This is an archive of past discussions with User:Andrybak. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Hi, I didn't notice until now the "fixes" you made last August on my user page. I'm wondering why you felt it important to do so. Thanks, YoPienso (talk) 04:15, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for replying. I don't understand your reply, however. What does "remove incorrect categorization of the user page" mean? I don't see what needed fixing. I don't see how you improved the encyclopedia. Since I don't understand why you feel your changes were important, they look like minor, picky things. Yet you came back to inform me they weren't minor. ???
Was there something wrong with the userboxes I copied or modified or created? If so, what? If so, what harm was done by my user page? Frankly, I feel invaded. YoPienso (talk) 14:37, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
Yopienso, just to make sure we're on the same page:
Userboxes are a kind of template. In particular, userboxes are a kind of "user template".
I hope the above answers your questions What does "remove incorrect categorization of the user page" mean? and Was there something wrong with the userboxes I copied or modified or created?. It is a common mistake for editors who copy-paste wikitext of user templates to select too much of the wikitext and paste incorrect categorization into their page.
I understand that it might be hard to see the removal of this categorization in Special:Diff/1105706652, because the edit also includes a lot of wikitext cleanup. Edit summary of my edit is "user page is not a template: removed Category:Alaska college and university user templates using HotCat, cleaned up wikitext" – the last part after the comma is about this cleanup. This wikitext cleanup was done semi-automatically to make the wikitext cleaner.
Since I don't understand why you feel your changes were important – I hope it is obvious that having correct categorization on all pages is important. Otherwise, the whole categorization system will be chaos.
they look like minor, picky things. Yet you came back to inform me they weren't minor. ??? – the phrase "minor edit" has a very specific meaning on English Wikipedia. In my message – Neither of the two edits is marked as minor, for the record. – I meant this technical, specific to Wikipedia, meaning of the word "minor".
As for Frankly, I feel invaded – correcting such errors on user pages of other editors is allowed by the guidelines.
I'm assuming the answer lies buried somewhere in this: "Your user page, i.e. the page User:Yopienso, is not a template. As such, it is incorrect for the page User:Yopienso to contain categorization into Category:Alaska college and university user templates or any other category not intended for user pages." I'm mildly interested in understanding how my page offended--not least to avoid making an error in the future--but your explanation doesn't tell me how. The history of the Category:Alaska college, etc. page doesn't show my name or use page ever having been there. I honestly don't understand at all why you felt obliged to edit my page. The diff shows you removing blank spaces. Way too picky, imo. Anyway, thank you, I guess, for saving us from chaos. YoPienso (talk) 13:58, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
I'm mildly interested in understanding how my page offended--not least to avoid making an error in the future--but your explanation doesn't tell me how.
To see the wikitext that was causing the issue on your userpage, please go to the page Special:Diff/1105706652, use the "Find on page" or similar functionality in your browser and search for Category:Alaska college and university user templates. First search result would be in my edit summary and in the second search result you will see the line where the incorrect categorization was removed.
To avoid such errors in the future, please pay closer attention to what kind of wikitext you are copying and which categories appear at the bottom of your userpage (see screenshot at Help:Categories).
The history of the Category:Alaska college, etc. page doesn't show my name or use page ever having been there.
Due to the way categorization is implemented, one cannot see the history of categorization on the page of the category. The problematic wikitext was in your userpage. It was introduced in your edit: Special:Diff/1097120261.
I honestly don't understand at all why you felt obliged to edit my page.
Because your userpage is not a template, as I mentioned in the edit summary of Special:Diff/1105706652. If you look at the top of the page Category:Alaska college and university user templates, you will see a banner with text: Templates relating to Alaska colleges and universities. The pages listed in this category are meant to be user templates, including userboxes. Your userpage does not belong in a category for templates. Examples of pages that don't belong in that category:
For your work on properly categorizing the templates on Wikipedia, something very little attention is often given to. Your work is noticed and appreciated greatly! Johnson524 (Talk!) 04:10, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
Hello Andrybak, I hope you're doing well. I'm not sure if you like barnstars or not, but after seeing your amazing amount of recent categorization work, I felt it would only be right to show my appreciation in some way more than a simple 'thanks'. Thank you for all you do, cheers! Johnson524 (Talk!) 04:10, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself. LizRead!Talk!19:15, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
Do you have a good and or easy point of reference as to misplaced template project tags? it would be very helpful if you could. Thanks. JarrahTree01:01, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
JarrahTree, for Template:WikiProject Templates the answer is very simple: the point of reference is its documentation, which includes a big warning sign with the text This template should almost never be used on the talk pages of templates. (emphasis in the original). If you look at the transclusion of {{WikiProject Templates}} at Special:Permalink/1162335057 and click on [show], you will see that the template produces a big red warning This template should only be transcluded in the Wikipedia talk, Help talk, or Category talk namespace(s). This warning also shows up if you preview an edit with the template before publishing it. —andrybak (talk) 07:19, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
Ok thanks for the explanation - from at least one point of view - the notion that a template talk page excludes a project tag seems counter-intuitive - so in a way of speaking templates dont have their own project tag? However If I read you right, where a category talk page has it, it's ok?
The whole experience of project tagging on talk pages is and has been quite an experience at times, this adds yet another layer to the over all intrigue. Thanks for the reply. JarrahTree08:46, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
the whole thing is due to the commencement of the australian transport project - which involved seeking out and checking transport related topics of oz - in some cases the many templates used in transport material failed to have state/topic tag added - and thats how it started - the project has scratched the surface of the larger range of eligible candidates for the transport tagging so far... JarrahTree08:50, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
Hello, Joseph. Thank you for messaging me about this issue.
Categorizing articles using templates like this is discouraged. Mainly because it leads too easily to miscategorization. Such indirection in categorization also makes it harder for editors (and bots) to track down the categorizations, when they need to be adjusted (due to category renaming, merging, deletion, etc).
Ok, let's migrate all catégories, then remove this from template. Otherwise these catégories would be deleted being empty. Joseph (talk) 12:33, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
As I have been cleaning up userboxes, I have noticed a few edits like this one, in which you changed "member of" to "participant of". The phrasing "participant in" makes more sense. Also, in that edit, you did not change the actual category, which is the point of the CFD. I don't think that the CFD contained any consensus about the wording used by individual WikiProjects to describe their members/participants/flunkies, so I have been leaving that wording for WikiProjects to decide for themselves, or for an RFC. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:39, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
Hello! Voting in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 11 December 2023. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
I have seen this colon trick before, but hadn't known that I could do this in the context of sandboxed templates. Thanks for letting me know that page. Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 23:35, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
RFA2024 update: no longer accepting new proposals in phase I
Hey there! This is to let you know that phase I of the 2024 requests for adminship (RfA) review is now no longer accepting new proposals. Lots of proposals remain open for discussion, and the current round of review looks to be on a good track towards making significant progress towards improving RfA's structure and environment. I'd like to give my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has given us their idea for change to make RfA better, and the same to everyone who has given the necessary feedback to improve those ideas. The following proposals remain open for discussion:
Proposals 3 and 3b, initiated by Barkeep49 and Usedtobecool, respectively, provide for trials of discussion-only periods at RfA. The first would add three extra discussion-only days to the beginning, while the second would convert the first two days to discussion-only.
Proposal 5, initiated by SilkTork, provides for a trial of RfAs without threaded discussion in the voting sections.
Proposals 6c and 6d, initiated by BilledMammal, provide for allowing users to be selected as provisional admins for a limited time through various concrete selection criteria and smaller-scale vetting.
Proposal 7, initiated by Lee Vilenski, provides for the "General discussion" section being broken up with section headings.
Proposal 9b, initiated by Reaper Eternal, provides for the requirement that allegations of policy violation be substantiated with appropriate links to where the alleged misconduct occured.
Proposals 12c, 21, and 21b, initiated by City of Silver, Ritchie333, and HouseBlaster, respectively, provide for reducing the discretionary zone, which currently extends from 65% to 75%. The first would reduce it 65%–70%, the second would reduce it to 50%–66%, and the third would reduce it to 60%–70%.
Proposal 13, initiated by Novem Lingaue, provides for periodic, privately balloted admin elections.
Proposal 14, initiated by Kusma, provides for the creation of some minimum suffrage requirements to cast a vote.
Proposals 16 and 16c, initiated by Thebiguglyalien and Soni, respectively, provide for community-based admin desysop procedures. 16 would desysop where consensus is established in favor at the administrators' noticeboard; 16c would allow a petition to force reconfirmation.
Proposal 16e, initiated by BilledMammal, would extend the recall procedures of 16 to bureaucrats.
Proposal 17, initiated by SchroCat, provides for "on-call" admins and 'crats to monitor RfAs for decorum.
Proposal 25, initiated by Femke, provides for the requirement that nominees be extended-confirmed in addition to their nominators.
Proposal 27, initiated by WereSpielChequers, provides for the creation of a training course for admin hopefuls, as well as periodic retraining to keep admins from drifting out of sync with community norms.
To read proposals that were closed as unsuccessful, please see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase I/Closed proposals. You are cordially invited once again to participate in the open discussions; when phase I ends, phase II will review the outcomes of trial proposals and refine the implementation details of other proposals. Another notification will be sent out when this phase begins, likely with the first successful close of a major proposal. Happy editing! theleekycauldron (talk • she/her), via:
Should I be moving the cats to the doc pages when Im making them? I still have hundreds of pages left to create. Noah, AATalk23:39, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
You are receiving this message because you previously participated in the UCoC process.
This is a reminder that the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) ends on May 9, 2024. Read the information on the voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility.
The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members were invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review the U4C Charter.
Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.
RFA2024 update: phase I concluded, phase II begins
Hi there! Phase I of the Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review has concluded, with several impactful changes gaining community consensus and proceeding to various stages of implementation. Some proposals will be implemented in full outright; others will be discussed at phase II before being implemented; and still others will proceed on a trial basis before being brought to phase II. The following proposals have gained consensus:
I have a very clear notice that states you are not to edit my user page unless you are me. Do not edit the user pages of other editors. Thank you. 9t5 (talk) 12:31, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
Per WP:UOWN: pages in user space belong to the wider community. They are not a personal homepage, and do not belong to the user. They are part of Wikipedia, and exist to make collaboration among editors easier – making the collaboration easier includes avoiding polluting the maintenance categories, such as Wikipedia substituted templates.
Other popular issues on user pages to avoid:
misuse of HTML and wikitext causing so called lint errors
pollution of the category tree of User namespace templates due to copy-pasting of wikitext, which most often happens with userboxes.
Hey, I noticed you're an active editor, perhaps you can help me out. How can I have a template call a specific string from a given article using the start and end position number of the string (which I get using the findpagetext function)? JoeJShmo💌03:56, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
Say the Monkeys page has a 10 character string that is placed 150 characters - 160 characters from the start of the article. How can I call that line to my template? Say I wanted to use that line as a string in a function, how would I do that? JoeJShmo💌08:39, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
JoeJShmo, this is a strange thing to want to do in a Wikipedia article, that's why I asked for a clarification.
Sure, I'm happy to explain. I have a template for the lead of a specific kind of article that is written about every president of the U.S., and I want the template to automatically grab certain information from the main page of the president, such as the file for his signature and his years in office. I can get the position of these bits of information using the findinpage function, but I don't know how to actually call the information itself. JoeJShmo💌08:58, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
It's a template designed to work for every president. The point of the template is to automate the information and to avoid copy-pasting. I believe I'm to understand that you don't know how to implement my request, and that's fine. Thanks for the response, and for the wikidata info! JoeJShmo💌10:22, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
JoeJShmo, I do know, but I'm choosing not to tell you, because you shouldn't try to make such a template by parsing pages in the way you've described in the first message. If the template is needed on many pages, years can stored as data in a template or a Lua module.
Interesting. Can you explain why? Also, it isn't feasible to store all the information in the template, as every article needs different information to be parsed. JoeJShmo💌10:57, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
Because it's brittle and hard to maintain. There are more robust and maintainable alternatives.
I'm not sure its that brittle. I suppose it depends how you write it. The function I wrote checked for the signature using the signature parameter in the infobox. JoeJShmo💌20:55, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
