User talk:Werdna/Archive/Archive-Dec2006

Return to editing?

Hi,

As many of you may know, I left a few months ago to what I perceive as nastiness on the English Wikipedia. I still believe that it exists. After all I've seen in the wikimedia IRC channels — both first and second-hand, I believe that Wikipedia has some serious community issues. However, I no longer believe that walking away is the solution — I found myself coming here increasingly often under my responsibilities as a developer (both to document the changes I've made, and to diagnose and respond to issues reported by contributors on here). Many of the documentation edits I've made have been misconstrued due to my editing anonymously, and my technical opinion is probably best attributed to me.

As a result of all of these, I've decided to move my editing here back to editing logged-in. I will, however, try to avoid the political areas that burned me out in the first place. I will concentrate my editing here to my responsibilities as a developer, however I may contribute the odd article fix. I may, in the future, consider contributing in a more full manner here, however this is a good starter.

— Werdna talk criticism 04:39, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Hell yeah! (Obligatory: Werdna programmed a PC and a Mac to love.) ★MESSEDROCKER★ 04:41, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I guess that's a "welcome back", then. – Gurch 05:51, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back. I hope your experience is more pleasant this time. JRSpriggs 10:06, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Bot

Werdna, I'm sorry to be a pest but Werdnabot seems to be scannig but not archiving my user talk. What am I doing wrong, please? Guy (Help!) 22:36, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

My guess is that the hyphens in your file name are causing the problem. JRSpriggs 08:33, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

On second thought, I think it is the fact that you capitalized "T" in "Talk". I changed it to "talk". Now, let us wait a day and see whether it works. JRSpriggs 11:32, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar

To Werdna for an exceptional synopsis at /Improvements -- Samir धर्म 02:07, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Well said. -- Samir धर्म 02:07, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Welcome Back Kotter

Hey Andrew. I was so happy to see your user/talk page jumping on my watchlist. It's great to see you back on deck. Welcome back mate. :) Sarah Ewart (Talk) 11:32, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Werdnabot is being abused

This discussion has been moved to meta

WerdnaBot How to clarification and some ideas

Hi,

It would be great if the Howto page is a bit more clear. The documentation says If any value is given. Does it mean any value?? or Is it like 'if value is given as 'yes', it tells Werdnabot to archive sections with one or more signed comments, otherwise, if no value is given it takes a default stance.

Plus, it would be great if you could add some instructions to change the frequency of archiving. People like me are active for some time and then partially active for some time. It would be very helpful if we could stop and start archiving whenever we need, and still have Werdnabot code at the talk page.

Plus, it seems like it doesn't archive if the unsigned and undated templates are added later on to the unsigned sections. Could u do something about it? -- Chez ^{(Discuss / Email)} 03:10, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

You can change the retention period by editing the Werdnabot invokation and changing BOTH occurrances of the age. By making it very large, you can effectively shut Werdnabot off.

On your last question, you can fix this by making it a practice to add a time stamp to any section which lacks one by using "~~~~~" (five tildas). JRSpriggs 07:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Werdnabot needed on policy talk page

I know it is only normal procedure to use Werndnabot on User talkpages only, but the Wikipedia talk:Notability page, there have been some contentious edit wars over when and why to archive discussions, and it is such an active talk page that archives are needed quite often to prevent problems. When discussions are manually archived, sometimes a well meaning editor will archive an active or new discussion, effectively ending it, which is unsatisfactory. Werdnabot applies its archival procedures without prejudice (duh, its a bot) and so if it archived this talk page as well, it may be far more equitable. Could we have Werdnabot add this page to its rounds, and if so, how do I (or you, or someone else) do that? --Jayron32 17:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Do it yourself. Just follow the instructions at User:Werdnabot/Archiver/Howto. The only reason for limiting it to user talk pages is that other talk pages are not usually active enough to justify automatic archiving. But apparently, your case is among the exceptions. For example, the Mathematics and Physics projects use it. JRSpriggs 07:16, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

The other part of it is that common talk pages never remain at the same high level of activity. There is a spurt of activity for a brief period of time, then it stops and the bot is useless (and sometimes is let to simply keep on running, archiving discussions that no one reads and would other remain for someone to come by and address). As in this case with Wikipedia talk:Notability, by the time the bot is added the level of activity no longer warrants it, such that the bot then archives active discussions and discussions relevant to active discussions despite there being no pressing need to do so. —Centrx→talk • 06:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Just read yr page

You're 15? Good God! I had you picked for mid-twenties ... Keep up the fine dev work! - David Gerard 00:05, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

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Werdnabot issue

I am having problems getting Werdnabot to work with my user talk page, it most likely is something I did in the code on my page, however I can't find the issue and have looked several times. It worked the first day I put it on for like 16 entries and that was it. The only thing changed after the first day was an error as to were the index was posting as I had it crossed with another users index, I was able to repair the affected index and build mine with no problem. Could you please take a look and see id I missed something or if you have any ideas what might be going on? Thanks TheRanger 15:54, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

As I indicated on your talk page, it might be the fact that you use "=" instead of "==" to bracket the titles of your sections. Try it out and tell us whether that is it. JRSpriggs 04:39, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Since Werdnabot seems to have broken again, we will have to wait until it is fixed to see whether your change to your section headers fixed your problem. JRSpriggs 06:19, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I see that it did work for you when Werdnabot ran on 1 December 2006. JRSpriggs 09:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes it did work after the changes thank you for your help with the problem. TheRanger 16:09, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.

I saved myself two minutes of work reverting vandalism with the undo function. Thank you, good sir. Ral315 (talk) 23:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Yet another welcome back

...Not much else to say. It's good to see you editing again. I'd strongly suggest simply avoiding any areas that may cause you stress, as it's just not worth the trouble. You're a great contributor to this encyclopedia, and WP needs more people like you. Just, y'know, ignore the garbage and focus on the good points of this place; mainly, building the greatest collection of knowledge ever known. -- Kicking222 05:06, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

dear Werdna

hello I'm very very interesting about the work of your bot, It's a good thing that a bot autoarchivied the talk ;) can you help me on my wikipedia's talk? best regards dario --dario vet ^_^ (talk) 13:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Are you saying that you want someone else to set up your talk page to be archived automatically by Werdnabot, rather than doing it yourself by following the instructions at User:Werdnabot/Archiver/Howto? JRSpriggs 09:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

more about automatic summaries

Sort of a follow-up to bug 8052, I was wondering if you could make it so any edit which changes a redirect into a non-redirect page also uses the same automatic "created new page" edit summary that would appear if nothing previously existed, for example this edit should have a default edit summary just like this edit. Thanks. — CharlotteWebb 09:54, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Werdnabot

Hi - I use your bot on my talkpage. It hasn't archived since October. Can you help me figure out why? --DrL 17:02, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Please vote!

Hello Glen! Hello Werdna, We may have never "met" here on the Wikipedia, however I would like to ask, is it possible that you get Werdnabot to archive my talk page? If so please reply. Oh! Before I forget, why don't you cast your vote for this FAC vote. Thanks, Booksworm Hello? Anyone home? Vote! Vote! 17:54, 3 December 2006 (UTC) (P.S. Follow my advice and support the FAC! That's just my advice, you can vote as you please!)

---

Random idea I wanted to bounce off your brain

I may have discussed this with you, this may already in bugzilla, but it seems like an easy extension fix: How about allowing a Wikimedia-specific spam blacklist in addition to the one that applies to all MediaWiki sites? This would allow us to ban links to, say, Encyclopedia Dramatica, which isn't really a spammer per se, or pages central to Wikipedia disputes that might be reliable sources elsewhere. Ral315 (talk) 00:26, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

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WikiCast?

Where you aware this is still active? Wikicast could do with your presence ShakespeareFan00 21:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Automatic edit summaries

Hi there; I am trying to track down the original author or instigator of this progam. Is it you? 'cos another editor says it is! If so, there are several unanswered questions on the article's talk page. If you are not responsible, then clearly it is not down to you to answer them. I got to you via the first recorded editor of the page, who said that you did it! He could be wrong. --Anthony.bradbury 01:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

To answer your question I feel it might be tidier, equally useful and easier for NP patrol if the automatic edit summary was constrained to a maximum of two lines.--Anthony.bradbury 19:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Further clarification - I mean two lines including the name of the article and of the editor.--Anthony.bradbury 00:12, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Do I take it that I am a minority here? If so, I can live with it!--Anthony.bradbury 18:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

But I would be grateful for an answer. The Wiki policy page states that edit summaries will not normally be more than two lines. I realise that this is malleable. But if you feel that edit summaries of three, or sometime four, lines are necessary, I have got to say that it is difficult to see why. And if, as you have said, it is just a matter of changing a number in a line of code, could I please ask you to give it serious consideration?--Anthony.bradbury 00:11, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Just so you know, Werdna himself is rarely available to respond to inquiries here. JRSpriggs 07:43, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Problem with bot

I have had the template on my talk page for a while and found some initial errors I made (keeping the parenthesis from the how to page) but now my template is exactly the same as your except that I changed the user name and target. Despite this, Werdnabot still doesn't archive. I'd appreciate any help. I'm going to try setting it the date setting to 1 day and see if anything happens. Gdo01 07:00, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Werdnabot has not run since 4 December 2006. See its contributions at Special:Contributions/Werdnabot. So your correction to your invokation of Werdnabot was done after its last run. So there may no longer be any problem with your page, just a problem with the bot itself. JRSpriggs 08:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

archiving too quick

I recently had a section archived by the bot because I had not responded quickly enough, which is fine; the problem was when I brought the section back from the archive page and added a comment it moved it back to archive promptly. [1] I assume it was something to do with me not removing the tags the bot automatically adds, but this still doesn't seem quite correct to me. Vicarious 08:23, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Accolades

Werdna, congrats on turning out great work with the automatic edit summaries. It makes vandal-fighting easier and is going to put more edit summaries on everyone's watchlists. I definitely appreciate it.--Kchase T 04:01, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

taking you by the word

I am an indef. blocked user and I don't like you, for no reason at all. 87.78.150.132 06:44, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Half a Second of Research

Your comment about doing half a second of research is far from respectful. Even the accompanying IRC comment is a bit curt. -- tariqabjotu 10:28, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Real Harry Kewell

Really don't you believe that I am the real Harry Kewell, well that's fine beacuse I know that I am, so does it matter? Harry Kewell #10 09:13, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Harry Kewell 14

I believe you blocked the user Harry Kewell 14 for impersonating himself.

If so please comment on my talk page. Harold Kewell 09:07, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Banning on IRC

Hi Werdna, you're a prick. Today on IRC I was making a joke and you banned me because you massage yourself with the power you feel from being an IRC op and wikipedia admin. I hope you have a parade thrown in your honor and get batches of flowers thrown under your feet.. and have trumpets play, and birds sing. It's people like you that discourage casual editors from even wanting to be involved in this project. --Jeff 04:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

User talk Brookie

Hi Brookie here - I have added the tag for the bot to do my archiving - but it it isn't! Have I set it up correctly ? Many thanks Brookie :) - a will o' the wisp ! ^(Whisper...) 07:47, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

As noted above (see "Problem with bot"), Werdnabot has not archived anyone's pages since 4 December 2006. So you will just have to wait until Werdna deigns to fix it, or archive manually. You cannot conclude that there is anything wrong with your Werdnabot invokation until you have seen it run an archiving job since you set up your page and it misses you. JRSpriggs 08:22, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

It appears that Werdna has been using the bot for some other activities in the last week. Such as eliminating multiple redirects. JRSpriggs 08:25, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

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Ampersand problem

Well, apparently the patch still has a few bugs in it. There appears to be an encoding problem with WWW::Mechanize that's changing certain characters to their encoded equivalents, which aren't processed by MediaWiki. I'll have to check it out as soon as I can get to my home system. The issue was also discussed on Werdnabot's talk page. Shadow1 (talk) 13:34, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Werdnabot is changing ALL ampersands in any file it touches to ampersand-"amp"-semicolon

Werdnabot is changing ALL ampersands in any file it touches to ampersand-"amp"-semicolon. For example, ampersand-"pi"-semicolon is changed to ampersand-"amp"-semicolon-"pi"-semicolon which does not have the same effect when processed by wiki-software. Please fix this MAJOR bug in Werdnabot. JRSpriggs 10:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Seen it. Working on it. — Werdna talk criticism 10:43, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. — Werdna talk criticism 02:23, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Can you explain this diff?

[2] What was that all about ? "purpose reverts" "bug actions" *confuzzled* Let me know :) Thanks! — Deon555^talk_desk 21:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply to User_talk:Deon555. Ta — Deon555^talk_desk 21:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• Reads above sections* "ah." — Deon555^talk_desk 21:43, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Werdnabot dispatch

Hey Werdna, I was looking over Werdnabot's wiki and I noticed that you're using the old style of the dispatch page. Please note that specifying the has_query and has_filepath variables will cause Werdnabot to fail when it reads the dispatch page, unless you've gone back to the old code since I last checked. The current Werdnabot code should only require the wiki host, the path, the username, and the liason, such as en.wikipedia.org w Werdnabot Werdna. Shadow1 (talk) 12:49, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Help please, werdna is not archiving my talk page

User talk:Alan.ca is not gettin archived, can you advise please. Alan.ca 22:55, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Fixed, I think. JRSpriggs 04:40, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Broken links

Hi, Werdna! I hope you're enjoying your holiday.

I just wanted to report something. Your 'bot has been archiving the mathtalk page for quite a while now. And it generally works just great.

Today I was reading something over here that had a link into the mathtalk page. The link (internal, with a #) was broken. So I patched it up by inserting a "/Archive16" string into the existing uri. It wasn't too hard for me to do ... I just went off the date stamp on the talk page I was reading to find the right archive file.

Anyway, I see you're taking the 'bot out into the wide world of Wikipedia. Do you think you could find time to fix this small problem? Couldn't the 'bot use the "what links here" tool somehow, and fix all those links/anchor tags to point to the archived material in its new location? That would probably save a lot of people quite a few headaches down the road sometime.

Thanks for listening. Merry Christmas!  ;^> DavidCBryant 18:49, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Edit summaries

Hi there; I have failed to find an answer to my comment, suggesting that the maximum length of an automated edit summary should be such that it is contained in no more than two lines of text, including the name of the article. You earlier said that this was just a matter of tweaking a number in a programme. Any further thoughts?--Anthony.bradbury 00:53, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Werdnabot problem

Hi, I noticed that Werdna bot archived then trashed the apollo moon landing hoax accusations archive. I have now restored the archive. I guess the codes in the span tags have some significance, so it may be worthwhile keeping an eye on it for a while to make sure it doesn't become confused.

Cheers. Guinness 20:44, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's down

For those of you who haven't realised, Werdnabot is down. The library it depends on has broken due to MediaWiki software changes. I haven't the time to fix it at the moment. If you wish to help out, you can check out my toolserver svn repository (m:Toolserver); and submit a patch. If it works, you seriously rock. — Werdna talk criticism 12:44, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Werdna has fixed Werdnabot and, after some glitches, it now appears to be running correctly. JRSpriggs 10:29, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi, this Mean no Harm, I'm new and didn't know who to talk to.--Mean No Harm 18:23, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

To Mean no Harm: What is your question or comment? JRSpriggs 10:29, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:RFBOT

Your recent bot approvals request has been been flagged for expiration. Please see the request page for details. Let us know what you want to do with the request shortly or else it will expire. -- RM 15:00, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

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Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Husnock

Hello,

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Husnock. Please add any evidence you may wish the arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Husnock/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Husnock/Workshop.

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Werdnabot and templates

Hello. Werdnabot does not seem to understand templates, right? See [3]. The archived content simply just disappears. Is there any solution to this? Bryan 13:24, 22 December 2006 (UTC) (Commons:User:Bryan)

Werdnabot malfunction

Hi, your bot automatically archived a section of my talk page (User talk:GW_Simulations) less than a day after it was posted. I think this could be some form of malfunction because I had set it to 5 days. - Page history. Could you look into this. Thanks --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 12:30, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the non-standard time-stamp in that section caused the problem. Hopefully, it will not recur now that you have replied using a standard time-stamp. JRSpriggs 13:38, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 14:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)