User talk:Fl/Archive 15

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

Archive 10

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Archive 13

Archive 14

Archive 15

Archive 16

---- (book)

Hi there, I just noticed you deleted this. If you don't mind, would you reconsider? It's definitely an unusual redirect, but not a useless one - the work it points to is sometimes known as "----", and the disambiguated title serves to convey more information than a simple series of four dashes does. I also don't believe it qualifies under G6, since it has been deleted and then undeleted before. If you think it's not of any use, feel free to nominate it at Redirects for Discussion, but I don't think speedy deletion is correct. — Gavia immer (talk) 05:08, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

G6 deletion, so non-controversially restored... Foxy Loxy, don't forget to check "what links here" to assist in determining if its a good speedy candidate. –xeno ^talk 06:09, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Belated congratulations

Just noticed that you got +sysop this month. I'm not sure whether it's congratulations or sympathy you should get, but well done.

Oh, and by the way... you know those guys who say adminship isn't a trophy? They're wrong. Stifle (talk) 14:34, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your congratulations and sympathy. :D ~fl 08:35, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Testwiki

Hello, Foxy Loxy! I granted temp-sysop rights for you in Test Wiki. Good luck! Regards, Innv^t 09:36, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Is FlBot alright?

Hello, Fl. Is your bot alright? It has not been putting tasks on the right lines on Wikipedia:Community portal/Opentask lately. I didn't check every item, but it seems to me that all 5 tasks on the Update line right now come from Category:Stubs, and the 5 articles listed on the Split line may actually need Verifying, instead. Something is not right. If you have time, please check it out. Thanks. --PFHLai (talk) 22:30, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it appears when I re-wrote the bot, I misaligned the categories and their corresponding span ids, which was causing the bot to place the pages incorrectly. I've fixed this problem now, thanks for letting me know. ~fl 01:39, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Hello, fl. Thank you for fixing the problem so quickly. May I suggest that, instead of posting "None" on the "Split" line, tasks be taken from the subcats in Category:Articles to be split, pls? The backlog is the subcats, sorted by months. Thanks. --PFHLai (talk) 21:45, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I can try, but it might take a while as recursive categories is a complex subject. ~fl 23:10, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I've found a quick way to effective implement the split category's information without resorting to messy recursive category programming; I've pooled all the pages into Category:All articles to be split and am having the bot feed off that. I've also perfected the stub logic so that it searches the stub categories for pages and thus will never be empty (in the foreseeable future). Because of this I have also removed and deleted the /Stubs subpage as not being useful anymore. Thanks again for pointing out the bugs and providing suggestions. ~fl 09:51, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Cool! Nicely done, fl. Any plans to do the same with OR and Category:All articles that may contain original research? BTW, I recommend keeping the subpages. They represent a convenient override, in case someone really wants any link to stay on the OT template for more than 3 hours to hopefully get a task done asap. We can keep the subpage blank while it is not in use. --PFHLai (talk) 11:50, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I've added bot logic to handle automation of the OR category. I've also removed all of the other template subpages (but placed their contents directly on the page), as with the new bot programming, they are no longer needed. Users can directly edit the opentasks page and have their changes remain in effect even after the bot updates the opentasks (all it cares about now are the <span id="NameHere"></span> tags, which it uses to position itself on the opentasks page). This diff shows how you can simply and easily edit the opentasks page and add new articles to a list (the OR list is used in this example). If unreverted by myself, those changes would have remained on the page until removed by another user. ~fl 12:31, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Neat! I've deleted the /Expand subpage for the same reason. Thanks! --PFHLai (talk) 00:55, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Your bot?

Hi fl, I hope it's OK if I ask about your bot-how do you make it run every 3 hours & do you need to do any manual input? Thanks! dottydotdot (talk) 09:43, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

The bot runs every three hours by the use of the toolserver's cron daemon. It is controlled by inserting the following line into the crontab

 0 */3 * * * python $HOME/bot/opentasks.py >> $HOME/bot/opentasksdaily.log 2>&1

That runs the bot on every hour divisible by 3 and logs the output and errors to opentasksdaily.log. The bot does not require any manual input once written, it uses a combination of MySQL queries to the toolserver's enwiki database mirror and simple logic to regenerate the opentasks page every time. The python-wikitools framework reads from a password file to handle automatic logging in and posting of data to enwiki. Hope this has helped. ~fl 11:56, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

That's really useful, thanks! dottydotdot (talk) 14:11, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

All articlesto be split

I noticed you created this category, which parallels similar categories. Funnily enough I was thinking about trying to get rid of th overarching categories of this type as most of them serve little purpose I believe - do you know otherwise? Rich Farmbrough, 14:38, 28 May 2009 (UTC).

Well my bot uses those sorts of categories to retrieve articles to place on the {{opentasks}} template, as trying to program the bot to follow subcategories can get very complicated very quickly (it's much easier to just point the program to a category that contains all the articles). So yes, I do think they do have a useful purpose; not for humans, but for programs that require articles of a type to all be in one category, not in subcats. ~fl 06:16, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes I figured bottage was about it. Thakns for the reply. Rich Farmbrough, 08:36, 29 May 2009 (UTC).

BlaQKout (album)

Hi Fl. What is the reason to keep the title BlaQKout (album)? Do you expect other articles with the title BlaQKout? I do not expect this so I do not see the reason to keep a title with (album) at the end. --Ilion2 (talk) 10:25, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

By the way, please delete Talk:BlaQKout, I think this page is no longer required. --Ilion2 (talk) 10:27, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, there were two nearly identical articles there, so I merged their histories and just picked a title for the article to go to (both titles are suitable) and placed a redirect on the other title. So, no particular reason. ~fl 00:40, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it was me who recognized this two nearly identical articles. According to WP:NAME "Use the most easily recognized name" and WP:NAME#Album and song titles and band names "When necessary, disambiguation should be done using (band), (album), or (song)". I really do not think that BlaQKout (album) is easier than BlaQKout and it is not necessary to use (album) here. And I already changed all articles which links to this article to link to BlaQKout. --Ilion2 (talk) 06:46, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Moved. ~fl 07:42, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

116 000

Good afternoon,

I have a question about the page 116 000 that I created last friday. If I'm not mistaken, you deleted it because of G12: Unambiguous copyright infringement. As I am currently working for Missing Children Europe as the Project Assistant, I received the permission to make a Wikipedia page concerning the 116 000.

Furthermore, as I mentioned before, Wikipedia can contribute to raise public awareness of this number, together with the launch of a European campaign.

Therefore Missing Children Europe kindly asks you to reconsider the page 116 000.

Thank you in advance, Sophie Biemans —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sophiebiemans (talk • contribs) 14:52, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Thankyou for your contributions to Wikipedia, I just have some issues I would like to raise:

Although you claim to have copyright permission to the work, we have no way of verifying your statement, so to use any copyrighted text, you need to do one of the following things:
- Have a notice placed on any website you have copied text from stating it "Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify any text on this website under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/> and the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation <http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html>"
- Have someone affiliated with each website (and from an email address on each website) send an email to permissions-en@wikimedia.org containing a declaration of consent identical to the one found at WP:CONSENT (with all the relevant CAPITAL and bold bits changed)
- Simply not use any text from the websites (it is not written in a tone for an encyclopedia anyway) and make sure not to loosely paraphrase or plagiarize any text.
The article was of a bad quality and not written in an encyclopedia tone (see WP:TONE for information on the correct tone) and was not consistent with our Manual of Style (while it is only a guideline, it is always nice to follow it). I have rectified the most glaring problems; a version that would be close to acceptable on Wikipedia can be found here (be warned that my fixes merely reword what was already there, if you cannot obtain permission to use the copyrighted text my changes would be classified as a derivate work, and thus again copyright infringement, so you must rewrite the article if permission cannot be obtained).
When writing on Wikipedia, your information must be referenced to a reliable source (non-affiliate) else it can be removed. I have placed an example of the correct use of a <ref> tag on my example above.
I have noticed that you have a copy of the article stored at User:Sophiebiemans/116 000, this is excellent and I would ask you to please work on any changes there (my changes have been placed on that article).

When you think the article is of a suitable quality and addresses the problems outlined above and any more I may have upon viewing the work (the My First Article tutorial may be of help) please contact me again and I will place the article back at the title 116 000. Thankyou for your time and patience. ~fl 07:14, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for all your explanations! I worked on the page 116 000 again and hope this version is more acceptable for Wikipedia to put it online. Kind regards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sophiebiemans (talk • contribs) 10:25, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I have replied on your talk page (Permanent link). ~fl 11:29, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Galleri Rom

Appreciate your Keep decision for Galleri Rom. Thanks - Williamborg (Bill) 15:19, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Deletion review for Marcelo Lucero

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Marcelo Lucero. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. I hate this template, but I couldn't think of anything that wouldn't sound kinda dickish.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 18:37, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I have explained my closing rationale at the deletion review. Thankyou for informing me. ~fl 00:04, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry

Hi, I have been wrongly accused of sockpuppetry and I have posted an explanation as well. Me and my subordinate have been trying to post information and the only source of non copyrighted content has been our work and common knowledge. I would sincerely request you to please help me with this case to close as soon as possible since it is showing on my name and I personally feel offended by the same. Warm regards Pushkraj Janwadkar Pushkraj.janwadkar (talk) 12:11, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

While I myself cannot currently commit time to assisting you with you case, you can trust that all of the people operating in and around the sockpuppet investigations area are seasoned and experienced users and they will come to a good conclusion, taking into account all the evidence available. I would suggest that perhaps you or your subordinate request a checkuser on the page, it may (if approved) shed light on your situation. Without a checkuser, the clerks on sockpuppet investigations will have to rely on behavioral and circumstantial evidence to link your two accounts together. The easiest was to end this case, without any trouble, is to elect for only you or your subordinate to continue editing Wikipedia, which will remove any potential sockpuppetry concerns. As for your real name being displayed on the case page, this is unavoidable: Because you choose your real name as your account name, it is visible to all users on Wikipedia whenever you edit any page. To change your name, please have a look at WP:RENAME. Hope this has helped at least a little. Happy editing! ~fl 12:23, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks fl, its generous of you to seriously guide me through the right path. I have applied for name change and expecting an approval soon. Which page should we ask for checkuser. Do let me know. Warm regards Pushkraj.janwadkar (talk) 13:06, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I have requested checkuser on the sockpuppet investigations page for you. ~fl 13:18, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Vertical.limit (talk) 14:20, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

re:58.106.78.120

I just saw that you refused to block this IP after reaching four sequential warnings, and leaving disruptive messages on User talk pages (now including mine). Could you please explain why this does not represent vandalism? LonelyBeacon (talk) 13:00, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I would not classify posting small messages such as those posted by that IP after his/her final warning as the serious kind of vandalism AIV deals with. Try WP:AN if it doesn't stop, or re-report if the user resumes more serious vandalism. ~fl 13:03, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification. I am glad that we can agree this was vandalism. The problem was dealt with by another admin. I only note this because I did not ask for further intervention, and did not want to be accused later of admin shopping.

I can truly appreciate your interpretation of policy, but I also hope you can realize that there are many editors with a different interpretation who deal with these vandal excessively, disrupting their own editing. They may not be doing "much", but the small bits of vandalism they leave do damage to the reputation of the article, in the same way if you were to pick up a print encyclopedia and see small, personal notes from the typesetter, or misspellings. In the end, it may not be as big a deal as someone leaving racist rants or inserting blatantly false information, but these small bits of vandalism do add up to hurt the outside reputation of the project.

I myself had planned on starting today with some referencing of an article, which I will be putting off now because I was dealing with a vandal. It will get done, but I thought it prudent to clean up another editor's page, and file the report since the IP had reached the requisite warnings. It becomes frustrating when you follow the rules and someone else says "I don't like it", and tries to throw a wrench into the works.

Sorry to rant like that ... I am not trying to take this out on you personally. Best with your continued editing.LonelyBeacon (talk) 13:15, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I understand your point of view and accept that it may be the best option, next time I will leave the report up for another admin to decide on. ~fl 13:22, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Plucker678

Many thanks on the quick blocking of the user and the even quicker salting of the articles. I had just completed an ANI post requested salting when you did so. Nicely done :) - NeutralHomer • Talk • 23:57, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks :) ~fl 02:23, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Melissasi

I actually wanted to inquire about one of the articles I edited that were nominated for deletion- Artez Interactive. I have been doing some competitive research on the nonprofit industry and naturally I have run into software providers such as Artez and Blackbaud. I saw that Blackbaud had a wiki page but even though the creator of the artez article had the same username it was still quite a helpful article (and had quite a number of secondary sources). Can the proposal for deletion be fixed? Melissasi (talk) 15:03, 18 June 2009 (UTC)Melissasi

Now that the article's merit has been presented to the community, it is up to the community to decide on the merits of the article. You are most welcome to voice your opinion on the articles for deletion page, but beyond that, it's out of any one person's hands. ~fl 02:12, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Antonyaddy - Clarification please

Hello there, I have just noticed that you have adopted me as a new user. I am just trying to get in contact with you and get started. I have read through quite a bit, but struggling to get used to the mark-up language, so apologies if this is not right. I look forward to getting in touch with you. Antonyaddy (talk)

Hi again, thanks for getting back to me. For the most part, the articles I am talking about are internal scientific publications, but represent more than interesting reading/evolution for readers. In my view, the best way to contribute to Wikipedia is to add a summary in the relevant content section and add a link directly to the PDF of the entire publication itself. I don't want this to be seen as promotion of the company because that is not the intention. We want to share our advanced findings with people, but I realize it is a fine line between people reading into it ascompany promotion and a genuine attempt to share information, which is our priority. We do, of course, want to be credited with our contributions to Wikipedia. Does this sound right to you? I want to get it right from the outset, so your input at this stage is very much appreciated Antonyaddy (talk) 08:32, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

The ability to include such information would hinge on several factors, most of which would require a little more context on the information you wish to include. One of the main hurtles in including information from scientific publications is that for them to be considered reliable (a criteria for inclusion), the journals that the scientific facts are published in must be reputable and peer-reviewed (to ensure the factual accuracy of such information). Once you have a reliable source of information for whatever you wish to write about, you must ensure you write neutrally and without bias. This means that if what you are writing about is a new advancement in technology, you must only write about that technology in general terms, ensuring not to focus on a particular product (and thus introduce bias). To give you more specific advice on where and how to include your information, I'll need you to go into more detail about the information. Happy editing! ~fl 09:30, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi there and thanks again for the detailed feedback.It is a technology that has already been tried and tested and has been developed for the last 7 years. May I share the PDF file of the intended first publication with you for you to have a look at what I would like to include? It would help me enormously I believe. Thank you in advance Antonyaddy (talk) 15:40, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

That would be fine, you can email me a copy of the publication if you wish (have a look here for email information) or simply post a link to an online copy here. Be aware that if the information you wish to include is currently unpublished, it cannot currently be included on Wikipedia. Although once the information is published in a reliable source, it should be ok to include the information. ~fl 03:09, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Please take a look at the following link http://www.plasma-quest.com/hitus-technology-pql-welcome/publications.html , which is a page I am compiling to regroup our main science papers on the technology. Please note that all findings are backed up with concrete scientific support. I draw your attention to the first publication and the one page on "Sputter Deposition Control". Thank you once again for your feedback. Antonyaddy (talk) 09:43, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I have read both papers and my main question before continuing would be; has the HiTUS technology been published in any scientific journals/other scientific outlets independent of PQL? ~fl

This particular publication hasn't, but it is free to be. The HiTUS technology has been the subject of magazine articles etc Antonyaddy (talk) 13:33, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) You are free to add any information to any (relevant) article in reference to PQL, HiTUS or Sputter Deposition Control if you can reference it to a published, reliable source (what is that?). No facts can be included in any area of Wikipedia that cannot be backed by published reliable sources (your company's website is not a reliable source). I strongly suggest before you do you, you read our frequently asked questions for organizations and our policy on conflicts on interest. Once a suitable article has been found, you need to incorporate your information seamlessly into existing text so that readers receive a consistent reading experience. This means you shouldn't add new headers for your text, include external links to any website (particularly ones you have a relationship with) or write in a manner that is promotional or biased. It would be prudent for you to post the text you wish to incorporate here first, so that I can check it before it goes into the article. Happy editing! ~fl 12:04, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you again. I am a little confused with regards to the "reliable source". I am talking about publications that are made by PHDs in the scientific world and their findings backed up by genuine scientific results. The technology itself is unique in the world in what it does and the characteristics it provides, so it is very difficult to obtain external verifications. The reliability for me comes with the scientific support the PHD author can provide to back-up their publication/findings. Please clarify your end and thank you for your continued support.Antonyaddy (talk) 12:27, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Generally, despite the authorship of the paper, Wikipedia does not accept facts that are not published in reliable sources. Reliable sources are simply sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (quote from WP:RS). The New York Times, reputable peer-reviewed scientific journals and books published by respectable publishers are all examples of reliable sources. One exemption to the reliable sources rule, that you would find important, is this section that states if the person writing the paper has an expert in their field (i.e. has PhDs etc.) and has already published works in reliable sources then other papers they write for non-reliable sources can be included in articles. Does this help? ~fl 05:25, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually it does thank you! The internal process before publication involves validation of the written findings by the head of the company who has many years of experience in the field, is a former university professor, and has had articles published (although I am unable to quote you exact sources) at time of writing in raliable papers, and has also been the subject of interviews from reliable online sources. What I suggest is that I edit what I want to do and before submitting final copy, I'll put a link here for you to look at. Does that work for you? Thanks again for everything!Antonyaddy (talk) 08:17, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

That works fine. Happy editing! ~fl 10:32, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Ten case backlog "waiting clerk approval"

There are 10 cases that have been waiting for over a day to get clerk approval/denial for a checkuser.—Kww(talk) 20:30, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

flBot and opentasks

I notice that flBot is now putting random articles on the opentasks pages.

Presumably this is because you realised that creating a new "All XXXX" does not give the required cl timestamps...

May I suggest then that you drive flBot off the dated subcategories? This will enable it to do what was originally intended, and will remove the last reason for these enormous categories, some 20-30 of them, numbering up to hundreds of thousands.

You might also consider deriving the page layout and categories from something like Wikipedia:Community portal/Opentask/Categories. I put a sample entry here: the rational is that people could then add open-tasks without you needing to reprogram flBot.

Rgds,
Rich Farmbrough, 17:51, 13 August 2009 (UTC).

Thankyou for your feedback on flBot. flBot used to sort by date (and still can) but was changed to randomize because the task list remain unchanged for long periods of time (people may not want to work on the oldest articles for a variety of reasons, perhaps they are too obscure or just teetering on the edge of deletion). I still use the "All XXXX" categories as handling MediaWiki's ill-though-out recursive category system would require more man hours than I am willing to commit to the project (although if anyone is willing to write the code, I'd be more than glad to run it). Your idea of the bot parsing an XML list is a excellent one, but reprogramming flBot is also very simple task (just adding two items to a list) and there is not enough demand (I doubt even 0.001% of Wikipedians know of this list) to justify me setting up an XML parser and relevant code (again, volunteers welcome). Unfortunately for now the "All XXXX" category behemoths (yes, I dislike them also) will have to stay. Happy editing! ~fl 09:37, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Something like the following inserted before the "Moving to other categories." should drive off the subcats instead of the categories.

print "Moving to other categories - selecting subcats."
i = 0
for x in categories:
	x = str(x)
	query = "SELECT MAX(A.cl_timestamp), MAX(B.cl_timestamp), count(B.cl_timestamp) FROM (SELECT cl_timestamp FROM categorylinks JOIN page ON page_id=cl_from WHERE cl_to = REPLACE(%s, ' ', '_') AND page_namespace = 0 ORDER BY cl_timestamp ASC LIMIT 5) AS A, (SELECT cl_timestamp FROM categorylinks JOIN page ON page_id=cl_from WHERE cl_to = REPLACE(%s, ' ', '_') AND page_namespace = 14) AS B;"
	
	print "Running subcat query on '" + x + "'."
	try:
		cursor.execute(query,(x, x))
		all = cursor.fetchone()
	except: 
		"Query error."
		raise
	else:
		print "Successful."

	min = all[0]
	max = all[1]
	count = all[2]
	emptycat = False

	print "There were " + str(count) + " subcategories found matching preliminary database query."

	if int(count) < 1:
		print "Category is empty. Skipping further queries."
		results[ids[i]] = "None, "
		print "Setting section's return text to '" + results[ids[i]] + "'."
	else:
	
		print "Attempting timestamp to unix second conversion."
		try:
			min = int(mktime(strptime(str(min), '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')))
			max = int(mktime(strptime(str(max), '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')))
		except:
			print "Error."
			raise
		else:
			print "Successful."
	
		mmrange = max - min
	
		if int(mmrange) <= 1:
			print "Second range is less than or equal to one second (exactly " + str(mmrange) + " seconds). Skipping randomisation."
			randomtime = 9999999999
		else:
			print "Performing random timestamp generation on " + x + "."
			try:
				randomtime = randrange(min,max)
			except:
				"Operation(s) failed."
				raise
			else:
				print "Generated timestamp: " + str(randomtime) + "."

		query = """SELECT CONCAT(
				GROUP_CONCAT(
					INSERT(
						REPLACE(
							A.page_title,
							'_',
							' '
						),
						1,
						0,
						'[['
					) 			
					SEPARATOR ']], '
				),
				']], '
			) 
			FROM (
				SELECT page_title 
				FROM categorylinks 
				JOIN page 
					ON page_id=cl_from 
				WHERE cl_to = REPLACE(%s, ' ', '_')
					AND page_namespace = 0 
					AND UNIX_TIMESTAMP(cl_timestamp) < '%s' 
				ORDER BY cl_timestamp DESC 
				LIMIT 1
			) AS A;"""

		print "Selected subcategory '" + x + "'."
                categories[i] = query
	i += 1

Since I have never written python AFAICR I have kept to your code as close as I can, only the assignment 2 lines from the end is guessing syntax. No doubt you could sort this out in a flash. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 23:22, 24 August 2009 (UTC).

Template:Convert

Hi, would you mind attending to the request at Template talk:Convert#No need for protection because you can probably do it quicker than me with twinkle. Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:56, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

It's done, thanks for letting me know. ~fl 02:37, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

You may want to comment here

You may be interested in the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Sockpuppet_investigations#Sock_template_cleanup as I notice you created a significant, though little used, template earlier this year.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 21:33, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. Happy editing! ~fl 03:50, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I think one issue with your template is that it doesn't appear to allow for an "evidence" parameter other than an spi case, many old cases weren't on spi they were on what used to be called RFCU so the link doesn't work, and often there is some other kind of evidence to be included. Are those issues that could be addressed in your templates? I don't think there is anyone at SPI that thinks we should have so many templates and a one stop shopping template would be something most there would support.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 19:15, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

The template does allow an "evidence" parameter, as well as one for SPI and RFCU. See Template:Sockpuppetry#Evidence links for more info. ~fl 03:13, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Filing a bug

Hi, I notice from the RevDelete RFC that you know about filing bugs. I just wondered if you could either file a small bug or help me do it. It relates to the Article Wizard's use of the inputbox, which at the moment always creates a Subject/Headline header. An option to suppress that would be great, as it does confuse people. See why it's needed at WP:WIZGO (enter a random name for the article, and click edit). Thanks. Rd232 ^talk 10:06, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I did some research about the input box (info found at mw:Extension:InputBox incidentally) and I found that such a feature already exists, the problem is that within the <inputbox>, it was set to type=comment (which produces a section=new dialog) instead of type=create (which does what you want). I've changed both of those input boxes to use the latter rather than the former parameter, no bug request need. You might want to update those Wikipedia:Article wizard 2.0/Wizard-New edit instructions userdraft type pages now, because they don't match the page displayed anymore. Happy editing! ~fl 10:35, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Wonderful, thanks. It's also resulted in automatically previewing the page when you get there, which is a good idea I think. I've updated the instructions accordingly. Cheers! Rd232 ^talk 15:35, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Bot acting strange @ Opentask

Hello, Fl. Could you take a look at your bot, please? It has not made a change on the WIKIFY line on {{Opentask}} for the past two days. I put in new tasks on that line, but your bot restored the same old tasks there on the next edit. Something is wrong. I hope it's something easily fixable. Thanks. --PFHLai (talk) 16:15, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I had a little poke around and found that a recent edit to {{Wikify}} was preventing most (all but 7) pages from being placed into Category:All pages needing to be wikified, and thus being detected by flBot. I made a quick fix which should repopulate the category very soon, and return flBot to normal working order. Thanks for letting me know. ~fl 02:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Now the Bot is putting "None" on the WIKIFY line. --PFHLai (talk) 13:27, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Category was renamed. Fixed now. ~fl 23:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for fixing, Fl. Cheers! --PFHLai (talk) 03:49, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Open tasks updating

I see that your bot updates that section each 3 hours, but I was wondering to ask you a couple things:

Where does this bot takes the tasks? ...I know it´s random, but how it identifies any?
Can that section be updated manually? ...I mean: will the bot erase your change within three hours?

- ☩Damërung ☩. -- 08:41, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

The bot identifies its tasks from a bunch of categories that contain all articles that have been tagged a certain way (i.e. Category:All pages needing to be wikified, Category:All articles needing copy edit etc). It accesses these tasks by performing a SQL query on a copy of the EnWiki database stored on the Toolserver.
The sections of the open task page surrounded by <span id="name-here></span> tags will be overwritten by the bot every three hours, but the rest of the page can be changed by anyone.

Hope these answers have helped. ~fl 09:20, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Are stub articles (category) also listed in the bot´s 'considering bag' of tags? ...And well, which are the listed tags that the bot considers (if can be listed)? - ☩Damërung ☩. -- 12:28, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Getting the stub list uses different logic to all the other lists. Categories are randomly selected from Category:Stub categories and then articles are selected from there (from memory).

The categories the bot looks at are:

If you can understand the Python programming language, a copy of the bot's source code written in that language can be found in my Toolserver SVN repository. ~fl 23:33, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

12. would be articles of a stub sub-category right? - ☩Damërung ☩. -- 07:12, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes. ~fl 11:38, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Your project is spamming Wikipedia, and breaking Special: pages.

Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Community_portal/Opentask#Project_spam_breaks_Special:WantedPages.2C_Special:WhatLinksHere.2C_and_others for details.

It's possible you're not seeing what I am seeing. I am fairly confident that this is the case, or surely there'd have been an outcry to stop the spam from breaking the stats pages already? I can't be only the second person to notice this? So, odds are, this only affects people with a specific setting in their profile. Can't see anything that might be relevant, though: my search preferences only have "(Article)" checked. I'm using the Beta, if that helps? DewiMorgan (talk) 23:11, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Replied at talk page. ~fl 00:36, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Template:Convert/Dual/LoffAoffDbSoffUSre

Hi. Can you explain how Template:Convert/Dual/LoffAoffDbSoffUSre warrants full protection? As far as I can see, it only has one transclusion (on a user subpage). Is there a reason that it can't be unprotected? If not, can you please process this request? Thanks! --MZMcBride (talk) 03:09, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I ran a batch protection on {{convert}} subpages as most are high-risk (as they link into {{convert}}). I'll process these requests now. ~fl 09:37, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Done. ~fl 09:49, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:41, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Welcomecreation -> Welcome notice

Hi, have you seen WP:VPR#MediaWiki:Welcomecreation -> Welcome notice? Just wondered if you would mind filing a bug to request this, or explaining how? Rd232 ^talk 14:34, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:BUG should explain how to file one correctly. ~fl 23:37, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Deletion review for Jealousy Curve

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Jealousy Curve. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. 71.185.242.95 (talk) 03:31, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Revision deletion

Poke. (Last section). - Dank (push to talk) 05:06, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Replied. ~fl 08:05, 14 December 2009 (UTC)