User talk:Bobblewik/dates

Wikilinking dates

I have reverted your removal of date wikilinks. I felt that you should know - could I also ask what you meant by "reduce low added value links"? - Ta bu shi da yu 02:53, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have the same question. Why are you removing wikilinks for dates? I recall some discussion on whether dates should be wikilinked and the consensus being afirmative, but that was some 18 or so months ago, IIRC. If there has been a change in reccomended style that I've missed, could you please give me a pointer to it? If this is just your own personal decision that date wikilinks should be removed, could you please hold off until there has been some discussion on the question? Thanks, -- Infrogmation 03:07, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning it. I meant that the articles such as 1974 are of little value to the reader. Linking to them many times makes the individual value even lower. The reason why some dates are within brackets is mainly so that date preferences work. Thus 3 September 1980 will be converted into September 3, 1980. It is not really a 'link' at all. The link function is merely an additional part of the implementation.

Dates that are not subject to regional variation (such as year only) do not have preferences. So the issue is not about dates, the issue is about dates subject to preferences and dates not subject to preferences. A year only should be treated just like any other term in the article like burglary. This issue is mentioned in the Manual of Style.

I know that some people link all instances of year only. I don't really know why. I hope that I have made you think about this issue. This issue is mentioned in the Manual of Style. But if you think links to the year articles are important, then that is fine by me. Be bold with your edits and put the article back how you like it. Bobblewik (talk) 03:32, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Date Links

Thanks for your note on date links. Everyone seems to have different ideas about it. I'm forever getting people adding date links into my articles. Chevin 18:29, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A query from a curious cat

I saw your dewikifying edits of years in Farkhor Air Base. Is there any aesthetic reason or any other reason behind such reduction in overlinking? Just curious, since I just pounce of unwikified years wherever I see it and wikify it. :) Idleguy 13:08, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A good question. The explanation might be easier when we consider the question Why link dates?.

The reason for the existence of date 'links' is because of 'date preferences'. For example, Americans like to see April 12, 1981 and Brits like to see 12 April 1981. If square brackets are added, the Wikipedia software amends the format so that the sequence matches that chosen by the reader in the preference settings. It should not really be called a 'link' at all, the actual 'link' to the article is merely a secondary effect.

Date elements that are unambiguous across cultures (such as a year on its own: 1981) do not involve date preferences and so do not need the square brackets for reformatting. It is explained (not very well) at: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Date_formatting and Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(links)#Internal_links

This issue is widely misunderstood. Lots of dates get linked on Wikipedia and some people think that means *all* must be linked. However, this is not supported in any Wikipedia guidance. There is no assertion that reader access to date articles is insufficiently satisfied.

I think linking of solitary-years and solitary-months is overlinking. However if that is what people want, it is fine by me but I think it has just become one of the things that editors do without thinking too much.

The issue is discussed from time to time. For example at: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Dates_linking_convention_currently_ludicrous.

Thanks for asking here. Keep up the good work. Bobblewik 15:05, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's also not true that none of the years standing alone should be linked. I have pointed out that dates are overlinked; I do not, however, agree that they should never be linked if it has nothing to do with preferences.

In your overzealous "reducing overlinking" you have now gone so far as to remove a link that was the only year mentioned in a whole article, and one that could legitimately be linked for purposes other than preferences, and were reverted on it by someone other than me. Gene Nygaard 02:24, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Date links

It's my usual practice to wikify solitary years and months; that is the reason why I "reverted" your edit in the Erich Vermehren article. Be it as it may I also added a link to Isa Vermehren because I intend to create an article on her in the near future. It turns out that she has as interesting a life as her brother :). RashBold 17:39, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The reason for the existence of date 'links' is because of 'date preferences'. For example, Americans like to see April 12, 1981 and Brits like to see 12 April 1981. If square brackets are added, the Wikipedia software amends the format so that the sequence matches that chosen by the reader in the preference settings. It should not really be called a 'link' at all, the actual 'link' to the article is merely a secondary effect.

Date elements that are unambiguous across cultures (such as a year on its own: 1981) do not involve date preferences and so do not need the square brackets for reformatting. It is explained (not very well) at: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Date_formatting and Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(links)#Internal_links

This issue is widely misunderstood. Lots of dates get linked on Wikipedia and some people think that means *all* must be linked. However, this is not supported in any Wikipedia guidance. There is no assertion that reader access to date articles is insufficiently satisfied.

I think linking of solitary-years and solitary-months is overlinking. However if that is what people want, it is fine by me but I think it has just become one of the things that editors do without thinking too much.

The issue is discussed from time to time. For example at: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Dates_linking_convention_currently_ludicrous.

Anyway it is not a big deal.

I think Erich Vermehren is a very interesting article. I am glad it exists because I learned something. Thanks for what you have done. Regards Bobblewik 15:15, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Good start...

... on link-reduction with Sandy Koufax. I gave it a whack last spring but "link-creep" set back in. It is still way overlinked. Sfahey 02:24, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Overlinking of dates is one of the most common silly things on Wikipedia. Hopefully, more editors will start to realise that. The real solution is to find a better method of handling date formats. There is a proposal to handle this but it needs to go on bugzilla. If you can help put it there, I would be grateful. See: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#More_about_overlinking_of_dates. Bobblewik 12:01, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Delinking years

I agree that we don't need to link individual months in articles, but to go through and delink years is not a well spent effort, if you ask me. Being able to reference the year article from individual articles is an important source of historical context for events. It's nice to immediately see what else was happening in the year that penicillin was invented, or when the Corvette was redesigned, or when Pete Rose was first accused of betting on baseball. If a year is important enough to mention in an article, it's important enough to link it's first use in the article. Although I don't mind unlinking second and later mentions of a year, please don't unlink first mention of individual years in each article. Thanks. Un focused 19:08, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. This is what I said when the same topic was raised in relation to X Window System:

********************************************************

Here are my thoughts on the matter: one of the great things about Wikipedia is that it is hypertext. So a reader can easily go from one topic to another. So if the X Window article mentions network transparency, the reader can click on the link and read about 'network transparency'. That is a 'good thing'.

Since there are so many articles in wikipedia, we could go berserk and add a link to each word when such a strategy adds little value. Furthermore if we repeat a word, we could link the second instance of the word, the third instance of the word, the fourth instance of the word and so on. That may appear as a Reductio ad absurdum explanation but if we look at date links in Wikipedia we are not far off.

For example, in this article, we have four instances of the term 1986 in 4 consecutive lines. Each of those has been linked. Three lines later it is linked again. Later on in the article, it occurs again in three consecutive lines, each instance linked. It seems to me that:

* of all the links in this article, terms such as '1986' probably come at the bottom of the list for further reading.

* of all the reasons to repeat a link, a term being unlinked for 2 lines is probably not one of them.

I think one of the reasons why this issue comes up is because of something unrelated to hypertext. It relates to date formats and date preferences. For some reason, the mechanism for permitting date preferences to work has been implemented in the same manner as a link. So that is why many complete dates are linked. However, a year word by itself does not have the date format preference issue. You are not alone in thinking that all dates should be linked but I think that many people do not understand that this is only because of date formatting, not because of a particular Wikipedia philosophy that readers are unfulfilled in their ability to check up on date articles.

This issue comes up from time to time in various places. I have a clear opinion on it and you can, of course, take a different view to me. It is only a secondary interest of mine anyway.

You may wish to refer to the following:

*Manual of Style (dates and numbers) section on date linking

*Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(links)#Internal_links Manual of Style (links) section on over linking

********************************************************

You made a reasonable debating point about significant years. I don't agree that this is a sufficient reason, but it seems a reasonable point. If significant is defined as the year is mentioned in the article then that is the same as link all years and it does not sound like the debating point anymore. If editors were to take a more finite definition of significant, I would not be so worried.

I do note that you are not defending multiple links to the same year. That is reasonable too and is in line with what is said in the manual of style.

There is a discussion on this very topic at: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Dates_linking_convention_currently_ludicrous. Since it is a matter of generic style, that is a good place for the discussion. Please mention your concerns over there, I would be delighted to have a more public debate about it. Thanks. Bobblewik 19:52, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Dates

I unlink months in almost any circumstance. Years I leave at the moment - because I forsee the ability to display Jewish/Moslem years etc. I'd like to see an alternative wikifying for dates, e.g. << >>. (Automatic recognition is fraught with peril, and the grief I've had over it is huge, in fact it's one reason I don't welcome the orange "You have new messasages" rectangle like I used to.) A good markup interpreter would deal with some of the thinks like "2nd to 3rd June 1999". This would leave links for things like Valentines Day. Rich Farmbrough 17:13, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to read that you unlink months. I had not thought about non-Christian calendars. That is an interesting point. I also find the You have new messages rectangle too dominant. In fact, a lot of the editor-centric templates are too dominant in my opinion. We should be much more subtle and make a better experience for the core function of reading the articles.

I am also not a big fan of automation as a solution to all problems. Some people suggest that articles could be converted into metric units automatically. Even more ambitious people suggest that user preferences could control the display of metric or non-metric units. I think the cure in that case is worse than the disease.

Your suggestion of an alternative mark up for date preferences sounds good to me. I think it has even been mentioned before. Here is a link into the discussion: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#More_about_overlinking_of_dates. Please add a comment to it and I will join in. Regards Bobblewik 17:36, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

MoS: Wikilinking Years

With regards to our recent edits to Grand Valley State University: Sorry, I was not aware of this specification in the MoS. Thank you for pointing it out, and I'll try to look around first before my revert radar goes up. :) Euphoria 23:45, 14 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No problems. Thanks. Bobblewik 09:02, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Recent amendments to area measurments and date links

Hi.

I notice that you have recently edited several of my contributions with the comment:

Units. Reduce linking to solitary years and solitary months in accordance with Manual of Style.

The actual changes seems to be changing an area in hectares to the equivalent in square kilometers, and delinking a year that is not previously linked in the article. I'm mystified as to why either of these improves the article, but as I'm in the process of writing more articles along the same lines, I thought I'd better ask you to explain. And could you give me a more specific reference to the bit of the MoS you are quoting. Thanks. -- Chris j wood 15:58, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, thanks for bringing this here. The unit change is because it is easier for ordinary people to visualise areas in square kilometres than hectares. The guidelines for date links are at: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Date_formatting. I think you are doing a good job with those articles. Thanks. Bobblewik 21:36, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Done!

Let me know if you think it could be improved. Martin 18:06, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'll take your comments into consideration. Also, I have now made an image and a quick screen cam video (which is much better) to help in understanding how the software works, they are linked to from User:Bluemoose/AutoWikiBrowser. Martin 22:32, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed you added the message "Reduce linking to solitary years and solitary months in accordance with the manual of style" to the bottom of pages, you should add messages like that to talk pages instead. Martin 22:35, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yikes! I assumed 'append message' facility was putting something meaningful in the edit summary, which would be useful. I will go back and revert the offending edits now. What does 'general fixes' do? Bobblewik 22:40, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You can add what you like to the edit summary by changing the "summary" box, or choose one of the pre-set ones, I have changed the append thing so it can only work on talk pages now, but you would have seen it on the diff. General fixed does "see also" and "external links" mistakes and removes excess whitespace and a couple of other minor things, hopefully I'll add more to this soon. thanks Martin 22:45, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I did a test and checked the diff but did not look all the way to the bottom. Mea culpa. I have reverted all those ones now. The general fixes thing is great too. I used to remove excess spaces manually but gave up making the effort. I have now started using the summary. You are the man. Have you discussed this anywhere else? Bobblewik 22:53, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Not really mentioned it anywhere in particular, it is still in development, which is why it's great for me that a few brave people like yourself are finding the problems. thanks Martin 23:20, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Another point. The 'What links here' includes user pages, wikipedia pages, talk pages etc. That is all 'as it says on the tin', but I nearly failed to spot some of those and just caught it before it edited them. Would it be possible to suppress editing of such pages? And what do 'Auto tag' and 'Regex' do? Bobblewik 23:39, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Auto tag adds wikify and stub tags when appropriate, regex enables regular expression find and replace. I am working on filtering out non-mainspace articles, but you can sort them alphabetically then remove other name spaces pretty easily. I need to write all this up on the WP:AWB page! Martin 23:47, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Adding month links to Computer

Hi there. I noticed your edits to Computer adding links to individual months. I don't think this is a good idea: see Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context. --Robert Merkel 23:44, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You mistook my edit. I took the link away. I am definitely with you on that one. Bobblewik 23:47, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, I figured that out just *after* I added that talk page comment. I've since removed a couple more useless links from that article. --Robert Merkel 23:49, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Pipe edit summary

About the edit summary you are using (something like: "Assisted.Reduce links to date elements eg2005->2005. See Manual of Style. Not yet a bot :( If you like this, please say so at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Archive/2#Bot_permission_please.3F"). Could you pipe the last wikilink (it's an eyesore). If anything, the only wikilink in the edit summary should be to the relevent MoS section, could you link to there please.--Commander Keane 11:56, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I used to put the relevant section of the Manual of Style but the edits are now now being considered as a good task for a bot. So the primary debate is now taking place at 'talk:Bots'. As you may know, bot edits do not appear in 'Recent changes'. So that will be welcome to you. Say a word in support if you wish. In the meantime, how do I 'pipe' a link? Bobblewik 12:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bugger, forgot to check back. By piping the link I meant Wikipedia:Piped link. For example instead of Wikipedia talk:Bots/Archive/2#Bot_permission_please.3F you could use [[Wikipedia talk:Bots/Archive/2#Bot_permission_please.3F|WP:Bots]], (which looks like WP:Bots) so that it's not so long in the edit summary (an eysore I called it).--Commander Keane 08:57, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I was not familiar with the term 'piping' but I worked out what you meant. I already knew how to do it but had overlooked it. I also tried to make the summary more succinct. I had not been watching 'Recent changes' so I did not realise how bad the long summary looked. Thanks for the feedback. Bobblewik 09:06, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Dewikilinking dates

Greetings.

I noticed this morning that you dewikilinked all the years in Beer. Looking over your talk page, I see that this is a matter of some importance for you. Allow me to suggest that "AWB Assisted cleanup" is a wholly misleading edit summary to use when de-linking every linked year within an article, to say nothing of flagging such an edit as "minor". It smacks of trying to sweep such changes (which can be extensive in an article the size of Beer) under the rug in hopes that no one will notice.

All the best.
Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 15:22, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, the edit summary is certainly not intended to be misleading. I think it qualifies as minor because I am not changing anything that the article says. I am not trying to sweep changes under the rug, au contraire, if you look at my contributions in talk pages, you will see that I am not only open, I am active in the community in discussing how I think Wikipedia can be improved.

I used to be very specific and if you go back far enough in my edits you will see that. I became less specific as I included many other little details. Your desire for a specific summary for specific action is entirely reasonable so I will act on your comment. I will use a more focussed edit summary in future. Thanks for raising it here and please join in the various debates. Keep up the good work. Bobblewik 17:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bot edits

Hi, I have blocked this account for 3 hours. You are making edits far too fast to a) be healthy for the servers and b) to check each one individually, and since you don't have approval for the bot I am blocking you.

I would also note that I consider it rather impolite of you to continue to run the bot when you know full well that there is a large discussion about the appropriateness of removing links around dates. Please wait until the community has formed a consensus on what to do before running this bot again. Talrias (t | e | c) 20:30, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It should be noted that AWB in itself isn't a bot but could in theory be used in conjunction with a bot. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 20:55, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I am familiar with people thinking that I am a bot. One example of the 'bot question' can be seen right here on this page (in section 'Are you a bot?' above). Other examples are in other pages and archives.

I am not now, nor have I ever been a bot, and neither has any account been a bot on my behalf. Bobblewik 21:15, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Block

User:Jtdirl said: Having been blocked for his campaign the user in question then opted to come on using an anonymous IP to continue the campaign.

Throughout the entire existence of the Bobblewik account, I have not 'opted to come on using an anonymous IP'. The implication that I deliberately attempted to avoid a block in place is false. I am not aware of the events that led to this assertion by User:Jtdirl so I am unable to defend myself, but the conclusion is wrong. Bobblewik 23:21, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

To clear your name completely you could ask a user with the ability to do a m:Checkuser. Martin 00:23, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is in reference to the edits made by User:66.24.251.76. Bobblewik did not make those edits, i did. I have said so on WP:ANI and on User talk:66.24.251.76. Since the basis for this block is inaccurate, I am unblocking. DES ^(talk) 04:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You're blocked

I don't believe you! Why did you carry on making date-removal edits despite a large amount of discussion on the subject, a proposal to remove the section from the MOS which you claim permits the actions you are taken, and a number of requests to not do it? I've blocked you for a week for your complete disregard for the community. Talrias (t | e | c) 01:43, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bobblewik, I have unblocked you because Talrias is involved in the content dispute, which made your block a violation of Wikipedia:Blocking policy. However, as I have also expressed a view on the content issue, I can't be the one to decide whether you have earned a block or not. I've therefore left a note on WP:AN/I asking that an uninvolved admin take a look at the situation. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:58, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You've been reblocked. In future, please get a consensus to make rapid-fire changes to masses of articles, then act. Quite a few people have expressed concern about this, and you promised to cease until a consensus was reached - something which you have promptly gone back on. In the interests of good faith, I'm not rollbacking your last batch of edits, but please don't do this again. Ambi 03:01, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A small request

Hi! When you're delinking years (a guideline I hadn't realized existed, incidentally; thanks for educating me ;-)), if it's not too much trouble, could you check that the second date in a pair remains shortened. In other words, 1508-16 should become 1508-16, not 1508-1516. —Kirill Lokshin 20:17, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your thanks. Since the fuss about the millenium bug, I assumed that years should always be 4 digits. It is a good question of general interest so I have asked it at talk:Manual of style. We can see what people say. I don't mind either way and will go along with the consensus. Thanks for questioning it. Bobblewik 11:00, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I love you

I, too, have been on a crusade against unnecessary links, especially of the linked year variety. I just hate to see sooo many links cluttering up the text that add absolutely nothing whatsoever to the content. In case you haven't seen it already, Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context is a great resource to use to justify all of the good work that you are doing. --Cyde Weys _talk^contribs 10:33, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much. We are of like minds. I have been wanting to do something about it for ages. Now there is a simple tool at: User:Bluemoose/AutoWikiBrowser. Bobblewik 10:39, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent, I shall have to check that out. In addition to removing linked years, I like to removed linked plain English words and multiple linkings (keeping the first occurrence intact). Check out what I did with God. That was one helluvan edit. This thing you're talking about - is it any good at determining multiple links to the same page in an article and trimming out the excess ones? --Cyde Weys _talk^contribs 10:57, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, the search and replace rules are 'all or nothing'. It cannot 'ignore the first instance'. Look at the link I gave above and you will see more info. Regards Bobblewik 11:06, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for reducing month and year links

Hello Bobblewik,

Just a note to say thank you for unlinking months and years. It's one of my pet hates, and I'm really glad to see someone doing something about it!

Stephen Turner (Talk) 10:27, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think overlinking of date elements makes Wikipedia look silly. You may be interested to see the search and replace tool that I am using: User:Bluemoose/AutoWikiBrowser. Thanks for the feedback. Bobblewik 10:30, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I quite agree, i have been removing such pointless linksd by hand for a long time. DES ^(talk) 22:11, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I am seeking permission to do this quicker with a bot. But I don't have any support just yet. Could you say a word in support at: Wikipedia_talk:Bots#Bot_permission_please.3F? Thanks. Bobblewik 22:14, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

On this topic, I noticed your edit to Automobile (that I had to undo, but later restored). For what it's worth, I used the search & replace scriptlet, replacing \[\[([0-9]{4})]] with $1. The only problem was the exact dates that were linked in some locale-specific manner, but I just turned those into ISO 8601 dates (yyyy-mm-dd). Anyway, thanks for all of the cleanup work you and your bot(?) have been doing! —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-12-17 03:27:34Z

Year links

You appear to be cleaning articles with a rule being to de-link years. What is the general rule you have about linking years?? Georgia guy 17:51, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If I may butt in, I found these guidelines on Stephen Turner's page: (1, 2, 3). I used to commit the sin of overlinking years, but today I am born anew. Melchoir 18:17, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Bobblewik, you might want to link to those articles in your edit summaries. Melchoir 18:19, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I followed the links suggested above, and I'm still confused. It seems that every year has a Wikipedia article. Wouldn't year links make it easier to go to that page, click on "What links here", and research that particular year in history? Rick Norwood 20:58, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Machine-assisted tunnel vision

The Angel Moxie history now looks silly: one edit unlinking one instance of Monday, a second edit unlinking one instance of Wednesday right after the Monday of the first edit, and a third edit unlinking one instance of Friday right after the Wednesday of the second edit. Is there something about the software that makes it impossible to perform all three changes in a single pass? Bo Lindbergh 19:13, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The problem was not the software. The problem was my ignorance of the software. I can now do it in a single pass. Please could you say a word in support of reducing unnecessary date links at: Wikipedia_talk:Bots#Bot_permission_please.3F? Thanks Bobblewik 17:02, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Trivial date linking a wicked disease: bot brings smile to face

Dear Bobblewik

Your recent edit to Apple Macintosh has alerted to the existence of your wonderful bot and the related debates and vote. I note at one point on your talk page you commented that it was explained 'not very well' on MoS page. A few months ago I rewrote Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Internal links, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Date formatting, which were all poorly written and in places equivocal.

Please keep up the good work. Is there somewhere on the bot page that we can list articles that need botting?

Tony 23:42, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Tony, my bet is that all articles need botting (Is that a word? I like it). I think this bot needs to be ruthless.

Bobblewik, what are you going to call this bot? Do you have a clever name referencing the unlinking time connection? David D. (Talk) 00:12, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the positive feedback and for your open support on the bot talk page. It seems that there are a lot of people prepared to say that date linking should be reduced. As far as the bot name is concerned, it will be run with the username 'Bobblebot'. I had not thought of naming it by its function but I am open to suggestions. But the name is useless if it is not permitted to run. Please help get more support. Bobblewik 17:14, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Year links in basketball

Hi Bobblewik, I don't know if you have any systematic way of dealing with over-year-linked articles, but basketball, which I have recently requested peer review for, seems to have a fair few. Your assistance in de-linking some years there would be appreciated — I would myself but you seem to have an easier method (or rather, I'm too lazy... lol). If you have better things to do, though, don't worry about it... Thanks, Neonumbers 23:13, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Use User:Bluemoose/AutoWikiBrowser. And get other people to support my request for bot permission! Bobblewik 11:08, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much :-). I'll do my best. Neonumbers 11:11, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Though, it seems as if you've got overwhelming support already — and so you should. (sorry to send two messages in such a short time) Neonumbers 11:16, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Cris Morena

Hello. I noticed that you made an edit on Cris Morena when the page still had the Inuse marker. That cost me a lot of extra work. Next time you see the Inuse marker, you need to respect that sign, and wait until it is taken off to make an edit.

Antonio Ms. Morena's Man Martin

Oops sorry. That was not intentional. I would not have minded if you simply ignored/reverted what I did. Bobblewik 11:45, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, Bobblewik. I may have been too harsh on you through. With so many people doing vandalism etc, I guess I was edgy. I guess the old saying goes, "you learn as you grow" same here for us wikipedians.

Don't wait to ring me if you ever have a question or need a favor here! Antonio Chufa Cha Martin

Thanks. Regards. Bobblewik 15:58, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Possible bug in date reduction

I don't have any strong feelings one way or the other about wikifying years, but I noticed on Fujitani Ayako that the not-yet-a-bot took ([[1995]]-[[1999]]) and made it to (1995-[[1999]]), leaving the wikilink on 1999. It's probably a simple regexp matching bug. Neier 12:31, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the feedback. It is not a bug. It is a feature. :)

I avoid years in full dates such as [[March 29]],[[1984]] (from Indianapolis Colts. The current regex will not match a year link if it has a preceding link. That is why it matched the first of the pair but not the second. It would delink the other if it looked at the article again.

As you suggest, a more sophisticated regex could be comprehensive in one pass. I am making detailed improvements to the regex over time. If bot permission is granted, I will seek advice on the best regex. But I will always welcome feedback such as yours. Bobblewik 13:13, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Christmas present

I have added a date link reducing option for you (removes year, month, day and date links), it can be downloaded here. It does remove a lot of links so be careful! the option is under the tab heading "beta". thanks Martin 12:43, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much! I know that you are not entirely happy with reducing date links. So I am glad that we are still talking.

I tested your new version but I see that it also delinks full dates that are valid for date preferences. I don't think I would be brave enough to go that far. I do not delink full dates that are valid for date preferences. This is because consent for limited scope is easier to obtain.

I would definitely be happier to give this task away. Thanks! Bobblewik 13:23, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

When you say "full dates that are valid for date preferences" I dont quite understand, do you mean delinking things like 21 May? If I made it so it just did days months and years would that be better? thanks Martin 13:43, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't use date preferences so I don't know all the valid ones. But some info is at:

In regex, my ideal would be to match and delink all dates that fail a date preference test:

Any day of the week:
- (Monday|Tuesday|Wednesday|Thursday|Friday|Saturday|Sunday)
Any month:
- (January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December)
Any decade:
- ([0-9]{4}s)
Any three digit or four digit year but not when preceded by a month/day combination or when followed by an ISO8601 month/day combination. My test has been rather crude (it does not watch for ISO dates yet). I merely look for *any* preceding link: ([^\]]{4})\[\[([0-9]{4}|[0-9]{4}s|[0-9]{3})\]\]
Any century such as: '20th century', '20th Century', '1st century'
Any month/year combination such as 'February 2002'

I also try to avoid pages that discuss calendars and the origins of week/month names. My crude way is to search for the word 'calendar' and 'god'. But that could be tightened.

Here is the search regex I have been using:

([^\]]{4})\[\[([0-9]{4}|[0-9]{4}s|[0-9]{3}|January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December|Monday|Tuesday|Wednesday|Thursday|Friday|Saturday|Sunday)\]\]

The replace field has

$1$2

The ignore field has

calendar|Calendar|god|God

Ive integrated your regex into the newest version, thanks Martin 15:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Unlinking years

Hi.

You will have seen that I reverted a couple of your changes (to London Marathon and List of rapid transit systems). I've no fundamental quarrel with your crusade to reduce the number of year links, and since I've been aware of this issue I've cut down my usage of them. However these two articles contained long lists full of linked years, and just unlinking 2005 and leaving all the others looked silly. I will attempt to rectify these two articles properly myself, but thought you might like to reconsider the way you are unlinking so as to do all years in a given articles at one go. Regards. -- Chris j wood 13:51, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You are right. It did look silly to remove just one in a long list. The problem was my ignorance of the AutoWikiBrowser software. I can now do all years in a single pass but it is still a manual process. Thank you for fixing the articles. We are getting a fair amount of support for a bot to do this automatically but the argument is not won yet. Please could you express your opinion at: Wikipedia_talk:Bots#Bot_permission_please.3F? Bobblewik 14:20, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Re: minutes and seconds

Thanks, nice that someone noticed. I actually was inspired to do this by your year unlinking... I hadn't heard of AWB before I noticed some of your edits (great work, by the way!). As for the ?s, you're absolutely right, they're ugly. And as these parameters are optional in the template now, it's probably better to just leave them out altogether - That's what I'll do in the next batch when I come across them. --Fritz S. (Talk) 10:45, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Some stand-alone year links are ok, though

Sometimes, a stand-alone year link should not be deleted. For instance, the 1117 link from Miidera takes you to a page where ~~the construction of~~a battle between the members of Miidera is framed with some other concurrent historical events. There are other year links on Miidera which don't have the same type of info on the other end; but, I think that 1117 should stay. One way to tell what is important (in the sense that there is a link from the year's page to the article) is to check the "What links here". Your almost-bot may do that already, but it is something I noticed and remembered the recent talk I had a few sections up. Neier 11:56, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, the software does not do it. Massive overlinking of dates throughout Wikipedia has meant that readers have no way of knowing which of the many links on a page contain useful information. If it is not possible for a reader to discriminate, it is difficult to define rules for software.

I do not agree that the 1117 link is useful but you have suggested a clear rule. I think that you are proposing a rule that is clear:

1. Look at ArticleA

2. Look inside the article for year link e.g. ArticleB, ArticleC etc

3. Go to ArticleB and looks at 'What links here'

4. Check if 'What links here' of ArticleB contains ArticleA

5. Use that information to modify the delinking rule.

I do not know how to do it. The date delinking regex is published in the talk page so you can see what it does. Feel free to suggest modifications. Thanks. Bobblewik 19:10, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The rule as you wrote it is not quite right. The 'What links here' you need to look at is of Article A

1. Look at ArticleA (In this case, Miidera)

2. Look inside the article for year link e.g. ArticleB, ArticleC etc (So, 672, 859, 1117, 1599, etc)

3. Look at 'What links here' of ArticleA for any year links (A link from 1117 in this case) Special:Whatlinkshere/Mii-dera

4. Remove any years found in 3 from the list formed in 2 (1117)

5. Unlink the remaining years in the list from 2 (672, 859, 1117, 1599) -- Not 1117.

So, the bot would need to get not only the article, but the Whatlinkshere/ page(s). Processing the Whatlinkshere pages to find links to the main article from year pages is trivial. But I don't know enough about bots to know if they can be programmed to act on two pages at once, or not. Neier 23:46, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Aha. I see what you mean. Try asking the author of the software at: User talk:Bluemoose/AutoWikiBrowser. Bobblewik 23:50, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Linking dates

Hi Bobblewik, this is just to thank you for your work in getting rid of overlinked dates. I've added my support to the page regarding your bot. I always used to link standalone years (e.g. 2005), because I saw everyone else doing it and assumed it was part of the MoS. Since realizing it wasn't, I've been removing them wherever I see them, including from early articles I wrote, but it's very helpful to have your bot around to do it. Seasons greetings to you, and all the best, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:21, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much. Positive feedback is very welcome. Your comment in support at 'talk:Bots' is useful too. You may also wish to see comments being made at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#More_comments.

You can use the tool yourself quite easily too. See: User:Bluemoose/AutoWikiBrowser. Regards Bobblewik 22:30, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Christmas tree

Hi, I see that your ~~bot~~ "assisted editor" took a lot of date links out of the subject article, can you give me advice as to where to read more about this topic? Some of the articles I've edited heavily have a lot of date links for what I think are good reasons so I'd like to read more so I can understand why a lot of links are considered harmful... thanks! (PS can your bot also put links back or is it only an unlinker? ++Lar 01:30, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia policy relevant to date linking is at:

If you think the policy is wrong, then it can be changed easily enough.

If you want to know more about the tool, see User:Bluemoose/AutoWikiBrowser and its talk page. If you think Christmas tree is not linked consistently with the policy in the references given above, then edit it so that it matches the policy. Alternatively, if you disagree with the policy, just edit the article in your own way, I don't mind much.

I hope that helps. Thanks for mentioning it here. Keep up the good work. Bobblewik 13:12, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Colin Powell

When you can, could you just run a popups-assisted cleanup on this article? Thanks. Harro5 03:06, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I will try to remember to do it. You may wish to do it yourself. It is really easy. Just get it from User:Bluemoose/AutoWikiBrowser. Bobblewik 13:16, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

Thanks for helping the clean up of my changes man. You rock so does NoFX. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brendan2003 (talk • contribs)

Thanks for the praise. That is always welcome. If you want to do something similar yourself, just get the tool from User:Bluemoose/AutoWikiBrowser. Bobblewik 13:17, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Year links (big struggle, slim issue)

A lot of folks are vexed by year links, one way or the other. Generally, I'm low key about people adding or removing year links from my articles, but there are some cases where I think the case for year links is unambiguous. For example, in Restoration literature and Augustan literature and their daughter articles, the articles themselves are historical surveys. Hence, anyone there is already interested specifically in the progress/regress/stasis of history over an epoch. Year links there make all the sense in the world. Whether they make sense in a biography or not, I'm not sure. Certainly they make little sense in contemporary years, where the reader knows more about the years than the year articles can say, but the goal of the year entries is to provide a quick overview, a semi-tabular presentation of the significant events in a year. Hypothetically, every time someone makes a year link, they're to go to the year article and add to it, as well (rarely happens). Anyway, for historical survey articles I've done I'll probably revert to year links. Otherwise, I probably won't get involved. Geogre 15:31, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for letting me know your view. If you revert a change that I do, that is fine too. Keep up the good work. Regards. Bobblewik 15:56, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Partial dates

Good to see you progressing with these. I've caught a few more recently. Rich Farmbrough. 20:54, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. A lot of these can be caught by looking at 'What links here' from date elements like Tuesday and February. Unfortunately I cannot correct bizarre linking involving numerics like 22 February. I would welcome assistance with the regex that is used in User:Bluemoose/AutoWikiBrowser. Bobblewik 21:01, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why are you still changing linking formats when you know that there is a lot of opposition to doing so, particularly en masse? I'm rollbacking some of your latest edits; do you have any reason why I shouldn't rollback them all? Ambi 23:40, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Invasion" years

I'm writing because I normally agree with reducing the overlinking of dates, but in the case of Invasion (or any list of historical events) I think linked dates are good because it allows readers to quickly put them into context with other events. It also serves as an internal cite, in a way, because readers can confirm that those events did, indeed, happen during that year and in certain cases see the exact date. These are not random links thrown into a paragraph; they are specific to each event. I do agree that unlinking the date in the caption of the photo was good; I'm going to revert your changes to the list (just because it's much easier than re-linking them all by hand) but I will keep that one. Thanks - Kafziel 16:43, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your feedback. I welcome your comment. If we could reduce overlinking of dates to the circumstances you suggest, I think it might be tolerable. So I do not mind your revert. Keep up the good work. bobblewik 16:52, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My Belarusy

Question, what do you mean by "reduce[ing] links to 'non-preference' date elements?" I am not going to revert the changes, but I just wonder if you could explain that summary. Thanks. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire) Fair use policy} 18:59, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you look in 'My preferences' at the top of your edit window, you will see that you can format dates (e.g. 29 January 2006 -> January 29, 2006) according to your preference. It only works for users that have an account and have chosen to set it. I don't happen to find it useful, so I don't use it, but it exists. It only works with some date formats. Other date elements (e.g. a solitary year like 2003) are not changed by the preference setting and therefore do not need the square brackets for that purpose.

Unfortunately, the use of square brackets for two things:

1. Date preferences

2. Hyperlinks

means that some people are misled into believing that *all* date elements should be linked. It is all explained at:

Many thanks for bringing this here. bobblewik 19:19, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bobblewik, you know that there is a lot of controversy over that guideline, with quite a lot of opposition to it. People have asked you nicely to refrain from making mass changes to articles you don't usually edit until this is sorted out, and you've kept doing so en masse, despite having been twice blocked previously for doing so. As such, I've blocked you for 24 hours.

If you wish to make these sort of edits, why not use a second account? This would avoid the need for your main account to be blocked to stop these edits from being made en masse. Ambi 06:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I really would prefer not to make these edits. However, this problem is widespread and a very noticable feature of Wikipedia so I think something should be done. As I have repeatedly said: if implementing the Manual of Style is a problem, then we should change the Manual rather than complain about editors that use it for reference. Incidentally, the 50 minutes of fast edits you refer to were drunken editing, otherwise I have been trying to keep the speed down to avoid provoking people such as yourself with blocking powers. However, the matter is that of the principle of date links and we both would like this to be resolved in the Manual of Style.

If people have new wording for the Manual, then I can understand a desire for a suspension. But such suspensions really should be documented in scope and duration. Otherwise objections become 'meta-guidance' (as I noted in my comment of 21 January).

I did refrain from such edits on the basis of 'until this is sorted out' but it did not get sorted out. I even proposed some revised wording myself. that would have added constraints but nobody responded. As I noted I have now lifted my voluntary suspension. If you think my previous suspension was too short then please tell me what the time period should be.

As far as I can see, there is no active discussion of a revised wording in the Manual. If you have proposed rewording and want a suspension of current guidance, then please say so in the talk page of the MoS. There are quite a few editors like me that like to implement the MoS and are interested in this topic. I hope that sounds reasonable. bobblewik 13:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

911

I'm not going to get into the debate of whether year links should be removed or not, as I have no real strong opinion on the issue. I would ask, though, that you please be more careful in your efforts to remove these date links to not remove links to things that are not dates. The topic header is the specific example that brought this to my attention. On the Google Maps page you removed the link to "911", with the edit summary of removing date links. But in this case, the link was not a date, but the phone number for the US emergency telephone system. Now, the link was bad, as the correct page for this system is 9-1-1, and I have replaced the link on the G-maps page, correcting it as well. But the link should not have been removed as a date when it is not a date. Reguardless of whether date links should be removed, links to the 911 system pages fall outside that effort, and should be either fixed or left intact. (Preferably fixed, but I know that's outside the scope of your current effort.) I would bet that the majority of links to 911 should actually link to 9-1-1, so unless you want to examine each for context, you may be better off just leaving that one number untouched by your efforts. - TexasAndroid 12:59, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Thanks for the feedback. I will exempt this numbers and others such as 112. bobblewik 11:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Year links

You have repeatedly removed the four solitary year links in Adriaen van der Donck, which are linked because they are significant and helpful to a reader who doesn't know off the top of their head what else was happenning in 1618. I agree that all the annoying 2003's should be stripped, but please be more careful reviewing your de-linking in context. — Laura Scudder ☎ 18:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with other people that say that solitary year links are rarely needed. Linking things like American popular music is useful because nobody could guess that the permutation of plain english words would have an article. Anybody interested in any of the thousands of date element articles can enter them in the search box. In that respect, readers do not need their attention drawn to the presence of a date articles any more than plain english articles. I do note that you take a different view.

You say that links to 2003 etc should be stripped. This puts us both in agreement about the principle of reducing overlinking to dates. We merely disagree about the extent. This problem has grown much larger than the problem of linking to plain english words. Perhaps there needs to be more debate about how exactly to reduce the overlinking rather than leaving it up to individuals. Thanks for your feedback, I would be happy if you wanted to reiterate this in the Manual of Style talk pages. bobblewik 11:50, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By that reasoning there should be no links to Albert Einstein because anyone could enter his name in the search box. I put in the rare year link for the same reason as any other obvious-syntax link: because it makes the reader's job easier.

The average reader certainly knows general historical trends in the 1900s but needs some touchstones to know historical context in the 1600s. Obviously there is no clear line, which is why I think it requires careful case-by-case consideration of what will help the reader. I brought it to your attention because I was unsure if a half a minute would be enough time for me to properly evaluate every year's relevance.

Also I wanted to try to prevent more iterations like this: [2] [3] [4] [5]. — Laura Scudder ☎ 16:34, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The repeat iterations are not intentional. I was merely applying the same guidance to the current copy and coming to the same conclusion. Sorry for that, I will try to leave that article according to your preference.

As far as your Albert Einstein example is concerned, that is different to my example. I was merely making a comparison with plain english words. 'Albert Einstein' is not one plain english word, it is two non-plain english words. Perhaps I did not communicate the idea very well. If I understand you correctly, you are applying the following style guidance:

1. Link to solitary years to make the reader's job easier.

2. Do not link solitary years in the 1900s but link to solitary years in the 1600s.

Both those are valid propositions for you to follow even though I do not follow them myself. Unfortunately the Manual of Style does not contain such guidance. It actually opposes the first. The interesting concept of a date threshold (e.g. between 1600 and 1900) has been mentioned before but is currently totally absent.

There is a huge mismatch between the guidance and the implementation. Quite a few of us that think that guidance on date links need more clarity, or more implementation, or both. Perhaps you might agree with me on that. If more constraints are added along the lines you suggest, that is fine by me. I would be very happy if you were to raise this on the MoS talk page. Perhaps new wording can emerge that satisfies more people. As long as we can eliminate the mismatch between guidance and the implementation, I will be happier. bobblewik 17:44, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for removing the year links from Hrafnkels saga. I've never really liked year links but when I wrote that article I thought they were the standard so I included them. But they're really just clutter.

My only problem is that once the year has been delinked a sentence fragment like "arriving on the east coast around 900 with his teenage son" looks slightly awkard. I guess I should write "around the year 900" or "around 900 AD". Something to ponder. Anyway, keep up the good work. - Haukur 15:58, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your thanks. I agree with you that the text can often be improved, particularly if the year does not have 4 digits. There are quite a few editors with a history and experience of year links similar to yours (i.e. not liking them but thinking they are standard). It would be great if you read the current text of:

and express your views on the issue in the talk page (of the first two in particular). There is also an opinion survey in the first one. Unfortunately there are many people hostile to removal of date links and your opinion would help those of us campaigning for decluttering. Keep up the good work. bobblewik 16:09, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there. I reverted your delinking of years in History of the Netherlands. Personally I find that clicking on a year is a great way to get some context of the event, and linking is definitely useful in most cases. Also note that almost all featured articles have linked years. Seeing that more people have protested here, I think you should consider trying to get some community consensus before making these changes to multiple articles (personally I think you will find that most people appreciate linking years, but I'm not sure). Junes 16:53, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Thanks for your comments. The guidelines and reasons for date linking are explained at:

Some of the protests that you mention are from editors that are unaware of the guidelines or disagree with them. If those guidelines do not provide an adequate represention of community consensus, they should be changed. The process is straightforward. If you want to propose a change of wording to the guidelines that I have been using, feel free to do so on the relevant talk pages of the guidelines. Thanks and keep up the good work. bobblewik 17:13, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Bobblewik, I reverted most of your link removals at Rulers and heads of state of Ethiopia because I believe that in a table or list of rulers the dates that their reigns began or end are relevant links & need to be kept as a help to the reader. However, reviewing your edits, I do agree with some of them (for example, I don't know how links were added to months alone at some points), & made an effort to remove some of the year links -- although in a manner different than you had done. I hope you understand my reasoning & that you consider making an exception for explicit lists of this kind. -- llywrch 17:47, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your reasoned response. There is widespread misunderstanding and some people think everything has to be linked. It is not only months (as you have seen), it is even days of the week! I think the problem started because square brackets are used for two purposes:

1. 'date preferences'
2. 'hyperlinks'.

There is some debate about separating those two functions in order to reduce the confusion. In the meantime, as I say, the guidance is at:

I am glad that you can now see that date linking has gone too far and have done some delinking. If people did not go berserk with date links, then there would not be such a need for a cull. Your suggested guideline for reign dates is certainly 'implementable' but it is not currently in Manual of style. I don't happen to agree that such years are worth linking but if you proposed rewording the Manual of style to include that guideline, I would be happy to discuss the pros and cons along with many other editors. The guidelines as used by myself and many other editors could then be changed if necessary. I will try to avoid that page if I can and I do not mind if your revert or otherwise modify any of my edits. Thanks for bringing it here. bobblewik 18:26, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry you don't see the utility of date linking in the lists I described above; if there is anywhere they should be liberally used, it is there. Anyway, I intended to argue my case at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) immediately after posting here, but I find I need to take some time to compose my words. -- llywrch 20:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I really would like to agree with you but that is not how I think at the the moment. Perhaps when you argue your case and others join in the debate, I may understand a bit more about the practical application of your proposal. Unfortunately, the status quo is a serious mismatch between guidance and the implemented links. We need to change either the implemented links or the guidance or perhaps a bit of both. There has been a fair amount of discussion about the guidance but only a few editors actually implementing it. Many editors are unaware of the guidance and have a mistaken and fuzzy groupthink that date elements should generally be linked when that is almost the opposite of the guidance.

My agreement is not important anyway if enough other people agree to a proposal for change. That is the great thing about Wikipedia. I will go along with the Manual of style even if it changes. Take your time and look at the existing guidance and previous discussions. I am sure that I will notice if and when you make a proposal in the talk page of the Manual. In the meantime, I am happy that we have agreement in some of the other respects.

Regards. bobblewik 21:05, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bobblewik, This last set of comments has helped me crystallize what I think is the main reason you keep getting blocked for your edits. I think that since many people feel that the year de-linking is disruptive, and since the MoS only says "there is no need to link it", "should only be linked if there is a strong reason for doing so", and "it's usually undesirable to insert"... but, none of these are flat out forbidden. Nor, does the MoS say "all date links should be removed". By removing so many links, it is essentially making a blanket statement that there is no "strong reason" for the links in the first place.

As many have mentioned, there are several cases where you've edited articles with (apparently) strong reasons for having the links.

So, there are some debates still going on; and without a clear policy on removal of the links, I think a large enough percentage of your edits are often seen as destructive that some admins feel it warrants a temporary block in order to cool the jets, as it were.

Anyway, that's just my opinion – I don't mean to put words in Talrias or Ambi's mouths. Regards, Neier 22:58, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bobblewik, you've been asked nicely, you've been given a short block as a warning, and you continue making these changes at rapid speed, despite it being obvious (as evidenced by your own talk page) that many people view these changes as being disruptive and not being supported by consensus or policy. Please discontinue until this is sorted out, or I will have to block until such an assurance can be given. Ambi 04:22, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

He has not been revert-warring over this. Many of us welcome the changes and those who don't revert them without problems so I don't really see any disruption. But perhaps Bobblewik could add something like "revert freely" to his edit summaries to make it clearer that he is just making a suggestion rather than trying to force the issue. - Haukur 07:56, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is massive overlinking of dates in Wikipedia articles that contravenes policy as stated in:

My edits are intended to improve Wikipedia articles and bring them into line with that policy.

Some of the complaints are from people that are unaware of, or disagree with, that policy. I have also received praise, and there is a silent majority that make no complaint or praise. If implementing the Manual of Style is a problem, then those that disagree should change the Manual rather than complain about editors that use it for reference. Ambi has made some specific suggestions and I will address these:

I should not make fast edits. I am now trying to keep the sustained rate below 120 edits per hour. I understand that is in-line with guidance. If it is not, please tell me what the limit is.
I should suspend editing of this type. I did refrain from implementing current policy on basis of 'until this is sorted out'. it did not get sorted out. I even proposed some revised wording myself. that would have added constraints but nobody responded. As I noted I have now lifted my voluntary suspension. If you think my previous suspension was too short then please tell me what the time period should be. If people have new wording for the Manual, then I can understand a desire for a suspension. Suspending a policy or a constitution on the basis of 'until this is sorted out' is too vague. Suspensions of policy should be

stated in scope and duration
reasonable in scope and duration
only in place while the proposer of the suspension is active in proposing new policy

If there is no limit on such a suspension, it becomes 'meta-guidance' (as I noted in my comment of 21 January).

I would really like to see more debate in appropriate places. bobblewik 13:06, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Policy on Wikipedia has always been an attempt at writing down the views and wishes of the community. You know that there is quite a lot of opposition to your edits, so you're using a bot to try and change them across the entire project before your critics can get the policy changed back to what it was before you began this crusade. This is really poor form.

I don't care if you change it on articles you write, for instance - the same treatment that applies to BCE/CE. What I care about is forcing the issue across the board, on articles you would never even bother reading, let alone writing, and effectively taking the attitude of "fuck consensus" because you have a bot and can get away with it.

As such, I've again imposed a preventative block. I will happily unblock if either a) you agree to make bot edits (i.e. 120/hour - far more than can be reverted manually without massive effort) from a seperate account, as most people with bots do, so your main account can be left untouched or b) stop making bot edits until it is clear that you have even majority, let alone consensus support for them, when it is very far from clear that is the case. When you're making changes on such a massive scale, it is the height of rudeness to impose them regardless of what anyone else thinks. Ambi 05:36, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you

Hello,

Thank you for reducing the number of links I added to the Philip Snowden article. It surely is less distracting for the reader now. I'm fairly new to Wikipedia, and will be far less obsessive in linking dates in the future. Again, thanks for the heads up. Be healthy. Michael David 11:53, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hooray for unlinking dates!

A task to which I am very sympathetic. Thanks for doing it. I was so surprised to see that you had done 6 or 7 articles in a row that appear on my watchlist. Groovy. --AStanhope 15:57, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am pleased that you are supportive. Thanks for the feedback. It is a welcome boost. bobblewik 16:04, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You wrote, when changing Ulimate, "reduce links to 'non-preference' date elements". So, OK, I'm kinda new -- can you tell me when dates ought to be linked, and when they ought not to be? Thanks! Sholom 05:02, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Edit summaries

With regards to delinking years (eg in Lawless), rather than just saying "reduce overlinking", maybe you should say that it's overlinking of years (or dates) in particular. Thanks, Andjam 12:24, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I frequently do say that. But then I sometimes delink duplicate links so I change the summary. I will try to remember to change it back. Thanks for the feedback. Keep up the good work. bobblewik 12:26, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An unblock and a caution

I'm unblocking you after consultation with Ambi. I think we can assume that she'll block you again if you resume your delinking of dates. - Haukur 00:53, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am still blocked. bobblewik 10:10, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about now? [6] - Haukur 10:40, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Still blocked

Your user name or IP address has been blocked from editing You were blocked by Ambi Reason given: Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently used by "Bobblewik". The reason given for Bobblewik's block is: "Continues to make disputed edits under main account at bot-speed (120/hour) despite being ask (see our blocking policy) You are not blocked from reading pages, only from editing them. If you were only intending to read a page and are seeing this message, you probably followed a red link. These are links to pages that do not exist, so they take users to an editing screen. You should have no problem if you follow only blue links. If you would like to know when the block will expire, please see the block list. bobblewik 11:08, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This autoblocker is a PITA. Try now. [7] - Haukur 11:19, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you

Hi, thanks for fixing Current computer and video games events to be compliant with the MoS. I put a lot of work into the page (hope you like it), but I'm never so good at the little details. Which is why contributors like you are so important! Cheers! Jaco plane 15:01, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You are very welcome. I appreciate the thanks. Keep up the good work. bobblewik 15:09, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"date" changes

what exactly are you changing?

are you changing dates formated as:

mmm dd yyyy,
dd mmm yyyy,
dd mmm,
mmm dd,
yyyy,
decades (2000),
centuries (21st century),
or what?

I would appreciate knowing exactly what this issue is about?

Thanks Hmains 19:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure if I understand the question. I am not changing dates. I am (or was) removing *square brackets* from:

ddd [[Tuesday]]
mmm [[February]]
yyyy [[2006]]
decades [[1990s]]
centuries [[21st century]]

I did not remove square brackets from:

dd mmm, yyyy [[12 January]], [[2006]]
dd mmm [[12 January]]
ISO 8601 dates [[2001-01-15]]

These are used for the date preference mechanism. Part of this whole problem is because square brackets are used for two entirely different functions:

1. Reformating the date to a user preference

2. Hyperlinking to an article

Many editors see square brackets on 'date preference' formats and falsely conclude that *all* dates must have square brackets.

I hope that is the answer you need. bobblewik 19:19, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If I choose, may I copy my question and your answer into the discussion you opened on another, MoS page. Thanks Hmains 21:14, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes you may. bobblewik 21:57, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Format issues

Greetings. Thanks for making changes to articles according to the MoS! This really helps to give Wikipedia a consistent look-and-feel, and makes things more professional-looking. I am a programmer and know just the basics of perl, but I've never been able to write a bot, and I'm always grateful to those that can and do, in the interest of improving Wikipedia.

In regards to the conflict above with unlinking dates: I frequently defer to Ambi on policy issues, and I know she consistently works hard to protect the project, but I have to disagree in this case. It's quick and easy to bring pages inline with the MoS, and if the MoS changes, it'll be quick and easy to change things back. Yes, that would be a hit on the servers, so it would be best to figure out policy before making the change - but it doesn't look like this particular policy is in flux. Perhaps an RFC should be started on whether a "delinking years" bot should be run, whether it's alright to delink years without a bot (as I do frequently), what years a bot should delink (e.g. 1900+ only), and whether the MoS should be changed. Either way, even if there is disagreement, I think you deserve thanks for taking the initiative to bring Wikipedia up to MoS standards.

Could you help me get started on getting something like this going? I only have access to Windows machines, unfortunately. Thanks, – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 15:27, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for the tips! I'm having a bit of trouble with the regexps, as expected, because I'm used to a different regexp flavor. But I'm slowly getting it. Thanks again, – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 18:00, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've figured out something a little better, but not much. My prompt says "type backslash", and replaces all instances of a semicolon (a placeholder) with a backslash. Not much of an improvement in practice, but it's somewhat better. See User:Quadell/monobook.js/dates.js for details. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 21:26, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Slow down

As you've been told several times, you cannot make edits as fast as you are without a bot flag. If you're not running a bot, you look, act, and smell like one, so you need a flag. Please stop, or you will be blocked again.--Sean Black ^(talk) 04:12, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How slow must I go? bobblewik 18:36, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BOT says: "Until new bots are accepted as ok they should wait 30-60 seconds between edits. After being accepted and a steward has marked them as a bot, they should delay approximately 10 seconds between edits". It may be worth having the discussion once and for all on Wikipedia talk:Bots. There is a currently a request there for approval to run a AWB-based manual bot to correct common spelling mistakes. -- ALoan (Talk) 19:49, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've had enough of this. As of now, I will rollback each and every single edit of yours unlinking dates. How much of your and my time you choose to waste in continuing to do so is up to you. Ambi 01:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Did you think I was kidding? Every unlinking you made today is gone. The same will happen every day until you actually start to talk and work towards some sort of compromise, rather than sticking up your middle finger at anyone who disagrees with you. Ambi 09:57, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

...and again. Ambi 05:09, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

African slave trade

Hey there. Sorry for undoing your edits on African slave trade while reverting the vandal. I was about to integrate your changes when you did it yourself anyway :) -- Ch'marr 22:37, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No worries. I thought that was what happened. I would not have minded the loss at all, if the gain was elimination of vandalism. Thanks for mentioning it here. Keep up the good work. bobblewik 22:40, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In use template

Please don't do your year de-linking thing when there is an inuse template up, as you did on Gerard Bucknall. It's quite annoying. Leith p 21:55, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry. That was a mistake. I will do as you say. Thanks for bringing it here. bobblewik 21:58, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Edit Summaries

Can you provide edit summaries why you are removing date links? - Ravedave 22:35, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The reasons are explained in the Manual of Style (dates and numbers). I will consider amending the edit summary in line with your request. Thanks for the feedback. bobblewik 19:29, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do something else

Please, stop doing these date formatting edits and spend your time doing something else on Wikipedia. Talrias (t | e | c) 23:04, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can some one point me to the latest discussions on this. Last time i chimed in there seemed to be quite a lot of supprt for what bobblewick is trying to do. Are all those criticising what bobblewick is trying to do seriously suggesting that every date should be linked?David D. (Talk) 23:13, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked by Talrias

Talrias has blocked me. bobblewik 00:43, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Date linking

Please stop removing all linked dates. Some links are valuable in context. If you don't have time to determine which please don't do any. Rmhermen 01:01, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I only remove the ones that are not valuable in context. bobblewik 12:03, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I'm in the process of reverting all of today's batch. Please find something better to do with your time. Ambi 06:27, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I support you on delinking dates

Hello Bobblewik. I noticed the reversion by Ambi of your edits at Papal Conclave, 2005. I just want to say that I back your practice of delinking dates. (It is ludicrous that articles are littered with a sea of useless blue.) I'll rerevert to your edits.

Stroika 11:07, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your support. Unfortunately, I am currently blocked by Talrias because he does not like me doing this. If you want to help, please comment about this block at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) (Internal linking years and decades). bobblewik 12:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I stuck my toe in the water although it seemed to make more sense to start under yourFormal request for help. Following the back and forth between your opponents and others it does not seem that there any substantial arguments have been advanced in favour of linking every separate year, day, month just "it's what we always do". Which in the end turns into an argument in favour of never making any edits at all.

Technical question. If putting double square brackets around a date (so as to allow user preferences) is not strictly speaking creating a link what is the technical term for putting double square brackets around text? It's not "linking" necessarily or is it? Most people say "linking dates" as though any and all use of double square brackets create a link. Just a pointer in the right direction would be a help. Since anyonce can edit anything round here the Help page keeps getting shifted around and its like first day at school every time I hie me off there.

Also: people seem to want to apply rules about bots to you. Why? I thought bots were computer programmes.

I notice in the time it took to write this that Sam Korn an admin has replied to my question at the Village pump. However he hasn't answered it. Stroika 14:09, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You asked:

what is the technical term for putting double square brackets around text?

I do not know. I wish I did, I would use it.

people seem to want to apply rules about bots to you. Why? I thought bots were computer programmes.

I do not know.

I am still blocked. Can you ask somebody to unblock me please? bobblewik 16:00, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have already argued but not aggressively yet that you should be unblocked and am waiting for a response. The situation is complicated by the talk page being a total mess. DLTBGYD. Stroika 16:27, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I read your comments and appreciate them. I agree that the page is so messy that people may not see debating points. If you can undo some of Ambi's reverts, that might help too. bobblewik 16:52, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How many times do I have to explain this? You are blocked because you continue to run your bot script without having approval for this. If it looks, smells and acts like a bot, it's a bot. Factors such as your continuing to run your bot script despite a clear lack of consensus for the changes you are making do not persuade me and others that you are acting responsibly in this. Why can you not stop, argue your case, and if a consensus forms, then run your bot script (after getting approval for it)? Why do you have to keep doing it and pretending you are doing no wrong? Be responsible! Talrias (t | e | c) 16:33, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that you have two complaints:

1. How the MoS is implemented. I am working within the constraints.
2. What the MoS guidance says. If you don't like the MoS guidance, propose new guidance.

As you say, I believe I am doing nothing wrong. bobblewik 16:52, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your understanding/interpretation of my comments is incorrect. My comments are as I have written them above. Talrias (t | e | c) 17:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So we both agree that I do not understand your complaints. bobblewik 17:10, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unblocking

If you can guarantee that you will not continue to make date style changes until consensus is reached, I shall unblock you, as per my comments at WP:VPP. Please reply here and I'll pick it up. Cheers, Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 16:50, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your willingness to intervene so I will consider it.

I previously suspended date edits. But no new proposal for guidance was put forward. That suspension was merely an extended ban on implementation. There was no scope limit or time limit. So it just frustrated both sides even more and added another layer or dissatisfaction.

You can see this problem in complaints about editing speed: for months the speed issue has been part of complaints. But those complaining did not state the speed limit. Now that the speed limit has been stated, I am staying within it and the speed complaints have just about vanished.

So if there is a suspension of MoS implementation that applies to all editors, I think it is reasonable to document the specific MoS text that cannot be implemented and for how long. That could be something as sweeping as a note in the MoS (possibly in the Usage of links for date preferences section) saying:

Guidance on date links is under discussion. Do not add or remove links to non-preference date elements. This prohibition is temporary and will expire on [date].

But that is just a suggestion so that you see what I mean.

bobblewik 18:09, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I really think that these are reasonable changes. However, they should take place under a bot flag. There are several bots that currently function with human input.

If you request a bot flag at Wikipedia talk:Bots and use a bot account to make these changes, then I doubt anyone can really oppose them. I just think this should wait until there is a rough consensus. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 18:22, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your positive comment. See my request for a bot flag on 15 December. Do you think a new request would get a different outcome?

bobblewik 18:31, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion would be that yes, it would, so long as you make clear that you look over every bot edit. That seems to be where most opposition came from. Do you undertake to not make any more changes for the moment, so that I can unblock you? Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 19:05, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. bobblewik 19:07, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I, Sam Korn, by the power vested in me by various, misguided persons, do absolve you of your block. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 19:13, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. See my new bot application bobblewik

Welcome back to the land of the living. Happy editing. Stroika 23:02, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Words vs. deeds

If you delink all years, you break the automatic date formatting. So stop doing that. Bo Lindbergh 22:34, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And why would we want that in most cases? Especially for web comics? David D. (Talk) 23:11, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You claim to be following the manual of style, yet here you delinked more than three hundred years that were part of complete dates (year, month, and day). Care to explain this discrepancy? Bo Lindbergh 18:43, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The discrepancy is because it was a mistake. Sorry. That page uses the unusual format '2000 March 2'. I did not know it worked with date preferences. I did not notice your previous comment about it (now merged into this section) so that is why I didn't reply. You were quite right to revert and I won't do it again. Thanks for the feedback. bobblewik 18:57, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You must recognise all the following examples as referring to today. Note capitalization variations. Note also that Feb 25 is a redirect to February 25.

Make sure you interpret these cases in the same way as the wiki too.

Bo Lindbergh 19:52, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That list is very useful. I was certainly not aware of some of the variations. I would never have guessed that the comma could have a preceding space. Thanks a lot! bobblewik 19:56, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

More delinking

This one doesn't really work correctly. Try it out:

Gavyn Davies (October 2001 - January 28, 2004)

--Cyde Weys 23:24, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So I see. I will have to look into that. Thanks. bobblewik 23:25, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It cannot distinguish between [[2001]] - [[January 28]] and [[2001]] - [[01-28]]. It avoids ISO 8601 dates by testing for a hyphen. It is solvable but I don't think I will be able to do it right now. bobblewik 23:46, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are probably things better left alone 12 July 12 August may 3 20 july - 12-12-20-12-12.... Even the wiki-parser gets the last bit wrong. Rich Farmbrough 00:02 25 March 2006 (UTC).

I just added a line to delink the year in [[2001]] - [[January 28]]. However, following your note, I have commented it out for now. bobblewik 00:10, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here's another one that's not working:

and a highly successful 1984 Victory tour before disbanding in 1990

--Cyde Weys 00:33, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah. That is because the list of punctuation does not include the ' character. Perhaps there is a better way than just adding more and more to the list. Fixed now. bobblewik 00:44, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This was incorrectly delinked. I'm assuming it's because there's a newline directly after the year?

| '''Major League Debut'''|| [[September, 3]], [[1988]]

--Cyde Weys 05:29, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The design goal of the regex is to delink anything that does not work with preferences. The format [[September, 3]] does not work with preferences. Thus it is correctly delinked in acccordance with the design goal. bobblewik 18:50, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also are you still using datestest.js or have you moved fully back to dates.js? --Cyde Weys 17:30, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to use dates.js for operations and retain datestest.js for development. bobblewik 18:50, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also 90s isn't being delinked at all. I hadn't seen this format before and I guess neither had you. --Cyde Weys 18:35, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have not seen that one before but it is quite simple. It could easily be added when I (or somebody else) gets round to it. bobblewik 18:50, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Please test it (with datestest.js) where you saw it. bobblewik 19:03, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Acckkk, apparently '''[[2005]]-[[10-05]]—[[2005]]-[[10-06]]''' is being delinked, and it shouldn't be. Might have to do with the quote marks in front of the year? Are you around anymore? I haven't seen you edit Wikipedia recently. Should I take over main control of this delinker? --Cyde Weys 19:45, 28 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure why that is happening. It could be the quotes or it could be something odd happening with the hyphens. Operation with ISO dates is more difficult to debug. As a false positive, that clearly needs attention. As far as the regex is concerned, feel free to suggest revisions. You can, of course, update your own version at any time. bobblewik 18:54, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing that isn't working properly. I do hope you come back! In [[1998]], [[Marilyn Manson]] asked Navarro to play ... --Cyde Weys 18:37, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am back. So much to read.

It cannot tell the difference between In [[1998]], [[Marilyn Manson]] and In [[1998]], [[March]] because it only looks at 3 characters. bobblewik 18:39, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, damn, that thing again. I'll look into alternatives. Anyway, welcome back!! --Cyde Weys 18:48, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed remedy

Greetings, Bobblewik. I have proposed a remedy to the date unpleasantness, and it can be found here. Your input is requested. All the best, – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 13:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, looks like a way forward could be found. Good if this can run it's course. Rich Farmbrough 19:22 5 April 2006 (UTC).

Please stop

You've been asked to stop by many people, right up to Jimbo. You've instigated a discussion which is most certainly not endorsing your edits, and yet you continue to make them. I'm in the process of killing all your lastest batch, but you're likely to be blocked again if you continue. Ambi 04:32, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Inappropriate delinking

The dates delinker is now inappropriately delinking the year in ISO 6401 dates of the form [[2005]]-[[10-01]]. As an example, check out Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. Thanks. --Cyde Weys 04:19, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the feedback. Fixed now in datestest.js. bobblewik 17:35, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Update on my date delinking

Status report: I have remove superfluous date linkage from

Every page linked to from the main page (as of this morning)
All Featured Article Candidates
All articles on Peer Review

I'm working now on existing Featured Articles. All the best, – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 15:08, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And now all Featured Articles that have not yet appeared on the main page (and so might in the future) have been fixed. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 15:55, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And now all the Featured lists are done. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 16:47, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to send you an email, but it says 'no send address'. Do you have one set in your preferences? bobblewik 16:09, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, looks like a bug. I have one set in my prefs, and it says "Your e-mail address was authenticated on 09:50, March 2, 2006." My address is Michael Waddell (one word) at gmail dot com. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 16:47, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have just sent you an email. bobblewik 17:55, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent work everyone. It looks like we're making some great progress! --Cyde Weys 17:23, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does anybody object if I copy the current version of datestest.js to dates.js? bobblewik 17:56, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I already did so on my own mirrored version, so no objection from me. --Cyde Weys 18:11, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I will do so later. Can you see why it is not delinking Aug in User:Bobblewik/sandbox or indeed here on this page? It seems to work in other articles. bobblewik 18:17, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Was blocked

I notice you've started your mass-delinkings again, even after being explicitly asked not to by Jimbo. Discussion as to what to do about these is still ongoing, and you've made virtually no attempt to participate. You really should know better than this by now, so I've blocked you for a week. I will, however, unblock you right now if you'll guarantee that you won't make any more mass-unlinkings until the situation is clarified. Ambi 01:40, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ambi, most of what he was doing was fixing units. Or do you have a problem with that too? --Cyde Weys 06:09, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I am concerned User:Thincat sums it up pretty well with the following edit. Do you have any comment Ambi? David D. (Talk) 19:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any mass delinking this time, just a few solitary edits which look like Bobblewik's testing a script. Anyone mind if I unblock? Haukur 13:28, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I say unblock. He is not using a bot therefore the block is unwarranted. Whatever happened to the concept of be bold? Especially given the level of support for the kind of edits that Bobblewick is making. Sure, he may make a few mistakes, don't we all, but Ambi is treating bobblewick as if he is a vandal. If this is a real problem then an RfC would be much more appropriate forum rather the these continual blocks. David D. (Talk) 18:44, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, when Ambi or Talrias block him for mass delinking I've been unable to obtain a consensus for an unconditional unblock. But surely a few stray delinking edits aren't blockworthy - lots of people incidentally link or delink dates as they go about their business. I'll go ahead with an unblock now, I hope I'm not stepping on anybody's toes. Tread lightly, Bobblewik. Maybe we could form a WikiProject to intelligently organize the linking of dates? Haukur 19:40, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for whatever you tried. I appreciate it, but I am still blocked. bobblewik 20:17, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the autoblock now. Haukur 20:29, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I know nothing about Wikiprojects but it sounds like a good idea. If you think that would help, I am all for it. bobblewik 21:26, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about running a process (bot or manual project) to propose the de-linking on the talk pages viz:

==Date delinking project==
It is planned to delink the following list of date fragments in one weeks time.
Please remove from the list any that you think should remain linked in the article.

...came to port in [[1923]] and set sail...
...met his sweetheart in [[July]]  of that year
...and later in the [[14th century]]  he sawed several...

 For more infomation see Wikiproject:Datedelinking. Rich   Farmbrough 18:25 23  March 2006 (UTC).

The project seems a good idea. But I can't imagine how that particular method would operate in practice. The large amounts of extra content in talk pages might be annoying in itself. Apart from adding the proposal, the rest is wholly manual so I suspect it would grind to a halt due to the enormous effort required. However, that is just my view. We could test the effect of the 1 week notice thing right now on ten pages and see what happens. bobblewik 21:41, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It would need to automatically pick the text off the talk page, and implement the changes. "The large amounts of extra content in talk pages might be annoying in itself." is probably more relevant. I am also concerned that the project not revisit the same link multiple times, but needs to be able to revisit a page. Perhaps some more thought. By the way I make it 297000 articles with bare years in them , so it certainly would be a big project. Rich Farmbrough 23:20 23 March 2006 (UTC).

And 34,000 "century" pages... Rich Farmbrough 23:23 23 March 2006 (UTC).

Thanks. Statistical information like that is useful to the debate. How can I find such information? bobblewik 16:20, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Appropriate delinking

So I've been working on delinking year links following other links that aren't valid date links and I got it working, at least in Perl. I hope you know Perl! Here's my test script:

#!/usr/bin/perl

#In this test case a year link can be delinked unless it is
#preceded by a month link to [[January]] or [[February]].
#Obviously this is incorrect but it works as a test case.

print "These should be delinked.\n";
testDate('[[Floopuary 99]] [[1997]]');
testDate('[[Anwar]] [[2004]]');
testDate('[[Season]] [[2006]]');

print "\nThese should not be delinked.\n";
testDate('[[January 20]] [[2004]]');
testDate('[[December 18]], [[1987]]');
testDate('[[February 14]] [[2004]]');
testDate('[[19 May]] [[1492]]');

sub testDate {
    my $testCase = shift(@_);
    print $testCase . " -> ";
    my $month = qr/(?:January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December)/;
    if ($testCase =~ /\[\[([^\]]+)\]\](,?\s*)\[\[(\d+)\]\]/) {
        my $one = $1;
        my $two = $2;
        my $three = $3;
        if ($one =~ /$month \d\d?/) {
            $testCase = '[[' . $one . ']]' . $two . '[[' . $three . ']]';
        }
        elsif ($one =~ /\d\d? $month/) {
            $testCase = '[[' . $one . ']]' . $two . '[[' . $three . ']]';
        }
        else {
            $testCase = '[[' . $one . ']]' . $two . $three;
        }
    }
    print $testCase . "\n";
}

As you can see it's a bit more complicated than a simple switch regex. I did some research and that would require a variable length look-behind, which is apparently very difficult to implement (it isn't implemented in Perl and I'm sure it's not in JavaScript). So I had to do it a different way; I had to test everything that matched the regex "two links in a row" and, if the second one was a year link but the first one wasn't a valid date, delink. This only works for single expressions but it shouldn't be hard to put it in a global pattern matching loop and loop through all occurrences. I'm just not familiar enough with JavaScript to figure that out on my own! For completeness sake here is the output of the above program:

These should be delinked.
[[Floopuary 99]] [[1997]] -> [[Floopuary 99]] 1997
[[Anwar]] [[2004]] -> [[Anwar]] 2004
[[Season]] [[2006]] -> [[Season]] 2006

These should not be delinked.
[[January 20]] [[2004]] -> [[January 20]] [[2004]]
[[December 18]], [[1987]] -> [[December 18]], [[1987]]
[[February 14]] [[2004]] -> [[February 14]] [[2004]]
[[19 May]] [[1492]] -> [[19 May]] [[1492]]

If you need help interpreting any of my code don't hesitate to ask. --Cyde Weys 07:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This work is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or any later version.

This work is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. See version 2 and version 3 of the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA

Ohhh and one more thing, here's a nice little license box for the above program. --Cyde Weys 07:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If it works, that is fine. I don't know how to convert it though. I did think of improving the current regex. It is crude though. The current version does this: ([char1_is_not_date]). We could test three characters back:

([char1_is_not_date]|[any_char1][char2_is_not_date]|[any_char1][any_char2][char3_is_not_date])

bobblewik 19:06, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have now implemented this for 3 characters. It seems to work for [[Anwar]] [[2004]]. Please run your own tests. bobblewik 11:59, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Should this be delinked?

Neither dates.js nor datestest.js is delinking the follow. I'm just wondering if that was a conscious decision on your part or simply overlooking something?

(1887-1971)

--Cyde Weys 18:22, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My version of datestest.js delinks it correctly on this page. Did you identify a problem on a different page? bobblewik 18:40, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see the problem page now. The reason is that datestest.js has omitted a permutation: 'text on both sides'. Just derive the code from 'text on left, avoid links on right' and 'avoid links on left, text on right'. That should solve it. bobblewik 18:53, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest that this should not be delinked if preceded by '''\s*, as it will probably represnt birth and death of the subject, which many editors prefer to keep linked. Rich Farmbrough 12:57 21 March 2006 (UTC).

Hmm. I know that some editors have said that is how Wikipedia style should be but don't understand it. To test wider opinion, I proposed adding that guideline but nobody responded. Guideline or not, how would I implement it in my 'text on left' bit?

My current test is:([\w;=:.\*\|\&]\s?,?\-?\s?]) I do not know what your \s* is testing for, is it an infinite series of spaces? More importantly, I do not know how I could embed a [^\s*] within my current test. Any ideas? bobblewik 12:27, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

\s is a space character (space, tab or I think newline) * says any number of them. You repeat \s? in your [] which is I think pointless. I'll have a look tomorrow. ~~

I knew that \s tests for a space character and * permits multiples. But I do not know what your test is doing in plain english.

As far as You repeat \s? in your [] is concerned, that is my misquote of the regex. It is actually:

[\w;=:.\*\|\&]\s?,?\-?\s?|\n

I am trying to deal with permutations of spaces, commas and hyphens. I overlooked ndash, mdash and will attempt to add those. I would welcome your suggestions of efficiency improvements, I am sure it has a lot of duplication. bobblewik 16:28, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Two problems addressed. May be solved. Need testing

This expression does not work properly with preferences [[August 18]]-[[August 24|24]], [[2002]] and should be delinked.
This expression should be delinked [[Anwar]], [[2002]] bobblewik 16:51, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Using User:Bobblewik/monobook.js/datestest.js

Hello again. I included User:Bobblewik/monobook.js/datestest.js in my monobook, but I'm having trouble with getting it to work correctly. For instance, when I click the "datestest" link on John J. Crittenden, it suggests delinking years that are parts of valid dates. Please respond via e-mail, if possible. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 18:51, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can you please give examples of specific dates it's delinking that you think it ought not to be delinking? Also, please familiarize yourself with WP:DATE, you may simply not understand fully only what should be linked. Cyde Weys 19:13, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeouch, he's right. It's delinking dates of the following format. I'll take a look at the js:

He was elected to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1817, to March 3, 1819

--Cyde Weys 19:16, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yikes. This must be as a result of recent changes. I am also investigating. bobblewik 19:22, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just put together a hasty program to figure it out and it found something. Basically I worked off the list of diffs and checked the latest modified regexes. Here ya go.

This work is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or any later version.

This work is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. See version 2 and version 3 of the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA

#!/usr/bin/perl

my @testPhrases = (
                  'again elected to the United States Senate as a [[United States Whig Party|Whig]] and served from [[March 4]], [[1835]], to [[March 3]], [[1841]]. He was appointed [[Attorney General of the United States]]',
                  'during his last term in that body. He was elected to the [[United States Senate]] and served from [[March 4]], [[1817]], to [[March 3]], [[1819]], when he resigned. During hi',
                  'He was elected as a [[United States Constitutional Union Party|Unionist]] to the 37th Congress ([[March 4]] [[1861]] - [[March 3]] [[1863]]). He was a candidate for reelection to that office at the time of his death. He died in Frankfort, Kentucky and is interred at the State Cemetery there.'
                  );

my @testRegexes = (
                   qr/([^\[]{4})\[\[((?:January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December) \d?\d)\]\](\s?\-?\s?)\[\[(?:January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December) \d{1,2}\|(\d{1,2})\]\]/,
                   qr/([^\[]{4})\[\[((?:January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December) \d?\d)\]\](\s?\-?\s?)\[\[(\d{1,2})\]\]/,
                   qr/([^\[]{4})\[\[(\d?\d) (?:January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December)\]\](\s?\-?\s?)\[\[(?:January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December) \d{1,2}\|(\d{1,2})\]\]/,
                   qr/([^\[]{4})\[\[(\d?\d) (?:January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December)\]\](\s?\-?\s?)\[\[(\d{1,2})\]\]/,
                   qr/\[\[\d{1,2} (?:January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December)\|(\d{1,2})\]\]/,
                   qr/((?:[^armub\s]..|[^rcianlse\d\s].|[^yhletr\d])\]\]\s?,?\-?\s?)\[\[(\d{1,4})\]\](\s?,?\-?\s?\[\[(?:[^jfmasond\d]|.[^aepuco\d\s]|..[^nbrylgptvc\s]))/,
                   qr/((?:[^armub\s]..|[^rcianlse\d\s].|[^yhletr\d])\]\]\s?,?\-?\s?)\[\[(\d{1,4})\]\](.?.?.?.?.?.?)\[\[(\d{1,4})\]\](\s?,?\-?\s?\[\[(?:[^jfmasond\d]|.[^aepuco\d\s]|..[^nbrylgptvc\s]))/,
                   qr/((?:[^armub\s]..|[^rcianlse\d\s].|[^yhletr\d])\]\]\s?,?\-?\s?)\[\[(\d{1,4})\]\](.?.?.?.?.?.?)\[\[(\d{1,4})\]\]([^\[]{4})/,
                   qr/([^\]]{4})\[\[(\d{1,4})\]\](.?.?.?.?.?.?)\[\[(\d{1,4})\]\](\s?,?\-?\s?\[\[(?:[^jfmasond\d]|.[^aepuco\d\s]|..[^nbrylgptvc\s]))/,
                   qr/([\w\(\);=:.\*\|\&]\s?,?\-?\s?)\[\[(\d{1,4})\]\](\s?,?\-?\s?[\w\(\);=:.\*\|\&])/,
                   qr/([\w\(\);=:.\*\|\&]\s?,?\-?\s?)\[\[(\d{1,4})\]\](.?.?.?.?.?.?)\[\[(\d{1,4})\]\](\s?,?\-?\s?[\w\(\);=:.\*\|\&])/
                   );

my $testState = qr/([^\]]{4})\[\[(\d{1,4})\]\](.?.?.?.?.?.?)\[\[(\d{1,4})\]\]([^\[]{4})/;
my $count1 = 0;

for ($count1 = 0; $count1 <= $#testPhrases; $count1++) {
    my $testPhrase = $testPhrases[$count1];
    for ($count2 = 0; $count2 <= $#testRegexes; $count2++) {
        my $testRegex = $testRegexes[$count2];
        if ($testPhrase =~ /$testRegex/gi) {
            print "A MATCH OF $count1 with $count2: \"$testPhrase\" with $testRegex\n";
        }
        else {
            print "Did not match $count1 with $count2.\n";
        }
    }
}

Anyway, it does return a hit. Here's that hit:

A MATCH OF 2 with 5: "He was elected as a [[United States Constitutional Union Party|Unionist]] to the 37th Congress ([[March 4]] [[1861]] - [[March 3]] [[1863]]). He was a candidate for reelection to that office at the time of his death. He died in Frankfort, Kentucky and is interred at the State Cemetery there." with (?-xism:((?:[^armub\s]..|[^rcianlse\d\s].|[^yhletr\d])\]\]\s?,?\-?\s?)\[\[(\d{1,4})\]\](\s?,?\-?\s?\[\[(?:[^jfmasond\d]|.[^aepuco\d\s]|..[^nbrylgptvc\s])))

--Cyde Weys 19:35, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks but I do not know what that means. bobblewik 19:39, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just modified the program to output what, exactly, it is matching with. 1 is the first match (first parans), 2 is the second match, etc.:

REGEX=  /(?-xism:((?:[^armub\s]..|[^rcianlse\d\s].|[^yhletr\d])\]\]\s?,?\-?\s?)\[\[(\d{1,4})\]\](\s?,?\-?\s?\[\[(?:[^jfmasond\d]|.[^aepuco\d\s]|..[^nbrylgptvc\s])))/
MATCH (cont.): 1=h 4]]  -- 2=1861 -- 3= - [[M -- 4= -- 5=

So the regex is incorrectly matching "h 4]]", which is a valid part of a date. --Cyde Weys 19:43, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have just worked out what the problem is. I think I can solve it. Hold on.bobblewik 19:46, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Try now. bobblewik 19:54, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to work great now. Thanks! – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 20:19, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for identifying that problem. Hopefully, we will get enough stability to move datestest.js across to dates.js bobblewik 20:27, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Cyde for your help. Your tool was useful to identify the source of the problem. The problem was as that I was checking for

character 1 e.g. the 'h' in 'March'.
character 2 e.g. the 'c' in 'March'.
character 3 e.g. the 'r' in 'March'.

But I overlooked the fact that character 3 could also be the 'h' in March because of 'March 4'.

I am sure that a regex expert will come along and make the code more efficient and/or readable. I think that more people are thinking about this issue. In any case, I would like to get some stable code for datestest.js and then put that across into dates.jsbobblewik 21:55, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I just realised that I had to make the same fix for the other side (e.g. '4 March'). Done now. Please keep testing and watching. Thanks. bobblewik 22:05, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, anyway, it appears that the regex here is pretty much identical to that in Perl (I copy-pasted it and it worked the same, even the really complex stuff). So Perl is probably a good testbed platform. As you see with what I did, I put together a bunch of test regexes and a bunch of test text and ran every possible combination. That would take an awfully long while to do manually in Wikipedia. If you need some help with Perl, there's lots of good tutorials out there, and if you need further or specific help, just ask me. As long as you're familiar with some programming language, which I'm assuming you are, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what the programs I've been posting on here do. By far the hardest part in them is the regex, but you already know the regex! The rest is just control structures; very easy. --Cyde Weys 04:20, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, a thought: I notice that for "March 4, 2003", datestest suggests "March 4, 2003", not "March 4, 2003". Would it be a good idea for datestest to suggest linkng appropriate dates, in addition to delinking inappropriate ones? – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 04:22, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest, I haven't yet found a single page that has an underlinking problem. That's probably why we haven't focused on it yet; we simply haven't seen a need. --Cyde Weys 04:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The design concept is to 'remove square brackets from dates that do not work with preferences'. So it is operating correctly to delink text such as March 4, [[2003]] because that does not work with preferences.

I accept/tolerate the current date preference mechanism but I don't use it or like it. It does not work for users that do not log in. It does not work for the many logged in users that have not set it. Most of us read unambiguous dates like 'December 25' and '25 December' without a second thought. Yes, I would like all dates to have a single format but the current cure applied to all is worse than the disease that few people have.

I would rather not accept a second design concept to 'add square brackets to dates so that preferences work'. There is one exception in the code and that is to change [[March 4th]] into [[March 4]]. It was not my idea to do this but I accepted the suggestion.

For your information, User:Rich Farmbrough has code that does 'add square brackets to dates so that preferences work'. If that is what you want to do, simply use his code alongside datestest.js. I hope that helps. bobblewik 11:19, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. "Outside of project scope." And thanks for the tip! – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 13:21, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Answer to Cyde. I am impressed by your perl code but I do not have much energy left for learning it. It certainly helped with debugging. I think you overestimate my programming abilities. Perhaps I can rely more on you for this. I wonder if it can help us identify duplication and inefficiencies in the regex? bobblewik 11:27, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

At looks like it quit working again. When I edit Linus Pauling, it doesn't suggest changes to isolated years like "Pauling lectured at Osaka University in 1955." – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 16:53, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I stopped some of the code working during tests. I just tested that and it seems fine. Try again. bobblewik 17:12, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Possible tweaks

The script changes "[[June 25]] – [[June 26|26]], [[1876]]" to "[[June 25]] – 26, 1876". I know it's hard to anticipate every non-standard date format people will use, but I just thought I'd let you know. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 13:13, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. That is definitely wrong. I thought that I had fixed that. Perhaps I overlooked the 'ndash. I will work on it.

I had overlooked the entire category of 'ndash' and 'mdash. Fixed now. Please test. bobblewik 18:15, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Along that same line, "[[18 September]]/[[September 19|19]] [[1974]]" becomes "[[18 September]]/19 1974". – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 14:24, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I had added the entire category of forward slash '/'. Fixed now. Please test.

And here's a new one: "[[June 23|6/23]]/[[1948|48]]" is changed to "[[June 23|6/23]]/48". What will they think of next? – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 14:48, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure if I should add that. I will take a break from the code now. Perhaps we should maintain a wishlist somewhere. I know that there are a whole lot of 'misses' if one or two hyphens are involved. bobblewik 18:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also years like "[[2nd century|2nd century CE]]" and "[[180 BC|180 BCE]]" are left linked by the script. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 13:20, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I did not think of that permutation. I will look into that too.

Done. Please test again. bobblewik 17:14, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"[[19th century|19th-century]]" is currently changed to "19th century". It should probably stay as "19th-century", since it's correct to hyphenate a two-word phrase when it is used as an adjective (like "two-word" is above). – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 13:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. Quote: If you take the hyphen seriously, you will surely go mad.

Many guidelines are opposed the idea that 'hyphen = adjective'. The Wikipedia articles e.g. (19th century) have no hyphen and google shows both formats in popular use. Some people suggest thinking of a hyphen as a tool to resolve ambiguity between interpretations.

When this topic came up before, we looked at various styleguides, please see what they say at: User_talk:Bobblewik/style#Hyphens_and_dashes. I would prefer not to change the code in this respect. Please read the references and reconsider. If you still think this is important, I could leave the visible text exactly as the original author wrote it. bobblewik 14:07, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a strong opinion. Glad to see that this matter has been well thought-through. ;) – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 14:14, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Amusingly, the script changes "he scored 1590 on his [[SAT]]s" to "he scored 1590 on his SATs". That's probably not what you meant. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 14:14, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oops. Definite bug. Will investigate. Thanks for all the help, I really appreciate it.

It thought upper case 'SAT' was an abbreviation for Saturday. Fixed now. bobblewik 16:56, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

[[440s BC]] is not delinked. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 15:54, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Will look into that too. bobblewik 16:07, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Please test again. bobblewik 17:14, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's back on and working, and all the ones you said were fixed are, indeed, fixed. Thanks for the quick turnaround! – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 17:28, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I added some code to deal with the format: [[January 9|Jan 9]]. See List of Super Bowl champions. What do you think? bobblewik 18:54, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good. I went ahead and changed the page. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 19:03, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"[[protest]]s, rallies, and [[march]]es" becomes "[[protest]]s, rallies, and marches". :) Then again, that may be desired behavior, since linking to the month isn't useful there. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 19:03, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry

I appologize, but I reverted your talk page by mistake. I reverted it back to what you removed before I reverted it. I appologize for the trouble. --OrbitOne 19:31, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I won't even try to understand what was going on. But since you have put it back to how it should be, that seems fine. bobblewik 19:33, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]