User talk:AllyUnion

I'm not bothering to keep an archive. If you like to see an archive of the page, please visit the History page. New comments to the end of the page. Otherwise, I will ignore and/or revert your edit. -- AllyUnion I have every right to blanket out your comments because this is my User page. If you have a complaint about it, too bad... deal with it. -- AllyUnion

Last deletion: AllyUnion (talk) 09:37, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Archive List:

this edit? I made it and a minute later sandbot deleted it. I didn't mess with the header. - I27.O.O.l 07:44, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There is a delay between the sandbot's initial page get and the time it takes to correct the header. It just so happened that in the rare moment, you posted new content while the sandbot was doing its header re-enforcement check. -- AllyUnion (talk) 12:04, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Did you know archival bot

Can you explain the DYK process more clearly? Like, tell me clearly the step by step process you take to move content to the archive pages? -- AllyUnion (talk)

Template talk:Did you know has a header "ARCHIVE USED SUGGESTIONS HERE" under which used suggestions are bulleted and included in reverse chronological order in blocks of items which where featured together. The top of this items is followed by a link of the picture that was used in the update should be added to this block of items in Wikipedia:Recent additions.

In contrast to this section, Wikipedia:Recent additions items are not bulleted. To compare coding of the sections, please check the edit history as that explains it far better than I do.

Archival of Wikipedia:Recent additions to a subpage is done by moving approximately the oldest 50 edits of the main page (a picture item still needs to be on top).

Hope this makes things somewhat clearer. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:52, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

Oldest edits are being... at the bottom or the top? I can write a bot so that there are exactly 50 did you know lines (including pictures) and continuously archive any excess lines into the approprate archive. The assumption that I will have to make is that the related (if any) image preceeds the did you know line. -- AllyUnion (talk) 13:34, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oldest items are at the bottom.

[[Image:Imagename|"right" or "left"|100px|alt text] is at right above the item the picture belongs to. How about alternating left and right layout of pictures. Would I need to code that in the talk page before the bot moves it? - Mgm|^(talk) 17:47, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

Wait, wait, wait... am I moving stuff from "Template talk:Did you know" to "Wikipedia:Recent additions" and then moving stuff on "Wikipedia:Recent additions" to an archive page? -- AllyUnion (talk) 20:42, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, you are. We need the latest few weeks to stay at the talk page so late changes can still be made to the items in that archive. Is that a problem? Mgm|^(talk) 20:56, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

"Few weeks"... I kind of need a determined time frame and how many lines to leave, and such. -- AllyUnion (talk) 21:29, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, I think the bot should leave three blocks of items. Each block signifies an update and contains the 3 or 4 items that were used. You can let the bot recognize blocks by looking for image links, right? Mgm|^(talk) 21:34, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

Should I start adding image links to the top of blocks on "Template talk" or is bot-aided image location change from the talk page to the Recent additions archive possible? Mgm|^(talk) 21:37, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In case you didn't know. That was me. Somehow my computer decided to log out *grumble*. Mgm|^(talk) 21:44, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

The assumption link for "images" fails. Not all "blocks" as you so describe them have starting images.

This is the program's basic pseudocode:

Scan for the first ""
While the next "" has not been found then search for: (outer loop)
- Find " \n\n" or " \n\n" or " \n\n" (\n is newline in programming terms)
Repeat the following steps: (inner loop)
1. Look for: "...that" or "[[Image:" (the latter is case insensitive)
2. Find the next: "...that" or "[[Image:" (the latter is case insensitive)
3. Save this as a "Did you know" line
4. Increase did you know line count
If " \n\n" or " \n\n" or " \n\n" has been found, increase the block count

This way, I can store each block like you say. Once the did you know line count has exceeded 50 items, place into the archive. If the archive has exceeded 50 items, close the archive. Sounds about right? -- AllyUnion (talk) 02:17, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It looks about right if this is the code to archive Recent additions pages, but I've got no idea if the code is correct as I have very limited programming knowledge. Will this make you count from the bottom up? Cause we need the oldest (bottom) 50 items. BTW Thanks for looking into this. Mgm|^(talk) 07:31, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

Well, pseudocode is like writing semi-English but in a code like fashion. Just ask yourself whether or not these steps are the logical approaches that you would do in a step by step fashion. The difference between you and computer is that the computer can only handle one instruction at a time, so you have to break down everything to the smallest parts and describe in detail what you need to do. -- AllyUnion (talk) 09:57, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia:Recent additions says exactly 50, but I consider keeping blocks of items together more important. You can follow me or the those guidelines, do whatever you feel is right. Mgm|^(talk) 11:38, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

How is the bot coming along? Would I be able to run it once it's finished? Mgm|^(talk) 22:08, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the pseudo code from your userpage is up to date, but it looks like you're searching the page top to bottom, while it should be from the bottom to the top. Also, you might want to add and as an alternative for the hard return in one of those loops. Again, I appreciate the effort. I'm assuming you'll have it run automatically after testing? Mgm|^(talk) 21:09, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

Countries bot

Sorry I've been slow on this....I received you're email and will IM you in a couple weeks (after midterm season is over). You're often online, right?--Ji ang 05:14, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

DST

VFD Bot's gotten confused by Daylight Savings Time; it's updating things an hour ahead of schedule. —Korath (Talk) 23:44, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)

Not sure if this has to do with DST, but VFD Bot jumped the gun adding April 5th's links at only 08:00 of April 4th UTC. —Mar ka ci 2005-04-4 T 08:46 Z

One last wrinkle - Instead of creating the new day's subpage at 23:00 UTC, it's adding a second "this day is over" comment to the previous day's subpage. [1]. —Korath (Talk) 04:22, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

FPC for Kurando-san

Moved to User:Kurando-san/FPC -- AllyUnion (talk) 09:09, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

DYK images

Never mind, I can do images manually. Could you put them all on the left, so I'll only need to change half of them? Mgm|^(talk) 12:20, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

Vfd foundling

About a month ago, you closed Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Israel Israelsson Näslund III as delete, but neither deleted the article nor marked it {{pending deletion}}. Could you clarify its status? —Korath (Talk) 00:47, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)

Sandbot question

What does "header enforcement" mean? PaulHammond 20:43, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the speedy answer to my question. PaulHammond 12:02, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)

Calendar for deletion?

Hi there! I'm sure the templates in question are harmless, but I believe there are more generic templates that would do the job. Templates for "Leap year starting on tuesday" or "30-day month starting on friday" (with parametrization for which month and year it is) have the advantage of being reusable for each and every year in the Gregorian calendar, obviating the need for hundreds of templates for each individual month and year therein. IMHO, of course, and I'd be happy to discuss it. Radiant_* 09:17, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

Okay, a quadruple nested template is very wrong. However, wouldn't it be easy to make {{YearStartingMonday|1950}} and {{MonthStartingTuesday|1988|august}} or something like that? Neither requires nesting. Usage is simple once you know how, and could easily be explained on the talk page. Radiant_* 09:58, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)
- If you feel that the template is likely to be vandalized, the obvious solution is to protect it, that's what protect is for. Note that having a (small group of) generic templates would allow for easier changes to the lot of them if such is ever found useful by WikiLayout. I know that space on WikiPedia isn't really an issue, but organization of information is important. And that includes centralizing partial redundancies. Radiant_* 09:58, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

DYK Bot

I would be happy to look at your bot code. But some caveats, I don't use the pywikipediabot framework, I don't even know much about it. Also, I haven't programmed in PERL in a LONG time. I have written my own framework in C# and all of my bots use that.

If you could be a bit more specific about your problem, is it just not posting the data back to the server after retrieving it? Which of these three steps (or all of them) are causing you trouble?

Leave three blocks of "...that" on Template talk:Did you know
Move all other blocks of "...that" to Wikipedia:Recent additions
Move oldest blocks on Wikipedia:Recent additions to an archive page if Wikipedia:Recent additions exceeds 50 "...that" lines.

Kevin Rector 14:43, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

I looked over your code, and I'm sorry, I don't think I'm going to be able to help you. I just don't know enough about Perl. I could write a bot to do the work faster than I could fix your bot code. Again, I'm sorry. Kevin Rector (talk) 21:24, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear that you got it working. It's like that so often eh, step back for a while and it all comes crystal clear. Usually at work when I'm having trouble getting something to work I'll go outside and walk once around my building, when I get back I can usually fix the problem within a minute or two.

Also, if you would comment the code, I would be interested in looking over it. Kevin Rector (talk) 13:48, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

issues over school articles

In November 2003, there was a VfD debate over Sunset High School (Portland). The debate was archived under Talk:Sunset High School (Portland). What to do with the article is still being contested and has been recently re-nominated for VfD at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Sunset High School (Portland).

I am writing to you because you have participated in such debates before. There still does not exist a wikipedia policy (as far as i can tell) over what to do in regards to articles about specific U.S. public school. My hope is that a real consensus can come out of the debate, and a real policy can take shape. Take part if you are so willing. Kingturtle 02:18, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Introduction page

Can you add the Wikipedia:Introduction page to Sandbot's list of enforced headers every 30 min - the first 2 lines should be preserved - what is under them doesn't really matter. Thx in adv 22:32, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Saw that you were testing - thanks for the quick response - hope your mvoe goes well Trödel(direz) 15:38, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Chicago

Because of your work with the Chicago article I'd like you to take a look at it if you have the time & desire. It is currently up for Peer Review (see Chicago Talk) and I would enjoy hearing your feedback to help us all guide the growth of this article. Jasenlee 01:19, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

Finished bot

I did a quick pass and it looks like the bot edits are okay, but I'll have to have a closer look to be sure. I did comment out a possible copyvio, which was included in the archiving. Can comment tags affect the process? Mgm|^(talk) 17:53, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

How come there's items on Recent additions that haven't been removed from the list on the talk page? Wouldn't they be included again with the next use of the bot? I think running the bot once a month is enough for now. Mgm|^(talk) 19:53, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

Why did sandbot...

do this? Just curious :) -Frazzydee|✍ 22:52, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ah. The unfortunate side effect of processing a page. The time that it takes for Sandbot to get a page and process it has a lag time of about a minute or so. Therefore, when it attempts to re-enforce the existing header, the page in its cache is stale. I'm thinking a way to revert that. -- AllyUnion (talk) 23:05, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for your response. I don't know too much about bots, but why would it take a minute? It seems like a pretty unintensive job to me. -Frazzydee|✍ 23:10, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ah... I found the problem... The lag time is due to the fact that it gets two pages in a row. I moved it, so that it will attempt to process and post immediately. Hopefully, the bot won't run into that problem again. -- AllyUnion (talk) 23:12, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Substub template

Ey oop AllyUnion lad - you wrote:

The substub has been protected for the purpose against vandalism, since many pages use this stub, it should not be changed frequently anyway.'

In line with suggestions at WP:WSS, I was going to reduce the size of the text on the template by using the "small" function . It's a minor change, but it would affect a template that's currently on about 4100 articles... what do you think? Have a look at to see how it might look. Grutness|^hello? 08:06, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Bot request for CfD

Hi there! On Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Restructuring, the suggestion was made to split CfD into one page per day, and transclude these into the main page (just like is done on VfD, except that VfD goes one step further and also uses sub-pages for each individual nomination). This suggestion seems to have met consensus. Since (iirc) you wrote the VfD-bot, could you please do something similar for CfD?

This bot should (daily) create a new page Categories for deletion/Log/-date- , redirect Categories for deletion/Log/Today to the most recent one, and add a transclusion on the WP:CFD main page (and if possible an 'add new section to /today/' link).

As a side point, would you consider having your bot create a link every day? (and ditto for CFD) I would think it useful since the 'today' page gets new nominations all the time, and the 'yesterday' page would be stable and votable.

Yours, R adiant_* 09:43, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

Is there a particular format of the new day pages? Just the date or what? Do you want the bot to close each day as well on CfD? I'll do something similiar, but you'll have to be more specific to your request. -- AllyUnion (talk) 10:02, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

And the /Log/Yesterday page... I'll get started on that. -- AllyUnion (talk) 10:03, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The /Log/Yesterday script has been written. You should see it update the next UTC day. -- AllyUnion (talk) 11:03, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wow that was quick ;) - the format can be very simply, see WP:CFD for an example, but basically it's just a level-1 header with the date. A hidden tag stating to add new nominations to the top would be nice (for some reason new votes are added to the top rather than the bottom on CfD; similarly the CfD main page has newer dates on top). It would be nice if the bot also closed each day when a new day starts. The process should mimic VfD's as much as possible, for consistency's sake. Radiant_* 10:07, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)
You caught me when I was editing. Any HTML comments? And do you have a cute name for the bot? (I prefer to run separate accounts for bots if they are active only in a specific area. That way, the contributions list is much cleaner for someone to look at what the bot is doing... rather than looking at a mess of tasks on one single bot.) -- AllyUnion (talk) 10:11, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Not sure what you mean with HTML comments. I could think of lots of cute names :), but for clarity's sake something like CfDaemon would be best, I guess. Separate accounts are a good idea.
 An HTML comment is something between . When placed on an HTML page, that text is hidden from view. -- AllyUnion (talk) 11:02, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 - Okay. Referring to WP:CFD and Wikipedia:Categories for deletion policies would be appropriate. R adiant_* 11:06, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)
 So each new day will have something like, ==Date==\n\n\n (\n = newline). When the day closes, it will add:  -- AllyUnion (talk) 11:13, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 - Sounds cool. By the way, how about adding, on both the daily VfD and CfD logs, a

link to the main WP:VFD or WP:CFD

- - There is one already underneath the title. If you want to make any changes, you can do so in the VFD Header template. -- AllyUnion (talk) 13:09, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

- By the way, something else occured to me... would it be possible (and desirable) to auto-change the Template:Vfd and Template:Cfd daily? VfD links to 'WP:VFD/pagename' but might also provide a link to 'WP:VFD/Log/Today' (maybe even opening that page in edit mode). CfD links to 'WP:CFD#pagename' but should link to 'WP:CFD/Log/-date-' (hm, this may be a tough one unless it's subst'ed). Hope that made sense. Radiant_* 10:50, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)
  As for auto-changing the templates... I suggest you draw consensus on that first, by placing it on the appropriate template's talk page(s), notify a few users, place it on the , and . -- AllyUnion (talk) 11:02, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  - Yes, of course, but my first question is if it would be possible. R adiant_* 11:06, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

- - - for the bot's name, how about DeleCate - the CfD bot (from Deleting Category debates)? Thryduulf 11:05, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      I have something far better creative in mind now. I will call it NekoDaemon. Neko is the Japanese word for "Cat". Daemon is the suggestion from Radiant!... -- AllyUnion (talk) 11:17, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      No good can come from cat-themed automatons. Ever. Trust me on this. --iMb~Meow 11:39, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      Gah. Where do you people crawl from? It's like you all keep on eye on my talk page... What, you're afraid of a distant Japanese cousin, IMeowbot? -- AllyUnion (talk) 11:49, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      Oh, you happened to leave a copy of the above on a talk page where some minor wikidrama is happening, so I figured I'd wander over and instill a bit of paranoia. --iMb~Meow 12:00, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

   /^\_(>o<)
  |         |
  | O  .  O |
   \_______/  --Niao!

A Very Special Message

I, FP, in my official capacity as nobody-in-particular, hereby bestow upon you, AllyUnion, the mighty and presigious Atlas Award with a WikiThanks Cluster for your dedicated and ongoing work to ensure that one of Wikipedia's most visible pages, the Sandbox, is sanitary, inoffensive, tidy and welcoming to new wikipedians. Well done! Huzzah!

"The Atlas Award For Raking the Sandbox Clean may be awarded to those who have gone above and beyond the call of duty in fishing disgusting and unwanted items from the Wikipedia sandbox. The Atlas award is named after Charles Atlas and is taken from his 'they kicked sand in my face' advertisement, and is in no way merely a masculine image. It is a symbol of self-empowerment. Charles Atlas was once a self-styled 98-pound weakling, and through his own diligence and effort, became a very succesful businessman and body builder. And his business empire began with the ad that this image is from."

Seriously, through your work with Sandbot you have practically made the Atlas Award redundant. This is a good thing. Thanks. -- FP 14:23, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks on Wikipedia:Introduction

Thanks again for the work on this - I have one small request - could you remove the {{Please leave this line alone (sandbox heading)}} and comment as I think having two sets of comments is confusing on this page. Have a good day - and I fully support the award above "Mr. Atlas" Trödel(direz) 15:49, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks again - I'll keep an eye on it - and hopefully will be able to be less vigilant as a result of your awesome bot. Trödel(direz) 21:51, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

FPC

I left a reply on your bot's FPC page. --brian0918 ™ 21:41, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Chicago Skyline

I added your pic. It looks like ed_g2s messed up. Did you see any others that were forgotten? --brian0918 ™ 22:51, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Another bot idea

This isn't exactly related to archiving, but it seems like it would be a simple, but useful thing to implement. I've found that several articles on people are located at the page with their middle initial, instead of the full name, but there is no redirect page for the full name. It would be nice to have all of these redirect pages created, making it a lot easier to find people's names for linking. The pseudocode might be:

Find all pages with a name in the format of [[* %. *]], where % would be any letter in the alphabet, and each * would be the first and last name, of any length. Remove from this list any pages that are redirects or disambigs (could determine disambiguation by seeing if it contains {{disambig}} and/or if it links to at least one other page with a name of the format [[* *]] or [[* $ *]], where the first and last * are the first and last names, and the $ is a word longer than 1 character that has the same first letter as the middle initial.
Go to each of the pages, and for each, save the first name and last name, and look in the article for the middle name (the word between the first and last name which begins with the same letter as %). Then you can make the url for the page where the redirect should be.
Check to see if the page exists, and if it doesn't, make it a redirect to the previous page.

I think this should be it. --brian0918 ™ 03:21, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

NekoDaemon

Thanks for creating this ~~cat~~ bot. Should it also do the /today redirect? There's one other thing... the bot should probably unlist the daily pages when they become too old. Or maybe just when they're empty. I've asked on the talk page what to do with it. R adiant_* 10:00, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

First off, the VFD Today page is automatic. The VFD Yesterday page isn't. If you want the "add section link," just go look at the wiki code on VFD and change Votes to Categories.

Will do.

Secondly, I will not have the bot unlist the daily pages until you decide what is going to happen with those pages. -- AllyUnion (talk) 07:08, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Of course. This is presently under discussion at the CfD talk page. We'll keep you posted when a good idea appears. R adiant_* 12:36, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

BJAODN: Springtime for Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense

Hi Ally- Fair enough, if that's the specific line you want to refer to. My memory keeps giving me a line (maybe it's in the second verse or something) that goes, "Springtime for Hitler and Germany, Winter for Poland and France..." That's where my proposal comes from... It seems silly to post mine as a separate proposal, given that yours and mine refer to the same song. When a change to an existing proposal is, er, proposed, how do we know which version subsequent voters are supporting? Should yours be the default because you posted first? I mean, mine wasn't a misquote, just a different quote from the same song. Personally, I like mine better, which makes sense, but you like yours better, which also makes sense. Are we supposed to put this to some kind of vote? Seems a bit overdone and kind of adversarial for BJAODN... What do you think, Ally? Other frequent BJAODNers? (By the way, I removed your comments from my talk page, as I am moving this discussion over to the Next Page Title talk page for others to comment on.) Shane Smith 20:13, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

quoting you:

Just to note, the reference is from the movie/play "The Producers" which the line goes, "Springtime for Hilter and Germany... Deutschland is happy and gay..." -- AllyUnion (talk) 07:31, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Bots?

Hi there. I know you have a lot of cool bots, so I wanted to ask you: What language do I have to know to write a bot? Python? I don't know python, but I can program in some other languages. Would that be enough? Thanks! -Frazzydee|✍ 21:42, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I found the answer to that, and I'm making an attempt at a bot. If you have some time, would you mind helping me with it? It's very simple: I want it to depopulate templates. -Frazzydee|✍ 22:09, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sorry to bug you again, but I actually found that there's already a bot to do what I want (template.py in the pywikipediabot framework package). For some reason, it's not running :S. It gives my an error when I try to run it. I'm probably doing something stupid and I don't know it ;).

I'd really appreciate it if you could leave me a note on my talk page (or by email) if you're willing to help me, or if you have some insight into what's wrong. Thank you very much. -Frazzydee|✍ 22:40, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Schools

Good idea. I'm presently discussing it with Kappa. R adiant_* 12:02, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

BJAODN conundrum

You seem not to be organizationally challenged, unlike me, so maybe you can help here. Someone who shall remain nameless wants to add some titles that fall under "television" but are references to a single show, quotes et al. Probably a small bunch of them. Or maybe a slightly bigger bunch. The person thinks the show might deserve its own category, but can't figure out how to add it without a) completely messing up the numbering system; b) linking it inappropriately to an existing number; c) putting it down at the very bottom under the page numbers, which seems odd. What do you think would be the most sensible way to handle this? I will convey your directions to the person. Thank you very much in advance. --Mothperson 16:31, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)