User talk:Mr.Z-man/Archive 11

Thanks

I know it was simple and easy, but I wanted to thank you quickly for deleting those TOC pages. That saves me a lot of AWB work, and simplifies the overall scheme of things. Robert Skyhawk ^{So sue me!} (You'll lose) 03:32, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Need your opinion on some photographs

Hi. Can you provide you opinion on this matter? Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 01:55, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Question about your bot

I've asked a question about your bot at WP:EF#Filter 58 and Mr.Z-Bot. You may wish to comment there. And thanks for the bot, by the way. Someguy1221 (talk) 05:55, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Happy Mr.Z-man's Day!

User:Mr.Z-man has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, and therefore, I've officially declared today as Mr.Z-man's day! For being such a beautiful person and great Wikipedian, enjoy being the Star of the day, dear Mr.Z-man! Peace, Rlevse 00:27, 25 October 2009 (UTC) A record of your Day will always be kept here.

For a userbox you can add to your userbox page, see User:Rlevse/Today/Happy Me Day! and my own userpage for a sample of how to use it. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:27, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Mr.Z-man 00:48, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Dead bot?

Hi. I notice Z bot has been quiet at TB2 for a while. Everything okay? Thanks. Wknight94 ^talk 00:30, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I restarted it, hopefully that should fix it. Mr.Z-man 00:45, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Pageview stats

Thank you very much for adding WikiProject Fisheries and Fishing to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats. There is a small hitch which results in the last ten articles in the current list displaying with zero counts. --Geronimo20 (talk) 05:23, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

The ones on the bottom are all redirects (but still have article ratings on the talk page). Hits for redirects are counted toward the target article, so the redirect itself has no hits. I'll look into trying to filter those out in the future. Mr.Z-man 05:45, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom Election RFC courtesy notice

A request for comment that may interest you is currently in progress at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee 2. If you have already participated, then please disregard this notice and my apologies. Manning (talk) 08:30, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
You received this message because you participated in the earlier ArbCom secret ballot RFC.

tools:~alexz/pop/config.php

Hot. ^ Also, you're a popular page. --MZMcBride (talk) 10:26, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

People keep checking these pages looking for the page to be updated. SunCreator (talk) 14:45, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

bot dup

Special:Undelete/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Journals/Popular_pages; one is enough ;-) thanks for pulling this info together. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 10:22, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I've removed the duplicate from the project list. Mr.Z-man 18:08, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Project update failed.

Bot failed to update Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chess/Popular_pages page again this month. I'm thinking it's not going to happen? noticed it's not the only project Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books/Popular_pages, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Antarctica/Popular_pages, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Canada/Popular_pages SunCreator (talk) 14:48, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

The books, Canada, and Antarctica projects are too new, those weren't supposed be created this month. I'll look into why the chess page wasn't created. Mr.Z-man 17:58, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Done now. Mr.Z-man 19:03, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

A big Thank you! SunCreator (talk) 19:26, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Popular pages

I realize that it isn't a wikiproject, but could you create a popular pages list for FLs (if it helps, the cleanup listing has also been adapted for FL use here)? This is the category. Thanks, Scorpion⁰⁴²² 17:38, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

It would need to have the standard wikiproject category name(s). Mr.Z-man 19:04, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

The closest we have to that is Category:FL-Class articles, but all of the categories in it are for different projects. Thanks anyway. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 20:05, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Popular Pages query

Can I beg a moment of your time, please? I signed up to the Popular Pages tool on behalf of WP:OXFORD in July, but Wikipedia:WikiProject University of Oxford/Popular pages has never been touched. Did I do something wrong when I filed the request? Regards, Bencherlite^Talk 20:14, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

 Fixed - Same problem as the chess project above. Mr.Z-man 20:48, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Excellent, very good of you. Bencherlite^Talk 22:25, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I noticed the bot has already ran for at least a few WikiProjects already. I am just curious, when will the projects in your request queue be processed?—NMajdan•talk 13:11, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I typically go through the list near the end of each month so that I have enough time to get everything set up to start collecting data for the next month. Note that data isn't collected retroactively, so there will be about a month between when a project is added to the list and when the on-wiki list is made. Mr.Z-man 14:58, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Ahhh... I didn't know that. I assumed this data was already collected somewhere and your bot just sorted it out by WikiProject. So the new ones added in late October will have their November data collected and posted in early December. Thanks, that clears it up.—NMajdan•talk 15:22, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Popular pages

Hi Mr.Z-man. Quick query: How does the popular pages tool pull the assessment across? I ask because it seems to lag the pages themselves, for example the assessment changed to a B at Talk:Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 on the 28th October but the toolserver list has it at a C, here. Just trying to work out if this is a feature or a bug. ;) Hiding T 13:35, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

It gives the rating from whatever it was at the start of the month. Mr.Z-man 17:32, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I thought it would be something like that. Hiding T 20:44, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Invitation to participate in SecurePoll feedback and workshop

As you participated in the recent Audit Subcommittee election, or in one of two requests for comment that relate to the use of SecurePoll for elections on this project, you are invited to participate in the SecurePoll feedback and workshop. Your comments, suggestions and observations are welcome.

For the Arbitration Committee,
Risker (talk) 08:28, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

RE: John Tran

Dear Mr. Z, I removed the template saying article needed references/citations. Hopefully this is OK. I am still learning the intricacies of Wiki. I added citations as requested.Thank you for your time. JoyDiamond (talk) 06:20, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Re: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hamada Gaku

Thank you for oversighting the above IP entry to allow me to assign proper credit to it! I didn't want to just do it, as it would easily link the IP with my user name!

I have now done a null edit (a HTML comment explaining the situation) on the AfD to put my user name with the closure.

Thanks again, -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 08:01, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Z-bot...

...appears to be dead. FYI. Thanks. Wknight94 ^talk 19:49, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Restarted. Every once in a while, when it automatically restarts after a server outage or something, it doesn't completely start and I haven't yet figure out why... Mr.Z-man 21:03, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Your neutral stance on my candidacy ...

At least so I assume, on the basis of my less than a year of admin experience. Note that it will be one year, I believe the day after the polls close and certainly a year by the time I would take office. Best,--Wehwalt (talk) 14:05, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Currently I'm neutral on every candidate except the ones I've excluded as non-admins because I haven't had time to review Q&A yet. Mr.Z-man 16:41, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Popular pages Wikiproject config/requests - WikiProject Scotland

Hi, I got a message saying that "The "WikiProject Scotland" project is already in the list of projects. To request a change to the configuration, use the bottom form", however I note that Wikipedia:WikiProject Scotland/Popular pages is a redlink.

Am I missing something obvious?

You will find our Talk page discussion here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Scotland#Popular_pages. Thanks. --Mais oui! (talk) 16:51, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

It was added recently, so the page hasn't been created yet. It will be created with the data from November at the end of the month. Mr.Z-man 16:54, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. --Mais oui! (talk) 17:15, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Geotagged pages needing images

Hi. This tool is very interesting: http://toolserver.org/~alexz/coord/. Have you thought about making it available for more languages, and improving the number of geotagged articles using Google Maps API? emijrp (talk) 08:46, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Making it available fore more languages would be nice, but given how the tool is currently written and how every project uses its own system of templates and categories for geocoding/image requests, it would be a little more complicated than just translating the interface. Another thing that I was planning to do at one point was a feature to search geotagged images on commons to look for possible images to use. I think replication broke or something right before I was about to start working on it, then I forgot about it. Mr.Z-man 01:32, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I apologise

Okay, I went too far, and I certainly did not use appropriate tone. I regret the lack of good faith I showed. I should prefer if you undeleted your ACE2009 page, since other people may have differing views on the validity of your rationales. I am unconcerned if the talkpage remains deleted. Again, I am sorry for the language I used. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:42, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, but TBH, I probably would have never finished it anyway. I hadn't even gotten to the hard part of reviewing all the Q&A and it was beginning to get distracting from all the more productive things I hoped to get done this month. Mr.Z-man 22:57, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Popular pages and assessment classes

Having looked through a number of popular page lists, I assume that they are restricted to pages with a "standard" assessment grade, i.e. FA/A/GA/B/C/Start/Stub/FL/List/NA/Unassessed? If so, would it be possible to include a number of specialised assessment grades used by a minority of projects, specifically (off the top of my head) Bplus/Current/Deferred/Future/SL? PC78 (talk) 19:06, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

They could be added, as long as they have a corresponding template (like {{B-Class}}) and they don't overlap with some other class. I recall when adding the Math project that they used B-plus, but all the B-plus articles seemed to be also categorized as GA-class. Mr.Z-man 21:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Why do you require a template like {{B-Class}}? Such templates are largely deprecated in favour of {{Class}}. PC78 (talk) 06:22, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Because nobody bothered to tell me that. But it would still have to be available somehow through some template. Mr.Z-man 06:33, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah, wait, I semi-misunderstood you. {{Bplus-Class}}, {{Current-Class}}, {{Future-Class}} and {{SL-Class}} exist, no {{Deferred-Class}} though so it would need to be {{Class|Deferred}}, if you can use that. I thought (for some reason) you might need these templates to be used within WikiProject banners, but I guess you just need them for the lists? Assuming the intention for these listings is to use them for articles only, is NA-Class something you want to be including? To be fair, though, I've only seen it appear the once. PC78 (talk) 14:14, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Custome importance ratings too, {{Bottom-importance}} and {{No-importance}}? PC78 (talk) 14:37, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Invitation

Bye. Do you like to intervine again here: Wikipedia talk:Blocking_policy#Administrator's errors and abuses in the blocking policy ? --Mashra (talk) 16:14, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Mr.Z-bot

Hi. Is Mr.Z-bot (talk · contribs) no longer editing AIV/TB2? Wknight94 ^talk 21:32, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject College football's Popular Pages

When will the popular pages listing be created for the above project? I submitted the request in October so I figured the November data would be collected and posted in December. However, I see a lot of the December popular pages listings have been updated for other projects but not the ones I submitted in October. Thanks.—NMajdan•talk 16:05, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

There were a few that didn't get created during the normal run. I need to go through the list and figure out which ones they were. Note that if you requested it at the very end of October, it may not have been added until November as it starts the preparation a few days early. Mr.Z-man 17:59, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Rollback Rights

Hey Mr.Z-Man This page told me that you are one of the admins that is certified to grant rollback priveleges. I was wondering if I could have those. If you could help me out with that I would be very thankful.

Thanks! Radmanovk (talk) 17:59, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but its generally expected that users have some experience reverting vandalism using undo and other tools before they're granted rollback. As you only have 2 edits, I wouldn't really be comfortable granting it now. Mr.Z-man 04:00, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

ACE end time

Possible problem with the stated end time of the election on-wiki and on the SecurePoll. Do you have access to edit the SecurePoll ending time?  Skomorokh  11:59, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom supplementary voting?

Hi Mr.Z-man

I just reviewed the "Mechanics at the close of the election" section, and noted your comment about postal/supplementary voting. Is it clear yet whether this will be implemented for this election? If it's a yes, I might add something to the Signpost Election Report, which has only just been published. Tony (talk) 08:04, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply. Nothing has been done yet for that AFAIK. Mr.Z-man 20:14, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

ping: email

... coming your way about the closing time: it's becoming urgent. Tony (talk) 14:34, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

The BLP sprotection petition

Given your comments, you might want to sign: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP_semiprotection_petition Best, SBHarris 19:17, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Personally I regard automatic semi-protection of all BLPs without human review as being as good as doing nothing. The lack of quality in the proposed method that would allow anyone to semiprotect any article makes it worse. Mr.Z-man 20:34, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Notification: Proposed 'Motion to Close' at Wikipedia:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC re: a 'Motion to close', which would dissolve Cda as a proposal. The motion includes an !vote. You have previously commented at this page. Jusdafax 07:09, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Popular pages - Vital articles

Do you know why Wikipedia:Version_0.7/Popular_pages is empty? It's from this list. Here's the category. Category:Vital articles by quality Regards, Mahanga^Talk 04:20, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

It was just added to the list a few days ago. The page won't be created until the beginning of February. Starting in January though, you'll be able to see the data here. Mr.Z-man 16:26, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, thanks! Mahanga^Talk 17:03, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Season's greetings

Thank you for being one of the people who has made 2009 such an interesting and enlightening year for me. It has certainly had its challenges, but also many highlights. I wish you peace and contentment in 2010, and a joyous holiday season to you and yours. In honour of the season, I hope you will enjoy a little musical token. Your choice: traditional or cheeky. Best, Risker (talk) 03:00, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Happy New Year

Best Wishes for 2010, FloNight♥♥♥♥ 13:11, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Crusades articles stats

Hi Mr. Z-Man, I was looking at the article statistics for the Crusades task force, and I was wondering why there are only 278 pages listed. Why were those 278 chosen? There are almost 2000 articles linked to the task force, so was it just a random sample? Thanks, Adam Bishop (talk) 15:01, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure? Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle Ages/Crusades task force/Assessments lists only 280. Mr.Z-man 16:20, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I see, those ones have been assessed. (There are a couple of thousand tagged, but they haven't been assessed yet.) Sorry, I misunderstood something along the way. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:13, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

An open proposal for a WikiProject Talk Pages

I noticed a recent edit you made to Wikipedia:Requests for bureaucratship/SoWhy, and I wonder if you would support a WikiProject that would patrol for similar improprieties on talk pages across the site. If so, your support for my proposal would be appreciated.
-Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 09:05, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Community de-Adminship - finalization poll for the CDA proposal

After tolling up the votes in the revision proposals, it emerged that 5.4 had the most support, but elements of that support remained unclear, and various comments throughout the polls needed consideration.

A finalisation poll (intended, if possible, to be one last poll before finalising the CDA proposal) has been run to;

• gather opinion on the 'consensus margin' (what percentages, if any, have the most support) and

• ascertain whether there is support for a 'two-phase' poll at the eventual RfC (not far off now), where CDA will finally be put to the community. Matt Lewis (talk) 01:03, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Important notice about VOTE 3 in the CDA poll

You are receiving this message as you have voted in VOTE 3 at the Community de-Adminship 'Proposal Finalization' Poll.

It has been pointed out that VOTE 3 was confusing, and that voters have been assuming that the question was about creating an actual two-phase CDA process. The question is merely about having a two-phase poll on CDA at the eventual RfC, where the community will have their vote (eg a "yes/no for CDA” poll, followed a choice of proposal types perhaps).

As I wrote the question, I'll take responsibility for the confusion. It does make sense if read through to the end, but it certainly wasn't as clear as it should have been, or needed to be!

Please amend your vote if appropriate - it seems that many (if not most) people interpreted the question in the way that was not intended.

Regards, Matt Lewis (talk) 16:00, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/MZMcBride 2

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/MZMcBride 2/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/MZMcBride 2/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 23:05, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:BLP violations

Hi Z,

At AN/i there is currently a discussion about user:Rdm2376's mass deletions of unsourced WP:BLPs, which you participated in. There was a complaint that the mass deletions were out of process and going too fast, even though these were ancient BLP vios. Several users recommending using the PROD process to remove them; but you stated, "If someone PRODs 1000 articles in a day, someone will start an ANI thread about them abusing the PROD process. Additionally, PROD fails miserably for articles like this. A few months ago I tried PROD-ing about a dozen of the oldest unsourced BLPs (longest time without sourcing). Around 3 were actually deleted, about half just had the tag removed with no improvements made."

Last night/early this morning, I PRODDED a few dozen unreferenced BLPs which had been tagged as unreferenced since April 2007; I didn't PROD anything with actual references, even if there was an "unreferenced" tag on it. As you (correctly) predicted, I am receiving flack for "out of process PRODding", but not for PRODding 1000s, just for a little fewer than 40 articles, some of which were immediately mass-de-prodded. No references have been added to the de-prodded articles to improve them, either. I don't know what can be done about the BLP problem, but PROD won't work and mass removal won't help. These processes are opposed by users who don't appear at all interested in removing the violations and who just seem to want to retain the status quo. Firsfron of Ronchester 13:25, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, its basically an impossible task. Most of the community thinks that something needs to be done. However, we don't have enough manpower to actually go through all the unsourced and poorly sourced BLPs to manually review them, and too many people oppose deletion without offering any ideas of their own. Hopefully it will change soon, but I doubt it will do so spontaneously. The most likely things I can think of that would force a change are:

1. Another Siegenthaler incident convinces enough people that action is necessary.
2. The foundation passes a resolution that forces the hand of the projects, similar to the non-free content rules.
3. ArbCom re-grows a spine and passes a ruling on BLP that's actually enforceable.

Hopefully 2 or 3 will come before 1, but I'm not holding my breath. Mr.Z-man 17:44, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

CloseAFD in beta?

Hi Mr.Z-man. Is there, I wonder, any possibility of using your useful closeAFD script in beta? I know basically nothing about how the latter works so I don't know what that would involve. Olaf Davis (talk) 21:59, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

You should be able to just install it in your user JS page like normal, but I have no idea if it works in the new skin. Mr.Z-man 23:06, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes, it does work. I was doing something silly, it emerges. Thanks for the help, and the script! Olaf Davis (talk) 23:18, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Mr.Z-bot: Commerce minister is not a BLP

Hello. Mr.Z-bot tagged the page Commerce minister as an unreferenced BLP. The page is an unreferenced stub, but it is not a BLP. It defines the role of such ministers in general; it does not mention any living person. I don't know how Mr.Z-bot determines what to tag as unreferenced BLP, but the criteria appear to yield at least occasional false-positives. Happy editing, Cnilep (talk) 17:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I think I see the problem. The page included Category:Living people. I've removed the category. Cnilep (talk) 17:03, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Wascally wabbit

--MZMcBride (talk) 05:20, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Estemshorn (talk • contribs) 23:01, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes it's wrong to change from {{unreferenced}} to {{BLP unsourced}}

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kyle_McCarter&action=historysubmit&diff=328349556&oldid=327978732 shows the bot changing an {{unreferenced}} to a {{BLP unsourced}} - the thing is, the {{unreferenced}} was placed erroneously; doesn't the bot check for <ref> tags or a References section? Why would you trust the humans on this one? Josh Parris 09:10, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. This is discussed in great detail here. Mr.Z-man 18:12, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've read that and understand your position. Do you have any intention of extending the bot's functionality to changing {{unreferenced}} to {{BLP sources}} under the right conditions? Josh Parris 21:03, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Not really, chances are that that won't be much more wrong than BLP unsourced. It could have a references section with no actual references (sometimes people create empty references sections just so its there when someone adds refs). It could have external links that don't qualify as references. It could use ref tags to make footnotes that don't serve as references. Or it could be fully sourced, making BLP sources just as incorrect; most unsourced BLPs are stubs; one good reference is often enough to source the whole thing, but quality of references is something that needs human evaluation. Mr.Z-man 21:20, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. Josh Parris 13:09, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I assume that if proposals for BLP Tag = Auto Delete pass, we'd see a change in behavior by your bot. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 07:06, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Which proposal is that? Mr.Z-man 21:31, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, there are proposals for no reference=delete. Admins have used this as the reason why they mass deleted articles with the "BLPUNSOURCED" tag (or rather category which the tag places it in). ArbCom didn't object to their actions, in fact, they said it was good. It's not hard to draw conclusions that if "no reference=delete" passes some would WP:BOLDly disrupt wikipedia by mass deleting using this tag as a criteria. There are also proposals to change the tag to also be a PROD tag, and I'm sure the aforementioned admins wouldn't bother to check the tag is properly used before deleting, as they surely didn't bother when mass deleting.ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 22:14, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Again, you seem to be intentionally misreading the proposals. You're now admitting that you're drawing conclusions that aren't in the proposals. That's not how proposals work. If something gets consensus, that's all that gets consensus, not a bunch of extra things because something thinks they follow. If someone is disrupting Wikipedia and not following policy, that's their problem, not mine. If someone rents a car, then runs over a pedestrian, you don't prosecute the rental company because they gave them the opportunity, you prosecute the driver because they were the one who did it. There are no proposals to turn {{BLP unsourced}} into a PROD tag, as that would mean prodding all 50,000 at once, which would never get support. The proposals involving new PROD tags are to create a new PROD tag that would have to be applied separately to any other template, so that it could be distinguished from normal PROD tags. As {{BLP unsourced}} isn't subst'd, it wouldn't even work as a PROD tag. Mr.Z-man 22:37, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Popular pages, American Revolutionary War task force

I've noticed a discrepancy between what the bot generates for listings in the popular pages of the ARW task force. I updated the assessments of a significant number of articles (mostly from Stub to Start) in this task force in January (many during the first two weeks). I do not see these updated assessments in the listing the bot generated at the end of January. (To pick one example: African Americans in the Revolutionary War is listed in the popular pages as a Stub, while I updated its assessment to Start on January 13.) Is this expected behavior? Magic♪piano 14:39, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The list is saved to the wiki at the end of the month, but the assessment information is retrieved at the beginning. Mr.Z-man 16:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

That would explain it. Thanks! Magic♪piano 18:08, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Rugby union - popular pages

Thanks for your popular pages list for the rugby league project. I was trying to request a similar one for the rugby union project but can't make head or tail of what is required in the categories field. Can you help? Thanks.GordyB (talk) 12:45, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

refToolbar on euWikipedia, thanks to you

Hi Mr.Z-man, I contribute on the basque (eu) Wikipedia. I've made a version of Apoc2400s' refToolbar so that is possible to use it in our Wikipedia. You can see it here: eu:Lankide:Inorbez/refToolbar.js. My only work has been to translate and move some code because I don't know JavaScript. Thanks to you and User:Apoc2400. It's a great tool; simple and usefull. --Inorbez (talk) 09:42, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Inflammatory commentary

It seems you don't understand what that means; it means tending to inflame or provoke somebody. Where no consideration is given when that happens, I'm at a loss to understand how you could with a straight face say that the provoked person should be punished - do you think that's the way the real world works too? Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:51, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

What on earth are you talking about? Seriously, I can't even comprehend your second sentence. I can only assume you completely misread my comment, or we're talking about totally different things. Are you saying that Durova was provoked when she made her comments about Risker and MZM? And that that should excuse her comments? I am rather offended by your non-so-thinly veiled insult about my intelligence. If that was what you were trying to communicate, you did succeed. Mr.Z-man 04:58, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

This is my understanding. MZM had several times made questions/comments which were inflammatory, particularly when trying to make unsubstantiated hypotheses of Durova's motivations and several other sensitive incidents that arose in the past, involving a banned user. Had ArbCom performed its duty of adequately curtailing the effect of such commentary, Durova would not have felt a need to respond and arguably, none of this would've happened. I also note that I don't think Durova has engaged in that level of commentary before - if I'm mistaken, there's certainly no evidence to substantiate it. As for Risker and Durova, their dispute is what required Risker to recuse on proposals relating to Durova. When discussing/arguing whether Risker should be hearing the case at all, due to the prejudice for the filing party, Risker should have responded in a professional way that was a lot less confrontational (quoting election stats was less than helpful, especially after Durova asked that Risker stopped talking to her). A lot of material facts have been left out of the decision, including Durova's apology, even in the consideration of remedies, and that is the problem. If I do file a RfC on ArbCom, there would be a lot more detail to these issues. I'm sorry if you felt that I was insulting your intelligence, but that was not my intention (and I hope that's not how others would interpret it) - it just seemed from your comment that you genuinely didn't either understand the effect of an inflammatory comment was, or appreciate that the person who provokes (let's call him X) requires a more severe sanction for such misconduct than the person who regrettably responded in the way that X was hoping. Where X receives no sanction and where the arbitration office fails to take responsibility, it hardly seems fair that the person provoked gets a sanction or finding for that matter. The alternative is for the finding and sanction to stay, but the source of the problem has to be acknowledged and sanctioned accordingly. It's not about "getting away with it"; it's about fairness and consistency all around. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:18, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

MZM did make comments, but only after Durova initially brought up the subject for no apparent reason (it had, and continues to have, nothing to do with breaching experiments on BLPs or unwatched pages, which was supposed to be the scope of the case), and I would disagree that MZM's comments were "inflammatory." Suggesting that simply bringing up the issue or questioning her motives is inflammatory creates a situation where Durova is allowed to mention it as much as she wants, but its completely forbidden for anyone else to mention it in any way that isn't simply agreeing with her. Her response that implied MZM's comments were on the same level as sexual harassment were completely disproportionate to the issue. As for the issues with Risker, I am unfamiliar with the background there, but I was raised on the idea that if you don't have anything nice to say about someone, you don't say anything. Yes, some of Risker's comments were less than ideal, but I think an attack on her character was, again, a completely disproportionate response. My main issue though was that your and others' comments on the case talk page suggest that because Durova was a whistleblower, that she should be excused from any scrutiny, even as it pertains to things barely relate to what she blew the whistle on. The case would have proceeded just fine without either of the 2 incidents (though I'm not implying that she was totally at fault for either), so I don't think that the idea of protecting the whistleblower should extend to cover them. I'm all for fairness all around, but I'd rather the stricter standard be applied, otherwise murder murder might not be illegal. Mr.Z-man 05:39, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

When MZM brought up the issue or questioned her motives, what evidence existed? That does seem to be what the proposals relating to Durova revolve around; serious evidence is required. I agree her responses were disproportionate: an overreaction which she apologised for. I'm not at all saying she should be excused from scrutiny because she is a whistleblower; her actions are also up to scrutiny as is anyone else's. But in light of the fact that these were isolated incidents, apologised for, and dealt with, this does not ordinarily rise to the level of Fofs and remedies, especially on a PD. If it genuinely did, there would've been additional findings involving MZM and ArbCom for that matter (giving weight to those who played a part); after a lot of consideration, including those of previous decisions, I came to the conclusion that she would not have been the subject of these Fofs and remedies had she not been a whistleblower - undue focus is being given to her actions during the case, rather than the substantive matters to make a political statement. None of this though justifies MZM's comment about my eye colour; it was totally unacceptable. It is particularly concerning, given that in the previous case involving him, I was strongly against his desysop, and was vocal about it too - he's went ahead and disproved those reasons why I thought he shouldn't be desysopped, and this comment was the cherry on the top. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Well before the case started (in what I believe was only Durova's second comment on the matter), she made this statement. MZM made 2 replies that addressed this comment [1] and [2]. I don't see how either is especially "inflammatory," certainly not warranting of comments suggesting that MZM has some sort of negative attitude toward women in general. Had she not been a whistleblower (and, really, she's not - several arbitrators were already aware of the issue before she involved herself), she wouldn't even be a party and none of the relevant comments would have likely been made. Also, I'm not aware of any apology made to MZM. (As an aside, I just noticed your other attack on me on the case talk page at 04:55. Given that its based on a complete misinterpretation of my opinion, which for now I'll assumes was accidental, I'd appreciate it if you would refactor it.) Mr.Z-man 07:10, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I've taken a look at those diffs. MZM should have appropriately responded by saying that he had no knowledge that the banned user did so, if he didn't. Has MZM stated anywhere that he would've acted differently, even if he had known about the banned user's quality of judgement on the matter? It's a very thin line to tread - if someone kept questioning motives when an user genuinely feels that they would've still RFARed in the same manner, even if it was some other user(s) on the portrait, MZM's questions [3] would naturally provoke a strongly emotional response, and it was after those comments that Durova overreacted. It happened again in the following section. I cannot say that it wasn't inflammatory to hang onto the point about motives in that manner; some other parts may have been oversighted. On the aside, either you still have misinterpreted my own comment which you responded to, or you've deliberately misrepresented what I said in that discussion by talking about "getting away with it". I assume it was a mistake on your part, but I am not in a position to refactor my response without yours being refactored to begin with, seeing that was what I was responding to. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:30, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

You said "If ArbCom ignores all other inflammatory and utterly inappropriate commentary by the subject-party ... then yes, it should completely ignore that isolated incident" - I fail to see how that cannot be seen as "one person got away with it, so the other person should too." Regardless, my comment was only based on your stated opinion. You made a completely unnecessary attack on my abilities, I don't see how the 2 are even comparable. Mr.Z-man 17:59, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

And mine was based on yours; it was quite a fair comment in the circumstances. Focusing on an isolated incident is unjustifable when you overlook all other (read: pattern) of inflammatory commentary by the other party. Having no regard for circumstances makes the finding fundamentally unsound. So rather than having such a finding, it is better to overlook all incidents as uncharacteristic lapses in judgement. If you still somehow are going to pretend and insist that I was trying to state such an oversimplistic notion that "one person got away with it, so other person should too", then it does reflect on your overall judgement and abilities, seeing these are the sorts of circumstances administrators are expected to observe good judgement in. Thank you for clarifying that it was pointless for me to expect you to understand my position, when you are so intent on sticking to your own misinterpretation/misrepresentation of my position. Ncmvocalist (talk) 18:20, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

And thank you for clarifying that you are unable to understand the difference between commenting on my opinion and on my self. That could explain why you don't see your initial comment here as an insult either. Though I do find your last comment rather ironic, complaining that I'm focusing on an isolated incident and ignoring a pattern when you seem to be basing your assumptions of my behavior and character on one discussion. There also seems to be an interesting parallel here between your's and Durova's comments in that you seem to be trying to turn this disagreement of opinion into some sort of personal dispute with borderline attacks and unnecessary rhetoric. Mr.Z-man 18:43, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Your VOTE 2 vote at CDA

Hi Mr.Z-man,

you are receiving this message as you voted in VOTE 2 at the recent Community de-Adminship 'Proposal Finalization' Poll. Unfortunately, there is a hitch regarding the "none" vote that can theoretically affect all votes.

1) Background of VOTE 2:

In a working example of CDA; ater the 'discussion and polling phase' is over, if the "rule of thumb" baseline percentage for Support votes has been reached, the bureaucrats can start to decide whether to desysop an admin, based in part on the evidence of the prior debate. This 'baseline' has now been slightly-adjusted to 65% (from 70%) per VOTE 1. VOTE 2 was asking if there is a ballpark area where the community consensus is so strong, that the bureaucrats should consider desysopping 'automatically'. This 'threshold' was set at 80%, and could change pending agreement on the VOTE 2 results.

This was VOTE 2;

Do you prefer a 'desysop threshold' of 80% or 90%, or having none at all?

As a "rule of thumb", the Bureaucrats will automatically de-sysop the Administrator standing under CDA if the percentage reaches this 'threshold'. Currently it is 80% (per proposal 5.4).

Please vote "80" or "90", or "None", giving a second preference if you have one.

This is the VOTE 2 question without any ambiguity;

Do you prefer a "rule of thumb" 'auto-desysop' percentage of 80%, 90%, or "none"?

Where "none" means that there is no need for a point where the bureaucrats can automatically desysop.

Please vote "80" or "90", or "None", giving a second preference if you have one.

2) What was wrong with VOTE 2?

Since the poll, it has been suggested that ambiguity in the term "none at all" could have affected some of the votes. Consequently there has been no consensus over what percentage to settle on, or how to create a new compromise percentage. The poll results are summarised here.

3) How to help:

Directly below this querying message, please can you;

• Clarify what you meant if you voted "none".

• In cases where the question was genuinely misunderstood, change your initial vote if you wish to (please explain the ambiguity, and don't forget to leave a second choice if you have one).

• Please do nothing if you interpreted the question correctly (or just confirm this if you wish), as this query cannot be a new vote.

I realise that many of you clarified your meaning after your initial vote, but the only realistic way to move forward is to be as inclusive as possible in this vote query. Sorry for the inconvenience,

Matt Lewis (talk) 10:45, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Removing my comments

RE: [4]

Please don't. We can move this discussion on the main page, if you prefer.

I understand your main concern, that you feel that I am quoting you out of context. That said, we both agree what phase II was. You state that what I said was out of context, which you have ample ability to explain. If you have changed your mind, you are welcome to state that.

We both know editors should not delete other editors comments. I think you would feel the same way if I tried to delete your comments. Those rules are there to avoid edit wars. If every editor was allowed to delete every comment they did not agree with on the talk page, we would have ten times the edit wars we do now.

Indeed, this is not a petition, at least in the petition comments were removed to another page, here the comments are simply being deleted.

I want to avoid an edit war here. I was planning on letting this calm down, but removing my comments simply reignites tensions.

I hope we can continue to discuss this, or let this die, without reverting each others comments. Thank you :) Okip ^{BLP Contest} 15:36, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

We also know that editors should not make lies about and attack other users based on wild assumptions and no evidence, but that hasn't stopped you from doing just that for the past few days. I've asked you to discuss using reasoned arguments and evidence, but you seem to be unwilling to do so. I believe you've now been told by 2 arbitrators that your allegations are patently false. I asked you nicely to stop referring to my comment to support yours. You refused to do so, then attacked me. Stop harassing me and other users Okip, or I will seek further action. Mr.Z-man 18:07, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Add a "public interest" clause to Oversight

A proposal to add a "public interest" clause to Wikipedia:Oversight has started at Wikipedia_talk:Oversight#Proposal_for_new_.27public_interest.27_clause. SilkTork *^YES! 10:33, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Apology

Hello Mr.Z-man. I wanted to apologize for the tone of some of my comments on the BLP RfC. I am going to strike some of what I wrote which borders on a personal attack as it was inappropriate. I can see that you are a reasonable person, and although we appear to disagree on how to solve the unreferenced BLP backlog, I shouldn't have let things get personal. Best regards. 16:27, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

If you're referring to the "cynical" comment. I wouldn't consider that a personal attack. I know I'm cynical. Mr.Z-man 18:45, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'm glad you weren't offended. Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 23:50, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Mr.Z-bot

May I propose that User:Mr.Z-bot also monitor filter 285 as a "vandalism" filter? I created this filter recently and have been monitoring it and have been very surprised at how powerful it is. As of yet I haven't seen any false positives, so I thought maybe you'd like to have your bot monitor it. Just an idea, feel free to pose questions/comments! --Shirik ♥♥ 05:25, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Added it to the list. Mr.Z-man 03:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Unblock of User:Paragon of Arctic Winter Nights

I was thinking of unblocking this account as they have admitted to the sock account and seem to now understand that this sort of thing is not kosher. It seems best to me to give them a chance to prove it but I'm checking in with you as blocking admin first. Beeblebrox (talk) 10:04, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

As long as they understand why it was wrong, I wouldn't have a problem. Mr.Z-man 16:11, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

After some discussion on the talk page, it seems likely there was at least one other sock, and it was a very nasty one, so I've decided to decline after all. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:00, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

A tweak to your Bot plz

Hi, I think your bot has done really great work in changing {{unreferenced}} tags to {{unreferencedBLP}}. But because it doesn't change the date, I fear it is giving people a false sense of the rate at which unreferenced BLPs are fixed or deleted after they've been identified. Would it be possible to change it so that we "freeze" the unreferenced BLP categories of Jan 2010 and earlier, and in future when it changes {{unreferenced}} tags to {{unreferencedBLP}}s have it change the date to the current month and year? Otherwise we will continue to underestimate both the amount of work going on in fixing BLPs, and the numbers of unreferenced BLPs still being detected. ϢereSpielChequers 00:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't see why it should change the date. Somebody identified it as an unsourced BLP, they just didn't use the right template or the right category. If anything, changing the date would just give a false sense of the rate of unsourced BLP creation. Just like I don't have the bot try to check for sources, I'd rather not second guess the human tagger as to when it was identified. Mr.Z-man 02:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I see the logic in that, but with the current emphasis atWikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people on those records tagged as unreferenced BLPs this could be giving people a false impression as to how little the backlog is changing. I think we are very close to getting consensus to set a schedule for dealing with all the 41,500 articles currently in Category:All unreferenced BLPs from January 2010 and before, but I fear that consensus might break down if people realise that articles are still being added to that group and will continue to be added as more are found. ϢereSpielChequers 15:53, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It's not giving people a false impression as to how the backlog is changing, the backlog just wasn't reported correctly. If anything it's giving a more correct picture as to what the real backlog is. Changing the date would give a false picture that A) the historic backlog is smaller than it really is and B) the new backlog is bigger than it really is. If people want to reduce the backlog, it should be reduced legitimately, not artificially by moving old articles into new categories. Mr.Z-man 16:38, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Well I'd be inclined to agree with you except that some people thought the backlog static when it was large, fast changing but with something of a balance between additions and subtractions. However we are now very close to a consensus to dealing with the currently identified 42,000 unreferenced BLPs, and that means it is a bit awkward if we are still adding more without tagging them with the current month and year. PS as we are both involved in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people I hope you don't mind if I refer to this thread there. ϢereSpielChequers 17:55, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

If there is a consensus to change the date, I'll do so, but given the "sensitivity" of the issue, I'd rather not just change it arbitrarily. The other issue is that under the current proposals on the RFC, I believe that changing the date to the current date would mean that they would be eligible for PROD and could be deleted in a week, rather than having months to be sourced. Mr.Z-man 18:08, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm pretty sure the sticky prod solution has stabilised to a proposal for newly created articles. But the BLP RFC in my view started at the wrong end of the process and still suffers from prioritising the wrong metric. As we work on some of the more serious BLP problems like Old unreferenced BLPs that have yet to be categorised as living people more old unreferenced BLPs will be found. But even at this stage there is an assumption that we are dealing with two groups of articles "known existing unreferenced BLPs" and "unreferenced BLPs yet to be written", so the third group "existing unreferenced BLPs that have yet to be tagged as such" risks being shoehorned into one or the other solution. If we have nearly finished finding them and by this time next year this had slowed to a trickle, then I think people might go for including them in the sticky prod process, do you by chance have any figures for the number of articles your bot adds to previous months figures? ϢereSpielChequers 18:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

AfD closer

Will your AfD closer work on vector skin? CTJF83 GoUSA 23:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Got it, I guess I had to put it above TW vector stuff. CTJF83 GoUSA 23:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Since I'm already bugging you...is there any customization allowed? I'd rather it link to WP:NACD which is an official guideline, then WP:NAC which is an essay, is that possible? CTJF83 GoUSA 23:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

(Your Twinkle config was broken with some illegal js, which led to anything beneath it not being executed. Fixed it for you). Amalthea 23:36, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! Now hopefully everything works how I want it to :) CTJF83 GoUSA 23:43, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Popular pages - Theatre Project - Thanks!

Thanks so much for providing this information. Its very interesting and also helpful to the Project. We Project-onians will appreciate using it to see where effort can best be applied. Thanks very much! --Mdukas (talk) 15:16, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Popular pages and Wikipedia-Books

I can't submit because my request is non-standard. Books are located in Category:Wikipedia books (community books) and the results should be uploaded at Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia-Books/Popular pages. Thanks. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 02:21, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

At the moment the script only supports projects using the standard assessment system. This isn't likely to change in the near future. Mr.Z-man 04:44, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Well there is also Category:Wikipedia-Books articles by quality, which is based on the banner, but there just isn't a B-Class category. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 11:27, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've added the project to the list. Mr.Z-man 20:33, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to go be going through the book namespace. See this report. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 21:25, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Any updates? Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 19:00, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

The problem was that it wasn't checking "Book-class" articles. I've added this class to the list, so it should be fixed next month (it would be too difficult to repair it this month). Mr.Z-man 22:22, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be a problem with class recognition. See here. Books are listed as "file", images are blanks, etc... Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 04:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Should be fixed now. Mr.Z-man 22:06, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes I saw that. Thanks. As a side note, it would also be nice if the table was sortable. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 22:31, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Column sorting in popular pages results

In the "popular pages" tables, the "assessment" and "importance" columns are sorted in alphabetical order. Would it be technically possible to get them to sort in the correct "assessment" or "importance" order? Help:Sorting seems to suggest this might be possible using m:Template:sms (backlinks edit). -- Dr Greg  talk  00:40, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I'll look into it. Mr.Z-man 01:38, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

discussion & bullet points.

I won't revert your revert, because I, along with many others, am totally confused and dissappointed in the way this BLP discussion is going, and will admit to some errors in my attempts to correctly structure - without changing the content - of the format. I will however just point out that a significant contribution to the extraordinary confusion on both the RfC page and it companion talk page are partly due to many good faith contributors completley ignoring the guideleines for debate and discussion formats and mixing them up. Bullet points are for Support; Oppose; Comment, which should be in bold. Doscussions on the other hand are held in indent thread format, each entry indented preceded by an incremental number of colons. While it is of course obvious that a short discussion can take place within a debate structure, it wold help all round if the contributors - most of whom consider themselves to be seasoned editors - would give some consideration to the accepted formats. Some of the most valued contributors are now withdrawing from the the BLP discussions, among others, for this very reason. I'm not sure if this is really what we want.
Another major complaint from many is the WP:TLDR in this discussion. The excercise in formatting, also ensures that I have read what I am formatting, which means that I have formatted what I have read, even if it took three hours.--Kudpung (talk) 03:43, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

If you think people are using bullet points wrongly to have a threaded discussion, then change it to a properly threaded discussion. But turning a threaded discussion into bullet points makes it even more confusing since replies to other comments look like entirely new comments since all the structure that provided context is removed. Mr.Z-man 04:13, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Request for rollback permission

Would it be possible to be granted rollback permission? In particular, I'd like to rollback the article on Olvera Street to the (second) 15:55 7 February 2010 revision. There were several subsequent revisions, notably the 22:09 16 February 2010 revision, that made a hash out of portions of this article. After rolling back, I'd reapply the subsequent sensible revisions. I realize I could do this with a series of undos, but I think the intent would be clearer if a single rollback were used. G Sisson (talk) 00:28, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

For one, rollback should only be used on vandalism/spam. Also, rollback doesn't work that way, it can only rollback the edits by the last editor of the page, not to any old revision. If you want to revert back to there, just go to the old revision, click edit, and save. Mr.Z-man 00:56, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the explanation; I'd thought the only alternative was multiple undos or to recompose the missing text (which would have been painful). G Sisson (talk) 05:49, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Industrial design

Hello Mr.Z. I read that you are into AWB or Python. Could you add the {{WikiProject_Industrial_design}} banner to 97 talk pages BASED on their article having a Category:Computer-aided design (no subcategories please) tag. Is that something you do?... ZooFari began our project tagging, but then he retired suddenly. Thanks, --AlainR345^{Techno-Wiki-Geek} 01:18, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't have approval to do that with a bot, and I don't have the time now to do it manually with AWB. Wikipedia:Bots/Status might have some wikiproject-tagging bots or ask on WP:BOTREQ. Mr.Z-man 04:15, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

stats.grok.se and redirects

stats.grok.se does not combine redirects in general when making page counts. All three of these lead to the same article: [5] [6] [7]. You can see the numbers are all different. I am aware of this because I had to write my own code to take care of combining hitcounts of redirects for the WP 1.0 system. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:52, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I know. My stats do combine redirects though. Mr.Z-man 03:26, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

The bigger problem I have is with the raw stats data, which always seems to have a lot of invalid or corrupt page names. How do you deal with those? I just match things against a list of all articles and end up discarding a lot of entries that don't have a corresponding page title. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:28, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Apart from that, I think a second difference is that I discard the top and bottom 5% of the data before taking the average (and I combine data from several months). The concern is that being on the main page or being in the news might skew the hitcount for an article temporarily. I think I remember looking into the main page articles and it seemed that after a week the hitcount would return to about the same as before the article appeared on the main page. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:32, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

That's pretty much what I do. I have all the pages and redirects and their targets in a hash table. For the titles in the data, I de-urlencode them and replace spaces with underscores. I don't actually store the per-day data. Mr.Z-man 03:41, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

User:Mr.Z-man/closeAFD.js should not delete user talk pages

Can you see to it that this script does not delete user talk pages? (See [8]) Thanks, –xeno^talk 20:10, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Excessive Edit warring in Kochi article

The user:Gantlet is again edit warring with the article Kochi. He is reverting the article to an older version. Please block him again. He is even having some sock usernames as well. Also, please dont include me also in the same category. I was just trying to prevent him from his wierd revisions. Please see the history here: [9] Thank you, --Dewatchdog (talk) 16:19, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I really don't have the time to handle this right now. If it is urgent, you should take it to WP:ANI. Mr.Z-man 23:52, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

BLP sticky prod

Hi Mr.Z-man/Archive 11 ! The template workshop has now split off most of the long threads purely on policy to a new discussion page so that policy can be established while technical development of the template can continue in its own space. When the template functions are finalised, the policy bits can be merged into them. If you intend to continue to contribute your ideas to the development of the template or its policy of use, and we hope you will, please consider either adding your name to the list of workshop members, or joining in with the policy discussions on the new page. --Kudpung (talk) 06:35, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

AfD closing script

Just curious, why isn't it completing the relists? I didn't get any errors or anything. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 18:03, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Template:RegioneIT

Please edit the link of Friuli – Venezia Giulia in the template, which moved to current name space according to WP:Dash. Matthew_hk tc 15:18, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

reftoolbar 2.0

On Safari 4, when I click Templates->cite * I get the error "TypeError: Result of expression 's' [undefined] is not an object." and an empty dialog window is presented. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:03, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I can't seem to replicate this on Safari 4.0.5 on Windows. Does it give a line number or a function name? Mr.Z-man 14:31, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

635 s = s.slice(0,1).toUpperCase() + s.slice(1); —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:11, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Found it. In function citeTemplate, you have for (i in fields). This is an object iterator, and you shouldn't use those on Arrays. Arrays should always use for (i=0; i < fields.length; fields++) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:20, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I see this because I use Twinkle, which adds a _prototype to Array objects. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:21, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

AfD Tool

Is there any way I can change it so your AfD tool links to WP:NACD instead of the essay WP:NAC? CTJF83 chat 03:52, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Problem report on WikiProject Albums/Popular pages

Looking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Popular pages I wonder why many of the articles are listed as "Unassessed" when they aren't. E.g. the very first in the list, Plastic Beach, which is assessed as B-class. Could it be related to the move of {{Album}} to {{WikiProject Albums}} on 15 March? – IbLeo^(talk) 19:05, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Additional info: Also {{Albums}} redirects to {{WikiProject Albums}}. Any article containing one of those three templates are in the scope of WP:ALBUM. – IbLeo^(talk) 19:36, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

It gets the assessment info a few days before the start of the month. So if it wasn't assessed then, it won't have the assessment when it makes the list. Mr.Z-man 20:07, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

I see. But Plastic Beach was assessed on the 3 March, i.e. almost one month ago. So I don't think that late assessment is the reason. How does the bot tell that a given article is within the scope of WP:ALBUM? – IbLeo^(talk) 20:32, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

As I said, it gets the assessment a few days before the start of the month. Mr.Z-man 20:50, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Now I get it – you mean before the start of the period, i.e. 1 March. I thought you meant this month, i.e. 1 April. OK, so then I guess it is a false alarm. Sorry for the inconvenience, and keep up the good work. Cheers. – IbLeo^(talk) 20:58, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Popular pages for WikiProject New Jersey

I saw you added WPNJ to the list of projects, but no page was created when the bot ran yesterday. I wasn't sure if there was an error or just a delay in running the page for the first time. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 14:31, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind. I see that stats are being gathered for this month, and we should expect to see the page on May 1. Didn't quite understand the process there. Thanks. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 14:59, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

BLP

Hi, can you point me to where the RfC consensus clearly agrees that mandatory creator notification is neither required nor wanted? I thought I was familiar with practically everything since the start of Phase 2, but I may have missed something. Thanks.--Kudpung (talk) 22:22, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Adding rules is what requires consensus. No other deletion process has mandatory notification (Filing an Arbitration request is the only process that I know of that requires notification of involved users). So it would need to work the other way around. There would need to be a consensus to add the requirement, not to remove it. Mr.Z-man 22:33, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Bot changing dates

I found by random that when the bot made this edit [10], it changed the date from 2008 to 2010. This could be confusing to people who assume the date is somehow related to when the article was created. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:48, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

This is by design. The date is supposed to be when the article was first discovered, but I changed it to be the current date after a request on the BLP RFC so that the historic backlogs would not continue to increase. I pointed out the issues that this caused, but no one seemed to care. Mr.Z-man 00:15, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I love you

<CIA-66> wikitools: MrZmanwiki * r327 /trunk/wikitools/wiki.py: modify login for the extra step added due to https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23076

I was just about to SVN up and look at a live hack for this. Thanks for the quick fix. <3 --MZMcBride (talk) 01:57, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I use it for my own bots as well :). Note that to avoid running logged-out, you can check the return value of the login() function (it should return false if it fails), or use the isLoggedIn() function. Mr.Z-man 02:06, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		For all the long hours you put into Wikipedia. Keep it up, The High Fin Sperm Whale 04:29, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

User:Harvey Birdmen

There's a section on his user page called The facts about shoveing things up your butt. So far, his only edit was to his own userpage, but even then it might warrant some help. mechamind90 20:29, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Possible move of the William Beebe rape section to new bio article

Hello, I've posted an RfC about a controversial topic. I believe that you've participated in discussions about this before. Please participate dispassionately. NYCRuss ☎ 12:02, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your help with mw:Extension:PureWikiDeletion

Tisane has given you a sunflower plant! Sunflowers are given in recognition of valuable contributions to the MediaWiki codebase. These plants are easy to grow, requiring only full sun and moist, well-drained, mulchy soil, and can be processed into delicious sunbutter! If you forget an important anniversary or birthday, your sunflower can also be hastily plucked and presented as a thoughtful gift. If you run out of food for your pet parrot and don't feel like going to the store, your sunflower's seeds will surely come in handy. If, on the other hand, you presently lack a pet bird, no doubt the seeds can help you lure one onto your property. Possessing extensive root systems, sunflowers are able to reach deep into sources of polluted water and extract large amounts of toxic metals, including uranium; the roots of floating rafts of sunflowers were able to extract 95% of the radioactivity in the water following the Chernobyl disaster. Truly it is the plant of 1,000 uses. Little wonder, then, that enclosed in double brackets, it becomes the symbol for the software on which runs our wiki of belovedly versatile usefulness.

Tisane (talk) 06:50, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Mr.Z-man. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Village pump (development).
Message added 00:34, 22 April 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Sole Soul (talk) 00:34, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Please comment

Please comment here. MisterE2123Five3 (talk) 07:20, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Popular page request queue

Hi, there are 11 projects pending approval (I added Cats and Dogs). I was hoping you can review them in time for the May data collection. Thanks.--Dodo bird (talk) 03:32, 26 April 2010 (UTC)