Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 08:32, 10 October 2008

Delinking of dates in first paragiraffe of biography...

I was used to always linking the birthdate and deathdate in a biography, but I now see the discussion that (as of August) starts to move policy in the other direction; I expect you may because of your script receive a number of throaty complaints from people who have not heard of the recent changes... would it help if I took part in a small-scale volunteer effort to spread the word (as it were)...? Schissel | Sound the Note! 04:57, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

This is music to our ears, Schissel. Why aren't there more of your type on WP? Running the script itself spreads the word through the link to MOSNUM in the edit summaries. What we do lack is a solid program of dissemination at WikiProjects. Does Lightmouse agree that this would be a welcome move?

I'm thinking of some kind of stock posting that you might paste in, perhaps tweaked a little for some projects. Let me think. I've approached the South Africa, Zimbabwe, Australia, Indonesia and China projects from the perspective of the date format they use: SA and Z needed to confirm that they do in fact use international format (true). The Australians needed a boot up the posterior for using a lot of US format, especially their sports editors. The Indonesians approached me directly for advice. I let the China WP know that the article on China is international, yet almost all China-related projects use international. In all of these postings, I've reminded them of the new practice of not autoformatting. I've also put prominent notices about DA at GA and PR talk pages, as well as FAC and FLC.

Did you have any ideas for targeting? Tony (talk) 05:16, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd be happy to help as well. Was it mentioned in the Signpost outside of the MoS changes updates? One suggestion if I may - avoid using the jargon "DA" - as not many people will recognise it as meaning "date autoformatting" (which is itself jargon, as some have pointed out). Carcharoth (talk) 06:02, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

The more that the recent changes become known, the better. I can think of several ways in which people would stop linking and/or remove linking:

• people see the delinking edit and investigate
• many articles are now link-reduced and people simply copy by example
• people would see a comment by somebody else

I would be delighted if you would help spread the word. Lightmouse (talk) 09:14, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

No targeting ideas yet, will try to give some thought and speed - thank you. Schissel | Sound the Note! 07:48, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Unlinking dates

While I agree that dates tend to be overlinked, I strongly disagree with the idea that they may be unlinked by bot. The portion of wp:mosnum that applies reads Dates ... should not be linked, unless there is a particular reason to do so with a footnote What these particular reasons might be is currently under discussion at the talk page. There is no way the bot can judge whether there is a "particular reason" for the link it is removing, never mind keeping track of the discussion of such reasons at a talkpage. Take this edit where I would agree with the unlinking of 2001, 1930, 1966 and 1967, but disagree with the removal of the link to 22nd century BC. --dab (𒁳) 08:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

If somebody is curious about a date element, what is to stop them typing it into the search box. Are you saying there is something special about BC dates or something special about centuries? Lightmouse (talk) 09:05, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Dab, recommendations to avoid the linking of trivial chronological items has been sitting in other style guides for quite a while. Tony (talk) 08:06, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Bot stopped

Per concerns at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers), I have stopped Lightbot for the time being. Please address the concerns there and be able to demonstrate consensus for the de-linking of dates before proceeding. Thanks, Shereth 16:05, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't re-start the bot with the boilerplate "See owner talk" message; there is nothing here on your talk page that addresses the concerns at WT:MOSNUM. If the bot re-starts itself without a resolution to the concerns at that talk page, I will block it. Shereth 22:05, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Please try to be less aggressive. Removal of the word 'stop' is not the same as running the bot. Lightmouse (talk) 22:06, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Please try to be more descriptive. I will grant that removal of the word 'stop' is not the same as running the bot, but without more of a justification than "See owner talk" (which is not only undescriptive but somewhat dishonest considering there was no discussion regarding the concern whatsoever) it can only be interpreted as a precursor to a resumption of the bot. I won't immediately take action if the 'stop' is removed, but if it does resume de-linking years/dates without a resolution to the above referenced discussion it will be blocked. Shereth 22:27, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. The text on the bot page directs people to this page. The 'see owner talk' is a standard response to reinforce that and it comes up anyway under autocomplete. I will remove the word 'stop' and we can see what happens at wp:mosnum. Lightmouse (talk) 22:34, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, well, an accusation of dishonesty is rather aggressive, don't you think, Shereth? I'd be pleased if you were seen to act in a totally disinterested manner in this matter. Tony (talk) 08:04, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

As would I you, Tony. — Bellhalla (talk) 12:32, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I make no pretence to be disinterested in this matter; on the contrary, I'm flying the flag for a more disciplined and sensitive approach to our unique and valuable wikilinking system, to strengthen it. But it is not I who have taken administrative action in stopping the bot. The rules for admins are quite clear: that such actions should not be taken where the admin has any personal stake in the outcome. Please read those rules. Tony (talk) 13:19, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Point of information, nobody has taken any administrative action yet. -Chunky Rice (talk) 13:56, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Is a block an administrator action? Lightmouse (talk) 13:57, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Have you or your bot been blocked? -Chunky Rice (talk) 14:00, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Has a block threat been issued? Lightmouse (talk) 14:00, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Is that an administrator action? -Chunky Rice (talk) 14:05, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Who else can issue block threats? Lightmouse (talk) 14:05, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Any editor - see all of our warning templates. -Chunky Rice (talk) 14:08, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Is Shereth an administrator? Lightmouse (talk) 14:08, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

How many roads must a man walk down, before you can call him a man? -Chunky Rice (talk) 14:11, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Five hundred and seventy six. Does the phrase:

• I will block it

mean something other than 'I will block it'? Lightmouse (talk) 14:13, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

• Is that a rhetorical question? -Chunky Rice (talk) 14:21, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Did you read it that way? Lightmouse (talk) 14:29, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

This conversation is making me dizzy. --Closedmouth (talk) 05:51, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Formatting on Talk pages

Good afternoon, Lightmouse. In this edit, you inserted a large number of blank lines between the individual comments in a discussion thread. Please don't do that again. Many common browsers fail to interpret the nested indentation properly when you insert blank rows like that. The browser interprets the paragraph break as an instruction to restart the indentation and inserts a blank line for every level of indentation of the subsequent comment. Rather than showing up immediately below the preceding comment, a level-six indentation shows up six blank lines below. The page ended up with massive amounts of wasted white space and was extraordinarily difficult to read. It probably doesn't matter for short discussions with only one or two layers of indentation but when long discussions reach deep levels of indentation, it gets very disruptive.

Thanks. Rossami (talk) 17:17, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. I didn't know that it caused problems for browsers. I was trying to make it easier to read when in edit mode. Furthermore, I wish there was somewhere that we could discuss such matters. I often read Misplaced Pages on very small screens and six level indents can make text disappear off to the right, so I wish there was a way to let people know that alternate indenting does not cause that problem. In addition, some people use bullets and others use plain indents. I can't think of a good place for such discussions, including what you say. Any suggestions. Lightmouse (talk) 22:01, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Let me clarify that it doesn't cause problems for all browsers. Firefox correctly interprets indentation even with the skipped spaces. Internet Explorer, on the other hand, ... (I should stop typing on the "if you can't say something nice" principle.)
Perhaps one of the Manual of Style sheets has some help for the general case of making your comments more readable. I do know that there is some discussion in the Guide to deletion but that's specific to the narrow case of AfD discussions (where the established norm is indented bullets).
I find that bullets make it much easier to tell where one person's comment ends and another begins. I usually follow the format of the previous editors (and most others do the same) but if I have the chance, I almost always use bullets. The downside to bullets is that you have to use the <br> command to force a line return. Otherwise, your comment gets separated from your signature. When reading in edit mode, the reader sees a gray block of text. This comment would be an excellent example. Miserable, isn't it?
The page about "modifying the comments of others" does include a specific exception to allow refactoring the discussion to standardize the indentation. You could always just pick a style for that discussion and straighten it out if it's especially confusing. I will often do that if I'm going to comment on a discussion. But there's no set standard that applies for all discussions that I know of and I wouldn't hold out much hope for forcing such a standard.
On your related question of deep indentation flowing off the right of small screens, perhaps we can ask the developers to do something with the CSS. They might be able to build some code into the style sheet and vary the presentation of the page based on the reader's screen width. That would probably be a Village Pump request.
If I find an MOS discussion page, I'll send a link. Please copy me if you find one first. Thanks. Rossami (talk) 16:03, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I try to rule IE out of my life but it is difficult to wean webdevelopers off it. I will ask at the village pump now about small screens. Thanks for all your other helpful thoughts. Lightmouse (talk) 16:06, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Your edit to Mary Shelley

Your edit to Mary Shelley has been partially reverted since it broke the image reference. Kaldari (talk) 23:29, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

You are right. That is due to an external function. I will report that to people that might know how to get the function changed. Thanks for the feedback. Lightmouse (talk) 23:33, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

That would be awesome. This particular image has been "fixed" so many times, it's ridiculous. I finally just deleted the image and renamed it so that people would stop breaking it every few weeks :P Kaldari (talk) 14:47, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I think you did the best thing in the short term. Sorry that you have had so much grief. In the long term, it would be good if you could say the same thing at Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs#Broken_image_description. The issue is way outside my technical knowledge but those guys might know what to do. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 14:50, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

AWB dysfunction

Can you please review this edit made with AWB and fix whatever failure caused you to leave this article with dates formatted inconsistently? Thanks! (sdsds - talk) 00:00, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

looks like the script simply removed the square brackets. The date audit script here does that job very well. Ohconfucius (talk) 09:30, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I have now done a full date audit of the article. Thanks. Lightmouse (talk) 09:45, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Date formats

Is it possible to change the script so that when multiple formats for dates are used (4 December 2008 v December 4, 2008) in one article the article is flagged for cleanup? As I recall the MOS recommends that dates in an article follow a single format. Since you are processing the dates, it is the perfect time to flag problems. I would probably ignore date in the cite tags for this unless you know of a consensus to convert these to ISO format. I don't think that the bot can do the change since which format to use depends on other factors like the most common, the dialect of English being used and other factors. Vegaswikian (talk) 17:37, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

It is possible to pre-select articles on the basis of likely format e.g. articles about Australia. The two activities (delinked and format fixing) can be done at once. But splitting the activities into two phases has the advantage that delinking can be done quicker and it makes absolutely no difference to the format most users see. It would also be possible to add a flag to articles to say that they need checking but I am not convinced that tags actually add much value. I do ignore citations because I can't work out what on earth the citation people are doing about this issue - I wish they could find a solution soon. Lightmouse (talk) 22:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Year/date linking

Hi, I would not unlink those years/dates which has some historical meaning, eg. car articles foundation years, because it can be intresting to see what happened in that year and maybe that foundation is mentioned in that year article. --— Typ932  20:29, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Is that something that is worth bringing up at wp:mosnum? I would hate to be the only one following such a suggestion while everybody else ignores it. Lightmouse (talk) 22:20, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Typ, can you provide an example or two of where such a link is likely to increase readers' understanding of the topic? Tony (talk) 00:42, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Notice

Hi there Lightmouse!
	Please accept this invite to join the Good Article Collaboration Center, a project aimed at improving articles to GA status while working with other users. We hope to see you there!

Year Linkage

I am aware that linking to dates (for whatever reason) is now against the rules. But some of the linkages are, in fact, not to a date, but to a page. Links like ] go to the "In Radio" page for that year. This is an ongoing radio project. I appericate the work you have to do, but please leave links like these alone as they are not date links, but Wiki links. Thank You...NeutralHomer • Talk • October 10, 2008 @ 08:32