User talk:Carabera/Archive 1

Adoption

I can adopt you, if you want. But be wary that I am not offering "classes" or tasks for adoptees to fulfill but rather serve as a mentor when you have questions. If you'd like this, tell me so and replace the {{adoptoffer|SoWhy}} on your userpage with {{adoptee|SoWhy}}. PS: I changed the userbox for the contributions, you should not lie about the number of edits, people usually find it hard to assume good faith if someone lies blatantly (anyone can check the number of edits easily after all). Regards SoWhy 03:31, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Carabera. You have new messages at Backslash Forwardslash's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Page moves

Could you please tell me what motivated you to move Wikipedia:List of administrators to Wikipedia:List of Administrators? This isn't quite as simple a move as it appears, and goes against our usual page moving conventions. I will look forward to reading your response. Thanks. Risker (talk) 22:45, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

The usual conventions are that only the first letter of article names is capitalized unless other words are proper nouns (see WP:NAME#Lowercase). I've started a thread on this move at Wikipedia talk:List of Administrators#Move from "List of administrators". Please feel free to participate in this discussion. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:52, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Returning your talk page to where it belongs

Hi Carabera -

I have moved your user talk page back to the standard location. The purpose of the user talk page is to facilitate communication with the user; when someone leaves as message on this page, you are automatically notified by a yellow bar at the top of whatever page you next look at. The message bar does not work if your talk page is not at the correct location; thus, you could miss important communications, and would be unable to edit your talk page if you were blocked. Perhaps it's time to slow down in your use of the "move" button for a bit until you have become a bit more familiar with the project and its conventions. Risker (talk) 04:45, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Userboxes

Thanks a lot! Jamhaw (talk) 18:22, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Re: Your Userpage

Response to: I am just wondering how I could make a page like yours. It seems pretty cool. Please respond on my talk page. Carabera (talk) 17:24, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I haven't been around for some time, which was why I never responded to this. I notice that your userpage is fairly well laid out, though - do you still need help with it? Happy editing! Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 14:38, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Re: Delete stuff

Done. While I'm at it, could I ask you to remove the fake new messages bar at the top of your pages? WP:SMI does state that this should only really be done for testing purposes (April Fools' Day excepted, IMO). Thanks. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 00:16, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: Adminship

I can if you really want, but I would strongly recommend against it. You have less than 200 edits here, which is nowhere near enough to demonstrate the full understanding of policy and level of community trust needed to pass RfA. RfA candidates usually have several months, if not years, experience, and several thousand edits under their belts. I do appreciate your willingness to help, and will help you fill out the nomination form if you still want, but I don't think now would be the best time. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 22:55, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Userboxes

Thanks a lot! Jamhaw (talk) 18:22, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Re: Your Userpage

Response to: I am just wondering how I could make a page like yours. It seems pretty cool. Please respond on my talk page. Carabera (talk) 17:24, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I haven't been around for some time, which was why I never responded to this. I notice that your userpage is fairly well laid out, though - do you still need help with it? Happy editing! Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 14:38, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Re: Delete stuff

Done. While I'm at it, could I ask you to remove the fake new messages bar at the top of your pages? WP:SMI does state that this should only really be done for testing purposes (April Fools' Day excepted, IMO). Thanks. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 00:16, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: Adminship

I can if you really want, but I would strongly recommend against it. You have less than 200 edits here, which is nowhere near enough to demonstrate the full understanding of policy and level of community trust needed to pass RfA. RfA candidates usually have several months, if not years, experience, and several thousand edits under their belts. I do appreciate your willingness to help, and will help you fill out the nomination form if you still want, but I don't think now would be the best time. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 22:55, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: Unblock user

I took a look earlier, but didn't comment as I wanted someone else to review it. Looking now, I agree with Mangojuice's assesment. If Patches wants to be unblocked, he can made a request himself. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 00:38, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Re: IP Account

That IP address hasn't made or attempted to make any edits for two weeks. If you have a more recent address, you can report it to AIV, as you'll usually get a faster response there. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 01:48, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

FYI

I've asked WP:VG to comment on the Insomniac wikiproject here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games#Wikipedia:Wikiproject Insomniac. The scope of the project is far too small for a WikiProject. imo, it should be made into a task force of WP:VG if there is interest. –xeno (talk) 19:28, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

It seems this already exists as a task force, I've redirected the project page to the task force. Let me know if you have any questions on this. –xeno (talk) 19:56, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Re: Bot

The form is pretty straight-forward; what is it you need help with? Also, you may want to make a userpage for the bot first, describing what it does and other information about it. You can use mine as an example. Keep in mind, though, that you should make the userpage using your main account, not the bot's. The bot should make no edits without approval. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 01:25, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, the form is asking for information that the BAG will need when reviewing your request. I'll go down the list and cover everything, since you haven't said what it is that's confusing you:

• Automatic or Manually Assisted: Most anti-vandalism bots are automatic. If this is the case, then you will need to specify if the bot is supervised (you're watching the actions it takes so it can be shut down in the event of a problem), or if it is unsupervised (it may log its actions to a file somewhere, but you're not watching it edit. Manually assisted means the bot will ask for your approval before any edit it makes, sort of how AutoWikiBrowser works. This probably isn't ideal for an anti-vandalism bot, since you may as well just use Huggle for that.
• Programming Language(s): Fairly straight forward, this is the computer program language you're using for the bot. Examples include Java, Python, C, AutoWikiBrowser, etc. It may also help to mention any Wikipedia-specific libraries you're using, such as MER-C's Java class.
• Function Overview: What the bot does, briefly. In your case this would be something like "The bot monitors recent changes and the new user log to revert vandalism and report policy-violating usernames."
• Edit period(s): Most vandalism bots run continuously from a server such as the Wikimedia Toolserver. You may also be able to run the bot a few hours each day; whatever you plan the bot's schedule to be, include that here. For example, my bot runs about once every two days, or whenever the backlog starts to get more than a few articles in it.
• Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Take this line out, it doesn't apply to new bots.
• Function Details: Here's where you provide full detail on what the bot does and how it works. In your case, you would specifically want to mention how the bot determines an edit to be vandalism, and how it determines a username to be illegal. You'll also want to say what actions the bot will take when it finds vandalism; I'm assuming it will revert the edit in most cases, but will it revert to itself? Will it revert the same page more than once in X hours? Will it warn a user? Will it report someone after X warnings? Will it monitor the abuse filter logs to check for attempted vandalism? Will it revert or warn older users? Will it handle some vandalism differently depending on the severity? How often will it make edits (often called the rate limit or throttle speed)? Those are only a few of the topics you would need to cover here.

Before you start coding in earnest, though, please take some time to review the bot policy if you haven't already. Also keep in mind that usually bot operators have been around long enough to demonstrate that they can be trusted to operate an automated account; this level of trust is nowhere near the same as it is for adminship, but it does still exist. We also have several other bots and software applications that fulfill both of these roles; the various ClueBots, Huggle, Twinkle, the Abuse Filter, etc...

Anyway, I hope this helps some; if you do still have questions, let me know. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 18:45, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Uh, yeah. I kinda assumed you at least knew how to write a computer program when you said you were writing a bot. Try learning Python or Java - those shouldn't be too difficult for someone just starting.

In the future, it may help to know what exactly you're getting into before you start. I know we recommend the "dive-right-in" kinda thing on Wikipedia, but things like bots require a decent bit of prior knowledge before you can really carry through with them. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 01:04, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar design

Would {{The Helping Hand Barnstar}} work? I don't usually design barnstars (just one, and not a particularly strong design), so if you're set on a new image rather than using one of the existing ones, I suggest requesting it either at the Graphics Lab or on the WP:STAR talk page.--ragesoss (talk) 16:22, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Adminship

Hi, I haven't been involved at WP:RFA for quite a long time, so I don't know if my adminship expectations are still valid nowadays. I suggest you ask one of the RfA regulars. Best, Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 19:12, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Re: Helper's Barnstar

Hi Carabera, I think that there already is a barnstar that would fit your request, it is called the Helping Hand Barnstar. If you needed something more specific, let me know, but that is a broad coverage "helper" barnstar, so could cover just about anything. :) Ariel♥Gold 12:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)