User talk:R'n'B/Archive 16

This is an archive of past discussions with User:R'n'B. 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.

	R'n'B (russ)
	i understand, but im just puttuing what is fair to end this editing thing thats going on. Ric5575 (talk) 20:49, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi there, just dropping by to let you know I reverted your redirect of that page (and its' redirect) to the way they were before. Apparently (judging from the talk page) there is no consensus to move the article elsewhere or merge it with the other article. //Halibutt 02:00, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

I hope I'm not asking a dumb question, but I'm actually asking so that I can understand things better. It seems that the RussBot creates a number of orphaned disambiguation pages "page x (disambiguation)" that then redirect to "page x." If "page x (disambiguation)" isn't linked to anywhere, how is this helpful? I noticed this on dragon's teeth. Isn't this a candidate for speedy delete under Template:Db-disambig as "an orphaned dab page and dabs no extant pages"? Engelhardt (talk) 21:15, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

just to be clear, RussBot didn't create "dragon's teeth (disambiguation)," which was created as the result of a move. But when I went through RussBot's recent contributions to try to understand what it does, it looked like it was, in fact, creating orphan dab pages. Engelhardt (talk) 21:21, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, it's not creating an "orphaned dab page"; at most, it's an orphaned redirect. But, yes, that is basically what it is doing. WP:INTDABLINK specifically calls for the creation of Page x (disambiguation) as a redirect to Page x to allow editors to distinguish easily between intentional and unintentional (i.e., almost always wrong) links to disambiguation pages. The bot was approved to carry out this task. Bear in mind that redirects are cheap, and our general policy is to allow redirects to remain even if they may appear unnecessary for the time being, as long as they are not harmful.

Also, {{db-disambig}} only applies to a disambiguation page that contains exactly zero (or in some cases one) blue links (links to other existing articles) in its text. Dragon's teeth contains well over 20 such links. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 21:35, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

That's fine, and I appreciate your point that redirects are cheap. But while dragon's teeth has over 20 links, "dragon's teeth (disambiguation)" has only one from a talk page. I guess I was thinking more about, e.g., "The_Last_Patrol_(disambiguation)," which is not linked to by anything and was created by the bot. But as you say, redirects are cheap -- I was just trying learn, so thanks for the response. Engelhardt (talk) 21:43, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Just to be clear, when I was talking about the links on Dragon's teeth, I was referring to the links that appear on the page, not the other articles that link to the page. Of course, Dragon's teeth (disambiguation) doesn't have any links on it, since it is a redirect, not a disambiguation page. {{Db-disambig}} is intended for disambiguation pages that do not have any links either to or on them, so it is not applicable to redirects under any circumstances. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 21:57, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Engelhardt (talk) 22:09, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Wait -- I'm confused again ;) So the hat note on The Dragon's Tooth should link to Dragon's teeth (disambiguation) and not dragon's teeth? I think I'm originally the one who put that hat note on there, when the actual disambiguation page was on Dragon's teeth (disambiguation), but it was afterwards moved to dragon's teeth. I also went through a number of "dragon's teeth" articles and added dab top notes, and when the dab page moved, I changed those hat notes. (There are three or four novels alone). I thought under the good faith for moving, it was required to change the incoming links, as well. Is that not required in this situation? (I only got involved on this trying to help and add clarity, and now I'm afraid I did neither.) Engelhardt (talk) 22:20, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I see you've been to dragon's teeth (fortification), as well. I'm sorry I created work for you. I didn't mean to create a mess ;/ Engelhardt (talk) 22:24, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the hat note on The Dragon's Tooth should link to Dragon's teeth (disambiguation) and not dragon's teeth. That is what WP:INTDABLINK is all about. Don't worry too much about it, it is an exception to the usual guidelines, so it's easy to get it mixed up (and it's also easy to fix). --R'n'B (call me Russ) 22:25, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I received the changes to the brand new page I created entitled Kréyol La Lwizyann to which I had Louisiana Creole French redirected. Not only was the content of Kréyol La Lwizyann different, and more in depth with different source material and therefore was not a copy-and-paste, but the page holds more academically sourced material, valuable for users of this website.

In the first instance, I did copy-and-paste Louisiana Creole French through the assistance of another user who changed the title with disambiguation. That was difficult because a page already existed at the target title.

I resolved the issue by launching a brand new page all together, Kréyol La Lwizyann, distinct from Kréyol La Lwizyann (Louisiana Creole), which offered an entirely different, and, at least as it pertains to actual language, history and research, more accurate to wikipedia users.

Louisiana Creole (without 'French') is the most desired title for the page on this language, so Kréyol La Lwizyann, title-wise, we can accept to do without.

The information in the present (original) article is largely unsourced, linguistically, and is demographically inaccurate.

Instead of constantly battling reversions to inaccurate material, we resolved by creating a brand new page with more accurate information.

How can we make this work?

Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Criollokid80 (talk • contribs) 17:47, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, my concern was with keeping the history intact, not with the content. In principle, if you can improve the content by wholesale rewriting and replacement, that is fine, as long as one can tell from the history what you changed and what you kept. I may have gotten confused because of the several different versions with very similar titles that were floating around after all your edits, and if I restored the wrong one, I'm sorry. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 18:24, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for doing the correction. I was just trying to take a really poor article and turn it in to a good one. Sometimes the articles are so far gone(not Wikified) that starting over is about the only option. Indyjrg1762 (talk) 03:16, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for reviewing the article. The product details have been re-written to make sure it aligns with Wikipedia rules and regulations. Also, irrelevant external links have been removed as well. Would you mind revisiting the article and reviewing the "This section may be written like an advertisement" banner over there. Appreciate your time. Thanks. GeekyPuppy (talk) 17:19, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Would you mind spending sometime reviewing the above changes? Appreciate your time. GeekyPuppy (talk) 15:04, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I have looked at the changes, and although the article is now a bit cleaner, the section still appears to me to resemble an advertisement. All it contains is a list of the features of this company's product, mostly unreferenced. The two items that do have citations refer to (1) a blog by a company employee, which obviously is not an independent source; and (2) a very brief snippet on a magazine's website which, as far as I can tell, is largely repeating what the company itself probably said in its press release. The only function I can discern in this section is to promote the availability of the features. Just my opinion, though. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 22:05, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your review. Yes, there are not much external references about the products. Do you think, adding external references will help fix the issue and will make it look less like an advertisement? Also, let us know how/what else can help us improve the page so as to comply with wiki rules and regulations. Appreciate your time. Thanks. GeekyPuppy (talk) 12:23, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

The page has been updated adding external 3rd party references for each of the product. Please have a look and reconsider casting your vote for "This section appears to be written like an advertisement" banner. Let us know what else needs to be added to help make the article better wiki compliant. Many thanks. GeekyPuppy (talk) 15:30, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi there. The wiki page has been updated and the product details have been removed and only the product names have been kept. Can you please review and help removing the "This section appears to be written like an advertisement" banner. Appreciate your time. Many thanks. GeekyPuppy (talk) 16:24, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Would you mind spending couple of minutes to review the aforementioned wiki page and recasting your vote. Thanks a ton. GeekyPuppy (talk) 09:31, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Really, I have no interest whatsoever in helping you promote your business more effectively. I don't have a "vote" and you don't need my approval of edits to that article. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 11:31, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. The wiki page has been put up with no intention of promoting the business, its for consumption by generic web users and it has been put up similar to the currently existing zillions of wiki pages.Thanks a lot. GeekyPuppy (talk) 16:30, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I had taken a swipe at disambiguating Imperial China, but I couldn't come up with a good strategy. When I saw that you had moved it to the "Done" section of Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links/January 2012 I wanted to see what your strategy had been. Your idea of changing the link to "History of China#Imperial Era" was a good one that I can learn from, but I found an error. In the History of China article the heading is "Imperial era" instead of "Imperial Era" with a small "e". That causes the link to go to the first part of the article instead of the "Imperial era" heading. I thought you'd want to know. Thank you. SchreiberBike (talk) 05:43, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the heads-up. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 12:04, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

		The Super Disambiguator's Barnstar
		The Super Disambiguator's Barnstar is awarded to the winners of the Disambiguation Pages With Links monthly challenge, who have gone above and beyond to remove ambiguous links. This award is presented to R'n'B, for successfully fixing 3057 links in the challenge of January, 2012. Rcsprinter (constabulary) 19:59, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I have started a discussion about making the Multiple issues template the new cleanup template here. Since you have edited this template several times in the past I thought you might have some insight into this idea. --Kumioko (talk) 20:33, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Please fix your bot, the disambig page for uses of "Huntsman" is Huntsman not Huntsman (disambiguation). Huntsman (disambiguation) redirects to Huntsman. It keeps changing this on the dablink for The Huntsman. --TheTruthiness (talk) 07:57, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with the bot. WP:INTDABLINK is very explicit -- when referring to a disambiguation page, we are supposed to link to the redirect, not directly to the disambig page. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 11:38, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Could you please temporarily reduce the protection on Kate Kane to semi-protection, so I may redirect it to Katherine Kane, repairing a double redirect.

• Looks like someone else already took care of this. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 15:32, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Dear R'n'B,

My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, where it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.

So a few things about the interviews:

• Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
• Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
• All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
• All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
• The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.

Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead.

If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.

Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) 07:26, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Young June Sah --Yjune.sah (talk) 04:21, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Agneepath (disambiguation). Since you had some involvement with the Agneepath (disambiguation) redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so).  pablo 22:26, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Poul Møller (disambiguation). Since you had some involvement with the Poul Møller (disambiguation) redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). PamD 09:05, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

This edit is removing a link to a redirect to the target page, which should stay per WP:NOTBROKEN. Based on your bot's edit summary, it apparently believes that singer is a DAB page; but it is not. TJRC (talk) 23:32, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Never mind; this was apparently during a four-hour window during which an "ill-considered change" redirecting Singer to Singer (disambiguation) had been active. TJRC (talk) 23:37, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Greetings, R'n'B. I see that RussBot is changing links in many articles from singer to singing, with an edit summary that says, "Fix links to disambiguation page Singer (disambiguation)". Here is one recent example. Looking at the revision history of singer, it's been changed several times recently. For a while it was a redirect to Singer (disambiguation), but now it's not again, it's a redirect to singing. But unless I'm getting confused about time stamps, it looks like the bot is continuing to change articles, even though it's not fixing a link to a disambiguation page any more. (If you reply here I will see what you say.) — Mudwater ^(Talk) 03:44, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Correct. On yesterday afternoon's report, Singer (disambiguation) appeared as having over 18,000 incoming links, so I started the bot changing links. A few hours later, the editor who had changed the Singer redirect reverted him/herself. There was such a huge number of links for the bot to process, however, that it continued running after this time. The bot is done now (although there are still 12,345 incoming links to Singer!), and as long as the redirect remains stable I see no reason to do anything else. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 10:42, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 12:25, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Hello Russ, can I make you a question? To make a redirect page into a disambiguation page, where is the right place to discuss it or requested it? Sorry for my bad english. -Ilhador- (talk) 00:39, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

You could ask for comments at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 00:46, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Thx -Ilhador- (talk) 01:35, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay, thanks! –pjoef (talk • contribs) 19:18, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi R'n'B,

May I ask your help with checking out if the recent actions of these wiki authors violate wikipedia rules by questioning peer reviewed papers provided they are written by Kish and coauthors?

Skippydo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kish_cypher#Articles_not_written_by_kish

Aram.harrow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kish_cypher#Proposal_to_restore_article_by_reverting_changes_of_Gsbsmith

May impression is that Skippydo is basically acting as a soft-vandal by a strongly subjective bias toward quantum informatics. Whenever there is a comparison where the "qauntum myth" is challenged he removes those texts. His other editions, not only the Kish cypher seem to have a similar pattern.

I am not an expert of wikipedia and I have only limited time/expertise to deal with these issues however, it is my impression that questioning peer reviewd papers on the base that who is its author is far beyond teh legal position of wiki.

Thanks, Repep (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:37, 3 March 2012 (UTC).

I know nothing about this topic and don't feel capable of intervening in a content dispute. I suggest you try posting on the noticeboard of a relevant WikiProject, or seek a third opinion. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 15:40, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I have been currently working on JS's discography. I could not have found anything relevant that would confirm that there is such release as (EP) Impossible is Nothing by Jimmy Somerville. So I wonder where comes from the information you have recently provided, such as this EP was released in October 2010? Thanks. Hornik (talk) 15:30, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

You've got me. I did not add this information to the disambiguation page; I just removed a lot of useless verbiage around it, as you can see if you compare the earlier versions in the page history. If the existence of the EP cannot be documented, then this entry ought to be removed from the dab page entirely. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 15:38, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I though of this. Thank you for having your say anyway, I will remove this title from his template. Hornik (talk) 15:52, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking of applying some of the hard-won experience from :en over to :simple; porting the MOSDAB, renaming Disambiguation to something simpler, applying MOSDAB to the dab pages, using the dispenser tools, etc. Would you be interested in popping your head in from time to time to keep an eye on things? Josh Parris 07:19, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

OK. I'll be interested to see how you explain "disambiguation" in Simple English. :-) You should ask JaGa if his tools can be applied to another wiki, too. R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:29, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

After 17 hours continuous translation (hospitals are really boring), there's a really rough draft at simple:User:Josh Parris/MOSDAB. Notes on talk page. Josh Parris 08:19, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Here is a link to the vandalism; I have restored the truthful facts.[1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 19maxx (talk • contribs) 00:14, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

That's a highly misleading diff. The bot's actual edit was [2]. But it's nice of you to get in touch with me. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 00:45, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article CAMRA (disambiguation) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CAMRA (disambiguation) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. PamD 07:49, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Is Commons RussBot down ? We are missing it. --Foroa (talk) 08:09, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, "technical difficulties."  :-) It's running now. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 12:13, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

are you sure it is really a great idea for you to be using your admin rights to protect an article that you have reverted yourself? Please remove the protection and have some faith in the ability of editors to resolve disputes on the talk page. Thanks Sennen Goroshi ! (talk) 14:49, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Russ -

In May of 2009, you and another Editor (Kevin) took some very appropriate measures to stop some vandalism that was occurring on my personal Wikipedia Bio Page "James A. Owen", for which I am thankful and grateful. Unfortunately for me, I only discovered that the libelous material had been posted at all just a few weeks ago in February of 2012, when a young reader of mine wrote to ask if the content about me on Wikipedia was true. My webmasters and I looked, and while most of the egregiously false material had been excised - though still viewable in the history - new edits, by one of the same posters you blocked, had been made in late December of 2011.

You had also speculated on the Biography Noticeboard that the original poster (IP: address 76.113.56.175), who first blanked my page and then began adding a great deal of libelous information was also using a second registered identity (Evilminion666), based on the nature of the edits and additions. Kevin agreed with you, and put a temporary block on the site - again, something I very much appreciate. However, I think the vandal figured out how to do an end run around the block, by posting nearly everything that had been posted - and removed - and more under the 'Talk' tab at the entry.

The primary post there is signed by another username (Nofreeride) whose sole activity on Wikipedia is that post and subsequent edits, which were made the day after Kevin blocked edits on the main entry. Moreover, if you look at the "Talk' history, you can see the post was initiated by Evilminion666 on May 21, edited massively four times, then, three minutes after the last revision, Nofreeride steps in to do thirteen consecutive revisions.

This follows the same pattern 76.113.56.175 and Evilminion666 set in the main entry, with one posting and the second revising. Word choices, phrasing, and mistakes in common also contribute to my belief that all three are the same person. And then on June 2, 76.113.56.175 sent a note to Kevin asking for the protection to be removed.

I did a search on the IP address, and came up with a location that told me pretty definitively whom it belonged to. It's someone who was a former relative, who was going through a nasty divorce with my sister, who at one time was prosecuted (but not convicted) of breaking & entering & vandalizing my physical office. For a period of time, every member of my family had protective orders against this person - and the last real contact I had with him were harassing emails he sent using my sister's hacked address, which were sent on April 30, 2009. Two weeks later, the 'revisions' to my Wikipedia entry began.

Another marker of evidence is the original slew of vicious posts: citing personal details that would only be known to a family member or close friend - things about my childhood and family and religion, and even baseless libel about my father having molested me. All attacks that were very, very personal in nature. Those tapered off or were edited as he received warnings, and he chose to focus on my perceived business acumen (or lack thereof), which is where my main concern with these edits sits. Enough details are accurate to make the things which are utter lies plausible. And that is difficult to counter without a running battle of arguing point by point.

If nothing else, there is enough there that is ACTUAL libel, or at the very least, demonstrable of a specific agenda of discrediting me, that this person should be permanently blocked from posting or editing ANYTHING that can be viewed by the public.

Just to cite a few examples: in the 'Talk' entry, he purports to be a lawyer - but he's actually a disgraced former cop. So he knows the language. But in both the main entry and on the Talk page, he repeatedly gets details wrong - specifically details a lawyer would not have missed. For example, he had a notation next to the name change for my company (from Taliesin to Coppervale) that leads to the court database from Washington, and he states it was because of a lawsuit for fraud that I changed the name. The thing is, I changed the name a year and a half before I ever set foot in Washington. And even those links that he presses so hard for (some of which are correct), simply show his agenda is only to cause grief and damage: such as the court information that I had missed paying taxes. If you look up that actual case - which he apparently didn't - it states the last court action as being "Satisfaction of Judgment". Meaning I paid it off - in 2000. Nine years before he started spewing this stuff. Several of the other things he tried so hard to cite have also been paid off, and had been at the time this was written.

Even that is more than I intended to explain. Some of the changes were certainly viciously personal (changing things like "best selling" to "poorly conceived". And in more than one assertion on both pages, he states (at times outright) that my film deal on HERE, THERE BE DRAGONS with Warner Brothers was an outright fraud. ONE INTERNET SEARCH with the words "Here There Be Dragons Warner Brothers" would show that he has no idea what he's talking about. It was on the front page of the Hollywood Reporter. David Heyman, the HARRY POTTER producer, and David Goyer, the writer of BATMAN BEGINS, were producing it. It's all over the net. And my current producing team made LORD OF THE RINGS - and THAT got press too when it happened. He states the book series had "little success", when in fact HTBD is in its SIXTH hardcover printing, its EIGHTH paperback printing, has sold well over 100,000 copies in the US alone, and is being published in twenty languages in more than two dozen countries.

Like I said, it would be a running battle of changes. I have made NO changes myself, but other people are monitoring the main entry. BUT - the libelous stuff is still to be found in the history; and it's all right there on the 'Talk' page, one tab, one click away.

I don't know much about the procedures and policies of Wikipedia. But this material is hurtful, libelous, inaccurate, and driven by an agenda of harm, and it should be removed completely.

Thank you in advance for whatever assistance you can render -

James A. Owen 184.10.122.215 (talk) 04:22, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

James, sorry you have had to endure this. I have reverted the dubious material on the talk page; it will take me a bit longer to review the histories and determine what to do about revision deletion. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 11:51, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Russ - thank you for all the alterations. I appreciate your speed and efficiency, especially with the entry history. I did want to ask you to look at one other section. As I was scanning over the history, I noted the three edits made by IP address 174.28.74.216. [3] This is the initial edit; as you can see, the specific changes are in line with the other content you decided to remove, in the exact areas that I took issue with on the other entries. More, I did an ISP search and it came up as being twelve miles away from the first ISP that started all this. I'll let you take a look at the entry and the ISP's, and use your best judgment whether those edits should also be deleted. Thanks - James 184.10.122.215 (talk) 18:56, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

James - I didn't actually delete the revisions; under Wikipedia policy, this has to be referred to an "oversighter." I suggest you submit a WP:Request for oversight containing the same information you put in the message preceding. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:00, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Got it. So the greyed-out entries with a line through them are just temporarily hidden? Or are they permanently blocked, but not deleted? Also, re the last note - editor PONYO made changes right after that last ISP, so someone else has been paying attention (and the changes were put back last December by Evilminion666, so I think that's just further evidence of what's been going on.) I'll submit the request - I appreciate all your help! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.10.122.215 (talk) 19:19, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

The greyed-out entries are deleted; they just weren't deleted by me. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:20, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I think I understand now! (And thanks for being patient with me). Oversight deleted the entries in the history already; so I assume you were suggesting I contact them regarding the last instance I found with the other ISP. Regardless, I appreciate your efforts, very much. James184.10.122.215 (talk) 19:46, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Russ. My webmaster just let me know that in Safari, all that stuff that was deleted still shows up on the talk page, and it doesn't reflect the reversion - even though the reversions are noted in the history (and remain deleted). Can you take a look? Thanks - James174.235.194.58 (talk) 22:10, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but I know nothing about Safari. Generically, it sounds like it could simply be that your webmaster needs to refresh his/her browser's cache. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 01:31, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

It just came up via Firefox too, both on my computer and via my phone. Could you take a look to see if it comes up for you at all? James184.10.228.79 (talk) 01:49, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm James' webmaster and I did some tests to see if this was a cache issue and get the following results as noted. I uninstalled Safari (using MacKeeper to remove all files) and did a clean install from a new download ... and I see the old version of the Talk page. I installed Chrome for the first time on my computer and saw the old Talk page. I asked someone who, as far as I know, has never brought up that page to view on his computer and he saw the old Talk page. If I click the Edit link on the Talk page, the updated/correct version shows in the editable window. If I click the Preview, then Cancel, on the Talk page, I see the updated/correct version even after I close the browser and open it again (in this case, Chrome). If I then clear the cache in Chrome, I see the old Talk page. Heidi2524 (talk) 03:24, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

No, it does not come up for me at all. This is a technical issue that I have neither the expertise nor the ability to address. Sorry. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 11:27, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi!

You've signed the Logitech VX Nano page as confusing one. [...] Kacperperschke (talk) 16:54, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

No, actually, I didn't. User:Gurt Posh did that in this edit. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 17:20, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I tried to ask Gurt on the subject talk page and haven't got any answer from him. What about removing 'confusing' category? Kacperperschke (talk) 18:42, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

I have noticed that there are a great many "John Foo" disambiguation pages which have a see also section listing "Foo (surname)", where "Foo (surname)" is a redirect to "Foo (disambiguation)". I have been manually changing these to [[Foo (disambiguation)|Foo (surname)]], but there are hundreds of them, and it seems a bot would have an easier time of it. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:44, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that every link of the form [[Foo (surname)]] should be changed to [[Foo (disambiguation)|Foo (surname)]] in cases where such a redirect exists? --R'n'B (call me Russ) 17:49, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I am suggesting exactly that. There are probably some cases where the existing disambiguation page could be converted into just a surname page, or where the surname could be broken out as a separate article, but there seem to be an awful lot of these kinds of links where those solutions are inapplicable. Perhaps the first thing to do would be to generate a list of pages containing a link to such "Foo (surname)" redirects, to see what the scope of the problem is. An alternative solution might be to adjust our link counting mechanisms so that they don't register a "Foo (surname)" redirect to a disambiguation page as an error at all. bd2412 T 18:19, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I was wondering if you'd given this any additional thought. Also, on a completely different note, I have lately come across several instances where "Foo" is a disambiguation page, and "Foo (disambiguation)" is a separate disambiguation page (not a redirect), usually with identical or largely overlapping content. Could you whip up a list of circumstances where that is the case? Those are usually pretty immediate merge candidates. Cheers! bd2412 T 04:26, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I've been a bit busy in RL lately. It should be pretty simple to generate reports on both of these when I have some time to deal with it. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 11:51, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

• OK, I'm designing this report, but when I ran some test database queries, I found: (a) only 127 redirects of the form "Foo (surname)" -> "Foo (disambiguation)"; and (b) only 47 incoming links to redirects in this form. It doesn't sound like much of an issue. I'll run the report shortly. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 17:39, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
  • I am surprised by that, but if the numbers are that low, I can do the job by hand. Thanks, and I'll look forward to your report! bd2412 T 17:46, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Done. User:RussBot/Surname redirects. It would be pretty trivial to have the bot fix all these links instead of just report them. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 17:47, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I just went ahead and fixed 'em. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 20:16, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

• I've also run your second report: User:RussBot/Duplicate disambigs/001 and User:RussBot/Duplicate disambigs/002, which is a more substantial problem. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 18:25, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Many thanks, I will get to knocking out those duplicate dab pages. Cheers! bd2412 T 21:30, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

• I am still finding links through these "Foo (surname)" redirects - I just fixed one here. I just realized that many of these are redirects to a "Foo" disambig page, rather than a "Foo (disambiguation)" title. Cheers! bd2412 T 01:39, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Ah, that makes sense. New reports now at User:RussBot/Surname redirects/001 and /002. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 18:29, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
    • I suppose not all of those will require the same solution - but can you isolate the instances occurring on disambiguation pages and knock those out by bot? bd2412 T 19:34, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
      • I think so. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:36, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Here is another recurring problem I have come across: pages having a {{redirect|Foo}} hatnote, when in fact "Foo" is not a redirect to that page, but is a separate disambiguation page. This also shows up as a disambig link needing to be fixed. I would imagine it would be pretty easy to find and eradicate these. I suppose we might more generally find all cases where the {{redirect|Foo}} hatnote is incorrect, even where "Foo" is not a disambig page. Cheers! bd2412 T 16:36, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• Going on Wikibreak. :-) May deal with this later. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:38, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Still on that break? ;) The surname redirects are all done, and the duplicate dab pages are about 2/3 knocked out, so I am chomping at the bit to take on those incorrect redirect tags. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:46, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
    • Go wild at User:RussBot/Invalid redirect hatnotes/001 and 16 following pages! --R'n'B (call me Russ) 21:05, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
      • Wild, I will go. Thanks! bd2412 T 02:05, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
      • Okay, right away I see a common and bot-fixable error, where there is a redirect tag saying that "Foo" is a redirect to the page, "Foo" (obviously "Foo" is no such redirect, because it is that very page). A typical example is at Albanopolis, Armenia. A tag on page "Foo" structured as {{redirect|Foo|other use bar|Foo bar}} should almost certainly be changed to {{for|other use bar|Foo bar}}. There are probably a few hundred of those among the lists. If pages having this particular issue could be parsed out, I could do it with AWB fairly quickly. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:05, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
        • Good job. That brings it down to a much more manageable set. Cheers! bd2412 T 20:26, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
          • Down from the initial 17 pages to 5. :-D bd2412 T 21:01, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Any idea what to do about Amateur Poker? The page contains a self-referential redirect template mentioning a few other articles, and nothing else. Disambiguate? bd2412 T 00:56, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Russ! Need your help. This was not a link to a disambig page. Why does the bot keep fixing it? Also, aren't bots supposed to desist with an edit when it is continuously reverted? Not a big deal, but could be a part of a bigger problem. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); April 3, 2012; 11:56 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know about this! Orlando used to be a disambiguation page; I got a request a couple of years ago for the bot to fix incoming links because they were so frequent. However, it looks like it was redirected a long time ago, without my noticing it. You are the first person in all that time to let me know about that change! The bot will no longer bother these links. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 12:48, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

P.S. I note, however, that linking city and state separately is still questionable per WP:OVERLINK. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 12:50, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this! I only noticed it by chance, since linkclassifier paints redirects green, but the bot's edit summary said "disambiguation page". As for possible overlinking, I'm just following the formatting which is prevalent in the twin/sister cities sections (which, I agree, may be questionable). However, beyond making sure the links lead to proper targets, I otherwise have little interest in those sections. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); April 3, 2012; 13:17 (UTC)

Seeing the massive amount of disam pages added to the list (on the Daily Disam page) since the last toolserver update makes me realize that we do indeed do good work around here. :) 2,077 pages joined the list in the 2 weeks. That's all? :-) Yeesh. --User:Woohookitty ^{Disamming fool!} 07:16, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, but even more pages left the list; obviously, the project didn't stop working just because the Toolserver reports were broken. I've sometimes wondered what the "natural rate" of disambiguation page linking is; i.e., what would happen if the entire project called in sick one day? --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:23, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

See WT:DPL#Appeal: help me fix links to montane forest. Thanks a bunch! —hike395 (talk) 04:36, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

	The Original Barnstar
	Thank you so much for running Russbot! Cleaning up the 5000+ incorrect links to "moist montanes" is a big help to Wikipedia. I really appreciate that I didn't have to do these edits with AWB. —hike395 (talk) 12:22, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

... for cleaning up the errors I made. I created {{R from alternative scientific name}} after a discussion at WT:TOL#Synonym redirects identified the need to be clear about redirects from one scientific name to another rather than, say, from a scientific name to a common name or vice versa. So there's really no excuse for me to get the name of the template wrong! Peter coxhead (talk) 21:20, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Marine Mammal Protection Act (disambiguation). Since you had some involvement with the Marine Mammal Protection Act (disambiguation) redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 22:37, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Is it just me or is intangibles one of the ugliest disam pages? YIKES. :) --User:Woohookitty ^{Disamming fool!} 09:25, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

No, it's not just you.  :-) R'n'B (call me Russ) 10:24, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

for restoring reference on Napoleon article and for all your work over the years. I've tried to get academics to review the article but no luck yet, i should leave a note on talk page Tom B (talk) 12:08, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer. I didn't even realize there was already a guideline in place for that sort of situation! Bearcat (talk) 21:26, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

		The Super Disambiguator's Barnstar
		The Super Disambiguator's Barnstar is awarded to the winners of the Disambiguation Pages With Links monthly challenge, who have gone above and beyond to remove ambiguous links. This award is presented to R'n'B, for successfully fixing 2831 links in the challenge of April, 2012. Rcsprinter (gas) 15:23, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Hello R'n'B. Recently I moved Herbert Simon's article to Herbert A. Simon. While checking the redirects I came across Herbert Simon (disambiguation), which was simply a link to Simon's page. It was no longer an actual DAB. That page was included in User:RussBot/Non-disambiguation redirects/003. It is presumably fine to just G6 the redundant Herbert Simon (disambiguation)? (Already done). Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 14:58, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

That's what I would have done. Coincidentally, in fact, this was the very top page on my own to-do list. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 15:01, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi Russ. Seems like you are active right now, so a quick question: can you disambiguate the link [Greek legislative election, 2012] to Greek legislative election, May 2012 in there? (only admins can edit that page) Thanks, LittleWink (talk) 19:08, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

 Done R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:46, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. LittleWink (talk) 19:49, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Could you re-hide the button at least until the RFC is complete? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Common.css&diff=prev&oldid=493225508

Showing it makes it look like it does nothing (See comments on T38956).

I'm not inclined to do that, but you can see if other admins disagree with me. My reasoning for reverting the "c" was that it didn't just change the default, but it also overrode any individualized setting that a particular user might have chosen to create in their personal CSS page. Hiding the button would have the same negative impact on those users who had chosen to personalize their watchlist display, so I'd prefer to leave it alone until the RFC is complete. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:47, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the Luftwaffe article: the problem is not to move the article, the problem is that there are 3 Luftwaffen and the article presents two, which are actually separate entities as being one and the same thing. So what is needed is to

1. move the content about the current Luftwaffe (1956-today) to German Air Force
2. delete the material about the 1935-1946 Luftwaffe as it is a duplicate of material at History of the Luftwaffe (1933–1945)
3. rename History of the Luftwaffe (1933–1945) to Luftwaffe (Wehrmacht)
4. put a disambiguation page to the article Luftwaffe

or in case that Luftwaffe gets the most hits

1. move the History of the Luftwaffe (1933–1945) article to Luftwaffe
2. move the current Luftwaffe (1956-today) content to German Air Force
3. put a link to Luftwaffe (disambiguation) page on top of the Luftwaffe article

any of the above is fine with me, but as it is now - it is factually, historically and officially wrong! noclador (talk) 11:16, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I see that you have previously expressed the same opinion at Talk:History of the Luftwaffe (1933–1945), but that discussion hasn't closed and, frankly, it doesn't appear at this point that consensus is developing around your views. Whether you like it or not (not being sarcastic, sometimes I don't like it either), Wikipedia is governed by consensus, not by one editor determining what is "right" and "wrong". --R'n'B (call me Russ) 11:31, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I know,... the thing is there is almost no discussion ongoing, which seems odd! After all these articles are some of the most read on wikipedia. What surprises me though is that only at Luftwaffe the Wehrmacht and Bundeswehr are grouped into one article - all the other (Navy, Army) are always in separate articles... so factually, historically, officially and for consistency Luftwaffe should be separated too. noclador (talk) 12:32, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Greetings. Please review my comment on the talk page of Common.css here which allows you to enable that button selectively. It makes no sense to hide only part of this feature via CSS - either hide all of it, making all of it opt-in, or hide none of it, making it opt-out. Please copy the code in my diff above to your personal css and then revert your revert. ST47 (talk) 01:34, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Evidently you did not understand my point. I know the current default does not make sense, but it is what it is. I also know that I could edit my personal CSS page to make the button visible for me. Neither of those facts justify having frequent, multiple, inconsistent changes in the default interface take place while an RFC discussing that interface is in progress. Changes in the default are disruptive. When the RFC is finished, the new default will be set to whatever it is, and everyone will have to adapt to it. But it is absolutely ridiculous to expect every user to edit their own personal CSS page every few days because someone has decided that a green star, or a "C", or bold, or underlining, or a button, or no button, is a better interim default than what we have now. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 10:24, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

That would be a valid rationale if it weren't irrelevant to >99.9% of watchlist users (most of whom don't even know how to modify their CSS). Reverting to an interface that you acknowledge "does not make sense" is a disservice to them. Wikipedia is not about us. —David Levy 00:23, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi R'n'B - I'm really sorry but I've just completed a 3-hr re-edit of Peter Scott-Morgan and when I came to save there was an edit conflict. I couldn't see what you'd done and I panicked! I ended up saving the version I'd just finished but I'm afraid that's lost what you did. I really do apologize. Could you let me know what you did and I'll put it in on top of my heavy edit? Once again, so sorryLisaNotsimpson (talk) 14:19, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

No harm done; I've cleaned it up. If you wanted to see what my first edit was, however, you could click on the "View history" tab of the article, then on the "prev" link next to my edit. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 14:35, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi Russ! While you were kindly cleaning it up I'd realized that I could "View history" and (without the pressure of worrying about losing all my morning's work) calmly see what you'd done. I found your change to 'Independent' and (thinking I was saving you any more wasted time) put in same disambiguation that you originally had! I don't think I did anything other than a redundant action, but I will now stay completely out of your way!! This is the problem of letting newbies like me loose on Wikipedia! Thanks for taking the time to improve my first attempt at a BLP. And have a wonderful weekend in due course...LisaNotsimpson (talk) 14:49, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

That's an interesting point. I agree that not every list article is a valid disambiguation list. (Many don't belong in the encyclopedia at all, but that's a different rant.) Call signs vs frequencies, though...

I think we have to consider common usage and reader expectations. In my experience (predominantly US), call letters and frequencies are used as synonyms more often than not. The call letters are used in formal speech and writing but the frequency is used in casual conversation. This does create ambiguity when talking with people outside your immediate listening area (proving that call signs are better) but most casual use remains local. The frequency-based list pages do an effective job of sorting out that ambiguity - they allow readers to easily translate from their local frequency to the official call letters. It's not a page that I would have ever thought to create but now that I see them in action, well, the wiki concept continues to impress me.

To the extent that call letters and frequencies are used as synonyms, I do believe that makes the list of stations by frequency different from a list of stations in a particular geography. They are a list-based aid to navigation for people who know an ambiguous synonym for what they really want to read. To me, that seems to make them the functional equivalent of a disambiguation page, doesn't it? Rossami (talk) 01:23, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

If they list things of the same type, that makes them SIA pages. bd2412 T 16:34, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

The distinction between a Set Index Article and a disambiguation page is far too technical for our editors. I've been here since 2003 and I still struggle with that concept. In some situations, it makes sense but in others, it's a distinction without a difference. This appears to me to be one of the latter.
R'n'B, apologies if we shouldn't be holding this discussion here. I don't want to clog up your Talk page without your permission. Would you like this question moved somewhere else? And if so, do you have a suggestion where? Rossami (talk) 20:18, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

It's not a big problem, but if it's going to be a continuing issue, it should probably be discussed at Template talk:Call sign disambiguation and/or Talk:1600 AM, which is the page that started the discussion, so that others can participate.

Not to get overly technical on you, Rossami, but if these were disambiguation pages, one would expect each of the articles about individual stations to indicate that the station is referred to as "1600 AM", not just that it broadcasts on that frequency. I doubt that is often the case (though I happily concede that there may be some exceptions), or that many stations are referred to in reliable sources in this fashion. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 20:22, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Could you look at this please? Believe it or not, this is the first disam page I've created from scratch. :) I don't think I have anything in here that doesn't fit (they all related to the general public in some way) but you are the expert on that. :) --User:Woohookitty ^{Disamming fool!} 07:50, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

And I've cleared many of the incorrect links now but of the 1500 links when I first tackled this, almost half should've gone to state or public school/university. Ergo the disam page. --User:Woohookitty ^{Disamming fool!} 08:06, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I've done some cleanup (remember, one blue link per line), but it seems to me that there are some partial title match issues on this page. In my experience, no one ever refers to a public university or a public school as "a public" without the noun. If there were a lot of incorrect links, they were just incorrect links, not evidence of ambiguity. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 09:04, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Party pooper! :) --User:Woohookitty ^{Disamming fool!} 11:56, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh, well, that's not the worst thing I've been called on Wikipedia, this week.... :-) R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:21, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I bet. :) I'll keep it as is for a few more days so I can fix as many links as I can and then I'll reevaluate it. --User:Woohookitty ^{Disamming fool!} 10:13, 14 June 2012 (UTC)