User talk:Mr. Stradivarius/Archive 17

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asking you to review new article

Hi, Mr. S. Would it be kosher to ask someone (e.g. you) if they have time to personally look over an article in the waiting queue for creation (i.e. in order to bypass the wait and just post it directly)? I think you could review an article I'm writing a lot faster and better than a randomly assigned editor. It may hit tricky issues we've already resolved, and I don't want to wait 3 or 4 waiting periods just to debate a certain issue that you could tweak/revise instantly. I'll only send the link if you say this is okay. Thanks for any reply! Squish7 (talk) 00:15, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi Squish7. I don't usually do article reviews, so it's probably best to wait for one of the regulars to review it. However, you might also get a good response by asking at one or more of the related WikiProjects - maybe try Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Running? Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 04:29, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Christmas and New Year greetings

Christmas and New Year greetings

Mediran (t • c) is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year! Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message. Mediran (t • c) 08:29, 24 December 2013 (UTC) Thanks Mediran! Merry Christmas to you too. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 09:18, 24 December 2013 (UTC) Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year! Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message. Thanks! Merry Christmas Sue. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 06:46, 25 December 2013 (UTC) I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2014! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year! — ΛΧΣ21 Call me Hahc21 21:00, 24 December 2013 (UTC) Thank you! A Merry Christmas to you too. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 06:47, 25 December 2013 (UTC) Holiday Cheer Season's Greetings! This message celebrates the holiday season, promotes WikiLove, and hopefully makes your day a little better. Spread the seasonal good cheer by wishing another user an Awesome Holiday and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone with whom you had disagreements in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Share the good feelings! Joys! Paine Thank you Paine! A Very Merry Christmas to you too. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 06:47, 25 December 2013 (UTC) Happy Yuletides! Merry Yuletides to you! (And a happy new year!) ~TheGeneralUser (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year! Spread the Christmas cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas3}} to their talk page with a friendly message. Hi Mr. Stradivarius, Wishing you a very Happy and Wonderful Merry Christmas! Hope you are having a great time with family and friends :-) Best wishes. ~TheGeneralUser (talk) 21:11, 25 December 2013 (UTC) Happy New Year! Hello Mr. Stradivarius: Thanks for all of your contributions to improve the encyclopedia for Wikipedia's readers, and have a happy and enjoyable New Year! Cheers, BusterD (talk) 06:53, 1 January 2014 (UTC) Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year 2014}} to user talk pages with a friendly message. Thank you! Happy New Year to you, too. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 07:33, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Chat

Strad, I see you're online (unless I've got the times messed up). Do you have a moment for a very quick text chat through your old Gmail account that we've used in the past? Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:41, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Sure, no probs. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:42, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

The person you and and I were chatting about yesterday contacted me and it appears that all is well. Best regards, Happy Holidays, and thanks again for the technical help, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:13, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Good to know, thanks. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:23, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh yes, and a Merry Christmas to you, too. :) I'm unlucky - I have to work on Christmas Day this year - but at least it's only for a couple of hours. I'll be getting properly into the Japanese festive spirit after that. I'll be staying away from the KFC though. ;) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:27, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

I didn't really understand the KFC link until I searched "Christmas in Japan KFC" in Google. Not looking forward to Christmas in Kentucky, eh? I wasn't aware of that particular phenomenon and now I know I'm not quite sure whether, as a Yank, to be fascinated, proud, ashamed, or some combination of the three. But you've given me a Christmas smile in any event and I truly appreciate that. A jolly ho, ho, ho, to you, TransporterMan (TALK) 17:00, 24 December 2013 (UTC) PS: The Google Images for "Christmas in Japan" are pretty awesome! — TM 17:04, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Deletion

Please delete:

• Module:Sandbox/SocietyBox/TeamBracket/doc
• Module:Sandbox/SocietyBox/TeamBracket
• Module talk:Sandbox/SocietyBox/TeamBracket

--SocietyBox (talk) 03:44, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

 Done. All the best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:46, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Could you also delete:

• Module:Sandbox/SocietyBox/Super Over

--SocietyBox (talk) 03:49, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

 Done as well. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:51, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

wispa app deletion

Hello, I noticed that you deleted a new article wispa app and wanted to know why? and how i can fix this error?I I have researched other apps like waze, moovit and tried to mimic their sites to make sure i gave neutral information. I would really appreciate an explanation and advice what i can do to fix it. thank you (Sharon Rachel Kirschner (talk) 12:48, 26 December 2013 (UTC))

Hello there Sharon. My first advice is that you should read our page on having a conflict of interest. We encourage editors not to write about subjects that they are closely connected with, as it is very hard to be neutral about them. Also you should understand that Wikipedia isn't for advertising or for "getting the word out" about anything - it is only for documenting things which are already notable. If the Wispa app is popular enough, someone will write an article about it sooner or later.

However, if you really have to submit an article, please do so through Wikipedia:Articles for creation, as that provides a layer of review before the article is put in the main article space. Also, be careful about using the word "you"; that is not good style for an encylopedia. Claims should be backed up by facts and numbers - sentences like "Wispa allows you to be the first to know about apartment or car opportunities" aren't acceptable, as there is no evidence that this is actually true. (See also Wikipedia:Verifiability.) You should also present both sides of Wispa's story, both the good and the bad, if that information has been published in reliable sources. And for other writing tips, check out the essay on "words to watch". Hope this helps. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:18, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Thankyou Mr. Stradivarius for your feedback and suggestions, much appreciated. I will look into it further. (Sharon Rachel Kirschner (talk) 14:29, 26 December 2013 (UTC))

Exception needed for Infobox settlement and Mexico City for three letter language codes

Hi! At User_talk:Pigsonthewing#Template:Infobox_settlement_and_Mexico_City I discovered that the template breaks for Mexico City because Nahuatl language does not have an ISO 639-1, only an ISO 639-2 and an ISO 639-3. Is it okay if an exception is added for languages without ISO 639-1 like Nahuatl? WhisperToMe (talk) 23:33, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

I've replied at Andy's page. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:19, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Module:Documentation

Have you considered using mw.loadData for your 'local configuration' table ? It splits the file, but that might make it easier to force the separation of translation vs code. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:13, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

I have indeed. :) I was going to move it all to a configuration subpage after I finished prising all of the text snippets out of the module code. Still a little way to go yet, though. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 21:37, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Liverpool vs Dinamo Bucharest

"Too early seen unknown, and known too late" William Shakespeare

Hi I saw your notification too late. In the meantime the article it seems has been deleted, which I am very disappointed about. Is there any way that you could you send me the data for the article? I spend about 40-50 hours working on it, and compiling numerous reliable sources. That Wikipedia would not want to have an article on one of the most historic occasions in modern European football is beyond me; it is still one of the most talked-about football matches of modern times with multiple references over time in the media, footballing anthologies, etc.

Thanks in advance.

Best wishes and I wish you a merry festive season and a prosperous 2014. Jprw (talk) 12:22, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

@Jprw: I didn't delete it - the page is still there in the edit history. Also, it would be worth asking the admin that deleted the previous version what he things about your new version, as he may well be satisfied with it. And there is always deletion review if that doesn't work. Have another read of my comment on your talk page and try the things I suggested - they might just work for you. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 15:03, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarifications and I apologise for the misunderstanding. I will have a go tomorrow at implementing the steps that you suggest above. Rgds, Jprw (talk) 17:19, 30 December 2013 (UTC) .

Module:Documentation

Hi could you please fix an issue with view, edit, history and purge buttons please because it does not use the current page it uses for example of your at template:documentation/sandbox and click purge it would not purge that page it would purge template:documentation/doc and same goes view it should view template:documentation/sandbox/doc and same goes for edit and history please could you fix the issue at Module:Documentation and please could you make the name of template documentation bigger the same size as the current template documentation name at template:documentation please 86.173.54.234 (talk) 12:13, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

All in good time - I haven't even finished writing it yet. Bug reports can come after I've actually done the coding. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 12:20, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

oh sorry I will ask after it is completed 86.173.54.234 (talk) 12:31, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

DipanjanMADPLAYHOUSE

Hi, I came across this in my role as an SPI clerk (Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/DipanjanMADPLAYHOUSE). Although I've thus far declined to block based on duck, I wondered if I should block the "master" based on his username. Do you have any thoughts about that? Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:13, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't have the time to investigate the sockpuppetry claims just now, but the username seems ok to me per point 3 of WP:ISU. (Usernames in the format of personal name + company name are usually fine.) And by the way, Happy New Year. :) Hope you have a great 2014. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ^{♪ talk ♪} 18:02, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

You're right. Somehow I missed that bullet. Good thing I came here. Happy New Year to you as well.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:08, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

request for addition

Hi.

i would like you to add to Module:Math a function that pipes mw.language.parseFormattedNumber(). i would do it myself, but this module is locked. the reason for the request is a request in wp:vpt, which made me aware that none of the template parserfunctions are language aware, so it's not possible to recognize the fact that 12,333 or 12,333,444.555 are "kosher" number on wikinglish (but may not be legal numbers on some other wikis, e.g., for languages where comma is the decimal seperator).

peace, קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 20:56, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. If you can code it up in Module:Math/sandbox and write a couple of test cases, I'll copy it over for you. You can leave me a message here, or make an edit request, whichever is easier for you. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 00:59, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

added "parseNumber" to the sandbox (but did not create any test case - did not see any appropriate place for them in the sandbox). will be grateful if you decide to use it. feel free to alter the style (e.g.: you might prefer "parse_number" or maybe even just "parse" to my "parseNumber". also feel free to alter the coding style - i did not examine the rest of the module too closely, and didn't make specific effort to match the style). i'm also not sure anymore what is the right thing to do in case of non-numeric input (one of the reasons i wanted this in the first place is as a way to determine if the input is a number, so i definitely do not want to raise an error in this case - i want to return something that will indicate "false" or "no", and can be used by #if, #ifexpr or #expr. maybe an empry string is more appropriate than nil?

peace.

(ping) peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 17:42, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in replying. After looking at your addition, I had a thought - how about merging your code into p._cleanNumber? p._cleanNumber has the same basic goal of parsing numbers that can't be recognised by tonumber(), but at the moment it is only available from Lua. I think it would make sense to add a parseFormattedNumber check to p._cleanNumber, and then add a wrap.cleanNumber function so that it can be accessed from #invoke. Let me try and code that up so you can test it out. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:13, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

thanks. in general, i think it would be good to expose _cleanNumber() for direct use from templates (though, in this case, there's no point returning two values - everything you return is converted to string anyway, and you'll probably want to convert the "nil" to an empty string), and i think it makes sense to teach _cleanNumber() to handle "language-formatted numbers". it's probably doubly useful for languages that use period and comma other than in english (i believe some languages use comma as the decimal marker, and period as the thousands separator, though i'm not 100% sure). peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 21:01, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

{{EP|u}}

I noticed you've been using {{EP|u}} to respond to some edit requests recently. We're trying to deprecate the u parameter so that it can be replaced with a version of the more sensible message that {{ESp|u}} gives. Can you use a different template message when responding to edit requests in the future? Thanks, Jackmcbarn (talk) 21:10, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Sure, no problem. I'm sure I can stretch to the three extra characters in unpr when I need it. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:22, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Barnstar

Barnstar archived to User:Mr. Stradivarius/Awards. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 02:40, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

If only all nomination statements were so informative. Best wishes. Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:49, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much! It took the better part of an evening back in December, so I'm glad someone noticed. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 10:39, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Input requested on HtmlBuilder/mw.html

Hi! before we merge a version of Module:HtmlBuilder into Scribunto itself (as you were asked about in November), I thought I'd ping you to see if you have any additional comments or improvement suggestions on the code that will be merged. The patch is at gerrit:101874. If you want to comment there, you should be able to log in with your Wikitech account (you can create one if you don't have one already, for technical reasons it's not part of SUL). Unless someone raises issues, I'll probably merge it early next week. Thanks! BJorsch (WMF) (talk) 16:07, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Just a quick comment here to say everything looks good as far as I can make out. I like the additional checks and escapes that have been added - that's definitely a good idea. I expect that sooner or later I will get myself a Gerrit account and set myself up a MediaWiki test environment so that I can test things like this properly, but for now an eyes-only check will have to do. Thanks to you and Hoo man for your work on this. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 08:18, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Why dont change the wrong and old information to the true and new information ??!!!!

Please convert this false and shameless information of damavand elevation to the correct and new elevation that's NASA and so many competent organizations that have been calculate that , (( 5610m is false and 5671m is correct )) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Horamantarh (talk • contribs) 08:29, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi there. What article are you talking about? I couldn't tell from your message. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ^{♪ talk ♪} 08:48, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

How to get number 5 & 6 prerequisites for the Template editor user right?

Hi. I saw my request was rejected by you. I need your help and guide. Would you please show me some templates, diffs or edits for 5 & 6? Because I'm not familiar with them and I don't know how to do them. I need some edit examples for tutorial. Thanks. --Zyma (talk) 20:12, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

It's not so hard, really. If you see a protected template that you would like to update, make the edit in the template's sandbox, show that your edit works by making a couple of tests in the template's test cases page, and then make an edit request so that the edit will be performed by an admin or a template editor. After you've done that a few times without your edits breaking anything, then you'll be qualified for the template editor right. Have a look at WP:TESTCASES for instructions on how to use sandbox and test cases pages, and take a look at Help:Templates for general help with template syntax. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:08, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Helpful but it's hard to find protected templates that they require editing. I will try but I guess I will succeed to do only a few edit requests for protected templates. But will be more edits on sandboxes. On 1 February I will submit my request for granting "template editor right" again. Please consider all of my contributions in Template Namespace not just 5 & 6. Cheers. --Zyma (talk) 18:40, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

@Zyma: If it's hard for you to find protected templates that you want to edit, then why do you need the template editor user right? That right is only useful if you want to edit protected templates. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 10:04, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Because I patrol templates and If I find a protected template that needs editing, I want to be able to edit that template. Also it's useful, because It allows me to do more contributes in Template Namespace plus learning new things. These are some of the reasons that I want TE right. --Zyma (talk) 11:48, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

• For example, after I got File Mover right, I do renaming process when I find files with problematic names in the articles. It helps me in File Namespace. Same for Template Editor right. It will be handy and useful when I need it. --Zyma (talk) 11:56, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

The point is that editing protected templates on Wikipedia isn't like any other aspect of editing. If you were given the template editor user right, you would have the ability to break millions of pages, so we need to know that you know what you're doing before we give you the right. If you can show that you know template syntax, that you know how to properly test your edits, and that you know what edits might be controversial, then you can have the right, no problem. If you can't show that you can do those things, then I'm afraid that you're out of luck. In the meantime, if you find a template that needs editing, you can always use the {{edit protected}} or {{edit template-protected}} templates, and someone will make the edit for you. Hope this helps. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 12:57, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Okay. Good notes by you. I will try to do my best and submit my request on 1 February again. No problem if I don't have this user right. Just want to get more involved in the Template Namespace. Until 1 Feb, I try to become more familiar with protected templates and learn new things. Thanks again Stradivarius. --Zyma (talk) 13:19, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi

Hello Stradivarius,

Thank you for updating content, i don't have much more experience in Wikipedia, if i have any doubt i will contact you

Thank you

Anu Vasudevan — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anuvb101 (talk • contribs) 09:01, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Request to be mediator on an accepted RFM

Hello User:Mr. Stradivarius

This is to request if you would be able to mediate for [1] which has been accepted for mediation.

All the parties to the dispute are agreeable to mediation.

Thanks (I am the filer) 2001:4DD0:FF00:8A8B:0:0:0:5747 (talk) 10:34, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi there. :) I'm flattered that you asked me, but I'm afraid I will have to decline. At the moment I've been concentrating my on-wiki activities on writing Lua modules, and I would probably only do a half-baked mediation if I tried to do both mediation and module-writing at the same time. Both of those require lots of time, and mediation in particular requires you to act in a timely fashion to any problems that occur. I don't want to spread myself too thinly, and I figure that since I'm editing here as a volunteer here I may as well choose to do the activity that I enjoy doing the most. So modules it is, for now at least. I've actually been thinking of making this stance official with MedCom, but hadn't decided either way until now. Anyway, I wish you all the best in your mediation and hope that you find a mediator soon. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:33, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Protection detection

I split the protection detection out of Module:Protected edit request into Module:Effective protection level. This should make it easier to rewrite {{pp-meta}} and the rest of those templates with lua. (Also, does it look like I broke anything by doing that?) Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:49, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

That's a good idea - thanks for your work. At a glance, I would say that the module should probably return nil rather than the blank string for unprotected pages, as that's the normal Lua way of doing things. And some documentation would be nice. :) At the design level, I think we may need to know each separate protection level for the rewrite of {{pp-meta}}, rather than just the highest level - shall think some more about that. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:47, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Documentation's done. As for returning nil instead of '', that's a good idea, but to keep the module from being ugly, I'm going to wait until I get another MediaWiki change through before I do that. I don't see a need to return each source of protection, since it's already separated by action (so move- and semi-protected pages will work). If you think of a case that that wouldn't work for, let me know. Jackmcbarn (talk) 19:17, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank You

Thank you for your assistance in semi-protecting my UserTalk page, and reverting edits relating to my denial of User:Colton Cosmic's unblock request. --TommyBoy (talk) 03:35, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

You're welcome. Just ping me if more cluebat needs to be applied. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:12, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Module:TimeAgo doesn't work with wiki whose $wgLocaltimezone is not GMT

So, actually the problem is not about this module directly but is about {{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}} which is used along with Template:Time ago widely. {{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}} will return local time, but the module assumes that all inputs are in GMT. thwiki, for example, has timezone = GMT+7. When I saved a page which contains "{{Time ago|{{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}}}}", instead of "0 second ago," I got "7 hours' time" instead.

Do you have any idea how to make "{{Time ago|{{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}}}}" come out correctly while other inputs are still funtional? --Nullzero (talk) 20:37, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

I think this should have done it - can you test it and confirm whether it's working or not? Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 21:31, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I had tried that before, but it doesn't work because "U" will regard the input as time in GMT although we force lang.formatDate to use local time. In other words, the third parameter has no effect if we use "U."

In order to avoid using "U", I change lang:formatDate("U" to lang:formatDate("Y m d h i s"), extract year, month, day, hour, minute, second, and combine everything to form time duration since January 1, 0, 00:00:00, but my attempt still can't solve this problem because every input, such as -1 minute, will be in different timezone from {{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}}. For example, with lang:formatDate(...) which is based on GMT+0, "{{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}}" is in GMT+7 while "-1 minute" is in GMT+0. With, lang:formatData(..., ..., true) which is based on GMT+7, "{{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}}" is in GMT+14 while "-1 minute" is in GMT+7. They are inconsistent. While {{Time ago|{{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}}}} is functional, {{Time ago|-1 second}} is not. On the other hand, while {{Time ago|-1 second}} is functional, {{Time ago|{{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}}}} is not.

You can examine the result from this link. Note that {{#time:..}} is equivalent to lang:formatDate(..., ...), and {{#timel:...}} is equivalent to lang:formatDate(..., ..., true). --Nullzero (talk) 22:37, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

I see. This is a tricky one. The problem is that we don't know whether we will be passed a local timestamp or a GMT timestamp. For example, on thwiki, {{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}} is in GMT but {{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}} is in local time, so whichever way we choose to parse the time zones, the module will break for one or the other. Because we don't know what time zone to expect, this will need to be done by parameter. How about having a |localtime= parameter that interprets the time as local time if set, and GMT if not set? Or you could do it in individual templates by using {{#expr:{{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}} - {{#timel: O}} * 100}} as input. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 00:26, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Aha. I will try. Thank you very much :) --Nullzero (talk) 01:54, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

A few inquiries

Hi.

I am in bit of dilemma as to how to proceed with this case. An edit on 30 November 2013 has added a line of copyvio to Internet Explorer 11. I just spotted it today. The article hasn't changed much but there is a total of 23 revisions containing this copyvio. Is this case eligible for revision hiding?

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 06:35, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Bah, this always happens when you ask me to help you with something. :) I zapped the revisions, but then I thought better of it and restored them again - the intervening edits probably require attribution even though they're not present in the current version of the article. (WP:RD1 can't be used if there are any edits requiring attribution.) I don't think any of the policies cover this specific eventuality, though, so it might be something to bring up on Wikipedia talk:Revision deletion if you would like some more clarity. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 07:12, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, I guess I can't complain because you fix it yourself. :) You know, once I made a slightly erroneous edit request to a template and then sent fix request shortly afterwards. So, this admin came along and said looks like I know what I am doing, so I might as well have template editor rights. Who knows? Maybe one day someone comes along and say, "Oh, looks like you know what you are doing, MS. Here, you are crat from now on! Now go fill form #23-2343-12A-CC."

Anyway, just wanted to give you an update and say "thanks". Wikipedia talk:Revision deletion said it is insignificant. Oh, and by the way, the copyright issue about one of my user pages that I brought to you is resolved, officially, in an MfD. Verdict: No violations. I have moved it to User:Codename Lisa/What if the characters of Friends TV series were Wikipedians? Well, I guess I am glad you didn't just delete it when I told you that you can do so, although you suspected it had copyright problems at the time.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 04:07, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

You'll have to show me how to work that #23-2343-12A-CC form - I've always been wondering. ;) You know, you've been around for a while now and seem to have got to know the place quite well - have you considered running for adminship? I'm just saying that off the cuff, though, so it's not like I've done a review of your edits or anything. Perhaps you could consider doing an editor review first if you're interested? As for the advice, you're welcome, as always. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:11, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Wow! I guess "adminship" was the last thing I expected here. There were definitely times in which I wished I was an admin to clear certain backlogs like AfD, FfD, NFCR and such but I understand adminship has requirements that I so far disregarded in favor of regard for a certain area of Wikipedia. So, I am obliged to ask: What did you see in me that made you make a connection between me and adminship? (Although you are saying it was "off the cuff", I think it is worth investigation.)

One area of importance that comes to my mind right now is my 3 Personal Attack Rule (3PAR) mentality: You see, I do not tolerate bullying in workplace; if I were an admin and saw a user using pure ad hominem as the sole argument in a dispute three times in a row, I'd issue a cease-or-be-blocked ultimatum. Forth time would be block. I know it is important, but in which direction?

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 01:39, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

When you've been around here for a while, it's natural to think about adminship - as you say, there are plenty of backlogs that need helping out with. Looking in to your edits a little bit, I think you might need some more experience in admin areas - I see some experience in AfD, but more would be good, and I don't see any much speedy deletion tagging. You're better off getting someone else to look at FfD, but probably more experience there would be good as well. As for your 3PAR rule, that could be controversial. It's fine to have rules of thumb like that, but if your rule of thumb ever ends up conflicting with policy or with consensus, then you need to go with the policy/consensus rather than with your rule. Your approach would be ok for clear personal attacks, in my opinion, and for things that are really bad you might not need to warn at all. But for things that are less clear-cut, the current consensus, as I understand it, is that a kind word of advice on the user's talk page would be better than a rigid system of warnings. Blocks should be a last resort if dialogue doesn't work. But anyway, with just a little bit more experience in admin areas I think you would be a fine admin candidate, and I hope you'll consider it in due course. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 02:34, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

What you said was immensely valuable. I hope I am not bothering you because I am about to discuss it a little further. (Social interaction is one of your areas of expertise after all.) You are the first person to have ever commented on my 3PAR mentality, but I am not sure if you've seen the key words: "using pure ad hominem as the sole argument". For example – Warning! Example ahead! – "he is an a**hole!" is a pure ad hominem but "are you blind?" is not pure. Also consider this: "The fineprint on section F, part 2 says it is based on Flounder! Don't you see it or are you pretending not to see it, punk?". Punk is a pure ad hominem but it is not the sole argument. So, none of these instances increase my 3PAR counter but I have seen them cause ANI discussions collapse around the poor soul who used them. So, how does this criteria meet policy mandates?

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 03:45, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Ah, yes, that is a lot clearer with examples, and I fully agree with them. I suspect a lot of other users won't know what you mean about 3PAR unless you give examples, so be aware of that when you mention it in your future RfA. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:54, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

template:for loop

1. 123
2. 123

any idea why the first one works, but the second (currently) does not? Frietjes (talk) 17:50, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

seems the issue is that '1' (string) is not the same as 1 (numeric) when it comes to args. could be fixed by a variableParam = tonumber(variableParam) or variableParam, but seems like there must be a better way? Frietjes (talk) 19:02, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

see module:ForLoop/sandbox for a hack. Frietjes (talk) 19:06, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the fixes. I've refactored the module, switched it to use Module:Arguments, and put it up live. Let me know if you spot it doing anything strange. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:39, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Template editor comment

Thanks for that, the part about template sandboxes slipped my mind. :o Acalamari 10:09, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

No worries. Actually, I edit conflicted with you, and just removed all the "not done" stuff from the start of my comment when I saw the edit conflict window. So you shouldn't read anything too deep into what I said. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 10:13, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Ah, okay. Well, regardless, I still appreciate your note! :) Acalamari 10:24, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Problems getting unacceptable

Hello! Please advise me what to do about things like this. I just can't stand it anymore and am considering to quit English WP alltogether. Specifcally I should note that you never miss an opportunity to highlight that someone is not a native speaker of English, which, frankly, borders on personal attack, where the never miss an opportunity part is so insulting and cruel and unfait that is makes me feel physically sick, and where the accusation of personal attack re: English is beyond my comprehension. It's been going on for a long time now, with that user. Would you please give me some constructive advice that might make me behave and/or feel better? --SergeWoodzing (talk) 06:42, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, I don't know if this is a recurring thing with Surtsicna, or a recurring thing with you - or both - but he does have a point about your comment "I doubt that anyone with English as a first language would agree". It does pay to be tactful when talking about grammar in situations like that. If you have evidence that this is a recurring problem, and you have already tried talking to Surtsicna on his talk page about it, then you could try taking it to WP:ANI. But I suspect it might be better to just think twice before you imply that other editors have inferior English skills. There are other ways to resolve issues like this that have a lot less risk of causing drama. Hope this helps. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 10:25, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

It has been going on for a while with SergeWoodzing and many users. Simply put, nobody appreciates his condescending lectures, which is hardly surprising. See, for example, User talk:Cotillards#Created grammar problem, where he threatened to stalk a user if she did not change her "near-native English" template, and then to block her (as if he could) when she told him off. I see he has posted the same message on talk pages of four other administrators (Magioladitis, John Vandenberg, JamesBWatson, and TransporterMan), but never bothered to ping me, which is rather dishonest. Anyway, as I told Cotillards, the last time he tried to have someone (me) blocked at ANI, the administrators told him to grow up and to stop acting immature. That apparently achieved nothing. Surtsicna (talk) 12:17, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Surtsicna, for calling my attention to the fact that SergeWoodzing has posted multiple copies of this message. Doing so without informing the recipients can be unhelpful: in such cases I have known it to happen that several people put time and effort into trying to provide help, not knowing that they are unnecessarily duplicating what others have said. I have written a fairly long answer on my talk page, which may or may not be helpful to SergeWoodzing. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:20, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

I do not know it this is relevant, but I saw this by accident and I cannot help but react: SergeWoodzing has complained about my English as well, and though to some degree justified, he did so in a less cordial way, and even another user saw his act as a way to have me blocked: [[2]]. I thought I should ad this if it could be of any help. Personally, I feel rather uncomfortable complaining about other users, but I myself has since long preferred to avoid SergeWoodzing because of my experience of his behavior (in much higher degree in Swedish language Wikipedia, though), and his own difficulty to understand how destructive it could be. On that occasion, he deleted my reply to him on his page. That being said, I always feel uncomfortable complaining about another user this way, but it is very hard to make SergeWoodzing to understand that he could be at fault. I nonetheless think that it would actually be good for himself and his future at Wikipedia to realize this, so if my example on my page could be of any help, you may link to it, because it seems that this is a reoccurring problem. If he could see that his behavior is actually a problem to himself, then it could actually be of help to him too. Otherwise, I prefer to stay away from this discussion. I wish you luck in dealing with it! --Aciram (talk) 16:55, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Just for the record, I'm not an administrator, Surtsicna, though I'm honored by being included in the same list with those you mentioned above, as well as my friend, Mr. Stradivarius, here. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 18:23, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

To be honest, I only checked two or three users and assumed that you too are an administrator, probably because you are a quite reputable editor. I am glad I did not cause a misunderstanding :) Surtsicna (talk) 20:20, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Module:Documentation

Hi the view, edit ,history and purge buttons are not showing please could you fix the issue in Module:Documentation 86.135.166.133 (talk) 07:21, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

I keep telling you, it's not finished yet. :P Wait until I write the test cases, then this kind of thing will always get picked up. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 07:32, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

oh sorry 93.93.216.63 (talk) 11:24, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Withdrawal of RfA Nomination

Hi Mr. Stradivarius, Since there does not appear to be any hope of success at my RfA I have withdrawn my nomination. Thank you for your kindness and support through this rather challenging process. With all good wishes,-- — Keithbob • Talk • 02:11, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi Keithbob, and sorry that things didn't work out. I think you did the right thing by withdrawing. Unfortunately, this kind of issue is among the hardest to recover from for future RfAs, as it isn't a simple matter of gaining more experience. I myself was a little worried about the checkuser evidence that was linked to, which I wasn't aware of before. Still, it's not impossible to overcome things like this. If you give a more concrete explanation of how you are involved with the TM movement and about why the checkuser evidence said what it did, then I think you would have a good chance at a future run. People will appreciate it if you are up front and honest about things like this - it was partly because the TM issue hadn't been addressed in the nominations or the opening questions that things headed south so quickly. If you are thinking of running again, six months is generally considered the minimum wait. Let me know if you have any more questions or want any more advice, and I'll be happy to help out. All the best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:34, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

New Page

Can you review my page Washington Arlington Catholic Forensics League? I know you probably do not know much about it, but can you edit it too make it an overall better article and if its biased make it unbiased. ImVeryAwesome (talk) 07:27, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

@ImVeryAwesome: Hi there. :) The first thing I notice about it is that the references in the article aren't enough to show that it passes Wikipedia's notability guidelines. It's great that you added references, but to prove notability from Wikipedia's perspective, those references can't be to the organisation itself - they need to be to third-party sources that have a reputation for fact-checking, like newspapers or books. See this guide for the quick explanation, and see the notability guidelines for organisations for the full thing. I had a quick look online and didn't see any likely-looking sources, so it might be that we can't have an article about it on Wikipedia. If you aren't aware of any suitable sources either, how about merging the content to National Catholic Forensic League instead? We could have a section there about all the chapters, and include WACFL as part of that. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:03, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Likely horrible idea

In your opinion, does the idea behind http://en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Module:Sandbox/Jackmcbarn/PolymorphicEditProtected have any merit, or is it too complicated and breakable? (If the former, are there any other places it may be useful?) Jackmcbarn (talk) 23:16, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

That's a pretty neat trick. :) I think it might be too difficult for your average protected edit requester to get their head around, though. I think you would see people manually removing the safesubst before making an edit, and I expect there are a significant percentage of people who just don't get all this #invoke and module stuff in the first place. I'd say it's best to keep edit requests done by templates if we can. As to whether we can put it to use somewhere else, I'm not sure. Nothing springs to mind, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a place where it might fit. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:30, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Good idea about the module being too complicated. I reworked it to act like a regular template, with only the safesubst: out of the ordinary. I'll ask Technical 13 what he thinks as well. Jackmcbarn (talk) 04:10, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Voter Participation Center

As per your notes on the Voter Participation Center's Talk page, I've rewritten the proposed changes to the Voter Participation Center's page, adding third-party references or qualifying the claims made. Please take a look at the draft on my user page and let me know whether those changes have addressed your concerns. Thanks! —Preceding undated comment added 17:05, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Module:ConvertNumeric and Module:NumberSpell

I see you created the module Module:NumberSpell. However, there has already been Module:ConvertNumeric, which, if I don't misunderstand, has the same functionality as NumberSpell. Isn't it better to merge these two modules together? --Nullzero (talk) 01:02, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I wasn't aware of Module:ConvertNumeric when I wrote Module:NumberSpell. ConvertNumeric is much more complete than NumberSpell, though, so it is probably best to convert existing uses of NumberSpell over to ConvertNumeric and then delete it. It's not a complicated module, so it won't be any great loss. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:11, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

{{Template:Rfplinks}}

Hey, since I most often see you answering PERM requests (for TE anyways), what do you think of the changes I've been making to {{Rfplinks}}? Technical 13 (talk) 00:41, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Looks good! I'd rather you didn't use <tt>...</tt> tags though, as they make the template fail HTML 5 validation. Also, it would be really useful if we could work in a link to template + template talk contribs with a limit of 999 for the template editor page. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:09, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

• I've been trying to figure out a way to get a list of all Template talk, Module talk, and MediaWiki talk: contributions for a user with an edit summary that includes /Edit ([ protecd]*?) request/i so I can add a link for all edit requests. Turning up dry... so far.. Considering putting a tool for it on labs myself. Technical 13 (talk) 01:53, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

R from move

Hi, Mr. S! I just tried to convert {{R from move}} so that it uses {{Redirect template}} and found it fully "cascade protected". I went to Wikipedia:Cascade-protected items, but I was unable to find R from move listed there. Is there another page that cascade protects pages? – Paine Ellsworth ^CLIMAX! 03:20, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) The page causing the problem is Wikipedia:New admin school/Protecting deleted pages/Transclusionist. I've requested that it be fixed. Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:45, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

And I've removed the protection. Actually, there are quite a few pages that have cascading protection enabled. As well as the main page (and related pages) and Wikipedia:Cascade-protected items, there are a number of "lockboxes" that individual administrators have set up. You can check out the full list here. (A lot of those probably should be cleaned up or unprotected.) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:52, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

• (talk page stalker) I've had issues with cascading protection that couldn't be found as well. I'm working on a user script (based on Anomie's template transclusion script, but with a few new functions and an easier to read appearance (so of the log entries make the lines hard to read, it's not the script itself , just the info it retrieves). I'd like to see a lot of the cascade protected "lock-boxes" merged or eliminated, there's really no reason for it. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 04:04, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you all! I'd imagine it could get pretty complicated over the years. – Paine Ellsworth ^CLIMAX! 04:09, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Template:Infobox element

update to {{documentation}} has resulted in Template:Infobox element showing a script error. the problem appears to be from the size of the templates transcluded within the documentation, in particular inclusion of the periodic table in Template:Periodic table templates. a simple fix would be to remove the periodic table from Template:Periodic table templates, since it's not really helpful for navigation between periodic table templates, but I thought I would check to see if there was another solution. Frietjes (talk) 17:08, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

I've replied over at Template talk:Documentation#Script error. Thanks for letting me know. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:10, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Question regarding a page protection request you handled

I have been working to improve an article located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athiyur The talk page is located here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Athiyur

If you look at the diffs of the talk page this user Athiyurbala has edited your message there and put in her own name?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Athiyur&diff=next&oldid=594009404

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AAthiyur&diff=594009404&oldid=591081872

The user is somehow trying to protect the page by putting her name there instead of yours and then putting a work in progress tag on the article page itself? I really don't understand how she can change the message from your user name to hers? Is she an admin too?

I am just trying to improve the article, but I don't want to step on anyone's toes. I have been working on the article in good faith but now she has blocked editing of the article?

Can you help or explain this?

Thanks Carriearchdale (talk) 09:06, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Nope, Athiyurbala isn't an admin, but seems to be a newcomer, and is making some typical newcomer errors. It's technically possible to change the text of my message, but it isn't allowed in the talk page guidelines, so I've reverted it. I've also removed the {{in use}} template, because I think it was likely not used for its intended purpose. I think Athiyurbala is probably annoyed because their edits keep getting reverted, but they haven't communicated with anyone so far, so it's hard to know for certain. Perhaps leaving a nice message for them on their talk page would be the best way to smooth things over. If that doesn't work, give me another message and I'll look into it. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 10:42, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Wiki-hounded at Philosophy of education

Hello Mr. Stradivarius,

I am being Wiki-hounded on the Philosophy of education article and would appreciate some intervention.

stmullin

There is a vote on the Philosophy of education page concerning Thales of Miletus . . . I need some support with his defense . . . could you visit that page and cast your vote? Stmullin (talk) 02:24, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, Stmullin, but this is called canvassing and isn't allowed on Wikipedia. I've left a note in the discussion about this as well. If you feel you need help with that page, the proper thing to do is to go through dispute resolution. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 10:50, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

I have used the strike prompt to achieve neutrality. Hope that is sufficient. Stmullin (talk) 14:12, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

function message()

I found that function message() in Module:Documentation is very useful. Unlike string.format(), it can be used to swap parameters and therefore can localize many messages effectively. I think that it would be nice to move this function to meta module such as Module:Arguments. If you agree with me, please proceed. Thank you. --Nullzero (talk) 20:11, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

If we were to do that, we should probably put it in a new module, for example Module:Message or Module:i18n. Or perhaps it could even be integrated with the mw.message library. I agree that it would be nice to have a standardised way of localising modules like this. I'll ask at Wikipedia talk:Lua and see what others have to say about this. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:09, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

@Nullzero: I don't know if you've been following the conversation over at Wikipedia talk:Lua, but it turns out that the mw.message library can actually do this already, plus a lot more. For example, mw.message.newRawMessage("foo $2 bar $1"):params("baz", "qux"):plain() will give you "foo qux bar baz". So there's no need for a separate meta-module. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 06:49, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Yep, I have been following that page. Thank you for letting me know, anyway. :) --Nullzero (talk) 16:54, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

YGM

{{You've got mail}}

Hope you're not being overworked. The email I sent you is short. Atsme (talk)

Hi Atsme. :) I'm afraid I don't remember you from the last time we interacted, if we did, but I'd be happy to give you advice if you need any. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:32, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

(YGM)

I can understand you not remembering. It was back in 2011 - time flies!! Anyway, I copied your email and sent it to you in a private message. Maybe it will jar your memory - not that it matters. I appreciate your offer for advice either way.  ;-) Atsme (talk)

Wikipedia:Rollback feature

Hi.

I have a question about Rollback. It appears that Twinkle can do exactly the same thing but is also available to all autoconfirmed users. So, why on earth would anyone want to become a rollbacker?

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 18:47, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Having Rollback gives a user access to a few more tools like STiki and Huggle for example. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 18:58, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Yep, that's why I applied for the right back in the day, anyway. Native rollback is also faster than Twinkle's rollback, although not so much faster that it really bothers me. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 21:42, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Huh. It's like having members-only tables in a restaurant without any benefit for the members beyond the table itself....

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 23:57, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Superpower

Some discussions are as old as 17th January(older than 14 days). You should archive them. And the solved issues(like that comma one) should be marked as "closed". Agree? OccultZone (Talk) 05:33, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Actually, 14 days is probably a little too quick to archive an article talk page, unless you are regularly getting page sizes of over 150kb. 30 days or 60 days would be more typical. And I did mark the latest edit request as done, which is as closed as it's going to get. :) We usually save {{archive top}} and co. for larger RfCs and noticeboard discussions. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:38, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

I would point, that there is no consesus about the proposed categories yet. Because the main article is unrelated with the categories. "States by power status", "International relations", aren't coherent. Currently there is only 1 superpower. OccultZone (Talk) 06:05, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

I've left my rationale on the talk page, so it's probably best to keep discussion there. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 06:11, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

The content is only 14 days old and it was kind of commenting on the discussion for the article. Can the discussion of the achieve be breakon down at least (leave in and leave out)? I am thinking of the url's and acedemic sources in that particular discussion can be saved? I want to try and fix the article but within the research I noticed in the discussion seems pretty valuable for the talk page.--62.73.7.79 (talk) 06:40, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

If you want to discuss the sources that were cited in that discussion, I think it would be best to put them in a new thread. You could do some selective quoting of the section, or you could just compile a list of all the sources that were mentioned that you are interested in. Either way, I wouldn't restore the rhetoric against Antiochus the Great, as isn't likely to be helpful for finding a consensus on the disputed content. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 07:31, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Note that 62.73.7.79 has been blocked twice in the last few weeks for extremely disruptive behavior (harassing and stalking of my edits). The IP is irrationally pushing for nationalistic POV in the Superpower article and deliberately chooses to ignore comments by other editors (including admins) on why his POV doesn't belong in the article. Much of the IPs comments at the talk page are nothing more than an ignorant tirade of false accusations towards me, they have no value. The IP is also using proxies to (his IP jumps from country to country to try mask his disruptive behavior), see this discussion I have been having with an administrator about the situation (User talk:The Bushranger/Archive24#Suspicious activity). At the RfC on the Superpowers talk page, I would like to know if it is OK to remove the IPs comments which are abusive towards me and have no relation what-so ever to the RfC? Thanks. Antiochus the Great (talk) 12:52, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

If it gets really bad we could semi-protect the talk page. But I have to say that your remarks at the start of the RfC aren't helping. In this kind of situation it's better to not mention behaviour at all, but rather to just concentrate on the content issues. If you're patient enough, and willing to see things from the IP's point of view, you might just find a resolution to all of this that pleases everyone involved and also respects Wikipedia policy. And if that's not possible - i.e. if you have continued to assumed good faith about the IP's actions, and still been proven wrong - then from an admin's perspective it is a lot clearer that assuming good faith wouldn't have worked anyway. At the moment, if I went and removed or collapsed that section, it would look like I was playing favourites, which will probably only make matters worse. My advice to you is to read WP:GLUE, perhaps go and <s>strike</s> some of your comments in the RfC introduction, and then try your best to talk only about content. And if you're still concerned about the IP's conduct after that, you can drop me a message here, or perhaps better would be by email. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:30, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

I hope you checked the edit request. I had posted. OccultZone (Talk) 17:03, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Other admin did it. Thanks OccultZone (Talk) 17:42, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

The IP is now trying to instigate an edit-war at People's Liberation Army Navy Surface Force. He was blocked yesterday for warring there. It is this sort of behavior (that has been going on before the RfC) which makes it hard to assume in good faith. Antiochus the Great (talk) 12:32, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

I've protected it for a week. In future, it might be quicker to ask at WP:RFPP. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:41, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks very much Stradivarius. Antiochus the Great (talk) 14:50, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Help needed

Hi! You participated at the discussion at Talk:Latin Europe, so maybe you can help at the improvement of the article Latin peoples (=peoples speaking Latin languages). I was asked by an editor to provide sources about this subject at Talk:Hispanic_and_Latino_Americans#New_suggestion:_creation_of_a_dab and I need assistance 79.117.174.55 (talk) 07:03, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Lawrence Sheriff School

• Lawrence Sheriff School (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I can provide with you with evidence from the Local Government Ombudsman and the actual DfE letter as conclusive proof. The school wants to hide this. Very shortly the LGO will actually publish its findings on its own website. Shall I post it here or send you a private email if you provide an email address?

Why can the school state its league table ranking and yet leave out critical data showing by its own admission 25% of children failed to acheive the the EB. If this fact cannot be stated to provide an objective analysis then surely the League tables should also be removed. The school stated 75% achieved the EB so clearly 25% didn't and this is not a great achievement compared to other grammar schools. This does not even place the school in the top 60. The head published this in the school's own newsletter.

These are facts and should be published. The site has biase without this.

LawrenceSheriff (talk) 09:19, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

@LawrenceSheriff: Sorry, but we can't use evidence from the Local Government Ombudsman or the DfE letter, as that would be original research, which is forbidden on Wikipedia. Neither do we publish things just because they are facts. If something is a fact, but we can't cite it to a reliable source, then it doesn't pass Wikipedia's verifiability policy and can't be included. To count as "reliable" in Wikipedia's definition, a source must have a reputation for fact-checking; good sources are newspapers, books and academic journals. Sometimes we can use primary sources such as the LGO's website, but they must be used with care, and usually if an event is only covered in primary sources then it isn't included in articles. The answer to your question about the league table ranking is that the article needs cleaning up. If there are claims in there that aren't cited to a reliable source, then either sources should be found for them, or they should be removed. Feel free to remove unsourced claims yourself. And let me know if any of this is unclear. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:40, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Is a DfE finding original research? They investigated the school on behalf of the Secretary for State of Education.

This is not disputed by the school. Clear evidence is available.

The Local Government Ombudsman publishes every single case on its website where the case is over, in a similar way a legal case is published. Are you saying this is orignal research and cannot be used?

Then are you saying an OFSTED report is original research and cannot be included? I note an OFSTED report is used in references.

This report is over 6 years old. How can this be recent? Should this statement in the opening paragraph be allowed without stating the year? Do you care to modify it? How can the site say outstanding in every category and not state this report is over 6 years old or state the date?

Are you saying the Head stated in his own newsletter 75% achieved the EB so 25% did not, cannot be stated even though a reference was provided?

There are various different league tables and open to manipulation so surely all references should be removed.

LawrenceSheriff (talk) 10:38, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Original research isn't any of the things you describe. It's when you advance a novel theory or claim which cannot be cited to a reliable, published source (and that's "reliable" as defined by Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources). A source itself cannot be original research, because it's the claim that you make in the Wikipedia article that is the original part. It's how you use the sources in the Wikipedia article that matters. Please read Wikipedia:No original research - hopefully it should answer your questions. If there's anything you're still not sure about after reading it, please leave me another message. (Also, it helps if you indent your posts on talk pages - I've done yours for you above.) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 11:53, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Edward A. Shadid main article

Hi Mr. Stradivarius,

You deleted the Edward A. Shadid article back in September 2012 because he did not meet the criteria. I think he does meet the criteria now. I've only made a couple of typographical edits. I don't know how to revive a deleted page.

Dr. Shadid is the only contestant against Mayor Mick Cornett in the Oklahoma City election, which is March 4th. Can you tell me how to get this page back up? I will work to get some good edits in to reflect his current public interest. --Listserv (talk • contribs) 01:35, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Listserv, and welcome to Wikipedia! I can restore the Edward A. Shadid page for you, but first I'll need to see some evidence that he now passes either Wikipedia's general notability guideline or the notability guideline for politicians, as if he doesn't the page will only get deleted again. Do you have any sources about Shadid which satisfy Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources? See also this simple explanation of the notability guidelines. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 04:13, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Sockpuppet strikes back

Hello, MS

IrapedSteveJobs (talk · contribs), a sockpuppet is of the now-blocked IamGoingToRapeYou (talk · contribs) has resumed his misdeed. It is a vandal-only account. I thought perhaps reporting this to ANI is overkill and a simple notice to any admin would suffice.

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 01:02, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Blocked. In the future, you will get the quickest response for this type of thing by going to WP:AIV. And if the problem is with the username but not vandalism in particular, you need WP:UAA. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:27, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Oh, yeah! AIV! I've been there before. I don't how it didn't occur to me.

Thanks anyway. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 02:56, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

BracketBot barnstar

Barnstar moved to its rightful location. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 02:23, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but you've got the wrong editor! The bot's creator and maintainer is User:A930913, not me. All I did was make an edit to the bot's notification template today... — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 16:06, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

Barnstar archived to User:Mr. Stradivarius/Awards. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 02:32, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Glad to know that my hacking is being appreciated. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:37, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks

Barnstar archived to User:Mr. Stradivarius/Awards. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 02:32, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

No problem. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 02:32, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Val2

Thanks for closing that, but please don't reduce the protection level. It's a highly technical template, and it's used to present some of the most sensitive bits of information on Wikipedia. The original protection request was not in anyway done to 'control' the content of the template [as evidenced by the large ammount of change in the template since TE was applied], but to protect it from Kwamikagami's half a million reckless edits. Any change made to val should go through the sandbox first, and that's why TE was applied in the first place. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 13:55, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Highly technical, yes, but not all that widely used. If this had a few more thousand transclusions then I would probably agree with you, but 1,700 transclusions just doesn't seem enough to warrant template protection. Of course, untested changes and edit warring on the template are not acceptable, and I'll deal with that if it happens again, either with full protection or with blocks. If you disagree with my decision that's perfectly fine - it's just my judgement, after all, and different administrators might have done different things. If you want to appeal, I think the appropriate place would be WP:AN. And please feel free to appeal if you want to - I won't hold it against you. In contentious cases like this it's almost a given that some editors won't be happy with the decision made, so I think it's important that there are no barriers to appeal. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:10, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Has anything been done to "encourage" users to develop val in its sandbox? The series of edits in val's history should not occur in a template that is used in 858 articles, and some way of testing changes is needed given that it would be very easy to not notice problems, leaving junk in articles. Bold is good, but what happened at val is not really what WP:BOLD promotes. Johnuniq (talk) 00:37, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm fully agreed that the recent string of edits to {{val}} should not have occurred, and that in the future editors need to use the sandbox and test their edits properly. I would add that as well as making sure they aren't introducing any errors to the template, they also need to find consensus for their changes on the talk page before making any edits. I said in my close of TfD discussion that I would use either full protection or blocks in the event of more edit warring at the template, but if you think something else is necessary, then I would be open to that. Perhaps alerting the users involved to this discussion will be enough to discourage more untested changes. In the interest of fairness, here are pings for all the users who have edited val recently: Kwamikagami, Headbomb, Ktr101 and Jimp. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:13, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Your block of Babel AutoCreate

Re your block of Babel AutoCreate (talk · contribs) - have you informed the bot's owner? --Redrose64 (talk) 09:33, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Not yet. The bot page doesn't list an owner, and the instructions are to post at Bugzilla for disabling categories, so I was just about to file a new bug or two. The Babel extension author, User:RobertL, hasn't edited on enwiki for more than two years, so I don't think there is an operator here to notify anyway. Having said that, if a separate user is in charge of the bot, and you know who it is, please let me know. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:41, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

It is said to be "not a bot": AN December 2012. Johnuniq (talk) 10:05, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

It might not be under BAG's jurisdiction, but I don't think anyone will mind if we call it a bot. If it looks like a bot, and smells like a bot... In any case, I've filed bugs at bugzilla:61993, bugzilla:61994 and bugzilla:61995 if either of you want to comment there. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 12:40, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

• (talk page stalker), I've commented on two out of three of your tickets on Bugzilla and am wondering if there should be a community discussion about this or not. I think that the alternate case category page names (regardless of if they were previously deleted or not) should exist and be created as {{Category redirect}}s per CATRED. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 13:42, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

If pages are being categorised in e.g. Category:User En, they should be fixed so that they categorise correctly (in Category:User en or whatever). --Redrose64 (talk) 19:47, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry about that...

I didn't even realize I reverted you until I got the notification that you reverted me back. Complete accident. Sorry. Sergecross73 msg me 02:18, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

No worries. I did think it was quite ironic though. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 02:19, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

WP:RPP

Sorry I messed up. Should've chosen the temporary one, dunno how it became indefinite... :p –HTD 11:53, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Fuck

Hi, re the AN discussion, please see [3].

I hope this isn't 'canvassing' - I'm posting this to precisely 3 people (you, Britmax, and SarekOfVulcan), who expressed concern about the censorship, so I hope I'm OK. Best, 88.104.30.86 (talk) 20:09, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

You should probably just give this up. In two hours and ten minutes there won't even be any mention of the film on the front page at all. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 21:49, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Dispute Resolution

Hello Mr_Stradivarius. I'd like to ask for your assistance as a volunteer in a dispute resolution on the thread Highland Clearances. I would be grateful. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.173.7.13 (talk) 12:45, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in replying. It looks like Keithbob has things under control there, so I don't think my help is really needed. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:00, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

75.191.173.190

Thank you for looking into the matter, which seemed to have been overlooked by the typically nasty, pile-on (especially so with Kaldari) drama that plagues the venue. "My master, Annatar the Great, bids thee ^welcome!" 00:44, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

No worries - fingers crossed that everything turns out ok. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 04:35, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Modifying Template:Uw-c&pmove

Hey! I would like to request you for modifying Template:Uw-c&pmove, I have found that most of the user/editors just copy and paste the template without signing (see here). If possible please add ~~~~ at the end of template tag. WOWIndian ^Talk 08:01, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

That would break Twinkle, as it automatically adds a signature after the template. If you added a signature to the template as well, you would end up outputting two signatures if you used it with Twinkle. If you want to change that, you should probably ask at Wikipedia talk:Twinkle - but that's the way Twinkle has worked for quite a long time, so beware that the Twinkle developers may not be so receptive to change. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:30, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Let it be, that's not a big deal :) .WOWIndian ^Talk 08:20, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

thanls!

Thanks for your advice Mr Stradivarius, my first entry so I I will do my best to do it right! Yoelle — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yoellem (talk • contribs) 10:34, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Microsoft Windows 8.1 Update 1

I have found and installed Windows 8.1 Update 1. I will be adding this to Microsoft Windows' Wikipedia page. Just letting you know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gabe290 (talk • contribs) 15:57, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi there. But why did you message me? I'm not really that interested in Microsoft articles... — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:55, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Reece Leonard Block

I have a question about my block: The information that you posted on my talk page states that I can't appeal for at least six months, but numerous users supported the block with the reservation that I be allowed to appeal closer to three months. What are the logistics of this issue, exactly? Reece Leonard (talk) 04:38, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

First, it's not a block, it's a topic ban and interaction ban. Second, it was two users, not "numerous users". The logistics are that you may appeal after six months, as stated in the close. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:04, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, actually two users stated that I should receive a reduced sentence and two other users stated that I shouldn't have been banned from Lady Gaga pages at all, but if that's the way you see it, I won't argue with you because apparently debate constitutes grounds for blocking. Reece Leonard (talk) 05:18, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

@Reece Leonard: You are not blocked: if you were, you wouldn't have been able to post here; and you never have been blocked. A clean block log is something that you should strive to preserve. Blocks and bans are not the same thing. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:29, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Soka gakkai

Hi Stradivarius, You are right when you said " I behaved in a uncivilized way", excuse me. But just imagine a group of people in wikipedia including a administrative editor work with a sole aim of maligning an organisation. They even threatened the other person (safwan) that he will be blocked etc. All the lines added to the pages (Soka gakkai and Daisaku Ikeda) by them (catflap,kiriung and shii) are original research, vololate WP:NPOV. Majority opinion and weightage ?? so you think these 3 people constitute the majority of the world,what about 12 million people who are memebers of SGI ? Above all it hurts me a lot being a SGI member that when ever I read this articles I feel so disturbed and feel nauseated. So much of negetivity and maligning. Just imagine how a organisation of 12 million members around the world can be so wrong and greedy and fool around with out getting caught !!! Depriving a person of his beliefs and faith is a heinious and unpardonable crime. I believe wikipedia should only be a source where people can get basic idea of things. It should not serve as a platform for maligning or a tool for propaganda be it negetive or positive. For that !! controversial points and claims should be avoided and such people should be restricted from misusing wikipedia. Thanks for letting me understand how disputes are handled in wikipedia Naveen Reddy 14:48, 17 March 2014 (UTC)(talk)

Behaviour including deletion of referenced material continues - it seems this has not only happened on this page. --Catflap08 (talk) 15:12, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

@Mr. Stradivarius - Can a at least time limited blocking procedure be considered - Disruptive behaviour now on several articles. --Catflap08 (talk) 15:26, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Looks like Nyttend has dealt with this already. It's a shame that this had to come to blocks - it would have been better to just post again in the ANI thread and wait for an administrator to intervene. And Naveen Reddy, undue weight is not about the number of Wikipedia editors that have a particular opinion, it is about the number and quality of reliable sources that have a particular opinion. Please read the policy again, because it looks like you haven't understood it properly. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:35, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Total Siyapaa

• Total Siyapaa (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Dear Stradivarius kindly un do your decision in CRITICAL RECEPTION section of Total Siyapaa because it was based on FRAUD played by ZORDANLIGHTER , he misrepresented my edit summary for other protected edit request for Controversy section. He used that summary to show the WP consensus by me but that is not the case. He must also be blocked for playing CHEAT. Xcrescent9 (talk) 14:31, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Oh dear, what a mess. In that case, it appears that we don't have a consensus on what to do after all. However, there did seem to be a consensus that the old section should be replaced with something, so I am reluctant to change it back to the previous version. I think it would be best that you discuss further changes to the new critical reception content at Talk:Total Siyapaa, and submit another edit request when you have found a consensus on what to do. Let me know if you have any questions about this. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:47, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Personal attacks on Total Siyapaa talk page

When I was reading the Total Siyapaa talk page. I found Xcrescent9 (talk) lauching personal attacks on ZORDANLIGHTER. He was blocked for that. As you were acting as an Administrator I decided to visit your talk page . Using terms like "cheat" , "fraud"should be considered as personal attack.--Whistlingwoods (talk) 15:35, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Since Xcrescent9 has been blocked for those personal attacks, I don't think anything else needs doing here. Do you have any requests for specific administrative actions to be made? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:47, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Regardless of Xcrescent9 accusations that how wrongly consensus was achieved by misrepresentation, I will suggest a middle way. Whistlingwoods on behalf of ZORDANLIGHTER (since he is blocked ) will favour current critical reception section full cherry picking of negative reviews but that was with out consensus and ignores all positive reviews. On other hand Xcrescent9 after block removal will try to put all four positive reviews. Keeping in view all the reviews from both sides,It is a clear case of Mixed average reviews i.e. a combination of good and bad reviews. This fact is also supported by http://www.indicine.com/bollywood/total-siyapaa/reviews/ which says that movie got average reviews from critics with average score of 37. In pakistan too (from where the hero of the movie belongs) it got mixed reviews from movie critics on the premier please see http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/entertainment/13-Mar-2014/total-siyapaa-opens-to-mixed-reviews-moviegoers-treated-to-taj-cinema-s-revival . Forth evidence of mixed reviews is IMBD rating of 6 out of 10 including nine critics see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2727028/. I think in order to wind up quickly this prolonged discussion. I request a new edit to critical reception section. Since we already know one pool stances of ZORDANLIGHTER , Whistlingwoods and Xcrescent9 no further discussion from them is invited on this proposed edit (see below).

Total Siyapaa received mixed reviews by domestic and overseas critics. Kirron Kher's performance and Ali Zafar comic timings were seen as one of the strong points of the movie. However Critics were critical on the lack of a solid plot,.

Mr. Stradivarius please take a quick decision to wind up this prolonged discussion.Archtexlic (talk) 03:41, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, you need to propose this on the talk page, find a consensus, and then make a new edit request. It won't be done before that happens. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:45, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

But earlier you did it with out WP concensus so in that case you are requested to kindly reverse your earlier decision. Archtexlic (talk) 04:00, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

As I said above, there was a consensus that the section should have been something other than what it was before, even if there wasn't actually a consensus on exactly what. For this reason, I'm not sure that reverting back to the old version would be an improvement. If you want a third-party review of my decision, you can always ask at the administrators' noticeboard. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 06:04, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Sir , kindly check this link, then you will know the truth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Huon#Fraud_played_by_ZORDANLIGHTER_to_win_his_proposed_edit_in_CRITICAL_RECEPTION_section_of_Total_Siyapaa--Whistlingwoods (talk) 12:41, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Mr. Stradivarius I will not take third-party review of your decision because I expect just action by you as a good admin. what you want to show Whistlingwoods. I talked to Huon , so what. Archtexlic (talk) 17:04, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Cheers

Thanks for your support lately, but decided to retire for a while. Fanatics can take over the pages in question from now on. --Catflap08 (talk) 17:14, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Block Evading sock puppets

Some blocked user wrote all garbage in my talk page. At first I couldn't understand but reading the lines written in urdu usingEnglish alphabets(check the link-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Whistlingwoods#Mza_aya), it's clear the user is Xcrescent9 or Ibnebatutaji . The translation in English is this "I wrongly presented my statements to make sure my favorite movie gets good opening overseas................"rest is abuse in vulgar language which I don't want to translate. This person is writing in urdu so that International administrators don't understand what he is saying.--Whistlingwoods (talk) 04:02, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I've blocked the IP. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:56, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

And also, you are allowed to remove clear personal attacks from talk pages yourself. They are one of the exceptions to the talk page guidelines - see the "Removing harmful posts" part of WP:TPO. Just make sure that they are clear personal attacks - this exception doesn't extend to posts that are merely uncivil. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 06:46, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I have reasons to believe that this user Ibnebatutaji and LanguageXpert have created large number of socks. As when one gets blocked another user syas the same thing. They are using the same edits in my talk page and Total Siyapaa's talk page. As sock accusation without any solid evidence is considered personal attack, I can't accuse them directly. But they wrote in urdu that they were same. If wikipedia keeps log in details of user's IP address I think then administrators can know that Xcrescent9 Archtexlic ArjunPatel89 are the same person. How did I come to this conclusion? In order to explain I will have to type so many things. Check Revision History , Copy Paste Comments from {Total Siyapaa}} talk page. My own talk page. I will have to give details.I don't have any energy to do that anymore. --Whistlingwoods (talk) 11:19, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it was LanguageXpert. It looks like all the socks have been blocked already, but if you notice any more you can report them at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 00:17, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Your close at ANI

Hi, Mr. Stradivarius, I have seen your close of my request at ANI [4], and I think you have misunderstood my intentions. I am not asking for a comment on whether Sandstein has violated any policies, quite the opposite, I am asking for a community opinion of whether I have violated any policies. Is [5] right? The accusation, from over a year ago, is being made over and over again. And it's not true. But there is nothing, nothing, nothing I can point to when someone throws this in my face, to prove that it is not true. Surely the community opinion would mean something in this situation. —Neotarf (talk) 11:17, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Neotarf. I was taking the second paragraph of your opening statement at face value, and to me it seemed more like a request for action than a request for review. Perhaps I had that wrong. But if it's review of your own actions that you are interested in, why not open Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Neotarf? That would provide an avenue for review that would be considerably calmer than ANI, and may be more likely to produce reasoned and informed debate. It won't be able to provide an official striking of your warning, but then neither would ANI - only ArbCom has the power to do that. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 12:21, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, I am really looking for the thing to be vacated. That case page is where admins look when they are trying to decide how to treat you, so if I'm going to be hounded forever because of this thing, it isn't even worth trying to edit. I have seen the results from ANI taken to the Arbcom request page, that is really what I was going for.

Thanks for your advice, I'll think some on it. ANI may be a bit like herding cats, but sometimes you also find that one piece of information you are looking for that makes everything else fit. —Neotarf (talk) 13:14, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

I believe that you misunderstand the arbitration enforcement appeals process. See: Wikipedia: Arbitration Committee/Procedures#Reversal of enforcement actions.

Section (b) there describes using noticeboards for consensus to overturn decisions:

(b) following a clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors at a community discussion noticeboard (such as WP:AN or WP:ANI). If consensus in such discussions is hard to judge or unclear, the parties should submit a request for clarification on the proper page.

So the appeal venue on ANI was entirely proper.

That said, I don't know that closing was wrong. BUT - I believe you need to ammend the closing statement to retract that particular claim regarding the venue being proper or not.

Thank you. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:08, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

That's a good point - it might be a good idea to clarify that arbitration enforcement actions can in fact be reversed at ANI. However, it isn't clear whether a discretionary sanctions warning counts as an arbitration enforcement action that can be reversed. My close wasn't intended to imply that no arbitration enforcement action could be appealed at ANI; rather, I thought that the debate in this case was more about Arbcom's procedures than a specific enforcement action. Admittedly, "Matters relating to arbitration case pages are under ArbCom's jurisdiction, and can only be appealed to ArbCom" is not a very clear way of saying that. Is that the passage that you were objecting to, by the way? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:19, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

The whole case has been a debacle. What happened was that a very tendentious and stupendously clueless editor (now indeffed) argued and argued and argued (in a very CIVIL manner), and then argued some more again and again in multiple locations. That editor brought an AE request shortly after someone had taken the disruptive editor to AE. Sandstein was possibly tired of the whole affair and made an extremely clumsy close of the second case which consisted of administering whacks all round, in equal dollops—four editors (diff + diff + diff + diff), with a log here—the last puts the four editors who should have been thanked for defending the project in the same public stocks as the indeffed user. Wikilawyers are quick to point out that the message is "just a warning"—but read what it says!

against an editor who repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia

If you continue to misconduct yourself on pages relating to this topic ... blocks ...

The warning asserts in very pompous and pointy language that the four editors are guilty, when any reasonable reading of the situation is that they were driven to distraction by a now-indeffed user who is universally recognized as one of the most clueless yet CIVIL seen at Wikipedia (the point about CIVIL is that it was very hard to get them indeffed). What Sandstein should have done was to close the second AE case as obvious retribution, then, if warranted, deliver a personal note to anyone who was letting their exasperation get the better of them. What should happen now is that an ANI discussion should vacate the sanctions placed by Sandstein, but that may be difficult given that people are easily distracted and will start arguing about whether a warning can be regarded as a sanction (yes it can—just read it!). Johnuniq (talk) 04:15, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Johnuniq, and thanks for the summary. I had to remind myself why the Apteva case came to AE in the first place, but actually I was aware of most of the other details, as I commented on a few AE threads around that time (including the one where SMcCandlish was topic banned for a month). I was also watching the arbitration pages when the clarification requests clarification request about this issue were was going on.[6] I probably should have mentioned these clarification requests this clarification request in my post above as well, as they show it shows that this is not just an AE issue that is being reviewed, but an issue that has been brought before Arbcom itself. I don't think that a consensus at ANI can override a decision by Arbcom itself, at least if my understanding of "final binding decision-maker" in the arbitration policy is correct. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 06:42, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

OK, you saw it. I don't agree that the community cannot vacate the warning, but I do agree that some of the participants were too loud for their own good. That clarification request was another debacle where the arbs had clearly not read the warning, and instead offered obviously mistaken views with stuff like "nor does it allege misbehaviour"—reading the thing from the point of view of a recipient shows that is nonsense on a stick. I guess some things cannot be mended, but rewarding Apteva's tit-for-tat AE filing with such admonishments was among the dumbest things I've seen an admin do. Johnuniq (talk) 07:18, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

It looks like a typo in the above comment; the two diffs go to the same place.

That clarification request was not a request to review the outcome of the case. Since it was filed by Sandstein, he could hardly ask to have his own decision overturned. And the ArbCom never made a decision on the technicalities he posed either, they have just postponed it again and again. No one has ever asked for a ruling on the case itself.

I think everyone just wants this thing to go away, especially the users whose real names are linked to this thing, either publicly or privately, but no one can figure out the technicalities. —Neotarf (talk) 07:40, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Ah, you're right, that was a mistake. I'm not sure how I got the idea into my head that there were two clarification requests. I've removed the extra link in my post above. If you want to appeal this further, I think an Arbcom clarification request would be the way to do it. However, seeing as your case request was declined back in December, and as one of the key things discussed there was the review of the discretionary sanctions system, I think it would be best to wait until that review is over. Furthermore, given the text proposed as part of the review here, "For the purpose of on-going enforcement, previous warnings become alerts for one year from the date of the passing of the motion authorising this procedure, then expire", it seems that your warning may be stripped of the language implying misconduct anyway. I don't see anything about logging alerts in the proposed text, so presumably alerts under the new system won't be logged on the case pages. This may mean that all previous warnings are removed from the case pages, or if it doesn't, it may make arbitrators more likely to consider a request that your warning be removed from the case page. I know that you've already been waiting a long time, but I think that holding out for the end of the review will get you the best results. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:15, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

FYI, the saga continues at WP:ARCA#Clarification request: Article titles and capitalisation where I have recycled my above comments. Johnuniq (talk) 05:28, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:40, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

ASU Politehnica Timisoara

ASU Politehnica Timisoara has no relations with ACS Poli Timisoara and FC Politehnica Timisoara. ASU Politehnica Timisoara is a stand alone club that play's in Romania's 4th division. ACS Poli Timisoara is a club that plays in Romania's 1st division., with no relations between the two. ACS Poli Timisoara just received today FC Politehnica Timisoara's colours, records and statistics. ASU Politehnica Timisoara's redirect to FC Politehnica Timisoara is wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vlad9 (talk • contribs) 18:53, 19 March 2014‎ (UTC)

Hi Vlad9. I don't remember having edited any of those pages - is there any kind of action you need from me here? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:15, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Possible performance issues with Module:Namespace_detect

(Thread moved to Module talk:Namespace detect#Possible performance issues with Module:Namespace_detect.) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:38, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

User:75.191.173.190, round II

(S)he's up to it again. Point-blank refusal to discuss, and total blindness to the wanton, reckless collateral damage (s)he has caused. "My master, Annatar the Great, bids thee ^welcome!" 20:51, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

RE: Lieutenant of Melkor

Per your message here:

I'd adjust block settings, but I don't want to appear to be jumping on a grudge (for the record, I don't have one) and beating someone while they're down. However, given that the 1RR was the editor's idea and that I asked them to abide by it, I saw it as a cut-and-dry disregard for the promises made in LoM's unblock request.

I don't have any issues with how you handled this, though. Hopefully the editor's behaviour improves after the block expires. Best, m.o.p 19:19, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Module:Namespace detect/data

Moved to Module talk:Namespace detect#Module:Namespace detect/data. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:30, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Your opinion requested

One of the problems of the current "higher" forms of DR — DRN and MEDCOM — is that not much can be done at either place if some of the major participants in the dispute do not choose to join in. I've worked up a draft proposal for a fourth form of DR (3O being the third one) which would avoid that problem, but only in those cases which have been rejected at DRN or MEDCOM for lack of partipation. I'm inviting a small group of my DR colleagues — AGK, Hasteur, Keithbob, Macon, Miller, Strad, Writ Keeper, and Zhang — to tell me what they think of the feasibility of this idea. (And if any of you would like to invite someone else to the party, feel free to do so.) The proposal is located in my sandbox in my sandbox here. If you have a minute, I'd really appreciate your comments on the talk page there. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:19, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Crimean Wars

Hello.

I read your opinion at WP:Administrators' noticeboard #Reverting merge about the short-lived independence of Crimea as a country, but strongly disagree with it. If you develop a subroutine that analyzes some input data, then it has to perform some validity checks. You certainly wouldn’t leave a validation to responsibility of the main program, would you? But why do you endorse such indifferential approach with respect to WP: closing discussions? Why should the result rely on times where “the political situation becomes more stable”? If arguments in favour of this specific merger were refuted, then the closing statement may not circumvent it. Please, consider your position on this dispute again, if only because the situation underwent some changes. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 10:04, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Unblock on hold

There is an unblock request at User talk:75.191.173.190 in connection with a block that you placed for edit warring. There is certainly justification for a block, but the editor asks why he/she has been blocked for three times as long as the other editor in the same edit war. I can't see any justification for the difference, but maybe you have a good reason that I haven't noticed, so I thought it best to consult you. Any comment? The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:14, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

I've replied on the IP's talk page. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:20, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Back to it yet again. Also, as the NOWData interface has changed (it changed Monday), the basis for the pure disruption earlier this month is no longer there and restoring it, like he did here, is WP:OR and unsourced; this shows the IP has NO concern for the well-being of the project and is reverting blindly for their own self-serving means. "My master, Annatar the Great, bids thee ^welcome!" 06:52, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't agree with your statement that the IP has no concern for the well-being of the project. There is a very good chance that they do in fact care about the project, but don't understand how their edits are running counter to the project's goals. However, we have the essay WP:COMPETENCE for a reason, and there's no question that the IP's edits are disruptive. I've blocked them for a week. If the reverts resume after the week is up, again, please ping me. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 07:19, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I do believe this and that constitute inappropriate usage of talk page while blocked? Perhaps I did not iterate this tidbit of policy (from WP:TPG, I believe) clearly enough? "My master, Annatar the Great, bids thee ^welcome!" 20:37, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi, something odd with Project64

There is strange thing in the infobox. I tried to remove Preview Version, it seems the only way to do that is by changing a the name to anything, but Project64 is this a bug? Valoem ^talk 03:07, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

It seems to be within infobox itself, I cannot remove that line if the name=Project64 and what is that symbol? Valoem ^talk 03:13, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Valoem. This is because of Template:Latest preview software release/Project64, which is called automatically by Template:Infobox software. I've blanked it, so now it doesn't show up in the infobox any more. If you want to change the latest stable release data as well, it's at Template:Latest stable software release/Project64. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:20, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Tool you might be interested in

<shameless plug>Have you seen WP:EPH and/or are you interested in using it?</shameless plug> Jackmcbarn (talk) 22:08, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I'd seen it, but I've been answering edit requests for so long now that typing all the code in has become pretty much automatic. Still, it looks pretty nifty, so I've added it to my vector.js and I'll give it a try. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:20, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

speedy and AfC

This policy question was bound to come up sooner or later. Would you say for example, that if I found an accepted AfC was complete copyvio, I could not speedy delete it? (That is not really hypothetical--I have seen AfCs with copyvio that the person accepting it had not missed. How about G10, or G3? How about a unsourced blp for which i could find no sources, is BLP prod valid?

(I agree G11 is always a little more subject to interpretation) DGG ( talk ) 00:25, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi DGG. I'd be inclined to use common sense in those situations. I think if it is really obvious that a page satisfies one of the speedy deletion criteria, then it is ok to delete it even if it has managed to get through AfC. This goes especially for G12, as it's entirely possible that copyvios may be missed by less experienced reviewers. I would also say the same thing for G11, if it is very clearly promotional throughout. I didn't think Geacron was such a clear-cut case, though. It has promotional wording in places, yes, but I'm not sure that it counts as exclusively promotional as required by the G11 wording, and Kevin Rutherford obviously thought the same thing when he reviewed it. Sending it to AfD was a good move, though, in my opinion. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:07, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Clueless complaints

I only just noticed this clever trick. Thank you, that's much more convenient, and with Drmies optional and everything. :-) Bishonen | talk 00:04, 3 April 2014 (UTC).

No problem - to be fair, I probably should have asked you before rearranging your userspace. :P But I'm glad it worked out well. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:43, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Mr Stradivarius! Sir! Please excuse me, but I had a thought. (I'm a little more savvy with these subjects than 'shonen, my ancestress, who is more of a… hmm, forgot what I was going to say. She has her own talents, perhaps.) Bishonen is no coder as you will have noticed. She created the two pages User:Bishonen/Clueless Sitush complaint generator and User:Bishonen/Sitush complaint generator with extra Drmies in a typical spirit of make-do kludge, setting herself up for making more or less every addition or tweak twice. You have rescued her from that treadmill as far as adding complaints goes. Thank you. But my thought: is the extra Drmies page needed at all, now that you have added the magic "if" commands? Can't it be deleted, and the selection of the Drmies option simply left to the "Click here" buttons, together with your new page? (And if so, presumably that new page could be merged back with User:Bishonen/Clueless Sitush complaint generator, turning three pages into one?) I hope I haven't spoken out of turn or misunderstood. Your superior insight and skills will be able to identify any flaws in my reasoning, and handle the matter if you think my point good. darwin^fish 09:44, 3 April 2014 (UTC).

Hey. Sorry about that. My stupid TL;DR brother embarrassing the family as usual. He has unsupported nerdy pretensions. I suppose there may be something in it for once. Even a blind hen finds a grain occasionally, as they say. darwinbish ^BITE ☠ 09:57, 3 April 2014 (UTC).

Alas, Darwinfish and Darwinbish, it would not work. To have that same-page goodness we would need to use JavaScript, and we can't install JavaScript for everyone by default without a Very Good Reason. Though I am fully aware of the importance of the Clueless Sitush complaint generator and the Sitush complaint generator with extra Drmies, I fear some of my esteemed wiki-colleagues would disagree with me. For now, the three-page solution is probably as good as I can wrangle for you. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 12:49, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Someone would disagree with you about the importance..? Anyway, I see what you mean about Javascript. Pity, as I was just envisaging Bishonen making extra buttons ad lib, for instance "Click to generate new complaint with extra rudeness". :-) But it's not to be without yet more pages, then, which I don't think would be an option for her. [Bishonen can be heard weeping in the background.] No, not an option. darwin^fish 13:18, 3 April 2014 (UTC).

Fish means he's pretending to see what you mean about Javascript. It's like I'm an effing translation service sometimes. darwinbish ^BITE ☠ 13:20, 3 April 2014 (UTC).

A new page needn't be such a chore, though, Bish and Fish. (Or is that Fish and Bish?) I could compress all of that code down to a little piddly template invocation, and then all you would need to do is add |drmies=yes or a |rudeness=yes on a new page. But adding a new button to the complaints page would definitely require an element of coding. If you want a rudeness page, though, I can set that up for you three now. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:42, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Sorry about all the "new message" alerts; I'll block the twins if they don't stop pestering you. Anyway, maybe I'll go for an extra rudeness page some day, but it would mean defining and grouping some extra rude items, and I guess I've wasted enough time playing in the last few days. (Can you spot the April First item that's still in place? Hehehehe. ) Bishonen | talk 13:56, 3 April 2014 (UTC).

Phrase to avoid

Hi. How do you do?

So, I have a rather awkward question. (So, if deleted and revdel it, I won't investigate.) I just can't bring myself up to ask it in a public talk page. (Actually, I thought emailing it to you but then I though: Overkill. Might as well not ask it if it so awkward. Besides, it's Wikipedia business.) It is well outside the area that I edit. Since I haven't studied the BLP policies (which are severe and strict, or so I hear) I am going to obfuscate human names, but you might know exactly what I am talking about.

So, I open a Wikipedia article. In the Controversy section, the subject of the article is cited to have said "It made me feel like a cheap whore." There is a source, a news website; it says exactly the same thing along paragraphs of trivial details but no explanation. Is it Wikipedia-sanctioned? Is it NPOV? Does it have due weight? Is it suitable for international audience, i.e. does everyone in the world know what it means except me? Okay, what does it mean? Is it possible to make a women feel like she is an expensive whore? Or is it a metaphorical sentence that might be said about men too?

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 03:12, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

No, don't worry, I won't revdel this one. :) And for once, I'll give you a general answer without trying to find the article you're talking about. The implication of the phrase "feeling like a cheap whore" is that the person it refers to feels degraded, or cheapened, because of something they did in exchange for money. Or in a more general sense, it could just mean that they feel degraded. I have heard it used quite a few times, and to me it definitely sounds more idiomatic than "feeling like an expensive whore".

The phrase derives (I assume) from the stereotype that prostitutes are working against their own will and don't have any self-respect; however, I have read that in reality this is not necessarily the case, and how prostitutes view themselves depends a lot on their reasons for becoming a prostitute and on their situation. Because of this difference between the stereotype and reality, I would avoid using it in Wikipedia articles unless it is a direct quote. If it is a direct quote, and it comes from a reputable source, there isn't an urgent problem with WP:BLP. However, I find it hard to imagine a situation where a quote like that would not have undue weight, and the BLP policy says that we should be conservative when writing biographies, so I would say that it should be left out unless there is a good reason to include it.

As for its suitability for an international audience, your average Briton would understand it without any problems, and as far as I'm aware the stereotype is present in most other English-speaking cultures too, so I can't see any problems on that front. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:58, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. That was easier than expected. I guess I mustn't have been alarmed when both my dictionaries returned "Restricted access. Please login first." in response to my inquiry. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 06:47, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Module:UnitTests

I've changed all instances of '||' in the code to '\n|' here 'cause it'd break with bullets, etc. (see below for what I mean) if you'd like to make the change on live. Cheers — lfdder 05:16, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

something was said || * something else was said

something was said

something else was said

Sounds good to me. You can just go ahead and update it - that module isn't protected. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:23, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

whoops, don't know why I thought it was. — lfddersmitten 05:29, 5 April 2014 (UTC)