User talk:Anomie

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Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Collaboration of the week

I forgot to tell you that the VGCOTW has been inactive. Can you stop AnomieBOT from updating or something like that? GamerPro64 (talk) 02:25, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Just remove or comment out the bot's template. Anomie⚔ 03:17, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

New task idea for AnomieBOT

Hi there. There was an idea on ANI that a bot could mark requests at WP:RFPP as protected where an admin protected the page but did so without noticing the request or forgetting to add the appropriate response template. It would be something like the IFDCloser code you created for WP:FFD since it's imho a pretty similar task. If you return here in the next few weeks, could you consider creating such an additional task? Regards SoWhy 23:08, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Sure, I'll take a look. At first glance it looks fairly straightforward, each entry is a well-defined section and there are easily-detectable templates for the bot to tell if the admin already took care of the notification. If you think of anything I should watch out for, let me know. Anomie⚔ 05:18, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it's pretty straightforwarded as well. It would simply have to check whether the {{RFPP}} template (or maybe {{done}} etc.) are in that section and if not, add them after allowing the admin time to do it themselves. Regards SoWhy 14:20, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I've run into an interesting problem: I can easily query what the page's protection settings are now, but I can't query what they were at some time in the past. And the log messages similarly say what the protection was changed to, but not what it was changed from and older log messages don't even say what it was changed to. I suppose I could store the current protection settings whenever the bot sees a new request added, but if an admin manages to jump in before the bot reads those protection settings then it won't work right (and if the servers are heavily lagged, that could be a big window). This will take some thought. Anomie⚔ 22:48, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm...that's not good, true. Maybe it could simply assume that if it was changed to "autoconfirmed" or "full" that it was previously set to "none"? I did know that the software does not display it in the logs but I thought it would offer such info via the API. Although the previous protection level could be "guessed" from the protections made before, e.g. the bot could take the timestamp from the request, then check the protection log for previous protections and compare: If the last entry after that timestamp is a protection and the one before that is an unprotection, it can report that the page was protected after the request was filed. If the penultimate entry is a protection as well, it can query the "expires 23:59, 1 January 2100 (UTC)" part to calculate whether the protection had already expired when the new protection was set. I don't know whether it can be done this way though but thanks for considering it anyway. On a side note, I opened bugzilla:22293 to request this to be added to the software. You might want to comment on it. Regardless of your success with this bot task, I think it would be a good feature to have in the logs. Regards SoWhy 23:18, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Icon Group International

AnomieBOT reverted an edit to a reference I made to Irving Chernev. Works from this publisher are computer generated and not reliable. In many cases they are just computer generated references to Wikipedia and create a self-citation. Books from this publisher get cited because they are in Google Books. Look at [1] for details. Can you fix the bot to not revert these edits? Thanks. LarryQ (talk) 04:00, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

My mistake and error. My apologies for misunderstanding what the bot was doing. LarryQ (talk) 04:12, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

No problem, I'm glad it worked out. Anomie⚔ 05:10, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

You deserve one too

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		I gave your bot a barnstar, so I figured you deserve one as well! The orphaned reference fixer is a great idea and very well implemented at that. Good job!—Akrabbimtalk 15:25, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! Anomie⚔ 17:09, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

About the edit on the MK2 sales number...

Rather than bring up a probably dead discussion on the discussion page, I thought I'd bring this to your talk page directly. The Wikipedia list of best selling video games has reliable sources that show the number of MK2's sold for both the Mega Drive, and the SNES.

In addition to this, since there is a contradicting reliable source, Wikipedia policy is to show both sources. "Where there is disagreement between sources, their views should be clearly attributed in the text: "John Smith argues that X, while Paul Jones maintains that Y," followed by an inline citation."

Personally I feel this also applies to the video that mentions the 4:1 sales ratio of MK1 (which has been backed up by a completely unreliable sales number on someone's blog) Both views should clearly be noted, since many sites use the 4:1 number, and many sites source Kent/Wikipedia and the 3:1 number.--108.2.2.183 (talk) 06:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I see the source used in List of best-selling video games is listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources with a link to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources/Archive 2#The Magic Box, which seems to say that Magic Box pages that state where they got their numbers are ok but those without any source are not; the page Chart-USPlatinum.shtml doesn't specify where the numbers come from. If you want to know why it is used on List of best-selling video games despite not giving a source for its numbers, ask on that article's talk page. As for the mentioned video saying 4:1, a passing mention in some video of unknown reliability doesn't seem anywhere near as reliable as a researched book that devotes an entire chapter to the events surrounding the game; saying "Steven Kent in The Ultimate History of Video Games says X, while a humor website editor named Jeff in an online video mentions Y" would just be silly. Anomie⚔ 17:09, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

GameDaily is a well established video game journalism site. It's not a humor website. It's listed in green, in the list of sources you've linked me to. So, it's not unknown reliability. It has to be stated as an argument if nothing else. I've sent an email to The Magic Box (I suspect I'll need luck with a response) and I will ask TJ Spyke about it as well, since he maintains that Wiki page.--108.2.2.183 (talk) 19:02, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

According to the credits at the beginning of the video, the person in the video who makes the statement in the video is the managing editor of collegehumor.com. Not GameDaily. Anomie⚔ 20:17, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Which means he's pretty reliable right? Most people say four to one, Wiki copy sites and Wired say three to one (citing Kent,) while GameDaily, Sega-16, ConsoleDatabase, and Racket Boy all claim 4 to 1. Just the popularity of the 4 to 1 number has to be taken into account from what I've read on Wiki policies, so long as most of the sources are reliable, the other three are questionable sources at the worst, GameDaily is reliable, and Kent is reliable. It is thanks to our neutral point of view that we need to include both reliable numbers. 3 to 1, and 4 to 1.

TJ Spyke tells me he's not sure, but it's possible that The Magic Box has those numbers from Famitsu. To be sure, I'm asking someone else, at his suggestion.--108.2.4.225 (talk) 00:02, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

If you really think humor website editors are reliable in discussing video game sales, I guess there's no point in continuing this conversation. Good day. Anomie⚔ 02:31, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

: ( I didn't think I'd have to tell you this, but they're reading a script, and telling the story together.--108.2.4.225 (talk) 03:38, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

ReyBrujo has confirmed that The Magic Box got their sales numbers for US games from the NPD.--108.2.8.193 (talk) 19:46, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I like how you completely ignored him. lol--130.76.96.19 (talk) 19:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Wow, I completely forgot about this while I was waiting for the response. Anomie, I got the confirmation those numbers are reliable. ReyBrujo has confirmed the Magic Box's US numbers came from NPD. Now you can add the numbers into the article. It's up to you whether or not you want to take out Kent's quote, or keep it alongside the numbers. Please add something for MK1 like, "it outsold the SNES version by a ratio of at least three to one,(kent reference) if not four to one (other references that have been posted in this discussion.) This gives both reliable sources their entry, and both sides of the argument their undue weight. BTW Anomie, I can't find anything about the ratio in Purple Reign but, maybe I'm not looking hard enough. I'm only searching for keywords like three, 3, etc. I notice that Purple Reign mentions in reference to MK2 that "This time, the SNES version was the one to buy" I agree with that, and I think that comment is much better suited for the article. The SNES MK2 is vastly superior to the Genesis version, despite what the sales numbers hint at.--108.2.10.22 (talk) 23:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Replied at User talk:ReyBrujo. Anomie⚔ 00:51, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing me here. Well, first of all let me say that I am against using a single source for multiple games. It has been my intention for quite a long time to kill TMB from the list of best-selling video games articles, but it is pretty hard to find replacements for old sales (8 and 16 bits).

The facts: a) reliability: we know that they take their numbers from reliable sources. For japanese numbers, they use Famitsu, and for USA ones, NPD. We trust them that they don't tinker with the numbers (other than rounding them). b) Yes, numbers appear from one month to the other. It could be that they found old data and added it (just like we do every day) or that they noticed they were missing information, or whatever.

Now comes the issue: if we consider them reliable (whether or not they actually are, mind you), we don't question from where they obtain their information. That is why we can quote an article in the Wall Street Journal without asking the reporter to explain how he came with the information or to name the sources.

As an encyclopedia, we are a tertiary source, we pick information from secondary and tertiary sources. If we want to investigate how TMB came with the information (after considering them reliable) we are becoming secondary sources (investigating whether facts are true or not, where they came from, etc). That is the job of journalists, not encyclopedia writers.

So, do we consider them reliable? The WikiProject informally has always preferred it to, say, VGChartz, even if they haven't been approved or rejected according to Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources. However, that WikiProject page is questionable. It would be kind of not accepting an article from The New York Times just because the journalist hasn't pointed out who told him something.

Do I? For the time being, yes. They have been around since almost 10 years, and other than the usual scorn from NeoGAF, I haven't read anything against their sources. Do you? Well, it is hard to say. It is strange that certain articles can quote it and others can't.

If Anomie doesn't find any of the 4:1 references reliable, but if he considers TMB to be (at least for the time being), maybe you can post the sales number of both games and let the reader to make his own conclusion. If he doesn't consider TMB reliable, a serious discussion should be held at the WikiProject. Personally I would trust them (but use another source whenever possible because of what I mentioned first). -- ReyBrujo (talk) 02:40, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I just am not sure whether the numbers on that particular page really come from NPD. And, to complicate matters further, that page says "since 1995". Does it include sales from September-December 1994? Which could make a difference, apparently the SNES version was outselling the Genesis version 2 to 1 in October 1994,[2] and considering that numerous sources report $50 million in combined sales for the first week those 1994 sales could well make enough of a difference if they're not already included.

Given that we have one reliable source explicitly stating one thing, and one normally-reliable source giving numbers that would mean the opposite if we assume that the numbers actually are from NPD and are comprehensive despite a statement on the page itself that could easily indicate the contrary, I think we should stick with the former. Anomie⚔ 22:05, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Very interesting. I think Kent is a reliable source, and it's interesting seeing another reliable source from both GameDaily and TMB here that contradicts him. I keep having to defend Kent's sources on the Mega Drive article, though it's easier there, none of them contradict him, so I know how annoying this can be. I think good points are made by all here. Anomie is right about Kent being reliable, ReyBrujo is right about encyclopedic writing, and IP user has clearly read up on Wikipedia policy regarding Neutral Point Of View, and Undue Weight. The only way I see this coming to a compromise, considering all the source I just mentioned are said to be reliable, is to give them their undue weight in the article. Anomie, I feel you're the number one contributor for the SNES article, and therefore you should be the one to enter in the information's undue weight, and like Rey said, let the reader decide. I would enter it in myself after reading all this, but out of respect to you, and the fact I want to avoid using words to avoid I feel much more comfortable letting you enter this into the article yourself. I may change my mind if lots of time goes by however. I want the SNES to shine as bright as anyone else, my name SexyKick is inspired by Luigi after all.--SexyKick 00:28, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The home console games sold around 5 million combined, while the TMB references add to just around 3.2m. So, it is possible that indeed the reference missed from the Mortal Friday to Dec 13, 2004. Also, NPD started tracking video games on 1995. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 03:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, TMB only accounts for the US sales of the game. It excludes the European, and Japanese sales, they probably get the tally up to the 5 million. Look at MK3, which came out in 1995, total in the article is 3 million, but TMB's US numbers only reach 2.24 million.--SexyKick 03:39, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The reference I used could be interpreted as referring to sales in US only. Adding up the numbers given there don't come near the franchise total (around 26m). -- ReyBrujo (talk) 04:02, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Mortal Apathy is dated 2002, so it would fall short of 26 million (which is dated in 2007) also, the Mortal Apathy specifies when it means US only, "Mortal Kombat 4's estimated 1.4 million copies in the United States."--SexyKick 04:55, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

OTOH, they never say that the other numbers are not US-only, and it would be a misleading comparison to give worldwide numbers for MK 1-3 and US-only for 4 when claiming sales decreased for each sequel. Anomie⚔ 16:39, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

OTSH (same hand) why would they specify US only for MK4, and not specify anything for the other games, and give much higher numbers than anyone else has claimed for them in the US only numbers? Hypothetically MK1 only sold about 2.7 million on the Sega Genesis not counting JP sales, so how did numbers reach six million? Oh, I just realized...hand held versions count. There's another shoe in the box, if you will. Most certainly the Gameboy and GameGear sales of MK2, plus international sales of MK2 made the tally reach five million.--SexyKick 19:40, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

At any rate, there seems to be sufficient ambiguity here that trying to actually use these numbers would be problematic. "According to Kent, the SNES version outsold the Genesis version.^[1] But according to numbers on the-magicbox.com purported to be from NPD and possibly not including sales from September–December 1994^[2] (note that an article published October 13, 1994, reported the SNES version outselling the Genesis version two to one^[3] and Acclaim reported a record $50 million in sales for the first week^[4]), the Genesis version maintained a slight edge." would just be ridiculous. Anomie⚔ 22:47, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The article didn't mention handheld consoles, since it was talking about home ones (unless suddenly "home" consoles include handheld ones too). The ambiguity you mention, Anomie, is what calls for undue weight: in this case, if the issue is that an article says the game sold better in a console but the only numbers we have say otherwise, and you believe one reference has more weight than the other, you could say "According to Kent, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System version outsold the Genesis version, although NPD numbers (which started tracking video game sales a few months after the launch of the game) differ." This way you are adding both statements, giving more weight to one, and end with a proper sentence.

Dismissing a valid reference because it would bring inconveniences (in this case, ambiguity) is not the way a research should be done. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 02:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Which IMO downplays the issues with those numbers. It seems to me that it is giving undue weight to include any statement that numbers excluding the first four months, when over a million units were sold in that first four months and one version outsold the other 2-to-1 (which would theoretically mean a sales difference of over 0.33 million for that period), show a difference of 0.27 million. The difference is lost in the error. Anomie⚔ 03:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I have always seen the hand held systems listed on the "it comes home" Mortal Kombat posters. [3] [4] [5] I'm very into Mortal Kombat if you can't tell...I think if you want to avoid the undue weight for the MK2 numbers, just put the Purple Reign quote in the article. Instead of saying "this time, Nintendo's version outsold Sega's" just say, "this time, Nintendo's version was the one to get." Then you're still stating that the Super Nintendo version was the better one, you're implying it did better, and you're still keeping the numbers a secret, just like you wanted. And obviously, no one will try to argue with that statement.--SexyKick 05:53, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

That's kind of what I was saying earlier. Thanks guys. Don't forget to add undue weight for the 4:1 ratio as well.--108.2.227.13 (talk) 06:14, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Can't say whether you are joking or not, and that means I am losing the little time I can spend at Wikipedia per day in a senseless discussion. See you all. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 02:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Reporting a bot

I'm not entirely sure how to report a bot, but User:FaleBot seems to be doing odd things. It removes perfectly good interwiki links (for example, every interwiki link to 2010 in music). It seems to take offence at interwiki articles with non-ASCII names (such as Akasaka and the Japanese disambig page/Korean disambig page) and just removes them seemingly randomly.--Prosperosity (talk) 18:41, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I've copied your report to WP:BON#Reporting a bot. Anomie⚔ 19:00, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah, thanks! I couldn't find that page somehow. --Prosperosity (talk) 11:22, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Requesting WikiProjectTagger please

Per User:AnomieBOT#On_demand can I request: User:AnomieBOT/source/tasks/WikiProjectTagger.pm for Wikipedia:WikiProject South Park and Category:WikiProject South Park Thank you! Okip 02:21, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Please link to the discussion (ideally at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject South Park) showing a positive consensus for this tagging. If there hasn't been such a discussion yet, please start it and let me know if the results are positive. Thanks. Anomie⚔ 02:32, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Link classifier

There's a new deletion process for WP:Books. Could you update your link classifier to take care of WP:BPRODs? It would be very useful. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:05, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

 Done Unless there's something more complicated needed to detect them than just "anything in Category:All books proposed for deletion". Anomie⚔ 20:26, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, that's pretty much all there is to it. Thanks! Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:30, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

A suggestion for Orphan fixer

I think it would be smarter to simply remove orphaned tags or send a message to a user whose recent edit resulted in orphaned tags, rather than simply going back into the history and re-including the reference. Because what can happen is this:

• A person removes something that's not a RS, but forgets to remove all the orphaned tags [6]
• Your bot comes along and restores the broken ref [7]

Now although you fix the tag, you end up re-including non-RS ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 20:05, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Or what can happen is this:

• A person is copyediting the article, and accidentally removes the body of a named reference.
• AnomieBOT comes along and fixes it. And people appreciate the help (see above for many examples).

Or:

• A person splits text into a subarticle, not noticing that some named refs went with the split-out text and/or that the split-out text missed some named refs.
• AnomieBOT comes along and fixes it. And people appreciate the help.

Or:

• A person merges text from one article into another (linked) article, but loses some named refs in the process.
• AnomieBOT comes along and fixes it. And people appreciate the help.

Or:

• Someone edits an infobox template to remove an "obsolete" parameter, which causes all articles having the body of a named ref in the text of that parameter to suddenly have broken refs.
• AnomieBOT comes along and fixes it. And people probably don't even notice there was a problem.

If your suggestion were taken then in all of those situations the bot would be causing the article to lose information instead. And what's more, if no one notices right away that your proposed bot removed the ref it will quite likely be lost forever, while if no one notices right away that AnomieBOT restored the body of a non-RS ref then we're really no worse off than before and someone else could easily enough notice (again) the non-RS and finish the botched removal.

And quite frankly, the people removing non-RS refs are much more likely to be Wikipedia veterans and should know about orphaned refs, and should be conscientious enough to be watching the article after the removal to watch for anyone really trying to add the reference back in (i.e. not just for bots correcting their mistakes). And if they don't or aren't yet, they're much more likely to constructively learn from the mistake than someone who doesn't really know all the ins and outs of Wikipedia who could easily feel chastised or persecuted by bots whining about their mistakes on their talk pages (if they even stick around long enough to find their talk page) when they were just trying to copyedit an article.

BTW, an easy way to see if you missed an orphan is to see if the page ends up in the hidden category Category:Pages with broken reference names after your edit. Anomie⚔ 00:59, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, so removing the ref is a bad idea. But notification instead of re-inclusion? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 03:09, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Link classifier - run on demand

Hi. I love the script, but had to disable it a while ago because very long pages took so long to fully-load (Village pumps, Featured length articles, etc). I was wondering if there was an easy way for the script to be made "run-on-demand", rather than its current "autorun-every-pageload"? The script User:Dschwen/HighlightRedirects works in this way, so perhaps code could be copied from that? (ianajsexpert)

I asked the same thing at WP:US/R#Highlight disambiguation pages? but nobody has replied. If you do have any suggestions, perhaps answer there, so that other editors can benefit. Much thanks! :) -- Quiddity (talk) 18:25, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I made changes to allow this use case. You would have to add "LinkClassifierOnDemand=true" somewhere before the importScript() for the script, and you'll have to add an appropriate addPortletLink() or the like calling LinkClassifier.onDemand() to give yourself the button wherever you want it. Anomie⚔ 01:45, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the updates.

I've tried a variety of permutations of semicolons and curlybraces, but can't hit on the right combination. Could you correct the block of code below for me? Then I can copy it to various places for everyone's enjoyment. Thanks again :) -- Quiddity (talk) 04:42, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

// Linkback: [[User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js]]
LinkClassifierOnDemand=true;
importScript('User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js');
addPortletLink('p-cactions', 'javascript:LinkClassifier.onDemand()', 'linkclassifier');

addPortletLink must be called after the page is loaded, so use addOnloadHook something like this:

// Linkback: [[User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js]]
LinkClassifierOnDemand=true;
importScript('User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js');
addOnloadHook(function(){
    addPortletLink('p-cactions', 'javascript:LinkClassifier.onDemand()', 'linkclassifier');
});

Also, don't forget CSS rules, either from User:Anomie/linkclassifier.css or your own. Anomie⚔ 11:07, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Huge thanks. You've made my life easier and more productive, the twin goals of the true procrastinator :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:27, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

User scripts

Hi, Anomie. I was looking at your User scripts, and was wondering do these work at any .js page ie. Monobook, Vector ? I would like to try some of them but don't know where to put them. Mlpearc MESSAGE 18:08, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

They work with monobook, maybe with vector or others too. Anomie⚔ 02:48, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

• I just want to tell you that I think User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js, should be "Stanard Issue" to ALL Editors. This is a Great Tool. And a good secret too ! (and it works fine in Vector) Mlpearc MESSAGE 21:00, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Link classifier spotty...

I'm running the link classifier with

importScript('User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js'); // Linkback: [[User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js]] importStylesheet('User:Anomie/linkclassifier.css'); // Linkback: [[User:Anomie/linkclassifier.css]]

in my vector.js. However sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Right now I've got wikipedia loaded in both an opera browser and an ie 7 browser and it is working fine in IE7, but not opera. However it doesn't seem to be browser related. Any ideas why it might be working sometimes, but not in others and if there is any way to force it to be used on a reload of the page or something?Naraht (talk) 13:37, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

It does require the API to fetch the information on the linked page, so if the API query fails then it won't be able to do anything; if the system is having issues such that it can't serve the API queries then you might see problems like that. I have neither IE nor Opera, so I can't really test it in either browser myself. Anomie⚔ 02:57, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Changed a couple of your announcements

Since your talk page banner says you're on a wikibreak, I took the liberty of fixing a couple of links [8] [9], so they'd be less confusing to editors arriving to that discussion. I hope you don't mind. Pcap ping 08:48, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

linkclassifier at simple wiki

Possible or not worth it ? Mlpearc pull my chain 'Tribs 05:02, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Sure, as long as they use tracking categories in the same way we do at enwiki. Just copy the script (giving proper attribution, please) and replace the lists of categories with the simple wiki equivalents. Anomie⚔ 05:07, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks I'm not a very good programmer, but I see what I can do. But now after reading your response, It's not the program I'm worried about getting to work. It's the attribution I don't want to mess up :-). I'm thinking your meaning, copy the "whole" page at User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js and add it to my .js page and work from there ? Mlpearc pull my chain 'Tribs 14:20, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Attribution is easy. Just copy the whole thing to simple:User:Mlpearc/linkclassifier.js (or wherever) with an edit summary like "Copied from [[en:User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js]]", and include something like this at the top:

/* Copied from [[en:User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js]] */

Or write something more complicated if you want, the main idea is to let people know where to direct compliments, complaints, or suggestions.

You'll probably also want to copy User:Anomie/linkclassifier.css in the same manner, or write your own replacement. And you will also need User:Anomie/util.js, or change the instructions to say to use importScriptURI('http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Anomie/util.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript'); instead of importScript('User:Anomie/util.js');. If you have problems getting it to work, let me know and I'll take a look. Anomie⚔ 19:42, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

• Hey, thanks I copied all .js and .css and I can confirm that "Green redirects" work I don't think "Yellow Disambiguation pages" work I went to a disambig page and no highlights, and "Pink AFD" I can't confirm. I keep looking, but articles are so small it's not as easy to find the links. I will confirm each as I find here so you'll know whats up. In case you want to take a gander here's the diff link to the additions [10] [11] [12]. And again thanks I've said it before I think this should be standard issue to all editors. If you see anything that needs changing let me know and I'll get right on it. Thanks, Mlpearc pull my chain 'Tribs 03:20, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

  As for disambiguation, try changing "Category:All disambiguation pages" to "Category:Disambiguation"; looking at a random dab page such as simple:Keyboard (disambiguation), it seems that may be the category Simple Wikipedia uses. Do the same thing for deletions, just look at the deletion process pages and see which categories they use there. Anomie⚔ 03:29, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

• I think I changed the disambig line as you suggested, but no apparent change. Still working on deletion cat's. Mlpearc pull my chain 'Tribs 21:41, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

• Did what I thought you meant with the deletion cat's that's not working either, but with it could be something simple and I wouldn't see it Mlpearc pull my chain 'Tribs 04:00, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Reply

Replied on my talk, thanks for pointing out the error :) Ottawa4ever (talk) 12:30, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Bot

Your bot is brilliant - many thanks [13]. --Joopercoopers (talk) 09:30, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

You are now a Reviewer

Hello. Your account has been granted the "reviewer" userright, allowing you to to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged protection, will be commencing a a two-month trial at approximately 23:00, 2010 June 15 (UTC).

Reviewers can review edits made by users who are not autoconfirmed to articles placed under flagged protection. Flagged protection is applied to only a small number of articles, similarly to how semi-protection is applied but in a more controlled way for the trial.

When reviewing, edits should be accepted if they are not obvious vandalism or BLP violations, and not clearly problematic in light of the reason given for protection (see Wikipedia:Reviewing process). More detailed documentation and guidelines can be found here.

If you do not want this userright, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. Karanacs (talk) 17:08, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

You are now a Reviewer

Hello. Your account has been granted the "reviewer" userright, allowing you to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged protection, will be commencing a two-month trial at approximately 23:00, 2010 June 15 (UTC).

Reviewers can review edits made by users who are not autoconfirmed to articles placed under flagged protection. Flagged protection is applied to only a small number of articles, similarly to how semi-protection is applied but in a more controlled way for the trial.

When reviewing, edits should be accepted if they are not obvious vandalism or BLP violations, and not clearly problematic in light of the reason given for protection (see Wikipedia:Reviewing process). More detailed documentation and guidelines can be found here.

If you do not want this userright, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. Courcelles (talk) 18:34, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

TFA title

Hi Anomie,
Gary King pointed out at Template talk:Editnotices/Namespace/Main that the article name put into the {{TFA title}} subpages isn't in the canonical form (like here), which makes it harder to use in comparisons.
I think it would be enough (and cleanest) if you could just convince the bot to wrap the article title inside a {{subst:FULLPAGENAME:some article title}} which will replace underscores, collapse successive spaces, and capitalize the first letter.
That would only fail in one case, as far as I know (bugzilla:22553): percent-encoding works in wikilinks ([[The Tonight Show with Conan O%27Brien]] → The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien), but fails inside magic words ("{{FULLPAGENAME:The Tonight Show with Conan O%27Brien}}" → ""). I don't expect we'll ever find that in a TFA blurb though.
Amalthea 19:46, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Y Done It actually has to be slightly more complicated than that, or else the bot would be making null edits every time it checked each page. Anomie⚔ 20:59, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah, right. Hmm, I so don't understand Perl, and I don't know what your framework is doing, but the API is only returning a "normalized" field if there is anything to normalize, right? [14] Are you sure that's working in that case?
Thanks & Cheers, Amalthea 21:23, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Note that "//" in Perl is a null coalescing operator (like C#'s "??" operator), not a comment as in C. So $a = $b // $a is roughly equivalent to $a = defined($b) ? $b : $a. Anomie⚔ 22:45, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

And {'query'}{'normalized'}[0]{'to'} works if there is no "normalized" element? Perl is sick. :)
Thanks again, Amalthea 23:05, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Perl calls it "autovivification".^[15] Anomie⚔ 02:50, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Perl is … hey, that's actually pretty neat. Amalthea 10:32, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Pending changes logo arrows.svg

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:Pending changes logo arrows.svg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of "file" pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Image Screening Bot (talk) 19:05, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Apologies, this notice isn't right, I'm looking into it. FinalRapture - † ☪ 19:08, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Consider looking at Category:All non-free media instead of messing with templates. That category is specifically designed to hold every item in the "File" namespace that needs a fair-use rationale. Anomie⚔ 19:54, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

That's actually a good idea, thanks. FinalRapture - † ☪ 21:30, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Re: Safesubst

I was a bit uncertain quite how it worked, having only seen it used once, but I've added it in now, thanks. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 16:34, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Employ Your Bot

I would like to employ your bot in a small job. Per the lower part of this thread, I have renamed a well used template from {{Dead wikipedian}} to {{Deceased Wikipedian}} so it isn't so blunt and a "personal". Is there anyway your bot could go through and change the instances of the template {{Dead wikipedian}} to {{Deceased Wikipedian}}, please? Thanks. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 22:45, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Is this template normally substed? I see a total of 5 transclusions of {{Deceased Wikipedian}}, and it looks like User:Ktr101 already went through the few that were formerly {{Dead wikipedian}} by hand. Anomie⚔ 00:40, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Wow, I thought it was used more than that. My apologizes. Guess we can mark this as resolved. Take Care...Neutralhomer • Talk • 01:23, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

No problem. Anomie⚔ 01:29, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

THANK YOU SO MUCH...

for creating AnomieBOT. I was sooooooooooooo relieved when I saw in the history of the article I was about to work on that the 10 references I needed to search for and correct were all automatically fixed by the BOT you created. What a time saver. It actually fixed the other article I was working on too. Just for some background information, I wrote the article on Hip-hop dance. It was almost 90 bytes so I split about 1/3 of the content and created a new article History of hip-hop dance to follow summary style and split policies. The problem was that the portion of the article that I took the History of hip-hop dance from was at the beginning of the Hip-hop dance article which is where most of my ref name="name" citations were. I thought I would have to fix it all manually but AnomieBOT came in and did everything for me. Thank you so much. //Gbern3 (talk) 14:09, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

mw:Help:Magic words

Salve, Anomie!

You more or less reverted the edit of mw:User:Patrick about padding. While I agree with you that truncation should be pointed out as "misuse", I would prefer to have the samples again. Extension:StringFunctions - even the implementation in Extension:ParserFunction - is still deactivated and unfortunately will be. So padding is the only way to truncate a string with a "cheap" method. Every other workaround by templates is much more "expensive". This should be suppoted by an padding-example. What do you think about it?

Vale, Oculus Spectatoris ^disputio_e-mail 19:31, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

AFAIK, without StringFunctions (mis)using padleft or padright is the only way to truncate a string at all, not just the only cheap way. Most of the other string function templates are expensive because they have to be built using only the truncate, concatenate, and equality operators; even {{strlen}} works by effectively checking "Is the string truncated to 1 character equal to the string? Is the string truncated to 2 characters equal to the string? Is the string truncated to 3 characters equal to the string? etc." (the actual function is optimized using binary searches and other divide-and-conquer strategies, but that is the basic idea). {{str index}} works by checking "Is the string truncated to N-1 characters concatenated with 'A' equal to the string truncated to N characters? Is the string truncated to N-1 characters concatenated with 'B' equal to the string truncated to N characters? Is the string truncated to N-1 characters concatenated with 'C' equal to the string truncated to N characters? [And so on for every possible character]" (see Template:Str index/getchar for the major portion of that), and {{substr}} works by concatenating {{str index}} for each character position of interest.

I personally don't have any opposition to documenting these string manipulation template hacks, but stating that padleft intentionally truncates a string is just incorrect and the documentation for padleft is IMO not the right place for documenting these hacks. I would suggest creating a separate page documenting the hacks and linking it from an appropriate place on the page, perhaps in the lead or below the table in the "Formatting" section (and perhaps from mw:Extension:StringFunctions too). Anomie⚔ 20:26, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, you're right - breaking down these templates you'll mostly find padleft as the core. Though there are some masterpieces its not my goal to document these hacks. I just want to give a hint to the reader of the help page in order to show what's possible - not hiding that this is only a workaround. It's not because we need another 153.8 versions of strlen, but it may help to understand the complicated way of "wikimedia-template-programming". I appreciate your compromise solution ("The padding string may be truncated […]"), but - to be honest - I had to read it thrice to comprehend it entirely. Nothing - beside the proverbial picture of thousand words - is as helpful as an example. So I propose to put the samples back and to add a comment like: "As a side effect it is possible to 'misuse' padding for truncation." How about that? -- Oculus Spectatoris ^disputio_e-mail 11:52, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The example {{padleft:xyz|5|abc}} → abxyz already shows the documented behavior. I think it is stupid for the official documentation of a function to describe ways to misuse it, but I won't revert it if you insist on doing so. I will, however, hope someone else does. Anomie⚔ 15:38, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I see your point - and I don't insist. Guess why I started this discussion. ;-) Okay, let's wait what will happen. At least I'll sleep on it some more nights. Have a nice day, Oculus Spectatoris ^disputio_e-mail 08:57, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I wanted to get your input on this matter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mega_Drive#Should_we_get_rid_of_the_JP_Mega_Drive_logo.3F.3F Thank you for taking your time to tell me your input on this matter, you have far more experience with wikipedia than I do.--SexyKick 13:03, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Non-free image crap is always a tricky issue, as there are some who take the German attitude (dewiki allows no non-free content at all) while others take a more pragmatic approach. The best move at this point is probably to take it to WT:VG and hope the people who bother to reply there will be inclined to support having all three logos and have the clout to counter J Milburn's opinion. You could also try incorporating some discussion of the logos into the text of the article; despite J Milburn's insistence that they must be discussed "at length", even a sentence or two pointing out that it was marketed under different names and with different logos in different regions might help somewhat; if you can find a non-primary source discussing it, even better. And while it may not have worked before and certainly won't work now because it will be (correctly) seen as a cheat, you could reduce the number of non-free images used by combining all three logos into one image.

In the discussion, you could also try to illustrate the problem by asking those opposing all three logos which one they would keep; if they pick any but the Genesis logo, point out that USians would eternally whine that there is no Genesis logo, and if they pick the Genesis logo point out that Europeans would eternally whine that it was only called Genesis in the US. And if by some chance they pick the Japanese logo, point out that both sides would complain that that logo wasn't used in any English-speaking region. The Japanese logo is probably the most difficult to justify keeping since it's for a non-English-speaking region and since the console did so poorly in that region, but it is also the most different and therefore leaving it out detracts most from completeness in the "identification" justification for including logos.

FWIW, I expect someday someone will complain about the Super Mario World image in the SNES article and I doubt I'll be able to really justify keeping it. Sad, really. I'm surprised J Milburn hasn't done so already with how often it's been brought up in your discussion. Anomie⚔ 16:06, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

It is sad, since the SMW picture works so well there. SMW is the whole reason I bought a Genesis in fact. Funny story really...but I thought the Super NES was the Genesis, so when I finally got a Genesis, I was like "what is this thing?!" I eventually got a Super NES as well, and they're two of my three favorite systems (with Dreamcast,) not sure which I think is my favorite though. I just want to get this Mega Drive article to be featured already.

"And while it may not have worked before and certainly won't work now because it will be (correctly) seen as a cheat, you could reduce the number of non-free images used by combining all three logos into one image."

So you're saying I can't, and shouldn't do that??--SexyKick 17:57, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

You can try, but be prepared for J Milburn to pick on you for it and say it doesn't change anything as far as "too much non-free content". I could be being too pessimistic, but I doubt it. Anomie⚔ 19:22, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your help A. I do appreciate it, and may need to ask more in the future. For instance, I was wondering if you would be able to tell me if it would be relevant to include the introduction of the VRC, and the court case that ensued following the release of Mortal Kombat and Night Trap in the Mega Drive article? It's the only piece of possibly relevant information missing from the article that I can think of. Thankfully no images needed : ) SexyKick 19:37, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Maybe. I included it (or at least the parts involving Nintendo) in the SNES article because it directly led to Nintendo dropping their "no violence at all" policy. It was a bit more "business as usual" for Sega, though. But if you can find a good way to tie it into the narrative of the article, go for it.

BTW, I notice you raised the question of whether File:JP MegaDrive Logo.gif might be {{PD-textlogo}}. A good case could be made. The right side is completely made up of text (stylized text is still text) and IMO is clearly PD-textlogo. The left side is a little more iffy. Is there sufficient creative input in the red and green "MD" to make it copyrightable? The required threshold of originality is very low, but on the other hand it's still just an M and a D. I personally think it's probably {{PD-textlogo}} since it is just an M and a D and it's not really more complex than the W-thing at the top of File:Best Western logo.svg which the US copyright office officially ruled three times as insufficiently original, but others might well disagree.

I also notice some people are throwing around "no logos!" as some sort of option, but that could potentially lead to trouble with WP:FACR #1b for leaving out a major method of identification (of course, I don't expect the "no logos!" faction to buy that argument). Anomie⚔ 20:49, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again for this advice. You are a beast at Wikipedia. I was actually hoping you could help get me started on adding that information to the article. I think it would fit right before the add ons section, but I don't know what to name the new section, or where to begin. Doing what I did with the emulation section wasn't even particularly easy for me. I'm best at just editing little things.--SexyKick 22:27, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I'll take silence to mean you'll think about it? No worries either way. Just let me know.--SexyKick 17:32, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Employ Your Bot (Part 2)

Hello, after discussing it with another user, it was decided to move the category Category:Wikipedian WikiElfs (which isn't the correct spelling) to Category:Wikipedian WikiElves to (the correct spelling). This category change is associated with the userbox Template:User wikipedia/WikiElf. The old category was depopulating itself on its own and repopulating the new category at the same time, but all has seemed to come to a halt. All the userpages have the new category on them, just need to get the category pages swapped around. Can you help? - Neutralhomer • Talk • 08:00, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

The only way to speed along the process is to make an edit (even a null edit) to each page. The general consensus when a bot to do this is suggested is that we should wait for the job queue, and fix the job queue if there is really a bug in it. OTOH, there are only 34 pages in the problem category at the moment, someone could go through and null-edit them all manually in less that 10 minutes. Anomie⚔ 11:18, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, I will see where I can make null edits at. I don't like editing userpages (except my own) unless it is vandalism, sometimes it tends to upset people. This might be a case where I have to be patient. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 19:36, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I went ahead and did the null edits manually at about 12:00 UTC. Anomie⚔ 20:02, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh...OK, that works too :) That should give the system the kick in the butt it needs. Thanks! :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 20:04, 21 July 2010 (UTC) 20:04, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Looks like that did the trick. Old category is depopulated and the new one is fully populated. Double Thanks! :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 20:05, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

AnomieBOT is a brilliant invention

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		I moved a bunch of content from civil disobedience to a completely new, 1-revision article, examples of civil disobedience, and it somehow knew where to look for those orphaned refs! Amazing. Tisane talk/stalk 23:19, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

(See diff) Wow. Not sure how you implemented that, but it's pretty cool. Tisane ^talk/_stalk 23:19, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! If checking the history doesn't turn up the needed refs, the bot checks pages linked from the problem page and pages linking to the problem page on the theory that text was copied from a related article and related articles are often linked to each other. Anomie⚔ 00:45, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Second that, good work. On the current run it seems to be getting confused by multiple reasons [16] & [17] and also multiple dates [18] & [19]. Not sure how much of a problem these are so didn't want to stop it. Misarxist (talk) 11:15, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

When it doubt go ahead and stop it, it's no big deal. All those should be fixed now, thanks for the bug report! I underestimated the number of ways people could screw things up Anomie⚔ 12:13, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js

Just wanted to give you the heads up, this wonderful tool has stopped working for me. Cheers! bd2412 T 02:45, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Looks like someone broke the API. Fun. Anomie⚔ 03:09, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into it. bd2412 T 03:47, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Working again! Thanks! bd2412 T 20:04, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

BRFA

It's not that I'm not interested in finding a consensus, it's more than it would obviously be a time-consuming task when I'm entering a fortnight where my time on here will be very limited. Though with the comments posted after my last post, it's obviously more controversial than I ever thought, so I may or may not come back to it. Courcelles (talk) 22:35, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok. Anomie⚔ 23:26, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Just Awesome, if I May Say So

My liege, AnomieBOT has proven itself quite helpful to me with this edit, which resulted from a little sloppiness on my part while trying to remove some unneeded information from Glee (season 1), a page which I currently have a big interest in while trying to help work it to GA or even FA status. It conveniently came in quietly behind my two edits and restored two reference tags that I had orphaned in error and without realization. I just wanted to give you a kudos for a bot that does such a wonderful service to the community. =) CycloneGU (talk) 23:15, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		In recognition of your bots' wonderful work on Glee (season 1) digging behind my orphaning edits within the hour to fix up my mistakes. I really have no clue how you programmed that, must have been tough! CycloneGU (talk) 18:55, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I decided this kind of bot work deserves a barnstar, as well. =D CycloneGU (talk) 18:55, 9 August 2010 (UTC)