User talk:MZMcBride

---

Older discussions are available in the page history.

MarkMonitor

Hi MZMcBride. I noticed you mentioned me in a year-old string on Cla68's Talk page[1] and I posted some general thoughts and opinions (maybe more of a rant) over there. Anyways, I'm still coaching MarkMonitor through more suggested improvements and will circle back eventually (I promise!) to correct issues with promotion, WP:Criticism, post-acquisition updates, etc. etc. My work has gotten much better since then as well, so hopefully we can bring it up to higher standards.

Will you still be watching the page and interested in collaborating on it? What is the best way to suggest the changes (section by section?, with a full draft?). BTW - someone keeps adding the Priddy brothers as founders[2]. I didn't know this when I posted for a correction the first time, but it turns out there is one source that says one of the Priddy's was a founder, though most sources say either just Shah or Shah and Hepworth. Not something I want to spend a lot of cycles on if it's a controversial edit, but it seems how it is now is not right. CorporateM (Talk) 22:39, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Admit you sometimes answer your leg

I have nominated this unusual redirect for deletion. Please see WP:RFD#Wikipedia:Admit you sometimes answer your leg. Simply south...... catching SNOWballs for just 6 years 23:28, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Heh, thanks for letting me know. Commented over there. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:32, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

WP U.S. Supreme Court Cases in the Signpost

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court Cases for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to SCOTUS cases and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. –Mabeenot (talk) 13:12, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

EdwardsBot on wikidata

Just a heads up, I requested that EdwardsBot be granted a bot flag at d:Wikidata:Requests for permissions/EdwardsBot. Hope you don't mind :) Legoktm (talk) 02:56, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Scandalous. Thanks. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 04:24, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

nscounts.py

Hi Bride, when I run this code, get the following error

 File "nscounts.py", line 96, in <module>
    ns_count_r_tcol += ns_count_r
 TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for +=: 'long' and 'str'

Please help me, Thanks. محمد شعیب (talk) 16:52, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Don't you just love programming languages that let you get away with not declaring the type of a variable, and then complain when you perform an integer operation on what it thinks is a string... --Redrose64 (talk) 17:04, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Can you pastebin the code you're running? --MZMcBride (talk) 22:24, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Sure, here I put the code. محمد شعیب (talk) 01:34, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

What happend to this code? محمد شعیب (talk) 06:38, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I see the problem, it's on line 92

ns_count_r = '0'

- that forces the type to string. You need to drop the quotes, i.e.

ns_count_r = 0

so that it's numeric. Line 87

ns_count = '0'

should be fixed similarly. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:17, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I applied what did you say, but again the following error occured:

File "watchalltest.py", line 112, in <module>
    report_text = report_template % (current_of, '\n'.join(output), ns_count_tcol, ns_count_r_tcol, ns_count_gtotal)
TypeError: %d format: a number is required, not str

Now what should we do? Thanks for your valuable help. محمد شعیب (talk) 13:14, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Please re-pastebin your code. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 21:50, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

here you can see :) محمد شعیب (talk) 01:25, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

|-
%s
|- class="sortbottom"

I think that's what you need. You currently have a variant.

Generally, I think you have a mismatch between your variables (%s and %d and so forth) and what you're attempting to substitute those variables with. Take a look at this for reference. Each %s and each %d has to be substituted in the final output. If there's a mismatch between these variables and the substitutions, you'll get weird errors. And order matters. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:02, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your valueable help, now code successfully run :) again thanks. محمد شعیب (talk) 07:36, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Wither Catscan?

I seem to recall there was a MW tool, called Catscan(?) or similar, that allows editors to comb through categories to compile lists. Have you any idea where this can be located? Cheers, -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 04:02, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

WP:CATSCAN, brah. It looks like there's Duesentrieb's original tool and now Magnus has a rewrite. And maybe some others. They're all linked from that page. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:04, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Ta! -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 04:05, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of The Portland Trip

The article The Portland Trip has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Lack of notability and independent sources has been noted in banners for over 6 months. Should be redirected: List of The West Wing episodes or similar.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Pete (talk) 15:43, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Pete. Please see User:MZMcBride/Edit summaries#westwing. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:16, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Module:Template:SCOTUSKey - is this a good name for a module?

(this is a genuine question, not an open salvo in an argument)

Hi. i wonder about the naming of this module. do you think it's a good practice to name the module "Template:XXX" (presuming XXX is the template that wants to use/invoke this module)?

are there guidelines anywhere for recommended naming of modules?

regardless of my personal/professional preferences, if there are such guidelines, i'll follow them. if there are no such guidelines, maybe it makes sense to write some...

_{just to clarify: my personal opinion is that this isn't a sensible name for the module - IMO, if one wants to state which template is expected to use the module, one should use comments in the code, and the best name for the module is something that tells you what it actually does, rather tan where it is used. e.g., for this one, maybe something like "Module:Extract tail digits" or somesuch. it's easy to think of other templates that will want to use this extraction. same question pertains to the actual function inside this module. again, my personal preference is for module and function names that tells you what they do, instead of telling you where they are used.}

peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 17:01, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I don't think that Template: should be included in the module name. The vast majority of Modules will be used within templates, so Module:SCOTUSKey would be a better name. Using a pagename which is identical to that of an existing template would not prevent its use elsewhere, but it would indicate it's original or primary use. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:24, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

This was actually something that was discussed in #wikimedia-tech. I think prepending "Template" makes it very obvious what the module is supposed to be used for. You could probably get away with Module:SCOTUSKey, but does that mean Module:String is used by {{string}}? Legoktm (talk) 05:58, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

at the risk of coming out as an old fart, i'll repeat both my view and my question. my view is that in software, the name should not represent where something is used, but rather what it does. let's take this specific case as an example: we call the module "Module:Template:SCOTUSKey". it is used in a template called "SCOTUSKey". at the place we actually use it, i.e. in the template called "SCOTUSKey", we have something that looks like so: {{#invoke:Template:SCOTUSKey|some-function-name|some parameters}}. since we already *know* where we are when we invoke it, the module name carries with in zero information (somewhat reminds you the old joke, where a driver opens her window and asks a pedestrian "where am i?", only to be told "in your car").

my question is, "are there any guidelines for naming modules?".

peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 14:28, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

wikilovestats.py

Hi McBride, when I run this code, get the following error:

File "wikilovestats.py", line 67, in <module>
    ''')
File "/opt/ts/python/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/MySQLdb/cursors.py", line 173, in execute
    self.errorhandler(self, exc, value)
File "/opt/ts/python/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/MySQLdb/connections.py", line 36, in defaulterrorhandler
    raise errorclass, errorvalue
_mysql_exceptions.ProgrammingError: (1146, "Table 'urwiki_p.wikilove_log' doesn't exist")

what should I do? محمد شعیب (talk) 17:41, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi. I confirmed that the WikiLove extension is installed at ur.wikipedia.org by looking at w:ur:Special:Version.

The issue you're hitting is that the Toolserver uses MySQL views in order to restrict access to certain sensitive MySQL tables or table columns. In this case, "urwiki" is the actual replicated database, while "urwiki_p" (with the "_p" suffix) is the public view of the "urwiki" database. When new database tables are added (by a MediaWiki extension such as WikiLove or in MediaWiki core), the Toolserver roots must explicitly add the table to the view(s). In this case, it looks like the urwiki_p view has not yet been updated:

(on enwiki_p)

mysql> show tables like 'wikilove%';
+--------------------------------+
| Tables_in_enwiki_p (wikilove%) |
+--------------------------------+
| wikilove_image_log             |
| wikilove_log                   |
+--------------------------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

(on urwiki_p)

mysql> show tables like 'wikilove%';
Empty set (0.00 sec)

In order to resolve this, you'll need to file a ticket at <https://jira.toolserver.org> asking for these two tables ("wikilove_image_log" and "wikilove_log") to be added to the urwiki_p MySQL view. Hope that helps. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:13, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) MZ, you might know the answer to a slightly-related problem that I have. My Wikipedia account was created after SUL was enabled, and so whenever I'm logged in on en.wp and I visit Wikipedia in another language, I'm also logged in there. There is one exception: Urdu Wikipedia never recognises me as logged in; and it's listed separately at the bottom of [3] under "List of unattached accounts"; and no matter how often I visit Special:MergeAccount, ur.wikipedia.org doesn't get listed there either. What is preventing the linking? --Redrose64 (talk) 11:27, 27 February 2013 (UTC) Now resolved. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:07, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Tag - you're it

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

Bot flag on French Wikipedia

Hello MZMcBride !

I think you could apply for bot flag for EdwardsBot, you should have no problem to get it Have a great day. — S t a r u s – ¡Dímelo! – 18:44, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Sure, done. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:01, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

You've got mail!

{{you've got mail|subject=Security|ts=18:59, 23 February 2013 (UTC)}}

Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 18:59, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Aye, just replied. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:03, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Lua requests

Hi MZMcBride, I noticed you contributed some Lua scripts at Module:Bananas and Module:Template:SCOTUSKey. I just created a request page for Lua scripts at Wikipedia:Lua requests and if you write Lua scripts it'd be great if you could watchlist it. Thanks! Dcoetzee 23:18, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for the heads-up. I commented at Wikipedia talk:Lua requests. Generally, I'd like to see us get better about centralizing tech resources. I think individual wikis creating requests pages like this moves us further away from this goal. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:59, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

DC happy hour on Thursday, February 28!

Please join Wikimedia DC for Happy Hour at the Capitol City Brewery at Metro Center on Thursday, February 28 at 6 p.m. All Wikipedia/Wikimedia and free knowledge/culture enthusiasts, regardless of editing experience, are welcome to attend! All ages welcome!

For more information and to sign up, see Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 34. Hope to see you there! Harej (talk) 02:23, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Whee. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 05:52, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Great seeing you there. Cheers! bd2412 T 05:04, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, great to see you as well! I'm hoping we (Wikimedia DC) can get better about planning meetups earlier and more regularly (probably monthly). Longer discussions ahead. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 05:19, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Welcome!

Some cookies to welcome you!

OMG that seemed a joke. Consider yourself re-welcomed. lol, sorry for the wrong message, I was trying to do something with twinkle and things got messed up. Regards Eduemoni^↑talk↓ 19:41, 25 February 2013 (UTC) ps.: The plate of cookies must remain here, I hope you like it.

Thanks. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 04:40, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Template:SCOTUSKey

Just to let you know, I've updated Template:SCOTUSKey to use the match function from Module:String rather than Module:Template:SCOTUSKey. Would you mind if I delete Module:Template:SCOTUSKey now that it's not used anymore? -- WOSlinker (talk) 13:55, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Sure, feel free to delete the module if it's no longer used/needed. Thanks for all your work on these templates. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 04:43, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Article Feedback Tool (Since discussion has been closed)

Hi there,

since the discussion has been closed, I have some ideas about modification and adaption of the tool. However, not in the en wikipedia, but in the bg one. It will be a good test bed for the new modification because of the relatively small community, and thus relatively controllable environment and results.

Before, I state the ideas however, are you the right person to be asked for and who else can support me to introduce the modificated tool in the bg project?

Best regards, --Pesen S Trompet (talk) 09:27, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Pesen. You probably want to contact Oliver Keyes or Fabrice Florin directly about this. They're the ones actively working on the article feedback tool. --MZMcBride (talk) 08:27, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

User:EdwardsBot

I'm guessing you're already aware, but just in case, I noticed it was blocked. (something about messages going to the wrong people?). Since your name is on the user page, I thought I'd drop you a note about it. Cheers. — Ched :  ?  03:11, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

I took the liberty to unblock your bot. --Guerillero | My Talk 07:48, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Related. Legoktm (talk) 08:05, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, Ched. I keep a pretty close eye on the bot, so I'd seen the block and unblock, but a talk page note is always nice (for me and others) and greatly appreciated. The whole situation is a bit unfortunate, of course, but no big deal. I was trying to think of a way to prevent this from happening in the future, but there weren't any elegant answers that sprung to mind. Thanks for the unblock, Guerillero. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 08:15, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Invitation to a discussion: Wikipedia and legislative data

Hi MZMcBride, since you are interested in meetups in DC, I'd like to invite you to attend the Cato Institute's "Wikipedia and Legislative Data" events on March 14. (There's also an all day workshop on March 15; let me know if you are interested, we may be able to add more people.)

There will be an introduction to Wikipedia and open edit-a-thon in the afternoon, and a Sunshine Week Reception in the evening. I hope you can make it!

• Please sign up here
• Announcement on Cato's blog
• Background from Cato sponsor Jim Harper's perspective
• Background from Wikipedian Pete Forsyth's perspective

Hope to see you there! -Pete (talk) 19:20, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Hmmmmm. I think Thursday should work for me. --MZMcBride (talk) 09:26, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Good, I look forward to meeting you! I gather from the link here you have thoughts about my work more generally. I'm always happy to discuss, but might not be able to dive deep into that at the Cato event. Feel free to send comments/questions/etc. to my talk page, email, etc. -Pete (talk) 07:12, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Please investigate broken report.

Wikipedia:Database reports/Long stubs is a weekly report that hasn't worked since late January. Please fix. Dawynn (talk) 22:55, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi.

I poked at this a bit this evening. It's a fairly straightforward query, though it's using "ORDER BY", which is requiring it to do a full table scan. And as the categorylinks table is growing progressively larger with more and more categories on more and more pages, any full scan is becoming more expensive. I tried removing the "ORDER BY", but even just trying to get the first 500 results with page_len > 14000 timed out (the query killer nailed it). I've noted the issue here. I'm not sure off-hand what a proper solution to this is.

The code is on GitHub: <https://github.com/mzmcbride/database-reports/> (look for "longstubs.py"). Please submit a pull request if you can fix the issue. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 09:34, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

I need Edwards bot for a work

Can you make Edwards bot send a letter to the rollbackers on behalf of me?--Pratyya ^(Hello!) 08:09, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. You probably want to read User:EdwardsBot. --MZMcBride (talk) 08:37, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Fine. Can you accept my request?--Pratyya ^(Hello!) 09:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. You probably want to read User:EdwardsBot. --MZMcBride (talk) 09:39, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

DC meetup & dinner on Saturday, March 9!

Please join Wikimedia DC for a social meetup and dinner at Guapo's at Tenleytown-AU on Saturday, March 9 at 5 PM All Wikipedia/Wikimedia and free knowledge/culture enthusiasts, regardless of editing experience, are welcome to attend! All ages welcome!

For more information and to sign up, please see Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 35. Hope to see you there! Kirill ^[talk] 13:58, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Hrm. We really need to get a social calendar going. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:35, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

It's high time somebody liberated calagator.org from Portland! (It's been a great thing for the tech community there, it's open source, and it's written by friends.) -Pete (talk) 01:35, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Watcher

Hello :-) I'm trying to login with your toolserver/watcher (I'm in this list): using Chrome, I log in but if I try to use the watcher, I'm not logged in; using Firefox, I receive the message "Sorry, you're not on the access list". Can you help me?? Thank you very much :-) --Delfort (talk) 08:41, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

The watcher tool is mostly deprecated. I'm not sure what issue you're encountering. It sounds like the tool is getting bad info from the Toolserver's replicated database (metawiki_p).

That said, the number of page watchers is now available from the info action. Example. Will that work? --MZMcBride (talk) 00:34, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer; BTW from the info action I read "fewer than 30 watchers" ([4]), so same problem :) --Delfort (talk) 13:51, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Mad hacker skillz

hacked my ip address and my email. i watched you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.87.99.87 (talk) 00:01, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

You go girl. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:30, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard

I'm going to give you one warning about this, MZMcbride: outing other users via link is not acceptable from you any more than it is from anyone else. If you're looking for amusement tonight, look elsewhere. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 00:25, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, not sure what you're referring to. Can you clarify? --MZMcBride (talk) 00:29, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Given that you've only made one edit to the page in question recently, I'm surprised you're unable to locate it, but if it helps you, your edit of 00:21:34 6 March is the one in question. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 00:35, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Also fyi, I've raised this matter for discussion among the oversight team; you may be hearing more later on if that discussion comes up with anything else you need to know. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 00:56, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I can't wait. I wonder, though, does a hyperlink to http://wikipediocracy.com/ constitute a violation of WP:OUTING? As the home page's contents are dynamic (as opposed to static), I suppose the answer could change over time. I also wonder why it's possible for users to add links to such a bad site, if it's truly against policy. Hmmmm. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:00, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Fluffer, I'd like to know that as well. Drmies (talk) 05:33, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

What on Earth are you doing blocked, you silly sausage? --Closedmouth (talk) 04:39, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea! I'm kind of appalled that David didn't even have the courtesy to leave a note on my talk page or e-mail me. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:40, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Quite ridiculous if you ask me.  — Statυs (talk, contribs) 04:56, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

• Facepalm ... sigh ... geesh, leave you kids alone for one second. I think you just have an innate natural ability to just piss people off MZM. What the hell are we supposed to do with you? You know the routine .. hands against the wall - spread em. — Ched :  ?  05:02, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Surely "innate natural ability" is a pleonasm. ;-) Also, you're going to need to buy me dinner first, at a minimum! --MZMcBride (talk) 05:04, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I had no doubt that you'd pick up on the redundancy. Hey, if I can ever get back to <redacted for fear of outing>, then without a doubt I'd be honored to buy you dinner. (damn I wanna see the Air Space Museum one more time). You have one of the sharpest, keenest minds I've ever seen - can't you push the envelope without going over that line? I'm not stupid, but I would "kill" to have that grey-matter that you do. Hell, you could give the Steve Jobs legacy a run for its money. (Gates is great, but sorry - con-man and manipulator). The future ahead of you is something I can't even fathom. Keep kickin it "gangnam style" buddy. — Ched :  ?  05:39, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

{{unblock reviewed|The blocking admin refuses to provide a rationale for the block (notified here) or answer questions about what actually constitutes a violation of the outing policy (as raised here). I don't see how this block is sustainable. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:43, 7 March 2013 (UTC)|decline=The blocking administrator has provided an (additional) explanation below, but I agree with him that the reason for your block (whether you agree with it or not) was already quite clear previously. Because this unblock request does not contain any argument relating to the block's validity other than to demand a rationale for it, it is declined (see WP:GAB).  Sandstein  17:35, 7 March 2013 (UTC)}}

This is still an oversighter block, is it not? Then it falls under the same policy rules that Cla did, meaning a random admin is not allowed to just unblock you. You already know the steps you need to take and an unblock request is not it. You're just going to get some unrelated, unknowing admin in trouble. Silverseren^C 05:12, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, not sure what you're referring to. Why do you believe this is an oversighter block? The Cla68 analogy doesn't seem to match reality. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:17, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

If you're blocked for violating the outing policy and your edits were oversighted, which they were, then that's an oversighter block and you can't just be simply unblocked. You have to contact Arbcom. Silverseren^C 05:21, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

What you're saying doesn't seem to be documented anywhere. There's a very new section at Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Oversight blocks, but even that doesn't seem to match the specifics here. In any case, I guess a passing admin can decide whether or not to unblock. Given David's refusal to discuss the matter (or the surrounding underlying issues), I don't think the block is sustainable. But perhaps you're correct that no admin will be willing to unblock before the block naturally expires. We'll see! --MZMcBride (talk) 05:28, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Before that section was added, even the previous version of the policy stated, "Administrators reviewing a block should consider that some historical context may not be immediately obvious. Cases involving sockpuppets, harassment, or privacy concerns are particularly difficult to judge. At times such issues have led to contentious unblocks. Where an uninformed unblock may be problematic, the blocking administrator may also wish to note as part of the block notice that there are specific circumstances, and that a reviewing administrator should not unblock without discussing the case with the blocking admin (or possibly ArbCom) to fully understand the matter." Maybe that isn't as explicit as you'd like, but any administrator should take that into account, along with the new section already linked by MZMcBride, before attempting an unblock. Silverseren^C 05:41, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I would think the talk page discussion would be more relevant. As it is, you seem to be blowing smoke. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 05:43, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

• FYI. Honestly, you're pretty lucky that three days was all that David decided to go for; he could have easily justified longer/indef. NW (Talk) 07:41, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
  • That's crazy-talk. I was actually talking to someone this evening about this and I said that David was smart to pick three days (a trick he likely learned from Arbitrator training). If he'd gone with a longer period or made it indefinite, I think we can say with a high degree of certainty that it would've already been lifted.

    It seems that linking to http://wikipediocracy.com/ is fine and linking to http://wikipediocracy.com/?p=269 (and other similar posts) is fine, but one particular post can't be linked to. The distinction being made? Beyond me. --MZMcBride (talk) 08:00, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

• MZM, you know exactly why you are blocked—because you continually posted links that outed editors, despite being told clearly to stop. I'm sure you have disagreements with the outing guidelines, or how they're implemented, whatever—I certainly don't agree with some of the applicable rules to how Wiki-lives connect and are influenced by actions on other parts of the internet, and how we should approach them. Disagreeing with those guidelines, and starting a discussion about them, would be the sensible thing to do. Repeatedly posting a bad link (and you can certainly tell the difference between good and bad links) is the equivalent of a child repeating curse words to get attention. You got exactly what you expected out of the equation, so let's cut the nonsense. You're more intelligent than that, and everyone on this site shouldn't have to deal with trolling from someone who can be and usually is productive and conscientious. If you want to talk about this further, my email is always open and I'll be in DC for the meetup this weekend. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 13:31, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Hmmm. The arbitrariness of what is and isn't allowed (e.g., I suppose <http://wikipediocracy.com/tag/wikipedia/> is acceptable) combined with the fact you've suppressed any evidence of alleged wrongdoing makes all of this a bit dystopian. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:01, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

{{unblock reviewed|I apparently have to explicitly say that the block rationale is faulty. There, I said it. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:13, 7 March 2013 (UTC)|decline=I am declining your unblock request because it does not address the reason for your block, or because it is inadequate for other reasons. To be unblocked, you must convince the reviewing administrator(s) that

• the block is not necessary to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia, or
• the block is no longer necessary because you
  1. understand what you have been blocked for,
  2. will not continue to cause damage or disruption, and
  3. will make useful contributions instead.

Please read the guide to appealing blocks for more information.
An admin needs at least to see the edits made that are questionable, at the very least before considering an unblock - since we can't see them (as they have all been oversighted), you will have to use contact ArbCom.  Ronhjones  (Talk) 00:21, 8 March 2013 (UTC)}}

Thanks for that, err, well thought-out reply, Ron. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:02, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Is there anyone connected to this saga who doesn't have a string of oversighted edits in their contrib list? It all feels a bit Orwellian. Kevin (talk) 03:45, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

There's certainly some cringe-worthy stupidity around here lately. Fluffed & Fuched. Perhaps a future bot name. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:57, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

• (talk page stalker) I notice that this template was created some 18 hours after the abovementioned block was imposed. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:14, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

These Oversight blocks are getting out of hand!. ThePhoenixReborn (talk) 00:06, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

WikiConjugal visit. <3

Fran Rogers (talk) 05:24, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

<3 --MZMcBride (talk) 05:25, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost

Your recent block is mentioned in the current edition of the Signpost. I have made a comment regarding your block and contrasting it with Cla68's block. Let me know if I have misstated anything and I will correct it. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 23:50, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for the heads-up. I'd already heard about the mention in The Signpost, but I hadn't seen your comment.

I've mostly said my piece in the section above. I think the current policy of allowing most Wikipediocracy links, but banning two(?) is a bit silly. It seems there's no admin willing to unblock me, though, so... shrug. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:58, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Your bot at da.wiki

Dear MZMcBride,

please request bot flag for da:Bruger:EdwardsBot at da:Wikipedia:Anmodning om botstatus. Regards, Christian Giersing (talk) 19:53, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Blah, done. But I'd really like to not have to maintain this bot (or at least not have to make requests on each individual project). This is a waste of my time. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:25, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

As I have written on da:Wikipedia:Anmodning om botstatus#EdwardsBot a botflag would remove the yellow box in the top of the page telling about a new message. Christian Giersing wrote about it on da:Wikipedia-diskussion:Anmodning om botassistance four minutes before requesting you to request a botflag so there is no community consensus (yet) about the necessity of having a botflag.
- Sarrus (c • t) 20:46, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Replied here. As far as I'm aware, EdwardsBot will always trigger a new messages notification, as it's not marking its edits as both bot and minor. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:48, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

FYI

I've mentioned you here. No need to comment if you don't want to.--v/r - TP 13:04, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:08, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

hmmm...

<sigh>, I guess you gotta be you :) — Ched :  ?  17:59, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

come on now Stop please? — Ched :  ?  18:02, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

You should un-watchlist that page. ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 19:33, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

No.

If you do that again, I will indef you. AGK [•] 18:13, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't recommend it. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:14, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

• I've indefinitely blocked your account. There are no two ways about it: linking to that website is outing. AGK [•] 18:15, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Then why is it not on the blacklist? Werieth (talk) 18:20, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

• Like that would mean anything. Newyorkbrad told everyone where the offending blog post was without getting in trouble, the Signpost did that many times and provided direct quotes from the Examiner article by Greg Kohs, and several Arbitrators and oversighters commented in the section above where MZM linked to WO over and over. Seriously, AGK, we are beginning to end the drama and now you are just creating more of it. ArbCom's conduct in this matter has been completely incoherent and you are just making it more obvious.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 19:20, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

• To supplement my earlier message with an FYI, MZMcBride: if you agree not to link to that site's homepage again (while it prominently displays personal information about another user), I'll unblock you. Your TP is on my watchlist. AGK [•] 19:19, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Hmm. This seems like a textbook case of attempted coercion.

    Let's take a look here. The relevant edit hasn't been oversighted or suppressed. You've indefinitely blocked a long-time user without providing a block summary. And you seem to be actively ignoring literally hundreds of links to <http://wikipediocracy.com>. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:24, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

• It's even worse when you consider that searching for "Wikipediocracy" gets a link to the page as the top result. So basically any mention of Wikipediocracy, anywhere, link or not, would have the same effect.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 19:31, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

• AGK is out of control. Where do we take this? — Hex (❝?!❞) 19:36, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

• I'm not sure I'd put it that way, but this block doesn't seem sustainable. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:38, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
• Hex, please don't be so dramatic. AGK [•] 19:45, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

• Really, AGK? Really? See that section down below called "AGK's actions"? You've lost the plot. — Hex (❝?!❞) 22:39, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

AGK - You're free to add the site to the spam blacklist to prevent people from adding the site to WP. You could even set up an abuse filter. Whatever. But this block is uncalled for and I'm inclined to unblock. If the only issue is the OMGBADSITE, do something about the site? Rjd0060 (talk) 19:40, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

• (edit conflict × 3) The average editor won't know or care who the outed editor is, so there would be no value in purging the website from every page on Wikipedia. However, on noticeboard discussions (and things like the feedback page for last week's Signpost article), only our most active editors are paying attention. It is them who are likely to know the outed editor, because he is one of them—a very active editor. That they are likely to know the outed editor means the outing is all the more damaging, which is the only reason why links to the page that outs him are, in turn, all the more damaging. There's a huge difference between people who know what WO is being able to find links to it across the project, and people who don't know what it is being given a handy link and an explanation of the context by you. I'm astonished you seem to think it's okay to essentially paint "[outed editor]'s identity that way →" in huge print at the top of one of the community's busiest noticeboards. AGK [•] 19:41, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't. But if we only could control the entire internet.... But if that's all you're trying to prevent here, then there are other ways to do it. Blocking, in this case, was a very, very poor call - in my opinion. Rjd0060 (talk) 19:43, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

The point isn't that the site exists. It's always existed. It's that MZ is quite effectively advertising the homepage of that site across the community's noticeboards. That homepage currently contains precisely the same kind of outing that's already earned another otherwise-good contributor an indefinite block. He's also linking to the Special:LinkSearch feed for the page, which is just as damaging and can't be blocked by other means. That's why he was blocked. AGK [•] 19:45, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

• Except, just saying "Wikipediocracy" is as good as giving someone a link to the site as I explained above. Is Wikipediocracy going to become by decree "the site that shall not be named"? That would just be silly.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 19:47, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Above you write, "if you agree not to link to that site's homepage again (while it prominently displays personal information about another user), I'll unblock you." What about <http://wikipediocracy.com/tag/wikipedia/>? Or <http://wikipediocracy.com/2013/02/20/a-compendium-of-wikipedia-criticism/>? You don't seem to have a coherent policy in place, but you seem to be willing to indefinitely block long-time users for violating it. :-/ --MZMcBride (talk) 19:49, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Both of those links mention the outed editor, and are explicitly not okay. I think you know that was always the rule of thumb, and that publicising those links is really not okay. AGK [•] 19:54, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Hmm. So you seem to be declaring all links to <http://wikipediocracy.com> as unacceptable, but without any community support for doing so and without utilizing any technical means (other than user blocks) to prevent links from being added here (e.g., the spam blacklist or the abuse filter). You also seem to be a participant in Wikipediocracy's forum (there's a broken link from User talk:AGK/Archive/73 to <http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1993#p1993>). A site so vile that you're willing to indefinitely block a user for simply linking to it, but you have no issue participating directly on that site?

I have to say, I can't really see any part of this block that puts you in a favorable light, AGK. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:02, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Nice non sequitur, but many sound contributors are (or have been) contributors to that website—which isn't the point. Rather, the point is that the site has recently taken to circulating "outing" op-eds on their homepage, and almost as recently you've taken to pushing as many editors as possible towards the website—which is not on. When you know that site has one of those pieces up, and you go out of your way to link to it as many times (and in as many different ways as possible), you can't really be surprised when somebody revokes your editing rights. AGK [•] 20:09, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

What about all the people saying, "Wikipediocracy! Wikipediocracy! Wikipediocracy!", including one of your fellow Arbs? That's fine because they didn't provide a link?--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 20:11, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, AGK, but we really can't have it both ways. Either it's blacklisted and linking disabled, or it's not. Instead of one link, we now have multiple links (above) and more eyes on them. You also have more editors (including yourself) posting the name of the site in plaintext, which is just as good as a link in the eyes of the google machine. I agree that there needs to be a discussion about whether to blacklist this site's links, if and when, but this isn't how we have that discussion. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 20:13, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

MZMcBride, I will give you two options. Quit posting links that have the outing information on the link that you have, or I will remove your talk page access. SirFozzie (talk) 20:16, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Just a FYI, I've removed the three links to where the OUTING information that's currently at WO. SirFozzie (talk) 20:23, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Why are you injecting even more drama into this situation, Fozzie?--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 20:25, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

…Why are you manufacturing drama where there should be none? AGK [•] 20:32, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

You are the ones doing that actually. Starting with the block of Cla68 it has been just a continuous line of drama-inducing actions by Arbs, admins, and activist editors, who are badly missing the purpose of the policies on harassment. WP:OUTING exists to protect privacy, i.e. things that people make a credible effort to keep private, not so that editors can fancy themselves super-heroes with secret identities even when they use terrible disguises.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 20:43, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Then work to change the policy. Just because you don't agree with how the policy stands doesn't mean it's a good idea to violate it. SirFozzie (talk) 20:46, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't want drama. But folks seem to want drama no matter what. Either we take down the links, per OUTING,etcetera, and there's drama, or we violate our own rules, and there's drama as people demand we enforce our rules. I don't want MzMcBride to remain blocked... but that's his choice, not mine. As I said over there, WO has a lot of value as a criticism site, but they went too far with the outing post, and until such time as that outing information is no longer readily available (such as it was on every link that I've redacted from MzMcbride's posting), then it is sadly necessary. And before you say "Then why don't you put it on the meta-wiki spamlist?" I've made a request to do just that. I hope WO do the right thing, take down the outing article, and replace it with one that points out the flaws that that user has, without crossing the line, but I can't do that for them. SirFozzie (talk) 20:34, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

The links have been restored (as has my talk page access). It's been a wild ride! --MZMcBride (talk) 07:19, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

This thread shouldn't make it into a talk page archive without the keyword "ham-fisted" (or "ham-handed"), a description of SirFozzie's link removals here. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 02:49, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

• "Either it's blacklisted and linking disabled, or it's not." Ding ding, we have a winner!  — Statυs (talk, contribs) 21:42, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

AGK's actions

I have to run to dinner myself shortly, but let me just get this straight. Today, AGK:

1. has indefinitely blocked a long-time user without providing a block summary;
2. has added wikipediocracy.com to the spam blacklist with a highly misleading edit summary;
3. did not log his addition to the spam blacklist, as directed on both MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist and MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist in large, red, bold font; and
4. added the blacklist entry in direct defiance of consensus from an explicit discussion about this particular site.

Hmmmm. AGK is really having a gold star day, eh? --MZMcBride (talk) 22:05, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. (I took the liberty of copying your list to the post. Have a good dinner.) — Hex (❝?!❞) 23:16, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

It should be noted that AGK removed the blacklist entries shortly after this post was made. Thank you, AGK! --MZMcBride (talk) 00:23, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

From what I now understand, AGK concurrently attempted to ban every mention of the word "Wikipediocracy" on the English Wikipedia (cf. Special:AbuseFilter/history/537/diff/prev/10784). Incredible. Prior to the AbuseFilter being enabled here, I wrote about the possibility of this kind of thing happening in the future. A tool designed for vandalism and abuse being used for censorship and Arbitration enforcement (among other things). Look how far we've come.... --MZMcBride (talk) 04:08, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Thankfully, someone saw fit to delete AGK's kneejerk change. Let's just forget whether it's those nasty sites WR or wikipediocracy, this is like trying to crack a walnut with a ball and chain. Never mind what collateral damage such action does to the project. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 04:38, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

If you agree not to link to http://wikipediocracy.com again he will unblock you.

The polandball is now in your corner. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 23:10, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Hah. Cute. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:23, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Moving forward

{{unblock reviewed|1=Please unblock my account. AGK left no block log summary and has made it clear that this was a normal administrator block. This block is not sustainable. Thank you. --MZMcBride (talk) 3:13 pm, Today (UTC+0)|decline=Unfortunately MZMcBride, I see no valid reason in your unblock request why you should be unblocked. Whilst AGK made an unfortunate mistake in not leaving a block reason, he did give his reasons for doing so on your talk page. A future unblock request from yourself should concentrate on the substantive issues, namely a commitment not to link to wikipediocracy, or make any other attempt to out an editor. Should you make these two commitments, I will unblock you immediately. Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 23:32, 13 March 2013 (UTC)}}

---

Hi Ryan.

Hmmm. I'm not sure what you mean by "not to link to wikipediocracy, or make any other attempt to out an editor." The community seems to have now twice-rejected blacklisting <http://wikipediocracy.com> (here and here). It's used in a few hundred places. Am I really supposed to promise to never add a link to it again? Including the forum and other parts? That seems kind of insane.

As for outing editors, if the English Wikipedia thinks this link is so inappropriate, it tracks its usage and has implemented the ability to prevent linking to it (with blacklists and edit filters). However, the English Wikipedia community has decided that this link isn't problematic enough to warrant special designation.

Anyway, I appreciate you taking a look at this, Ryan. I really do. AGK seems to have overreacted here with an indefinite block, but I've got plenty of other things I could be spending my time on (both wiki-related and not). If no admin is willing to unblock me, that's the way it goes. I'll go find something else to do. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 23:50, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

P.S. And to answer your question, the relevant diff is here.

Thank you for your thoughtful responses. I do respect that the blacklisting of Wikipediocracy is a controversial issue and hasn't exactly been accepted by the community, but there is clearly an issue with the context that you linked to it in. I have to stand by my request that you made a commitment not to link to Wikipediocracy on the project at all in the future. Whilst it is clearly a hot issue at the minute, your involvement in the issue isn't conducive to a collaborative editing environment and is causing far more problems than it is solving. Make the commitment not to link, and you can get on with editing on the project right away. I would also suggest stepping away from this issue entirely. You do a lot of good work here, and there's surely more interesting things you could be getting on with! Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 00:00, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah... I don't think I'm willing to make that commitment. I try to make it a rule (in life) to not agree to anything (an explicit "yes") without being as confident as is reasonably possible that I can fulfill the agreement. For example, this is why I mostly don't respond to Facebook invites (or I'll respond "maybe" instead of "yes"). If I'm say I'm gonna do something, I do it.

In this case, I'm not willing to say I'll never again link to <http://wikipediocracy.com>. I haven't participated there, but I certainly could in the future. If it continues to grow (particularly its wiki), one day it might have its own interwiki prefix, even. I'm fairly involved in Wikimedia projects (sometimes as a critic), so to try to elicit a commitment that these two sites won't ever overlap in my life again... well, no, I'm sorry, I just won't make that commitment. That's the way of the Web. Thanks again for looking into this for me. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:09, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I understand your point. Would you be willing to make a 6 month commitment not to post links to the site? That's not too long and would give the community time to come to a consensus about whether or not the site should be linked to. To be honest with you, I think that's a fair compromise for us all. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 00:17, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

No, I'm sorry. I think it would set a terrible precedent for future situations of this kind and I think it could possibly have chilling effects on criticism of Wikipedia. I don't think either of these situations is acceptable. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:23, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I don't give a shit about a link to Wikipediocracy.org ... now, linking to potentially inappropriate pages/threads/whatever on that site is problematic. So, I don't see any need to restrict (other than for promotional reasons ... which is unlikely) linking to the main url. (✉→BWilkins←✎) 00:20, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, but given the problems that this has caused, any future links (at least the near future) to the site from MZMcBride is likely to cause unneeded drama, hence my offer terms. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 00:22, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Right, but Ryan, there's nothing illegal or contrary to policy with linking to wikipediocracy's main url ... yeah, it might have been a little WP:POINTy, but if we indef-blocked everyone for being pointy every so often we'd be a pretty empty place. As far as I can tell, MZ has never linked to a specific attack page (show me I'm wrong). (✉→BWilkins←✎) 00:28, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

The issue is essentially that the English Wikipedia doesn't control what content the wikipediocracy.com domain serves. The main page (<http://wikipediocracy.com/>) and other pages (such as <http://wikipediocracy.com/tag/wikipedia/>) are dynamic (i.e., their content is based on, for example, whatever posts were most recently made or whatever posts were tagged with a particular keyword), but any page on that domain is potentially problematic.

You could possibly envision a scenario in which certain URLs were changed (by a nefarious sysadmin) after being posted to this wiki to redirect to a nasty place (e.g., <http://wikipediocracy.com/?p=269> could be changed to redirect to a different post or to a different domain altogether). Or, even more nefariously, a sysadmin could take old links found on this site and only redirect to a nasty place based on being clicked by a user on the English Wikipedia (using an HTTP referer). It's trivial to redirect URLs; for example <http://pruebita.com/loldong.jpg> appears to be a JPEG image URL, but it redirects to a completely different site. All of this is as true of wikipediocracy.com as it is of nearly any Web domain.

As I see it, the English Wikipedia community has repeatedly decided not to ban links to this site (as opposed to, say, encyclopediadramatica.se, which is blacklisted locally), so indefinitely blocking users for linking to wikipediocracy.com seems a bit crazy. Again, I think AGK simply overreacted. That said, there's an essay somewhere around here describing a "no admin willing to unblock" scenario. I can't remember exactly where, but it may apply here. We'll see. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:22, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm, I suppose Wikipedia:Community ban is what I was thinking of. Hmmm. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:45, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

BWilkins: He linked to the site's front page, a couple of days after it ran a second story about the outed editor's identity (and a couple of days after he was blocked for the same thing). As if to prove he didn't do so accidentally, he then linked to the same URL with /tag/wikipedia appended; even if an unrelated story took over top spot on the homepage, that URL would still take somebody directly to the offending WO blog posts. Cf his recent contributions to this page (other sysops have redacted his comments, I believe). I'm not asking him to abstain from linking to any WO page. I'm simply asking him not to do so in such an abjectly disruptive manner. This whole drama has been of MZ's making, which is disappointing; he used to know which fights to pick and which to leave. AGK [•] 09:31, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

But why?

Re your deliberate linking which got you blocked, did you do so to tip shit on Wikipedia, to out someone, to make a point, a combination of those, or some other reason. There would be quite a few observers like me who are a bit puzzled by it all. Moriori (talk) 00:03, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. I somewhat addressed this above when I wrote, "You don't seem to have a coherent policy in place, but you seem to be willing to indefinitely block long-time users for violating it." To me, AGK's actions today are a classic example of cowboy adminship. Shoot first, ask questions later. (Though in his mind, threatening to indefinitely block someone is equivalent to asking him or her to not do something.) Hmmm. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:18, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Blasphemy! You have violated our sacred edicts. Henceforth your only recourse is to commit seppuku so you may restore honor to our endeavor.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 01:20, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Or commit sudoku whichever is easier. Collect (talk) 01:22, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

How about simply committing to not being pointy in the future so that one of us can actually unblock you. I have no horse in this whole wikiwankery.org website, so let's just stop worrying about principle and worry about getting productive editors back doing what they should be doing, which does not include dramah. (✉→BWilkins←✎) 23:35, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with everything Bwilkins just said. -— Isarra ༆ 03:55, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Proposal

Hopefully with a good nights sleep, some hindsight and a bit of reflection you and AGK can come to some sort of meeting of the minds at the dawn of a new day. Ya can't change anything from the outside. If that can be worked out, and you'd like to collaborate on some sort of RfC regarding the matter (WP:BADSITES 2.0 or whatever), I'd be honored to work with you. — Ched :  ?  08:14, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

I have no interest. --MZMcBride (talk) 15:09, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

He would prefer not to. --Closedmouth (talk) 15:46, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

I would like to say that I love literary allusions and closedmouth in general. Killiondude (talk) 17:37, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

A note

MZMcBride, I dropped a note at NE Ent's page the other day. I would certainly extend the same offer to you and any other editor who genuinely sees a way forward for improvement. Unfortunately, everything kicking off over the past few days has come at a poor time, as I decided to try for a featured article for the first time and this whole saga has been more than a ltitle distracting. But hey, that's what I signed up for when I joined ArbCom.

Now, specifically on this case, we've got two conflicting issues. Firstly, the site that is linking a person to a username very clearly on its front page. This is considered WP:DOXing or WP:OUTING or whatever it's called today. It's off-wiki, and therefore generally considered out of jurisdiction. The community rejected BADSITES a while ago, so discussing the site or linking to it is not against policy. I know that you understand these points. We also expect people to act with a little discretion, to use common sense when posting - in other words, not to create "drama" and distract everyone from what they should be doing. Your actions were designed to cause a reaction. Call it what you like, Trolling, WP:POINTy behaviour, Disruptive editing - I don't care, you knew that making that edit would likely end up with us in this mess.

I'd like to see you unblocked and I'm happy to discuss it. The arbitration committee isn't a homogenous group, so feel free to look into my actions, my comments and my !votes in this recent matter. As Ched stipulates above, proper discussion could lead to sorting everything out, and you need to be on the inside to join in that discussion. If, after a good night's sleep, you fancy climbing down off this parapet, I'm watching the page and I'm willing to discuss things with you. I'm also willing to receive emails from you if you'd prefer to discuss that way. Can we please try and move forward without all the shouting and squabbling? Worm^TT(talk) 11:13, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. You seem like a pretty good guy and I appreciate the note, but I'm rather busy and I have no intention of adding a protracted discussion about these idiotic pseudo-policies to my agenda. --MZMcBride (talk) 15:11, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

No problems, you know where I am if you change your mind. Worm^TT(talk) 15:12, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Talk page access revoked

Given that you've continued to post links to the same website that you were blocked for, I've revoked your talk page access. I make no comment on the original block, but your conduct is disappointing given our previous constructive dialogue. Once again, I maintain that I will unblock you with reassurances (which will now have to be via email) that you will not post links to the site. I must note however that should you post a link after being unblocked, any future block will likely be for a considerable length of time. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 02:48, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

And restored.

Absolutely insane. You re-blocked me while overlooking that the exact same links already appear on this talk page in other sections. You also overlooked that several admins and oversighters have already declined to delete these revisions. And to make matters even worse, you didn't even properly suppress the revisions. Good grief, man. Please undo your revision deletions in the morning. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:45, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

While I appreciate that we are reviving the dead in handling this situation, can I please please remind those reanimated beings that while we really really want them back on Wikipedia, wading into complex controversial situations might be better left to more recently active admins. MBisanz ^talk 03:57, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

• Seems to be a little too much heat and smoke going on here. I fail to see what the problem is with mentioning WR or Wikipediocracy. It didn't seem that he was repeating the 'outing' episode with specific links thereto. I can understand MZM's anger and frustration at apparently having been shat upon from a great height, but perhaps he may be allowed to cool it within the confines of his own talk page. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 04:01, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
  • I'd say I'm much closer to baffled, bemused, or boggled than I am to angry or frustrated. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:03, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Personally - I am MOTHER FUCKING PISSED OFF TO THE MAX — Ched :  ?  05:55, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Sigh. I guess your hasty departure is related to this. I hope you'll return when you're ready. I'll be here waiting. :-) Take care. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:10, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

There have been times I didn't understand the "why" ... but I never for a single second doubted that you had wp:clue. — Ched :  ?  10:15, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

• But he keeps saying 'Jehovah'! Stone him! *Dan T.* (talk) 14:59, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

A suggestion

This may be seen as seriously naiive, and if you think it so please tell me. MZMcBride is, as we know, by far the biggest contributor here in terms of admin actions. His total, in fact, approaches the combined total of all other admins past and present. I feel that this degree of commitment deserves some degree of forbearance, within the rules, here. I propose that he be unblocked, if he gives the community a categorical assurance that whatever his personal opinion of the website to which he linked, he will in no circumstance link there again. --Anthony Bradbury^"talk" 17:17, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi Anthony.

I have more than a few edits as well. ;-) But the numbers are probably less meaningful (particularly in a vacuum) in the context of automated and semi-automated scripts. Outside of this vacuum, I'm a pretty vested contributor (and at times, a VestedContributor), so I can certainly agree that an indefinite block here is more unusual, particularly for edits that don't seem to be in violation of any policy.

Ryan P. offered this same linking deal above. I rejected it, as I felt it would set a bad precedent and possibly have chilling effects on criticism of Wikipedia.

There's an ongoing discussion here: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/ExternalSites#See no reason to continue the block that I'm keeping an eye on. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:37, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) In point of fact (and not wishing to take sides here, nor to cast doubt on MZ's integrity), MZMcBride is not an admin, and hasn't been since 19 January 2010. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:38, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Right. Anthony was saying in terms of admin actions. I don't think he meant to suggest that I'm an admin currently. This actually came up recently in the context of a redirect I asked to have undeleted (discussion here). Anthony knows I'm not an admin, he was just referring to the logged action stats. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:45, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, good for you for not taking a demeaning deal that preserves the concept that one can be blocked or banned merely for linking to a heretical site, but then gives you limited forgiveness for your past sins along those lines simply because of your past position of power. *Dan T.* (talk) 18:36, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Past position of power? If I really wanted to, I could unblock myself. You don't play this game as long as I have without having a plan B (or C or D or...). But I'm not supposed to do that and it wouldn't really be fair. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:38, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Unblocked

We seem to have reached an impasse, with me requiring that you not out other editors and you refusing to not do so. One of us has to budge. I consider the protracted drama that has emerged over this block, and the wider issue of linking to attack sites, to be a greater disturbance to the project than what you were doing before I blocked you (as outrageously disruptive and disrespectful as that was). It will therefore be me who budges. The drama that has emerged over this has essentially revoked my ability as an administrator to enforce our policies to any meaningful degree, so at this point I can only implore—rather than require—you to not draw attention to pages that outs another editor in such a deliberately obvious manner. Whether you choose to continue to do so is your choice (and you can certainly now make the argument, though I don't think you could before I blocked you, that everybody else is basically doing it too). Regards, AGK [•] 22:52, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

To clarify, what I find "outrageously disruptive and disrespectful" is what you were doing before I blocked you (although that reminds me that I didn't leave a block log summary, which was also disrespectful—sorry for not doing that). AGK [•] 22:54, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the unblock. :-) It's all bridge under the water now, as far as I'm concerned.

That said, I had a few thoughts and here is as good a place as any to post them, I suppose. I think regentspark pretty much nailed it in this post. Generally, I think you would've had a much stronger argument if you'd gotten into a revert war (perhaps with another user) and gotten me to violate a bright line rule like 3RR. That is, if you can find two editors willing to make three reverts between them, they'd trump a single other editor who's trying to make a particular edit. 3RR has definable rules and a clear enforcement procedure, unlike some other policies or pseudo-policies around here.

I also think you probably could've cited the global "don't be a dick" policy, perhaps, as a justification for a block. It's an old (wiki) principle. Perhaps lessons for the future. ;-) A blank block summary is both a blessing and a burden, I suppose.

You advocated for a "revert, block, ignore" (RBI) approach, which would typically work, except the "B" part (blocking) doesn't work with vested contributors. It works with throwaway accounts and single-purpose accounts and others. It doesn't work with long-time editors and never has. Now... revert, ignore, and block if an editor violates 3RR... well, we even have administrators who are occasionally blocked without any drama for violations of that.

If a passing admin could restore the revisions to my talk page that Ryan P. deleted, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, I can file a formal undeletion request in a few days when the dust settles.

Thanks again for the unblock. Hopefully we can all move forward now. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:15, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the revision visibility restorations, Spartaz. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 07:07, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Now, what about User:Cla68, still a loose end in this whole business? *Dan T.* (talk) 12:34, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

This isn't the page to discuss Cla68, but when last I checked Cla had told us he did not wish to be unblocked. I understand his edits to WO illuminate his motives in not wishing to have his block lifted. AGK [•] 13:35, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Quite frankly, Cla can stay blocked given his role in this. To be honest, I couldn't care less if we got assurances that it won't happen again. The severity of his misconduct on this matter means that he needs a long block to ensure that he realises that he can't do things like that again.

Oh, and welcome back MZMcBride :-) I'm pleased to see that things have been resolved and you're back. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 13:47, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I hadn't realized Cla68 wished to remain blocked. I'd made a note to investigate his indefinite block. Okay.

Thanks, Ryan. It's good to be back. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 14:04, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

The statement of his that I'm aware of says "I won't be asking ArbCom if my block can be lifted until the situation with MZMcbride's block is resolved", so that would imply that now that the latter situation does seem to have been resolved, it would now be time to reopen the former one. *Dan T.* (talk) 14:11, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

FWIW

Note the essay I referred you to and this edit: [5]. Cheers. Collect (talk) 02:21, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Spartaz wisely reverted in this edit.

I tightened up some of the language in your essay in this edit. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 07:31, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Many thanks! Collect (talk) 11:38, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Approved! The significance between "one" and "individual" is that one may be one, or one may be another one, at another time, unless they are both observant and doubtless "an individual", even during sleeping hours, up to say 24/7/364. If so, then indeed they must enact the power that is to them of course that rare "wholeness".— CpiralCpiral 22:40, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Things to do

Now that you're unblocked, I understand there are some things you needed to do? :) Legoktm (talk) 03:08, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

howdy!

Nice to see you in the flesh, even if only for a little bit. Cheers, tedder (talk) 03:18, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, very nice to see you as well. :-) I may be able to sneak over on Friday toward the end of the day. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:20, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I think I'll unfollow your page. It's like being on ANI :) Hope to see you here. tedder (talk) 14:13, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Hah, perhaps I'll unfollow my page as well. ;-) It's not usually so bad, I swear! --MZMcBride (talk) 14:17, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Don't let him kid ya tedder - people flock from all over the globe just to see what he's gonna say next. :P (jk w/ya MZM) — Ched :  ?  19:38, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Restricted-use media list

An RfC that may interest you has been opened at MediaWiki talk:Bad image list#Restricted-use media list, so please come and include your opinion. – PAINE ELLSWORTH ^CLIMAX! 10:01, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. I will try to poke some people about getting gerrit:53190 approved. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:25, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Database reports/Meta-Wiki rights changes

Hi. Could BernsteinBot format the timestamps so that they appear in a more legible format? Thanks. It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 17:04, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Sure, sounds simple enough to adjust. What format would you prefer? --MZMcBride (talk) 19:25, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, anything more legible than a long string of numbers really, hehe. If it helps, for me personally, contribs, logs etc. read e.g. "15:24, 20 March 2013". It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 17:22, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

WP:ADMINSTATS

Hi MZ, I was having a conversation about WP:ADMINSTATS and a question came up that I thought might be he sort of thing you'd know the answer to. An oversighter and a former oversighter were involved in the conversation, and both were wondering what an "event suppression" was for the purposes of that page. I always assumed it was the suppression (or perhaps an "oversight", using the old-fashioned method) of an edit or log entry, but both believed they ad made far more actions than that page reports. Would you be able to satisfy my natural curiosity? Thanks, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:03, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I believe it's suppression/deletion and/or block with suppression of username (the latter of which then cascades into logs). On looking at my own numbers on that page, it is far too low for it to represent edit suppressions, and probably too high for direct suppression of log entries, but would be about right for either or both of delete/suppress or block with suppression. Risker (talk) 20:11, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. I think WP:ADMINSTATS uses the same logic as WP:LOGACTIONS. The latter's configuration is available here: Wikipedia:Database reports/Users by log action/Configuration. From that page: {'name': 'Event suppressions', 'short_name': 'ES', 'type': 'suppress', 'action': 'event'}.

This refers to mw:Manual:Logging table, where log_type = 'suppress' and log_action = 'event'. I have no idea what this means. I did at some point, presumably. I think it's log suppression (for example, suppressing part of a deletion log entry). I pasted info about the ten most recent event suppressions below, for reference. Hope that helps. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:08, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

mysql> select * from logging where log_type = 'suppress' and log_action = 'event' order by log_timestamp desc limit 10;

+----------+----------+------------+----------------+----------+---------------+-------------+------------------+-----------+-------------+------------+----------+
| log_id   | log_type | log_action | log_timestamp  | log_user | log_namespace | log_deleted | log_user_text    | log_title | log_comment | log_params | log_page |
+----------+----------+------------+----------------+----------+---------------+-------------+------------------+-----------+-------------+------------+----------+
| 47856187 | suppress | event      | 20130311180709 |     5190 |            -1 |           0 | Fred Bauder      |           |             |            |        0 |
| 47838389 | suppress | event      | 20130310174302 |   353669 |            -1 |           0 | Avraham          |           |             |            |        0 |
| 47758725 | suppress | event      | 20130306050028 |  3315180 |            -1 |           0 | Someguy1221      |           |             |            |        0 |
| 47758711 | suppress | event      | 20130306045929 |  3315180 |            -1 |           0 | Someguy1221      |           |             |            |        0 |
| 47666360 | suppress | event      | 20130301003458 |    12013 |            -1 |           0 | Coren            |           |             |            |        0 |
| 47666354 | suppress | event      | 20130301003429 |    12013 |            -1 |           0 | Coren            |           |             |            |        0 |
| 47580758 | suppress | event      | 20130224104704 |  3315180 |            -1 |           0 | Someguy1221      |           |             |            |        0 |
| 47460161 | suppress | event      | 20130217195911 |     5190 |            -1 |           0 | Fred Bauder      |           |             |            |        0 |
| 47460121 | suppress | event      | 20130217195511 |     5190 |            -1 |           0 | Fred Bauder      |           |             |            |        0 |
| 47424322 | suppress | event      | 20130215184517 |   488996 |            -1 |           0 | Timotheus Canens |           |             |            |        0 |
+----------+----------+------------+----------------+----------+---------------+-------------+------------------+-----------+-------------+------------+----------+
10 rows in set (0.74 sec)

• Okay, taken a look at a couple of them, and they are actions that suppress an entry on the Special:Log/* , where * can be a number of different actions (move, rename user, delete, etc.) Risker (talk)
  • Thanks (both) for looking into this. It's interesting, even if only to satisfy my curiosity. Best, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:55, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused non-free files

Hi MZMcBride, I noticed that orphaned fair use images aren't getting tagged any more and it was pointed out to me that the bot tagging them is based on this report, which hasn't been updated in a few days, so I wanted to bring it to your attention. Thanks. --B (talk) 22:40, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. I just ran the script manually and the report seems to have updated. Bizarre. I re-added myself to the list of users who receive e-mail when these reports fail, so perhaps future issues will surface to my inbox. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 23:04, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you - I appreciate it. By the way, as a random side note, we used to have a special page that listed all orphaned images. (Now, it's capped at 1000 presumably because it absolutely kills the server to list all of them.) Is it possible/feasible to do that list as a report? Or, to build on that concept, could we have a few reports for orphaned images that meet certain criteria, for example (a) orphan images from users who have few or no other contributions (under the assumption that the images were uploaded solely for a deleted article), (b) small orphan images (a disproportionately large number of web-resolution images tend to be copyvios), or (c) orphaned images that have a URL other than a site from which we frequently get free images (.gov, .mil, flickr, etc) - the idea being that if there's a URL, it's highly likely to be a copyvio image. --B (talk) 23:51, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

If you want a list of all orphaned images, then you should ideally only have to look at Category:All orphaned non-free use Wikipedia files (unfree files) and Category:Wikipedia orphaned files (free files). The second category (with free files) is meant to be updated by User:ContinuityBot once in a while, but I don't know how often that bot updates the orphan tag.

Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused non-free files is strange again. Although the bot has updated the page every day, the list of files has been empty for three days. This is unusual: there are usually at least a few images there, for example because new users don't understand how to add files to articles, or because someone uploaded two copies by mistake. I suspect that something isn't working properly. --Stefan2 (talk) 16:02, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi MZMcBride, can you kick the script off manually again? There don't seem to be any new orphans showing up in the list. Thanks. --B (talk) 15:48, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. I noticed this report wasn't updating over the weekend. I tried to run the database query manually, but it got killed quickly. The Toolserver has had transient (or intermittent) issues like this for years now. Sigh.

The report likely needs to be rewritten. I was looking at the underlying code (available here: Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused non-free files/Configuration) and it seems like it wouldn't be too much trouble to rewrite the report. I'll do it this week unless you beat me to it. ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 03:49, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm a C#/C++/VB kind of guy - obviously, I can follow the code and the SQL statements, but I wouldn't have a clue what to do to rewrite it. :( --B (talk) 13:13, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Also, in case you haven't noticed, it seems that there are other file database reports which haven't been updated recently. --Stefan2 (talk) 13:43, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Sitting in a tree (or perhaps it's tree sitting...)

		The Original Barnstar
		For refusing to cave in to bullies and for standing tall for principle with an eye to precedent in spite of threatened and real negative consequences. Where I come from they call that "courage" and I salute you for it. Carrite (talk) 03:16, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. You know this is two in the past year from you. If I get a third, I think we'll be considered married in some cultures. ;-) I'm not sure I ever said so, but sorry about your RFA. Of course, it was kind of to be expected. I think you'd be a good admin, but I think you probably wouldn't want the associated pain-in-the-ass that comes when you do things while also happening to be an admin. Being able to do things as a regular user (even commenting) has its perks. (And if you still don't believe, just go look at the grief Alison has to put up with.) I'd almost considered running for admin again here recently, but the indefinite blocks kind of put a damper on that plot. Maybe in 2014. :-) I've been doing a bunch of work at wikimediafoundation.org lately, if you're into that kind of thing. The wiki could always use new (clueful) users. (This applies to anyone else stalking/lurking. If you'd like an account there [it's currently a fishbowl wiki], request one at m:WMFACCOUNT or e-mail me or some other admin.) --MZMcBride (talk) 05:32, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

You are invited to a Women in the Arts Meetup & Edit-a-thon on Friday, March 29

In honor of Women's History Month, the Smithsonian and the National Museum of Women in the Arts are teaming up to organize a Women in the Arts Meetup & Edit-a-thon on Friday, March 29, 2013 from 10:00am - 5:00pm. The event is focused on encouraging women editors while improving Wikipedia entries about women artists and art world figures. This event is free of charge, but participation is limited to 20 volunteers, so RSVP today! Sarasays (talk) 23:13, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm. An event from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on a Friday. Hmmm. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:28, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

DBR missing fields

Wikipedia:Database reports/Meta-Wiki rights changes has been missing the previous/subsequent rights changes for a few months now. 194.75.236.70 (talk) 14:38, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Now that local bureaucrats have the ability to remove adminship (cf. Special:ListGroupRights), most adminship removals are done locally instead of at Meta-Wiki these days. So the report is up-to-date (as is its underlying log), it just may not contain the information you happen to be interested in. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:27, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

One additional minor note: rows are records, columns are fields. "DBR missing fields" is slightly inaccurate. ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 16:34, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Popcorn!

	Popcorn!
	Reading your talk page is always a pleasure. And just when your block log was beginning to look respectable. tssk tssk. On with the drahma! Theo10011 (talk) 14:56, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, my block log has been re-sullied. I'm glad my travails could provide adequate amusement for you! --MZMcBride (talk) 16:30, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

can you delete this page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Visby_(activitst)

there's a spelling error on activist

and leave the new version

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Visby_(activist) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.45.178.23 (talk) 21:29, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. It looks like Adrian Visby (activitst) was deleted and it looks like Adrian Visby (activist) may be deleted as well. --MZMcBride (talk) 09:08, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Checker

Not sure if you're watching your Wikisource page, so posting here instead. Regarding [6]. Would it be possible to add a "last reviewer" column to the table? Relates to a discussion here. Moondyne (talk) 07:05, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. I've asked Billinghurst to weigh in here. I wrote checker for him a long time ago and I barely remember much about it. As long as he's okay with a "Last reviewer" column, I'd be happy to add it. (I didn't really follow the linked discussion on his talk page at all, sorry.) I can't imagine it'd be too difficult to add the column (though I say this without remembering much about the Proofread Page extension except that it's pretty wonky...). --MZMcBride (talk) 09:04, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

It isn't an issue, the purpose of the tool was to identify pages from a work that had not been transcluded. If checker can also serves the purpose to provide further information, that is no issue at all. To note thoug that it isn't last editor data that we wish to have, we are after the editor that set the pagequality status which is at the top of the file, and is concealed by the javascript, eg. we want the user from <pagequality level="3" user="Billinghurst" />. I don't think that that information is retained in the API, and would need to be grep'd. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:26, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I didn't understand what you were saying until I saw this diff. Jesus Christ. Is it really stored like that? --MZMcBride (talk) 19:34, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine praevia lege poenali

Hallo there MZMcBride (talk),
I have noticed that we reached pretty quickly wp:3RR in Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2013_March_25.
An answer from you would be deeply appreciated:
if you could kindly tell me where is this "No Animated Gifs rule" mentioned.
Thanks.
  M aurice   Carbonaro  10:15, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. No crime, it's just that including animated GIFs in deletion discussion comments or votes is not something we do. It disrupts the page for others. :-) The discussion seems to be going well (and surprisingly that redirect may be kept), but your recent editing here... take extra care with the article namespace. Internal bullshit is fine (e.g., WP:LIGHTBULB, which you seem to really enjoy). However, when edits start affecting the encyclopedia (the content namespaces), it stops being bullshit and turns into something more serious. I hope you can see that. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:33, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Preview page with this template

How does "Preview page with this template" work? How can one preview unless the template under test has a fullpagename parameter? — CpiralCpiral 03:31, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. It's kind of a confusing feature, yes. Perhaps a demonstration would be easier.

1. Go to <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Infobox_SCOTUS_case&action=edit>.
2. Change "| bodystyle = line-height: 1.2em" to "| bodystyle = line-height: 10.2em" in the edit window.
3. Below the edit window, next to "Preview page with this template", enter "Roe v. Wade" and then click the nearest "Show preview" button.

The resulting page will have a ridiculous-looking infobox, as you've changed the infobox's line-height from 1.2em to 10.2em. But you can (hopefully) see that the "Preview page with this template" feature works by showing you (the editor) what an article (Roe v. Wade) would look like if you updated a particular template (Template:Infobox SCOTUS case) that the article uses. Hopefully this makes sense. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:38, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you MZMcBride, I now see its utility compared to sandboxing, and you've saved me time.

But can you see how "With this template" could mean two things? ("Will use"/"Has use of", "this code"/"the code")

How about "Sandbox a view of a page (below)." and under that
"Page title that uses {{Infobox SCOTUS case}}:Roe v. Wade                                   "

i.e. "Page title" could say more: "Page title that already uses this template:".

e.g. "Preview page with this template" could say one of:

• For a page having this template, preview with this version.
• Preview with this version.
• Sandbox a page.

The facts seem to be 1)The page must already use the template 2)The template must graphical, and 3) It's offered on all template editing, even on /doc where it's useless, and even on template code where it's not graphical. If so, it should be an opt-in widget, being misleading more than half of the time? For example it should not be offered at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:DISPLAYTITLE/doc&action=edit where "Page title" is triply confusing. — CpiralCpiral 22:17, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

logactions.py

Hir Bride, I have created userlogs database report in urwiki using logactions.py. But this code put the text in wiki page in a wrong way See that page. I pastebin the code here. Whats going wrong? Muhammad Shuaib (talk) 09:22, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure. Bi-directional text issues always give me a headache. :-( --MZMcBride (talk) 05:50, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Article count in Main Page's header

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

—David Levy 03:16, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Mr Bernstein's much deserved Easter holiday.

Hi MZ, hope your bot has enjoyed himself over Easter and not eat too many Easter eggs. His usual updates have been missed at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits and we will be delighted when he returns from holiday:) ϢereSpielChequers 17:48, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The Toolserver is very unstable. Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/Age reads "10 April 2013" right now, though. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:48, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
	For your nomination at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hitler (retail store). Bearian (talk) 19:56, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 05:45, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

hi janel

Hello my love

Tom guiry (talk) 03:36, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Sup? --MZMcBride (talk) 05:43, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject U2 invitation

Hello! This message is to inform you that Wikipedia:WikiProject U2 needs your input! Please, join this discussion on this talk page!

You may add yourself to our member list below by clicking here!

Project U2 member list

Melicans (talk · contribs) 14:11, 21 June 2007 (UTC) Dream out loud (talk · contribs) 16:35, 21 June 2007 (UTC) Pjoef (talk · contribs) 16:43, 10 February 2008 (UTC) The 80s, from Boy to Rattle and Hum plus the ONE Campaign Y2kcrazyjoker4 (talk · contribs) 03:05, 22 April 2010 (UTC) Lemurbaby (talk · contribs) 03:01, 19 November 2010 (UTC) Difop (talk · contribs) 20:26, 19 October 2012 (WEST) Miss Bono (talk · contribs) 11:53, 14 November 2012 (UTC) The entire career of the band plus Bono and Ali Hewson. Cullen328 (talk · contribs) 22:10, 3 April 2013 (UTC) Teancum (talk · contribs) 14:08, 6 April 2013 (UTC) PBASH607 (talk · contribs) 03:13, 18 June 2013 (UTC) Mayast (talk · contribs) 19:32, 5 February 2014 (UTC) Upcoming songs and album (2014) c_meindl (talk · contribs) 10:45, 6 February 2014 Taking a WikiPedia class and had to join a WikiProject. I am interested in supplementing song stubs and articles! atuldeshmukh1 (talk · contribs) Calidum (talk · contribs) Wish I had seen this sooner. 01:00, 11 September 2014 (UTC) Fylbecatulous (talk · contribs) returning to active status; just based on a feeling... Fylbecatulous talk 15:44, 6 November 2017 (UTC) [[User:<Pushandturn>|<Pushandturn>]] ([[User talk:<Pushandturn>|talk]] · [[Special:Contribs/<Pushandturn>|contribs]]) 00:57, 1 May 2019 (UTC) optional: Im a longtime U2 fan and I went to the U2 360 tour and love sharing their music!

–pjoef (talk • contribs) 12:11, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm. I wonder what I did to deserve this. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:43, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Hey...

Jump in here at a larger level and feel free to format, add, sort, organize, or just say what you think. I'm going to read through that whole "microformat" thing later today. You're help is ALWAYS appreciated MZM, you know that. — Ched :  ?  17:48, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

• 2.5 questions

• 1. What was that meta site for wiki to request a user name? (I'll scroll through your talk after posting) found it .. ygm
• 2. Is there a way to scan all the articles and see how many have infoboxes?

• 2.5 IF that can be done, can it say what class the articles are? (1m start w/infobox, 3m w/o infobox - 3m GA w/infobox, 1m w/o infobox)

• how hard would it be to do? — Ched :  ?  11:04, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
  • (talk page stalker) #2 would be pretty easy to do, you just need to go through Category:Infobox templates and get the transclusion count for each.

    2.5 is also doable. (It's much easier for GA/FA, than start class though). Legoktm (talk) 12:35, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

    • Thanks for volunteering to gather these stats, Legoktm. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 12:38, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
      • I, er. Whaaaaat. Fine. Legoktm (talk) 12:50, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

LOL ... sorry folks. But thank you. Not anything important, and I'm certainly in no rush for it - I'm just trying to wrap my head around a pretty big picture at the moment. — Ched :  ?  20:26, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

gabe

gabe — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.212.219.175 (talk) 00:48, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

He makes a compelling point. --Closedmouth (talk) 15:38, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

gabe --MZMcBride (talk) 05:42, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

DC meetup & dinner on Saturday, April 13!

Please join Wikimedia DC for a social meetup and dinner at Vapiano (near Farragut North/Farragut West) on Saturday, April 13 at 5:30 PM All Wikipedia/Wikimedia and free knowledge/culture enthusiasts, regardless of editing experience, are welcome to attend! All ages welcome!

For more information and to sign up, please see Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 36. Hope to see you there! Kirill ^[talk] 19:03, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Dinner at 5:30 p.m. is a bit... we'll fix that in the future. :-) Otherwise, great meetup. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:41, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Bug 46086

It's good to see you and others getting things going over there. I just wanted to note that I meant my response to be to comment #17 rather than yours. INeverCry 21:54, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. :-)

It wasn't clear to me (and others) that this bug is so prevalent/annoying until recently, I don't think. Otherwise it would've been triaged more appropriately sooner. Hopefully it'll be fixed up by midweek next week. I'll poke people as necessary.

Generally, the bug classification system is ignored by most developers. There's a general theory that the actual critical bugs (such as the site being inaccessible or active data loss/corruption) will be resolved as soon as possible and every other bug will be resolved as soon as someone has time/inclination to resolve it. (That is, the bug classification rarely determines what actually gets worked on.) In a case like this, it's a matter of poking the appropriate people (Greg G., Tim S., Rob L., and Sam R.), namely people capable of debugging this from the server side to figure out why this deletion-related database query is erroring and how to fix it. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:56, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for helping. I'm just a button pusher pretty much, so I'm glad some expert eyes are on this now. INeverCry 07:07, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

A fellow admin on Commons just posted this error message:

A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was:

    (SQL query hidden)

from within function "WikiPage::updateCategoryCounts". Database returned error "1213: Deadlock found when trying to get lock; try restarting transaction (10.64.16.27)".

Should this be shown to someone? INeverCry 16:51, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

You're always welcome to file a bug at <http://bugs.wikimedia.org>. Try to include as many details as possible when filing a bug (URLs, actions being performed when the error occurred, etc.). --MZMcBride (talk) 16:54, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I only mentioned it because it was suggested to maybe be part of 46086. If it's another bug, and doesn't bother my deletion tools, then "frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." INeverCry 16:59, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

And I don't delete files on Commons. ;-) We have to look out for each other, of course. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 17:45, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I hear ya, but if you've got me looking out for you on technical matters, you're in trouble. INeverCry 18:23, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I think you hit bugzilla:13921. Legoktm (talk) 17:35, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. Good find. Cross-referenced at bugzilla:13921#c15. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:42, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I've noted this at COM:AN, where my fellow admin had posted about it. Thank you both. INeverCry 18:30, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

toolserver

For the last couple days I've been getting a bunch of "NOT FOUND. The requested url was not found on this server" messages from toolserver.org. Any idea why? Something to do with the above thread? — Ched :  ?  09:23, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

You're not alone, it's been happening to everyone the past few days. The Toolserver isn't in great shape. --MZMcBride (talk) 10:16, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Ahhh .. gotcha. Thx for the link. Long as it's not on my end, I'm not gonna worry about it. — Ched :  ?  10:38, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

DC meetups on April 19 and 20

Wikimedia DC invites you to join us for two exciting events this weekend:

On the evening of Friday, April 19, we're hosting our first-ever WikiSalon at our K Street office. The WikiSalon will be a twice-monthly informal meetup and collaborative editing event to help build the community of Wikimedia enthusiasts here in DC; please join us for its inaugural session. Light refreshments will be provided.

On Saturday, April 20, we've partnered with the George Washington University to host the All Things GW Edit-a-Thon at the Teamsters Labor History Research Center. Please join us for behind-the-scenes tours of the University Archives and help edit articles about GWU history.

We look forward to seeing you at one or both of these events! Kirill ^[talk] 20:08, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Arb comments

I realize that my shouting edit summary was over the top and I was considering restoring the discussion myself (I was away for a while), but would you please explain how your comments could possibly be perceived as helpful? AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • Sign AAPT) 21:20, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Sometimes the most obvious solutions are overlooked. I was pointing out a very simple solution to the problem, of course. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 21:23, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

For the curious: Wikipedia talk:Arbs are people too#Simple solution. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:32, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

LaraBot

From the looks of the page, I'm not sure if you're watching LaraBot's talk page, so I wanted to draw your attention to this comment I made there. Thanks. jcgoble3 (talk) 01:04, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Lua and subpages

I have provided a subpage iterator over at Meta, which you may wish to use:

local subpages = require('Module:Subpages').subpages

for page in subpages('Global message delivery/Targets') do
  -- do whatever with page
end

--darklama 23:32, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Hah! That's insane. Both impressive and cringeworthy. :-) Thanks, I'll take a look at using it over at Meta-Wiki (I'm still wrapping my head around Lua). I went to comment on bugzilla:47137, but you beat me to it. Very nice. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:37, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:GTFO listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wikipedia:GTFO. Since you had some involvement with the Wikipedia:GTFO redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). Thryduulf (talk) 06:52, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the note, Thryduulf. Without it, I probably would've missed the entire deletion discussion. It seems to me that (redirect) deletion discussions opened without notifying the page creator should be automatically closed as invalid. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:38, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

nie — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.238.179.116 (talk) 11:29, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

You're telling me, girl. You're telling me. Happy Monday! --MZMcBride (talk) 13:54, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Your closure

I would appreciate it if you would adjust the inappropriate tone in your closure and other comments. I would also like for you to explain why my position is an "extreme view", as it is most definitely not. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • Sign AAPT) 20:48, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

No and no. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:52, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I understand your perspective, I just try to keep the peace, hoping we all just live and let live. He's really a good guy, and I think he showed that by changing the image first, instead of requiring you make the first move. I sincerely appreciate you returning the olive branch there. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 22:05, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Urgent page restoration

Hiya, is there any chance you could restore this page on the Foundation Wiki. You prodded it last month, but it is not unused :) it is currently the main directdebit landing page for Wikimedia UK. We're working on replacing it (it's only just now been noticed!) but if you could restore it in the interim that would be really helpful! --Errant ^(chat!) 21:35, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Sure, done. Please request an account on wikimediafoundation.org when you get a chance so that you can undo edits like these yourself. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 21:47, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks and thanks! I'll do that :) --Errant ^(chat!) 21:51, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

my subpage

OK, I unprotected it but why does it matter if the protection has no effect? Carlossuarez46 (talk) 23:02, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I was asking myself the same! Thanks for the unprotection. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 23:04, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I thought blocking the bot, which for all I know is only going wrong for me, seemed more drastic that just protecting my page, I'll just unprotect for now and see what happens Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:12, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! Sorry to be a bother. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:17, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Hello

Re your message concerning the protection of User:Sango123 s page in March 2007, she stopped editing 1 October 2006. At the time I protected it there was a vandalism problem. If you wish to undo the protection I will not object. I must add she is long gone and I miss her. I would hate to see her page defiled but sentiment lacks value in these matters.--Theda 04:00, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protection seems to be favored for pages like this, from what I've been reading and seeing. Full protection is pretty nasty and anti-wiki, so any pages we can shift from full protection to semi-protection would be a step in the right direction, in my opinion. Thanks for getting back to me. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 16:23, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Changed to semi-protection, I totally agree. Thanks for the feedback.--Theda 20:57, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Phenomblue

It appears that you deleted this before. Do you want to send it to WP:AfD? It was also mentioned in today's Signpost newsletter. Bearian (talk) 15:08, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Eh? I don't see my name in the page's log. Perhaps I deleted a redirect to it? --MZMcBride (talk) 15:28, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Life Online

Listeners:

My dreams of just being normal feel lost, I have had the sorest experience . I switched places because I can't trust anyone. Now I am left homeless, jobless and possibly lost the job I always wanted to work. All due to my accounts being messed up. I did cause this on my own and it just leaved me with nothing. My family is no longer, my life as I knew it is gone from people using my information and accounts. People now think I am insane and sick because all this stress all this has caused me. It's gas been awful and I was very excited. I have not put adds on my accounts they were merge by my brokerage and now I am in serious trouble and don't know what trust! Heart broken. And now I loss my accounts as well.

What I haven't even meant to do anything now I am left with nothing and have affected others losses my home. Because I was unaware of the difference between two accounts. No one told me they are linked and I didn't want things posted that were.

I am being threatened by others I'm going to have to move from here due to all of this and possible go to jail in the us. People have gotten my information and I feel that there has been know support from anyone.

How does this happen??? Accounts should never be linked, there should be one for work and one of your own. My emails, phone and computers have all been out of commission and I have no contacts for anything. I thought I had a friend? This just is not fair.

I have taken computer classes and all my accounts are on freeze so really if you invite someone into your group why not make them aware of this in simple terms so if say you on you phone you can feel safe using fb, not having to worry about being charged daily for copyright notices for anything I do on my phone or computers. Something to think about. I just started my career and it's now over before I even got to start not to mention the lost of my family! For something that I should have been informed more clearly. I have had people throwing agreement after agreement in front of me and just but yet know one gives any answers. Very sad.

This has effected my life on every way possible. I have nothing left now but embarrassment! Amber -Leigh Teeple Keller Williams Solid Rock Realty — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.151.114.39 (talk) 07:26, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Your post reminded me of <http://xkcd.com/810/> a little. Though it appears you exist. Or at least someone has gone through the trouble of creating two LinkedIn profiles for you that match your story here.

I'm sorry to hear you're having a rough time lately. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. --MZMcBride (talk) 13:40, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Database reports/Articles containing links to the user space

I see the above posted an updated report last night, but from the first couple of dozen I checked there seems to have been a good number of false positives, several of which did have such links but were removed already some time ago--Jac16888 ^Talk 10:14, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Yeah... the Toolserver is slowly dying and this report probably needs to be rewritten (again). :-( --MZMcBride (talk) 18:56, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Database reports/Most-watched pages by namespace

Hi, Could your Bot do the same for the german wikipedia? E.G. at de:Wikipedia:Meistbeobachtete Seiten nach Namensraum. Thanks in advance --Zulu55en (talk) 19:10, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi. I don't have the time/energy to set this up, but the code is available on GitHub if you'd like to set up these reports yourself. I hope that helps. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:55, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Advice

I hope you don't mind a quick deletion question. I noticed all the G8s you just did. I wanted to batch delete them, but I can't seem to get the D-batch function in Twinkle to work. The P-batch function calls up a list in seconds, but with D-batch all I get is "Grabbing list of pages: loading..." with no result (atleast within the 5 minutes I left it going). I'm sure I'm probably doing something wrong. Thanks for your time. INeverCry 18:52, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Hmmmm, sorry, I'm not sure. I don't use Twinkle very often. Which page are you trying to run a batch deletion on? Wikipedia:Database reports/Broken redirects? --MZMcBride (talk) 18:54, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Category:Candidates for speedy deletion. Is there another tool/script for batch deletions from a page or cat? I'm used to using DelteLinks on Commons. INeverCry 18:57, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Honestly, it's been over three years since I've deleted anything here, so I'm not sure. And even when I was active in an admin capacity here, I mostly used browser tabs and a custom script or two (no Twinkle). :-) AN or VPT would probably have much better answers for you.

I neglected to say thank you for the deletions you've been doing. I realize (better than most) how tedious administrative work like this can be, but I certainly noticed and appreciate the work. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:03, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm sure I'll find a tool to use, or some other method of not having to do these one at a time. Unfortunately I'm a technical novice, so I can't write my own tool or script. INeverCry 19:25, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

DC meetup & dinner on Saturday, May 11!

Please join Wikimedia DC for a social meetup and dinner at Vapiano (near Farragut North/Farragut West) on Saturday, May 11 at 5:30 PM. All Wikipedia/Wikimedia and free knowledge/culture enthusiasts, regardless of editing experience, are welcome to attend! All ages welcome!

For more information and to sign up, please see the meetup page. Hope to see you there! Kirill ^[talk] 23:08, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Rogue EdwardsBot run

Hi, is there any means for starting EdwardsBot (talk · contribs) other than by altering User:EdwardsBot/Status to "Start"? Please see User talk:EdwardsBot#This month in GLAM. --Redrose64 (talk) 06:41, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

m:Global message delivery/Spam --MZMcBride (talk) 13:11, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

EdwardsBot

Hi. I notice you that your bot seems to have problems on occitan wiktionary (it inserts repetitively the same message, see here), so maybe elsewhere too. It would be a good idea to indicate clearly links to your main account on all wiki's user pages of EdwardsBot. Regards. Xic667 (talk) 17:50, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Definitely elsewhere too; the same user (but at Occitan Wikipedia) got two copies of that message. The request is here and the recipient list that was used is here. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:18, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

On clouds

I'M SCATTERING CLOUDS AROUND

FOR NO REASON

Killiondude (talk) 00:45, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Dominic McDevitt-Parks

Closing an AfD that you nominated, after less than four hours, with only three supporters? I invite you to undo that, otherwise I shall take it to deletion review. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:27, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

To be clear, Pigsonthewing, are you objecting because you believe the article should be kept, or because you think it should be deleted, or purely as a matter of process? Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:49, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I thought this matter was resolved. It's fairly well-established that a deletion nominator can choose to withdraw a deletion nomination. Given that the page author, deletion nominator, article subject, and all others who had commented agreed that an article was inappropriate, it seemed rather silly to engage in a protracted deletion discussion when the normal wiki process (redirecting the article) is completely sufficient. Echoing Newyorkbrad's comment, what's the actual objection here? --MZMcBride (talk) 20:23, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

My concerns are stated clearly, above. Are you going to reopen the debate, or shall I take it to DR? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:35, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Two editors have asked for a clarification of your concerns. Surely that's a sign that they were not stated clearly above.

I think deletion review would be a waste of time. You're free to (re-)nominate the article for deletion (or nominate the redirect for deletion, as it were), but I won't re-open the deletion discussion as it was properly closed. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:49, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

From WP:Deletion review: discuss the matter with the closing administrator and try to resolve it with him or her first.. I don't think a "undo or I take it to DR" qualifies as a discussion. --regentspark (comment) 20:55, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict; outdent) Pigsonthewing, if you don't articulate a substantive explanation for why you believe the AFD result was inappropriate, I'm probably going to summarily close any DRV discussion as an abuse of the process. The outcome here is quite in order both procedurally and substantively, to the point that I see nothing that is reasonable to object to. You don't get to go to DRV for the sake of going to DRV; there needs to be a specific issue that needs resolving, and you need to raise it with the person who closed the discussion before you take it to DRV. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:59, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I have done: the AfD was closed by its own nominator, after less than four hours, with only three supporters. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:51, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Right. Nobody's disputing what happened. The question is what outcome you're hoping for here with regard to this article, a question you seem to be deliberately avoiding.

A link for the lazy: Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2013 May 13#Dominic McDevitt-Parks. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:48, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I've raised the issue at the DRV. I don't see how this can be considered disruptive unless I'm missing some context. It was an out-of-process close that was, IMO, really a bad idea. Nom closing an AfD they started is almost never a good idea unless it's a withdraw. I'd be happy with changing the closing statement to "withdrawn" and then doing the redirect as a purely editorial action. But instead this puts an "AfD outcome" as the reason for the redirect making it seem that anyone undoing the redirect would be undoing the outcome of an AfD. Admins should't steamroll over others and that is what the AfD and this discussion certainly feel like. Hobit (talk) 01:06, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Just to explain in words written by someone better with English than I (from WP:PI)

The problem with yielding to this temptation is that it damages the overall structure of Wikipedia. It throws sand in the gears of the project. When people see others acting outside of process, they may be convinced that they ought to do the same; or they may be convinced that their individual voices and views will get no respect or consideration. If everyone acts outside of process, there is no process, no organization to our efforts. Then we do not have a collaborative project; we have chaos.

WP:IAR is a good and wonderful thing. But I'm not seeing a justification for the out-of-process close. If no one objected, great. But someone did (rudely it's true). There is value in following our processes unless those processes are causing harm (to a person or the encyclopedia). I'm not seeing that. Now if this is a personal thing somewhere Andy's request isn't a good faith objection, that could easily justify this. But I've seen no claim that that is the case to this point. Hobit (talk) 01:16, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

You're being quite silly. The process is there to serve the project, not the other way around. This had nothing to do with ignoring rules; it had everything to do with using common sense to reach a reasonable outcome. I have no idea why Andy is attempting to stir this pot, but I'm fairly confident that you can drag this out over the next few weeks or not and we're still gonna reach the same conclusion. I'm finished with this. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:26, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Eh, I just get frustrated when admins ignore process over other's objections. There was a right way to do what you did (withdraw the nomination, redirect without closing your own nomination). Not sure if you didn't do that because it was too much work or because you wanted to have the AfD close hanging over any attempt to remove the redirect or for some other reason. But in any case, you didn't, someone objected, and very senior people with advanced permissions are now bullying (and I use that word with care--it is exactly what it looks like) a user over it, including threats of blocks and just overriding process yet again. Oyi. Hobit (talk) 02:18, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

For the record, I'm not an admin here and haven't been for over three years now. Andy, with over thirty blocks and a one-year ban to his name, isn't being bullied, he's being disruptive. It's perfectly fine for editors to have different views on notability and inclusion criteria. It's completely unacceptable to create a circus for no particular reason other than a twisted fetish for process and bureaucracy. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:15, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• By closing the AFD you were giving an editorial decision the strength of a full AFD consensus. There is no way that DRV wouldn't void that outcome but I also can't see that there needs to be an AFD consensus here as ordinary editing has resolved the issue. Your text suggests that you considered the AFD was no longer necessary so I think the outcome you mean was to withdraw the AFD. On the basis that we will almost certainly end up with that after 7 days of unpleasant argument I have decided to cut the gordian knot and have voided your close under WP:NAC and substituted a withdrawn AFD with a note that the merge is subject to usual editorial processes. I hope this brings a close to this episode but I also endorse Hobit's concerns over the way that Andy's objections were dealt with. Spartaz ^Humbug! 06:33, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Although Pigsonthewing did not articulate a reasoned objection to the AFD closing, Hobit did. I endorse Spartaz's resolution of the issue. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:55, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm so relieved the paperwork has been properly filed. I was up most of the night worrying. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:21, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

If you don't understand the difference between an AfD that's closed as "redirect" and one that's withdrawn by the nominator, then you've got plenty of things to worry about. --RexxS (talk) 17:53, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

And here I thought this conversation couldn't get more retarded. How wrong I was! Sure, go on. Explain the obviously substantial difference between the decision to redirect the article to Wikipedian in Residence and the current state of the article (a redirect to Wikipedian in Residence). Go on. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:35, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

If you drive through a red light to get to a certain place or instead wait until it turns green, you still end up in the same place. But one way was problematic, the other was not. Hobit (talk) 21:36, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Even in the middle of the night when there are no other cars around? --MZMcBride (talk) 21:41, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, sometimes there are pedestrians that you didn't see. Believe it or not, rules apply to you as well. If you go through life believing you know better than everybody else, sooner or later you'll come unstuck. As for the state of the article, the current state is because Spartaz has enough clue to clean the mess you left behind, thankfully. It's not through your efforts that we have a sensible, if sub-optimal outcome. If you had had the patience to let an admin close the AfD after a decent period, then the redirect would also have a consensus demonstrated that it should remain a redirect; as it is, anyone could restore the article and we'd end up with a debate again to establish consensus. Get it now? --RexxS (talk) 22:14, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

The mess I left behind? To recap: I opened a deletion discussion, the page creator, page subject, and myself all agreed that a redirect was the most appropriate outcome for the article (in addition to several comments by others that agreed with redirecting), and then I closed the discussion as no longer being necessary. And yet you've come to my talk page to lecture me about how I've made a mess. What the hell is wrong with you? Go away. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:51, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Did you hit a pedestrian last night? And he messed up the intersection? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:55, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

FLOW

Hi. I know I bother you too much on this site. You're one of the few people who manages to keep up with everything. What do you think about Wikipedia:Flow? I heard it mentioned before but today I decided to do some research.

The cover page seems to be making rather harsh assertions about the current state of things. For example, calling certain aspects of Wikipedia's cultural norms "crazy" and "Black Magick". It seems a bit propaganda-ish, tbh. Also, it brings into question the argument about whether the users who the Foundation is trying to accommodate would actually be helpful to a project of this nature.

All in all, I agree that Wikipedia needs an overhaul but I'm skeptical of this Flow project. Also, the name in itself makes me think of all sorts of puns. Thoughts? Killiondude (talk) 22:47, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi. You bother me less than most users around here.

Flow is basically the successor to LiquidThreads. It's Brandon Harris' baby and consequently he's naturally protective of it (e.g., he's previously edit warred to stop other users from mentioning that Flow is the successor to LiquidThreads).

The current wikitext discussion system is pretty awful, but I agree that the language used on Wikipedia:Flow (which is bizarrely duplicated on mediawiki.org) isn't the best. Several of the other design choices (discussed at mw:Talk:Flow Portal) are also questionable.

If you're interested, there's a Flow prototype at <http://unicorn.wmflabs.org/flow/>. And I imagine you'd enjoy the threads here: mw:Talk:Flow Portal/Interactive Prototype.

"Flow" is usually a euphemism for menstruation (albeit generally without the W). It's not much worse than the many other Wikimedia euphemisms (dumps, movement, retention, endowment). --MZMcBride (talk) 00:15, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd appreciate it if you would actually assume good faith when I say that it's not a successor to LiquidThreads.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 02:11, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

In many ways, it's indisputable that Flow is a successor (if not the successor) to LiquidThreads (purely chronologically, for example), but I understand how tainted the name is for some and I also understand and appreciate that Flow should be much better.

For what it's worth, unlike many people, I didn't/don't mind LiquidThreads. I'm one of the few people who is much more annoyed at how it was deployed/developed than the extension/functionality itself. Yes, it was rough around the edges, but the real issue was that it had no real technical support. That isn't to say that I won't poke fun at LiquidThreads, but I spent a fair bit of my time testing the extension on some pre-Labs wiki (liquidthreads.labs.wikimedia.org or something) before all development on the extension abruptly stopped and the wiki disappeared. And here we are, over a decade later, and still replying by beginning each line with colons.

I don't like the current discussion system and I'd like to see a better system implemented. I'm hopeful Flow will be that system, but the history in this area (e.g., LiquidThreads) makes me w(e)ary. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:20, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

LOL I really didn't realize all the subtext with these naming conventions. I can't believe how I missed "Flow", for now what seems like an apparent euphemism. The nomenclatures do seem to be getting worse. We should totally have a page about this on Meta! Theo10011 (talk) 14:51, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

m:Euphemisms --MZMcBride (talk) 18:24, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Tangentially, Commons:Help:Watchlist messages looks interesting. It appears (at first glance) to be a much better way of getting information out to logged in users and potentially something that might benefit the English Wikipedia. Killiondude (talk) 19:16, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd say this is closer to Echo than Flow, but I agree that it looks neat. Eventually it'd be nice to have a way to manage subscriptions to a newsletter or to a WikiProject or whatever. And within these subscriptions, you could choose to have an e-mail, an Echo notification, and/or a talk page message. Perhaps someday. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:32, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

DC WikiSalon on May 24

Wikimedia DC invites you to join us for our next DC WikiSalon, which will be held on the evening of May 24 at our K Street office.

The WikiSalon an informal gathering of Wikimedia enthusiasts, who come together to discuss the Wikimedia projects and collaboratively edit. There's no set agenda, and guests are welcome to recommend articles for the group to edit or edit on their own. Light refreshments will be provided.

We look forward to seeing you there! Kirill ^[talk] 18:23, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

WP:Edits

Hi MZ, hope all is well with you and yours. I was wondering if you could give Mr Bernstein a nudge, as he appears to have dozed off. ϢereSpielChequers 06:04, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

The Toolserver is dying. I imagine this is a symptom. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:08, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh dear, any chance of moving this to labs, or is that a sensitive subject? ϢereSpielChequers 09:19, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Labs doesn't yet have database replication, which this report relies upon. Labs should have database replication implemented and stabilized by the end of this month, I'm told. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:19, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/1–1000

Are you watching User talk:BernsteinBot? Could you respond at User talk:BernsteinBot#Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits.2F1.E2.80.931000 update?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:05, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Not very closely, clearly. :-) I'll respond over there now. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:10, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

My name is NOT Geraldo but Gerald - and if you leave me a goddamn email address I'll attach photocopies of my passport, drivers license, birth certificate and whatnot ! IU'm tired of this mockery ! geraldthomas1@mac.com

My name is NOT Geraldo but Gerald - and if you leave me a goddamn email address I'll attach photocopies of my passport, drivers license, birth certificate and whatnot ! IU'm tired of this mockery !

geraldthomas1@mac.com

or

dryoperacompany@gmail.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.197.255.3 (talk) 07:43, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

GERALDO?! IS THAT YOU? CAN YOU HEAR ME? HELLO. I'M HERE. HELLO. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:36, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

XFF project

I'm having difficulties finding anyone to talk to about configuring an Opera range (or any range, for that matter) as a trusted XFF range. E-mails to xff@wikimedia.org go unacknowledged, as do messages at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:XFF_project. Any clues?—Kww(talk) 17:00, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi. I just saw your note here. If you file a bug in Bugzilla (https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org) with the relevant information, someone should be able to knock this out for you fairly easily. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:02, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Example bug: bugzilla:14700. The trusted XFF list: <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/extensions/TrustedXFF/trusted-hosts.txt>. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:06, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48791 is mine. This really seems like a screwed up process, and seems to default to having most proxies being treated as "untrusted", which is really a bad idea. Shouldn't this be something that any checkuser can add to any individual Wikipedia version?—Kww(talk) 17:16, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I think you may be conflating proxies and (trusted) XFF, but I don't really know much about this. Generally, yes, in terms of maintenance overhead and wiki sovereignty, as much as possible should be left to individual communities and local privileged users to decide. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:43, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

As I understand it, the rules are:

1) Proxy doesn't send XFF headers: all anyone sees (included checkuser) is the IP address of the proxy.

2) Proxy sends XFF headers, but we don't trust them: IP address of the proxy is presented in the contributions history, and only blocks at the proxy level are effective. Checkusers can see the originating IP when they examine headers, but no one else can.

3) Proxy sends XFF headers, and we do trust them: the IP address of the end user is presented in the contributions history, blocks against the source IP address are effective, and only checkusers can see the existence and use of the proxy.

Case 2 is a pain in the ass. It's done so that we don't present an opportunity to vandals (basically, if we always trusted XFF headers, it would be easy to frame someone for edits he didn't commit). When the proxy is a widely used and reliable one, it prevents our blocking software from working correctly.—Kww(talk) 18:33, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I noticed that you kept the instruction to e-mail xff(a)wikimedia.org in your change. I didn't seem to get a response from that. Any reason to believe it's still an active e-mail address?—Kww(talk) 02:36, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I need to catch Tim and ask him if that's still a real e-mail address. Though perhaps the Meta-Wiki page ought to be updated to say to file a bug in Bugzilla instead. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:29, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

It would be nice if we could make this very simple. What we want is for the checkusers to routinely keep this file up to date. It looks to me like people didn't even realize the function was there.—Kww(talk) 03:42, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

As I understand it (and again, I really don't), there's a high level of trust needed to ensure that this feature (trusting X-Forwarded-For headers) is not misused or abused. Due diligence is required with every addition to the list. That said, if you think the feature should be controllable by a page on Meta-Wiki (I assume it'd go there as it covers all Wikimedia wikis), you can file a bug in Bugzilla under MediaWiki extensions --> TrustedXFF. The approach I think you would take is to change the extension to read from a fully protected page on Meta-Wiki (i.e., the page on Meta-Wiki would replace the current text file trusted-hosts.txt) and then you would set up a cron job to update the CDB file every day or every hour or whatever. It's fairly easy to do this, iff the system administrators will go for it. We already have a number of extensions or services that use this kind of approach (a regularly scheduled cron job). It's not really a technical implementation question, it's a (social) policy question.

All that said, from the time you pinged me to the time you got the list updated was a few hours. It's difficult to complain about that. ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 03:52, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Most watched

About the Wikipedia:Database reports/Most-watched pages: Would you please update the bot so that it reports the number of active users watching a page, rather than all accounts? For example, Jimmy Wales' user page has a total 2,882 watchers, but only 1,238 of them are active users. If you look at this, I think you'll see why this seems important to me. Thanks, WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:43, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Webinar / edit-a-thon at the National Library of Medicine (NLM)

Join us at the NLM next week, either in person or online, to learn about NLM resources, hear some great speakers, and do some editing!

organized by Wiki Project Med

On Tuesday, 28 May there will be a community Wikipedia meeting at the United States National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland - with a second on Thursday, 30 May for those who can't make it on Tuesday. You can participate either in-person, or via an online webinar. If you attend in person, USB sticks (but not external drives) are ok to use.

Please go to the event page to get more information, including a detailed program schedule.

If you are interested in participating, please register by sending an email to pmhmeet@gmail.com. Please indicate if you are coming in person or if you will be joining us via the webinar. After registering, you will receive additional information about how to get to our campus (if coming in-person) and details about how to join the webinar. Klortho (talk) 00:47, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

A beer for you!

Thank you for stepping in and fixing my EdwardsBot mistakes. Harej (talk) 07:35, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

that having been steiner --Fran Rogers (talk) 00:29, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

import MySQLdb and editcount.py

How normal can you the script that can be run on Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia? --Kolega2357 (talk) 23:13, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Question regarding validity of Notable Persons pages

Hi user:MZMcBride I was wondering if you had an advice on how to address a user who continuously wants to delete a notable person's page I created? I have provided ample responses on the notability of the person, but it doesn't seem to be enough. Obviously there sitll needs to be more references added, but marking the page for deletion seems extreme in this situation. Scott Etzler is the page. Any thoughts would be appreciated! Thanks! :) KatiePack1 (talk) 01:41, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

DC WikiSalon on June 6

Wikimedia DC invites you to join us for our next DC WikiSalon, which will be held on the evening of Thursday, June 6 at our K Street office.

The WikiSalon an informal gathering of Wikimedia enthusiasts, who come together to discuss the Wikimedia projects and collaboratively edit. There's no set agenda, and guests are welcome to recommend articles for the group to edit or edit on their own. Light refreshments will be provided.

We look forward to seeing you there! Kirill ^[talk] 11:53, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Your message

Done. Sorry for the late reply! - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 18:34, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Have time on Saturday?

I'm sorry for the last-minute notice, but on Saturday, June 8, from 3 to 6 PM, Wikimedia DC and the Cato Institute are hosting a Legislative Data Meetup. We will discuss the work done so far by WikiProject U.S. Federal Government Legislative Data to put data from Congress onto Wikipedia, as well as what more needs to be done. If you have ideas you'd like to contribute, or if you're just curious and feel like meeting up with other Wikipedians, you are welcome to come! Be sure to RSVP here if you're interested.

I hope to see you there!

(You can unsubscribe from future notifications for D.C.-area events by removing your name from this list.)

Harej (talk) 04:26, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

hm thanks

"~ ~ ~ ~", (talk) 15:29, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Edwards Bot Question

Hello! Would the Edwards Bot be able to read this even though there is a bunch of random code within the table or would I have to remove the code?--Dom497 (talk) 14:27, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi. That list is fine to use.

Each wiki page keeps records for every link on the page. EdwardsBot just looks at the User and User talk page links on a given input page. The bot has no idea if the rest of the page is a table or not as it only looks at the [[links]] to the User and User talk namespaces. It'll de-duplicate any list, but subpages are fair game. In your case, you're not linking any subpages, so you're fine. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:27, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

DC meetup & dinner on Saturday, June 15!

Please join Wikimedia DC for a social meetup and dinner at Vapiano (near Farragut North/Farragut West) on Saturday, June 15 at 5:30 PM. All Wikipedia/Wikimedia and free knowledge/culture enthusiasts, regardless of editing experience, are welcome to attend! All ages welcome!

For more information and to sign up, please see the meetup page. Hope to see you there! Kirill ^[talk] 19:58, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Two formatting questions for SCOTUS case articles

I'd appreciate your thoughts and/or help with two points.

1. The case infobox template gives far too much weight (word-wise) to situations where a Justice does not participate in a case. Below the list of Justices in the majority, concurring, and dissenting, there's then a prominent centered announcement that "X did not participate in the consideration or decision of the case." See, e.g., In re Snyder or Shaffer v. Heitner. It seems to me it should just say "Not participating: X" in exactly the same format as it says "Concurrence: Y" and "Dissent: Z". If you agree, can that be changed?

2. The article title of the article JPMorgan Chase Bank v. Traffic Stream (BVI) Infrastructure Ltd. starts out in italics and then changes to roman midway. I can't see any reason for this in the coding. Can you advise and/or fix?

Thanks, Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:46, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi. For the infobox, I'm not sure there's a better answer than "that's how it's always been done." It mirrors the format found in the decisions themselves, though I suppose that's not a particularly good reason to do it. I think your proposal is an uncontroversial change. My only hesitation is that "Not Participating" is a fairly long string of text and may disrupt the layout a bit (already "Concurrences" is abbreviated to "Concur," as I recall). If nobody beats me to it, I'll try to implement the change in the next few days (it's Template:Infobox SCOTUS case) and then post to WT:SCOTUS about it. Let me know if you have any thoughts about the length/layout issue.

For the page title, it's a bug in the auto-italicization logic. It's viewing the parenthetical as a disambiguation parenthetical, I think. This can be fixed on that specific page with a template parameter (italic title=force or something), but I'd like to see the issue fixed generally. I'll try to look into this as well in the next few days, assuming nobody else beats me to it. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:15, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I hope we can address the first issue, as it affects a fair number of articles. The second one has been solved manually on the article I cited (perhaps by someone who watches this page), and probably arises fairly infrequently. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:50, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Mr. Stradivarius very kindly fixed up Template:Italic title (following a thread at Wikipedia:Lua requests), so that issue is now resolved.

I'll try to poke at the infobox later this week. We may want to rethink the layout of that section altogether. I'm not sure. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:05, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Number of watchers

I noticed that the toolserver tool for the number of watchers on a page (the one that links from the "view history" display) seems not to be working. If I understand correctly (and my apologies if you're the wrong person to contact), you wrote that software, so I figured I should let you know. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:10, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Toolserver has been in a bad way for some months (since about August or September 2012). More recently, in mid January 2013, a new feature was added to the left margin, titled "Page information". The number of watchers is given there, in the seventh row of the "Basic information" box. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:02, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Much appreciated. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:04, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Is there any chance that we could get them to list the number of active users that are watching the page? The info for this old page is approximately 98% inactive users. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:15, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Redrose64. I was about to post pretty much what you posted, but then I somehow lost the browser tab. Maybe I'll find it again later. In any case, action=info should be preferred (I consider the Toolserver watcher tool deprecated). I'm still waiting on bugzilla:44252 to be resolved in order to update the link from action=history.

Regarding active watchers, I've filed bugzilla:49506 just now. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:42, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Database reports/Stubs included directly in stub categories

Hi, re Wikipedia:Database reports/Stubs included directly in stub categories: this morning's run took it from 541 entries (on a single page) to 2900 entries (spread over four pages). I've looked at several entries, and there are few that are legitimately listed. Examples:

• Kim Newcombe is correct, because the page has [[Category:New Zealand sportspeople stubs]] and no stub template
• National School of Glass (last edit 15 March 2013‎) is not in Category:Sweden stubs as claimed, but is in Category:Sweden school stubs which has been set correctly by the use of {{Sweden-school-stub}}
• Beijing No.5 High School (last edit 15 March 2013‎) is not in Category:Asian school stubs as claimed, but is in Category:China school stubs which has been set correctly by the use of {{PRChina-school-stub}}
• Benvenuto Campesani (last edit 22 March 2013) is not in Category:European poet stubs as claimed, but is in Category:Italian poet stubs which has been set correctly by the use of {{Italy-poet-stub}}

I'm willing to accept that the data on Toolserver is several weeks (if not months) out of date. Given that the Toolserver problems are unlikely to be resolved soon in the next few months ever, would it be possible to transfer the preparation of this report over to WMF Labs, where data replication is apparently now working? --Redrose64 (talk) 09:13, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

I will point out that several of these problems stem from migration of templates over to new categories. For whatever reason wikipedia is currently very, very slow in migrating the articles for those templates over to the new categories. Case in point, Category:China school stubs should have 142 articles, according to the template transclusion counts, but currently sits at just 33, even though I moved the templates a full week ago. Just a couple articles into the list, I hit a set of the Swedish schools which suffer the same fate. Dawynn (talk) 11:59, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

"... is a case" or "... was a case"?

Regarding your recent edit of Maryland v. King, right after I made the verb tense change in the lede that you reverted, I started a discussion on the topic at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Legal#Verb tense for legal cases. Please encourage other editors specializing in U.S. legal articles to join the discussion.—Anomalocaris (talk) 19:35, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

A page you started has been reviewed!

Thanks for creating Maryland v. King, MZMcBride!

Wikipedia editor NDSteve10 just reviewed your page, and wrote this note for you:

Thanks for creating this article. It will certainly be useful as it raises important Constitutional issues. I hope you (or another contributor) will consider adding additional information, including the procedural history.

To reply, leave a comment on NDSteve10's talk page.

Learn more about page curation.

Hi. Heh, thanks. I just took another look at PageCuration. It's still fairly neat. I filed two bugs against it: bugzilla:49631 and bugzilla:49632.

Yes, it'd be great if someone expanded that article. ;-) I laid most of the groundwork, so it should be pretty easy to do so now. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:30, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

EdwardsBot adds a message to the end of forum page

Dear colleague, I see that EdwardsBot added a topic to the bottom of a forum page at the Russian Wikipedia. A new topic needs to be added to the top of the page (after {{/Шапка}}<!-- Пожалуйста, начинайте новую тему ниже этой строки. Не забудьте добавить название созданной темы в комментарий к правке между /* и */ --> and an empty line); the oldest topic not yet archived stays at the bottom. When a new topic is added to the bottom, this topic has a chance to be not attended by users. Today, I moved the topic to the top manually. Gamliel Fishkin (talk) 04:01, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) As I understand it (partly by checking the bot source

user_talk.edit(text=body_text_final, summary=subject_line, section='new', bot=1, skipmd5=True)

partly by what has been posted before, both here and at User talk:EdwardsBot, the bot uses the API query 'action=edit&section=new', which always creates a new section at the bottom of the page, just as if you had clicked the "New section" tab. The bot has no way of knowing that it shouldn't post by adding a new section. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:00, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi. This has come up previously. EdwardsBot won't support this feature until MediaWiki supports this feature. bugzilla:31919 is the relevant bug. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:43, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Polluted categories

Good to have BernsteinBot up and working again on the category DBR's, even if it does mean a whole lot of work for us! I've had a skim of Wikipedia:Database reports/Polluted categories and I've not found one yet that actually is polluted. Maybe someone's fixed them all since Saturday, I'm guessing it's a bot glitch. I don't suppose you could have a look? Cheers.Le Deluge (talk) 18:33, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Join us this Sunday for the Great American Wiknic!

	Great American Wiknic DC at Meridian Hill Park
	You are invited to the Great American Wiknic DC at the James Buchanan Memorial at Meridian Hill Park. We would love to see you there, so sign up and bring something fun for the potluck! :)

Boilerplate message generously borrowed from Wikimedia NYC. To unsubscribe from future DC area event notifications, remove your name from this list.

Harej (talk) 15:50, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

This message contains a stray </div>. Also, the Wiknic has been postponed until Sunday, June 30 due to the weather. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:40, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Your assistance please

You deleted the redirect Ahmed Adnan Ahjam. Your entry in the deletion log says: "deleted page Ahmed Adnan Ahjam (csd r1)" I tried to trace the basename it pointed to and the {{afd}} the authorized its deletion. Could you help me by telling me where it pointed? Geo Swan (talk) 21:39, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

[7]. You created the redirect that pointed to the main article back in 2008, if you weren't aware. Hope that helps. Killiondude (talk) 03:26, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

FYI

Wikipedia talk:Editor engagement#Kvetchin'. I'd welcome your input. --Ori.livneh (talk) 05:26, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I commented over there. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:37, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

X!'s Edit Counter

I initiated an RfC about X!'s Edit Counter here. I understand you control EdwardsBot. Is it a global bot, or a local bot? I want to spread news of this RfC to garner participation. Please see the RfC for details.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 13:16, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

EdwardsBot is both a global bot and a local bot. PiRSquared17 has already spammed nearly every wiki about that RFC using the global bot. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:39, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Uh, sorry? πr² (t • c) 02:01, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you're apologizing or asking for a clarification as to what I meant. If it's the latter, <https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Global_message_delivery/Spam&oldid=5594586>. If it's the former, don't worry about it. There's no good guidance in this area (i.e., when it's appropriate to notify every wiki about a proposed change). Though it'd be nice if there were. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:31, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

For the record: it was the former (it seemed reasonable at the time, but I wasn't 100% sure). Anyway, I have a question about GMD: would it be possible to add a language ("lang") argument to {{target}}? Currently, some people who spam translated messages use CONTENTLANG to determine the language. Instead, this could be done with some argument like $lang or %(lang)s, based on the {{target}} argument. The reason for using a separate argument would be that it always uses English on multilingual wikis, even for users who want it in their own (or potentially discussion pages in other languages, e.g. d:project:bistro). It could still assume that it's the content language if no argument is provided. Or maybe I'm overthinking this, and nobody really cares. :) πr² (t • c) 03:21, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi. I don't think a "lang" template parameter for {{target}} is something I have any interest in coding or supporting. EdwardsBot basically copies and pastes whatever is on m:Global message delivery/Spam to each individual wiki. Some people have recently used a combination of {{CONTENTLANG}} and template substitution ("subst:") with a "#switch:", which then gets processed on each individual wiki. For EdwardsBot to be able to customize the content delivery on a per-user (as opposed to a per-wiki) basis, it would have to futz with the content from m:Global message delivery/Spam a bit (replacing {{CONTENTLANG}} with the value of the "lang" template parameter, as appropriate), which I'd really like to avoid.

Given that nearly all messages that are sent out are in English and given that I'd really like to see the entire system redone (preferably in a MediaWiki extension), it doesn't seem like a good use of resources for me to add this enhancement request. That said, I'd gladly accept a pull request (the code is here) and this type of feature is certainly something to consider in a rewritten tool. And as much as I've been dragging my feet on doing work on this script, if there's actual user demand for such a feature, I could be coaxed into adding it (much like I was coaxed into adding support for target subpages that use {{#time:}}). --MZMcBride (talk) 21:26, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

test

--Anas1712 (talk) 18:39, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Success. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:33, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

VE Bugs and D-Day

Hi. Reviewing the feedback page for the VisualEditor, the amount of bugs opened in the last 48 hours is somewhat amusing given that they want to deploy it to everyone in a matter of days.

Am I searching/reading Bugzilla correctly? [8] Does that mean there are currently 289 bugs that are both confirmed and unfixed?

Also, I'm not sure why the feedback page has part of the title in italics...

Cheerio. Killiondude (talk) 19:52, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Part of the title was in italics because a template was transcluded, not linked. I've fixed it. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:26, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi.

I'm not sure about VE bug counts. Stats are hard.

I've told the VE team repeatedly to slow down a bit, but there's an underlying view that volunteer time isn't valuable and if new editors make a mess with VisualEditor, other editors will eventually clean up the various messes. It's somewhat true, of course, but it exposes a fairly awful part of Wikimedia Foundation culture, I think. It relates back to a view that Wikimedians are customers, not colleagues. Running experiments on users without consent or making a mess in articles is considered okay.

I think you'll enjoy this addition. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:40, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

P.S. Thanks for the fix, Redrose64.

Thank you, Redrose. I thought it was purposefully done.

MZ, it's disheartening to hear that they want the regulars to clean up after the newbies if and when VE makes a mess. I think if I were more presently invested in the project it would be more upsetting. The only thing that keeps me returning here is the fact that reading some of the dramaz makes me chuckle and I want people who use WP to see accurate info. I really dislike TheMovement™ and the WMF at this point and have for some time. But I think you know this.

What the crap is "strategic change management" and how one become a center of knowledge for it? Likewise, "fighting for content online" makes me cringe. I'm both amazed and upset that there is a person or are people who sit around thinking of these inane wordings. Killiondude (talk) 05:11, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Re:User:EdwardsBot/Spam

Thanks. I keep making mistakes with this because, for reasons clear only to past me, I send this out at midnight. Naturally enough, I'm not at my perkiest then. J Milburn (talk) 09:45, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Watcher tool count

I use your "Watcher" tool sometimes to find how many people are watching a page but the information most often returned is the vague "fewer than 30" watchers. Why does your tool not report that number if it is fewer? I used it just now because I often notice that after I edit smaller articles, there is a significant jump in views of the page that day or the next, as though the page is watched, or some people are quietly following my work! Fortunately, I am not paranoid.

Just now, I tried your "Stalker" tool and there is a heading in the results column, "First deleted edit". What is a deleted edit? I have seen mentions of those in another tool which counts an editor's edits. Thank you. — O'Dea (talk) 16:47, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Regarding the first, the Page information link in the left margin (under "Toolbox") also states "Number of page watchers Fewer than 30 watchers" in such cases, so it's consistent. Users with admin rights can see the exact figure.

Regarding deleted edits: there are two ways that this might happen. The most common is when you have edited a page, and that page is subsequently deleted. Your edits then disappear from your contributions. The other way that an edit might be deleted is oversight, which is quite rare. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:50, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply. Why is the data suppressed about the number of watchers if it is fewer than thirty? It seems arbitrary and daft on the face of it. Now that I know the data exists, I cannot imagine any reason why the figure should be hidden from general readers. — O'Dea (talk) 19:30, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

There is a deliberate reason why it just says "fewer than 30", but I was not party to that decision. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:29, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay, well, my questions are really directed at MZMcBride. He might know as he had access to the data to create his watchers tool. — O'Dea (talk) 20:16, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

User:MZMcBride/watcher. There were concerns about privacy and giving out target info to ne'er-do-wells. Killiondude (talk) 21:47, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I do not understand this explanation. If it is known that an article has, say, 23 watchers, that figure does not identify anyone; or even if an article has only one watcher – the identity is not revealed by that figure, either. And if I watch an article, how is it a breach of my privacy for anyone to know I am watching it? All my actions are already a matter of public record from contribution history, so what does it matter? — O'Dea (talk) 03:06, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

As I say, there is a deliberate reason, but it does not concern the identification of individuals. It concerns the level of attention that a page gets. If a page has many watchers, any damage that occurs (whether vandalism, libel or just plain newbie mistakes) is likely to be spotted quickly and fixed. The fewer the watchers, the less likely it is to be detected. An individual intent on causing damage that is likely to be left unfixed may wish to target those pages with the fewest watchers - ideally zero. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:12, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi. The rule was/is imposed by the Toolserver system administrators. I disagree with the rule (vandalism, libel, and other bad edits are commonly caught through Special:RecentChanges and pages with thirty inactive watchers are no better protected than pages with one active watcher), but the Toolserver admins are allowed to set policy like this.

The watcher tool is largely deprecated in favor of the core info action (example). The info action now includes a per-wiki configuration variable allowing the obfuscation threshold to be raised or lowered (I believe the German Wikipedia has reduced its threshold or plans to). The limit is particularly daft on sites with very few active contributors (most Wikimedia wikis), but it's easy to scare users with the fear of vandalism and BLP violations rather than simply exposing the data to all. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:48, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to you both for the latest replies; now I understand why the threshold has been set at 30, although I disagree with the policy. I think the majority of articles have fewer than 30 watchers, so the Watcher tool is mostly neutered by that very high threshold, so it is largely ineffective as a result, which is a pity. I was unable to see how to adjust the info action "per-wiki configuration variable allowing the obfuscation threshold to be raised or lowered", but that is academic, anyway, since policy forbids the ordinary editor from peering inside the "fewer than 30" data. Thanks again. — O'Dea (talk) 08:52, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

A per-wiki configuration variable is held in a file called LocalSettings.php, which can only be altered by a very few users with extremely high privileges - the system administrators (not to be confused with Wikipedia administrators, who have far fewer rights). Basically, if you can't get a shell prompt on the Wikipedia servers, you can't even read the LocalSettings.php file, let alone alter it. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:26, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

EdwardsBot blocked temporarily

Per Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive250#URGENT, I have soft-blocked the bot for 3 hours in the hope that this is long enough to allow a fix to be found to the problem of the bot being given the wrong newsletter to deliver... Obviously, the bot can be unblocked by any admin once the issue is resolved. Thanks, Bencherlite^Talk 23:16, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry MZMcBride. Totally my fault as I forgot to change the recipient paramater and didn't want the newsletter to be sent to over 200 people who don't need it. :( --Dom497 (talk) 23:26, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Deep sigh. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:50, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

EdwardsBot: syntax error

Hi, your bot EdwardsBot delivered some news about the enabling of the Universal Language Selector. Unfortunately, there was a syntax error: You forgot a closing small-tag. Hence, the subsequent section appear in smaller sricpt. I already fixed this error in german Wikipedia. Could you please let your bot run through the other projects to fix this error? Regards --Schniggendiller talk 13:20, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

This was not the fault of MZMcBride, nor of EdwardsBot. The fault lay in this edit which has a <small> where there should have been a </small>. I suggest you take it up with Guillom (talk · contribs) who made that edit. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:34, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

That is entirely my fault, and I apologize. I tested the text, unfortunately the error wasn't noticeable. I'm really, really sorry. guillom 13:47, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

This is now fixed. guillom 15:28, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

As we say in the MediaWiki development world, more like a syntax terror! Thanks for cleaning up after the bot. Let me know if you want to discuss a better system for these types of deliveries. It's becoming increasingly clear that using EdwardsBot is not a sustainable long-term solution. --MZMcBride (talk) 15:37, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Echo/Notifications/Flow has been heralded as a solution to this problem, so in the long term it's probably what we'll end up using for many of the messages currently delivered by EdwardsBot. I don't know when that functionality will be available, however. In the meantime, I'm not sure it would make sense to spend too much time on an interim system (I'm not sure what that could look like either, frankly). If you have ideas, I'm happy to discuss them :) guillom 15:57, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

guillom, I have to admit that I forgot to check news in this thread in enWP :-( Sorry! And thank you for fixing it! Regards --Schniggendiller talk 19:08, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Gravedancing

Re:this. Seriously, I expect better from you. I don't accept gravedancing from anyone and if I see it again from you, you will be blocked. Worm^TT(talk) 14:58, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Who died? --MZMcBride (talk) 14:59, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Hilarious. Worm^TT(talk) 15:00, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I think my edit was pretty objectively funny and it certainly wasn't intended to be mean-spirited. He does both ragequit and call people assholes on a regular basis. It was closer to social commentary than an attack, but just as well. --MZMcBride (talk) 15:10, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

You repeated the gravedancing, despite having been reverted by WTT.

Have you been called "asshole" lately, on-Wiki or off? Do you think that ever happened to Pablo Picasso? What is the difference between you two? Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:21, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I don't think dear Pablo would have minded being called an asshole... -- Hillbillyholiday ^talk 11:05, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Given that Eric is likely to be frustrated by the fact that he is blocked, making comments like that – where it is open to interpretation whether the comment is mean-spirited or in jest – is probably not a good idea. I appreciate your opinion on this, but I feel as if we should err on the side of caution. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 15:24, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Both Mr. WormTT and Mr. Kiefer.Wolfowitz seem to have a very unusual definition of "gravedancing" (or more accurately dancing on someone's grave). Nobody died. And suggesting that a short block on the English Wikipedia is equivalent to death is surely fairly sick and distasteful. I'd recommend figuring out exactly what the hell it is the two of you are referring to before vaguely threatening blocks.

I don't believe I've been called an asshole by anyone lately. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for a number of my colleagues. :-) I'm not sure I understand the reference to Picasso; at this point, I'm more familiar with his lesser-known protégé.

Recognizing patterns of behavior is often a mechanism for addressing them. Malleus, much like many others, regularly threatens to leave, but then quickly returns. Is there harm in saying so? --MZMcBride (talk) 15:34, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Morning MZMcBride. I apologise for not replying last night, though that is fortuitous for you as I would probably have blocked you. However, since things have calmed down, I thought instead I'd write to you and impress upon you the issues with your actions. First things first gravedancing, as I'm sure you know, is common wiki-parlance for "gloating over a significant block or retirement". Perhaps this search will help you spot the usage, and that's just in Wikipedia: space. Whether or not your comments were accurate, placing them on Eric's talk page was insulting, uncivil and unacceptable. The harm was not so much what you said, but where you said it. As to your "comical" forgery of his signature, that is absolutely "forbidden" - not just discouraged - forbidden. Worm^TT(talk) 07:34, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

If you had blocked last night, it seems like it would be punitive rather than preventative since MZ didn't post there again after replying here (unless I'm missing something). Not to say that the original posting(s) were righteous. It is interesting, however, that users like Eric, Mallues, et al can seemingly say whatever the heck they want over a longer period of time while when MZ makes a couple of questionable comments he is threatened (more seriously) with a block. I do appreciate your work around, Wikipedia, Worm, and this latter point isn't to call you out specifically; lately I'm doing a bit more philosophizing about Wikipedia than usual. Killiondude (talk) 19:04, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Nobody was gloating over a block or a retirement. It'd be especially difficult to attempt to gloat over a retirement as there was no retirement, of course. And significance has little to do with alleged grave-dancing. If you're going to use quotation marks, please provide a source for attribution. Otherwise I'll just assume you "made up the quote."

My edits were simply an observation of patterns of behavior (ragequitting + calling people an asshole). I would think Malleus, of all people, would appreciate identifying his behavior for what it is. With all due respect, it's really not your place to lecture me about user blocks: I've given out and received far more user blocks than you. :-) Thank you for not escalating the situation—it demonstrates a respectable level of wisdom and maturity on your part.

Regarding user signatures, I wouldn't put too much stock in Wikipedia:Signatures. It's quickly headed toward obsolescence (probably within the next year). In some ways, it seems similarly hyperbolic to describe my edit as signature forgery as it is to describe it as grave-dancing. Outside of the wiki world, these terms have very real and significant definitions and implications. Please be careful with your words. You act as though someone was attempting to commit identity theft when it was really just a simple (and amusing!) joke. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:18, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

• You left me something similar as well, and I didn't enjoy it. It was a bunch of shit anyway, since I wasn't "enraged"--I was sad, and still am, and I dropped my bit because of the words and actions of some now-former colleagues. Diva, pissy queen (is that what you said elsewhere?)--I could get all admin and say those are personal attacks, but apparently "asshole" is the only kind of personal attack that's frowned upon here. You also seem to have missed that I resigned my sysop status and didn't announce any kind of retirement (which I've never done anyway), so your comment showed you to be a very poor reader. But it's shitty commentary and personal accusations like that which will drive people away. And that's serious business. I am not sure that I've ever had negative interactions with you (though my faulty memory is a great blessing to me), and I've always considered you a top-notch editor endowed with plenty of common sense, which made it all the more surprising to see those disparaging sneers. Enjoy your barnstar and your righteousness. I'm going to log out and do other things. Drmies (talk) 14:58, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Hi. I don't believe I called you a diva, I believe I admonished you for feeding a diva (which is what that essay is really about). It isn't about righteousness, it's about exercising restraint and maturity and choosing constructive courses of action over destructive courses of action. As I pointed out in my talk page post, just recently you were running for the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, a position that requires insanely high levels of trust, restraint, maturity, and clue. I mention this as your recent behavior here has caused both supporters of your Board candidacy to reconsider their support and has caused opponents of your Board candidacy to quietly feel re-affirmed that you lack the necessary temperament.

    You're fortunate enough to be in a time and place in life that affords you the free time, capacity, and capability to contribute to "the greatest encyclopedia ever attempted." It's a wild and vast endeavor that needs as much help as it can get. So, no, I won't be joining in whatever pity party is collectively being thrown. I'll even admit that if you asked me to write out the full details of the past two weeks, I wouldn't be able to. Something about Malleus, you, Boing, the word "asshole," blocks, and de-adminnings. The first time it's exciting and fresh, the second time a little less so, but I've watched this episode a few dozen times now and I've grown tired of it. The details have stopped being important.

    Your colleagues put trust in you to serve as a level-headed admin here, which you do in a volunteer capacity, like nearly everyone else. But you shouldn't expect only notes of "how we'll miss you!" when you choose to toss off the privilege of being able to help out around here and hollowly and dramatically announce that you're going on vacation. You'll simply have to forgive me if I misinterpreted your talk page blanking and de-admin request as enraged diva-ry. What was I thinking.

    We're now a few more admins short (thanks for that) and the pile of work to do around here hasn't gotten any smaller. But maybe you feel a bit better now being unshackled from the tremendous weight that adminship and a 10,000-byte talk page carry. Or something.

    My hope is that perhaps, like an adult, you can express what's making you sad here and work to address it. In the meantime, do let me know who these "now-former colleagues" are (names, please); I call bullshit. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:45, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

		The Barnstar of Good Humor
		I for one found it not only fair comment, but gently funny. If everyone could be a bit less serious business, everything would be far less dramatic around here. — Scott • talk 21:26, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo's talk page

Hello, Everyone gets to define "wikibreak" as they see fit, and three edits in four days for a highly active editor is a perfectly acceptable definition. Everyone controls their talk page as they see fit, within narrow limits. Blanking, partial blanking and delegating others to blank is perfectly acceptable. You have many other venues available to discuss edits that Jimbo might occasionally make until July 21. Article talk pages are a good place to start. There is a whole list of other options on his talk page. Thank you. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 18:12, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Everyone most certainly gets to define wikibreak as they see fit, I completely agree.

However, nobody can continue to edit here while disallowing any editing on his or her own talk page. I don't know of any precedent for an admin attempting to turn off his or her own talk page while simultaneously actively editing here. It certainly seems to be against our values and principles, as discussed. (And I'd welcome any further examples of this type of activity, if you have them.)

Blanking or partially blanking one own's talk page is acceptable as it's seen as acknowledgement of receipt, of course. This is not relevant here, though. Please let me know if you have any further thoughts about this. For now, as long as Mr. Jimbo Wales isn't actively editing, there isn't an issue. If he continues to actively edit, the talk page notice will need to be removed. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:17, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps what we have here is a disagreement of the meaning of the word "disallow". As I see it, Jimbo gave several weeks notice of his sabbatical, and his request that people use other venues to discuss things during that time. He hasn't used any powers except persuasion to "disallow" it. A request is not a mandate. The matter was discussed and I told Jimbo that I would remove posts, and that I expected others would do the same. Carrite clearly feels the same way. If I was engaged in ongoing conversations with you, and you said "I am going to be busy with X for three weeks, so let's put this conversation on hold for three weeks", I would honor your request. Please extend the same respect to Jimbo. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:15, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

It isn't about notice. It's about actively editing here while having a restricted talk page. You should be able to see this. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:15, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

DC meetup & dinner on Saturday, July 13!

Please join Wikimedia DC for a social meetup and dinner at Vapiano (near Farragut North/Farragut West) on Saturday, July 13 at 6:00 PM. All Wikipedia/Wikimedia and free knowledge/culture enthusiasts, regardless of editing experience, are welcome to attend! All ages welcome!

For more information and to sign up, please see the meetup page. Hope to see you there! Kirill ^[talk] 00:31, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

I want your clothes, your boots, and your lists of unwatched BLPs..

Greetings! Just been reading your (no doubt totally accurate) biography at "æ", and I noticed you were interested in the BLP problem.

I've got a little project going, where I'm attempting to terminate tabloids. As I'm pretty much clueless when it comes to coding, and the Wikipedia search engine baffles me; the list of popular BLPs there has been compiled by hand. A way of quickly identifying the crappy sources throughout WP would be really handy, but anything you can do to help would be much appreciated. Cheers. Hillbillyholiday ^talk 18:38, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

EdwardsBot in Ruwiki

Strange characters appearing, and no subscription [9]. And Russian forums usually use "newer up" scheme, pls fix. Ignatus (talk) 18:49, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Hrm. Well, yes, that's a fucking mess, isn't it? :-)

Part of the issue is related to the Translate extension, it looks like (the "tvar" nonsense). Part of the issue is related to someone using <code>...</code> instead of <code><nowiki>...</nowiki></code>, it looks like.

Regarding "no subscription," unfortunately I'm not sure what you mean. Can you clarify?

The post order is a MediaWiki issue (cf. bugzilla:15494 and bugzilla:31919). --MZMcBride (talk) 18:56, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I left a note for odder here. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:04, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

If you follow the Give feedback link in that message, you'll see that there are several posts on this problem. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:06, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure. But I didn't fuck up the bot run (nor did EdwardsBot). There were typos in the global message that was sent out (note the misplaced <tvar> tags and missing <nowiki> tags there). I'm beginning to think it's time to initialize the access lists, though I'm not sure that will really solve the issues we're seeing. :-/ --MZMcBride (talk) 02:12, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/1–1000 intermittently not updating

{{talkback|BernsteinBot|Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused non-free files|ts=16:52, 9 July 2013 (UTC)}} Stefan2 (talk) 16:52, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Exciting thread, that. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:33, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

You're Invited: Luce and Lunder Edit-a-thon at the Smithsonian

File:SAAM facade.jpg American Art Museum

Luce and Lunder Edit-a-thon at the Smithsonian American Art Museum You're invited to the Luce and Lunder Edit-a-thon, part of a series of edit-a-thons organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum to add and expand articles about American art and artists on Wikipedia. This event will include a catered lunch and special tours of the Luce Foundation Center for American Art and the Lunder Conservation Center at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. 9:15 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. on Friday, July 19, 2013 Smithsonian American Art Museum Meet at G Street Lobby (9th St. & G St. NW, Washington, D.C.) Capacity is limited, so please sign up today! If you would not like to receive future messages about meetups, please remove your name from our distribution list. Message delivered by Dominic·t 00:42, 12 July 2013 (UTC).

Luce Foundation Center

Spammer.

I'd really like to see us refrain from holding events on weekdays like this, particularly with such short notice. It's unreasonable to expect anyone but furloughed federal workers, students who happen to be around D.C. for the summer, and the elderly or unemployed to be able to attend these day-long events that occur during the standard workweek.

Also, while delivering this spam, you fucked up my talk page as well as a number of other talk pages. This is what you get for not using EdwardsBot. ;-) Be sure to clean up your mess. If only we had a complement to the "thank" link for me to formally admonish you with. xoxo --MZMcBride (talk) 01:33, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

User preferences

I noticed that you are the author of the script that reports user preferences. I was interested to note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback#Some performance notes that since VE was made the default for IP editors we have seen an 8.6% decline in anonymous editing and that 64% of new editors are using the source editor. I suspect, in keeping with the Law of Unintended Consequences, that there is a large contingent of editors that normally edit anonymously that created accounts simply in order to disable VE. Is it possible to mine that database to find out how many freshly created accounts are using the oldeditor gadget?—Kww(talk) 19:48, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Knock knock?—Kww(talk) 05:52, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Who's there?

I assume you're referring to Wikipedia:Database reports/User preferences. User preferences are considered private, of course. Anonymized data is available and can be published in aggregate, but in order to find out how many freshly created accounts are using the oldeditor gadget, you'd need to look at the non-anonymized data. Is this technically possible? Sure, but it requires having access to the underlying data, which only shell users have.

I suppose it's possible to file a ticket in Bugzilla requesting aggregate data about the age of accounts that have enabled this new gadget, but I have no idea if the request would be fulfilled. I know for sure that you'll never be able to get non-aggregated data, but you may be able to find a shell user willing to answer a specific question or two if you ask politely and can give a reasonable justification. Hope this helps. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:17, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Editing!

I miss you. kmccoy (talk) 07:57, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

I miss you more. <3 --MZMcBride (talk) 08:53, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

IP responsible for vandalism

Please immediately revert your deletion of User:80.177.10.254, which has been used by Ironholds and which has been used for vandalism and harassment. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 13:40, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Er, MZMcBride does not have that ability; however, Ironholds does. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:32, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Awkward. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:59, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

It was deleted by MZ in 2008, with the reasoning that the user blanked the page. MZ is not currently an admin, but none of what you've said seem relevant to a user-requested deletion in their own userpage. Should there be other reasons for requesting the undeletion, they do not appear clear to me at this time from your statement. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 16:51, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Striking the above as I misunderstood the grounds for the original deletion, but indeed it was deleted back in 2008 :) Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 17:37, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Kiefer. There's an ongoing Arbitration case between you and Mr. Ironholds. Even if I could undelete the page, I wouldn't get involved here. Any admin has my blessing to reverse this deletion (it was deleted under CSD U2: user pages of IPs are generally considered ownerless) or you can file a formal undeletion request, if you can't find a willing admin. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:59, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

P.S. That IP address has some equally ... interesting edits at Meta-Wiki.

And simplewiki. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 17:27, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

"bugzilla:42616"

What was this edit for? Now I can't move the page back.—Ryulong (琉竜) 06:24, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Please see User talk:MZMcBride/Archive 36#bugzilla:42616, User talk:MZMcBride/Archive 36#Mystery edit and User talk:MZMcBride/Archive 36#bugzilla:42616 (2). --Redrose64 (talk) 11:00, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Well now I can't revert a page move and my technical request was turned by Anthony Appleyard into a full WP:RM discussion.—Ryulong (琉竜) 20:19, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Probably quite wise on Anthony's part, given your tendency to edit war over article titles such as this. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 21:20, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Jaroslav Šerých (reaction to post by LaraBot)

Thanks for advice, I have added references and also extended the article little bit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Serych (talk • contribs) 15:54, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Wonderful, thank you! --MZMcBride (talk) 21:25, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Template:Signature listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Template:Signature. Since you had some involvement with the Template:Signature redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). Rezonansowy (talk • contribs) 04:17, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

VE testing strategy

We are colliding all over, and I just wanted to be clear that I think that VE can eventually be something that works well and satisfies a large group of editors. What I firmly believe to be wrong is to test software by relying on people using it by accident and out of ignorance.

As it stands, VE is so incomplete that it cannot address most articles. It can't edit tables, a feature common to most articles. It can't even cut-and-past text from one section of an article to another without losing formatting and references. There's no plan that I'm aware of to support cutting-and-pasting between articles. Add that to the hundreds of bugs in the features they did attempt to implement, and this version is clearly in the alpha or beta phase: worth testing, worth evaluating, but not something that we place in a position where unsuspecting new accounts and anonymous users wind up using it without warning.—Kww(talk) 20:25, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi.

I think we mostly agree. :-)

I've written about this topic (at a high level) at m:experiments and I've posted to both wikitech-l and wikimedia-l fairly extensively about not treating editors as lab rats or trying to trick them into certain new products/features/whatever. VisualEditor is one example, but there are many others.

What I'm seeing most clearly right now is that we need to:

• kill that awful animation for section edit links;
• better advertise that the software is beta software; and
• make it easier to opt-in and opt-out out of the software (easier than even the checkbox in Special:Preferences).

These are what I listed at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Improvements.

These are all actionable items, though obviously there's disagreement about how to best implement them. Any help you can give in getting these items moving forward would be wonderful and really appreciated. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:33, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

VE comments

Hi! I saw your VE tagging comments to people on the RFC page. I think there is something wrong with that filter. I checked my contributions and it lists only ONE edit tagged with visualeditor and I have been using it whenever I could, when it didn't need editing navboxes and stuff. I even used it to test adding references (it's not flawless...), editing and adding/removing images, editing tables etc and none of this is showing up in this contribution filter. Kind regards Teemeah ^{편지 (letter)} 08:56, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi Teemeah. I think you may have set &limit=1 in the URL. For a listing of your VisualEditor edits, check out this link. I'll adjust {{VE edits}} as well to no longer specify a limit. --MZMcBride (talk) 08:59, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

• I think your repeated personal question could be regarded as badgering. I haven't scrutinised your editing habits recently, nor asked you to personalise a position you have taken; I don't personally approve of your doing so to those who have expressed an opinion on an RfC, but feel free of course to revert or modify any of my edits with which you have substantive issues. Yngvadottir (talk) 12:32, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Wikipedians often mangle and manipulate all sorts of words, so I'm sure my edits could be regarded as many things. :-) As for a personal question, I'm not sure what you're referring to. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:59, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
• I'll second that comment about badgering - I came here to ask MZMcBride to recuse him/herself from the Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Default State RFC discussion. MZMcBride is repeatedly challenging people who support "op-in." I can see that many people have strong opinions about the VE. Of the 227 "op-in" comments MZMcBride has posted 37 queries that amount to challenges of that person's feelings. MZMcBride has zero comments for the the 26 who have felt "Opt-Out" is better. Please lay off and let people decide and comment. If they are deciding based on wrong information then that's a marketing issue for VE. Related to this is that I'm also not developing any further understanding of the issue from MZMcBride's comments. They are not moving WP forward. --Marc Kupper|talk 18:05, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
  • I don't think you have a good grasp of what badgering is. RFCs aren't simply votes. They're supposed to also be a discussion, though many people have decided to simply sign their name without elaborating on why they feel a particular way. This is a Bad Thing.

    When discussing VisualEditor, it can be pretty jarring to see people comment about how they don't like it or feel it's being forced upon them when they've apparently never saved a single edit here using VisualEditor. How does that work, exactly? They're being forced to use VisualEditor, except they're capable of regularly editing without using it? Perhaps these editors similarly have a poor grasp of the verb "force."

    If you're going to use "quotation marks," be sure to quote something: "op-in" doesn't make any sense and your repeated use of it makes you look quite silly in your remarks. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:59, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

• Jarring or no, the proponents of VE - or more accurately those defending the way it was implemented - will have to accept the objections. And I disagree that those objections are not being articulated. There is a regrettable tendency on display daily at Village Pump (technical) to belittle the concerns of those who do not use informed technical jargon to characterise problems. However, this project runs on all our volunteer effort. And VE's target was supposedly the less technically analytical user. Fundamentally, though, personalisation is inappropriate, in my view (and together with the response above, implies you have not considered the objections people have taken the time to express). That was my point and I hope you have taken it on board. Yngvadottir (talk) 04:52, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
  • I think the objections will be accepted. Nobody thinks that the blame is one-sided here. Both the wiki communities and the VisualEditor team have acted very poorly throughout this process at times.

    I just finished writing up m:VisualEditor/Complaints to capture some of the recurring complaints I've been seeing about VisualEditor.

    It isn't about using technical jargon, it's about dialing down the rhetoric (probably on both sides). Some users have written abusive and hostile comments about VisualEditor, likely out of frustration. You can find examples at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Default State RFC, Wikipedia talk:VisualEditor/Default State RFC, and elsewhere. I understand that most power-users will not want to use VisualEditor. With somewhere around a million logged actions on Wikimedia wikis, I think I can safely call myself a power-user. I generally prefer wikitext editing. However, that doesn't mean that every objection being tossed out has merit or that every objector has grounds to speak. Many people are simply jumping on the bandwagon, so to speak, as VisualEditor is an easy target to hate. It's a mob mentality and it's a bit gross to watch unfold.

    The VisualEditor team, for its part, seems to have taken great pains to fuel the flames with very poor choices (as documented at m:VisualEditor/Complaints now). Some of these mistakes may ultimately be fatal. We'll see.

    A plague on both houses. Neither the editing communities (not just English Wikipedians, but also German Wikipedians and others) nor the VisualEditor team have acted perfectly here. Perhaps this is to be expected, though I would hope after over a decade, these types of large changes would be better managed and better received. Sigh. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:04, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

  • (edit conflict) The thing that caught my attention is you made personal comments about many people. Specifically, at least twenty times you pointed out that someone has zero, or very few, VE edits and used that as a basis to imply their opinion is invalid. I got a sense you are being overly defensive about the VE. That's why I suggested taking a break from that RFC. I have no problem with the "forced on them" comments. The default behavior for logged in users was that VE became the default for the [Edit] links. It was forced on everyone. They need not have saved any edits to discover that. I noticed that only one IP editor has contributed a comment to the RFC. IP editors have not had the VE forced on them and so it's understandable why they have not been jumping into the RFC discussion the way logged in editors have. As it is, 444 users have contributed to the discussion so far. While it's still a faction of the 121,250 active editors over 400 editors chiming in with thoughts seems excellent. --Marc Kupper|talk 06:45, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
    • In a discussion about about VisualEditor, whether someone has used VisualEditor seems directly relevant to understanding his or her perspective, I think. I politely asked users to clarify why they felt a certain way, particularly when many editors have never saved a single edit with VisualEditor here. For some of them, their clarifications reflected that they had tried to use VisualEditor and simply couldn't. For others, it became somewhat clear that they were simply opposing the software for the sake of opposing it. The questions and answers actually bring value to an RFC, unlike simply signing one's name and scurrying off (that's called voting).

      The VisualEditor experience for anonymous users is identical to that of logged-in users on the English Wikipedia, as I understand it. If you know otherwise, please share. Neither group is being forced to use VisualEditor and the suggestions to the contrary are simply dishonest. As pointed out repeatedly, users can simply click the "edit source" option at any time. There are likely other terms that are applicable to this user interface approach, but the claims that anyone is being "forced" to use VisualEditor are simply bullshit.

      As for the involvement of over 400 editors, I'm surprised it's not higher given the enormous exposure of the discussion (cf. MediaWiki:Sitenotice). I don't think there's much value being added in additional participation and as I wrote below, it seems to be slowly creating an ugly storm. Having just read Wikipedia:VisualEditor/August 2013 update, it seems that the Wikimedia Foundation's position on making VisualEditor opt-in remains unchanged. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see what happens next. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:57, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I've found it interesting to watch how what could have been a simple "oops, we'll take that back into the shop and work on it a while" has turned into a PR debacle, and how many users can't express a negative opinion intelligently.—Kww(talk) 05:28, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I think it's a bit worse than a PR debacle. Community backlash to the VisualEditor team's handling of the deployment is severe and will likely have long-lasting repercussions, both for VisualEditor and for future large projects. There's a further erosion of trust between the editing community and the Wikimedia Foundation. And we're likely headed to a dangerous and incredibly uncomfortable area where on-wiki consensus dictates certain actions and the Wikimedia Foundation has to decide whether to follow those prescribed actions or ignore them (at a likely significant cost). --MZMcBride (talk) 05:46, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm a normal editor and from my perspective, it does not look that bad. Most people don't carry grudges about computer glitches. --Marc Kupper|talk 06:58, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I'd hardly call Wikipedia power-users "most people." ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 06:59, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I sincerely do not understand why you care about the feelings of the Wikimedia decision makers or the devs, here. Or even why you care about the future of this piece of software, to which WP:TNT aptly applies. Nor am I pleased to be tarred with brushes such as "metapedian" or even "power user" in this context. This is not a software experimentation platform, an exercise in social classification, or even a profit-making enterprise. It's a crowdsourced encyclopedia project. By implementing this in such a grotesquely incompetent and high-handed fashion, Wikimedia have earned the distrust of anyone who just wants to get on with writing and maintaining the encyclopedia. They've made it perfectly clear they have other fish to fry. Thank you for writing up yet another summary of what went wrong here, but as I responded to your unnecessarily personal question, the state of the VE feedback page the day before everyone was forced - yes, forced - to load this piece of junk (perhaps you forget the poor editors who managed to report that it crashed their machines, since no true off-switch was implemented, just a gadget that one had to hunt for, which still did not prevent this truly hideous piece of software from loading in the background? perhaps you simply forget that not everyone has a fancy computer or a good connection? Wikimedia either forgot or doesn't care because awwwwwww the poor devs worked hard producing this abomination) was replete with serious bugs, most of them with the answer "We won't be fixing that for a while" and which added up to it being not ready for use to build an encyclopedia. That thing we are supposed to be doing here. Respondents at an RfC do not owe you, Wikimedia, the poor, poor devs who were paid good money to do a job they did appallingly, or anyone else an answer to personal questions about the basis of their responses. We should all be grateful tehre are still any editors on this project, let alone editors willing to take the time to articulate yet again, in the face of continually being ignored and belittled, their concerns and yes, their suggestions for fixing this mess. If Wikimedia wants to attract and retain editors it should get out of the way of those who want to work on and protect the encyclopedia. Please feel free to quote me. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:10, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Wow.

You're speaking from what seems like a pretty angry place here. I understand and appreciate your frustration.

VisualEditor is a big project that didn't simply happen in a vacuum. The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees (your Trustees) made it a top priority, which is part of the reason that the Wikimedia Foundation made it a top priority. Faced with a growing concern about editor retention and the ability of anyone to be able to participate in the creation of the sum of all human knowledge, a new endeavor was undertaken to make editing easier for most users.

The inability of many users to be able to contribute to the encyclopedia (or the dictionary or the quote book or the ...) made this project a necessity. While wikimarkup built Wikipedia and its sister projects, there's a pretty prevalent view that wikimarkup alone cannot sustain it. In 2013, there's an expectation on the part of users that there will be some kind of visual editor (e.g., similar to that of WordPress), and so the VisualEditor project was started in order to bring in such an editor, side-by-side with the source editor.

Have mistakes been made? Absolutely. Removing the user preference was a mistake. Pushing forward at a rapid pace with arbitrary deadlines was a mistake. The section-edit animation was a mistake. &c.

I got asked a similar question elsewhere ("why are you such an ardent defender of the Wikimedia Foundation devs?"). I honestly don't think I am. I'm defending common sense. We need a visual editor and an active group of people are trying to develop one (however haphazardly). Rather than simply attack and banish them, I think we should instead focus on ways to make it better or make it easier to get it out of the way of those who don't want to use it or can't use it.

I do probably have a different perspective than most editors here as I work more closely with the developers (both on VisualEditor and on many other projects). I've seen the thousands of hours they've put in so far and the tens of thousands of hours they have ahead. Creating VisualEditor is no easy task even on modern hardware. It becomes substantially more difficult when trying to support every operating system and Web browser that Wikimedians use, each with their own quirks and bugs. Does that it make it acceptable for VisualEditor to crash anyone's browser? Of course not. Those kinds of bugs are the highest priority. But I would never call the work that's been done on VisualEditor appalling. There's a lot of bad software in the world and VisualEditor certainly has a lot of bugs still, but at least (on my modern machine) it works. And for many other editors (as we see in Special:RecentChanges), it works for them too. Hundreds of people are making good edits with VisualEditor every day and with any luck, that number will only grow as VisualEditor's performance improves and stabilizes.

Prior to that RFC even existing, I blasted the VisualEditor team for the removal of the user preference to completely disable VisualEditor and it was eventually restored. Now that VisualEditor can be completely disabled, there's a page at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Improvements that tries to focus on actionable improvements that can be made to the software. (And, not that anybody is paying attention and not that I can take credit, but following a clearer articulation of the highest-priority issues being faced by the editing community both on this talk page and on that subpage, we've already seen some efforts made to make things better: Wikipedia:VisualEditor/August 2013 update. That awful section-edit animation is dead. The user interface is more consistent between namespaces. The beta warning is more prominent.)

VisualEditor is still beta and it is nowhere near perfect (and never will be perfect, unfortunately). However, what I'm struck by most in your reply here (besides the worrying levels of anger and frustration) is your use of "Wikimedia" rather than "the Wikimedia Foundation." You and I are Wikimedia. James Forrester and Erik Möller are Wikimedia. Everyone participating in that RFC and on this talk page are Wikimedia. Wikimedia is a shared partnership between a non-profit foundation and a global community (editing and non-editing). Many times the Wikimedia Foundation disagrees with the editing community and many times the editing community (vehemently) disagrees with the Wikimedia Foundation. But the two have proved to be somewhat necessary in order to build and sustain Wikimedia.

This will likely come off as dickish, but I'll say it anyway: Marc's point above was that things weren't so bad and that people wouldn't hold grudges. Your response, as a local administrator in good standing, was to vent about the gadgets fiasco and other issues that have, for now, been resolved. Will people hold grudges over the poor deployment of VisualEditor? You bet your ass they will. Rightly or wrongly, justly or unjustly. We can only hope that eventually many users find forgiveness.

Whether you still want to talk after this or not, I do want to say thank you for all of your posts here and elsewhere. And I mean it. I appreciate you not only taking the time to make them, but also getting us (Wikimedia) closer to a better articulation of the frustration that users are feeling/facing during the development and deployment of VisualEditor. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:59, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Gosh, I wonder why I would be angry? As opposed to "jarred" because people will not genuflect while meekly holding out correctly filled in bug reports and tugging their forelocks? They made me an admin (see my RfA - it was an unusual one), so I regard it as my duty to stick my neck out in defence of the encyclopedia. No, I am not the Wikimedia Foundation. The Wikimedia Foundation is a bloated bureacracy that feeds on Wikipedia and to a lesser extent the other projects. Our hard work in a noble cause pays their salaries, because it persuades people to donate money to keep the servers running. Instead like any bureaucracy they siphon off the money. (They couldn't even throw a bone to the Toolserver.) I had hoped against hope that this time, for the first time, the Foundation would not muck up the implementation. It was blatantly obvious that the devs had done a lousy job - the feedback from the true beta test was horrendous to read, and I saw "We're shooting for July". Then it went live on July 2 - as the default. The result was an entirely predictable catastrophe and I will not forgive anyone involved. This has hurt the encyclopedia. It's also hurt the editing community. Who knows how many people have simply stopped trying to edit (we have a significant trickle of evidence that it has prevented people from making edits; once again, remember that your computer and your connection are not indicative of the circumstances others face), and yes, the damage is very real in terms of trust. I am almost ready to be blocked for incivility because this has been the last straw for me. The responses to people's complaints and bug reports were contemptuous. We do not work for Wikimedia Foundation, and I am two degrees of separation from a host of programmers who could have done a better job. Unless you have internalized a model where we are beholden to the Foundation, this makes the Foundation dangerous to the encyclopedia. Flow, when it is in turn imposed, will probably be the end of my adminship if I'm even still editing here; truly I wonder whether those fools at Wikimedia even realize Wikipedia is the golden goose that produces all those lovely gold donations. But enough about me. Grilling people at an RfC because you think it's so important to push ahead with this failed implementation, rather than helping to nuke it and replace it with a properly developed and tested one, that you would be so rude to people makes it clear we don't share the same fundamental assumptions, even without the politics. I have a stack of articles I wanted and needed to work on (to illustrate "need", an incomplete transformation of a bad translation into meaningful English) but I'm seriously depressed about whether it's worth it. After all I'm just a "metapedian", the proof being that they made me an admin ... we who actually write and maintain this encyclopedia can't win, Wikimedia doesn't give two cents for the encyclopedia. Not even for the new editors who were their excuse for rushing this through, and who are demonstrating that no, actually, this implementation is not easier to use. They have made it very, very clear that their priorities lie elsewhere. I would be derelict in my duty as an admin if I ever trusted them again. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:13, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Matt (Matt, right?), please don't take this as any kind of "warning", just an attempt to help: please stop making comments in the VE RfC. This is how I frame the problem, I'm not sure if anyone else frames it the same way: there's been a growing awareness and expectation for over 200 years that citizenship implies some kind of right to vote ... even if just occasionally, even if just on some things and not on others. A recurring problem on Wikipedia is that many intuit some sense of citizenship, but feel that their "votes" (when they're brave enough to speak up) are negated. It's probably a bad idea to be the guy who's looking at a wall of "yes" votes and saying things that may be interpreted by some of the voters that their votes don't, or shouldn't, count. I'm not talking about the merits of anything you're saying, of course, I'm talking about a big problem with how Wikipedia functions (and doesn't) that we haven't solved, or really even articulated, yet, and that people are very frustrated about. - Dank (push to talk) 16:44, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Who's Matt? --MZMcBride (talk) 17:17, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Oops. - Dank (push to talk) 17:32, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I think concepts of citizenship and voting are much older than 200 years. ;-)

Wikimedia occasionally holds votes (for example, for members of the Wikimedia Foundation of Board of Trustees). But Wikimedia also has old, established principles that (often) voting is evil and, more specifically, Wikipedia is not a democracy or an exercise in political government. So we have to weigh these (sometimes competing) ideas when deciding whether to politely ask users to clarify their comments in a discussion about a piece of software. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:08, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

• I noticed you suggest users having 0 VE edits to elaborate on the issues they're having with VE. I think you're approaching only the particular group of users (between people disliking VE) with the lower anger-level. I was astonished to see how WMF ignored the whole wikipedia community. ^musaz † 20:07, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Hi ^musaz. Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. The Wikimedia Foundation ignored what?

    Broadly, there is precedent for the Wikimedia Foundation ignoring community consensus in the face of requests that violate (larger) core principles. As we even document locally at WP:CONEXCEPT, local community consensus only holds so much power. However, in this case, while the RFC is still underway/ongoing, I'm not sure who or what is being ignored. Can you clarify? --MZMcBride (talk) 20:13, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

    • If WMF had agreed whit community on the launch of VE, i suppose this page should'nt exist. ^musaz † 22:52, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

• User:MZMcBride, as you may or may not be aware, RFCs are meant to be read. As you may or may not be aware, people actually read them, in order to understand the issue at hand. As you may or may not be aware, they sometimes become long and involved, but still, LOTS of people attempt to slog through them. As you may or may not be aware, very few people enjoy reading boilerplate text over and over again. As you may or may not be aware, it often annoys people to no fracking end. As you may or may not be aware, after trying to catch up on the RFC in question, I currently have a strong desire to strangle you -- a feeling I do not recall having had even once during the nine years I have been editing Wikipedia. Please refrain from repetitive boilerplate text; it's extremely annoying, and, as you may or may not have gathered from the responses herein, it can be mistaken as all sorts of things, few of them being 'a sincere attempt to communicate'. Thanks for all your contributions to WP, but suggest you avoid such repetition in the future. You points and point of view appear quite reasoned and valid; they become lost in annoyance generated by nothing more than a misguided approach. Eaglizard (talk) 03:00, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Hi Eaglizard. As you may or may not be aware, each edit made with VisualEditor (VE) is tagged. According to a search of your edits, it looks like you currently have two VisualEditor edits. ;-)

    It's interesting that upon attempting to read that mess of an RFC, this is your great takeaway. That RFC has many examples of some of the worst aspects of Wikipedia; I assure you my polite comments are not among them. Thanks for your feedback, in any case. In the future, I suppose we'll just leave RFCs to be mindless hand-raising activities with little to no discussion about the actual underlying issues and how to best address them. That seems like a much better use of everyone's time and energy. And we'll simply forget that my gentle prodding actually resulted in quite a few healthy discussions, both on this talk page and on that RFC. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:19, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

    • I'm sorry, you have misunderstood me. I am not in any way suggesting you should not participate in RFCs! I am only criticizing your decision to format your points using repetitive boilerplate language; language which clearly gave several editors the feeling of being somehow targeted or investigated. Doing so obscured your points to many of those editors. Nothing about my comment herein implies that your contributions were not both welcome and useful. Its obvious you are working hard to contribute usefully to the VE project; again, I thank you for your efforts. I only raise this suggestion because I think it may make you a more effective communicator. (My reference to strangling you was meant to be humorous, which I thought would be evident from my complete inability to physically harm anyone via this virtual medium.) To repeat: I was only trying to get you to see that your decision to repeat the same badly-chosen phrase over and over again works against the useful goals you are trying to achieve. I apologize for any offense, as I have no desire to be one of the many uselessly offensive editors that seem to abound on WP these days. (NB: I believe in the goals of the VE project, as I noted in my RFC response; my lack of edits is due to my slightly aging machine (dual AM64/3GB/WinXP) locking up every other time I tried it, forcing me to end-task on FF, and even power-cycle my machine once. These are the only reasons I rated it 'not ready for primetime.) (It was also not my only "takeaway" from the RFC by any means; in fact, my comment here is not actually related to the RFC at all). Eaglizard (talk) 05:59, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

I think you need a hug. Please find the nearest person and do so. A pillow can also suffice. Killiondude (talk) 06:56, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata database reports

Hello. I contribute to the Arabic Wikipedia and wiki data, and when I became contribute to wiki data Liked unused List Categories bot-induced, but I object to contain the lists:

1. Categories Maintenance
2. Categories Rdirect. Please delete these erroneous classifications to create new pages in wiki data ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 08:55, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi. As best I can tell, you're referring to Wikidata database reports. The relevant code is here, as I understand it: <https://github.com/mzmcbride/database-reports/tree/master/wikidatawiki>. Patches and pull requests welcome! If you can't submit a patch or pull request yourself, ping Legoktm. He can probably help you. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:15, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

DC meetup & dinner on Saturday, August 24!

Please join Wikimedia DC for a social meetup and dinner at Vapiano (near Farragut North/Farragut West) on Saturday, August 24 at 6:00 PM. All Wikipedia/Wikimedia and free knowledge/culture enthusiasts, regardless of editing experience, are welcome to attend! All ages welcome!

For more information and to sign up, please see the meetup page. Hope to see you there! Kirill ^[talk] 04:11, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

I won't be able to make this one. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:12, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

A cupcake for you!

Did anyone even miss me!!? Also, I found something else shiny. ;) Theo10011 (talk) 01:50, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

You're difficult to miss.

What did you find? --MZMcBride (talk) 03:36, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Now, you're just being mean! I even brought a cupcake for you!!! <3

I was looking for that magic 8-ball thing that used to be on your userpage, or maybe killion's? Any idea where it's around? Thanks. Theo10011 (talk) 07:58, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

wp:8BALL -- get it together. <3 Killiondude (talk) 14:42, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks KD! I do need to get it together. BTW you folks noticed that lately a lot of people have been using @<whoever> on wiki, to answer someone in a crowded discussion. I don't know if that's all from twitter or some new cultural idiom being established. It's like there wasn't a way to refer to someone before twitter showed them how. Bah, twitterverse impinging upon the hallowed wikiverse. Anyway, its bugging the hell out of me lately. Also, Hi. Theo10011 (talk) 22:52, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

T: It should give you a(n Echo) notification. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:26, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

M: I think you meant WP:Notifications? Legoktm (talk) 06:28, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

L: Yes, WP:ECHO and WP:Echo currently point to different places. I'm working on it. --MZMcBride (talk) 12:17, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Ugh figures. It had to be something designed by Jorm et al. Anyway, revolutionary shit man, all important problems fixed! ('@' stuff seems to have started before echo IMO, but anyway, original.) Meh. Anything else new around? Theo10011 (talk) 19:14, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

[Breathing out a light spray of cupcake crumbs as she speaks :] Darwinbish has stolen your cupcake! The cupcake made her happy and she'd like to give you a great big hug for leaving it where she could reach it. Spread the WikiLove by giving her more cupcakes, unless you want her boys to pay you a visit! darwinbish ^BITE ☠ 19:29, 9 September 2013 (UTC).

! --MZMcBride (talk) 19:32, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

[Tiredly traipsing round after db to apologize as usual.] Sorry. Incidentally, do you ever archive this page? Like, ever? Bishonen | talk 19:38, 9 September 2013 (UTC).

I try! It's below 300,000 bytes at the moment, at least!

My methodology involves archiving in large blocks, but I also try not to archive unresolved threads. That thread way up there from February 2013 is currently blocking archiving. I need to reply and then wait a few days before I can archive another swath of noise. It's a very slow process, but fortunately there's no deadline. Plus, with The Fat Man Who Never Came Back indefinitely blocked, someone has to have an excessively long (active) talk page. I'm making this sacrifice for you, Bish. For you and for Wikipedia. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:12, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

He suffers for the rest of us......sob...Is that not enough!? (starts weeping uncontrollably) You go girl! Theo10011 (talk) 21:56, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Question re Database Reports

Hi. I am a relatively new editor to Wikipedia and I am trying to learn more about the inner workings of Wikipedia. I stumbled onto this page 1. Can you tell me what it is about? How do you create these kids of databases and where does the raw data come from? Thanks. --BuzyBody (talk) 01:58, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi. I'm not sure what you stumbled onto. The article 1? :-)

Database reports previously used the Toolserver, a shared hosting platform that contains replicated read-only copies of the databases of Wikimedia wikis. For example, the English Wikipedia's database ("enwiki") is exposed to users on the Toolserver via a MySQL view ("enwiki_p").

The Toolserver is now dying, so users have switched to Wikimedia Labs, which is a very similar shared hosting environment that also contains replicated databases.

The database reports code is available here: <https://github.com/mzmcbride/database-reports>.

Hope that helps. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:39, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Your answer definitely helps. Sorry I did not get the link correct. The page I was looking at is Wikipedia:Database reports. Thanks. --BuzyBody (talk) 14:46, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Greetings MZM, I hope you don't mind but since this is a somewhat related question I thought adding a subsectionhere would be easiest. I notice that some of the reports under database reports are showing things for talk page archives. Specifically, Wikipedia:Database reports/Transclusions of deleted templates/1‎ has a lot of deleted templates that appear on talk page archives. I am hesitant to remove redlinked templates from archives like this and I don't think anyone else would either. I just wanted to recommend potentially removing talk page archives from generating on that report. Would that be possible? Kumioko (talk)

User groups not populating properly at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits

{{talkback|Wikipedia talk:List of Wikipedians by number of edits|User groups not populating properly?|ts=03:31, 13 August 2013 (UTC)}} If you could please provide guidance on this issue, it would be greatly appreciated! Jackson Peebles (talk) 03:31, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Sure, replied here. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:28, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Are you free on Wednesday? Join us at the Wikimedia DC WikiSalon!

Wikimedia DC invites you to join us for our next DC WikiSalon, which will be held on the evening of Wednesday, August 24 at our K Street office.

The WikiSalon an informal gathering of Wikimedia enthusiasts, who come together to discuss the Wikimedia projects and collaboratively edit. There's no set agenda, and guests are welcome to recommend articles for the group to edit or edit on their own. Light refreshments will be provided.

We look forward to seeing you there! Kirill ^[talk] 11:47, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

DBR not updating

Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused non-free files hasnt updated in a few days. Werieth (talk) 15:02, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Eep. Unused non-free files (configuration) looks better now ("data as of 03:00, 26 August 2013 (UTC)"). Thanks for the note. Presumably someone is getting e-mailed when these reports fail, but I don't think any such e-mails are reaching me. Hmmm. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:59, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Meet up with local Wikipedians on September 14!

Are you free on Saturday, September 14? If so, please join Wikimedia DC and local Wikipedians for a social meetup and dinner at Vapiano (near Farragut North/Farragut West) at 6:00 PM. All Wikipedia/Wikimedia and free knowledge/culture enthusiasts, regardless of editing experience, are welcome to attend! All ages are welcome!

For more information and to sign up, please visit the meetup page. Hope to see you there! Kirill ^[talk] 19:05, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Another page not being updated: Wikipedia:Database_reports/Long_pages

BernsteinBot hasn't updated Wikipedia:Database_reports/Long_pages for a month (history).
—WWoods (talk) 19:08, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Shhh, don't tell anyone, but I don't really maintain database reports any longer.

Tim.landscheidt, I'm doing the following:

local-dbreps@tools-login:~$ crontab -l | grep long
0 15 * * 5 jsub -once -j y -mem 280m -N enwiki.longstubs -o ~/var/log -quiet ~/bin/dbreps -r enwiki.longstubs -s enwiki

I don't see longpages set up... any idea what's up? It should be a fairly fast query given page.page_len. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:39, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Are you free Thursday, September 5? Join us at the Wikimedia DC WikiSalon!

Wikimedia DC invites you to join us for our next WikiSalon, which will be held from 7 to 9 PM on Thursday, September 5 at our K Street office.

The WikiSalon is an informal gathering of Wikimedia enthusiasts, who come together to discuss the Wikimedia projects and collaboratively edit. There's no set agenda, and guests are welcome to recommend articles for the group to edit or edit on their own. Light refreshments will be provided.

We look forward to seeing you there! Kirill ^[talk] 15:04, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Where's the best place?

Per this, I thought you might be interested to know WP:WMF now exists. You might particularly want to edit the portion that says "Wikipedia:Bug reports and feature requests, for info about how MediaWiki software updates can be requested" in the See also section. I probably left a poor summary. Also, what's the best place to go for someone who doesn't know much about software to throw out an idea about a potential software development opportunity for the English Wikipedia? Would you say WP:VPT? That seems to be a better place for fixing problems within existing structures, in my limited experience. Or would it be WP:VPI? Best. Biosthmors (talk) 10:39, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Meanwhile, I did post this idea a while back, but I would need to find someone who is interested in coding. And the founder of wikiHow told me "let me know if you get approved. We can show you where the code is in the SVN so you can fork it to Wikipedia." Any recommendations on how to proceed? Best. Biosthmors (talk) 14:12, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

In case you think it has promise for benefiting the project, I posted about the idea it at WP:VPI. Best. Biosthmors (talk) 12:29, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Grant requested

So (feel free to remove these words inside the parentheses and the level 3 section heading if you wish) I've asked the WMF for $8,000 USD for coding something, err.... ummm.... without knowing who will code it. And $1,000 USD to myself (for now) for managing. I would have to write reports and such, during the 6 month period. I'm also able to ask for 20% more after the first 6 months for a subsequent 6 month period, I think, if needed. The evaluation period for the committee has begun, and the grant is at m:Grants:IEG/A redesigned WikiProject Medicine page—and inventory pages for all?. The schedule is as follows: Committee review: 23 Oct ‑ 24 Nov Grantees announced: 16 Dec. Do you have any recommendations about how I would proceed or who I would ask to code this? And I don't mind sharing the $1,000, management fee, since I'm so ignorant. And maybe it's possible I could add someone else as a co-manager. You know oodles about the tech stuff around this place, so I figured I'd ask you, before random people just try to take shots at the idea without being productive. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:42, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Well I'm going to kick this one out to the Idea Lab for further development. Maybe you could fact-check my user page, at least? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:11, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Biosthmors. I saw your e-mail pointing to your user page, but at the time that I clicked, it looked something like this and it was difficult to figure out what you were trying to highlight.

The current version of your user page really isn't much better. Your user page gives the appearance that you're attempting to use Wikipedia as your personal soapbox. Your past endeavors (including WP:WMF) seem to be executed in good faith, but are completely misplaced and misguided.

You're asking for an audience without having sufficient reputation, trust, or clout to be in a position to legitimately and reasonably ask that anyone listen to you. Broadly, my suggestion is for you to use Meta-Wiki for meta-wiki matters. Though regardless of location, your writing needs to be less incoherent and rambling. It's nearly impossible to discern any points you're trying to make when you simply babble about Alexa rankings and the lack of the term "politicoeconomic" or whatever else seems to have caught your attention today.

The Wikimedia Foundation has real problems that need to be addressed, including a lack of a proper analytics infrastructure, but you're currently adding far more noise than signal. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:38, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I'll work on it further, and please let me know if you have any recommended reading. And might you be able to pick anything out that you agree with out of all the noise? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 20:49, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Reworded. Thanks for your feedback so that I could reduce the noise. I agree it was messy. Sorry about that. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 09:11, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Further revised, FYI. Let me know if it's starting to look like I'm not misguided. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 16:14, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

And the use of the word misguided above reminded me of this article. So if you'd like to help identify what is misguided about my user page, since it has undergone significant revision, then I'm all ears. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 09:13, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Article Feedback Tool update

Hey MZMcBride. I'm contacting you because you're involved in the Article Feedback Tool in some way, either as a previous newsletter recipient or as an active user of the system. As you might have heard, a user recently anonymously disabled the feedback tool on 2,000 pages. We were unable to track or prevent this due to the lack of logging feature in AFT5. We're deeply sorry for this, as we know that quite a few users found the software very useful, and were using it on their articles.

We've now re-released the software, with the addition of a logging feature and restrictions on the ability to disable. Obviously, we're not going to automatically re-enable it on each article—we don't want to create a situation where it was enabled by users who have now moved on, and feedback would sit there unattended—but if you're interested in enabling it for your articles, it's pretty simple to do. Just go to the article you want to enable it on, click the "request feedback" link in the toolbox in the sidebar, and AFT5 will be enabled for that article.

Again, we're very sorry about this issue; hopefully it'll be smooth sailing after this :). If you have any questions, just drop them at the talkpage. Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) 21:53, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Heh, "obviously."

Even though I can't really say I appreciated being spammed with this noise, I do appreciate that AFTv5's lack of anti-abuse features (or rather, it's lack of transparency/accountability features) was called out in your message.

Next time, you really ought to send the message yourself. :-) I ended up chastising poor Whatamidoing (WMF) instead over the delivery problems. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:32, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Biography pages without talk pages

I was recently trying (and failing) to find a place where I recently asked about having a regular query run to list biography pages (typically those with birth years or some other obvious characteristic) that don't have talk pages, so someone can create talk pages with {{WPBiography}} on them (with parameters filled in). I think someone used to do this, but not sure if it is done now. I'm asking because I fairly often come across biography articles without talk pages, and in various states of disrepair. I'm asking you because per this you might know how to do this, and you might even be able to find where I asked this before... While I'm on the subject, are there reports that flag up potential articles on living people that haven't been marked as such? Carcharoth (talk) 00:10, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi C. WP:DBR#BLP are the BLP-related database reports (there are some for dead people as well).

Check out LaraBot's contributions. I think the bot tags new bios as they come in (based on a request from xeno, as I recall). So we should have fairly good talk page coverage, though I haven't actually checked.

The database reports (particularly the "potential" reports) should at least get you started. If you find that there's something that you really want/need, let me know and I can poke at it. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:27, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. That will be helpful. About the other stuff, what I probably need to do is follow the WikiProject:Biography feed of new articles, if there is one (I'll be able to find that). It is just mildly frustrating to see biography stubs created with some of the basic stuff not done, that is in theory quite easy to do, but tedious at times as the checklist you can follow when creating a biographical article is rather long (to be fair, there is stuff that I don't bother with as well, so I'm not really one to talk). It's that old conundrum, stick talk page templates on 100 stubs, or expand the actual content of one stub, or write a long talk page comment on someone's user page... :-) Carcharoth (talk) 00:40, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Database reports/Orphaned talk pages

Hi MZMcBride. The above database report has not been generated since February. It's a task that was done by BernsteinBot. A few of us suspect there's quite a few orphaned talk pages out there, so I wonder if there's any way you could generate the report so we can see where we are at? Thanks for any help you can offer in this regard. -- Diannaa (talk) 23:19, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Happy to see that this report is back in action. Unfortunately, there was a typo in the run as the bot used "susbt" instead of "subst". I fixed it in the report. I defer to others to do the 3,000+ deletions as I'm way too tired right now. But I am glad to see this report is back. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 05:21, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Diannaa and Gogo Dodo.

No update since February 2013? That's depressing.

Thank you for the note here. I hacked at the report a bit (it's now running on Wikimedia Labs instead of the Toolserver). I had to futz with the script for a few minutes before it would even run. It looks like it was finally able to run and finish (in about 27 minutes). Yay!

I'll fix the "subst" typo now. This report is not really "fixed" as there will only be manual updates for the moment, but it shouldn't be too difficult to get it automated again if someone can find the time and inclination. Volunteers welcome. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 05:32, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, obviously there's no rush to do an update, as it will take a while to get these items examined and deleted. Thank you very much. -- Diannaa (talk) 13:19, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Something odd happened with the latest run. The list of mostly non-orphaned talk pages. Is the bad database dump problem back again? -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 05:20, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

The terrifying part is that I didn't update that report. As far as I'm aware, that report is disabled and is only updated manually. I don't know which host that report ran on and I don't know who told it to run. Perhaps it's time to change BernsteinBot's password. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 13:18, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I may have found it. Running "cronie -l" as "dbreps" on clematis.toolserver.org reveals that a lot of reports are still being run from the Toolserver (who knew!). I thought they'd all been moved to Labs, but apparently not. This has become a real mess. I think database reports now exist on three or four different hosts under two or three different usernames. Ugh. I'm re-running orphanedtalks.py manually now (on Labs), so you should have better data in about twenty-five minutes. --MZMcBride (talk) 13:23, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

That's interesting because that report had not been updating on schedule since February so the cron on clematis just started up again all of a sudden. Thanks for the update! -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 04:24, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Special:Permalink/573013364 is the full crontab on clematis for dbreps. The Toolserver (and now Labs, I believe) require that a job manager be used. I think the report grew so large that it exceeded its job limits (in terms of run-time or memory usage or something). That's one possibility, at least. Another several possibilities involve general Toolserver stability issues (host is down, host fills up with queued jobs that are never executed, host can't reach other hosts, etc.). With the Toolserver, it really could be anything. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 13:00, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

What a mess. :-) Nothing like bots competing with itself. Any progress on getting the Labs copy to run automatically or you still looking for help? I'd help, but I really don't know much about the Labs/Toolserver/database things. It is all just a black box to me. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 05:26, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Did the bot run out of the old cron again? The update from a couple of days ago wasn't correct again. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 02:44, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Probably. I don't imagine anyone has disabled it. I'm re-running the report from Labs so you should have better data in about 30 minutes. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:51, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll look later. I was in the mood to delete a bunch of pages, but now I'm not. =) Maybe you were right about time to change the bot's password? -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 03:56, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Wish list

Hi MZMcBride,

I want a list of articles containing tables that end with this:

|-
|}

This is invisible to Special:Search. Is this something that could be found some other way? (If it turns out to be thousands of articles, then maybe an approximate count would be more useful than a list.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:43, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi WhatamIdoing.

This took a few hours total, but fortunately most of that time was spent waiting, not coding. It took about 33 minutes to download enwiki-20130904-pages-meta-current.xml.bz2 (about 18.5 GB), it took maybe half an hour to write/test the script, and about 122 minutes for the script to run.

Here's the script I wrote (called "hello.py"):

#! /usr/bin/env python
# Public domain; MZMcBride; 2013

import bz2

title = ''
m_text = []
loop = False

file = bz2.BZ2File('/home/mzmcbride/dumps'+
                   '/enwiki-20130904-pages-meta-current.xml.bz2', 'r')
log = open('log.txt', 'w')

for line in file:
    if line.startswith('    <title>'):
        title = line.strip()
        title = title.replace('<title>', '')
        title = title.replace('</title>', '')
    if loop:
        if line.find('</text>') == -1:
            m_text.append(line)
            loop = True
        elif line.find('</text>') != -1:
            loop = False
            line = line.replace('</text>\n', '')
            m_text.append(line)
            final_text = ''.join(m_text)
            if final_text.find('|-\n|}') != -1:
                log.write(title+'\n')
            m_text = []
    if (line.startswith('      <text xml:space="preserve">') and
        line.find('</text>') != -1):
        text = line.strip()
        text = text.replace('<text xml:space="preserve">', '')
        text = text.replace('</text>', '')
    elif line.startswith('      <text xml:space="preserve">'):
        line = line.strip()
        line = line.replace('<text xml:space="preserve">', '')
        m_text.append(line)
        loop = True

file.close()
log.close()

As you can see, this writes the results to a file called "log.txt". I didn't really have the time or patience to filter the results to only articles, but you can, if you'd like. The total log output is 437,024 page titles. If we quickly exclude all page titles containing a ":" as a means of very roughly limiting the data set to articles (i.e., page titles not containing a namespace prefix), we're left with 129,994 page titles, it looks like. I took a cut of 100 pages and put them here for you to sample: Special:Permalink/571921754. The full data set is available here: <http://tools.wmflabs.org/mzmcbride/files/enwiki-20130904-whatamidoing.txt> (about 10 MB... you probably don't want to open this file in your Web browser).

Generally with a request like this, I'd ask what you're hoping to accomplish. I assume this is VE-related. I'm very hesitant to see bots going around mangling wikitext in order to accommodate VisualEditor's shortcomings. If VisualEditor can't handle this perfectly valid construct, VisualEditor (or Parsoid) needs to be fixed.

Hope that helps. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:59, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! I'm not sure that "start a new row—never mind, end of table!" is a "perfectly valid construct" (the fact that it doesn't create a blank row is a misbug in the wikitext parser), but I agree that Parsoid needs to stop screwing up these tables (and to stop displaying them in VisualEditor as having a blank row at the end). Given how widespread it is, I don't think that a one-time fix is plausible. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:12, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

"|-" doesn't really mean "start a new row". You can create a simple table without it:

{|
| hello
|}

Surely we can recognize that this table would contain a row, but without the alleged "start a new row" directive. You can also have as many "|-"s as you want. For example, this is perfectly valid in wikimarkup:

{|
| hello
|-
|-
|-
|-
|}

Wikimarkup is silly, but one of the stated goals of both VisualEditor and Parsoid was to continue to support it as-is. --MZMcBride (talk) 15:38, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Bullrun

FYI. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:01, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:14, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

"bug!" ?

Trouty says: "Remember the BOT policy"

What's with the user page edits? :) Magus (talk) 23:45, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Bugs! I assume this edit triggered your attention. Sorry for the ping. I've been null editing millions of pages looking for anomalies. In this case, the line endings changed (from \r\n to \n), I believe, but the diff doesn't show this (bugzilla:42669). You can verify with the MediaWiki API. I've been finding all sorts of strangeness (unsubstituted templates, etc.) and things I didn't know were even possible by doing so many null edits. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 00:52, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Bad idea. Next time, please get some feedback before doing such a task. This is the reason we have the whole BOT approval process. Kaldari (talk) 17:33, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Kaldari. Can you elaborate on "bad idea"? --MZMcBride (talk) 19:29, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

There are much better and less disruptive ways to find problems with null editing. This is what we have things like Beta Labs and test.wiki for. Doing massive experiments on en.wiki, especially without getting a sanity check from other community members, is rather reckless. In this case it spammed the job queue and sent useless notifications to who knows how many people. Obviously, it could have been worse, but if everybody did such experiments with no regard for the consequences, Wikipedia probably wouldn't last very long. Kaldari (talk) 20:05, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

K: Thanks for elaborating. As I understand it, you absolutely could not reproduce these issues on Beta Labs (and it would likely be quite difficult on test.wikipedia.org). Feel free to demonstrate otherwise, of course.

In any case, the goal wasn't to find problems with null editing, as you suggest, though finding null edit-related anomalies did become a byproduct of these edits. The goal is/was to refresh the pages, as many of them have not been run through the parser (or been purged from cache) in years.

If you're going to make claims about job queues, please substantiate your claims. I believe the global job queue is experiencing issues, but from what I've been told, these issues are related to Parsoid (to the tune of 2.4 million queued jobs). If you know otherwise, obviously I'd be interested. :-)

Regarding the tragedy of the commons, there's an old and established principle within MediaWiki that null edits are not supposed to add revisions to the database. This principle apparently holds true in most cases, but there are a statistically significant number of cases where this principle doesn't hold true. Personally, if I were you, I'd spend time focusing on that instead of attempting to chastise me. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:24, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Regardless of how much of the job queue backlog was related to your null edits, they certainly didn't help the situation. Nor does sending huge numbers of useless notifications to people (which could have easily been avoided with a bot flag). And regardless of whether your edits were a good idea or a bad idea, Wikipedia:Bot policy is a policy, not a guideline or suggestion. If you weren't in the Bathrobe Cabal, I would have thrown you to the wolves. Instead, I'll give you a trout. Do with it as you will. Kaldari (talk) 21:10, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

(tps) This Bathrobe Cabal sounds useful, maybe I can join one day. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 21:27, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

B: I'm not sure the BRC is accepting new members. You can always upload a photo of your bathrobe-adorned self to Commons in order to find out. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 21:44, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't know if it's the same thing, but the words "bathrobe cabal" reminded me of some Dilbert cartoons from May 1999, here they are: 24; 25; 26; 27; 28. Sort-of related is a series from February 1995: 6; 7; 8; 9. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:56, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Redrose64. I suppose now if I do actually post that to commons the panel that says "We're called rebels because we're easily maniuplated into doing stupid things" will apply. ;-) I would like to see a gallery, though. Unfortunately, I am not qualified to join. My allegiance is with another cabal, which is yet to be created. It will hopefully "take over" Wikipedia and make ArbCom look stuffy and bureaucratic in comparison. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 08:40, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the copyright terms do not provide for a free license, so uploading to commons is a no-no. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:56, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Redrose64, by that I meant a picture of myself, which is what the BRC is about. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 09:36, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

K: I think we should take this time to ponder the implications of attempting to request a bot flag in order to do nothing (in theory!). :-) Null editing is a Good Thing. The fact that null edits are adding revisions (not-so-null, amirite?) is related to a series of bugs, some of which are resolved, some of which are not. If you want to work on some of these issues, particularly enhancing the diff engine, the help would certainly be appreciated. But I won't really accept the premise that it's reasonable to wait years and years for links and caches to be updated when a viable solution is available (and documented as a good practice, though admittedly my research has demonstrated that the documentation is simply wrong). The revision noise isn't ideal, but it's certainly much better than the alternative. I did about eight million edits and I have about two million to go. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:43, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Null editing is not nothing. It requires page reparsing and a bunch of DB writes for link update, both of which as you admitted were your goals. So you knew that it's not a noop but you didn't care if your actions would cause problems to the cluster. This is extremely reckless. Consider this your final warning: fuck with bots or any other technical aspects of the site once again and you're out. Max Semenik (talk) 22:37, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

MaxSem: Uhh, you're really out of line here.

I operate a number of bots, both locally and globally. If you want to take any or all of them over, that would be wonderful! Database reports in particular need a lot of love. I can add you to the "dbreps" multi-maintainer account on Wikimedia Labs (I think).

As for the job queue, I filed bugzilla:54406 to track the issue. The large global job queue seems to be directly related to Parsoid. Any rage you're currently experiencing (for reasons unknown, to be honest) should be redirected there. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 02:34, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Are you free Thursday, September 26? Join us at the Wikimedia DC WikiSalon!

Wikimedia DC invites you to join us for our next WikiSalon, which will be held from 7 to 9 PM on Thursday, September 26 at our K Street office.

The WikiSalon is an informal gathering of Wikimedia enthusiasts, who come together to discuss the Wikimedia projects and collaboratively edit. There's no set agenda, and guests are welcome to recommend articles for the group to edit or edit on their own. Light refreshments will be provided.

We look forward to seeing you there! Kirill ^[talk] 06:00, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

common.js changes

I've tested a version of common.js that does the trick. It's at User:Kww/common.js. I've used it with a new account, and it correctly disabled the preference, just as the RFC indicated.

Diff from the standard common.js is here.

So, the meat of the issue: should I proceed with implementing the RFC consensus this weekend, what are the odds of me still being an admin come Monday morning? Should I expect a summary removal of my rights at WMF insistence? Would bureaucrats even go along with that?—Kww(talk) 03:54, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

I doubt the WMF would remove your sysop rights, that would be crossing a pretty big line. Whether another admin will revert you though... Legoktm (talk) 05:38, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

What would the grounds for the reversion be? What grounds would an admin have for undoing a change based on such an overwhelming consensus?—Kww(talk) 05:41, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Those are reasonable questions and I don't know the answer to either. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:45, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

(ec x2) Well, I'm not sure if common.js is the best place. A default gadget might be better since it would already have the RL caching set up. Also that autoconfirmed() function is pretty ugly and inefficient. Legoktm (talk) 05:46, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

A gadget can't disable the editor for IPs. That autoconfirmed() function is ugly (note the similar function that's down a few lines), but it works in all versions of Javascript. The last thing I would want to do is break things with the change.—Kww(talk) 05:55, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

I believe the issue with your current code is that you would slam the MediaWiki Web API with unneeded requests (and probably overload it). You only need to disable the preference once, not on every page load. This requires remembering (or looking up) state. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:00, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

A gadget would disable the editor for IPs as long as it is set to default. Default gadgets run for everyone, but only logged in users can disable them. I cleaned up your code at User:Legoktm/bleh.js, which makes it a little better. Still working on it though. Legoktm (talk) 06:10, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Legoktm and I have had a side discussion, and I will have a much faster version ready in the morning.—Kww(talk) 07:12, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Most of MediaWiki:Common.js uses a four-space indent; is it necessary for the code patch to use indents which are significantly larger? The two lines

change: 'visualeditor-betatempdisable=1',
token: json.tokens.optionstoken

protrude beyond the right margin at some resolutions. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:42, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict twice!) Kww: Few would argue that consensus is not on your side following the RFC. If you make the edit, you'll do so with strong community consensus behind you, after having discussed the idea at the appropriate village pump. The Wikimedia Foundation is free to ignore or subvert community consensus in its response to the RFC, but Wikimedia wikis are autonomous and are governed by community consensus. And local administrators are empowered, with community consensus, to implement site-wide changes to the user interface and user experience.

In other words, you won't be de-adminned. My current thinking is that the most likely scenario to happen is that you make the edit and get reverted by another administrator, perhaps by James F. in his role as a local administrator in good standing. Then the question becomes what happens next. Will a third admin step in? Will you re-revert? It's unclear. Wikimedia Foundation staff (as staff) wouldn't be foolish enough to get involved, I don't imagine. I think it would likely be a disaster if they did, exponentially so if they were short-sighted enough to try to remove your admin privileges here. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:44, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

James F is WP:INVOLVED. I doubt if he'd be daft enough to do that. Black Kite (talk) 16:48, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

For people that are watching this (and I know there's more than a handful), the latest revision of the code is at User:Kww/common2.js. It uses the obsolete Javascript editor disable gadget state as a flag: after it turns off VE using the preference, it sets the gadget on. If the gadget is on, it will never fiddle with the user's preference again. That avoids all scenarios that would lead to the server getting hammered with repetitive requests to change the preference. We will have to keep the obsolete gadget contents from interfering, but I don't think that's an issue.—Kww(talk) 15:54, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

bugzilla:54458

You mentioned a "correcting database entry" on the block log, may I ask more details on this? It seems like the source could be a prevailing bug. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 01:52, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi とある白い猫. Unfortunately, I don't remember the details. I've copied myself on your bug report, though. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:56, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Per user talk deletion log

Just a courtesy call. I've just warned an IP for unconstructive editing. To do so, I had to recreate a page you deleted some time back, per this link [10] Cheers, Haploidavey (talk) 14:06, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 20:53, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

A thought

With your wise comments at the Village Pumps, I hope you also take the time to advise the board on who to hire as an Executive Director. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 08:31, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

B: I hope the Wikimedia community will see a short list soon. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 20:52, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

I can revert this if you'd like. If it bothers you, then I apologize in advance. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 10:59, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

B: I'm certainly not bothered, but I'm not sure I'm a reliable source. ;-) m:Executive Director Transition Team#Updates is, though. --MZMcBride (talk) 15:19, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Talk Page

Hi, when you get a chance could you reply to some of the questions on my talk page? BikeRider95 (talk) 03:05, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Sure, I'll try now. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:06, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Rm

MZMcBride - I think it'd be better to assist Fluffernutter in patroling that page than reverting her. She's only 1 person right now trying her best.--v/r - TP 15:54, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

I have no doubt that she's trying her best. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:20, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for undoing Fluffernutter's reversion of my comments on Bradley Manning's move request. I'm not able to, so I appreciate it.  KoshVorlon. We are all Kosh   17:03, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm, it seems you got yourself blocked. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:40, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
	I strongly support your revert. Strongly. STRONGLY. Also, I appreciate the fact that you were willing to stick your neck out in such a contentious area. Don't worry about those who are saying that discretionary sanctions are hard to impose and so you shouldn't be making it harder. If they're going to enforce DS wrong, it should be hard to do. AutomaticStrikeout (₵) 23:28, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Are you free on Sunday? Join us for a special Wikimedia DC WikiSalon!

Wikimedia DC invites you to join us for a special WikiSalon at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library's Digital Commons Center. We will gather at 3 PM on Sunday, October 13, 2013 to discuss an important topic: what can Wikipedia and the DC area do to help each other? We hope to hear your thoughts and suggestions; if you have an idea you would like to pursue, please let us know and we will help!

Following the WikiSalon, we will be having dinner at a nearby restaurant, Ella's Wood Fired Pizza.

If you're interested in attending, please sign up at the event page. We look forward to seeing you there! Kirill ^[talk] 02:18, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Oops!

I'm still not sure exactly what happened here, but I suspect my watchlist started to update just when I hit the edit button, and a different link, a revert link, ended up under my cursor and got hit instead. I didn't realize I had done it at first, but then I discovered a newly opened tab telling of a reversion, and discovered I was the culprit! It's lucky I discovered it as fast as I did, because right now I have 22 Wikipedia tabs open, and 12 other tabs open. I love Firefox! It handles multiple tabs better than IE Explorer ever did. Even if it crashes, it will restore everything to the exact same spot. Well, my goof is fixed. Keep up the good work. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:58, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

No worries. :-) Yes, Internet Explorer is pretty painful to use and nearly anything else is an improvement. As much as I don't like Google, I've been using Chrome lately and it's even faster and more stable than Firefox, I've found. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:43, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm....maybe I'll give it a try. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:44, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure!

Hi! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission. I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.

• The Wikipedia Adventure Start Page
• The Wikipedia Adventure Lounge
• The Teahouse new editor help space
• Wikipedia Help pages

-- 19:54, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Mission 1	Mission 2	Mission 3	Mission 4	Mission 5	Mission 6	Mission 7
Say Hello to the World	An Invitation to Earth	Small Changes, Big Impact	The Neutral Point of View	The Veil of Verifiability	The Civility Code	Looking Good Together

Get Help

About The Wikipedia Adventure | Hang out in the Interstellar Lounge

File:TWA guide left bottom.png may be the most bizarre photo I've ever seen on Wikipedia. It's like a blueish ant-reindeer. This whole adventure thing is unbelievably trippy. I have no idea if it has any practical value, but it's certainly an interesting experiment. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:28, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

The ant resemblance symbolises Wikipedia's crowd-sourcing ethos, while the reindeer influence is indicative of hard work and the ability to endure inclement weather. The blue coloration symbolises the world-wide scope of Wikipedia's aims. Notice that the ant-reindeer wears both a bandolier and a Playboy-style bow tie; these are allusions to the WikiProjects that are, respectively, the one most prolific with quality Wikipedia content, and the one most prolific with questionable Wikipedia content.

There's also something about whalesong. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:03, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

There's something to be said about the resulting effect of a monster-like creature. Killiondude (talk) 22:22, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

What part of androgynous galactic carnival cowboy guru guide is so hard to understand? :) Ocaasi ^{t | c} 00:27, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Thank you for sending me the link to the Wikimedia Commons page on uploading from Flickr. I'll definitely try it out. I appreciate your help, and it was nice meeting you at the MLK Library Wiki meet-up!

Uncommon fritillary (talk) 01:59, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

EdwardsBot Check-in

Hey MZ! I have a big new newsletter I'd like to send out to the Wikipedia Library participants.

The newsletter intro I would send is here: Wikipedia:The_Wikipedia_Library/Newsletter/October2013/Intro The recipients are everyone who has signed up for at least one free TWL account donation: User:Ocaasi/TWL_recipients

This is over 1,000 editors. Because of the size, I posted to both AN/I and VPR asking for guidance, and neither forum raised any objections to talk page messages. The newsletter after this initial run will be opt-in only.

I wanted to run it by you first. What do you think? Ocaasi ^{t | c} 16:03, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi.

A few quick notes:

• User:Ocaasi/TWL recipients is a really dirty input list.
• User:Ocaasi/TWL recipients, in its current form, will deliver to over 1500 pages, including to subpages such as User talk:Andy Dingley/My created pages because User:Andy Dingley/My created pages is linked. Actually... it looks like you've already made this mistake once in July 2012!
• Looking at Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library/Newsletter/October2013/Intro, I think it's easy to miss (or overlook) that this newsletter will be opt-in in the future. You might consider moving the text that's currently "fine print" to the top of the message. If I were getting spammed with this message, my first question would be why.
• I'm glad that I won't be spammed. :-)

Hope that helps. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:23, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Ah yes, I remember it, because I helped to track down some of the problems that the dirty input list caused. That wasn't the only thread. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:02, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for looking, MZ. Is there a particular tool you used or that I could use to analyze the input list? Ocaasi ^{t | c} 21:24, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

This is basically the query that the bot will run. It's limited to 500 results, but you can pass the &plcontinue= URL parameter to get additional results (example). --MZMcBride (talk) 15:15, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you! (see isn't it better when i fuck up before I send it out ;) Ocaasi ^{t | c} 15:28, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Neutral notice

This is a neutral notice that an RfC has been opened at an article which you have edited within the past year. It is at Talk:Clint Eastwood#8 children by 6 women. --Tenebrae (talk) 14:33, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Nomination for merging of Template:Online source

Template:Online source has been nominated for merging with Template:Press. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Steel1943 (talk) 22:22, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Ping

Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused non-free files has stopped updating. --Closedmouth (talk) 07:37, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

{{talkback|Template_talk:Soft_redirect#A_lot_less_clear|ts=01:03, 11 November 2013 (UTC)}} Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 01:03, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for the heads-up. I replied over there. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:32, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

"Like" template

Hi,

Just a quick heads-up: you removed the icon associated with the Like template "per talk". However, the talk only wished for another icon not associated with any commercial brand, not that the icon be removed altogether.

Just giving you an opportunity to consider your options before weighing in on the talk page itself. Cheers, CapnZapp (talk) 11:19, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi CapnZapp. I think you may have missed the "Redesign" section on the talk page. I proposed redesigning the template a few months ago. There weren't any objections, so I went ahead. --MZMcBride (talk) 13:26, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I missed a lot, apparently. I'm sorry I can't support your move, but at least I can clear up any confusion as to my actions on Template talk:Like lately. Go have a look, and be sure to ask me if anything is still unclear. CapnZapp (talk) 18:39, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I replied at Template talk:Like. Please make an effort to be constructive rather than simply criticizing. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:47, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Help Desk request

In view of your posts here (bugzilla), please add your thoughts to the Help Desk request Can I have an opt-in please for the feedback tool for 1 article[11]. Thanks! -- Jreferee (talk) 14:51, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

You are awesome!

Thanks for all of your help in getting MassMessage deployed! Legoktm (talk) 19:42, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Woohoo! :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 21:08, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Androdioecy

Hi there. In trying to create a Talk:Androdioecy page with, I get the heads-up message: 19:34, 1 August 2008 MZMcBride (talk | contribs) deleted page Talk:Androdioecy (csd g6). Unless there's any pressing reason not to, a new talk age with a relevant project banner (e.g. WP Biology) should be created. Cheers. --Animalparty-- (talk) 20:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Animalparty. Feel free to re-create the page. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:09, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

MediaWiki message delivery

Are you the master of User:MediaWiki message delivery, who looks to have taken over some tasks from EdwardsBot? If so, the svwiki-userpage does not contains any mandatory Bot-template, and is also missing information of what it is supposed to do in the project. -- Lavallen (talk) 13:57, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

@Lavallen: This is m:MassMessage, not a bot. --Rschen7754 20:42, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

It walks like a bot, it looks like a bot and it sounds like a bot. It is a bot. This time (again) without a real botmaster. When will the developers learn that their pets have to follow community-guidelines, just like everybody else? -- Lavallen (talk) 08:07, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

@Lavallen: You realize that there are over 900 Wikimedia sites, and that the developers can't cater to the requirements of just one wiki, right? --Rschen7754 08:19, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Lavallen, yes, it basically is a bot. There was an email sent out to wikitech-ambassadors about this, but unfortunately I don't have the time to create user pages on all 800+ wikis. Your help in the matter would greatly be appreciated. User:MediaWiki message delivery is a basic information page that has been copied over and translated on Commons, Wikidata, zhwiki, and quite a few more. If you'd be willing to help translate it, that would be awesome. If you have any more questions about the extension, I'd be more than willing to answer them (I wrote most of it). Legoktm (talk) 08:26, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Obviously, none of the users who subscribe to wikitech-ambassadors are active today on svwp (I know there is at least one), so it's introduction was a big suprise. The userpage has been set up by User:MagnusA and the botflag has been removed. This kind of bot normally operates without botflag on svwp. EdwardsBot have no botflag there for example. If you need help with setting up userpages, you always have Synchbot.

I guess the bot soon will be introduced to sv.wikisource. Neither on that project are we granting botflags to this kind of bots. That does not mean that they are forbidden, but we want to see them in RC. -- Lavallen (talk) 08:56, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Lavallen. I believe sv.wikipedia.org is a wiki. Be bold!

MassMessage is a replacement for global message delivery (which was operated by EdwardsBot). If you don't want to receive MassMessage deliveries, simply locally block the bot. :-) No big deal. There's more information here: mw:Help:Extension:MassMessage. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:28, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually Translation Notification Bot is blocked on svwp, for spaming users_talks of inactive users. Hopefully is MediaWiki message delivery better tuned than that bot. -- Lavallen (talk) 18:22, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Lavallen: Right. A longstanding component of wiki sovereignty is that individual site administrators may locally block problematic users, with community consensus behind the actions. I imagine "MediaWiki message delivery" will also eventually deliver to many user talk pages where the user is no longer seemingly active (few edits or other actions on-wiki). If this is a problem, these users can be unsubscribed or they can use the opt-out category or, if necessary, a local block can be placed on the account. This is all described at mw:Help:Extension:MassMessage#Opting out. It's perfectly fine if a local wiki blocks the bot; the English Wikinews (enwikinews) blocked EdwardBot a long time ago. :-)

Regarding the name itself, I voted to continue using "EdwardsBot", but Erik and Nemo wanted to use a name without "bot" in it and without the baggage (history, context) of the old legacy name. I acquiesced in the name of not holding up development over the color of the bikeshed. The account name used may be immutable due to unified login's implementation (you can't associate different usernames with different global user IDs, I believe). Hope that helps. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:38, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

The problem with Translation Notification Bot was that nobody else than the user hirself could deactivate the subscription. When the block was discovered by the developers, users who represented them threatened to turn of the possibility to block TNB. That never happend, but if they would have insisted, I'm afraid that it would have caused a massive Exodus from the project. Turning the fourth biggest wp-project to a SWMT-project would have looked awkward. It looks like unsubscription can be done by other users in this new bot, both by this category and by removing names from the subscription-lists. -- Lavallen (talk) 19:06, 24 November 2013 (UTC)