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User talk:Tim Starling/Archive 5

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I created Template:Sandbox which may help the issue you raised at sourceforge, though obviously people could still delete the {{Mediawiki:sandbox}} notice, it is easier to replace that than the whole header, and more noticeable. Angela. 08:49, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

OK, thanks. It wasn't actually my idea BTW, it was someone on IRC with an irrational fear of the bug tracker. -- Tim Starling 13:00, Jan 3, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the adminship message. Bmills 09:18, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Re the Village Pump discussion, EoT has popped up again on 142.177.114.228, with reverse DNS of hlfx64-2a-228.ns.sympatico.ca. Articles were subsequently reverted/deleted. Can you check the block-lists to check if this is a bug? -- The Anome 01:02, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Take a look at Special:Ipblocklist: your latest block (65.110.6.34) has an obviously incorrect timestamp :-( HTH Phil 11:00, Jan 12, 2004 (UTC)

Hi Tim. Can I get authorisation to run pywikipediabot under the user name user:snobot? I was informed that this was required, in part to mark the edits of that user as "bot" and hide them in RC. Also, on Wikipedia:Bots there is, under the heading "rules": "You must get permission from an administrator before using a bot ...", shouldn't that read "permission from a developer"? I'm loathe to change it, but that seems to be the case. Thanks, snoyes 20:30, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thanks --snoyes 00:41, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi, Tim. Could you please (in your vast spare time) take a look at Talk:Bigfoot and see if you can figure out if Users ScifiterX, The Agent, Lizard King and whatever of Trolls have similar IP addresses? Thank you. Could you also possibly look at User:Annek and see if he/she might be DW? RickK 04:17, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Tim. I'm not really surprised, except he hasn't gone after Hephaestos yet. RickK 04:44, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Wouldn't Khranus be more likely? I seem to remember he had the same IPs as Michael (User:Khranus/ban#Further_Discussion) and Lizard King seems to have more similarities with Khranus than Michael. Angela. 04:58, Jan 13, 2004 (UTC)
In case you missed it on User talk:RickK, The Agent is definitely the same person as Hephaestus (contribs). I thought that kind of attack on Hephaestos was a Michael signature. Am I wrong? -- Tim Starling 05:46, Jan 13, 2004 (UTC)
It's most common for Michael, but not unique to him. User:TheStick found my page fascinating also. - Hephaestos 05:50, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)
It's true that this vandal wasn't using the same ISP as Michael on meta. Perhaps Wikipedia trolls are forming a community culture :) -- Tim Starling 05:57, Jan 13, 2004 (UTC)
Could The Agent be Michael but the others not or do they all they all the same IP? Angela. 06:10, Jan 13, 2004 (UTC)
Yes, it's possible. ScifiterX and Lizard King were using different IPs, indeed different ISPs. The only evidence that they are the same is their contributions list -- they behaved like sock puppets by creating accounts and jumping right into the debate on Talk:Bigfoot. Logs of The Agent's activities clearly show a single person using two different identities. -- Tim Starling 06:22, Jan 13, 2004 (UTC)
I thought Michael was an AOL user, and as such using an enormous dynamic address pool. Salsa Shark 06:14, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Michael switched ISPs, apparently upgrading to ADSL. -- Tim Starling 06:22, Jan 13, 2004 (UTC)
New names to add from Talk:Yeti: Javaman42 and Popcorncafe. And I'm getting really tired of them all.... - UtherSRG 04:56, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

My meta user name edit

When you have a moment, could you run your user name change script on my meta user name meta:user:maveric149 to meta:user:Daniel Mayer? Please do not do this for any other wiki than meta. :) The reason I think this is important is because I do Wikimedia-related stuff on meta like updates to the fundraising page and for that I think I should be using my real name. --mav 08:58, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Yes, hopefully I should be back there late this evening. Wikipedia's not the same without it. I missed you all. :) Angela. 11:39, Jan 13, 2004 (UTC)

User block and image links edit

At japanese wikipedia, there has been a week of open discussion on your suggestions - turning on user block feature and turning off display of linked external images. There was no objection, and many expressed support for those changes. So I've decided to notify you of that. Please feel free to confirm it with suisui or others from ja. Tomos 18:22, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Please do move the comments off my talk page. Pakaran 01:23, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)


Tim, I can't find the Village Pump stuff you moved - could you point it out for me? Thanks, The Fellowship of the Troll 01:35, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Oops - I see it noW!The Fellowship of the Troll 01:37, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, with the double edit conflict from Optim I forgot to click save in the User talk:The Fellowship of the Troll window. -- Tim Starling 01:38, Jan 15, 2004 (UTC)
I do that all the time... especially since I tend to use Enlightenment, it's easy to lose windows over the edge of the area I'm working in :) Pakaran 02:11, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi Tim. Can you give administrator authority of ja.wikipedia to w:ja:利用者:Michey.M? It approves of this user's administrator in w:ja:Wikipedia:井戸端/臨時分室1 , but Brion_VIBBER who has been doing this work until now is very very busy! --Lupinoid 08:09, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Happy to, I'll do it now. -- Tim Starling 08:34, Jan 17, 2004 (UTC)
I appreciate for your prompt action. Thank you very much! --Lupinoid 08:51, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hello Tim. I have a similar problem on et.wikipedia. I (Kasutaja:Andres) have been there since April 2003, and from June to October I was the only active contributor. I also am an administrator of en.wikipedia. There are no admins there. As there are two other very active contributors now, do I have to arrange a vote in order to get adminship? Anyway, would you please make me an administrator there? Andres 06:50, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thank you! The other very active contributors on et: are Kasutaja:Egon and Kasutaja:Urmas. Andres 09:42, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Saved Watchlists: timestamp please? edit

Could you arrange for the saved Watchlist to say when it was saved? Access to the list of files on the Watchlist from the saved version would also be nice. HTH HAND Phil 15:31, Jan 20, 2004 (UTC)

Tnx re "lost" history edit

Thank you, Tim, for straightening me out. I've never been aware of a cache problem before, and this one cleared without any action on my part (other than waiting, and closing some IE windows in the interim), but that's a convincing theory for me, putting my anxiety to rest almost as thoroughly as seening the full hx for myself. --Jerzy 08:27, 2004 Jan 22 (UTC)

Thank You for this honour! Im trying to do more for Wikipedia but unfortunately I don't have much time to contribute here, in english Wikipedia. P.S. Happy New Year, what started yesterday! -- Egon 11:27, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi Tim, do you still need File:Vim syntax highlighting sample.html? It's listed on Wikipedia:Images for deletion if you want to protest against deletion. Angela. 20:56, Jan 25, 2004 (UTC)

Feature requests redux edit

On IRC the other Sunday you were soliciting feature requests. You left just before I throw up (perhaps not for the first time) a suggestion - custom msg: and subst texts that take arguments?

One example usage:

In [[MediaWiki:wikiproject_soliction]] This article is part of the #1 [[Wikipedia:WikiProject|WikiProject]]. If you are interested in this area why not check out [[Wikipedia:WikiProject #1|the project page]]. And on the talk page of a page about U.S. states (for example) {{msg:wikiproject_solicitation(U.S. states)}} which converts to This article is part of the U.S. states [[Wikipedia:WikiProject|WikiProject]]. If you are interested in this area why not check out [[Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states|the project page]]. before rendering

Forgive me for not putting this on sourceforge yet, pretend I just asked you it yesterday! Thanks Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 13:48, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, Erik has been pushing this as well. BTW I fixed the link table problem. -- Tim Starling 14:09, Jan 26, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for making me an administrator at Wikiquote and Wikisource. (The additional functions have not yet been turned on at Wikisource though). Kalki 20:03, 2004 Jan 29 (UTC)

New feature: RC anon-only, can't get back edit

Excellent feature. One small thing: the link at the top of the normal RC page to take you to the anon page is replicated exactly on the anon page, so you can't get back. HTH HAND --Phil 12:22, Jan 30, 2004 (UTC)

Done. -- Tim Starling 13:15, Jan 30, 2004 (UTC)

Admins on German Wikipedia edit

Hi Tim, may I ask you to give admin status to the following users in the German Wikipedia: de:Benutzer:Akl, de:Benutzer:Chd, de:Benutzer:Wst, de:Benutzer:Baldhur, de:Benutzer:Aglarech, de:Benutzer:Fab, de:Benutzer:Robodoc, de:Benutzer:Magnus, de:Benutzer:Echoray, de:Benutzer:Maclemo. See this mail by Ulrich Fuchs to the mailing list. Thanks a lot for your help. -- Baldhur 14:10, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Response edit

I posted a response. Sorry, a mistake on my part. I did have a question on the tags. See my talk if you could. JDR


Take the Sysop Protection Pledge Poll?168... 00:36, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Barnstar free png edit

I hope you dont mind that I am displaying your barnstar free image on my userpage. (good work) Sennheiser!

No problem, that's what it's there for. -- Tim Starling 03:22, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)

Tim, The arbitration committee is reviewing the matter of User:Mr-Natural-Health and would like to determine whether or not he is a previously banned user, as might be indicated by his making edits from sympatico.ca, that is, the 142.177.x.x ip block. Could you check this for us? Thanks! UninvitedCompany 19:16, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Quantum effects on time edit

19:00, 31 Dec 2004, Tim Starling blocked 65.110.6.34 (contribs) (unblock) (Sorry, Wikipedia has been vandalised many times by www.proxyweb.net users)

If it's seven o'clock next December in your universe, tell me, did Bush win the election or what? (I can place a bet in the present time, you see, and I'll split the money with you.) --Uncle Ed 20:08, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Weird Name edit

Hi Tim Starling, thank you for your comment on my page. I would have like to get an account like in other wikis, but when I got an en-wiki account, I left my input-method Japanese-Kanji mode ...

I confess even I myself can't read my name. I'd like to synthesize or precisely normalize it into a simple name "KIZU". But I'd like to hold my history with this weird name and I have no idea how to rename my account. 

Is there any nice trick on Wikipedia?

Cheers,

Hi Tim, all goes well. Thank you. [User KIZU|KIZU]

Question re: added admins edit

Tim, right now Meelar is listed on Wikipedia:Recently created admins but claims he doesn't have admin rights. I've left a question at Wikipedia talk:Recently created admins about this, but thought I'd leave a note here since I recall you being the fellow who promoted me long ago. :) Is there a way for you to check into this? If Meelar was listed at RCA but not actually promoted, could there be others there in similar straits? If you have time, I'd love it if you could look into it. Thanks, Jwrosenzweig 22:18, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, Tim! I assume you've taken care of adding Meelar, then? :) Also, I do want to say I appreciate all your hard work--I imagine the life of a developer can be a little thankless. Thanks again for clearing up the Meelar situation, Jwrosenzweig 23:18, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Rendering features edit

A while back you told me (on the Village Pump) that the rendering features on Wikisophia were written by one "Peter Danenberg". Is this the same chap as User:Danenberg? Given the remark by RickK on his talk page, I find it hard to believe. --Phil 17:04, Feb 11, 2004 (UTC)

Judging by his contributions, it seems extremely likely that they are the same person. RickK is referring to this, which looks more like a misunderstanding of local deletion processes than vandalism. -- Tim Starling 00:16, Feb 12, 2004 (UTC)
Ta. Hopefully I can wheedle some documentation out of him: I've been trying to test the new features but the documentation to which he points is for a different version :-( --Phil 08:13, Feb 12, 2004 (UTC)

Poll notification edit

Jack (now known as Sam Spade) created a poll at Talk:Atheism/Godvrs.god poll on the capital G issue in atheism, so I figured I should drop a note about it to all the major participants in the editing on that article since Jan 11. I just went through the edit history clicking names that looked prominent, so if you aren't interested in the issue feel free to ignore it. Bryan 05:28, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thankyou edit

blocked "Wik": voluntary mutual ban of Wik and Anthony, after edit war on VfD) ah, this must be what passing a kidneystone feels like. I'm off to bed now, but if/when someone bleats about this, feel free to cut'n'paste this into the ensuing nonsense "What Tim did should have been done hours earlier. Wik should be allowed back when he apologies, Anthony when hell freezes over" -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 02:28, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)"

Image Thumbnail problem edit

Seems to be a problem with the caption in thumbnails, with accent/grave markup not being translated correctly. Take a look at: this version of the Montreal page. Fuzheado 11:05, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Experienced similar things, caption text not accepting tags for italics and others, see yesterday's editing of Air France. --Palapala 11:27, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

What's wrong with Barbie? edit

She's a cultural icon, and is argually quite more important than a fish named Bumpy. Visit the Mattel press website if you like, or search for it on Google News. It's real, and although not critical in any sense, of note. We posted the California recall, Superbowl, all of which are fueled only by popular culture, so why not the face of pop culture herself? -- user:zanimum

En and Em Dashes edit

I am not sure if you are still monitoring the dashes discussion I began at the village pump, but it's now at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(biographies)#Dashes. Your last comment there was that the people on IRC where not sure if -- should be converted to an en or em dash: the answer is of course em dash.

User:168... edit

It seems that you have requested that the arbitration committee look into the removal of 168...'s administratorship rights (Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration). If you would like an advocate to represent you in any way, please see Wikipedia:Office of Members' Advocates. -- Emsworth 16:54, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)

Username issues at WIktionary edit

Hi Tim. I have just been adding a bit of meta-content at Wiktionary, and have added pages for changing username and article attribution, a la Wikipedia. As the process is probably different for Wiktionary, I have made a note that I copied them from here and that you were the person to contact for further instructions. If you are not the correct person then could you please amend the text at [1] and [2], or even better correct it so that no such text is needed. Thank you --HappyDog 16:22, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

something fun edit

The new search system provides us with some great fun. If you search for Tim Starling, the system finds these articles as being close:

  • Timesharing 75% (****)
  • Jim Starlin 75% (****)
  • Time sharing 75% (****)
  • Rosy starling 66% (****)
  • The Yearling 66% (****)

Enjoy, Kingturtle 18:41, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

New barnstar edit

I uploaded a new barnstar which is not ugly and not GIF. You might even want to start accepting them! silsor 01:23, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)

Bureaucrats and sysops edit

Hi Tim,

I've restored the bureaucrat check in SpecialMakesysop.php (if it was you who removed it). Silsor has suggested that two or three sysops need to confirm such an operation for it to take place, such a scheme might work. Until it is implemented, I think it's not a good idea to let sysops create sysops.—Eloquence

See my comment regarding this on Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship. -- Tim Starling 03:56, Feb 21, 2004 (UTC)

Namechange edit

Hi Tim,

could you have a look at Wikipedia:Changing username, and change user:ssnoyes to User:Scott Noyes? Thanks! - snoyes 20:14, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Welcome back! edit

I've been so busy that I sadly didn't even notice you were gone. --mav

Thanks! edit

I am assuming that it was you, who took care of the software glitch at Wikiquote ?which had been logging us out after edits, as it seems to have disappeared after your last changes. THANK YOU! ?Kalki 11:55, 2004 Feb 22 (UTC)

MediaWiki messages vs. templates edit

Hi Tim,

if you still want to separate MediaWiki namespace content from custom messages, now would probably be a good time -- there's really an inflation of MediaWiki: pages. I think a separate Template: namespace would probably be a good idea.—Eloquence 19:07, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)

History days edit

FYI, I think the reason it was "A day in history" instead "Today in history" is that today is relative. It's Feb 25 UTC, but it's still Feb 24 in many places...so "a day" covers that. Thanks for all your good work! jengod 00:40, Feb 25, 2004 (UTC)

Since I live in UTC+11 and constantly communicate with people all over the world, I can assure you that I understand this point. "A day", however, is an awkward way to express this concept. It's interesting (if slightly irrelevant) to note that the actual time the given events occurred is ambiguous in the same way. An event that occurred on February 25 according to the history books may have actually occurred on February 26 in an eastern time zone. -- Tim Starling 00:51, Feb 25, 2004 (UTC)

Bad links on #enrc.wikipedia edit

When Wikipedia:Block log gets changed, the link displayed on the #enrc IRC Channel gives an error if you follow it. I raised it with Brion (who made tha change which sparked the entry) and he redirected me to you. Where would you like me to post details? --Phil 09:09, Feb 25, 2004 (UTC)

Using MediaWiki namespace edit

The fact that internal messages and custom messages are mixed together was a bad idea in hindsight. Eventually I will separate the two. For now, continue to use them, and don't worry too much about technical problems. -- Tim Starling 23:14, Feb 25, 2004 (UTC)

Hi Tim,
thanks for your posting to my thread. I can understand, that using the MediaWiki namespace for custom messages could blur the line between internal meesages and content. Though I think that the message for disambiguations is a custom message, too.
So this causes a little dilemma now. Just continuing using them is blocked by one of the German administrators. He threatened to delete all custom messages that are using the MediaWiki namespace. Well, not very Wiki-style ...
I never put so much energy on the Wikipedia software. How difficult is it to seperate internal messages and custom messages, maybe by introducing a new namespace nav (navigation). And further, if custom messages are already placed in articles with a msg-statement, how much work will it be to change this into a new nav-statement. Thanks, Ralf

Blocking edit

Hi Tim, are you able to answer the question about duplicate blocks at Wikipedia talk:Block log? Thanks. Angela. 07:48, Feb 27, 2004 (UTC)

Developer edit

Tim, I wanted to approach you because I'm interested in possibly becoming a MediaWiki developer. I'm an experienced professional programmer with a background (among other things) in Linux, MySQL and PHP (as well as CSS, TeX/LaTeX). I've downloaded the MediaWiki software from Sourceforge, and have been playing around with it a little. I'm particular interested in upgrading the image display features. I wanted to know what the procedure would be for becoming a developer. Should I first become a sysop through the normal nomination procedure? User:Jengod has recently offered to nominate me for adminship, although I have been a contributor only since Jan. 10. I don't know if people would go for it yet. What do you suggest? -- Matthew Trump (User:Decumanus) 16:49, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi Tim, could you please change my user name on de.wikipedia.org from "Presroi" to "Mathias Schindler" - which is actually my name (see www.presroi.de's whois)

Thank you, part 2.

Tim, why are you moving the holidays tables off country pages? Have you seen the wikiproject template for country pages? It has the holidays table on the page. LDan 03:49, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Is it possible for you to undo the changes or should I? LDan 03:52, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Oh, sorry for the confusion. LDan 03:58, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi Tim. Could you do me a little favor? Assuming the Tim account on the Test Wikipedia is you, could you please unprotect MediaWiki:Minoreditletter and MediaWiki:Newpageletter over on the Test wiki? I want to experiment a little with these flags, due to a suggestion on the Village Pump before I suggest again changing these here. Thanks for your help! Dysprosia 02:58, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Move page log edit

There appears to be a problem with your move page code. Sometimes a move is not logged in recent changes. For example, this move was not logged.—Eloquence 04:08, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC)

It's in the recentchanges table, and it's displayed correctly in the old RC, but for reasons unclear to me, it disappears from the new RC. I'll look into it. -- Tim Starling 05:31, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC)
OK, I've managed to reproduce it. -- Tim Starling 05:36, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC)

Odd image edit

Hi Tim, I found a weird image that seems to have no title while updating User:Silsor/weirdmedia. The image is SELECT * FROM image WHERE img_timestamp=20040229055217. Thanks, silsor 23:34, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)

Special:Newuserlog edit

Hey Tim, as per IRC, a reminder that it'd be nice to have a log of new accounts to be able to spot offensive usernames. thanks, Dori | Talk 04:32, Mar 5, 2004 (UTC)

History of Athens edit

Talk:History_of_Athens

Adam Carr is not budging at all - He seems to think that his personal preferences win out. =\ WhisperToMe 06:42, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

give sysop at ja.wikipedia.org edit

Hi Tim. On ja, Lupinoid, Nnh, KMT, Carbuncle, Sampo, Sphl and Ojigiri have approved to become sysop. See w:ja:Wikipedia:管理者への立候補. Kzhr 12:03, 2004 Mar 6 (UTC)

Changing usernames edit

Is there any way to change your username without being listed on Wikipedia:Changing username? I wouldn't like my real name to be associated with this username — ie: from User:Maio to User:My Real Name where 'My Real Name' is my real name. =P --Maio 15:40, Mar 8, 2004 (UTC)

> But if you think it will be sufficient to just rename the account, then send me an email.
timstarling hotmail com ? --Maio 00:20, Mar 9, 2004 (UTC)

Village pump edit

Hey, Tim, you do know why Village pump was protected, right? RickK 05:19, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yes. But it's easier to use a page that is vandalised once every few minutes than one which is protected. Protecting the village pump is just crazy. -- Tim Starling 05:22, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)
So is having to revert it every minute. RickK 05:23, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Oh diddums. Hang on, I'll head over to Special:Lockdb and fix this problem right up. -- Tim Starling 05:25, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)
I assume that's sarcasm? RickK 05:30, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

phpDocumentor edit

These are the links I was able to scavenge quickly:

HTH HAND --Phil 10:56, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)

This is a test run done by jeronim` (that's an IRC handle, don't know the correct user name). I'd like to put the lists of classes/functions somewhere on meta and request information from developers: is there a good place (or places to avoid)? --Phil 11:12, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)

setting priviledges on test edit

Tim, I don't think it's a good idea to use the test wiki to set priviledges as the log remains there, and because it is the test wiki, the logs might even be deleted or lost at some point. Meta might be OK on the other hand, but ideally the additions would be made to the logs of the wikis where the priviledges apply. done nit-picking :) Dori | Talk 17:16, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)

Tim, did you see Pingos' request at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship to be an admin at bs.wikipedia.org? I know you like to settle these things before we start "voting" on them when we're not supposed to. :) Jwrosenzweig 19:16, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Translation of Maori WikiPedia edit

Hello! Will you please set permissions on the Maori WikiPedia to make it so User:A Pakeha and User:Perl have permissions necessary to edit the protected pages (specifically the permissions that let us translate and edit all the functions on the sidebars and other functions into Maori terms)? Thank you. Perl 00:44, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Done -- Tim Starling 01:02, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks! Sorry to bother you again, but I read on the RFA page that a user could ask you to give that user the ability to run SQL queries on the database. (this was called developer ability which seemed to also give the user other programming type powers) (i noticed that I have the SQL ability on Maori). I have some experience with Linux servers, programming in C++, and programming in some other language that I can't remember the name of ;-). Would it be possible to give me the developer ability so I can contribute to Wikipedia in more technical ways? (If this is too much trouble, don't worry about it.) Thank you, Perl 02:21, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
All sysops can perform read-only SQL queries. Please be careful with them. If you want to contribute in technical ways, then by all means, install MediaWiki on your home computer and get coding. There's lots of things that need writing. Tell me if you need help choosing what to write. You can start out by submitting patches to the wikitech-l mailing list. -- Tim Starling 03:55, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)
Thank you again. I am installing the Mediawiki application for linux. I noticed that its coded in PHP which is close to C++ so I will probably not have very many problems getting the hang of it. Best wishes, Perl 13:17, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

question edit

If I will be submitting patches, would it be best if I installed the 1.2.0rc3, or should I install the stable mediawiki-1.1.0? Perl 21:18, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You should probably get the current CVS version. Use a CVS root of :pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/wikipedia, get the phase3 module. -- Tim Starling 12:51, Mar 13, 2004 (UTC)

Hi Tim! This is copied from Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship: I made a few requests on Intlwiki-L to gain sysop powers for the Irish Wikipedia, but no replies were given. What is the procedure for becoming an admin in a new language, or what has been done before? - Kwekubo 21:25, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Done -- Tim Starling 02:01, Mar 13, 2004 (UTC)

Ah... a slight problem, I should have mentioned it before: I edit at almost everywhere other than en.wikipedia as Gabriel Beecham. Could you possibly sysop that account at ga.wikipedia.org?--Kwekubo 20:39, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hello Tim. I see you're also a sysop on the Indonesian Wikipedia. I am half way in translating the interface from Malay to Indonesian. But there are still several things that I can't change yet, such as the names of days and the names of the months. Can you tell me how to change these ? Thanks.

Meursault2004 23:07, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You need to make a language file. Once upon a time, everything had to be done using the language file, but now it's been partially converted to use the MediaWiki namespace. Grab LanguageMs.php, rename it to LanguageId.php, and translate everything in it except the wgAllMessagesMs array, which you've already translated using the MediaWiki namespace. Change all the wg...Ms variable names to wg...Id, and change the class name. This is all very cumbersome, hopefully we'll invent some better method, some time soon. -- Tim Starling 02:01, Mar 13, 2004 (UTC)
If I would like to change those things for the Maori Wikipedia, how would I write to the cvs file for the maori wikipedia? Is there a password that I need? Perl 18:08, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

SQL query timeouts edit

It appears that the automatic abortion of SQL queries is not working as intended. Even though it is presently set at 30 seconds, many queries are logged which take much more than that, see http://en.wikipedia.org/upload/sqllog_mFhyRe6 : 

20040313195418 query by Timwi:
SELECT ca.cur_namespace, ca.cur_title
FROM cur ca, cur cb, links l
WHERE ca.cur_is_redirect=1 AND cb.cur_is_redirect=1
   AND l.l_from=ca.cur_title AND l.l_to=cb.cur_id
   AND ca.cur_namespace=0
LIMIT 5
finished at 20040313195714; took 203.965613842 secs

Can you fix this? If not, I suggest disabling SQL queries again.—Eloquence 20:22, Mar 13, 2004 (UTC)

One possibility is that some queries have a long time between checkpoints, so they continue even after the kill command. However, there was one occasion when a long-running query was sucessfully killed by a query from a developer, which would suggest that the problem is something else. -- Tim Starling 05:13, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)

Wikibooks edit

Would you make wikibooks:User:TUF-KAT an Admin and a bureaucrat (see Wikibooks:Requests for adminship). Thanks Tuf-Kat

Done. -- Tim Starling 23:02, Mar 15, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for changing account edit

Thank you for changing my Wikipedia username from Darkelf to Jor. — Jor (Talk) 11:43, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Developer access edit

I actually agree that it makes sense to limit "developer" access to a fairly small group of people. I nominated the number of individuals I did chiefly because I felt that Angela and Mav, despite the value and extent of their contributions, represent the same ideological wing of the Wikipedian spectrum. I thought it wise to diversity the group by including some Wikipedians who have different perspectives, like Fred and Martin, and some who are longtime contributors but tend to stay out of Wikipolitics altogether, like JohnOwens and the Anome.

By the way, if you're serious about limiting the number of developers, you may wish to prune the list to exclude people who were once very active but are no longer involved. It isn't healthy (or secure) to include a bunch of emeriti on such lists.

UninvitedCompany 20:27, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Username change edit

Tim: in late December you were kind enough to change my ID from User:Hjr to User:Hajor. According to the Changing Username page, all previous edits of a given user are attributed to the new name. However, I'm still forever coming across Hjr listed in article histories (eg, here or here). Am I not understanding the process correctly, or did the change not go through properly? I'd be enormously grateful if you could take a moment to set me straight. Best, –Hajor 04:11, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Adminship on Gaeilge edit

Hey Tim, I'm looking to become an admin on the Irish Wikipedia, where there are a few things that need tweaking. Ludraman | Talk 19:40, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Request for Adminship edit

Wik is afraid that I may be a sockpuppet, or may be using GrazingshipIV as sockpuppet on Request for Adminship. Would it be possible to do a background check in the server logs to prove that I have not been using any other usernames? Thank you --Hcheney 01:28, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

And while you're at it, could you check the logs to see if User:GrazingshipIV is a sock puppet? RickK | Talk 05:20, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Livejournal edit

Hi. This: http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=tim_starling&mode=full isn't you, is it? I suspect that it, like the LJ Quercus #1 & #2, are Michael. Same friends (including Michael_ish and eagles_of_death), recent journal, no journal entries. Koyaanis Qatsi 07:32, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

That's Michael by the looks of it. I sent an email to the LiveJournal administration asking them to do something about it. Well spotted, thanks for pointing that out -- Tim Starling 08:10, Mar 24, 2004 (UTC)
I suspected as much. I'd be interested to know what action LJ takes, if any. There are the two Quercus accounts also, which QuercusRobur says are not him. Koyaanis Qatsi 08:58, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The account was suspended, the same day I sent the message. They said they could only deal with first person inquiries, so they wouldn't suspend the Quercus Robur accounts unless he contacted them himself. -- Tim Starling 23:05, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)
Ok, thanks for letting me know. He's not posting anything with them (or at least hasn't yet); he's just LJ name-squatting. I'm not sure what he intends to do with those accounts, unless he hopes to read different friends-only entries from people thinking he's someone he's not. Koyaanis Qatsi 03:06, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Etc. edit

Sorry about Talk:Physics. I was going on something I read on some Wikipedia: page somewhere, that stuff that was actually obsolete could be deleted. I won't do it again.

(But to answer your question, in case it was intended interrogatively rather than instructively, I did it because that's what I wish everyone did... sometimes I skim an entry's Discuss page before editing, just to make sure the change I'm about to make hasn't already been more thoughtfully discussed (and rejected) by other people. It's easier if the page is short and relevant.)

—Jorend 13:38, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)


Proxy blocker edit

Has the proxy blocker stopped working? There are no recent blocks on the blocklist. -- The Anome 01:33, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

JDR/Reddi Strikes Back edit

Our delusional friend is at it again. Help me fight against his legions of ignorance. - Lord Kenneth 02:13, Mar 28, 2004 (UTC)

Until a NPOV is reached, I will continue the edits. JDR

Vandal/impersonator edit

User:thebam is a sockpuppet created to discredit me I was hoping you could trace this person and find out if it had any connection to user rickk or any other person on wikipedia. Thanks. GrazingshipIV 13:01, Mar 28, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, there's no obvious connection with anyone. TheBam shares an ISP with a few other Wikipedians, none of them seem to be particularly likely candidates. It's possible the user in question is using multiple ISPs, so I can't really rule anyone out. TheBam is indeed the same person as Information Koopa. In my opinion, the story TheBam gives on his user page is pretty weak. There doesn't seem to be any evidence of collaboration, just evidence of dislike. -- Tim Starling 00:44, Mar 29, 2004 (UTC)

Fair enough. I will defer your expertise, but will go on record one more time to state that this person seems to have some sort of hidden agenda and that I never made such a deal with him or hcheney. GrazingshipIV 00:47, Mar 29, 2004 (UTC)

What are GAs? edit

Hi Tim,

What are GAs? You mention them at Talk:Monte_Carlo_method. Also, if you have a bot that changes usernames, can you change rlschuh to rs2 for me?

Thanks, rs2 21:15, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

GAs are genetic algorithms. I've put your name change request at the end of the queue at Wikipedia:Changing username. -- Tim Starling 23:57, Mar 31, 2004 (UTC)


PauloColacino edit

Tim,

You asked me at the portuguese wikipedia:

"Do you think I should remove administrator access from PauloColacino?"

I don't know. It has been difficult to make PauloColacino follow the rules established by the community. We had some problems with him because of some page deletions and copyright violations. But I don't like the idea of removing his access to administrative powers because that could make him radicalise his positions. I'm in favour of removing his administrative access if he abuses his administrative powers again. pt:Usuário:JoaoMiranda


It's me again. I lost any hope that PauloColacino will ever change his attitude. Today he is using every pretext he can find to start conflicts with me and pt:Usuário:Jorge and abused his powers by blocking some pages (he thinks he can block pages from other administrators). So I have to ask you to remove administrator access from PauloColacino. pt:Usuário:JoaoMiranda

Image leftovers edit

According to Timwi, you managed to fix whatever the problem was with Image:Bill Clinton.jpg, whereby the image history could not be deleted for some reason. I seem to have run into the same problem in trying to delete this image: Image:Bay Bridge collapse thumbnail.JPG. I'd appreciate your help, if possible, in resolving this. Thanks, Minesweeper 04:06, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Done. For the moment this is performed using an undocumented and probably temporary feature. For future reference: click the "del" link. An error page comes up saying that the image is missing. Edit the URL, adding "&wpConfirm=1&wpForce=1". It should then tell you that the image was successfully deleted. -- Tim Starling 04:15, Apr 1, 2004 (UTC)

Sock puppet request edit

Tim - can you check the server logs and verify whether or not Eon is a sock puppet? I wouldn't normally ask but we've been having problem on the RfA with *lots* of sock puppets. →Raul654 05:17, Apr 1, 2004 (UTC)

Udmurt wiki edit

Hi Tim,

Could you (or someone else) please activate the Udmurt language (udm) Wikipedia? Andres 13:55, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Available for sysop help? edit

Would you mind reading the final section of User talk:Paul A, as i think he decided he couldn't help & may be no longer on line. Maybe there's nothing to be done, but at this point it's unclear to me. TIA --Jerzy(t) 04:59, 2004 Apr 3 (UTC)

User:Wickedpedia is a fascist project edit

Could you find out if User:Wickedpedia is a fascist project is also User:Bird? RickK | Talk 04:08, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Dutch proxy blocker edit

Hi, I hope you are the person who controls the nl:gebruiker:proxy blocker. I would like to have the default text changed for the Dutch Wikipedia to Dit is een automatische preventieve blokkering omdat U gebruik maakt van een open proxyserver. Zie [[gebruiker:Proxy blocker|Proxy blocker]] voor meer informatie And also to reduce the 1 week block to 1 day. Walter 08:53, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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