Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:31, 25 September 2008

Date linking request (birth and death years)

I can understand that some people don't want articles to become a "sea of blue" by linking to all dates.

But can I make a request, that when birth and death dates are initially given after a person's name at the top of an article -- eg John of Trevisa (1342 - 1402), which your 'bot delinked this morning, that these do stay linked.

It is useful to have some link somewhere on the page that links into the hierarchy of date pages, so that people can click their way through to find out what was happening in particular centuries/decades/years that a subject lived; and of all the links on the page, the birth and death dates would seem especially appropriate for this end.

The John Trevisa article was hardly "overlinked" for dates: these were the only two dates linked in the whole piece.

So, can I make the request that: (i) the 'bot stops delinking birth years and death years after the subject's name. (ii) the 'bot is made to restore linking of birth years and death years that it has previously delinked.

Thanks, Jheald (talk) 06:38, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I support this request. (I expect that (ii) may not be possible, or at least may require more implementation effort than the author is able to devote to it. Nevertheless, I fully support (i).) — ras52 (talk) 08:12, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Support. Several editors have expressed this (or similar) comment, that it is useful to see what else was happening in a given year. There are those who say the reader can easily type the date in the search box, to which we must ask ourselves: shouldn't we make it easier for our readers to find information that they are interested in, not harder? Truthanado (talk) 13:42, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Who asked for some voting process? Please read my recent entry on this very page about the difficulty of finding year-pages that do satisfy the MoS requirement that they significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic at hand. I'm interested to know just how the pages on 1342 and 1402 are at all useful to the topic of Trevisa—perhaps you can convince me (I'm open). As for the orphan issue, I'm aftraid that the community has deprecated the linking of solitary years for a long time now. If such pages were in good shape generally, I'd be pleased to join a program to promote them on the project—Main page exposure, FA promotion, etc. But they're not in good shape at all—quite the opposite—and I see little evidence that they're improving. If you want my opinion, back past a certain time, year-pages should be conflated into cohesive, well-written decade pages, given the relative paucity of information on a world scale. Ragtag threadbare fragmented year-pages from the 14th century are a big question mark to a lot of people. Tony (talk) 15:16, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

To repeat what I've written above: I think it's valuable to have some links on the page to the date hierarchy, because those date pages act as gateways to further links - such as the decade pages, or the century pages; or (perhaps particularly valuable) the "state leaders in year X" pages -- all of which can be very useful, to let people link their way through, if they want to know about the political and historical background at a particular time.

Tony may not like the year pages, but nevertheless at least half a dozen do get featured from the front page every day in the "On this day..." feature; it's not as if they don't appear on that page. As for consensus, long standing consensus has been to be judicious in the choice of date links, and not to link everything (but not to link nothing, either). If this has changed, I'd like to know the well-attended RfC that changed it, because whenever I've looked in at Talk:MOSNUM, I've seen strong debate on the issue.

In WP we accept and welcome that different people have different interests, and like to use WP in different ways -- and we try to accommodate and make WP useful to them all. The issue isn't that some people don't find the year pages useful - after all, there's a huge amount on WP that most of us may never find personally useful. Rather, it's clear from all the discussions, we should recognise the many who do find links into the year-page hierarchy sometimes useful, and we should consider how to continue to preserve that usefulness to them.

Linking the year-of-birth and year-of-death dates seems to be a very good compromise between linking everything and linking nothing, and IMO a sensibly judged balance. Jheald (talk) 16:43, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Jheald. It's an excellent compromise. There seem to be enough editors commenting that some linking of dates is useful to justify keeping the links that are already there. To respond to Tony's question, several editors have already mentioned that it mighte be interesting to our readers to see what else was going on while John Trevisa was alive. Being able to easily link to his birth 1342 and death 1402 years help our readers do just that. As has been pointed out in several other discussions (the main justification to deprecate wikilinked dates), what's really important is what's right for our readers, and giving them the option of getting information they may be interested in is the right thing to do. Truthanado (talk) 00:24, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Just as presenting text without low-value links for diversionary browsing is important for our readers. You still haven't demonstrated by either of these articles provides information that will significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and why—if there does happen to be vaguely relevant factoid there—it wouldn't be better within the article. Tony (talk) 01:42, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that on this page that the users have to demonstrate that fact on this discussion.

I am concerned about what is an overarching guideline/policy-type question is being discussed and a resolution attempted tucked away as a discussion about what a bot is doing. A bot is a technical instrument that implements a procedural aspect, and that alone. A policy sits overarching and it cannot be demonstrated to me that there is clear agreement on an agreed guideline. While the guideline ] sits at the top of the system, that it too needs to be heeded. The discussion belongs somewhere open for the broader community where those from projects like Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Biography can have opportunity for input. --billinghurst (talk) 02:21, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I am concerned that when something becomes a Wiki-trend, it is suddenly enforced with a "Lightbot"--which ensures compliance with a "standard" that is little more than someone's opinion. The whole point of Misplaced Pages is to be able to link quickly to related material. If dates did not matter, they would not be given in an article. To deny wikilinks to dates is like denying a child knowledge of their parents.Ryoung122 08:51, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

• Hang on, Ryoung: the removal of date autoformatting and of the linking of date fragments is not "someone's opinion", but clearly in line with the deprecation of the first and the classification of low added-value chronological links as overlinking in WP's style guides. I'm surprised that you're not thanking Lightmouse for his efforts, which are sparing editors the manual labour of updating their articles to current guidelines as well as rendering the articles easier to read and maximising the utility of our high-value links. In fact, optimising this superb feature of wikis is uppermost in the motivation to apply the style guidelines. Tony (talk) 14:02, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

And what makes a link to a year, which may provide historical perspective, less useful than a link to a random word in a random paragraph? Whether a link is useful ought to be an editorial judgment, not something robotically decided and enforced. Robert A.West (Talk) 03:52, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Robert, that a year-link provides historical information, whereas horse probably doesn't, is self-evident. What is at issue is whether a year-link—any year link—provides focused information that will improve the reader's understanding of the topic. Please see my entry here for an exposé of why this is highly unlikely. This is an old issue that has been settled over a considerable period. I'm interested to hear your evidence of year articles that do provide such a focused enhancement, as opposed to magic carpets sprinkled through all of our articles to save discretionary browsers the effort of tapping four numbers into the search box. Wikilinking isn't a toy: it's a tool for selectively persuading our readers to hit links that are relevant to their understanding. Tony (talk) 06:16, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem that I (and perhaps other as well) have with all of the date "audits" and such, Tony, is the fact that even though auto-formatted dates are deprecated, the word deprecated does not mean banned or prohibited. You seem to be amongst the group of editors with zero-tolerance towards date linking, which is not reflected in MOS:NUM. If you want all dates links eliminated (as I think is abundantly clear from many posts of yours I've read) perhaps you should propose a change to MOS:NUM prohibiting or banning linked dates. Then you won't have so many people upset with your actions. — Bellhalla (talk) 19:19, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

And the linking of years has nothing to do with autoformatting. MOSNUM specifies that dates should be linked only when it is important. Lightbot cannot determine importance; therefore this type of edit should not be automated. Robert A.West (Talk) 19:49, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I have inquired on ] about Lightbot's approval to make this sort of edit -- whether it was properly approved and if so whether it can be reversed. I am not certain of procedure in this area, so if anyone here has more knowledge than I, please clarify. Robert A.West (Talk) 20:03, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Second request: Please stop removing instances of {{Convert}}

Please stop removing instances of template {{convert}} dealing with ship speeds from infoboxes in ship articles as you did recently here. I have asked you previously to stop (here) but you have continued. Please stop using whatever assistive tools you are using to prevent your further removal of speed conversions unless and until they can be altered to avoid such removals in the future. — Bellhalla (talk) 13:18, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand. What is your objection? Lightmouse (talk) 15:06, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

My objection is that you, through either your Lightmouse account or your Lightbot account, are … wait for it … removing instances of template {{convert}} dealing with ship speeds from infoboxes in ship articles as stated immediately above your post. If you need further clarification of what that sentence means, please see the first example in this post from further up your talk page under the heading Removal of {{convert}}. I believe that my objection is quite explicitly listed in the title of this section, in my comment immediately under that heading and above your comment, and in my earlier post on your talk page. If you are genuinely having trouble understanding the objection, please try to have someone else explain it to you, because I don't think I can make my objection any clearer. — Bellhalla (talk) 03:54, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I understand that you object to the abbreviation 'kn'. I also understand that you don't like it being used even though it is part of the template code invisible to readers. Although I disagree with you, I have tried to work with you by using the full form. I had hoped that you would be happy with that. I don't understand why you object to the full form 'knot' or 'knots'. I think we should take this off my talk page and onto a different page such as wp:mosnum. As you suggest, third party involvement would be a good idea. Lightmouse (talk) 18:27, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

There are two separate issues here. The one you mentioned is the substitution "kn" for "knot" within template calls to {{convert}} (i.e. subbing {{convert|25|kn|km/h}} for {{convert|25|knot|km/h}}) which is a frivolous edit, which makes the corresponding template code visible in edit boxes less intuitive for people who, unlike you, are not intimately familiar with all of the ins and out and "official" abbreviations of {{convert}}. Despite the fact that I and others have objected to your continual substitution of the "kn" abbreviation into {{convert}} even though the other works perfectly fine, that is not what I'm referring to in this post.

To see what I am asking you to stop, please take a look at this diff. Look at line that begins with "|Ship speed=" to see where your edit has substituted the text "15 knots (28 km/h/17 mph)" for the template call {{convert|15|knot}}. You are, in effect, subst'ing the template when you do that. There is no consensus for doing this. That is the point of this post and the now-archived earlier post. — Bellhalla (talk) 19:06, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Bellhalla, thanks for raising this issue. I don't mind that it's spilt onto this page, although I do wonder about the extent to which contributors here are interested in engaging with this matter—as you say, it "has nothing to do with MOSNUM". Javier has succinctly raised the concrete points that should be answered before proceeding: can you respond to them? I'd like to be convinced that your complaint isn't a personal one against Lightmouse himself, which you almost, but not quite, seem to be saying above. Lightmouse has a history of improving WP's formatting, appearance and readability, with ingenuity, diligence and sensitivity, and by readily engaging with those who provide critical feedback. I'm unsure why every detail of such improvements needs some gold-plated endorsement by "consensus" (which strictly speaking can always be questioned by naysayers). This is particularly the case when you admit that your stance is driven by a conservative frame that constructs long-standing phenomena as "widely accepted"; poor English is a long-standing phenomenon on WP, but that doesn't mean we should accept it, or be bullied into giving up our push to improve it. Above all, I'm still unclear what your objection is? What damage is being done in substantive terms? Tony (talk) 05:15, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Tony, I don't feel that I need to defend the consensus that has naturally evolved around the use of {{convert}}. My look at Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:convert shows that over 100,000 articles (20 pages of "next 5,000" before I stopped) use {{convert}}. That's a pretty wide consensus. Further, of those more than 100,000 articles, 4,353 distinct articles use {{convert}} for conversion of knots, as of this writing. In the face of numbers such as these, I think, rather, the questions should be asked of Lightmouse instead.

So, Lightmouse, how is this change benefiting Misplaced Pages? What does subst'ing {{convert}} for knots improve? Jimp has crafted an amazing template that provides accurate results at an appropriate level of precision. Isn't the reliability of a very closely watched template better for accuracy than a subst'd version? There's also the possibility for subtle, undetected vandalism as brought up by LeadSongDog at the related discussion at WT:MOSNUM, and the issue raised by Carcharoth below. I look forward to hearing your answers. Also, please don't repeat your erroneous contention that the changes are at my request, as you have hinted in previous answers. — Bellhalla (talk) 14:42, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

One point is that when you substitute a template, you lose the functionality of "what links here" to keep a global track on the formatting. Have a look at this for 5000 articles using this template (don't know how many use it in total). Meta-data is just that - meta-data. Maybe it should be hidden metadata, but without some way to get a global overview of things, you will never attain consistency. Carcharoth (talk) 07:50, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Strange behaviour for Calendar era

This edit only partially removes date linking, and does not deal with commas after the day-of-month in the so-called American format. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:06, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. The code for BC/AD dates is a bit more complicated than for non-BC/AD dates. I have updated the code and it should now avoid that type of date. Lightbot is not designed to fix errors with commas. The monobook script does do it but not for BC/AD dates. It seems that the more you look at dates, the more errors become apparent. Thanks again. Lightmouse (talk) 21:16, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand the statement "Lightbot is not designed to fix errors with commas." A date such as ] ] is a valid date (although it would not be were it not for date autoformatting), and will be rendered in some correct format by the date autoformatting software. When Lightbot is done with it, it should be rendered as some correct format; that should be a design criteria for Lightbot.

(I use "correct" in the narrow sense of not having an obvious typographic error in the immediate vicinity of the date, and not in the larger context of whether the format is appropriate for the article.) --Gerry Ashton (talk) 21:25, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Is there a suite of test cases, containing all the cases that Lightbot has ever had trouble with, that Lightbot is tested on every time any change is made? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:48, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Hey lightmouse, I think I fixed this problem. If you check my code I added a line that just looks for month and day to catch anything not covered in your code. I also added a line that converts the 1 January XXXX date format to January 1, XXXX. I only use it when I am editing american articles though, anything non US I block it out.--Kumioko (talk) 00:49, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Kumioko, I will take a look. Gerry, re question about test cases, the answer is: "no, I don't have a set of all pieces of article text that have caused problems in the past". I did not understand your comment about commas at first but your clarification helped me understand you. It seems that autoformatting adds a comma even when no preference is set. I think I had seen somebody mention that before but had forgotten. I foolishly worked on the basis that 'no preference' means 'leave raw text unchanged'. I think the code does indeed do something about missing commas in some circumstances. I will look into this further. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Lightmouse (talk) 18:59, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I oppose the continued operation of Lightbot until a suite of test cases is developed, and a plan is created to roll back erroneous edits whenever a problem with the bot is discovered. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 19:05, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Dates within image captions

This edit removed a year link for a full date within an image caption --JimWae (talk) 20:10, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

It should not have done that. I will investigate. Thanks for letting me know. Regards. Lightmouse (talk) 21:17, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Just did it again - to date at start of image caption http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=New_York_Tribune&curid=360819&diff=240113393&oldid=239854741 --JimWae (talk) 23:45, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

That is not good, thanks for letting me know about the second time. Thanks for stoppping the bot too. I am going to find out what caused it. Lightmouse (talk) 18:41, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Lightbot edit mangled Adlai E. Stevenson I

In at least one case, when there is a date followed by text followed by a year, Lightbot is deleting the entire prose between the years and making the date incorrect. See diff 240022391 for Adlai E. Stevenson, where Lightbot removed a half paragraph of text between one year and another one. I didn't put a stop on Lightbot's talk page because I couldn't find another example quickly — so, hopefully, this is rare. --Closeapple (talk) 22:40, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

That is not good, thanks for letting me know. The bot has been stopped and I will investigate. Lightmouse (talk) 18:37, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Bot error

Hi, Lightbot deleted a significant portion of the New Zealand Police article with this edit. I've undone the bot edit and manually delinked the dates. Looks like a one time issue with the 1-1-1 emergency number. XLerate (talk) 01:47, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

That is not good, thanks for letting me know. The bot has been stopped and I will investigate. Lightmouse (talk) 18:37, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Fixed now. Thanks, I appreciate it. Lightmouse (talk) 19:11, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Automated de-linking of years is often harmful to articles

I noted that Lightbot deleted the year links in Manayunk, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Linking to years is as useful as any other link: some readers like to get perspective on what else was happening about the same time as an event. Yes, they can look the year up explicitly, but by that logic, there is no need for any links. There is currently disagreement about this point at MOSNUM. In the meantime, I fail to understand why you have undertaken to automate the removal of links that some editors believe are useful. Robert A.West (Talk) 03:29, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi,

The issue of year links has been discussed in many places for quite some time and the style guide was updated in response to those discussions. I am sure that you will soon get a response to your enquiries elsewhere. With respect to approval for the bot, the relevant links are at User:Lightbot. I hope that helps. Lightmouse (talk) 21:12, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

But the style guide does not anywhere call for mass delinking of dates. The bot is making disruptive edits that are not consensus. Robert A.West (Talk) 21:59, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I have re-checked the so-called approval process for the expansion of Lightbot's function to include mass de-linking of dates, and I believe that the approval neither reflected consensus nor a proper consideration of the ramifications. Robert A.West (Talk) 22:14, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Are they "disruptive" because you take exception to change per se? Please see it from the perspective of our readers. Tony (talk) 11:14, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I can't speak for Robert A.West (who called it disruptive), but, Tony, look at the talk page here. Look at the number of comments. (Note also that Lightmouse has his talk page set archive threads after 3 days.) I think the volume of posts is a testament of the disruption caused by Lightmouse and/or Lightbot. — Bellhalla (talk) 13:57, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

There tends to be a small, vocal clique who object to change of any sort. I'd like to think that you're not one of them, Bellhalla, and that you're willing to engage in debate on an issue that has largely been resolved (that the community wants to minimise low-value linking, and that date fragments are that). I'd be pleased to talk further on the matter, whether here or at my talk page or at MOSNUM talk, since I want to convince you that this is worth supporting. Tony (talk) 14:20, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Bot error

Hello, This edit to EastEnders looks to be an error. Thanks, Stephenb (Talk) 08:15, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

You are right. That is not good. Thanks for letting me know. The bot has been stopped and I am investigating it. Lightmouse (talk) 21:13, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Fixed now. Thanks again. I appreciate it. Lightmouse (talk) 19:10, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Why the mass delinking of years?

On Onomacritus all dates were delinked. I've read the approval but it is no clearer to me what the bot is aiming to do in cases like this.Dejvid (talk) 21:10, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I hope I'm wrong, but it seems to be unlinking all years what do not have the day and month. In the classical period we often (indeed mostly) don't know the exact date. Polybius is not a stub yet every date has been unlinked. And he's a historian. What gives?Dejvid (talk) 21:45, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Lightmouse, the date de-linking on UK parliamentary constituencies is worse than I highlighted above. The delinking has included "created" dates (the yeat the seat was first formed). This means that users who may want to see what else happened in that year can no longer do so easily. I can understand why the UK electiom years were delinked (as I say above, really they should have been links to the UK election articles), but when the year was explicity linked to a section involving years (rather than events in that year), a mistake has been made. Could you revisit the edits made to ALL UK parliament constituency articles to ensure this edit is undone in some way? doktorb _words 23:05, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

By the same token, years should not be delinked in articles on British peerages. Please stop your bot; this was never clearly approved, and is undesirable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:13, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 3 does not give your bot permission to unlink all linked years. The approval request is misleading at best, and possibly intentionally so, if that's what your bot was designed to do. Corvus cornix_talk 23:43, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

In case you weren't aware, there is currently an ANI discussion about your bot and the delinking of years. Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Mass_De-linking_of_years_by_Lightbot -Chunky Rice (talk) 23:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

And it almost goes without saying that you should probably not restart the bot for this function until this is resolved. -Chunky Rice (talk) 00:06, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Discussion on year articles and links

Of some relevance to the operation of your bot. Please see Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Year articles and wikilinks to year articles. Carcharoth (talk) 00:18, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Wishlist

Check the wishlist. I've added a section today. Thanks again for this script! Dismas| 08:58, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

You are welcome. Rest assured, I read all the wishlist items and I will respond there if I have an idea of what to do. Lightmouse (talk) 19:45, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Salk vs. Silk

Why did Lightbot do this?--Hans555 (talk) 11:04, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Lightbot, despite current problems with its operation, does not vandalize articles. Check the history and you'll see that "Silk" was in the article for at least five or six edits before Lightbot's edit. — Bellhalla (talk) 11:58, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

List of town tramway systems in the United Kingdom

Please can you explain why you have removed the wiki on the year, but left the date alone? Your logic seems inconsistent. I am going to undo your changes in the meantime. Perhaps you can explain your logic, in terms on quoted[REDACTED] policies on the convention for wiki-ing dates or not. Olana North (talk) 11:30, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there is a simple explanation. The dates in that article are not compliant with guidance on autoformatting. The piping of the dates actually breaks autoformatting and the links should be fixed or removed. The script identifies year links that are not used for autoformatting and delinks them. So that is what happened. The code fixes many date errors in articles but there is an infinite number of wrong ways to link dates and that article contains yet another wrong way of linking dates. If you want to know more about this and how to fix the date errors in the article, feel free to ask the people at wt:mosnum. I hope that helps. Lightmouse (talk) 19:02, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Category name broken by bot

Hi there - this has just reminded me why I always check the edits by this bot (nothing personal, you understand, but I know that it is not infallible). 'Tis a tedious business as >99% of its edits are fine, but just now and again...

This change to Bristol and Exeter Railway disabled a category entry. (It changed Category:Broad gauge (7 feet) railway companies to Category:Broad gauge (7 ft) railway companies.)

Unfortunately it has modified at least 9 pages like this (see here). I have already fixed Great Western Railway, as the highest-profile page, but I was hoping you could use a bot to fix the rest.

For simplicity, in future could you get the bot to ignore category text (and links too, since the GWR page had two links broken also) ?

Cheers -- EdJogg (talk) 13:00, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

For that matter, Lightmouse, why doesn't the script automatically ignore anything aside from regular prose? In other words, ignore categories, images, URLs, links, stub templates (and most others for that matter), and anything else you can think of that really can't have such fixes justified. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 13:33, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting the '7 feet' issue. I have gone over the other ones too. I have switched off the code that turns '(7 feet)' into '(7 ft)'. I would *love* to be able to ignore categories, quotes, urls etc. This is a problem that afflicts all scripts. It is not lack of will, it is lack of ability. But I have not stopped searching. There is progress, I have found a method of avoiding images and I am hoping to find a way to extend that to other things. Lightmouse (talk) 18:48, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for restoring the categories, and good luck with the bot enhancements -- I don't envy you the task. In the meantime I'll keep monitoring the bot changes when it crosses my watchlist.

EdJogg (talk) 00:07, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Please add description to Lightbot's page

Please add to the page User:Lightbot a succinct and clear summary of what Lightbot is supposed to do.
(Yes, I see that there are already links on that page to discussion of Lightbot.)
Thanks. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 13:18, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like you found the information that you needed. I would be happy to help but did that one click really cause an additional burden? Lightmouse (talk) 18:33, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm unable to think of any good reason not to add this info to User:Lightbot.

My request is both polite and helpful to the Misplaced Pages project: Please add to the page User:Lightbot a succinct and clear summary of what Lightbot is supposed to do.

Glad to hear that you will be happy to help. Thanks. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 22:21, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Lightmouse script

Hi,

Is it possible to code the monobook script to remove "the" from dates? I don't know how often this occurs, but I have just come across "on the 6th of September, 2007" - the script recognised this but left it as "on the 6 September 2007", instead of "on 6 September 2007".

If it doesn't occur too often, don't worry about it, just a passing mention.

Best wishes, –MDCollins (talk) 22:50, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Nice idea but it is a bit of a big task to merge into the rest of the code. Finding the text and making the changes is easy but avoiding errors would be difficult. It might be something that could be done as a separate button. Feel free to add it to User talk:Lightmouse/wishlist and I might see if something occurs to me later. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 18:20, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Alfred Kreymborg

Not sure that Lightbot's changes, here, were appropriate. Could you comment? —  X  S  G  00:20, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The bot removes solitary year links. That article contained links that were concealed and designed to look like solitary year links. A link that looks like a solitary year will be treated like one i.e. ignored. That is why some projects (e.g. the music project, possibly the film project, and even mosnum has discussed it) are recommending that links are not concealed as common date fragments. Instead, other methods should be used e.g. at least one non-date word should appear in the link. In the meantime, the bot code has been updated and it no longer delinks these but please feel free to join the debate about how to get better click-through rates at wt:mosnum. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 18:31, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Major Booth

A recent edit by Lightbot on the above article has had a strange effect on the first paragraph, which I have reverted. You may wish to look at it to prevent a recurrence and for monitoring reasons. Britmax (talk)

Great feedback. Thanks for fixing it and letting me know. I have fixed the problem. Thanks. Lightmouse (talk) 18:16, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:ANI

Please see Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Lightmouse. Corvus cornix_talk 20:27, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Changing date format within quotations

Another problem with the script being run is that it reformats dates within quotations. For example on Anne Brontë the quote of her grave stone inscription was changed from May 28th, 1849 to 28 May 1849. The script should not be changing the format of any quotes in articles, these should remain in the exact format of the source from which the quote is taken. Keith D (talk) 23:02, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi,

The editor responsible for that edit is User:Epbr123, not me. If you bring the issue to the attention of that user, I would be happy to advise him/her what to do. Lightmouse (talk) 08:47, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Lightmouse_again

Please refrain from continuing to unlink dates with AWB (or other scripts/automated software) prior to engaging the community in discussion regarding this matter. A large part of the reason why the bot was stopped was because the community has found this type of unilateral unlinking to be controversial. Using AWB as a substitute for your bot to perform these kinds of edits is not appropriate, and should be ceased until you are willing to discuss this matter, either here on your talk page or at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Lightmouse_again. Thanks, Shereth 22:31, 25 September 2008 (UTC)