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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by BD2412 (talk | contribs) at 13:28, 17 May 2006 (archiving). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This archive contains discussions related to Wikitools (templates, categories, disambigs, etc.) and Wikiprojects (Disambiguation repair, Red link repair, Duplicated section repair, etc.) -- BDAbramson talk 13:10, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Archive of the archive

Proxies

Based on your disambiguation relinks, this is just the kind of mindless repetitive task you'll love doing! ;-) Proxy blocking!

Prodego talk 19:11, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Thanks, but I'll wrap up the projects I'm already up to my neck in before taking on anything new. BDAbramson T 19:43, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Holy crap!

That was my reaction when I saw one of your edits to the page, "Holy crap, BDAbramson's really moving on this one, I better help out".

The new "/from template" sub-project has really rejuventated my interest in link repair, cheers.

I won't be the first ask, maybe I'm not, but what is the inspiration for the new colour signature?--Commander Keane 22:55, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Template:Matrices

I forgot what the hell I made that for --presumably it was in the midst of my math and physics binge editing, where I often found that specialized articles (matrices in this case) would benefit from some cohesive context. I don't object to anything you might want to do with it and if i have time I will look into adding a few items. Thanks - hope all is going well. -Ste|vertigo 23:06, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your message in respect of above, and your interest in the subject. I shall shortly do the necessary re-writes/ edits. These tribes refer to adivasis of India, and these people mostly reside in the Indian state of Jharkhand, as also in some other parts of India. And, a happy New Year to you. --Bhadani 15:58, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Spaces in your bot's articles

Thanks for that - probably no point in fixing them by hand. I've been looking for feedback (without a lot of success) prior to rerunning the bot. Most editing seems to relate to disambiguation. I can rerun the bot next weekend to do a cleanup. Dlyons493 Talk 17:23, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

    • Hi, I've had a look at this and it's not entirely clear to me what changes to make. The actual source of most articles runs to under 3K chars and there aren't many redundant spaces (the end-result as reported by wiki is a lot larger though). What replacement(s) did you make when editing? Dlyons493 Talk 14:55, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Tax protester/Archive 01

The article Tax protester/Archive 01 reads like a talk page archive, but it's in the main archive namespace. Can you move it to the appropriate non-article namespace, as a) it really shouldn't be in the article namespace, and b) it's appearing on Special:CrossNamespaceLinks, which reports erroneous links from the article namespace to other namespaces. Thanks. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 03:35, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

re: Hebrew

You know me...eager to please. :-D Tomertalk 20:09, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

AfD result

Out of the 6 votes at this nomination, 4 people agreed with merge. I'm interested to know why was it deleted. Thank you. — Instantnood 21:04, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks so much. I actually counted 3 instead of 5, since 2 people had stated a precondition that was fulfilled. — Instantnood 20:54, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey, I was wondering if you could lend your law expertise to that template above. A slew of editors are trying to revert an rfc under the guise of outside of WP legal concerns. karmafist 01:43, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

My Legal Ignorance Was Eaten By A Bear!
Thank you, my pet bear also wanted to show his gratitude for you astounding legal advice there. Keep up the good work! karmafist 06:39, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Quick null edit request

Hi Beland, could you do me a quick favor and null edit every article, image, template, and category in Wikipedia. Cheers, and happy holidays! BDAbramson T 03:51, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Are you serious? -- Beland 09:03, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Only wistfully so. :-D BDAbramson T 15:33, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Could you take a look at Oscar and fix it? Its been moved around, had its prime def(the name) removed... I am not sure about these changes, I reverted them once, but when they came back, I decided to ask you to take a look. Thanks,

Prodego talk 20:13, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I changed Oscar, some of the changes made by Tedernst(the main editor) were beneficial, but many(he seems to have gone on an overly bureaucratic rampage ;-) were detrimental. If you could review my changes, thanks. Prodego talk 20:35, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I think the best solution would be an article on the name Oscar, with a For other uses see Oscar (disambiguation) header. Prodego talk 02:20, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Nice job, and good idea on Oscar, although I still perfer a full article on the name if anyone wants to write it, however, if not your solution works admirably. Prodego talk 02:25, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
We don't normally do articles on first names - that's Wiktionary territory (see Oscar). It will do as it is, I think - if it was an article on the name, we'd still be fixing bad links all the time, as folks will still be misdirecting Academy Award links there! BDAbramson T 02:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Very true, you may want to take a look at this the MoS:DP talk page quite a discussion on Ted going on there. Prodego talk 02:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Speedy?

Does this page meet the criteria for speedy deletion, as it is not English? Why is a non-english not a category for speedy deletion, but poorly translated is? This is on a user subpage though, so all its really doing is taking up disk(disc) space.

Prodego talk 03:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Doesn't qualify for any kind of deletion, so far as I can tell - user subpages generally get lenient treatment, unless the user is trying to post an advert or an attack or the like. If so, they go to WP:MFD. BDAbramson T 03:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I was wondering as it links to Oscar, and I can't redirect it as I am not able to read Dutch. Prodego talk 03:34, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
      Ouch. That's not Dutch. That's German. FYI, it should link to the Academy Award. —Nightstallion (?) 06:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Links from user pages are of minimal concern. The first concern is that users reading an article or an image or category description will not be taken to the wrong place when they click a link. User pages should only be bothered with if there is a clear intent to point to a particular article instead of the disambig page (see the notice at the top of this page). BDAbramson T 03:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
        • Oh yea......:-) Sorry, I was just reading the Dutch article and it's the first thing that came to mind. And I wanted to relink(if applicable) since it clutters up the What links here page. Prodego talk 16:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

ugh dabbing

You wanna tackle Israel Shamir or should I? Tomertalk 00:13, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Done. BDAbramson T 00:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
    • urg. no. look at the formatting. the section titles at the very least completely disregard the MoS. I'm done with the dabbings, so I'm gonna go futz with it for a while... Tomertalk 00:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Oh, I thought you just meant the disambig. Wasn't there some question about whether this guy was even really Jewish? BDAbramson T 01:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
        • Yeah. The article's a mess. I'm fixing it slowly but surely, between doing other things here... I should be done by tomorrow :-p Tomertalk 04:21, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Your MoS:DP remark

I am not sure what you meant by the comment dropped on my talk page. If you say that I am not following MoS:DP closely, then please provide details, and I will explain or correct. If you are saying that my following MoS:DP harms Wikipedia, then please take your ideas to that manual's talk page, and join that lively discussion. Chris the speller 05:44, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I understand wanting to surf, (they can use the "random article" link, as I often do), but there are some horribly cluttered disambig pages out there. It leads to the problem of having information in the disambig page that is not in the article, or not scrutinized and updated when better sources are found. Minimalism helps to quickly guide a reader to the full article, and is not meant to amuse them along the way (except for ship disambig pages, and I have learned to avoid those). Please bring up your ideas on the talk page of MoS:DP, which I watch, and where others can also discuss them. Chris the speller 06:06, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Rollback priveleges

Please see my entry, and support me if possible!--TheDoctor10 (talk|email) 18:07, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I assumed that, it being there and people having "subscribed to it", meant that it was active. Pardon me--TheDoctor10 (talk|email) 18:13, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks!
Thanks!

Thank you for putting this list together; it's just what our project needs. Kirill Lokshin 15:23, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Category renaming

I'm wondering if you are aware that you don't need to manually recatagorize all the articles when a category gets renamed a CfD. You just have to add {{categoryredirect}} and wait an hour or so, and they all get moved with a bot. Since you are an admin, the bot will work. Be carefull to spell it exacty as I have. For some strange quirky reason, it doesn't work with the correct name of the template. -- Samuel Wantman 01:25, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

  • But I enjoy manually recategorizing - I find it relaxes me. BDAbramson T 01:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is much more relaxing than trying to calm a revert war. You can make a ritual out of the entire rename process which is also relaxing. Rick Block outlined the entire process on my talk page if you are interested. -- Samuel Wantman 06:52, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Single anon edits

The sample I tried appeared to be votes, and the article was now in existence when it said Keep, and gone when it said delete. Perhaps in the blessed days of 2004, AfD's were decided on single votes. Can you provide evidence for what you say? Were you there? Septentrionalis 16:25, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I have working through these to help out, but I use several computers and keep my place by the blocks and numbering. Is there any reason to re-organize them back into blocks of 100 beside that it looks nicer? I think everyone understands that it was put into blocks of 100 at the database dump and they will be removed as they are fixed leaving less than 100. If there is another reason to do this I will understand, but otherwise could we keep the orinal block even when they drop under 100.--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 19:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

  • I do it to keep track of the total number finished, in order to update progress on the front page. But I can just as well leave it sit for a while, so I shall do that. Glad to see you're working through it, btw! BDAbramson T 19:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

opinion sought

This edit was recently described as "dodgy". I disagree, in that it: A) avoids an ambigous/errantly redirecting link to hip hop culture. B) doesn't change the perceived or intended message of the comment. C) reduces the total number of ambiguous/errant links to [[hip hop]] (intentionally not linked to btw), reducing the clutter at "Whatlinkshere" and to make mistaken links in articles easier to spot and correct. Your thoughts on this would be welcome. — FREAK OF NURxTURE (TALK) 06:47, Jan. 21, 2006

Disambigs

Hi, remember me? We talked about disambigs about a year ago. I was just wondering what's going on with British. There are 100s of links again (hardly suprising) but it is not mentioned on Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links. Any thoughts? Has a decision been made to ignore it, did someone just miss it? Best regards Mark83 17:24, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

You know what, I'm being stupid, I've just answered my own question. It isn't a disambig anymore! Mark83 17:26, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

...has been updated. -- Beland 08:50, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Edit summary

Hi. I've recently found a number of edit summaries on my watchlist starting with "AWB assisted ...".

Starting your edit summary with a link promoting some software makes it slower for me to scan my watchlist. It's also frustrating because I can't even run Windows software on my computer, so it feels a bit like you are spamming my watchlist (no offence intended). Would you mind setting your AWB software so that it doesn't add the promotional link to the edit summary, or at least so it puts it at the end, like "... using AWB"?

If you don't mind, would you also leave a note for the developers whether you agree with me or not, at talk:AutoWikiBrowser? Thanks, Michael Z. 2006-02-20 05:34 Z

Template:Unsigned

I noticed that on Image talk:Global spread of H5N1 map.PNG you removed Template:Unsigned and replaced it with the long form. I was wondering why this is being done; in other words I'm a little confused. Thanks. – Zntrip 07:01, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

  • It is my understanding that the inclusion of a template on a page puts a tiny extra bit of strain on the Wikipedia servers (see WP:SUBST#Reasons to substitute) - generally not much to complain of, but this particular template is used on over 6,000 pages, so that load seems unnecessary. BDAbramson T 13:37, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. – Zntrip 00:00, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Subst'ing unsigned template

Do you know of a good reason to subst {{unsigned}}? I've moved it to the "disputed" section, because subst'ing it just causes unnecessary clutter in my eyes. — Omegatron 07:08, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

  • It is my understanding that the inclusion of a template on a page puts a tiny extra bit of strain on the Wikipedia servers (see WP:SUBST#Reasons to substitute) - generally not much to complain of, but this particular template is used on over 6,000 pages, so that load seems unnecessary. BDAbramson T 13:38, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Is that the only reason? Subst'ing templates like that clutters up the wikitext and makes it a lot more difficult to read, especially for the less-technically-inclined. It also removes the updatability of templates, which is important for things with complex HTML that might need to be tweaked to fix problems, etc.
Lead developer Brion VIBBER has said that he sees no evidence of a template-related server load problem, and that we shouldn't worry about server load and templates at a policy level. I'd say the systemic bias cost of substituting these templates is significantly worse than anything it solves. — Omegatron 15:11, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
I had not noticed that Brion VIBBER had weighed in on it. I do not think the concern about possible changes to the template is valid, as we probably want an "unsigned" notice to stay the same after it is posted, and not change if the template is changed; however, if the server load problem is not a problem, I'll put my time to better uses. Cheers! BDAbramson T 15:16, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, it's been changed 37 times since it was first created. I don't think it too outlandish that it might want to be changed in the future, too. :-)
Are those changes important enough to propagate to each time it is used? Maybe, maybe not... With substitution, we have no choice. — Omegatron 15:21, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
The point may be moot - I note that someone has set a bot to the task! BDAbramson T 15:24, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
*Sigh* — Omegatron 15:32, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
That bot has now stopped subst'ing unsigned until we reach a consensus as to if it should be done or not. I think WP:SUBST would be a good place to discuss it. I will however subst welcome which is clearly on the subst list. Tawker 04:08, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Userfication

Well thanks for starting the policy page for that. I had made it a redirect since I couldn't find anything on the topic except in Wikipedia:Jargon but everyone seemed to aware and talking of it. One of the articles I listed for undeletion (List of software companies) was userfied. I don't know why it was userfied and where to look for it now. Jay 18:31, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

The reason for that particular userfication was made clear during the deletion review debate, and I gave a link at that time to User:Jay/List of software companies. This link is also available from the page history view which is available to you as an admin. -Splashtalk 18:36, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
After I click on the userfied link, what next. Where do I get the contents of the original page from ? From the history ? Also whats the point in userfying a page that is supposed to be in the article namespace ? How will someone get to know that the deleted page is now userifed? Jay 18:52, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Presumably, if it's been userfied, then it didn't belong in the article namespace. The only one who needs to know that is the original author, who is supposed to be informed. BDAbramson T 18:58, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, all the previous revisions are in the history. I didn't revert when I moved it to your userspace just because I figure that the state of user subpage is for the user to decide themselves. The article was deleted from the article namespace, and the deletion review was happy enough with the userfication instead. You said were going to make a category out of it, I think. -Splashtalk 19:06, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Special:Statistics

Special:Statistics has a typo in it saying "of which 829(or 0.08%) belong to administators", when it should say "of which 829(or 0.08%) are administators"

Prodego talk 22:26, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmmmm... well, to the extent that one can claim ownership of an account, the accounts do "belong to" administrators. BDAbramson T 23:01, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
You are right, I didn't notice the word "accounts". Sorry, Prodego talk 00:01, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
No problem! :-) BDAbramson T 00:32, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Page for deletion

Revolution within the form is up for deletion. Can I ask for a vote to "Transwiki". Thanks.WHEELER 23:48, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, thank you very much. Sheesh. Just you wait until they do the same to Abramson. Ah, crap. --Deathphoenix 04:07, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

thanks for doing the thankless cleanup. i understand you're doing what needs to be done for the vast majority of cases, but the east sea situation was in a temporarily awkward state for a reason.

at mediation is the content of the East Sea page: whether East Sea should redirect to Sea of Japan, in which case East Sea (disambiguation) would list the various other uses, or whether East Sea itself should be a disambiguation page. (analogous to CD, which redirects to Compact disc, & Compact disc hatnotes to CD (disambiguation).) you implemented the second alternative, although i know you didn't mean to prejudice the mediation.

we just don't need any more diversions in the already messy mediation, so it would help if you either undid the merger, with the assurance that the mediation will resolve the problem one way or the other, or clearly explain that your action was completely unrelated to the issue being mediated, keeping in mind we have some mediation participants whose native language is not english.

thanks for your understanding. Appleby 00:32, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

thanks for the clarification, but i don't know if your last comment based on your personal knowledge helped the process, considering these citations User:Appleby/Sea#Sources. please, help us resolve the mediation fairly by not commenting on the disputed issue, or basing your comments on references, not personal knowledge. thanks again. Appleby 00:44, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

there is no doubt that you came to this issue with good faith intent to do some necessary clean-up unrelated to the mediation.

however, as long as you want to take a position on the mediation page, the issue is not whether to call the sea "sea of japan" or "east sea," (the participants already agree that it is properly called the "sea of japan"), but the current primary english use of "east sea." the applicable rule is not trademark law, but wikipedia policies and practices. WP:NPOV, in relevant part:

"If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts; If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents; If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not."

here, it is easy to substantiate the majority view with reference to commonly accepted reference texts. the references below the most current, most prominent english dictionaries and encyclopedias, and while i do not object to having a dab page with non-primary uses, no commonly accepted reference text lists any other use of "east sea":

  • Encyclopedia Britannica: East Sea: see Japan, Sea of [1]
  • Encarta: East Sea: Japan, Sea of, [2]; Encarta Dictionary: East Sea: see Japan, Sea of [3]
  • Columbia Encyclopedia: Japan, Sea of, or East Sea [4] [5]; East Sea: See Japan, Sea of [6] [7]
  • American Heritage Dictionary: Japan, Sea of (East Sea) [8]; East Sea: See Sea of Japan [9]

in cases of a clear primary use, wikipedia practice is to redirect to the primary use, and hatnote to a disambiguation page for other uses. [10] Appleby 17:23, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes sir boss! No problem!

Glad you like the job I did there.(just don't take this opportunity to 'award' more jobs);-)

Prodego talk 13:36, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

By the way, like my new userpage? I designed it myself :-) No more stolen(from CoolCat) design. I still have to do the talk page, although I'm not sure how I'll do that yet.... Prodego talk 20:07, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

More about East Sea

I think it would be good if you can put your two cents into it. See User:MyNameIsNotBob/East_Sea. Thanks. --Nlu (talk) 17:31, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Hola! right back at yah :-)

Sure, sounds like a Category worth joining. There's so much so-so legal info on wikipedia that it would take an army of us to fix it up... maybe we can eventually put companies like Emannuel out of business, eh? ---- Bobak 01:20, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


You know the community is probably going to delete this cat (or at least take out all the articles that are not actual Seagal films or the like). BDAbramson T 18:57, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

the community will then have to delete all of the categories in Category:Categories_by_person. such as the categories Category:Hilary Duff, Category:Bing Crosby, Category:Michael Jackson, etc. --Ghetteaux 19:00, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
There's an argument for that - more likely they'll strip it from most of the articles (I see someone removed it from groin attack already). BDAbramson T 19:05, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
hey, if those philisteenz can't grasp the conexxion, i can't help them. --Ghetteaux 19:07, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Uh oh, is someone using Category:Steven Seagal as the catchall for the deleted and salted Category:Seagaliana? Seeing as thats blue, I'm afraid the salting didn't take. --Syrthiss 19:15, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Wasn't the problem with Category:Seagaliana the unusual name? As Ghetteaux points out, there are many cats on persons. BDAbramson T 19:19, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
It was deleted through CFD. I killed it again. --GraemeL (talk) 19:20, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
No, its that it included his movies... Ti Kwan Do... Ponytail... Kitchen sink. Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_January_8#Category:Seagaliana. =D --Syrthiss 19:22, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
I throw my hands up and eschew involvement in this one. BDAbramson T 19:26, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
The lure of Seagaliana has wrecked many a life, I've heard. --Syrthiss 19:32, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

bypassing redirects

I've just noticed some (or many) bypassing of redirects using AWB. Were you aware that after discussion in several places that the consensus was not to bypass redirects? Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links):

Links should use the most precise target that arises in the context, even where that is merely a simple redirect to a less specific page title. Don't use a piped link to avoid otherwise legitimate redirect targets that fit well within the scope of the text. ...

Automated processes should not replace or pipe links to redirects. Instead, the link should always be examined in context. (For more information, see Wikipedia:Disambiguation, Wikipedia:Redirect#Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken, and Wikipedia:Redirects with possibilities.)

--William Allen Simpson 13:50, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Egad, but I've almost finished! Oh well. BDAbramson T 13:52, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, being a fool for consistency, I suppose it's better to finish.... "Don't fix links to redirects" was only finalized in January after a couple of months of discussion, but Redirects with possibilities has been around a long time!

--William Allen Simpson 15:10, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

HeHe

That was my feeling, especially since it was semiautomated. Wonder where they saw me thought ;D. 68.39.174.238 05:54, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

SCOTUS case boxes

BD, these Supreme Court case boxes seem exceedingly user unfriendly. For example, the citations, prior history, subsequent history, and laws applied sections of Roe are proper legal citation, but it takes a moment for those of us unfamiliar with Roman numerals to realize the last section is referencing nothing less than Amend. 14! Any thoughts? Can I at least start writing "Fourteenth Amendment in these boxes as I do case pages? Also, do you know of any current SCOTUS project pages? Skyler's doesn't seem to be current. Thanks for your help and all your tireless work on wikipedia. --Kchase02 06:33, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

SCOTUS infobox

Yet another suggestion has been made to replace the standard case infobox with an uglier and inferior one. I'd appreciate it if you could drop a comment at the Wikiproject talk page. BTW, if you're in need of a task, I know the bar is a thing of the past, but writing Jones v. Flowers made me aware that there is no article on the right to redeem foreclosed property prior to or immediately after seizure and resale. The redemption disambiguation page contains nothing relevant. Cheers, Postdlf 20:13, 13 May 2006 (UTC)