message is still there. Thanks. 129.82.41.233 22:00, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't appear that you are blocked on the English-version of the site. You need to give all your information (namely your IP address) or we can't help you in solving his problem. Cbrown1023 22:14, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
IP address are normally blocked due to heavy vandalism. If you are IP address is blocked, and it is used by the University, then yes, the University is currently blocked. Unfortunately, without your IP address, we don't know exactly why or for how long and cannot do anything to unblock you. Cbrown1023 22:17, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
I just looked through that log and found this: http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=&user=&page=User%3A129.82.0.0%2F16. It looks like we've been blocked since June! 129.82.41.233 22:48, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
You shouldn't have been reblocked in the first place after an OTRS complaint for the same reason. I suggest e-mailing your blocking admin at mailto:SomeWiktAdmin@gmail.com (I looked up his user name and his e-mail was posted there). Please be sure to include your IP address in your e-mail and the other information you have provided here. Cbrown1023 23:05, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Hello. Someone directed my attention here, but I'm unclear on a few things. What OTRS complaint? --Connel MacKenzie 02:05, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Check the block log, I know as much as is publicly available. Cbrown1023 02:41, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

So ... I'm still blocked. What's the problem? 129.82.41.234 09:05, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Can someone please respond?? I would apprreciate some sort of explanation or solution of this issue. 129.82.41.234 21:29, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I e-mailed Connel MacKenzie right after you posted the first one (9:05, 5 February), but it seems like he has not recieved it yet. Cbrown1023 22:23, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry - I've had e-mail problems recently. (I was e-mail-bombed, and spamgourmet trapped it, but didn't inform me that I needed to reset the various counters.) I've bypassed that mechanism now, so e-mail messages will go straight to mailto:somewiktadmin@gmail.com. If you are on the IRC invite-only channel #wikimedia-checkuser, I am often available as "Connel" (or just use /msg Connel ...) if you still cannot reach me. --Connel MacKenzie 04:22, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
This was the block notice sent to CSU, by the way. Let me know how much more on the topic you'd like me to dig up from the archives. There is quite a lot, on both Wiktionary and Wikipedia regarding this very prolific sock-puppeteer. --Connel MacKenzie 04:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
It says on Wikipedia's Primetime page under 'Physical location': "Formerly Colorado State University". For ISP it names CSU, and below that, Comcast. So, if he isn't using CSU computers anymore, why is CSU blocked? 129.82.41.234 22:34, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Relieving the amount of data transferred

I had an idea to relief the amount of data passed to the computers.

We could establish that when some computer has Javascript turned on, it doesn't access to that wikipedia direction (if we can do that). Instead, he sends an special petition to the Wikimedia server.

Then the server sends the wikicode of the page.

The computer would translate that code into HTML and put it in the screen, subsituting the text that was previously. There, the menu wouldn't be downloaded again, and the update would be almost instantly.

(Another thing: first the computer looks in the code for templates and images, and sends another petition if they aren't in the cache)

What do you think? Is it possible? Is it worth the pain?

--Nethac DIU 17:54, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


"Asosiy:" in Uzbek interwikis

Not sure if this is the best place to ask this; I don't know enough Uzbek to ask there. ;-) Why do all the interwikis in the Uzbek wikipedia have a prefixed "asosiy" which keeps them from pointing to their intended targets? E.g., at my User page there I have a link that is supposed to take people to my User Page in eo:, but instead of pointing to a page called "Vikipediisto:Haruo" it tries to point to a nonexistent page "Asosiy:Vikipediisto:Haruo". My input is formatted correctly; the uz: itself is adding the superfluous and obstructive "Asosiy:" part. And it's not just my little personal interwiki: the same "Asosiy:" appears to be appended to all interwikis in uz:. --Haruo 09:56, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Skip discussion section like this, and others

I just thought it would be good to have a button to skip a section in discussions (like this page, the Village Pump, the Café, etc. For example, if you click in that link that I wrote. goes to the previous section.

But to skip forward we would need a special system... what do you think?--Nethac DIU 15:48, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

EDIT: My third edit... sorry, problems with the link, and I didn't remember previsualize... now I remember, what about early edits merger? If you do two edits in a minute, something like:

Now I see... there is a message wrong in the spanish interface: In the history, it's written (Talk | contribuciones) (it would be "discusión | contribuciones")

Strange layout on the recent changes page

Hi, I saw this on the RC page some minutes ago. Do you also see that or do you remember having seen something like that before? I mean the left-dislocated time stamp. Maybe it has a very simple explanation, but so far I don't see one. Grtx, --Thogo (talk) 14:55, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I haven't seen it. :( Majorly (hot!) 15:04, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
If I go on the RC page, that time-stamp is still there (I mean at the wrong place). I don't know what the reason could be. :o( But I also have no idea of how the RC page is formatted within the software... What I can add is that it seems to be independent of the browser. I tried Opera and FF and both show the same. As you can see here, the expansion link and the time-stamp are just exchanged. --Thogo (talk) 15:09, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
No problem here, using Safari. Broken Javascript? --.anaconda 18:16, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
I use the standard Monobook, no extensions. But it might be only visible using the extended RCs. --Thogo (talk) 09:02, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Sysop Bot

There is a bot running on a sysop account on french wikipedia who is blocking thousands of IP for "open proxy" but most of them are not, for exemple last two (221.243.30.141, 221.240.69.252) are just japanese broadband. So far, he have blocked more than 10 000 IP [5]. 08:55, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Checked some IPs, all I tried were not open proxies... anyway you should discuss this with the community of the French Wikipedia. Sorry. --.anaconda 22:12, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
The admin has been notified, he should answer shortly. Thanks for the information ! le Korrigan →bla 19:51, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Hi; I've been blocking all these addresses, using a script. The two addresses mentioned here are compromised machines, which I obtained from this list: http://alpha.rod.elinc.ca/spamlist.php --Gribeco 19:55, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Update: 221.243.30.141 can be found in http://www.getearnguide.com/proxy-4.htm, and 221.240.69.252 in http://www.garmoshka.com/jiejiuk/bankih.php --Gribeco 22:01, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
221.243.30.141 can not be found in http://www.getearnguide.com/proxy-4.htm. http://www.garmoshka.com/jiejiuk/bankih.php is an old copy of http://alpha.rod.elinc.ca/spamlist.php. Anyway these addresses are not open proxies. 09:44, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
nmap doesn't report any open ports on either address, so I unblocked both and asked for a verification on wp-en. Sorry for the inconvenience. --Gribeco 14:51, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Category talk:Uncategorized templates

May I lead your attention to that talk page? I want to discuss why we don't have a special page for uncategorized templates, but for uncategorized pages, media and cats. It would help (at least me) a lot, if the software could manage that automatically. Grtx, --Thogo (talk) 12:45, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


What's going on with Belarusian?

Please see my comment at Talk:Wikimedia News#What's going on with Belarusian? and reply there if you can. - dcljr 05:42, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair use pictures

Are "fair use" pictures of notable living people allowed in the different wikimedia projects? See for example, [6], a former general of the IDF. 132.72.44.125 14:12, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Fair use images aren't used in commons however. ~ Wikihermit (HermesBot) 03:28, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
No. Fair use is only allowed on few Wikimedia projects. Ask each project individually. guillom 09:30, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
As far as I understand, it is a question about the possibility of using fair use images of notable living people from the foundation point of view. The Hebrew Wikipedia community allows fair use, the question is about the foundation's limitations. – rotemliss – Talk 17:13, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Endorsements now open for Wikimedia Foundation Board

The Wikimedia Board Election Steering Committee invites all community members to endorse candidates they support. Endorsements may be submitted on meta now till next Saturday, 23:59 June 23, 2007.

Each qualified community member can submit up to three endorsements. Please note several things:
- Only confirmed candidates are listed, so the list can be updated during the endorsements phase.
- You need an account on meta, not just the project that you are qualified to vote under, unless you meet the criteria on meta too.
- Please link your meta user page and your home wiki page. Detailed procedure can be found on the meta endorsement page.

All information is available on meta at:
On endorsements: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Endorsements/en
On candidates each: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Candidates/en
Election general: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/en
FAQ: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/FAQ/en

Questions about election are welcome at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Board_elections/2007/FAQ

Thanks to devoted volunteering translators, those pages are also available in some languages other than English.

Thank you for your attention, we look forward to your participation.


For the election committee,
- Philippe | Talk 00:35, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Two questions

  1. What's the URL path for Meta on the secure server? I have a transparent proxy problem and I can only login through the secure server. Since I don't know the path here, I can't login here yet.
  2. Who or where do I ask about turning on the Import feature on the Simple English wikis? I especially want it on SE Wiktionary and SE Wikibooks. Thanks! --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 22:08, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
  1. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/meta/wiki/Special:Userlogin
  2. Add a request on Bugzilla, at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org. A developer will enable it ASAP. --.anaconda 22:19, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks a bunch, .anaconda! That path made me go "bleh!" Why is it under "wikipedia/meta," not under "secure.wikimedia.org/meta" directly? Just wondering, since it is certainly not Wikipedia! --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 23:09, 22 June 2007 (UTC)


Board vote admins

I noticed a request on Requests for permissions, and as I was finding a link to the list of Meta's bureaucrats I came across the list of board vote admins (see here). These four were granted this access for last year's board election, which was on Wikimedia Foundation sites - as we know, this year the vote is taking place under the auspices of a third party, so I'm pretty sure that board vote admins are no longer needed.

In addition to the fact that Essjay resigned all his flags back in March, the other three, to the best of my knowledge, no longer need these permissions, so I'd like to propose that all four are removed until and unless board vote admins are utilized again. So, I am starting a discussion here and will give the three active board vote admins links to it so they can contribute. (Datrio and James F also have the flag on the English Wikipedia.) Picaroon (Talk) 04:11, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

It's pointless, we tried removing them awhile ago and ran into problems. There is no real need to remove them, but if a steward is so inclined, they can remove them. Said stewards do not need approval here to do so anyway. :) Cbrown1023 talk 04:33, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Just to clarify, I removed my boardvote flags here on Meta and on enwiki. Regarding the current situation, I'll let the Election Committee decide on that. Datrio 05:18, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Just to say that I'm happy to have the boardvote priv removed from my accounts; no need for it any more. Not that my approval should really need be sought in such a case. ;-)
James F. (talk) 10:21, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Alright, I will make a request for removal on requests for permissions based on the discussion here. Picaroon (Talk) 19:33, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


Oops, Sandbox is protected

Meta:Sandbox is currently protected because the page Example, which redirects to it, is listed at Meta:Protected against recreation as a page which should never exist, and that page has cascading protection turned on. This is, of course, a mistake. An admin needs to fix this. - dcljr 03:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting this. It is fixt now. --Walter Do you have news? Report it to Wikizine 11:40, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Human account with temporary bot flag

The following discussion is closed: temporary switchable bot flag only for the babel/user language transition

Hello. Some users have complained that maintenance tasks I perform on a large scale are overwhelming Meta's recent changes (see edits, logs). They've suggested that I obtain a bot flag; this would hide bot-flagged edits by default from recent changes, although they'd still appear in edit histories, and on watchlists and recent changes if 'show bots' is selected.

These are primarily human edits (assisted by scripts), so I'm not going to use my bot account. Would it be acceptable to use my steward access to set a temporary bot flag during heavy maintenance tasks? If not, I'll simply continue editing without. —{admin} Pathoschild 01:36:12, 05 February 2008 (UTC)

I would agree to this. Cbrown1023 talk 01:37, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Please use your bot account. There's no difference which one you use, but you may as well use the one that is flagged. It is the flooding RC that I don't like. Majorly (talk) 01:38, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Why not just get a bot account just for this? Or use the one you have? User:Larbot is for human assisted edits if anything... But basically you're saying you'd toggle the bot flag on yourself a lot, is that it? I think it's "wacky" and getting (another?) bot account is a better approach, but it's not necessarily "bad". I do mostly agree with Majorly though, but given the choice of not flagged or human account flagged I guess I'd choose human account flagged. ++Lar: t/c 01:41, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't think having to grant and revoke bot flags on your personal account would be desirable and suggest it would be better to keep a seperate bot flagged account for instances where you're making semi-automated edits. Having said that though, I don't think simply making a large number of edits is necceserily always a justification for bot flags. Recent changes is a tool and if people are making loads of changes then the community will have to learn to patrol RC differenlty or whatever. If this was enwiki then I don't think there'd be this issue simply because there are so many changes anyway. If Meta RC at times is busy then so be it. Adambro 12:53, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
(ec) Not important now (& I am not talking about the principles involved) but I almost flagged you myself yesterday so that I could see what was going on on RC. Personally I am an RC watcher & I prefer it as clean as possible --Herby talk thyme 12:54, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Majorly has accepted this proposal after discussion on IRC, so there is general consensus in favour. Adambro suggests I use a bot account, but the edits are interspersed with regular use of administrator tools (which would require sysop'ing the bot instead), and I have no intention of assigning human edits to my bot account.

As such, my edits are now flagged during mass-maintenance and unflagged at other times. —{admin} Pathoschild 23:08:19, 05 February 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with allowing a switchable bot flag at the discretion of the user. Bot flags are granted through the request for bot status process on Meta:Requests for adminship#Requests for bot flags. And if a user is using scripts to perform a large number of edits in a short time, then it behaves like a bot and should be tagged as such. As you already have a bot account with bot status, please use it. Thanks. guillom 08:51, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Why not create user:Path automated schild or something for this kind of tasks? Effeietsanders 19:29, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Because these are not automated edits. If this is a problem, I'll simply not flag my edits. —{admin} Pathoschild 20:14:16, 09 February 2008 (UTC)
Please flag yourself :) It makes RC much better! --Herby talk thyme 20:24, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
These are not automated edits. You said earlier you were using scripts. Scripts that allow you to edit faster than a human (even if they are manbually assisted or managed) have the same drawback as fully automated scripts (and as Herby says, they clutter the RC). So either use your existing bot account with bot flag, or create another account for manually-assisted scripts and request a bot status for this one, but I still don't agree with a switchable bot flag that an user could enable at will. Besides, you are not a bureaucrat on this wiki, so this means you use(d) your steward tools to set and unset your bot flag on meta wiki, which is a project with local bureaucrats. This is simply against all steward rules. guillom 21:40, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
He needs the admin flag to make a lot of the edits. And besides, it isn't like you haven't stuck to steward rules in the past, so you can't talk. Majorly (talk) 23:13, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Majorly, thank you for not taking part in this discussion if all you are able to do is being obnoxious. Besides, if you have any accusation to make about my actions as a steward, you'd better provide specific arguments rather than vague peremptory statements. I still wonder what changed since the last confirmation where you stated I was a "good steward". Now, can we come back to the subject of this thread? guillom 09:49, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
It is a very minor point that you once gave yourself bureaucrat rights here to rename a user, despite there being active bureaucrats. It is such a minor point though I didn't think it big enough to bring it up. I get up this morning and look at recent changes, and all I see are edits by Pathoschild, Az1568 and Shanel updating templates, even with the limit set to 500. This is not good at all. It basically makes recent changes useless. Majorly (talk) 15:08, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Indeed, it is so minor that I didn't remember that. I once gave myself bureaucrat tools to rename an attack account [7]. Now, don't blame me because Pathoschild, Az1568 and Shanel decided to make massive edits. See below that I do agree with separate bot status. Moreover, we are clearly not in a hurry, nobody forced them to make those massive edits before the discussion is settled. guillom 16:14, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Scripts do not automate edits. The scripts I use perform the basic common changes (which I then review and correct), and I manually perform the other changes. I frequently write simple scripts and regex patterns even when editing an individual page. I have also written a regex menu framework that allows users to dynamically search and replace with regular expressions, as well as store and use scripts.
Furthermore, this is not a violation of the steward policy because I explicitly asked for permission from the community to do so first. The overall consensus so far, as I see it, is that it is permissible in this case. Three separate bureaucrats have also explicitly approved this. The steward policy is intended to be applied with a minimal degree of common sense. —{admin} Pathoschild 23:17:12, 09 February 2008 (UTC)
I think we don't understand each other. Let me try to summerize: you are requesting a switchable bot status. Why do you request this status? Because "maintenance tasks [you] perform on a large scale are overwhelming Meta's recent changes".
Now, let me explain the problems I see with this:
  1. You are requesting the right to grant and revoke yourself bot status at will; I have never heard of any precedent of a permanently-allowed switchable user status.
  2. You make this request on meta's village pump, rather than on the dedicated page Meta:Requests for adminship#Requests for bot flags.
  3. I count 3 people here (Majorly, Lar & Adambro) who replied to your proposal by saying they'd prefer you to use your existing bot account or another one created for this purpose. You say Majorly eventually agreed with you on IRC. Though, I now count 2 more people (effeietsanders and me) who'd prefer you use a separate bot account. If any consensus is there, then I rather see "I'd rather see a separate bot account" than "Go ahead and flag yourself whenever you like".
  4. You have not explained what type of administrator actions you need to do on a large scale.
  5. Last, you say you "explicitly asked for permission from the community to do so first". Well, I am sorry to disagree, but 3 users on the village pump are not "the community", even if I value the judgment of users who expressed their opinion here.
So, what I propose is the following: Create a separate account called "Pathoschild-maintenance" or whatever you like. Request bot status for it on the relevant page to avoid cluttering meta RCs (I think there is consensus about this). If you only need the sysop tools to edit a few protected pages, you can do this after your run is over by using your "Pathoschild" account, just like all bot owners who are also sysops usually do. If you need to use sysop tools on a large scale, then I'd really like you to explain further what & why, so that the community can discuss this subject. Can we agree on this? guillom 09:49, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Ok - for clarity - I agree with guillom on a number of points here. I certainly would not wish to take a stance "against the community". My approach is a pragmatic one rather than a rule based one (currently Az1568 is "obscuring" RC & I was tempted to flag him :)). Bursts on RC on a small wiki make it quite hard to sort the wheat from the chaff. However I do understand that the "best" approach is to create a bot account and have that flagged, thanks --Herby talk thyme 09:56, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
guillom, I have no intention of flagging myself against community consensus. If you strongly object to the bot flag, I simply won't use it. As I've said, I'm not going to attribute human-intensive edits to a secondary bot account. If you want to see what I need administrator tools for, see my administrative log.
I think we see the 'bot' flag as different things; you see it as a description or title (and so only applicable to bot accounts), whereas I see it as a simple flag in the technical sense. For example, any administrator can freely bot-flag rollbacks without bot-flagging himself (search "bot" on mw:Manual:URL#Actions).
I realize that some users depend on recentchanges; these recentchanges options will show all edits except those to the user namespace. I am personally reviewing every edit to the user namespace until I'm done, so there is no need to check the user namespace if you use recentchanges. —{admin} Pathoschild 10:17:53, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I think our views about the bot flag are not so different. We both see it as a mean to avoid cluttering the RCs. I don't consider it as a description or title only applicable to bot accounts (I rather think of the contrary, actually :). I used to regularly use my bot account on fr.wikipedia to manually perform repetitive tasks using Javascript tools stored in its monobook.js, and I see no problems with a human having a bot flag for massive maintenance.
I really do not oppose the bot flag, as I think it is necessary for people who watch RCs. What I dislike is the switchable bot flag. I would have no objections if you had another account with both bot (to save the RCs) and sysop (as you're already entrusted with it) status for massive maintenance purposes. As long as these status are permanent. Would that be ok? guillom 12:01, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, but no. I suppose it's a weird quirk, but all the return I expect from my personal efforts are background attribution to my main account. I have no problem using a separate bot account for bot tasks, but not for edits that require constant human effort.
If you are willing to accept a permanent sysop'd bot, what is wrong with a temporarily bot'd sysop? The only real difference is that it slowly lengthens my rights log, which is not an issue. If it is only a technical flag to hide edits from RC, there is no abuse possible that would not be possible with a permanent sysop'd bot. If you are willing to allow a permanently sysop'd bot, there is also no issue of trust or approval with a switchable flag; it's like a bot that sometimes edits without a bot flag.
I could make a request on Meta:Requests for adminship#Requests for bot flags, but the end result would still be a switchable bot flag (unless I permanently flagged all my edits, which is not a good idea). —{admin} Pathoschild 18:35:26, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Are you saying that the only reason why you refuse to use your existing bot account is because you suffer from editcountitis? guillom 19:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
No, I suffer from the abominable desire for attribution for my personal work, regardless of the number of edits that is. I offered to bot flag myself to help RC users. You don't want that; fine, discussion closed. I'll write a script that allows users to filter certain users from recentchanges instead, and continue unflagged. —{admin} Pathoschild 19:41:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
If anyone wants to use it, see the code to use. Please leave any comments about bugs on my talk page. —{admin} Pathoschild 20:22:01, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, if the problem were only attribution, a simple redirect from this maintenance account to your main account would be enough. Besides, you still haven't explained what kind of massive maintenance tasks you were talking about, you gave links to your full list of contributions and log. If the only point is the babel template transition, then I'd agree for a temporary bot flag assigned to your personal account the time this task is over. guillom 20:34, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
...
Great, I'm glad we agree. Re-bot-flagged. —{admin} Pathoschild 21:03:11, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
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