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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lightmouse (talk | contribs) at 21:45, 9 September 2008 (→Date link removal script). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Date autolink removal by Lightbot

Although date autolinking has been deprecated on MOSNUM, it is NOT (at this time) the case that there has been consensus approval for the mass deletion of existing links. You might want to suspend doing so on properly formed date links until there is. (Cf. a couple of proposals regarding this.) Cheers, Askari Mark (Talk) 00:47, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

The linked "proposals" seem to hold little water and to be going around in circles. There are major snags inherent in their development and adoption. On the other hand, what LM and others, including me, are doing is to conduct much-needed date audits. These are no quick and dirty applications of bots, but sensitively managed improvements of a number of aspects WRT dates, with human oversight. They improve the reading experience of our readers. They reinforce the need among WPians to manage dates properly. They promote their consultation of MOSNUM and CONTEXT among a broad range of WPians through edit-summary links. And not least, they perform a valuable service to WPians in enabling conformation and consistency with the MoS. These reasons probably explain why there has been only a miniscule incidence of reversion or complaint, and even little comment, compared with the number of audits. Tony (talk) 04:37, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

A proposal is a proposal nonetheless, Tony. Don't be dismissive of other editors' efforts to get their opinions expressed and consensus to be reached.

Also, call a spade a spade, for pete's sake! To paraphrase The Princess Bride: you keep using that word, audit. I do not think it means what you think it means. — Bellhalla (talk) 16:54, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Lightbot is not removing autolinks. Lightmouse (talk) 08:15, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

A technicality, perhaps. Lightbot is not removing auto-formatted dates, but you, Lightmouse, are auditing removing date links using AWB. See here, here, here, and here, for example. If there are proposals that are being discussed, please respect the process and stop until a final consensus has been reached. — Bellhalla (talk) 16:54, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

You may consider it a technicality to distinguish between the actions of a bot and those of a human, but I can assure you that other people take it very seriously. So it is important to get the owner of the edit correct before investigating. That is all. Anyway, as far as delinking actions of humans is concerned, it seems to me that the only solution is to change the wording at wp:mosnum to forbid it. Can we take this to the talk page of wp:mosnum? Lightmouse (talk) 17:02, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

The point for my comment is due to what looked like your total dismissal of everything Askari Mark had said by making that distinction. — Bellhalla (talk) 00:11, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Tennis articles

Please figure out a way to at least temporarily stop Lightbot from changing tennis-related articles. A discussion is ongoing in the tennis project about date linking. Lightbot should refrain from doing anything until that discussion has ended. Thanks. Tennis expert (talk) 12:08, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Tennis expert, you've already announced that you're in favour of ditching single-year links, of which there is a virtual blue blizzard in tennis-related articles. Are you not also in favour of cleaning out the date autoformatting so that our readers can easily identify the high-value links? If not, perhaps I might link you to a convenient information page on this matter. Please let me know. As far as consensus goes, I think you're clinging to the idea of WikiProject "consensus" (I'm unsure it exists in this case) above the common-sense movement in the WP's highest-level style and format authorities.

BTW, I must congratulate the tennis editors on a fine job. My date auditing thus far has revealed a very good part of WP's sports effort. (Just one thing: the Australian dates are usually in the wrong format.) Tony (talk) 03:10, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

an odd thank you

while I don't always agree with the date de-linking, I understand why you're doing it. It's indirectly the reason I'm here. When you/your bot edit articles such as this one I realise how many articles I'm still watching for no good reason other than I had the tickbox set to auto-watch for a while. So thanks for help cleaning my watchlist. :) TravellingCari 02:05, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to Travelling. I've left a link to the DA information page on his talk page. Tony (talk) 02:23, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Request for date delinking

Hi Lightmouse, I see on Tony1's talk page that you are helping with the automatic date delinking. If it is not too much trouble, would you be able to run the script on Battle of the Alamo? I am beginning to prepare this article for FA status, and there are already lots of wikilinked dates to deal with. If this is not the kind of request that is easy to fill, then please just say so and I will do it manually. Thanks! Karanacs (talk) 02:24, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Done. --Closedmouth (talk) 02:33, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Victoria Cross

I'm surprised! "-264 characters" - That seems a lot, doesn't it!
Well done, and keep up the good work. Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 03:12, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by -264 characters. Can you provide a link to the edit you are talking about? Thanks for the praise, I appreciate it. Lightmouse (talk) 09:44, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

That should teach me not to assume that other people will know what I'm talking about, (but it probably won't!)
I meant, your date edits to the Victoria Cross page reduced the length of the page by 264 characters. (Assuming 8 characters per date, that means 33 dates.) That seemed like a lot of dates to me, and I was surprised.
Oh yes: this edit. Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 09:56, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah yes. I see now. I am not sure whether the numbers are bytes or characters but it makes not difference to me, I don't notice them anyway. Lightmouse (talk) 10:44, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

(For possible future reference, 1 ASCII character occupies 1 byte. Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 14:00, 7 September 2008 (UTC))

OOH. That is very useful to know. Thanks. Lightmouse (talk) 14:04, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

hide bot edits button

I had it on, but since none of the pages I run the script on are on my watchlist, it seems not to matter either way. Tony (talk) 11:09, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

My comment was actually directed at TravellingCari. He said 'I just wish there was a way for it not to clutter the watchlist'. Lightmouse (talk) 11:14, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Which means he's watchlisting articles he cleanses. Fair enough, but I'm careful not to clutter my WL with more than what is absolutely necessary. SMcCandlish has TWO THOUSAND articles on his ... no wonder he takes extended breaks from MOS and MOSNUM.

The tennis person is apparently reverting some of my work, according to The Rambling Man; while it's worth persisting for a little while, since some people come around quickly, when faced with a one-person screech-fest I think the area he "owns" is probably best left for a while. Pity the readers, and the tennis editors who want the improvement. Plenty of stuff for us to get on with, where improvements are appreciated. Tony (talk) 12:06, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

That's a really incivil comment, Tony1, and not appreciated. Tennis expert (talk) 08:02, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry if it was griping, but you were undoing improvements to articles that you agree with, which is hard to take when we put so much work into such improvements. You've since attempted to personalise the issue and to focus it entirely on me by starting the RFC on my "behaviour". Even some of your own supporters find that a bit much. Tony (talk) 08:34, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

What RFC are you talking about? I started no RFC about you or anyone else. Tennis expert (talk) 08:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

OK. I just found the RFC. Not only did I not start it, I had nothing whatsoever to do with and do not endorse it. Although I disagree with many things you have done lately, I have never had the intention to escalate our disagreement to that level. I'm sorry you are going through this now. Honestly. Tennis expert (talk) 08:55, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, and I'm sorry to have mixed you up with someone else. Tony (talk) 09:00, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Re: Lightbot

I don't usually frequent that part of Misplaced Pages and don't know what I'm doing there now. Also, I realize now that it is a discussion; there is no vote. I don't have anything to add to the discussion so I just withdrew my statement. Gary King (talk) 15:18, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

OK. Now I see, I think somebody was a bit rude to you. I understand your withdrawal. Thanks for explaining that. Lightmouse (talk) 15:24, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi there, regarding this bot edit by lightbot. Is there any reason why links to "years in athletics" should be delinked? Surely this kind of approach would eventually render those articles useless and/or orphaned? Sillyfolkboy (talk) 19:51, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Folkboy, several Wikiprojects now advise against such "hidden" links. A better way, which actually encourages readers to click on them, is to reword the first occurrence so that it doesn't look like a useless year-link, and to remove the rest of the hidden links, which are readily accessible through that first one (which is usually prominently positioned at the top). Tony (talk) 12:59, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Date link removal script

Would you explain how to run your date removal script? I might run it on one or two articles with careful review of the diffs. I have not run scripts before. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:23, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Paste:

importScript('User:Lightmouse/monobook.js/script.js');

into User:Gerry Ashton/monobook.js. Then clear your cache using the instructions at the top of that page. When you have a page in edit mode, look at the left of the page and you will see the commands in the 'toolbox' below 'What links here'. The commands include 'delink all dates to dmy' and 'delink all dates to mdy'. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 18:36, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The reload takes so long, I think something is wrong. Is there a restriction on which browsers support this? I'm using Internet Explorer 7 in Windows XP SP3. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:52, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, I think Misplaced Pages was just slow. I seem to have it loaded now, although I had to go to your page, select all and copy, and paste in my page. The importScript thing wouldn't work. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 19:05, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is very slow right now. Do not rule out the importscript thing, it should work when Misplaced Pages speeds up. You will also have the benefit of it automatically updating in response to my code changes. Lightmouse (talk) 19:25, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the explainaition; I would view automatic updating as a disadvantage, I want to be in control of updates. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 19:36, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

That is fine by me. It is an entirely reasonable option. If you have comments on the code, feel free to use User talk:Lightmouse/wishlist. Lightmouse (talk) 21:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)