User talk:Alai/Archive 13

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RE: US punctuation on Natasha Bedingfield

Why did you undo my MoS punctuation fixes on this article? Since this is not a "U.S. topic", I see no reason for this to be written in a punctuation style particular to (some instances of) American style. (Even if these were not supposed to be consistent across all topics, which in this case they are.) Alai 09:26, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not a matter of UK vs. US punctuation usage. There are what people believe is right and what is right. Official publications (not blogs and unofficial publications), such as books and newspapers, teach how to use punctuations within quotation marks properly by their very storytelling. Having an eye for detail, I've noticed and learned this throughout my life, and noticed the breaking of these rules on unofficial publications. Colons, semicolons, questions marks, and exclamation marks would always go outside the quote marks if it wasn't part of the original quote. Periods and commas go inside, whether originated by the subject or not. I wanted what was right for this page -- not what people thought was right. I saw the MoS page, and it's wrong, despite popular belief. Popularizing an idea doesn't make it right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by galileo5 (talk • contribs)

I side with Alai 100% on this (and am an American). Galileo5, please see Linguistic prescription and then see Linguistics. At any rate, the punctuation-inside-quotes style a) is not used by most English-speaking cultures; b) is not used universally in the US, even in major publications; c) is an aesthetic typographical (i.e. typesetting) convention, and nothing more, and has nothing to do with grammatical "correctness" (which is an subjective concept to begin with); and d) is dying out, because it leads to critical ambiguities and misquotations (this is especially important when it comes to computing — type "rm -rf foo". is emphatically not the same instruction as type "rm -rf foo." — but is significant in other areas too. Lastly, Wikipedia is culturally not very tolerant of spelling and grammar fights. Just let it lie, please. If you continue going around making edits like that they will largely just get reverted. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 01:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No nonsense, please. It is indeed pretty universal in the U.S. But we have decided in our MoS to go against the U.S. style for punctuation with quotation marks, unlike the situation with national varieties of English where variations are acceptable. Gene Nygaard 16:14, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Expandable Articles

Hi, there's a discussion on what to do with expandable articles here. As you've discussed this before I would appreciate comments. JASpencer 18:54, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Kosovo stub

Hello Alai,

Is there a specific reason why there is no Kosovo stub? I do not think it is for lack of content. Does it have to do with the status issue?--Thomas.macmillan 20:05, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Re:Ohio county stubs

Is it permissible for me to create county stubs and, like Monroe County's already is, make them subsets of the state geographical stub list? Nyttend 15:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's hardly original research to be working from a published map created from US Census Bureau designations :-) I certainly had been thinking for a while about your idea for "Southwest Ohio geo-stubs" analogous to Northwest Ohio, which made sense except for the idea of putting Trumbull and Highland together, and therefore I'd been wondering if we had some way to divide eastern and southern. I'm still reluctant to agree, since there's little definite boundary between these two areas — Noble, Guernsey, and Harrison counties are rather similar, as far as I know — but if you're uncomfortable with doing one for counties with Ohio River shorelines and another for those without, this would be the best that I could think of. Selected as best as we can do from official sources, this idea will be able to divide the counties without putting dissimilar counties together like my idea would have. Thanks for finding a division line :-) Nyttend 14:13, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the state website you cite is a better division. Please don't think me as vacillating, being blown about by every wind of ideas; I'm simply not the kind of person that does much research — preferring instead to improve Wikipedia internally, such as by producing all those county templates. Therefore, I'm open to any well-defined way to divide the undefined areas of Ohio. I should note: thanks so much for considering my opinions on this matter, especially since I have done virtually nothing with stub sorting! Nyttend 16:22, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've created and begun to populate the Southern Ohio, Southeastern Ohio, and East Central Ohio stub categories. There are about 150 articles and stub templates between the three, but there are perhaps 400 or more township articles to move over. Could you turn the bot's attention to them? Thanks! Nyttend 19:51, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I moved Clinton County because I thought that it wasn't in any of the other categories. Sorry for putting it in the wrong place; I must not have been paying attention. I must say, I thought it was rather odd to have it apart from anything else, but I thought I had it in the right place. I'm glad that I was wrong :-) Nyttend 21:48, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Now I remember: looking at Category:Greater Cincinnati geography stubs, the {{ClintonOH-geo-stub}} isn't included there. Should I move it and edit the map? Nyttend 21:50, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As someone who is not into stub sorting, what should be done? Should things such as Houston Woods (or however it's spelled) State Park be left as Ohio-geo-stub, or be put both as ButlerOH-geo-stub and PrebleOH-geo-stub? Nyttend 22:46, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Could stubs be created for the regional articles so that articles such as Hueston Woods don't have to be multiple-county or statewide? Nyttend 00:17, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for all your guidance on this project! Nyttend 00:54, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

More album lists/cats

Do you have any interest in creating either a set of cats (subcats of Category:Album articles needing attention) or a set of lists to deal with the issue here. Namely, to find album articles (they are in Category:WikiProject Albums articles) that have templates {{Not verified}}, {{Primarysources}}, {{totallydisputed}}, {{merge}}, and any others you can think are relevant. Your thoughts would be welcome at that thread on the WP:ALBUM talk page. I think it would help to alert users to problem articles and help strengthen the project.--Fisherjs 21:57, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Stub

Dear Alai,

What is the matter with me?

• RV; you are right,I did.Like as other's Rv without any consensus in these articles.
• If it is normal/acceptable to delete a template(Due to its SfD) from an article during discussion, also its normal to add to some articles.
• It is not acceptable; to wait, to stoped work in wiki, during the period of discussion of SfD. If there will be a concensus/decision on this template, it is very easy to take it back/delete from related articles.( I will do,myself).
• I am not trying to disturb any body including you, just to develop Turkish related articles with my limited time and not-perfect English.
• For your comfort/relax, during following two days, I will not deal with cuisine related articles, I will be in Turkish districts.

Regards Must^TC 15:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Asian film bio stubs

If you're still interested in creating that category, I've just finished populating Category:Japanese film biography stubs. I think I only pulled ten or so from Category:Film biography stubs, so, it may still be viable. Neier 11:11, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

double-upmerged template/stub - thanks

Thank you for your suggestion of a double-upmerged template! Regarding the latter part of the post, I can't help smuggling my outrage at injustice and criminality into my postings. Perhaps that's why votes on deletion usually don't seem to go my way. ;-) Thanks! JPatrickBedell 15:20, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Toolserveraccount

Hello Alai,
please send your real-name, your prefered login-name and the public part of your ssh-key to . We plan to create your account soon then. --DaB. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.58.224.225 (talk) 00:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Your changes

See the talk pages of articles (archived) before making changes to articles. Some articles are legitimately, according to Wikipedia's editing guidelines, written in American English. You cannot wily-nily change them without created terrible inconsistencies in them. The punctuation of quotations in the article Harold Pinter were correct before you changed them. See the current and archived talk pages of the article. Just because you are in the UK does not mean that English Wikipedia articles are written in UK formatting. The article on Harold Pinter is correctly punctuated. --NYScholar 00:44, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Autoroute page

Hi Alai, since you seem knowledgeable about issues surrounding national varieties of English, I wonder if you would care to comment on a disagreement on the talk page of Autoroute. It's listed under requests for comment on style issues. I have to be upfront: I'm involved in the disagreement. Joeldl 16:23, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

thanks for commenting Joeldl 16:40, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Re: {{China-road-stub}}

It was deleted, and upon your recreation you said in the edit summary [1] that the template was upmerged. Before deletion and upmerge it was fed into category:mainland China road stubs. I supposed it should be restored to what it was like before the deletion. Rescoping, if desired and necessary, would better be the next matter to be discussed. Regards. — Instantnood 20:21, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You said it was upmerged, therefore I supposed it's understandable and logical to consider the template to be recreation of the deleted one. Afterall discussion at WSS/P, as I've checked just now, has spanned less than two days, and the template, if the proposal is successful, will apply only to mainland China roads, as it had been in the past. — Instantnood 20:29, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Who is this?

Who is NYScholar and why is it not an accessible User? How can someone have a User name that can't be accessed? Puzzled and stepping back, Julia Rossi 00:34, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Input needed

Your input would be valued on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Naming guidelines#Redrafting, stage 1 (or rather the draft it introduces, and the process it suggests for working on said draft.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 01:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Re: BJBot and "article oprhans"

Hummm, not at the moment but that will only take a few extra lines of code. I'll make the changes and wait for you to upload the new list. BJ^Talk 13:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you are referring to a bot that removes (or links) fair use images from any namespace other than main, which I think you are, this was on my todo list or rather my TodoAfterTheEnDatabaseIsFixedOnTheToolServerAndIBotherToLernSQLList but if you can provide a list I will code the bot. MECU has been bugging me about this and this most likely will create tons more fair use orphans to be tagged. As for the flak, I think I can handle it, I just will have to put on my flame proof suit before checking my talk page. Also I think I would have quite a few admins (and policy) to back me up. BJ^Talk 02:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Already began coding and submitted the BRFA here Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BJBot 3. The list you just gave me I'm going to use for testing this bot first then let the orphan bot have a run at it. BJ^Talk 04:51, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

thanks for the welcome! Michaeljwsiegel 16:29, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Buzzkill

Hey,

Do you have any Buzzkill episodes on tape? I have been searching and I found a lot, but I am still missing a few I think.

The ones I need are in red. I am also interested in knowing about any that I dont have listed. More episodes could exist than what I have listed.

If you have any I dont have, I would be willing to pay good money for copies. I am also willing to trade anything I have if you are interested.

Thanks, Curtis —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Curt1s28 (talk • contribs) 17:17, 23 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Many thanks

Thanks for your reply to who is this? It was helpful and tactful. Glad of pedians like you. Julia Rossi 21:39, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

stub

What is your view on indian food stubs? The cat has little controversy, over 140 entries, and is therefore quite viable. I see most of the discussion is on Turkey, and Indian food seems to be uncontroversial.Bakaman 23:03, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alaibot

Hello, I was just wondering as I have seen your bot do great things around Wikipedia, how is the bot run and is the source code open for use? I'd love to run a bot, even if it was a backup bot of yours that could do edits while yours is turned off or something as I live in Brisbane, Australia. If not, thats fine. Many thanks, Extranet ^(Talk | Contribs) 06:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I was thinking of running a secondary copy of the uncategorized tagging bot, but it would not be full time (24/7). I used to run the HBC AIV helperbot2 that helps around WP:AIV, but that was requiring full time operation, therefore I discontinued the ownership and transferred it to another kind Wikipedian that is hosting it on the Toolserver. Is there any special requirements I must have before running the bot? Am I able to run it and would you have a problem with it? And are you able to release the source code and installation instructions? Many thanks, Extranet ^(Talk | Contribs) 20:22, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

About Tokyu Ikegami Line

I added more information about Tokyu Ikegami Line. Can I erase template for notability from the page? Talk on my talk page, please, I easily forget things like this... --Izumi5 09:50, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I should be more careful... --Izumi5 09:34, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alaibot

Would it be possible for your bot, while tagging articles as un-categorised, to look at the size of the article and/or the length of time the article has existed. The reason is that I was working on an article your bot had tagged as lacking categories when I noticed the categories had been removed in an earlier edit. If the bot could then dump a list (at say User:Alaibot\Possible missing categories or something like that) of articles that were large or had been around for 6 months or more. The list could be reviewed by a human to see if the categories had been removed and then could be restored easily. Cheers. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 23:34, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I wasn't sure if you were using the dump or live pages. I'll look at the link you gave me in a while. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 02:19, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

South China geo stubs

Hey - I'm not feeling capable of creating this because I'm not sure how to name the cats, but if you'll create it, I'll be more than happy to do the sorting! Yippie skippy! I can even read some Chinese characters now as I've been resident in a Chinese speaking area for a few months now! Whoop! Stubsorting stubsorting go go go! Aelfthrytha 13:28, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pinter

As said on the relevant thread on my page (which this long after the fact I doubt you're still watching): Had to side with you on that one completely. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 08:18, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PS: Looking at the talk archives of your "debate partner" over there, he seems to cause a lot of trouble. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 21:59, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:South Central China geography stubs

The older stub categories for Chinese provinces or equivalence were created as subcategories of category:mainland China geography stubs. I'd be interested to know whether or not there was any discussion on where should the South Central China category be categorised under before its creation? Thanks. — Instantnood 22:04, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Page ban

I have explained clearly [2] what and who caused the edit war, and why page ban on me was not necessary. Please kindly convince me why I should be banned. Thank you. — Instantnood 22:09, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Stub renaming

Hey. Would you mind if I renamed {{Russia-figure-skater-stub}} to {{Russian-figure-skater-stub}}? It seems more intuitive. Or is there a naming convention to use the country name? Kolindigo 04:52, 2 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Survey Invitation

Hi there, I am a research student from the National University of Singapore and I wish to invite you to do an online survey about Wikipedia. To compensate you for your time, I am offering a reward of USD$10, either to you or as a donation to the Wikimedia Foundation. For more information, please go to the research home page. Thank you. --WikiInquirer 21:59, 3 March 2007 (UTC)^talk to me[reply]

Troubleshooting

Please help me solve the problems with the 2 pix I uploaded in Akita Shepherd. I am a newbie.

Thanx and peace, user:Spyros Pantenas

Barnstar of good humor

		The Barnstar of Good Humor
		For unexpected humor when it was really needed—not only the best laugh in this sordid affair, perhaps the only one. Thanks. —Doug Bell ^talk 20:33, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

US-screen-actor-stub resort

Could Alaibot handle resorting {{US-screen-actor-stub}} into the -1920s- to -1990s- subtemplates based on the birthyear category if present? I'm nearing the end of my slog through US-actor-stub and I plan on next resorting US-screen-actor-stub before seeing which templates have gotten large enough to deserve categories of their own, and it woul dbe nice to not have to slog through the articles that a bot could handle. Caerwine Caer’s whines 22:43, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! If it would not be too much trouble, could you do the same for the US-tv and US-film actor stubs, including the creation of the 1900s and 1910s templates as you did for the US-screen actor stubs? I'd like to see those kept in parallel as far as template decades are concerned. This should be mostly maintenance for them, but every little bit helps. Caerwine Caer’s whines 04:33, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Assuming good faith

About your last edit ... having been the target of 2 of 3 Dev920's reports to WP:ANI this week, let me say this ... she started it. ;-)

Seriously though, I would have been happy to go to Wikipedia:Resolving disputes last week. I don't know what's left to resolve, but IMHO Dev920 should stop posting to WP:ANI. --evrik ^(talk) 20:33, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I will stop posting to AN/I when South Philly stops being petty and vindictive. The original dispute has been conclusively settled, and I have already moved on to FACs and other work. On the AN/I I merely asked that South Philly be stopped from his irritating personal attacks on me. If he stops, there's no problem anymore. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 20:50, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I stopped editing for a long time because of the way people treat each other here. I am angered by Dev920's blatant abuse of the system (who the f--- files three notices at the ANI in a week?), and her power grab. Evrik worked long and fairly to make sure that the system was working and repeatedly asked for everyone's help. After the dust settles, I am contemplating leaving Wikipedia for good.

This should have been mediated long before it was brought to the administrators. I've now been mentioned three times at the ANI this week - and I don't think it's fair. --South Philly 14:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

South Philly has cross-posted this to AN/I and Smomo's page. I have made my reply on AN/I. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 19:16, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Paranoia?

Notice on this stub poll, and only this one even though there are other China stub polls, Wikipedia:Stub_types_for_deletion/Log/2007/March/2, that after 'nood was banned that Michael G Davis, Privacy and Passer-by all decided, one day apart, to cast their "opinions" where 'nood was previously vigilant? I sense he's vote stacking (which he's done before, it was just another piece of evidence in one of those ArbCom disputes) to preserve one of the precious mainland China cats. Or I'm paranoid, but if I'm paranoid, I'm not alone.

I'm truly sorry on the road-stub thing. I was trying to make some sense out of china-geo-stub which had several hundred articles and was looking to be shrinked. I saw an opportunity to shrink it by a non-neglible amount, but that apparently is too small of an amount to stub-sorters. SchmuckyTheCat 22:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Republic of China university stubs

Since whether to upmerge it to Category:Asia university stubs or Category:China university stubs depends on whether the latter is kept, I was waiting for that SFD to close first before proceeding on that. Caerwine Caer’s whines 01:55, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Conventions? Guidelines?

You said 'Per the Chinese naming convention, scope China inclusively' and 'adjusting scoping statement in line with guidelines on China (and de-easter-egging link to same)'. What do you mean? Why is it so? Michael G. Davis 12:29, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Apology

I apologize for the Namco Bandai stub debacle. I really should have discussed it and if there was a consensus, did a better job transitioning into it. - A Link to the Past (talk) 21:32, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikicode and SFD grief

Thanks for the nod regarding barnstar code, but I think I borrowed it from someone else and tweaked it, so I can't take full credit.

I had noticed the China stuff sitting around and I've been loathe to close it, knowing how tricky it can be. I can take a look at it today and see if I come up with anything. ~ Amalas rawr ^=^_^= 13:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh... I'm currently looking at the China SFD mess and I see a few things.

1. Have PRChina-X-stub or PRC-X-stub (redirects from either is okay)
2. Have ROChina-X-stub (w/ redirect from Taiwan-X-stub)
3. Keep China-X-stub for general things, especially -hist-
4. Have the categories to match; Category:People's Republic of China writer stubs or Category:Republic of China (Taiwan) stubs

Possibly hierarchy looks like this:

             China (used only for -hist- and upmerged things)
               |
    --------------------------
    /       /                \
  PRC    ROC/Taiwan    HongKong & Macau (upmerged)

Hopefully I've made some sense of this. Hopefully... ~ Amalas rawr ^=^_^= 13:44, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No problem about the Wikibreak. I've been doing some more wiki things lately, and I contemplating removing it today. Perhaps I should.

Regarding Taiwan, if most of the templates say Taiwan, there's no real need to bot them all over to ROC. Creating redirects wouldn't be too unreasonable though.

Regarding Mainland China, my personal opinion is to not have a stub for it. I know there are valid points in keeping historical locations (Ancient Greece, etc), but that tends to cause more trouble than its worth. I'm pretty sure it's obvious that we need a stub for PRC because that is the current status, yes? I would also say that we'd need something for historical China, such as a China-hist-stub scoped as Mainland China. Hong Kong and Macau are still upmergeable (is that even a word? well, it is now), so that shouldn't cause too many problems.

Regarding the permcats, sadly that's mostly out of our scope at WSS. There's not much we can do except follow those. If there aren't any specific "Mainland China" permcats, then there's no reason to have a corresponding stubcat. ~ Amalas rawr ^=^_^= 20:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From what I can tell, PRC=Mainland China + (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau). Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau are already split out nicely and are not really a big problem (except in the case of upmerging, which, even then, is trivial). So, what's left is: Are the PRC and Mainland China the same as far as stubs are concerned? I'm trying not to argue politics about it, but there's not a huge distinction. However, I'm pretty sure my closure at that old SFD is inline with this: PRC is an umbrella cat which holds both Mainland China and the SARs (which would be upmerged back into PRC). Perhaps PRC should just be one of those no-template cats. China-X-stub would then be scoped as Mainland China only. Or rename as MainlandChina-X-stub, but that's rather wordy. Or perhaps I'm just tired of this debacle and I need to take a nap... ~ Amalas rawr ^=^_^= 21:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Uh-oh. The PRC includes HK and Macau, but excludes Taiwan as far as status quo is concerned. As per endless debates here, the term "Mainland China" should not be seen as politically equal to HK and Macau. The current permcats more or less follow this hierachy (except for the Taiwan/ROC cats, which is in a bigger mess):

• China
  • People's Republic of China
    • Various first-level divisions, including HK and Macau
  • Republic of China
    • Taiwan, and other islands

and the same should preferably be done for stubcats.--Huaiwei 22:54, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think we are all arguing at least one of the same points: that Mainland China should not have a stubcat (or permcat for that matter). I think what would make more sense is to do "Plan a)" in Alai's SFD nomination. However, I'm not sure the votes clearly support that. The DRV seems equally split as well, so I'm not sure what to do. ~ Amalas rawr ^=^_^= 13:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

'rename to "American hip hop group stubs"'?

I suppose you are correct. I often forget to count the nominator as a vote, so I saw 2 for American and 1 for United States. However, I also factored in that the permcat was at Category:American hip hop groups, so I figured I would follow that. ~ Amalas rawr ^=^_^= 13:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:WikiProject Categories/uncategorized

I'm not sure that you're aware that the taskforce Wikipedia:WikiProject Categories/uncategorized was recently created so just in case, I'm letting you know. I suppose that when your bot drops another gazillion new uncategorized pages on us, you can come and apologize there! :-) Speaking of which: I've stopped working on User:Alai/prevcat-Jan07b, in part because many of these problems have been fixed and it feels quite pointless to go through all these when only 10-15% or so need attention. But if you do recreate a similar page for the next database dump, I think we could try convincing people from the taskforce that this is a priority. Cheers, Pascal.Tesson 16:12, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Re:Controversial edits

I would like to draw your attention to User_talk:Privacy#Controversial_edits, and to his recent edit histories. As per the ArbCom's rulings, I want to avoid having to revert such controversial edits myself, hence my plea to admins to access the situation too. Thanks!--Huaiwei 22:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]