User talk:Rich Farmbrough

Note: I will generally answer on your talk page (and usually copy here), and look for your responses here. If you see my answer here and it's not on your talk page, I'm either not happy with it (haven't finished writing it), or I forgot to copy it over. However I can't (borked watchlist among other reasons) watch your talk page (sorry), so reply here. R.F.

Quisque custodiet custodes

Dear Rich,

Should you like to discuss the point I raised, trewy@live.co.uk. It has been going three months now. Have you ever considered being a politician, because the line I put in the opening sentence you never answered: WAS IT YOU OR SMACKBOT.

I know you are a good editor but when you have a bot you have responsibilities

S.

Can you help sanity to prevail?

Hello Rich. We interacted last year when I sought your help to remove a file that was redundant. The relevant segment is still on my talkpage. That particular problem was my own making, and you kindly assisted in correction of it.

The current problem is not originally my own making, but in the process of trying to correct the matter and have some semblance of sanity prevail again, I have contributed to it. The way I see it, the problems are readily fixable. It's just that I don't have the administrative ability to take a couple of the steps.

The problem is this: The article, Captain R.T. Claridge, which I created on 29 October 2009, and which has continued uncontroversially to date, was erroneously renamed by another editor. In the process of that renaming, a redirect page was created.

I took care of the erroneous article renaming, or so I thought. However, what I didn't realise, was that in the original (erroneous) renaming, a space was inserted between the R and the T of Captain R.T. Claridge. This meant, of course, that all of the links originally created to the Captain R.T. Claridge article 'needed' a redirect page, because links are format-sensitive, including for the presence of spaces between letters.

At first I thought little of this, thinking perhaps the redirect did serve a real function, as opposed to an illusory function created by its own existence. But I was wrong. A few very simple experiments with the Wikipedia search function, for say, C. D. Baker, or Captain E.G. Beaumont. The search brings up the same article (or in the case of Baker, the same disambiguation page), regardless of whether or not you use a space between the initials, for both names. So you take the space away from C. D., and the search works. Add a space to E.G., and it works.

What this means is that there is no need for a redirect page merely on the basis of a space between the initials. The initial redirect page took the links with no spaces to the article with the spaces. From the initial redirect page, a 'check of what links here' naturally listed all of the articles and archives that previously linked for the Captain R.T. Claridge article. This seemed to give the impression that the redirect page needed to exist to solve a real problem, rather than an illusory one.

When I realised all this, after much stuffing around I might add (because I refuse to let an idiotic situation prevail), I realised the only solution that makes sense.

1. The Captain R. T. Claridge article needs to be renamed to remove the space between the R and T. That is, Captain R.T. Claridge. This will automatically make the existing links that previously worked, work again. Very simple. I'd go so far as to say extremely simple, conceptually.
2. The redirect page needs to be deleted, as it serves no real function, and appears to be hindering any attempt to implement the above solution.

I can't imagine many things more conceptually simple than the above solution. Since I don't have deletion authority, I initially tried to simply rename the Captain R. T. Claridge article to Captain R.T. Claridge (without spaces). But a red error message said Captain R.T. Claridge already existed. On the off-chance this was a byproduct of the name with spaces causing the problem, I renamed to R. T. Claridge, then tried going from there to Captain R.T. Claridge (without spaces). I got the same error message, saying the article exists. However, it allowed me to move the article to Captain R. T. Claridge (with spaces). This tells me that the article itself is not the problem. It must be the existence of something else named Captain R.T. Claridge (with no spaces). As far as I can tell, this brings me back to the redirect page. So I tried a couple of moves to see if renaming there made a difference. All I did was create a couple more redirect pages, as far as I can tell. I have now flagged all of the redirect pages for speedy deletion.

I really am only seeking one outcome, and one outcome alone. To get the Captain R. T. Claridge article back to its original name (Captain R.T. Claridge, without spaces) so the links which worked up until yesterday, all work again. I can't think of many things more conceptually simple. But I can't believe the Alice-in-Wonderland surreality that has transpired. But that doesn't mean I, or anyone else, has to settle for it. I seek your assistance if possible, as you seem to have a good track record of recognising simple, no-nonsense solutions, and implementing them, which is really all that is needed. Wotnow (talk) 07:59, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Update: The issue has been resolved courtesy of ϢereSpielChequers, including some helpful feedback from WereSpielChequers and  Glenfarclas ', and I am satisfied that all is well. Regards Wotnow (talk) 06:28, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Excellent, I would, of course, have been glad to help. Rich Farmbrough, 10:49, 31 January 2010 (UTC).

Template:City-region

What do you think about the template, and this proposal? Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 05:28, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you

Richard, Thank you for helping with the Adriano Espaillat article.

69.203.119.66 (talk) 06:12, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

re AWB Unicode bug

Re your AWB Unicode bug it seems like a rare error, we can convert to spaces if found, or do nothing. Which do you think? Thanks Rjwilmsi 14:36, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Rich Farmbrough. You have new messages at SimonTrew's talk page.
Message added 17:47, 30 January 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

I left a reply to you at my talk page, to try to keep things in one place. I will copy to BON if you want, but presumably you came here specifically to talk it with me not at BON. All I say here is that I have no problem with SB or you, just a very specific problem. I am sorry it was stopped.

I have been away from WP for a while IRL so I am sorry if my delay in replying seems like ignorance. I will do everything I can to help you get genfixes sorted out, which I have no prioblem with SB doing. I know you and SB do great work here, and it is kinda minor this, a rather side issue, I didn't want and didn't ask for it to stop genfixes. I never stopped this bot at all during this debate, or asked for it to be. I will do everything I can to say so to admin or whatever who stopped it for that, I haven't read up why, but this specifically is NOT genfixes and it should have genfixes I think, which everyone knows and loves so well. So I defintely support you to get genfixes back. Si Trew (talk) 17:47, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Questions

• I remember you once made a template to know the number of pages in a category. Could you remind me what it is called? Debresser (talk) 09:42, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I found "PAGESINCATEGORY". It is a magic word, rather than a template, if I understand correctly. Debresser (talk) 10:22, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:List of monthly maintenance categories given month that I used it successfully. I think this is usefull. If the number of pages in a category of this month is 0, then we won't create the corresponding category next month. If the number of pages in a category of the next month is not 0, then the articles have to be edited. You may want to improve the layout. Debresser (talk) 10:48, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• I noticed in Category:Wikipedia maintenance categories with missing months that when a progress template is added, all categories transcluding it are also added. Can you fix that? Debresser (talk) 10:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Probably some fix to Template:Progress line 3, but I don't know how. Debresser (talk) 10:28, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

BTW, I created 2 new progress boxes for categories that didn't have them yet. No reason not to, right? Debresser (talk) 10:48, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• Do we want to delete Wikipedia:List of missing monthly maintenance categories? I think we do. We have Category:Wikipedia maintenance categories with missing months already. Debresser (talk) 10:23, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot & unnamed parameters

When SmackBot is fixing dates on templates, it would be nice if it could check if the unnamed parameter is a valid date, and if so use it instead of adding a new one: [1] [2] [3]. Thanks! --Pascal⁶⁶⁶ 08:28, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

RADIO ROW

Based on that picture, are they saying that that store is still there and open to this day? Bob.--76.224.113.196 (talk) 17:20, 1 February 2010 (UTC)