User talk:Mr. Stradivarius/Archive 15

This is an archive of past discussions with User:Mr. Stradivarius. 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.

Archive 10

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Archive 13

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Thanks...

...for your congratulations, and for considering me of course. I will wear the 'shirt' with pride! Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 22:02, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Binding-ness of the Jerusalem RfC

Please see this thread. Basically, does the three-year binding power of this RfC affect every word of the draft chosen, and could this be a unwanted incentive for shorter drafts? -- Ypnypn (talk) 20:28, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

(barnstar archived)

I also appreciate the treatment you gave the userbox at User:West.andrew.g/STiki UserBox 8. Would you mind doing the same for its sibling User:West.andrew.g/STiki UserBox 9? Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 22:16, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much! I've given UserBox 9 the once-over as requested as well. Let me know if you have any more requests like this - they are quite a fun break from the more complex modules like Module:Infobox. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 11:47, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Requesting page moves for DABs

Hi.

I had question I was hoping you can help me with. I read WP:MOVE but it only made me confused. I held an RfC in Talk:Flare (pyrotechnic)#RfC: Is this article the primary topic of "flare"? and the result of the RfC is a consensus that "Flare (pyrotechnic)" is the primary topic of "flare". How can I request an admin to make appropriate renames? There does not seem to be a request template for this specific case.

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 07:58, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi CL. :) The discussion got quite a few opposes, so I will let a completely uninvolved admin close it rather than do it myself. If I did it, some of the commenters over there might think that I was favouring your opinion over others' because we are wiki-friends. There actually is a request template for this situation - you need to put {{db-move}} on Flare (disambiguation) and include a link to the discussion in your reason. If for whatever reason the patrolling admin turns the request down, you can always list it at WP:ANRFC to get the discussion closed more formally. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 11:26, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks a bunch, MS. :) The tricky part was the place to put the db-move. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 22:16, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

deletion

Is it possible to delete my '(187.12.26.206 (talk) 15:55, 12 June 2013 (UTC))' log of all past activities and talk page? I have been using this computer which is an shared IP but now it is necessary to move on and create a registered account - autoconfirmed. Or, if is there another way around, is it possible to migrate the log of edits to an registered account? Another reason I'm asking this is that there is a problem with server cookies on this computer, which is administered by the Kurupira FireWall and it messes around wikipedia, for instance, it didnt refresh the edits on my talk page so I have to purge wikipedia's server everytime to end up making disruptive edits. I really appreciate your concern to answer these requests. Thanks again. 187.12.26.206 (talk) 15:55, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi there 187.12. :) Sorry, but it isn't technically possible to delete your contribution history, or to migrate it to a named account. Also, we don't delete user talk pages either per our user page policy. Before you start trying to get autoconfirmed, though, you should know that the only reason that I protected pages like this one and this one is so that you wouldn't create them with badly-formatted edit requests. There is no need to make edit requests on those pages - edit requests are only for pages protected with full protection. Please read our guidance on making protected edit requests, and let me know if you have any questions about it. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 00:20, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

WP:CENT

Just giving you a heads-up that I de-listed your binding RFC on the Jereusalem lead from the CENT template, because I saw it as a clear-cut content dispute. Tazerdadog (talk) 21:31, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Do you think I should report this to ANI?

Hi.

I just posted this message to User:Rezonansowy. But given the magnitude of the issue, do you think I should notify ANI?

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 00:38, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi CL. I wouldn't take it to ANI just yet, as Rezonansowy hasn't continued the edits after you left them the note. It looks like a simple misunderstanding to me, so education is the way to deal with it, rather than sanctions. If they continue to make these kinds of edits after another warning, though, then it's probably time to take it to ANI. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:52, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Hello, MS. Thanks. I'll try to get a damage assessment and mop things up.

There is one thing that always wanted to know and eventually never discovered: I've read the ANI's fine-print and the noticeboard page; they say ANI is not a place for reporting edit dispute, vandalism, disruptive editing, edit warring, sock-puppetry, uncivil conduct, long-term abuse, username issues, spamming and oversight request. So, why is it that every time I say "ANI", admins think "sanction", "block", "ban", etc.? I thought it is a place of soliciting the aid of an admin or veteran on such issues as a complex inter-wiki issue.

Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 04:58, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually, ANI is a place for reporting all of those things (with the exception of oversight requests and, usually, edit disputes). It's just better to report simple cases to the other, more specialised boards. I think the real answer to your question is simply that most editors making a report at ANI are looking for a ban or a block, and because most discussions at ANI are asking for bans or blocks, people automatically assume that that's what you are looking for if you start a new thread there. You do sometimes see reports at ANI where the reporter isn't looking for a ban or a block, but they are relatively rare, and the reporter will often explicitly say that they are not looking for a ban or a block. If you just want advice from admins, rather than a definite action, probably WP:AN would be more suitable. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:44, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Maria tracy hollister

HELLO JUST WONDERING WHY U DELETED THE PAGE MARIA TRACY HOLLISTER IM JUST TRYING TO GET IT TO HER AS HER GRANDFATHER IS IN HOSPITAL AND WILL NOT BE COMING HOME WHY WOULD YOU DELETE SOMETHING LIKE THAT DO YOU HAVE NO HEART OR FAMILY

Hi there. Wikipedia isn't the place for missing persons reports - we only take articles about notable people. You'll have to find another venue for your post, I'm afraid. If you're interested, there's a long list of what Wikipedia is not, which should give you a better idea of what it is. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:10, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Semi at Talk:Gold standard

I've semiprotected the talk page for one month, per the continuing activity of IPs from the 71.* range, who I think are all the same person. This is a case of long-term disruption in my opinion, since the person behind these IPs is supremely confident in their views, but nobody else ever agrees with them. The person was previously blocked for a month in January, 2012. I've noticed that you've indefinitely semiprotected the Gold standard article itself, which seems appropriate. Feel free to revise my talk page protection if you think it is not needed. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 19:18, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

No, that seems like a good idea to me. Thanks for keeping an eye on the situation there. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 21:40, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Deleting of page Igor Krajchev

Can you tell me why page Igor Krajchev is deleted? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.158.180.249 (talk) 20:22, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi there. According to the deletion log, it was first deleted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Igor Krajcev back in 2009, was recreated some time after that, and was deleted again in August 2012. The second time, it was deleted for both not making a credible claim of importance about Mr. Krajchev, and for being a recreation of an article deleted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. If you want to hear a more detailed reason, you should ask Anthony Bradbury, the administrator who deleted the latest version of the article. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 04:48, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

(barnstar archived - text was about my promise to rewrite Template:WPBannerMeta in Lua)

Haha, you should save the praise for when I actually finish it! But thank you. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:40, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

You'll get it I'm sure. I wish I knew how to do these and could help but with the implementation of Lua it puts me out of the template modfication business because that is significantly outside my skill set. Kumioko (talk) 13:46, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

It's not that hard - I only started learning Lua in April, and I didn't know any other languages apart from template coding. And once you know the basics, the code is a lot easier to read than template code. I can help you get started if you want. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:55, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

I might take you up on that a little later. I don't want to use up too much of your time right now. I have so many people gunning for me I expect to be blocked or banned by the end of the summer. Besides I think the Module namespace is all restricted to admins anyway so I wouldn't be able to do anything anyway. :-)Kumioko (talk) 14:05, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Hm? It's just the same as the template namespace - the heavily used modules are protected, but the others usually aren't, and anyone can create a sandbox for a heavily-used module and make an edit request. And you don't have to be an admin to create a module. Go ahead and create your own sandbox, and experiment by adapting the example modules. And if you don't understand anything, let me know - there are many things that we need to document better at Wikipedia:Lua, so your input as an experienced template coder beginning Lua will be very valuable. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:16, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, good to know. See I learned something about modules and Lua already. :-) I'll take a look at it. Kumioko (talk) 14:27, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Redo for Swiss/Nepal/Vatican flags

The 3 default flag sizes did not set, because empty parameter "size=" cleared the default values, so they need to use #if:{{{size|}}} instead. See new sub-thread there:

Template_talk:Flag#Default_sizes_must_use_#if_to_work

The alignment of labels looks fine now, so only the "|size=..." needs to be redone in those 3 {country_data...} templates. Thanks. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:31, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Deleted page

Hello! I had a page in wikipedia that is expired on 23 November of 2012 10:38 now I want o write something new about ourselves in the page but how can we reactive it again? I want it to be undeleted and your helpers said that YOU were aour admin ! shall we create a new page or not? what should I do? thanks waiting for you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.177.53.61 (talk) 08:28, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi there. What's the title of the page? You need to give me a few more clues than just "I had a page". :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 08:43, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

HI

I made a page on wikipedia that has expired now I want it to be reactive again ! what should I do now? the page was expired at 10:38, 23 November 2012! will you plz help me? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.177.53.61 (talk)

http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Armangarayan

this page has been deleted wants to be undeleted and make an article on it — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.177.53.61 (talk) 08:48, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the title. I had a look at the old article, and I can't restore it because it was written purely like an advertisement. (We don't allow advertisements on Wikipedia.) Also, it wasn't written in English, so it probably won't be helpful to you anyway. Instead, you can simply create a new article. Have a look at the essay "your first article" for more information on creating articles. Best regards — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 08:57, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Jerusalem RfC

Hi. I lost track of this but just noticed that the RfC has closed. Is it time for the closers to read and conclude? --regentspark (comment) 14:50, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's right. Sorry, I probably should have left you a note or something... I'll go and let Keilana and Pgallert know now. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 21:56, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Could you pop over and give your opinion

Hi, a new user (Randomuser112) and I had an... altercation at The Dark Knight talk page and I was wondering if you'd mind popping over to his talk page where I've outlined a summary of what I'm trying to get across. I'm not interested in fighting my corner in the requested move, I'm happy to let that run its course, and have disengaged. I'm more after an uninvolved editor with more influence than myself reviewing his behaviour there and giving him a helping hand in understanding what he needs to do to mature. In my opinion, his behaviour (his replies, as well as his deletion of another user's comment that questioned him) demonstrates a lack of knowledge of the guidelines, and that can be understood in a new editor. However, he seems unwilling to take on board any suggestions I make (I am after all, his self-designated enemy out to "childishly disagree" with him), so I'd be really grateful if you, with your mediation experience, could give him a nudge in the right direction so he can avoid such conflict in the future. Thanks in advance! drewmunn talk 07:48, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi there. :) It seems to me like the best course of action all round would be to simply disengage from the move discussion and wait for an admin to close it. Unlike content disputes that require mediation, there's no need for all parties to reach agreement for this dispute to come to an end. If you just wait, then an admin will give a definite verdict of "moved", "not moved", or "no consensus", and that should put an end to your disagreement. Does that sound like a reasonable way of doing things to you? Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 08:44, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Cheers, I've disengaged from the original dispute now; I just wanted to try and help him as an editor before it gets to the stage where his lack of understanding of Wikipedia's guidelines gets him blocked. drewmunn talk 08:53, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Freerunning article

Hi, just a heads up that user:Feraess and I have a discussion going on the talk:parkour page on whether freerunning should have its own article, if you'd like to pop in. Please note how extensive the article was] at one point, then got paired down over time to a tiny stub, which was then deleted/redirected by user:Izno on Mar 15 2012. (Here's a direct link to the freerunning page history.) Squish7 (talk) 03:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Edit Request

Hello. Please take a look at my edit request on [[1]] Thank you. Daniel the duck (talk) 23:46, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Smile!

Hello Mr. Stradivarius, Eduemoni has given you a shining smiling star! You see, these things promote WikiLove and hopefully this has made your day better. Spread the Shining Smiling Star whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or someone putting up with some stick at this time. Enjoy! Eduemoni ^↑talk↓ 01:08, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Eduemoni! — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:41, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Cheers

Aye, no bother. I know how these people can scatter some seeds on the grass occasionally. doktorb _words^deeds 14:34, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Blanket undoing of edits

I'm slightly confused as to why you are doing a blanket reversion of all edits by ConsciousKipper. One article I have on my watchlist is Suffolk County Council election, 2009, and the edits made to that article were constructive ones. Why do they need reverting? Number 5 7 15:18, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Mr Stradivarius. I did wonder about ConsciousKipper: many of his edits were useful stuff, lots of tidying up things, but they then began to drift more into Sheffno territory. And hello Number 57: ConsciousKipper has been identified as a sockpuppet of a previously banned editor. However, that doesn't mean every edit made as ConsciousKipper is bad. It does mean there is some suspicion over them, I guess. What would be useful is if you can re-revert any of the edits that you think are constructive. Bondegezou (talk) 16:40, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Number 57 and Bondegezou. The idea is to take away the incentive for sockpuppetry. If we explicitly allow the edits of confirmed sockpuppets to stick around, it sends the message that it's fine to ignore our sockpuppetry policy as long as you don't get caught. I'd rather not send this message out to potential sockpuppeteers. However, if either of you want to restore any of ConsciousKipper's edits, you are welcome - here's a convenience link to all the reverts I made. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 22:22, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

AWB

Sure, I'd like to have access. :) --User ⁵⁰ 09:07, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi again, and sorry for the delay in replying. Before I can give you access, can you confirm that you have read the rules at the top of Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage and that you will abide by them? I'll add you to the access list after that. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 12:42, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I've read the rules and I will abide by them. --User ⁵⁰ 11:36, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Feraess's reversions

I'm sorry to bother you with this, but would you mind evaluating my arguments just now that Feraeass has acted quite inappropriately in basing his edits on his upcoming actions without regard for what should be up tentatively? He's repeated continuously that Freerunning should have its own article as opposed to being represented properly within the Parkour article, hence it should be not mentioned in light of his plans to create/restore the FR article. I've sat here for half a day making justification of what I think the article should be so that it's correct indefinitely, and he sits there and reverts on a minute-to-minute basis explaining that his plans will be executed shortly so I need not worry about the article in the meantime. You don't have to agree about whether or not my edits are appropriate, it's the simple intrinsic structure of his actions that's completely inappropriate. It's one thing if he was making arguments that things should be a certain way even tentatively, but the only reason he gives over and over is based on his upcoming change.

Even if I was wrong, it's just a bit ridiculous to war on a minute-to-minute basis if you have the information that you're going to change things very soon. That is, if I disagreed with an editor on a point he had an argument for yet knew I had a solution to the problem I would execute in mere hours (as he says), I would think it absurd to bicker with him for the few hours until my solution was implemented, short of some horrible vandalism that shouldn't be up even for an hour. He just hasn't said until now that he's hours/days away from a solution, hence the only information I had up until today was that he was planning to implement his solution at some time in the future. If I knew he was changing everything today I doubt I'd have bothered to spend all this time posting and defending my edits. His actions are almost obsessive, monitoring the page minute-to-minute and engaging in an edit war for the few hours until he implements his solution.

No worries if you don't have the time to bother with this, or if you disagree with my interpretation. I'm done with this at this point, though I'll read and take into account anything you have to say on the matter. Squish7 (talk) 21:08, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

International Turnkey Systems Group wikipedia page

Muhammad Aljedei 07:54, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[[2]] We are International Turnkey Systems Group page, we need to hide this page from public temporary, can you please provide me with the steps.

Hello Muhammad. What do you mean by "hiding" the page? Do you mean you want the whole page to be deleted, or do you just want to hide some of the page's contents? Also, why do you want to hide it temporarily? We could maybe send the page to Articles for deletion, which would be permanent if it succeeds, but we don't usually delete pages temporarily. Best regards — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 08:33, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Category suppression suggestion

I cannot program in Lua but I see you are working on Module:Category handler. I suggest a Lua function and corresponding new stand-alone template to suppress all categories in {{{1}}}. For example, {{Suppresscat|Foo[[Category:Bar1]][[Category:Bar2|sortkey]]}} would only return Foo. The idea is that {{{1}}} can be a transclusion. This would add a new suppression method to Wikipedia:Category suppression without having to edit templates which don't already have category suppression. The system doesn't have to be 100% accurate. It's acceptable if some categories with weird formatting can be overlooked, or category code in nowiki tags or similar can be removed even though the code wouldn't actually have added a category, or the normal display of {{{1}}} can break in certain circumstances. It would be up to editors to check whether it does as wanted in a given situation. Do you like the idea and can you implement it? PrimeHunter (talk) 23:31, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I like the idea, and it looks possible, but I think it would be tricky to do well. This is one of those ideas which would mean partially reimplementing the parser in Lua, and I have first-hand experience of how much of a pain that can be from my work on Module:Delink (still unfinished). However, it could be made easier by preprocessing the text first, meaning structures like {{{foo|[[Category:Bar]]}}} and [[Category:{{{foo|Bar}}}]]would already be converted to [[Category:Bar]]. Also, there's no need to worry about stuff in nowiki tags, as that is converted to a strip marker anyway, which will save some hassle. I might get around to this some time, but I have a lot of Lua stuff on my plate at the moment, so it won't happen straight away. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:22, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

OK. Wikipedia:Category suppression could also suggest a poor man's version where an editor must find out which string a category is added with and then remove it with {{Replace}}. For example {{Replace|{{Guideline}}|[[Category:Wikipedia guidelines|{{PAGENAME}}]]|}} to display {{Guideline}} in project space. But this would be complicated for users, and unstable if the template is later modified to produce another category string. A fix of Bugzilla:835 would have been nice but nothing has happened in 9 years. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:36, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I've had a go at implementing a basic version of this at Module:Suppress categories. It doesn't support fancy things like nested links and magic word detection, but I've put detection for the pipe trick and bad links in there. Have a play around with it and see if there are any features that you would like added. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:21, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Great! I expect to play around later today but it looks good and seems to already be at least as accurate as I was looking for. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:39, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

That's good to hear. By the way, when you're playing around it would be very helpful if you could add any interesting cases you find to Module:Suppress categories/testcases. (It will save me having to add them, anyway.) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:56, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Template talk:Flagicon/core

Hi, Mr. Stradivarius, please see the Template talk:Flagicon/core. Maiō T. (talk) 19:39, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

DRN contretemps

Strad, can I get you to look at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Talk:Morgellons if you're still online? We might need an admin's help there and at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Disruptive editing and intervention. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:51, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Problem apparently solved before you logged back in, but thanks anyway. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 16:45, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, I was asleep. Glad to see you got things sorted out, though. Let me know if things start to go south again. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:10, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Template:Editnotices/Page/List of aircraft accidents and incidents resulting in at least 50 fatalities

Hello, There's a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft#List of aircraft accidents and incidents resulting in at least 50 fatalities which touches on this edit notice which you created after Godot13 (talk · contribs) lodged a request. Given that it imposes rather restrictive conditions on editing the article - especially in regards to requiring a reference from the probably-not-reliable Aviation Safety Network - which were not endorsed through a discussion on the article's talk page or at the relevant Wikiproject, on I think that it should probably be disabled or deleted. What do you think? Regards, Nick-D (talk) 23:53, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, you're probably right. I should have investigated the background a little more when I first added the notice. In any case, it's clear from the discussion that you linked to that there isn't any consensus for the notice, so I've blanked it until such consensus might be found. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 00:10, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps we could discuss this first? There was no discussion because I had just created the article and wanted to prevent poorly referenced information from being reported. Nick-D is misrepresenting the facts in that it doesn't require a reference from any source, but rather indicates that two citations are required in a national investigative agency source or a central aviation database source are not cited. The "probably-not-reliable" source is commonly cited in many aviation articles.--Godot13 (talk) 00:22, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi again. It's probably best to discuss it on the article's talk page, to try and find a wording for the notice that would be acceptable. Once you've found a good wording you can file another edit request to get the notice changed. (Or anyone in the discussion with the sysop or accountcreator bits is welcome to do it too.) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 00:31, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for following up on this. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 06:28, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

NYU Poly

Hi,

I noticed that you were somehow able to edit NYU Poly. Perhaps you could also add in the introduction: NYU-Poly is also one of the first handful of universites that offered accredited chemical engineering program in the USA. Per http://www.pafko.com/history/h_grow.html http://www.aiche.org/community/students/abet-accredited-universities Regards,--Siegestaiddrip (talk) 15:38, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi there. You should bring this up on Talk:Polytechnic Institute of New York University so that other editors can have a chance to comment on your changes. If, after a suitable period of time, there is a consensus for the change, you can activate an edit request to get the article updated. It will be helpful for other editors commenting if you could include the exact wikitext that you would like added to the article, and the exact location you would like it to be placed. You might also consider creating a version with your changes in your sandbox to make it easier for people to see the changes. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:15, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for commenting. This can be added in the end of the introduction because the fact that NYU-Poly was one of the first to offer polymer science, financial engineering and cyber security, are also mentioned there. Or it can be left out also. It is your call-there is nothing to get a consensus on, as it is an extremely minor edit. Per the two sources I provided you with, they show that original accredited programs (1925) were in the following colleges:

Carnegie-Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA)
Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, OH)
Columbia University (New York, NY)
Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago, IL)
Iowa State University (Ames, IA)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA)
Ohio State University (Columbus, OH)
Polytechnic University (Brooklyn, NY)
Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY)
University of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, OH)
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI)
University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, MN)
University of Wisconsin at Madison (Madison, WI)
Yale University (New Haven, CT)

Regards,--Siegestaiddrip (talk) 12:52, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

It's not much use debating the content here, as I don't personally have any interest in the article - I just answer edit requests from time to time. You'll need to bring it up on the article's talk page if you want it to be added. Best — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ^{♪ talk ♪} 02:10, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

WP:RFC/J

Hey Strad, just wanted to let you know that it's all done. We've implemented the consensus and put up notices in all the appropriate places. Thanks so much for your work setting up this RfC, you have done incredible work. Let me or User:RegentsPark or User:Pgallert know if there are any loose ends. Best, Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 18:33, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

(barnstar archived)

Yes, indeed. Amazingly patient work on the RfC - well beyond the call of duty! --regentspark (comment) 19:09, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the compliment! And also, a big thank you to both of you, and to Pgallert, for taking the time to sort through all the RfC comments. That was a very difficult RfC to close, and you've done a great job. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 21:57, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Module:Infobox

I've moved this to Template talk:Infobox#Below parameter newlines as quite a few editors will probably be interested in this. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 08:30, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Hello from AsceticRose

Thank you for your "thank"! Happy to find someone from the field of Applied linguistics. Hey, I want to share my feeling that topics on this field and second language acquisition are difficult to deal with: there are so many diverging opinions and so much research findings that often it becomes difficult to assimilate and coordinate them to make an article for Wiki. Do you have any suggestion how I can deal with this? Happy to see you created page on Douglas Brown, one of my favorite writers on Language.--AsceticRosé 14:02, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome. :) I agree that it is often difficult to assimilate all the different opinions out there; the body of literature is vast and is growing fast, and as I understand it even the researchers have trouble keeping up with everything. A good way to focus on the main opinions and to avoid putting undue weight on any one opinion is to stick to tertiary sources like encyclopaedias and textbooks. I've found the Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning to be very useful for things like this, for example. I've also found that smaller introductory books like Key Terms in Second Language Acquisition work well. With the bigger and more comprehensive books it's very easy to get lost in all the detail, and there usually isn't enough space in the article to include all of the detail anyway. Hope this helps! — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:25, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply.--AsceticRosé 14:28, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Could you please visit Goblin Shark?

Hello. It appears one of your fellow admins Yzx and DrE are getting ready to edit war again. I'm a little confused as to why Yzx feels the need to undo the original illustrators input when the majority of people support what they are doing. I'll let you have the final word. Cheers. C. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.56.12.253 (talk) 18:06, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Stradivarius, since you resolved the previous conflict, I'll give my two cents on this current issue. Let me note that I have provided my reasoning twice ([3] [4]) when reverting Kurzon's image. Let me also note that throughout this entire affair, Edna and his like have continuously ignored consensus to edit-war (here's an earlier report I made about Edna's violation of 3RR; since you read through the discussion, you know that the consensus was never at any point for the edit that Edna pushed) and repeatedly made baseless, insulting insinuations against myself, User:EVula, and the Wiki community in general (here's one from the IP above, calling me a vandal). I'll let you decide what kind of response is appropriate for this kind of behavior. -- Yzx (talk) 21:03, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Your response

Hello. Apparently we have not met... I am DOCTOR Edna. I see your numerous threats regarding riff-raff about your so-called open sourced policies. I AM the expert and you are feeding articles based on OUR work. You should be in awe that I am taking my professional time and donating to this cause. Your admin rights and mouse clicks mean nothing to me and your threats do not phase me. As a scientist, I question your own credentials and what real authority you carry aside from point-click-block. DOCTOREdna — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrEdna (talk • contribs) 01:06, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Doctor Edna, and thanks for the reply. Sorry if my comments came of as threatening, as that wasn't my intent. (Although where blocks are concerned I suppose that sounding threatening is probably inevitable.) Actually I am not anti-expert at all, and I am thankful and also quite a bit impressed that we have an expert in the field coming to participate here. It's just that Wikipedia policy has to come first. Did you read the Wikipedia:Expert editors page I linked you to? It does a much better job of explaining this situation than I can - although having said that, you are always welcome to ask me any questions about Wikipedia or about my actions here. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:31, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Spread your wings and soar high my open sourced volunteer. DrE — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrEdna (talk • contribs) 02:05, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Seriously? @Mr. Stradivarius: I just stumbled onto the goblin shark drama this morning, and I must say that I truly hope that you are not fooled by "DOCTOR" Edna's self-proclaimed greatness? DrEdna's behavior appears to have been disruptive, to say the least. A real PhD would not refer to the warning you placed on his talk page as "Creepy people writing on my wall" – the Facebook lingo and behavior are more like that of a petulant high-school student than an accomplished academic. Nor would a real PhD, in that same edit, respond to your warning by saying, "You and your Wikipedia minuscule authority are kind of a joke. Please stop polluting my talk page. Nobody care that you are a Wikipedia admin and getting blocked from Wikipedia would hardly bring a tear to anybody in real life. DOCTOREdna". Even more glaringly obvious was the edit that caused your warning in the first place. I would contend that the reason the good "DOCTOR" blanked the talk page of 209.56.12.253 is because they are one and the same. @EVula: I'm sure you would agree that this action, combined with the fact that they both seem to be united in pushing a single-topic agenda since they arrived on the "goblin shark" scene (DrEdna's account was created on June 22, and 209.56.12.253 joined the fray on June 26) is more than enough to warrant an SPI and CU to prove that they are indeed using the same computer at Iowa Western Community College. —Grollτech (talk) 16:06, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

It may also be of interest to note that there were a series of disruptive edits some days ago to the goblin shark talk page, consistent with support of Edna's agenda, that resulted in the temporary protection of the page. Here's the report made by User:Apokryltaros. I should also note that the character calling himself "C" has himself contributed under additional IPs than 209.56.12.253, such as this one. I won't make any accusations, but there is a pattern here. -- Yzx (talk) 04:07, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

@Grolltech: I have also had my suspicions about DrEdna's edits - as you say, some of the behaviour is not what I would normally associate with PhDs. But, we try and assume good faith, and we judge people by their actions rather than by their qualifications, hence me not bringing it up before. Let's see what happens after the protection expires, and I can take any action that is necessary then. That SPI is probably a good idea, but checkusers won't link named accounts with IPs in most cases, so if you do start one then it will likely have to be decided on behavioural evidence. @Yzx: I'll investigate the latest edits and keep an eye on the page for a while so that I can take action if the problems crop up again. Thanks for letting me know. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 04:34, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

DRN needs your help!

Hi there. I've noticed it's been a while since you've been active at DRN, and we could really use your help! DRN is going to undergo some changes soon, so it'd really be great if our backlog is cleared before the start of August and we have as many people on board to help with the changes (they include a move to subpages and the creation of a rotating "co-ordinator" role to help manage things day-to-day. Hope to see you soon! Steven Zhang ^{Help resolve disputes!} 11:35, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

bugs in infobox settlement

just fixed a few bugs, see here, if someone else doesn't fix it first. thank you. Frietjes (talk) 16:54, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Fixed. And of course, this is why we need to give you admin rights. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 17:06, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

thank you, one more bug and one more tracking category fix here. I am going to make some "torture test" examples soon so we can hopefully find the rest of the bugs. by the way, the version in sandbox2 is using a lua module that replaces all the subtemplates. the performance seems to be about the same at the moment, but there may be opportunities to improve it. Frietjes (talk) 18:35, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

and fixed another bug, see here. Frietjes (talk) 21:11, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Looks like Plastikspork got there first. Thanks for the fixes! I might look into improving/expanding that Lua code sometime, but I can't promise anything as there are a gazillion other Lua things that need to be done right now. (On the plus side, I've definitely got quicker at coding up the simple stuff now.) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:22, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

IP block

Fool! you can't block me — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.98.36.65 (talk) 01:19, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

The Civility Barnstar

(barnstar archived)

Thank you for the barnstar! What kind of help were you looking for at those articles? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 16:15, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

I need help with civility . . . and you seem to have the most congenial online personality . . . the Stewart Hase article and the Educational philosophy articles have been very difficult. I've invested considerable time and energy in working on those articles and have just now begun to receive feedback that I understand. Had I been less invested in the topics I probably would have blocked Wikipedia from my daughter's system and never again revisited. I believe Wikipedia is a noble venture and I want it to be a source that my daughter finds reliable. The treatment that I have received on those two articles was like having a teacher snatch a paper off my desk, scrunch it, then throw it away. I have now learned how to retrieve my previous edits and have reworked the pages . . . but the process was brutal. I have visited the Tea house and received helpful information but the battles rage on the Stewart Hase article and the Educational philosophy article. The undo's and reverts were, in my view, not explained in a proactive way which would encourage better work. So, How do I promote civility? Stmullin (talk) 19:30, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

I think we've worked out a compromise . . . really enjoyed seeing your greeting on my talk page during these difficult times . . . it reminded me that there are nice people here.Stmullin (talk) 03:34, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm glad to know that you've worked out a compromise, and sorry that I didn't look into this sooner. It can definitely be tough when you get into editing disagreements, and there is a lot to learn for less experienced editors, so you have my sympathy. If you run into any editing disputes or civility problems in the future, feel free to ask me for help again. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:53, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Restoring a deleted page

Done as per your request: [5]. --Bhadani (talk) 19:58, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! We had a little bit of controversy over the article after that (see User talk:RHaworth), but hopefully everything should be sorted out now. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:48, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

File:Iomega.svg

Hello.

How do you do? It's been a long time... I wonder if you help me. Could you please undelete the previous revisions of File:Iomega.svg? I am assuming since the image is free, my request is not controversial.

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 15:32, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Done. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 21:50, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

MyScienceWork page update

Dear Mr. Stradivarius,

I took your remarks about the MyScienceWork page's notability issues into account and give you and the other Wikipedia editors all my thanks for warning the contributors of this page and pointing out what needed to be changed. Please note my changes in the reference section.

I would like to know if these changes meet the conditions mentioned in the Wikipedia's notability guidelines.

I remain at your disposal if you should have any questions concerning this matter.

Estalere (talk) 19:26, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your message - I've changed my recommendation at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MyScienceWork accordingly. You are welcome to comment there too, by the way. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 21:41, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Protectedpagetext for logged-out users

Hello Mr. Stradivarius. There is a Lua error being seen by logged-out and non-autoconfirmed users when they try to edit semiprotected pages with nonexistent talk pages (say, this). Do you think you could try to repair it, either in Module:Redirect or MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext? Thanks, — This, that and the other (talk) 09:29, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Ok, taking a look at it now. Thanks for the report. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:43, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Right, it should be fixed now. Module:Redirect was throwing an error for all pages that didn't exist - this bug affected pages regardless of protection level or user permissions. I've fixed up the module so that it just returns the original input instead. Let me know if you spot any other bugs. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 10:56, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Follow up to previous Scribunto Discussion

I appreciate all the help you gave me on the italics and Scribunto error. I have most of it fixed, except for a change I want to make in the SCOTUS template, its bombing on the Court members section, not sure why at this point, I'm using my sandbox as a test location. I was trying to reverse engineer that portion of it I suppose I could just yank the court membership section out of the template and then just hard code it on the page correct? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.193.72.15 (talk) 18:44, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I think I found the issue but I have no clue how to fix it. There are some extra html tags like that are being included incorrectly. Using firefox, I can see the incorrect tag under the court membership and I can test its removal but its only temporary, I don't know how to fix it permanently. You can see it at the following Page: http://www.ic[IREALLYHATEDOINGTHIS-Drop]ce-t.net/index.php[BOGUS-delete]/WikiLaw[MeREmove]:Sandbox

I'm sure you will know which parts to remove. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.35.210.116 (talk) 22:40, 15 July 2013 (UTC) ????? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.193.72.15 (talk) 22:14, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

CeCe Frey

Would you mind taking a look at the redirect versus the article of CeCe Frey. Could use a second opinion. Thanks, Mkdw ^talk 04:27, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Mkdw. I'll hold off from commenting at the AfD discussion as some people might see it as canvassing, but I had a brief look and I think it's a perfectly valid question that you're bringing up. I suggest that you let the AfD run for a while and see what arguments are presented. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:11, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes of course. I asked prior to my AFD but after writing you here I had a subsequent conversation with the editor reverting the redirect and decided on an AFD. Cheers, Mkdw ^talk 02:09, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I should have checked the timestamps. That makes more sense. :) — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ^{♪ talk ♪} 07:56, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit notice for VPT

I posted a suggested notice for your consideration at Template talk:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). Thanks! —[AlanM1(talk)]— 19:33, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Re: Karl Denninger and the Tea Party movement

In the ArbCom proceeding about the TPm article, Xenophrenic is facing a topic ban from all articles related to the Tea Party movement. The vote is currently 2-0. This topic ban is expected to take effect within days.[6]

He's facing this topic ban because of the overwhelming evidence against him regarding his tendentious editing.[7] This includes new evidence of recent editwarring, which led to the current full protection of the article by SilkTork. He violated the 1RR article probation by starting that editwar and, if SilkTork hadn't locked down the article, Xeno would have been facing an immediate block and topic ban for the editwar.

Since he dodged that bullet, he's continued his tendentious behavior on the Moderated Discussion page, unabated. This post on the Moderated Discussion page [8] can only be seen as an act of deliberate provocation and mockery. He appears to be shifting his tendentious behavior into high gear before the topic ban takes effect.

This context is important in reviewing Xeno's objection to the proposed edit about Karl Denninger, and removal of the "Commentaries about origins" section to the "Perceptions" spin-off article. There are four editors in favor of the edit, and Xenophrenic is opposed. Per WP:SCOPE and WP:SUMMARY, the topical scope of an article is pretty much editors' choice; and a strong majority of editors believes that the "Commentaries about origins" belong within the topical scope of the spin-off article, not the main article. Please reconsider your decision. regards .... Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 21:18, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Phoenix and Winslow, and thanks for filling me in. As I said in my comment on the edit request, I do agree that there is already a rough consensus to include the paragraph - my concern is just about whether or not that consensus could be refined. I'm not going to make any judgement about Xenophrenic's behaviour now, as that ball is in Arbcom's court. Until any judgement has passed, I think it's best that I treat all editors in the same way, and that means trying to find a solution that everyone can be happy with. If you don't feel comfortable with suggesting a compromise, I suggest that you wait a few days for others (especially Xenophrenic) to chime in. Hopefully, together you will be able to find a solution that satisfies everyone. If there isn't much progress after a few days, then drop me another message and I'll implement the current proposal. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 08:45, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Malegaon needs blocks again

You previously blocked Malegaon (talk · contribs) for repeatedly creating the article Hitesh katara and also Hitesh Katara, and, well, I think you need to block this guy again. Ego White Tray (talk) 20:11, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree - they are now blocked for one week, and the pages are salted. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:41, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Reconsider

Since you mentioned the oppose rationale, i thought you'd be interested in reading my oppose in WP:Requests for adminship/Adjwilley. Pass a Method talk 01:41, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Now that's a wall of text and a half! I'll read it later when I have a bit more time. In the meantime, would you consider splitting it up into paragraphs? You can do that without breaking the numbering by using <p>...</p> html tags. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:46, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Regarding Minetest

Hi Mr. Stradivarius:

Thank you for your work on Wikipedia, but please, don't pull your trigger on pages you do not like so quickly. I started by copying the old page in order to show "history", and I was still in the middle of adding new content to the page, and BAM! You removed the page again. What gives?

Give people time to work on the page instead of shooting down pages within minutes of their creation! Otherwise, it only reinforces the impression that you have a personal bias and have a bone to grind with Minecraft clones like Minetest.

Minetest has now been officially packaged for Debian and Ubuntu, and the Minetest article is available in 5 other languages (German, French, Russian, Chinese, Cantonese) with none of these deletion nonsense.

More references will be added soon. And, if necessary, I will be adding more justifications to the relevant deletion discussions. Just please stop being so trigger-happy in killing pages. Thanks.

Anthony Fok (talk) 10:11, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi there. The best thing you can do is to create the page in a user sandbox, e.g. User:Anthony Fok/sandbox. If your sandbox version shows that Minetest passes the general notability guideline, then there shouldn't be any problem with recreating the article. By the way, Minetest's package status in Debian/Ubuntu and its presence on other-language Wikipedias don't have any relation to whether we can keep the article or not - it's all about that notability guideline. Also, you shouldn't edit deletion discussions that have already been closed, as no-one will read them. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 10:26, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

NPOV Issues

hello Mr. Stradivarius. i recently noticed action you took on the Steve King page that I had previously made an edit on. i saw the reasoning and appreciate that type of intervention. i recently did some work on the Terry McAuliffe page, which had been tagged as having NPOV issues. much of the article had them, and I attempted to repair one section. another user seemed to do the same, but his efforts were altered. i did some looking through the talk page and the history of the article, and it has been a consistent and sustained problem on the article for months. users have taken issue with edits made by the one user and tried to fix them and discuss them on the talk page. but the one user always seems to alter them and inject a non-neutral tone into the article. an edit war is currently taking place over one section in particular.

the scope and length of this issue are different than what happened on the King page, so I don't expect the same action to be taken. but I wondered if there was something that could be done to stop the war and allow the community or those who are interested in fixing the page to repair it without disruption from this user. i hate to bother you or call anyone out but it seems the page hasn't received any useful help against this issue over the past few months and the same issues keep repeating themselves.

here are a few diffs as examples

https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Terry_McAuliffe&diff=566440182&oldid=566433050

https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Terry_McAuliffe&diff=566075638&oldid=565687673

https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Terry_McAuliffe&diff=557750973&oldid=557727250

https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Terry_McAuliffe&diff=560392375&oldid=560350306

i appreciate any time and consideration you give to this issue. Mandate41 (talk) 18:53, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi there, and sorry for the delay in replying. I've had a brief look at the page, and I think the best thing you can do it this stage is to try dispute resolution. Probably the dispute resolution noticeboard is the best place to start. Let me know if you still need any advice after trying that. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 12:49, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

WIAPA#5, huh?

You need evidence? Really? How about the fact that the "first" edit that user ever made was to welcome himself to Wikipedia (with a seemingly innate knowledge of wiki-markup), followed by the creation of his user page. Fast-forward a few days, and he was quoting policy like a seasoned pro, not to mention the fact that he was "welcoming" other users to a place where had supposedly just arrived himself. I share your disgust for those who immediately scream "sockpuppet" whenever they have a conflict with another user, but calling a spade a spade is something else. Joefromrandb (talk) 07:25, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

That can be taken into consideration, certainly, but I don't think it would be enough to make an SPI case on its own. Wiki markup can be learned on other wikis, for example, and avid readers of Wikipedia might come across the policies and other project-space pages before ever creating an account. The missing link here is evidence that the account belongs to a specific returning user. If we don't have strong evidence that this is the case, then I think I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they learned about editing in a more benign fashion. I encourage you to make a new SPI case if you are worried about it, though. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 08:44, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Wtwilson3

I believe that Wtwilson3's understanding of notability is flawed . . . the comments he directed at me (after I had already made revisions for other editors) were very rude and assuming. I had already made the corrections yet he continues to misinterpret the policy on notability. Please comment.Stmullin (talk) 12:23, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Hello Stmullin. Could you link me to the discussion that you are concerned about? I'll let you know what I think the best course of action is after I've seen it. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:00, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I can help with that. The discussion is at Talk:Stewart Hase. Mostly on this thread, but also earlier. — Bill W. (Talk) (Contrib) — 13:06, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I've left a comment about the notability issue on the talk page there. As for the comments that Stmullin is concerned about, I think tempers were frayed on both sides here, but I don't see anything that rises to the level of a personal attack. I do think that it would have been better to send this to AfD straight away rather than continuing that thread, though. For real concerns with notability it's almost always better to send the article to AfD, as then you can get a clear answer without having to have long arguments on the talk page. I hope this helps, but feel free to ask me any more questions if there's anything you're unsure about. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:55, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Please restore the site notice

It seems that actually the site notice was quite effective. Would you please restore it? Risker (talk) 14:33, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! Risker (talk) 14:56, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
No problem. I've also left a comment at the sitenotice talk page. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 15:06, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Article on hypotext

Thanks. Think I've done what you suggested [[9]] 89.18.81.147 (talk) 01:59, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

That's a good start. Next you need to format your references so that they display inline - see WP:REFB for instructions. Also, you should add the citation details for the citations that are just plain links. Then you just need to wait for the submission to be removed - this might take about a week, so please be patient. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 02:26, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Done. Thanks again. 80.111.70.63 (talk) 13:31, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I decided to cut out the middleman and review it myself - you can now find the article at Hypotext. I think we could also do with a sister article at hypertext (semiotics) as it seems to be altogether a different concept to the present hypertext article - do you think you could try your hand at making that one too? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 16:40, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

"altogether a different concept to the present hypertext article" Exactly, that's why the redirect was a bad idea! I'll take a stab at the corresponding hypertext (semiotics) article - give me a few days. Thanks again 80.111.70.63 (talk) 18:36, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Done see Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Hypertext (semiotics) 80.111.70.63 (talk) 22:58, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

I think the refs and links are now OK. Not earth-shattering, but an improvement! Thanks for the help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.111.70.63 (talk) 23:14, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Template:Di-replaceable fair use disputed/doc

Hi.

I think I need help investigating an issue. Today, I reverted an edit in Template:Di-replaceable fair use disputed/doc in which a user added something that must genuinely go to image description page. The problem is, this is not the first time and this is not the first unique user. We have 564112886, 559110396, 560143332, 560353322, 551967755 and do I need to list the rest too?

I tried communicating with their editors but it's always a fiasco. See this for an example: User talk:Charlesrousseau#Could you please explain this edit?

Is there anything that can be done? (P.S. I've heard admins can add edit notices to pages...)

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 11:09, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Hm. An edit notice might do the trick, but the best thing to do would be to work out what everyone is clicking on that brings them to the /doc page. If it confuses users with hundreds of thousands of edits, then it is probably worth doing properly. :) Let me have a little look and report on my results. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 11:17, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

It looks like people are clicking on the {{di-replaceable fair use disputed}} link in the speedy deletion notices - see e.g. this section. That is a nice big link just inviting clicks, and the wording isn't the clearest. Probably the best thing to do would be to update Template:Di-replaceable fair use-notice to use more understandable language and to make the template page link slightly less appealing to click on, and also to add an edit notice for Template:Di-replaceable fair use disputed/doc. Those both need admin privileges to do, so you will need to add edit requests at Template talk:Di-replaceable fair use-notice and Template talk:Editnotices/Page/Template:Di-replaceable fair use disputed/doc. The {{editnotice}} template is pretty handy for making edit notices. Does that sound like a good plan of action to you? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 11:40, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Sorry for the four-days delay of my reply. Things are pretty much a huge mess down here. I don't want to bother you by going into the details but in summary, constant power fluctuations, net connectivity problems, two dead computers and a preposterous allegation of having gone against my NDA leaves me pretty much no room to think to anything.

I know it is probably too much to ask but would you please kindly take care of this issue?

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 20:39, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi again. I am back in action. I am going to file the requests as you suggested.

So, I have a question: I take it that an uninvolved admin is going to read my request, assess it and endorse it? Okay, you also read my request, you assessed, you are an admin and you are uninvolved. What stops you from handling it? Because you fear the amount of communication we had so far outweighs the rationality of the request?

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 20:38, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

No, there's nothing stopping me from acting on the request. If it was controversial then people might think that I'm impartial because of the amount of communication we've had, but it's not controversial so I don't see an issue there. It's just that I haven't got round to thinking of good wording and formatting for the template and the edit notice yet. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 02:28, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for clarification. I was afraid I might be breaking some rule here. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 13:17, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

I've just updated {{di-replaceable fair use disputed}} to remove the link, and I've also given it a copy edit. See if you like the new version. I think I'll leave the creation of the edit notice up to you. Once you've made it, I recommend using an edit request, as I might not be around much this weekend. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:11, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

You mean in {{Di-replaceable fair use-notice}}, right? Well, it seems to me this is going to solve the problem altogether. Let's wait and see if it fixes everything. I'll have the page in my watchlist, and if things did not go as planned, I can always file the request. Thanks for everything. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 13:17, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, you're right, I did mean {{Di-replaceable fair use-notice}}. Ok, agreed, let's wait and see if that fixes things. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:10, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Precious

(Award archived)

Wow, thank you very much! I was never expecting this. I shall have to think of a special place to put it. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 02:46, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Module:documentation

Hi I would like to convert Template:documentation to lua scripting I am trying it at simple:module:documentation someone help me but doesent know how to do the rest I was wondering could you help me all that needs doing is adding diff and mirror and a few extra things from template:documentation/start box and template:documentation/end box you can also see what it looks like at simple:template:documentation/sandbox 86.159.74.81 (talk) 12:41, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi there. I've left a message about this at Template talk:Documentation#Module:Documentation which you might be interested in reading. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:19, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

ok 86.159.74.81 (talk) 13:21, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Template:Portal assistance

After my image request to the template I followed your advice to create a subpage for any new images but I think I either broke something or something doesn't work as it should. I made Template:Portal/Images/Special operations for Portal:Special operations but on the Special operations article the portal at the bottom still shows the generic portal symbol as opposed to the image I added to the template:portal image subpage. Did I do something wrong? Thanks for any assistance you can provide good sir. Cheers, — -dainomite 22:02, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi Dainomite. That's actually because I updated Module:Portal to use Module:Portal/images to get the image data a little while after you made your previous request. I've added your image to the module now, so everything should be working. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 02:45, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Ohhh, gotcha. Thank you very much! — -dainomite 08:32, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to bug you again Mr. Stradivarius, does the server cache have to reset or something before the image shows up? It still shows the default portal icon on the Special operations article. :3 — -dainomite 01:56, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Yep, that's exactly right. You can probably fix that by purging the page, or you can just wait for the job queue to get round to it. I see that the image at the Special operations article has been updated now, though. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 02:11, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good, thanks again. — -dainomite 04:58, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Module:RFX report

Hi. I just noticed your work on Module:RFX report. Thank you so much! Do you think it's ready to replace the bot? --MZMcBride (talk) 03:53, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Almost, but I want to change it to use Module:RFX table, and I also need to look into why it's not parsing the end time of Beeblebrox's RfB properly (see Module:RFX table/doc). I've talked to Cyberpower about it - you can see the conversation here. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 04:06, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

I changed it (well, after I botched the first edit) to one of the multiple shortcuts available to make the pop-up menu a little narrower. If you feel that I selected the wrong one, feel free to change it. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 05:23, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't think of how it would look in popups - good idea. I've protected WP:NOTADVERTISING as well. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:31, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

American football articles with notability issues

Administrators' noticeboard thread

I understand that's how the community. I'm trying to expand the website if a individual is looking for a certain article to read about let's for a newspaper or other stuff. That's all I was saying but you are not wrong what are you trying to do but I'm saying on my point of view. Also if you think or others feel that it doesn't meet the standards put it or consider the Wikipedia:Article Incubator. Pmaster12 (talk) 20:55, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

AfD

If you'd like to keep tabs. Thanks for your assistance. -- The Writer 2.0 ^Talk 21:19, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Also, do you have any suggestions as to which board I should notify about this user? Thanks, again. -- The Writer 2.0 ^Talk 22:03, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. As to your second point, I haven't looked into the behaviour very much, but the board you want is WP:ANI. If you want to take the plunge and post there, I recommend that you be clear and concise, and focus on what is best for Wikipedia (rather than just laying blame). That should make your experience there relatively stress-free. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 06:39, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Issues

Have you heard of these names Rashaan Melvin or even Deveron Carr. Have you look other issues around or you just looking at articles on what I did or the other IP users you named? Have you look at other roster navboxes or just New York Jets roster navbox? I'm just making sure you are just not targeting me and my articles I made that's all. Whatever you are trying to accomplish I wish well but I'm just making is not certain issues that's what I was trying to say. Pmaster12 (talk) 22:35, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi there. I haven't heard of those names, and I haven't looked through any roster navboxes. I only became aware of these articles through The Writer's request at RFPP, and I've just been giving advice on how to deal with the situation. I don't have any particular stake in any of the articles involved, other than a general desire for articles on Wikipedia to adhere to the various notability guidelines. If you're aware of any other articles on Wikipedia that fail these guidelines, please consider nominating them for deletion yourself - we get dozens of non-notable articles added per day, and while most of them are weeded out soon after they are created, some do slip through the cracks. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 06:48, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

The new face of DRN: Mr. Stradivarius

Recently the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard underwent some changes in how it operates. Part of the change involved a new list of volunteers with a bit of information about the people behind the names.

You are listed as a volunteer at DRN currently, to update your profile is simple, just click here. Thanks, Cabe 6403^{(Talk•Sign)} 17:20, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Template:NFL Player

I responded on my talk page. My response wasn't eloquently stated, but it's my thought on the matter. RevanFan (talk) 17:48, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Responded on my page. RevanFan (talk) 19:57, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Responded. RevanFan (talk) 20:50, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Chittagong Hill Tracts Conflict

Hi, just a heads-up, I proposed a course of action to solve the move/merge brouhaha at Talk:Chittagong Hill Tracts Conflict, but wouldn't want to to act without your input, since you and Mark Arsten have been adminning this so far. Your views would be appreciated. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:56, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Looks like a sensible solution to me - thanks for taking the time to draw it up. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 06:03, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Not so mundane

Mr. S, I just came across two really weird redirects. I've never seen this before, so I thought I would check with you to see if you know what's going on. I've been Rcatting redirect shortcuts from the T: pseudonamespace. After Rcatting the mainspace shortcuts, then I check the redirects on the What links here pages. That is how I landed on this Wlh page. Toward the bottom of that page there are two templatespace redirects:

{{Did you know nominations/}} (with a slash at the end)
{{Did you know nominations}} (sans slash)

Both of these are redirects to Template talk:Did you know. And both of them seem to have very unusual edit-source pages:

There is, above the edit field box, a set of text the likes of which I've never seen before on an edit page. I realize that I can go ahead and edit these so it seems, however I must wonder about what that text is from and should it somehow be removed from those two edit pages? Is this something you've seen before? – Paine Ellsworth ^CLIMAX! 00:46, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I just noted the Group notice link in the upper right, which is an Editnotices page. Sorry to bother you; never mind. – Paine Ellsworth ^CLIMAX! 01:02, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

No worries - glad you figured it out. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 06:18, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Total Drama All-Stars episodes

Can you please put a lock on the TDAS episodes page until the season airs since people keep putting fake eliminations. Plus Courtney and Gwen are on the wrong teams.. The TDAS episodes talkpage would explain this. Thanks. 72.220.176.33 (talk) 22:16, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi there. Sorry, but could you post this at WP:RFPP? I don't really feel like sifting through the history of the page at the moment. (Maybe when I've had some more sleep.) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:12, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 07 August 2013

Arbitration report: Fourteen editors proposed for ban in Tea Party movement case

Traffic report: Greetings from the graveyard

News and notes: Chapters Association self-destructs

WikiProject report: WikiProject Freedom of Speech

Featured content: Mysterious case of the grand duchess

Discussion report: CheckUser and Oversighter candidates, and more

A barnstar for you!

(barnstar archived)

Thank you very much! Let's see how things go at WP:DRN now. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 17:53, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

HELP ME

Hello Mr. Stradivarius, can you help me create a Patna task force for our WikiProject Patna... plssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss? SHIVAM SETU (U-T-C-E) 05:25, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi again. I assume from the edit request that I commented at that you want to make a new task force for WikiProject India? First you need to ask on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject India to see if others think it's a good idea. If there's a consensus to make a new task force, then you can go ahead and make one. Have a look at WP:TASKFORCE to see everything that's involved - but it's quite a big job, and there are a lot of other projects that I would like to be getting on with. Try and get started yourself, and ask at WikiProject India or at the WikiProject Council for help if you get stuck. And if you get stuck while writing the templates, leave me another note here and I'll look into it. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 06:09, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

I think i want to try that. It could be fun. btw, thanx again Mr. Stradivarius, for your kind respone and help! SHIVAM SETU (U-T-C-E) 08:09, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

hiiii......Is it possible to skip the first step? SHIVAM SETU U-T-C-E 18:33, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed this message. No, it's not possible to skip the first step - you need a consensus to set up a task force like that. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 17:09, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Argentine mid-term elections, first round

Mr. Stradivarius:

Hi. I just noticed that the In the News ticker missed the first round of legislative elections in Argentina, held yesterday ([10]). Would you please consider adding mention of this?

Thank you kindly, 98.166.186.191 (talk) 16:55, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi there. Sorry, I can't do this unless there is a consensus to add it. The place you need to go to find that consensus is WP:ITN/C. Please ask on the talk page over there if you have any questions, as those editors are generally much more knowledgeable about how to get pages listed at In the News than I am. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 17:00, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Great - thanks. I'll let them know. 98.166.186.191 (talk) 17:11, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Chennai Express

I very much appreciate the work you're doing on this page and the other hard work you put in for Wikipedia. But the current consensus is very weak due to so many shady newly registered users and random IPs which have started appearing on the talk page (me and experienced editors such as Factual Proof oppose the use of a range; while Pleasant 1623 weakly support it). There's also an open SPI associated with the dispute. Besides that, it was supposed to be some kind of WP:RFC and all users are given a few days to comment. The consensus is only enforced later on.

Lastly, I've put forward my suggestion on the talk page. You may feel free to check it. Thanks and regards. Fideliosr (talk) 18:35, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree, the consensus is still weak. My update was only intended to be temporary, to give some slight relief from all the IPs and new editors who want the 33.12 crore figure to be mentioned. That's all my update was meant to signify - that there seems to be an agreement that both the 33 and 29 crore figures should be included in some form. The exact way in which it can be worded can and should change after further discussion. I admit that it was a slightly IAR move to make an update to the page after only a weak consensus was formed, but I thought it would be good for our readers to see both figures there while the page is getting heavy traffic. Once we've worked out a more nuanced version that one should be used instead of the one I suggested. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 19:54, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Chennai Express box office

Hi. My question is simply this: if we make the "acknowledge sources other than Box Office India" exception in this case, will we be able to make the same exception for every other previous and current Hindi film article that has used Box Office India until now? If not, then why, based on views by arbitrary, unregistered IP users and many new members (likely sockpuppets), are we sabotaging uniformity on Wikipedia? Factual Proof (talk) 19:16, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I second Mr. Factual Proof here. Regards. Fideliosr (talk) 19:47, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I wasn't aware of any special status of Box Office India, so it might just be because I don't usually edit in this topic area. Is there a guideline written about this somewhere, or is it more of a de facto thing? If this is established practice for Indian film articles then we can certainly take it into consideration when deciding what should remain on the page in the long term. As for the sockpuppetry issue, I'm aware of it. I was actually considering semi-protecting the talk page because of it, but after some consideration I thought it would be better to let the SPI go ahead. As Chennai Express is a very popular page right now, it is quite possible that many of the new accounts are legitimate new users. Most likely, in my opinion, is that there is a mix of both new users and sockpuppets, but it is pretty hard to tell which is which with any degree of certainty. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 19:54, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Advertisements#Requested move

Hello Mr. S. I was thinking of closing this move discussion, but realize that I don't know your opinion on the new proposal of WP:Funding Wikipedia through advertisements. If you're in favor, then this might be the consensus; if you're against it then I suspect a relist might be needed since opinion is split across various alternatives. If possible can you add a further comment about this in the discussion? Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 01:22, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I've left a comment over at the discussion page. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:53, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thanks so much for helping sort out the issues with the WikiProject NCIS categories. It is very much appreciated. --1ST7 (talk) 23:39, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

No worries. :) If there are any other parameters in the template you're not sure about, just let me know. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:40, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Am I a little bit late for saying "thanks"? Sorry... Thank you! :) Miss Bono^[zootalk] 15:54, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

STiki emergency

Template:Shared IP edu

I see you have changed {{Shared IP address (public)}} as I proposed (thank you for that), would you be opposed to doing the same with {{Shared IP edu}}, the last remaining of the shared templates to be updated? I have an edit request at the template's talk page just as I had at Template talk:Shared IP address (public), and there haven't been any objections. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 20:49, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

second language acquisition - silent period

I agree with your reverting my reference on the Second-language acquisition#Stages silent period. It wasn't really the right source, but I was desperate to put something to indicate that a silent period is widely considered quite harmful, that people need to listen and speak from the start, not read or even just listen. I'll keep looking for a good source. - Numbersinstitute (talk) 03:11, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

I think you'll have problems finding such a source. Krashen, for example, is explicitly in favour of allowing a silent period, and other researchers tend to not mention it too much. Here's a quote from Key Terms in Second Language Acquisition by VanPatten and Benati, p. 149: "The Silent Period is not a concept that one years much these days outside of discussion of Krashen's Monitor Theory or outside of the Natural Approach. This does not mean that it is not a relevant concept or that the recommendations made under the Natural Approach are necessarily wrong. It may be more reflective of how the field of SLA has moved on to other issues since the early 1980s and how theory development has progressed since Krashen's proposals." — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:42, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

2O need on copyvio

Hello, Mr. Stradivarius

How do you do?

I kind of need an opinion on this edit of mine. I just reverted a copyright violation, a wholesale copy and paste. Do I need to notify the oversight to strike out the diff in this case?

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 22:50, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi Lisa. :) I took a look at it, and I agree that it is an obvious copyright infringement. Actually, I deleted the revisions myself, but after about five minutes I realised that the revisions probably didn't qualify for RD1 because of the need to provide attribution for the intervening edit. So I undeleted all of the revisions again. Because of this, I don't think there's any need to go to oversight. :) Also, you can read up on the proper way to deal with copyvios at Wikipedia:Copyright problems if you have the time. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:45, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks, although you did exactly what I wanted to avert. ;) I was hoping "in this case" phrase would heighten your senses to note that there is something out of ordinary, without me giving you so much tip that your judgment is influenced. You know, to tell me there is no need without hiding and unhiding.

Still, you noticed. That matters. Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 13:06, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Is it me, or is this starting to feel like some kind of test? I strongly suspect that you were better than me at interpreting policy in this case. In any case, you've been around here long enough that I should probably expect any questions that you throw at me to be a little out of the ordinary. :) I think it's ok to say what's on your mind in this kind of situation, though - e.g. "I think these revisions should be deleted, but there is an intermediate revision there so I'm not sure if it meets RD1". If you give all the details like that, I think it makes it easier for everyone to arrive at an informed decision. It's always good to be careful of how you word your questions to avoid canvassing, but I don't think that was the case here. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:49, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Actually, the whole issue is far simpler than that: I checked Wikipedia:Copyright problems, Wikipedia:Copyright violations, Wikipedia:Copy-paste and Wikipedia:Text Copyright Violations 101. Only the latter has something about revision deletion, and only in a section that is for admins, not ordinary users. More confusingly, it seems self-contradictory: In one place, it advises admins to use {{copyvio-revdel}} and in another, it instructs them to delete the revision themselves. (So, do admins have the power to perform revision deletion or not? Second paragraph of WP:RevDel suggested only oversighters can.) Worst, it does not highlight any procedure for me, a non-admin, to notify an admin to perform these steps. So, I decided to take the simplest procedure: Calling a dear old admin that is you.

The funny thing is: The volume of things to read was so much that I forgot the one thing that I could have done myself: {{subst:cclean}}

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 18:42, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Aha, that does make more sense. :) Those policy pages are all pretty confusing, I agree. That might be something to bring up at WP:VPP, with a note on all the policy talk pages, if you fancy having a go at fixing it. Your confusion about revdel and oversight I think I can clear up, though. The second paragraph in WP:RevDel is saying two things: 1) that any administrator can use revision deletion as it is outlined on that page, and 2) that revision deletion can also be used by oversighters as they carry out their oversighting duties (and that the use of revision deletion by oversighters in this fashion is not covered in the revision deletion policy). I assume that the part about using {{copyvio-revdel}} is intended for non-admins - as I understand it, the revision deletion policy takes precedence there, and admins can just delete the revisions under RD1. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 10:24, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

AquaCGSB

AquaCGSB has had speed deltion and i dont think it sould be deleted because it not used for advertisement and not a organisation it become a chartiy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AquaCGSB (talk • contribs) 14:33, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but it failed not only one, but three of our speedy deletion criteria, so I've deleted it. You should probably read Wikipedia:Your first article before you try again. Also, you should read up on Wikipedia's rules on editing with a conflict of interest if you're affiliated with AquaCGSB. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 15:00, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Just a courtesy note that I've unblocked User:AquaCGSB. Since you had the block marked as username-only, I've granted the unblock so they can request a change of username. —C.Fred (talk) 17:21, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
That looks like a good idea to me - thanks for letting me know. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 21:42, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Template:Portal

Greetings, I just wanted to give you a heads up that someone (besides me) has suggested that Template:Portal and Template:Portal bar be merged. The discussion is still ongoing but I see you were the one that created Module:Portal so I wanted to ask if you would be willing to modify that Module to support the functionality in Portal bar as well. Kumioko (talk) 16:56, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:WikiProject United States

Template:WikiProject United States has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. I just wanted to give you a heads up since I know you were working on some code to better represent the projects in the template. That functionality will probably not be needed anymore. Kumioko (talk) 13:44, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Template:AFC submission/declined

Template:AFC submission/declined (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

I don't really know, unless there's some vandalism I'm missing, why this needs to be edit=sysop. Could we try dropping it down to edit=autoconfirmed for a while? ~Charmlet ^-talk- 16:43, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Charmlet. It's because it's transcluded on almost 70,000 pages. I think this reasonably reaches the definition of high-risk. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 21:50, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Of those 70k pages, 99.999% should be AfC submissions (in fact, 100% should be AfC submissions). Thus, by default they are NOINDEXed, and not easily searchable by regular users. It is also watched by people who would revert any AC vandalism that did (unlikely) crop up, so there's not much of a vandalism problem. High risk is not the same as high transclusion count, especially in this case where the risk of vandalism is low, and the damage if it occurred is very low. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 21:57, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree that high risk is not the same as high transclusion count, but it is also not independent of it. Full protection of highly-used templates is to stop unnecessary edits and broken edits as much as it is to stop vandalism. It ensures that changes are properly tested before being put live on the template, which saves people being served broken templates and also saves server resources. And speaking of vandalism, the template did have a couple of vandalism/nonsense edits back in December. Perhaps if the transclusion count was a few tens of thousands lower I could be persuaded - my usual rule of thumb is 10,000-15,000 transclusions for full protection, and I would tend to err on the lenient side due to the factors you mention. But 70,000 transclusions is just too much for me to be convinced, sorry. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ^{♪ talk ♪} 06:08, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

It's totally fine, I can just make any changes on the labs cluster for testing. Thanks :) ~Charmlet ^-talk- 03:10, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I would just use the sandbox. Are you doing anything on Labs that you can't do in the sandbox? I've never used Labs myself, so I'm curious. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:52, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, from what I could see, the template code is very very in depth with namespaces and stuff, so doing it on labs allows a literally whole Wikipedia sandbox to test it everywhere in, with a one-ish click import of all the pages needed. Importing test AfC articles and the decline+submitted+notsubmitted+other templates. Labs is, for lack of a better word, a sandbox for everything intertwined. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 16:53, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

re RailGauge

Right! I was just preparing a note on that. So now it is OK (esp. removing the internal instruction + option completely). -DePiep (talk) 10:47, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Yep, your sandbox edit popped up on my watchlist. Well done for spotting it - and I hope the sandbox data was in a relatively sane state for the last two weeks... — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 10:49, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Guessed you did. Sane it was mostly, but each sandbox edit cleaned the caches so pages must have been loading slow. -DePiep (talk) 10:54, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

FYI: See Template_talk:Year_in_other_calendars

Nice work your are doing with the modules :-) - I have added a "bug report" at Template_talk:Year_in_other_calendars#Does_not_for_work_for_year.3D551_and_year.3D645_.28script_errors.29, Christian75 (talk) 10:51, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Nice catch, thanks for the report. Frietjes fixed the 551 bug, and I've fixed the 645 one. Let me know if you spot any others. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:32, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Portal bar

I closed the Portal / Portal bar discussion. It looks like the final proposal is either to have both templates use the same lua module, or to have portal bar use the portal bar module. I would say you can do whatever you think is the best option here in terms of easy of coding vs. saving the "job queue". I will leave it to you. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 04:06, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the message. I've used Module:Portal bar for the portal bar template, and I've also updated Module:Portal with a couple of maintenance functions that I've been meaning to add for a while. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ^{♪ talk ♪} 07:14, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Module deletion

Is it possible to have these three permanently deleted? I can't db-author tag modules. Thanks, — Lfdder (talk) 07:46, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I guess so, but why? It seemed like a good idea to port {{ISO 639 name}} to Lua. Have you come up against something that can't be done in Lua, and can only be done by the current template system? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 08:01, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

no, I'm just leaving. — Lfdder (talk) 08:02, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Wait, why are you leaving? It would be a shame to lose you. Are you sure that you've thought this through? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 08:20, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

There are things here that genuinely annoy me. Maybe I'll come back when I'm more peaceful. — Lfdder (talk) 08:59, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Yep, it's always good to take time off if things on Wikipedia start getting to you. I do it from time to time, although I haven't taken an extended break as yet. As for your modules, I'm reluctant to delete them - it seems a shame to waste good code, and they will undoubtedly be useful for the project. I think a better idea would be to either leave them as they are, or to move them to a user sandbox (e.g. Module:User:Lfdder/ISO 639 name) and leave a note on the template talk page letting people know about the new location of your sandbox code. That would allow others to add to your work, which wouldn't be possible if it was deleted. I think only admins can move pages in the module namespace (as no redirects are allowed), so I can do that for you if you want. Also, feel free to get a second opinion on this, as other admins may have a different idea of how to interpret WP:CSD here. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:52, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Let's just leave them there. I've updated data with identical codes in part 1, 2 and 5 merged. I've not done part 3 if you (or anyone) would like to do it. — Lfdder (talk) 15:11, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I'll put it on my to-do list - but I have to warn you, there are quite a lot of things on there already. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 15:22, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Object-oriented Module:WikiProjectBanner

Please, no. Stop. This is an overkill and smells of the poltergeist anti-pattern. Repetitive methods like setXXXGrade unnecessarily blow up code and documentation size and are a violation of the DRY principle. Keep it simple, stupid. And most importantly, how is this module supposed to be used now? Keφr 18:13, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Keφr. Thanks for the link to the DRY principle article. You're probably right that all those getters and setters take up unnecessary space - I'll have a think about how their creation can best be automated. I do feel that an OOP approach is the best one in this case, however. The more complex banners will be most efficient if they are implemented natively in Lua - one of the biggest performance benefits from porting templates to Lua comes from avoiding large numbers of triple braces. Doing this well will require some degree of abstraction. The aim behind my current design is to provide an interface that allows access from both Lua modules and WPBannerMeta-style template calls, and that is easily extensible. It also needs to allow for novel usage such as the WikiProject United States banner where the left image and main text can change depending on the article, or the WikiProject U.S. Roads banner, which couldn't be ported to WPBannerMeta because of its "sort" parameter. Having said this, I agree that too much abstraction is a bad thing. If it turns out that some classes aren't being utilised very much (at the moment the qualityGrade and importanceGrade grade classes look like good candidates), then I'll remove them and add the functionality elsewhere. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 00:07, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Have you heard of these things, uh… function arguments? The proper way to do this (were it to be done this way) would be to create a setGrade function that takes a single argument, looks up the appropriate values in a table, and (for example) throws error("bad argument") when no data is found. Not generating a whole bunch of code which nobody will be able to work on without access to the generating program.

WP:PERFORMANCE is not everything. When this module is done, there will be someone who comes after us to maintain it. I cannot think of a use case for banner generation from inside another Lua module. On the contrary, that would lead to a proliferation of modules and in turn to an unmaintainable clusterfuck. And that would be terrible. Also remember, I want to have the banner data easily available. Configuring banners in a "Turing-complete" language (scare quotes because no computer is an actual Turing machine) actively works against that. Thank you for having me solve the halting problem. Thank you very much.

The version I wrote was created for a specific usage in mind: pull the configuration from the module frame, and display parameters from the parent frame. Just read the code/old documentation, it was already outlined how it would work.

I think you should solve the simple problem first, and then incrementally add functionality for the more complex banners. Thinking too much about the complex case leads to overkills like this one. This is a well-known tendency. And make sure the banner data is easily accessible, in a simple declarative language — a list of key-value pairs, a JSON object or whatever. I could even take XML. I thought about parsing the module invocation directly, because if this module is done well, this should be very simple to do. Keφr 06:41, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this is better. Sorry for being so harsh above. But really, I think this approach is bad, and I think I should make it very clear early, before you invest too much time into it.

I am yet to find out what a "trigger" is and why would I need one. Why the grades themselves have to be objects and not just values passed to a banner object. What is the rationale for having banners configured in Lua. How the banners are supposed to use the module, and how to extract configuration data for a given banner in a way that does not involve nightmarish syntax or algorithmically undecidable problems. Stuff like that.

Keφr 07:09, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I've been doing quite a lot of the work on the code since your last message, although it's not on-wiki yet. I might have something up by the end of the day. But basically, I decided that you were right, and I've got rid of all the setters and getters, and completely reworked the assessmentScale code. Which you'll be glad to hear also means the replacement of the assessmentGrade class with the data page you linked to above. I also thought that you were probably right that we should make people build banners with simple config tables rather than make them use the objects directly. Although I still want the objects to be visible to other modules, for the case when very complex banners like WPUS or US Roads need to modify the core code.

The current plan is to configure the banner using a "build" method that takes the config table as a parameter and calls the row objects and assessmentScale objects recursively. After that, the banner object will know all of its configuration, but won't know anything about the template that called it. At this point I plan to output the documentation, the TemplateData, and maybe a separate JSON object if TemplateData still isn't working for you. (I think features have been added to it since we last spoke about it - have you looked to see if it does more of what you want now?) After outputting the docs, the banner object will call the export method with the arguments from the calling template to generate the banner wikitext. This method will recursively call the export methods from the other objects, so that each object is responsible for outputting its own wikitext.

A trigger, by the way, is the value that you have to send to the |class= or |importance= parameters to trigger the display of a certain grade. So, for example, the trigger for the FA class is "fa", and a project who wanted to roll their own "Module" class could add triggers of "module" and "mod", so that the class would be triggered either by the code |class=module or |class=mod. This seems like necessary functionality to me, although perhaps the name could be clearer. If you have a better suggestion than "trigger", let me know.

The rationale for moving configuration into the module namespace is that the performance will be much better. It might not make much difference for small banners, but for larger banners I predict that there would be a substantial gain in speed by having the configuration in Lua. This is why Scribunto was implemented with access to the parent arguments of a frame (I linked to the design document in my earlier post), and it would be a shame not to use the feature. Have a look at User:Dragons flight/Lua performance for some statistics about the speed of templates vs. Lua. Also, you linked to WP:PERFORMANCE in your earlier post, but actually it says that we should worry about performance in the case of templates that affect millions of pages. In particular, Tim Starling's quote near the bottom says "Particularly in the area of template design, optimising server performance is important, and it's frequently done by users with a great amount of impact." (Tim is also the one who drew up the Lua design document.)

Anyway, that's probably enough from me for now. If you can hold out for a bit longer, I should have some actual code so that you can have a better idea of what I'm talking about regarding the module structure. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:45, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Okay. Now what stops me from putting |class=high and |importance=FA? As for the performance bit — fair point. Also, I have not seen any features regarding the configuration data. I should probably see that new code. I would be fine with something similar to wikt:Module:JSON data I wrote for Wiktionary: a function I could invoke through the API, give it a list of templates whose configuration data I want, and get a JSON object or whatever back.

My rationale for configuring banners in the template code was that the syntax would be more familiar to editors, it would be obvious where the data resides, and protection could be applied per individual banner. But yes, parsing text is always costly. Anyway, I shall look what you do now. Keφr 10:00, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I've put up the basic code that I have at the moment. There's still a lot of work to be done to it. (Well, that's probably obvious from the fact that there is no actual banner object in the code right now.) |class=high etc. is prevented by putting quality scale config in a child object of assessmentScale named qualityScale. Although if you really wanted to I suppose you could define it as a custom grade. I agree that template code is more familiar to editors, and I intend to keep it available as an option, although I think Lua should be the recommended choice. As for the code location, you could use e.g. {{lua}} to make it obvious where the module is; also, you would still be able to protect modules individually, so that wouldn't change from the current situation. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 11:48, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

There is this phrase: "Show me your flowcharts and conceal your tables, and I shall continue to be mystified. Show me your tables, and I won’t usually need your flowcharts; they’ll be obvious.". I think we should first think about the configuration data. Take one simple banner, like {{WPWS}} and a more complex one, like {{maths rating}}, {{WPSystems}}, {{WPBIO}} or {{WPUS}} (though the last one is discussed for deletion now, I know). Think how to represent their usage in a simple data structure, that can be loaded through mw.loadData. When we get that figured out, writing code to connect the dots will be relatively easy. We can even do away with object-orientation completely. Grab the banner configuration, grab template parameters, figure out how to make sense of them using the configuration data, warn about unused parameters, and you are done.

The banner configuration data should be in one place. This will simplify a lot of things (imagine having to pull data from two different places; in Rater, I would also have to detect where I should look for it, making lots of HTTP requests). Since I agree about the performance bit, I think the data should be in the Module namespace. One page in the namespace per banner, all simply returning a Lua table: return { --[[ ...stuff... ]] }.

So, now I envision the module exporting three methods: render_banner, render_docs and export_data. Template code would look like:

{{#invoke:WikiProjectBanner|render_banner|{{PAGENAME}}}}<noinclude>
{{#invoke:WikiProjectBanner|render_docs|{{PAGENAME}}}}
<!-- edit [[Module:WikiProjectBanner/banners/{{subst:PAGENAME}}]] to change banner settings -->

render_docs would also generate TemplateData object, while export_data would take a "version" named argument and a variable number of positional arguments and generate a JSON object with data for the banners requested. Basically, to be used with mw:API:Expandtemplates. (I think TemplateData does not allow custom fields, while in Rater I will need to understand not only what parameters are available and what are their names, but also how to present them, group them, etc. I explained some of that already on Template talk:WPBannerMeta.) Keφr 12:30, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like a good model - it will be easy to maintain, and hopefully modules that are loadable with mw.loadData will be easy enough for editors to learn. One downside I can see is that it would require us to support all features in all banners; if a project wants a banner with functionality that we don't allow, then their choice would be to either not have that functionality or to roll their own module. Do you think this might be an issue? The idea behind using objects was to make it easy to make minor adaptations to the code so that projects wouldn't have to write a completely new module in order to get their feature to work. However, by doing that we lose the guarantee that those modules will implement their export_data methods correctly. Given your comments above, it looks like I may have underestimated the importance of this. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:49, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Or ask the module maintainers to extend it with the required functionality. This will have the side effect of centralising discussions about banners. Which might be a good thing, actually.

We could also have two spaces for banner configuration: Module:WikiProjectBanner/config/ and Module:WikiProjectBanner/hooks/. /config/ will contain plain data readable with loadData, needed understanding how to set the template parameters correctly, while /hooks/ will contain functions called at various stages while rendering the banner/documentation/exporting data. The /hooks/ space will be used for purely visual or more experimental features. Also, some keys in the configuration table could be simply ignored, or specially designated for private use, and just passed without changing in export_data. Or some combination of those.

But the main question is, what functionality is/will be needed? We need a survey. Either examining the banner code or asking people around. Keφr 14:17, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I followed your suggestion of starting from the banner config files, and I have to say it does make things clearer. I started off with WikiProject Women scientists, which was simplicity itself, and went on to WikiProject Linguistics, which was also easy. I ran into significant problems when I tried to make some sense of WikiProject Biography, however. The problem is that the template parameters are used to generate the configuration data in a way that is very hard to separate. For example, the main text changes depending on whether the |living= parameter is set; the Arts and Entertainment work group is displayed using the |a&e-work-group= parameter, but not if either the |filmbio-work-group= parameter or the |musician-work-group= parameters are set; etc., etc. Have a look at the code - I've commented out all the bits that I couldn't think how to convert. I'm not really seeing how this kind of thing can be dealt with using the hook/private-key system you mentioned in your last message. Do you have any ideas on how to do it, or possibly an example? Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:21, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Not bad so far. Although I am not sure why did you not attach the per-task-force importance parameter names to the task force data in the Linguistics banner. Also, I would rather keep "requests" (this page needs attention/a photograph/map coordinates) separate from "notices" (this page was subject to peer review/A-class review/DYK/etc.), or have some other obvious way to distinguish them. The name "nested" is kind of unintuitive for the task force name (I assume you thought more about rendering inside the banner shell than about clean semantics…). I would also try to avoid any variable interpolation, whenever possible/feasible/reasonable, and replace that with string fragments that the module would put together. (I have seen triple curly brackets in a few places. I would rather avoid that. But this is a somewhat weak suggestion, we might have no other way. See how I used |text-blurb=, |text-blurb-topic=, etc. in my old version.) The philosophy is: the configuration data should be generic and reusable; if some piece of information is needed to understand how to use the banner, it must be in the configuration data; rendering, categories and cosmetic features (like the blurb text, i.e. "This article is supported by…") can be handled by hooks, but if there is a nice generic way to do something, do it.

The hooks implementation, I thought about having a function like:

local function grab_hooks(banner_name)
	local success, hooks = pcall(require, 'Module:WikiProjectBanner/hooks/' .. banner_name)
	-- see <http://www.lua.org/manual/5.1/manual.html#pdf-pcall>
	-- pcall has been restricted here a bit, but this particular usage works
	if success then
		return hooks
	end
	return { } -- yes, we have no neutrons
end

We call it at some point, put the returned value somewhere, and then at various points while generating the banner we do if hooks.whatever then hooks.whatever(frame, ...) else --[=[ do it the generic way ]=] end. Or first we do whatever we think is reasonable, and then ask the hook to override the generic behaviour. Whichever works best. I imagine we would have a table of categories in which the talk page should be put, a table for snippets of generated banner mark-up, a table matching the generated mark-up blocks with task forces/notes/requests, etc. And we pass all these tables to the hook (by reference, because Lua passes all tables by reference), and let it modify them however it pleases. In the end we combine all the data in our tables and generate the final markup.

Not sure if this reply helped, but here it is. Perhaps for this particular use case (Biography banner) we could use keys like "only_if" or "implied_by", or something similar. If you are looking for some other atypical banners: {{Essaysort}}, {{WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia}}, {{WikiProject Articles for Creation}}. Also, good luck with {{MILHIST}}… Keφr 14:38, 17 September 2013 (UTC)