User talk:Dycedarg/Archive 2

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Apologies

My apologies I didn't mean to vandalize the page, all I wanted was to delete the whole entry. It seems I was naive and I cannot do it, so be it —Preceding unsigned comment added by Caca222 (talk • contribs) 22:56, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Some more help needed

For some reason my MiszaBot isn't archiving, and I don't know why. Any help? Grsz 11 01:21, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Got it...Thanks! Grsz 11 03:19, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

about recent changes

Sorry, but the article "grey wolves" is certainly not objective and this claims' references are not scientific evidences! There is no agreement between Turkey and Armenia and this claims can not stay here! Beside, GreyWolves are not racist but there are many accusations about them! I'm in this organization too and we do many beneficial things. Like educational supporting, charity... An encyclopedia have to be objective and the information in it must be proved! Can not be proved with claims! Yes I see, u r Christian and Armenians too:/ Surely this encyclopedia will not objective and will be from their side... :PPPPPPPP terrible terrible:/ Xianbataar (talk) 01:36, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

...

thanks. Xianbataar (talk) 01:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

good job

The RickK Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
I give you this barn star because you keep beating me to reverts, and I use huggle... oh you do to.

Curse you wireless internet Pewwer42  Talk  04:04, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

no,I don't find it frustrating, more funny then anything else, I was about to go off my self so I could play a game , good job though--Pewwer42  Talk  04:22, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

YO

i think your being bias and are just a fan of him that's why u dont want the infomation to get out —Preceding unsigned comment added by DZXM (talk • contribs) 04:06, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

What's normal ?

Thanks for your reply here[1]. I hope you don't mind a couple more newbie questions... (1) What is the normal response time for bot requests? There have been no replies so far and I am curious how long I should wait before considering that my request may have become lost in space? (2) Was my approximate logic description a mistake? I was trying to be helpful but perhaps it scared off potential assistance? -- Low Sea (talk) 09:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Should vs. must

I'll note that "should" use a distinct bot account is not the same as "must" use a distinct bot account. We can all use our brain and not go crazy, especially on existing bots. But it's good practice nevertheless when things go haywire. — Coren (talk) 02:08, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

It's as random IP attack

Standard warnings are pointless. Revert, report and ignore. HalfShadow (talk) 03:53, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't even bother reporting; I'll block them for three months. Past experience has taught me that they attack every week. -Jéské (v^_^v X of Swords) 04:02, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry

Sorry about the Brooke White thing. It was an impulse, y'know? 24.1.203.229 (talk) 02:27, 10 April 2008 (UTC).

Thank you

Thank you so much. 1300 images without licensing tag at all is a fun start. =/ -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:45, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

What we really need is someone to go and clean out Special:UncategorizedImages regularly. If nothing else, get it into a category or some other format to deal with. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:31, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Maintenance of WP:GL/IMPROVE

Hi. I saw that you bot is in charge of archiving the graphics lab pages. I was wondering if you could consider helping out with the same (or instructing others in how to do it) for the Commons:Graphic Lab School/Images to improve. /Lokal_Profil 11:20, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't go to Commons all that often, so I would be reluctant to run a bot there seeing as I could go weeks without seeing any bug reports or other kinds of feedback about the bot. However, I could quite easily adjust my existing code and instruct whoever wishes to run it in its usage, as well as maintain it for you in the event of problems. However, as it is written in Python whoever wants to run it would need to download Python (which is available for pretty much any operating system you can imagine) and the Python Wikipediabot framework, the download of which requires a subversion client (I recommend TortoiseSVN if you have Windows but you can use any client you want). So anyway, anyone who is willing to install all of that could be instructed in the usage of my code in very short order; I would make it easily adjustable so you wouldn't have to come running to me every time you want to change the length of time before archiving of done and not done requests etc.--Dycedarg ж 20:15, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Got the Pywikipediabot framework installed on my system already so that wouldn't be a problem. Is it ok if I get back to you again in a few weeks when I have more time? /Lokal_Profil 19:41, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Most certainly. I'll make the necessary modifications to the code in the mean time; just leave me a note when you're ready for me to send it to you (which I'll do via e-mail attachment).--Dycedarg ж 19:56, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Bot/AWB

Dycedarg, I saw your signature on the Bot Request page, and I have a question. I've been working on many Isaac Asimov related articles, and several have been renamed, including some that have many, many pages linking to them. Most of those name changes have been minor fixes per WP:NC. I know that it is usually policy to leave redirects as they are, but a) I'm afraid that there may be multiple double-redirects due to multiple name changes, and b) ...well, I guess I'm a little anal-retentive (working on being more laid back). So, my question(s) is: 1) Is there really a need for me to request a bot? 2) I'd do it myself, but I don't have AWB--I'm a Mac user, and despite asking the question several times, I've never been told if there is an equivalent for Macs: is there?

Thanks ahead of time for your help. —ScouterSig 04:51, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

For reasons of efficiency and best use of resources, it is indeed customary to leave redirects as they are, especially if they're only minor changes. Of course, double redirects do need to be fixed. It's best whenever you move a page or when you see someone else who's less than experienced move a page, to check for double redirect by going to the What links here for the move-created redirect and see if any of those pages are redirects themselves, and fix them to point to the target of the latest move if they are. I tend to be somewhat anal myself, so I know how annoying little things like that can be, but it's really best to leave links pointing to redirects as they are. Of course, if you're making an edit anyway, feel free to fix them; the only issue is that making an edit solely to bypass a redirect and especially doing so on a large scale is a waste of resources. So no, don't bother making a bot request as it would be rejected. As far as a Mac equivalent for AWB; I do not know of any. I've heard people make off-hand references to programs that could possibly be used to make AWB work on a Mac, but I know little of such things as I solely use Windows and Linux (and have never tried to make it work on Linux). If you can't make that work, it is possible (with a little programming knowledge) to duplicate anything AWB can do with the Python Wikipediabot, and the other bot frameworks.--Dycedarg ж 07:04, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Your Bot...

That visits people's personal pages and "fixes" their user boxes doesn't seem to be working properly. I don't know enough about such things to tell you what it is doing wrong, just that it tried to "migrate" something and all it left on my page was the code it tried to install leaving me to go put the user box back in place with the information that your bot tried to use. So it was helpful in showing me where to go to fix the problem that it created by trying to fix the problem, but unhelpful in actually just fixing the problem without needing my human consciousness and fingers/typing skills as an auxiliary tool. I welcome our robot overlords (if they are listening) but as a leftist, I am unwilling to start turning over my life time to them just yet. Ciao. Saudade7 03:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I see that...hmm. Thanks for the fast reply. Saudade7 04:11, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

{{MSNav}} fixed.

Hi Dycedarg. I fixed the /doc page problem with {{MSNav}} for you. The problem was that it transcluded WAY to many other templates. MediaWiki has a limit how much RAM such handling may take up. I have only heard about it before and expected it to give some nice error message, but apparently it doesn't. I removed two of the examples from the /doc page thus reducing the transclusion a lot. And made the page load MUCH faster. That template is scary, have they never heard about people reading Wikipedia via modem connections?

--David Göthberg (talk) 00:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I really don't like it when things break for no obvious reason without an error message, I wish they'd add one for that. And I agree with you about that template; it's a good enough idea in theory but it is rather unwieldy, especially I would imagine for modem users.--Dycedarg ж 01:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Re:Replacing HTML with templates

Thanks, I'll get you a list of examples at some point. If not tomorrow, it may take a while before I have some more time.-- SkyLined (talk) 18:47, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Here's an example of a manual edit I did on the kilogram page. The following changes should be easy to automate:

{{delimitnum|value|significance|exponent|unit}}  →  {{val|value|(significance)|e=exponent|u=unit}}
In the above example, significance, exponent and unit are all optional, if they are not there, they should not end up in the {{val}} replacement (eg. {{delimitnum|1|||kg}} should be replaced with {{val|1|u=kg}} and not with {{val|1|()|e=|u=kg}}).
value unit  →  {{val|value|u=unit}}
value [[Link to unit|unit]]  →  {{val|value|u=unit}}
In the above two examples, it is quite common to see   instead of a normal space as in 1 kg.
value unit1/unit2  →  {{val|value|u=unit1|up=unit2}}
value%  →  {{val|value|f=%}}

All these should be preceded by whitespace and followed by whitespace, a dot or a comma.

Where the following regular expressions apply:

  • integer = [+-]?([0-9]+|[0-9]{1-3}(,[0-9]{3})+)
  • decimals = ([0-9]+|([0-9]{3})+(\s| | )[0-9]{2-4})
  • value = integer(.decimals)?
  • significance = integer
  • exponent = integer
  • unit = kg, MB, °C, mm, etc... (I full list can be found at {{val/units}})

Length issues: The total length of ANY number should not be more than 9 digits (excluding sign and decimal dot) because of precision issues: {{val}} uses arithmetic functions, which have a very finite precission on wikipedia; if a number requires more precision, it will not display correctly. Please ignore any such large numbers until a fix or work-around for this can be found.

Have a look and let me know what you think. We should probably try something simple first or start on a copy of a page to test. I'll be slow to respond the upcoming 5-6 weeks, so no rush. -- SkyLined (talk) 14:51, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Working on this...--Dycedarg ж 21:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Sysop argument

I guess this is the right place to respond. If you want to carry on here, or there, then let me know.

I'm the first to admit that the parallel between inactive admins and employees is not valid, I did so in my response on that page (if not to you, then on my 'vote'). You are perfectly correct in saying that the revocation of rights on a network for a company comes from the removal of some authority. That, in a sense, is where the moral authority to do that comes from. The company is allowed to do it (assuming it wasn't in a contract already) because the contract of employment constitutes an authority to use company resources and represent the company. However, and I see this as important, the authority to do that is not the same thing as the reason for doing it. A company removes access to the corporate network for utilitarian reasons--for them it is obviously more damaging to have past employees able to access current information. the rationale and the reasons aren't the same thing. So to me while the rationale (lapsed authority) doesn't have a perfect parallel on wikipedia, the cost-benefit argument does.

As for your second point, again, you are totally correct. An active admin represents a security risk, PEBKAC holds in all walks of life. Here again, I'm not making the precise point that an inactive admin is more of a security threat (from a password loss standpoint), even though I probably overstated that claim on the page. My point is that an inactive admin can't police their own activity. They can't perform a gut check. they can't check recent contributions (or hell, check to see if their password changed). The time that account is compromised is longer for inactive accounts rather than active accounts. For a very clever vandal, that time may be indefinite. And here I feel that there is a subtlety that is hard for me to convey. There are some security risks that we cannot mitigate, ever. They exist in any system. There are some security risks that we can mitigate, but at some punishment for the users (strong password requirements, password change requirements, separate tokens for authentication, etc). wikipedia is a working example of compromises in security, and the apparatus required to work with them (anon editing). I think that a good portion of these security problems cannot be solved without tradeoffs--that's why I wouldn't submit a proposal to revamp the password system. But I think there ARE proposals that don't have major tradeoffs but do present gains (however small). this is one such idea.

For the last point, I don't actually see it as some HUGE current problem. It isn't. If I did you would be right to declare it paranoid. I see a few things. First, if it IS a problem at all, it will never grow smaller. Assuming there is no sunset provision for admin accounts, the number of inactive accounts will only grow larger over time. We have ~990 admin accounts by your reckoning, so let's assume that 10 are inactive. How many will be inactive in 5 years? 10? Second, I DO think that the number of possible targets increases the likelihood of attack. Potential targets may be tried simultaneously (especially for a brute force approach). rolling the dice for one user's security practice is a lot less fruitful than sampling 50 users .

I'm not saying that you are wrong. I'm also not saying that there aren't non-security drawbacks to the proposal. I'm just trying to explain what I feel are the security issues, however hypothetical. It's probably a little paranoid. Most security professionals (I'm not one) are a little paranoid, at least in the eyes of others. But honestly, everyone who has a niche job looks like a fanatic from the outside. How would you explain the vigor with which we are discussion this totally arcane and moot issue? I would have trouble explaining this to friends.  :) Protonk (talk) 23:20, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Happy First Day of Spring!

Happy First Day of Spring!

New Project

Myself and several other editors have been compiling a list of very active editors who would likely be available to help new editors in the event they have questions or concerns. As the list grew and the table became more detailed, it was determined that the best way to complete the table was to ask each potential candidate to fill in their own information, if they so desire. This list is sorted geographically in order to provide a better estimate as to whether the listed editor is likely to be active.

If you consider yourself a very active Wikipedian who is willing to help newcomers, please either complete your information in the table or add your entry. If you do not want to be on the list, either remove your name or just disregard this message and your entry will be removed within 48 hours. The table can be found at User:Useight/Highly Active, as it has yet to have been moved into the Wikipedia namespace. Thank you for your help. Useight (talk) 02:39, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Redlink removal

Hi. I saw you assisted Ricky81682 at WP:BOTREQ. Could you perform your magic at User:Rettetast/Category:Publicity photographs and subpages? Rettetast (talk) 18:01, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Another message on this same note. Are you doing it manually or with a program / bot. I could do with some source / program that removes all blue links from a page for a clerk bot for something. Anyway if you can help / know of a program then thanks. If you do it manually then oh well =] . ·Add§hore· Talk/Cont 19:49, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes this suits it perfectly. It would be great if you could send this to me :). ·Add§hore· Talk/Cont 06:46, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Rettetast (talk) 10:34, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:HAU

Hello again. The Highly Active Users project has gone through a complete revamping per popular demand. We believe this new format will make it easier for new editors to find assistance. However, with the new format, I must again ask you to verify your information on this page. I attempted to translate the data from the old version to the new, but with the extensive changes, I may have made some errors. Thanks again. Useight (talk) 04:13, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Your bott blew it...

Here. The problem was with the military bases one: It archived the top section, but not the underlying sections. Can this be fixed so subsections are archived with the entire thing, and comments under them be counted towards the entire "staleness" of the topic? Thanx, 68.39.174.238 (talk) 17:49, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, so long as you know about it. 68.39.174.238 (talk) 21:03, 21 May 2008 (UTC)