User talk:R'n'B/Archive 23

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Add a parameter to "disambiguation needed"?

Can we add a parameter to the {{disambiguation needed}} template for a subject-matted expertise area, and subcategorize pages with such a template into something like a "math dab needed", "Polish geography dab needed", and so on? bd2412 T 01:21, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm sure it's possible; it would work somewhat like {{Expert needed}} and might even use the same categories. But I don't have time to look at it right now. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:59, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

I'll look at the {{Expert needed}} category tree and see what overlap I can find. bd2412 T 17:07, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Death warrant (disambiguation) listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Death warrant (disambiguation). Since you had some involvement with the Death warrant (disambiguation) redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Cnilep (talk) 03:14, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

silly redirects

can you AfD on the MWSDB ? Dave Rave (talk) 23:06, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection

Hello, R'n'B. This message is intended to notify administrators of important changes to the protection policy.

Extended confirmed protection (also known as "30/500 protection") is a new level of page protection that only allows edits from accounts at least 30 days old and with 500 edits. The automatically assigned "extended confirmed" user right was created for this purpose. The protection level was created following this community discussion with the primary intention of enforcing various arbitration remedies that prohibited editors under the "30 days/500 edits" threshold to edit certain topic areas.

In July and August 2016, a request for comment established consensus for community use of the new protection level. Administrators are authorized to apply extended confirmed protection to combat any form of disruption (e.g. vandalism, sock puppetry, edit warring, etc.) on any topic, subject to the following conditions:

• Extended confirmed protection may only be used in cases where semi-protection has proven ineffective. It should not be used as a first resort.
• A bot will post a notification at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard of each use. MusikBot currently does this by updating a report, which is transcluded onto the noticeboard.

Please review the protection policy carefully before using this new level of protection on pages. Thank you.
This message was sent to the administrators' mass message list. To opt-out of future messages, please remove yourself from the list. 17:49, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Category:Austrians of Colombian descent

I totally agree with the speedy deletion notice you placed on this category. I left a message on the talk page of the category's creator, Carlosialfonsod, saying I thought it should be deleted – looking at his edit history I think he created it for Conchita Wurst, but as Wurst is a fictional character played by an Austrian actor, (s)he shouldn't be eligible for this category anyway, so it will remain empty. Richard3120 (talk) 00:07, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Category:Libertarian-Centrism

My bad, I didn't realize it was a category page. Thanks for letting me know. LuckyLag360 (talk) 22:19, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Closure at Talk:New York#Proposed action to resolve incorrect incoming links

An editor has suggested that the current project of piping/fixing links to New York would receive fewer objections if the discussion proposing this solution was hatted with a summary of the consensus generated therein. As you have not previously been involved in that discussion, I thought you might hat the first section of the discussion with your assessment of consensus. Cheers! bd2412 T 16:25, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

• OK, I'll take a look at it. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 01:26, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Thanks. Can't wait to wrap this up and get back to the contest. bd2412 T 02:33, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

RussBot creating empty, duplicate categories

RussBot recently created several empty categories which duplicate existing categories:

• Category:Mayors_of_San_Francisco,_California
• Category:Poets_Laureate_of_San_Francisco,_California
• Category:Politicians_from_San_Francisco,_California
• Category:Radio_personalities_from_San_Francisco,_California
• Category:Sportspeople_from_San_Francisco,_California
• Category:Television_anchors_from_San_Francisco,_California
• Category:Television_personalities_from_San_Francisco,_California

Please fix whatever code is causing this to happen. Thanks! —swpb^T 13:42, 18 October 2016 (UTC) You are just as revealing as ever. In my insignificance please forgive me.70.98.142.254 (talk) 20:06, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

• It looks like all these categories were deleted by another user a few minutes before RussBot went to edit them. I'll see what I can do to prevent this in future, although the issue is probably unlikely to recur soon anyway. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 14:11, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
• This should be fixed now. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 01:59, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Sorry! Want to learn the correct way now. Thanks!--Dunsinan (talk) 19:56, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Please I am assisting somebody's someone and require changing my user:--Dunsinan (talk) 19:52, 12 November 2016 (UTC) to its Nickname Joseph L. Russell, Jr. Can I edit Joseph Russell Jr. If I am to have a following please help edit its page. Your contribution is desirable and I want you to be included.Dunsinan (talk) 19:53, 12 November 2016 (UTC)70.98.142.254 (talk) 20:11, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. Mike V • Talk 20:39, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Question about CSD G6

Hi! I was investigating various dab pages when I found that you had deleted the page Al-Nawbakhti (disambiguation). I have no problem with the deletion—it needed to go—but I had a question about your edit summary. It said: (G6: Housekeeping and routine (non-controversial) cleanup: a "disambiguation" redirect to a target that is not a disambiguation page).

I had been trying to find the right tag for just this kind of case, but felt very frustrated because it doesn't seem to be covered in WP:G6 or WP:G8. Is G6 really the right tag for a page that has "disambiguation" in the title but has a non-dab target? It seems like it would be a real waste of time if we have to take these to WP:RFD. — Gorthian (talk) 04:12, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

There were discussions at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Disambiguation/Archive_26#Redirects_from_.28disambiguation.29_to_non-dab_pages and an essay at Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Redirects from (disambiguation) to non-disambiguation pages concluding that at least some subset of these redirects can be speedily deleted under G6. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 11:20, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

A new user right for New Page Patrollers

Hi R'n'B.

A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.

It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins).MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, R'n'B. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

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.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Riviera (disambiguation)

Riviera (disambiguation), a page which you created or substantially contributed to (or which is in your userspace), has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Riviera (disambiguation) and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Riviera (disambiguation) during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. pbp 04:40, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Nowcasting

Hi:

I had to inverse the work of your bot on linking to the disambiguation page. It was linking to the redirection Nowcasting (disambiguation) while Nowcasting in the disambiguation page.

Pierre cb (talk) 14:18, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

@Pierre cb: The bot's edit was correct. When linking to a disambiguation page that does not have "disambiguation" in the title, linking to a redirect is preferred. This is explained at WP:D#HOWTODAB. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 14:57, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

So rename the disambiguation page because using redirection is not a proper use of directing to an article: all links must be the most direct as possible. Pierre cb (talk) 17:20, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

No, "all links must be the most direct as possible" is not an actual Wikipedia policy or guideline. Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Linking#Redirects does not say this, and WP:CHEAP at least suggests the opposite. And in this specific situation, WP:DABNAME says not to move the disambiguation page to the longer title, and WP:D#HOWTODAB says in so many words to link to the redirect. If there is a different guideline out there that I'm missing, please identify it. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 17:57, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

US Post Office (disambiguation) listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect US Post Office (disambiguation). Since you had some involvement with the US Post Office (disambiguation) redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. - CHAMPION ^{(talk) (contributions) (logs)} 00:30, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Non-disambiguation redirects

Hi! I've been using the pages generated by RussBot at User:RussBot/Non-disambiguation redirects/001 to work on getting rid of no-longer-needed "(disambiguation" redirects. According to the page history, the bot's been updating the pages there on the 9th and 24th of each month, but it didn't update this December 9th. Is that something you do manually? If so, could you run it again, please? If it's supposed to be automatic, then I guess this is to tell you it didn't work this time. :-/ — Gorthian (talk) 23:59, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't notice it had failed. Now I have a new bug to fix :-( but the good news is it's transient, so it ought to work this time. Running it again now. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 01:40, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Apologies...

...for redirecting Mistrust(band) albums to Mistrust (band). I just figured it was kinda pointless to have that category considering the band only ever released one album and I had redirected Spin the World to the band article as well. In case you're wondering why I did that, a bunch of album articles of mine have recently been tagged as to whether they meet notability requirements. I figured it was only a matter of time before Spin the World would get that tag too, so I decided to move all album details on to the band article. Shaneymike (talk) 15:00, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

bot oops

RussBot has been making mistakes. It's doing [[Wikilink|wikilink]] ---> [[Wikilink (foo)|Wikilink]]|Wikilink]] Example is at Irish Free State national football team results Bgwhite (talk) 06:03, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

• Thank you. Fixing now. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 11:39, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
  • No, thank you. I reverted or fixed ~20 articles yesterday. I should endup catching all the articles with problems and I'll fix them when I see them. Bgwhite (talk) 23:14, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Redundant square brackets

Hi bot maintainer,

Just to let you know that your bot sometimes leaves redundant ]] behind, e.g. this edit.

Cheers,
cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 17:34, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

• Thanks. Should be fixed now. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:43, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

My user talk

Seems like the bot wandered in inadvertently to change the category link on an updated category name within a talk discussion I had; I really would rather retain the text as-is for my history, plus I don't want the talk respondent to think things are being refactored and get even more mad at me. Thank you. Nate • (chatter) 10:02, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Looks like the discussor threw in the link to the cat and that's why it was showing up, so it was neither yours or my errors. I've removed the link in the discussion so my page isn't tagged any longer. Nate • (chatter) 10:07, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Sorry for the inconvenience, Nate. If you want to refer to a category name in a discussion, the trick is to put a colon (:) before the word "Category"; so, for example, [[:Category:Classic TV channel]], which gives you a link to Category:Classic TV channel. The bot won't touch links in this format. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 11:07, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

I knew about the colon trick; the other editor seemed not to. Glad we were able to figure this out (and that the bot alerted me to it in the first place; it did do its job in the end IMO). Nate • (chatter) 12:47, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

embarrassed

oops thanks for pointing that out - yeah I had forgotten the need to be extra careful about that.. I think the issue as much, when what I consider what I interpret as the stupid usage of primacy in a disambig involves over 200 other articles... its not worth changing in the face of that amount of fix up ... :(

oh dear, what a marvellous journey through horribly overlinked oceans of seasofblue, bit like a journey to the dark side... JarrahTree 13:20, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

and ok you may not be the slightest interested, fair enough - but the extent to which film articles get away with gross overlinking and seaofblue at such an astonishing rate - it surely takes the rest of normal wp en policy, and give it a flagrant finger sign and ignore all rules as in the early years of wp JarrahTree 23:39, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

American Samoan categories

Hi RnB

I just reverted a few edits you made to Category:American Samoan men, Category:American Samoan women and Category:American Samoan people by occupation, in which you expanded a complex classification template.

In each case this created a huge block of markup which is a maintenance nightmare .. so I have reverted all 4 edits.

Your stated reason was a problem with parent categories. I went a to a lot of trouble to get the templates to handle parent categories in a way which I thought worked for every situation, and they looked fine to me in those cases ... but I may have missed something. Please can you explain what was the problem you saw? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:31, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

• Hi, BrownHairedGirl: the problem is that all three of those categories are subcategories of Category:American Samoan people; however, that parent category is actually a redirect to Category:People from American Samoa. I know you added these to the latter category manually, but they still appear improperly as members of a redirected category. FYI, the same problem exists with subcategories of Category:Guam people and Category:New Caledonian people. The problem arises from templates that insist on placing categories in certain parent categories regardless of whether that categorization is correct or not. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 14:39, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

OK, I see that now. But I have already nominated all those people-by-nationality categories for speedy renaming to the standard "Fooian people" format, so the problem will be fixed in a day or so when the renamings are done.

Standard-format category names make maintenance much easier, by avoiding the need for ugly workarounds. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:01, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

OK, the CFD/S listings for Category:New Caledonia people and Category:People from American Samoa had passed their 48 hour thresholds, so I have done both those moves. Guam is in the pipeline (I had forgotten to CFD/S it, but have done so now). So it will be sorted in a day or two. --15:24, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Edits on my Article

Hello R'n'B,

How are you~ on my https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Universal Article you seem to suggest that I change the Medical category to Medicine. This company Terra Universal doesn't belong in the Medicine category: they don't have any products or services pertaining to medicine. Instead, they manufacture and distribute medical devices and equipment. This is very different from 'medicine'.

Please change back the Category to Medical, or advise me and I will change it.

Thanks,

Emailcriticalmass (talk) 22:37, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

• Hello, Emailcriticalmass. This edit was made by an automated process (bot) because "Medical" is not a valid category title. If you are working on an article about a medical equipment manufacturer, then you might want to add it to Category:Medical equipment manufacturers. Also, please note that the preferred way to link to a Wikipedia article is to put the title between double brackets, such as [[Terra Universal]] which looks like Terra Universal, instead of providing an external URL. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 14:46, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Hello back, Russ. Thanks for your reply.

-Frank Emailcriticalmass (talk) 00:18, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Problem Steps Recorder link

Hi R'n'B,

I noticed that you changed the link to Steps Recorder on the Windows Components template box from PSR to Problem Steps Recorder. The reason I had set it to link to the disambiguation page is that Problem Steps Recorder does not exist, but PSR does have information on Steps Recorder. Were you planning to create an article for Steps Recorder? If not, I plan to revert the change.

Thanks, Onecatowner (talk) 03:57, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Problem Steps Recorder is no longer a redlink. However, as discussed on WP:Disambiguation, a disambiguation page is not intended to be used as a collection of miscellaneous information that is not found in articles. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 10:49, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter - February 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2017). This first issue is being sent out to all administrators, if you wish to keep receiving it please subscribe. Your feedback is welcomed.

Administrator changes

NinjaRobotPirate • Schwede66 • K6ka • Ealdgyth • Ferret • Cyberpower678 • Mz7 • Primefac • Dodger67

Briangotts • JeremyA • BU Rob13

Guideline and policy news

• A discussion to workshop proposals to amend the administrator inactivity policy at Wikipedia talk:Administrators has been in process since late December 2016.
• Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2016 closed with no consensus for implementing Pending changes level 2 with new criteria for use.
• Following an RfC, an activity requirement is now in place for bots and bot operators.

Technical news

• When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. (T34950)
• Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Wikipedia, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. (T156448)
• The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee released a response to the Wikimedia Foundation's statement on paid editing and outing.

Obituaries

• JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.

---

Discuss this newsletter • Subscribe • Archive

13:36, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

RussBot issue

Hi, I was wondering if you could talk to mr. RussBot about these diffs: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5? These are archeological sites in Somaliland. You can read more about them in this research paper by the leading archeologist from the region Dr. Sada Mire. Many thanks. Kzl55 (talk) 11:44, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Kzl55: Talking to the bot won't resolve this issue. If you take a moment to look at Category:Archaeological sites in Somaliland and Category:Mountain ranges of Somaliland, you will see that both of them are redirects to the corresponding "in Somalia" categories. If you think those redirects are incorrect, you ought to take it up with the users who created them, or on WP:CFD. The bot is just following the redirects that have been established by other users. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:50, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Ah, I did not notice that, many thanks. I had a look at WP:CFD and there is no discussions about the categories in question. Looking at the page history it seems like the category was created then an editor put the redirect in place, it is definitely incorrect. Many thank once again. Kzl55 (talk) 17:19, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Redirect bypassing

Please do not bypass redirects of the form Foo (disambiguation) to Foo, e.g. as you did here. Even ignoring the fact you should not be making these sort of changes to closed discussions, nor bypassing all redirects routinely, these type of redirects to disambiguation pages are used intentionally to make it clear that linking to the disambiguation is intentional and that the link should not be disambiguated - see WP:INTDABLINK. Thryduulf (talk) 17:31, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

• Thryduulf: Spellcaster is not a disambiguation page. Therefore, no one could have had an "intention" to link to it via a disambiguation redirect. I thought ignoring the rule and editing the closed discussion was less damaging than leaving a redlink behind. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 17:33, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
  • If someone links to a "(disambiguation)" title the intention is always to link to a disambiguation page. If the target is not a disambiguation page then the redirect should be retargetted to the appropriate disambiguation page or nominated at RfD to determine what should be done with it. Redlinks should almost always be left in archived discussions - they are far less damaging than misrepresenting a user's comments. Thryduulf (talk) 17:38, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
  • You are also bypassing redirects that are to disambiguation pages, e.g. [1] - it is your responsibility to ensure that an intdablink is incorrect before you change it not somebody else's to clean up after you. Thryduulf (talk) 17:42, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
    • I really would appreciate it if you would take a less hostile tone. Speed record is not a disambiguation page, even though it looks like perhaps it should be. I take considerable pains to check targets before changing redirect links, and if I make an occasional mistake it is because I am human. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 17:53, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Dab HoF

It looks like the Disambiguator Hall of Fame hasn't been updated since September 2016. Are those months lost? bd2412 T 00:38, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

• I'm afraid so. I guess we could update it manually on the first day of each month, when the results are still visible on the Tool Labs page. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 00:40, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Wait a minute - see here. bd2412 T 00:20, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
    • Oh, good. :-) --R'n'B (call me Russ) 02:13, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Mr. R'n'B

Great scoping Mr. R'n'B!

Hey Mr. R'n'B, why don't you care about the 5,330,097 articles found on wikipedia and leave this page alone "Kherbet Qanafar". all the information in the page is real, at least check the pictures if you can't tell if the page is real or not. Correct, some fake citation had to be made (which are recently deleted) in order to save this page from being deleted automatically , but this doesn't mean that the information is incorrect If Wikipedia deletes this page, it will be remade until you are tired from placing your useless comments on others work. I think we make a connection now :) Wikipedia User (talk) 19:34, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

On Disambiguating Judah

For a while I went around thinking that Judah would link straight to the page for the Tribe of Judah. I'm sure I made this mistake all over the place. I've been cleaning up my unfortunate disambiguation links as I've found them, but I see that you seem to be finding them more systematically. Thanks for going to the trouble, and I regret that my clumsy editing got you into that line of work in the first place. Alephb (talk) 15:41, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

RussBot and hard category redirects

Hi Russ

Part of the bot's routine work is causing a few problems with a workaround I had tried. I wonder if there is any way of avoiding this.

The issue is that there a bunch of userpage categories which were deleted at WP:CFD or WP:UCFD (now archived at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/User/Archive).

Some editors have continued to populate those categories, which means that they show up as redlinks in Special:WantedCategories, clutteringthe list and impeding the work of editors who try. A very looong RFC on what do about this was not formally closed. There was a consensus to do something, but no consensus on what to do, with editors divided between those of us who want to remove all such redlinks as errors and those who prefer a more nuanced approach.

I therefore thought I would try a workaroud, set out at Wikipedia talk:User categories#A_possible_solution_for_zombie_categories. The use of a hard redirect is crucial to this idea, because it allows the redlinks to turn blue without re-creating as navigable category pages those which were deleted by consensus.#

However, RusBot then came along today and converted the hard redirects to soft redirects ([2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13]), each with the edit summary "Bot: Adding category redirect template for maintenance". Presumably this is a precursor to recategorising the pages in the redirected categories .. and that would defeat my objective here

Those dozen bot edits have been reverted, but I presume that the bot will keep on trying to do it.

Would there be some way to dissuade the bot from doing this? Some way to ask it to treat this set of hard redirects as an exception?

I know creating an exception complicates work, but this is all an attempt at a workaround to try to bridge the gap between editors who clean up errors in the category tree (which redkinks are, per WP:REDNOT), and those who insist on using their userpages to create these errors, claiming self-expression.

I hope that it can be made to work, because it would be a win-win solution. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:51, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

PS I note that Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/RussBot refers only to processing {{category redirect}}ed pages. The bot's extension of that to hard redirects is generally very helpful, so I don't want to suggest that anything has been done wrong. But it did occur to me that this means that exception here wouldn't be altering the BRFA-defined task. Hope that helps. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:03, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

I have added {{Nobots}} to Category:Editors with a demented sense of humor. Let's see if that survives tomorrow morning's bot run; if so, the same solution can be applied to your other categories. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 02:08, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks, Russ. I should have thought of {{Nobots}}.

In the hope that it works, I have added it to a most of the other categories, leaving only 3 as guinea-pigs if it fails: Category:Wikipedians who use Windows XP, Category:Wikipedians with way way too many categories.

That should minimise any drama. Fingers crossed! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:57, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, it didn't work. That just means I have to dig into my code and figure out why. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 10:50, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

OK, it's fixed now. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 11:13, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

I see that you reverted one or two, and I reverted the rest. Thanks for staying on the case, and for the fix.

I'm sure that with your experience, you know what you're doing with the code ... but I will still keep my fingers crossed until see how it works out tomorrow. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:19, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Success! Today, the bot didn't touch the {{nobots}} categories, but did its work on the two guinea-pig categories: Category:Wikipedians who use Windows XP, Category:Wikipedians with way way too many categories.

I think I can stop bugging you now. Thanks again for all your help. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:29, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2017).

Administrator changes

Amortias • Deckiller • BU Rob13

Ronnotel • Islander • Chamal N • Isomorphic • Keeper76 • Lord Voldemort • Shereth • Bdesham • Pjacobi

Guideline and policy news

• A recent RfC has redefined how articles on schools are evaluated at AfD. Specifically, secondary schools are not presumed to be notable simply because they exist.
• AfDs that receive little participation should now be closed like an expired proposed deletion, following a deletion process RfC.
• Defender, HakanIST, Matiia and Sjoerddebruin are our newest stewards, following the 2017 steward elections.
• The 2017 appointees for the Ombudsman commission are Góngora, Krd, Lankiveil, Richwales and Vogone. They will serve for approximately 1 year.

Technical news

• A recent query shows that only 16% of administrators on the English Wikipedia have enabled two-factor authentication. If you haven't already enabled it please consider doing so.
• Cookie blocks should be deployed to the English Wikipedia soon. This will extend the current autoblock system by setting a cookie for each block, which will then autoblock the user after they switch accounts under a new IP.
• A bot will now automatically place a protection template on protected pages when admins forget to do so.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:14, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Disruptive

R'n'B, I kindly ask you not to call my contributions disruptive again. Incivility is disruptive. --.js 18:07, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

No offense intended. I was in no way commenting on your intent, just on the results of the edits. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:41, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Ibelin family

Thank you for fixing the outstanding links for this from the Ibelin page. I came back and found they we done already! Ta very much! Regards, Moonraker12 (talk) 23:33, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

• You're welcome. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 01:28, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Parachute Regiment

Hi - Many apologies for my edit on the Parachute Regiment- I think it must have been a slip of my finger. Your version is definitely better! Dormskirk (talk) 15:47, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Qualified/disambiguated "Syagrus"

I see you cite on your page "Syagrus" as an interest of yours. Just want to alert you that I added a qualifier to the main article on "Syagrus," the genus of palm trees. I made the article title "Syagrus (palm)." The reason is, there are at least three things called Syagrus, dealt with to one extent or another in Wikipedia; several links were going wrong, and I went through and fixed those and disambiguated. There are:

• the genus of palm trees--we have individual articles on the species, an article on the genus, and a category page for the genus;
• a genus of beetles--we have individual articles on the species, and we could have an article on the genus some day (although a category page is unlikely);
• a Greek poet--we have an article.

I've going through and altering all the links to the palm tree. But I don't want to touch someone else's talk page. Uporządnicki (talk) 16:03, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, and thanks for fixing all the existing links. But you're only expected to fix links in articles, not on talk pages or user pages. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 17:31, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Merger discussion for Yarsanism

An article that you have been involved in editing—Yarsanism —has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. MiguelMadeira (talk) 23:10, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

--MiguelMadeira (talk) 23:10, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Invitation to take a look at our first article

Hi!

We are students writing an article on Mario Alvarez Ledesma as part of our class Academic Discoruse and Writting at Tec de Monterrey. Since you are an experienced wikipedian and have an interest in this kind of topics, we would like to know if you take a few minutes to take a look at the article and give us feedback. Thank you for your time.--A01334563 (talk) 21:18, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

{{dn}} topic area parameter discussion.

I raised this thought to you a while back, and have now made a proposal at Template talk:Disambiguation needed#Proposed addition of a parameter for topic areas. I would value your thoughts on the matter. Cheers! bd2412 T 15:00, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2017).

Administrator changes

TheDJ

Xnuala • CJ • Oldelpaso • Berean Hunter • Jimbo Wales • Andrew c • Karanacs • Modemac • Scott

Guideline and policy news

• Following a discussion on the backlog of unpatrolled files, consensus was found to create a new user right for autopatrolling file uploads. Implementation progress can be tracked on Phabricator.
• The BLPPROD grandfather clause, which stated that unreferenced biographies of living persons were only eligible for proposed deletion if they were created after March 18, 2010, has been removed following an RfC.
• An RfC has closed with consensus to allow proposed deletion of files. The implementation process is ongoing.
• After an unsuccessful proposal to automatically grant IP block exemption, consensus was found to relax the criteria for granting the user right from needing it to wanting it.

Technical news

• After a recent RfC, moved pages will soon be featured in a queue similar to Special:NewPagesFeed and require patrolling. Moves by administrators, page movers, and autopatrolled editors will be automatically marked as patrolled.
• Cookie blocks have been deployed. This extends the current autoblock system by setting a cookie for each block, which will then autoblock the user if they switch accounts, even under a new IP.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:55, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Apology for rude edit summary

Sorry about this: diff. My edit summary appears unintentionally rude - sometimes I wish it was possible to modify edit summaries once they are committed. --Deskford (talk) 20:32, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks for the note. No offense taken; I've had the same issue with prematurely committed edit summaries. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 15:07, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Kovačica

not one, but three (Kovačica (town), Donja Kovačica, Gornja Kovačica) and the others articles will be written--SrpskiAnonimac (talk) 22:23, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Angus (and the local map)

You have just run a bot to disambiguate Angus, but this disrupts the map (see Airlie, Angus), and it now shows Scotland rather than Angus. The two lines are |unitary_scotland= Angus and |lieutenancy_scotland= Angus. Obviously Angus is wrong but can you please fix it somehow. Twiceuponatime (talk) 13:20, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

• Perhaps instead of bringing this to my attention, it would have been more appropriate to inquire of the person who wrote the template in a way that required linking to a disambiguation page to produce the correct map. However, I was able to identify and correct the erroneous template. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 14:01, 21 April 2017 (UTC) [EDIT] Well, that's a bit unfair to the template author(s), since Angus only became a disambiguation page fairly recently and the template was fine before that. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 14:03, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2017).

Administrator changes

Karanacs • Berean Hunter • GoldenRing • Dlohcierekim

Gdr • Tyrenius • JYolkowski • Longhair • Master Thief Garrett • Aaron Brenneman • Laser brain • JzG • Dragons flight

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC has clarified that user categories should be emptied upon deletion, but redlinked user categories should not be removed if re-added by the user.
• Discussions are ongoing regarding proposed changes to the COI policy. Changes so far have included clarification that adding a link on a Wikipedia forum to a job posting is not a violation of the harassment policy.

Technical news

• You can now see a list of all autoblocks at Special:AutoblockList.
• There is a new tool for adding archives to dead links. Administrators are able to restrict other user's ability to use the tool, and have additional permissions when changing URL and domain data.
• Administrators, bureaucrats and stewards can now set an expiry date when granting user rights. (discuss, permalink)

Miscellaneous

• Following an RfC, the editing restrictions page is now split into a list of active restrictions and an archive of those that are old or on inactive accounts. Make sure to check both pages if searching for a restriction.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:20, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Rollback

Sorry about that – misclicked, and now undone. Kanguole 21:53, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Reluctant Dragon

Are you sure about this still having links. They seem to have been fixed by this template [14]. MB 16:01, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

• At this moment, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AWhatLinksHere&target=The+Reluctant+Dragon&namespace=0 shows 38 incoming links from articles. For more info, see Help:Job queue. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 20:33, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Calman's nationality

I'm not that bothered either way, but your understanding of the definition of UK nationalities within Wikipedia could do with brushing up. You should read UKNATIONALS. Sovereign states and passports are not the fix-all defining attributes of a complicated issue. Thanks.--Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 14:00, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Embedded Feminism articles

Hi, you redirected the Embedded Feminism article in February, then it looks like you reverted yourself with another edit a moment later. The duplicate articles remain, would you be able to make the assessment as to whether one should be redirected? Thanks Rjwilmsi 19:46, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

• Oops, thanks for catching that. I didn't intend to revert myself; but was using a tool that isn't smart enough to check for edit conflicts. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 20:41, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Help

I am new to the Wikipedia community and I noticed that my page "Haas Family" was deleted. I was in the process of compiling information and correct miss-cited information. Is there anyway to view the previous revision edits? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aceay (talk • contribs) 06:34, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

• @Aceay: Welcome! First, please add new messages to the end of talk pages. Second, the article you started was titled Haas family, not Haas Family. Capitalization matters, and there actually was a different article at the second title that was deleted about three years ago. Third, I have restored your work and moved it to Draft:Haas family. If you can provide sources for verifiable assertions and correct the apparent errors, it may be possible to move it back to the main namespace. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 14:45, 31 May 2017 (UTC)