User talk:Tim Starling/Archive 6

Cecropia[edit]

Hi, just thought I'd ask you a favor. User:Cecropia was nominated for adminship and has attained 80% approval, holding steady for the last few days. I feel kind of bad, because his vote has been up for several days now. Yours, Meelar 23:12, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I am not a sock puppet. Please dont do this. People start accussing me of sockpuppetry. es ist nicht angemessen! I never had another user name here. I am sexy 02:23, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

ru a sysop? why u say i'm sockpuppet? I am sexy 02:26, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

please fix ur mistake. i am a distinct user from "I am Hot!" I am sexy 02:35, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm a developer and the logs say that the edits to User talk:I am sexy at 00:46, 00:48, 00:50 and 00:57 were all made by the same IP address. -- Tim Starling 02:53, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

Tim I know who you are please check to logs again. I am quite miffed that people think I am the same person as her. I am certainly different. We were having quite a chat going on.You are mistaken. I am Hot! 02:55, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps you were just both using the same ISP with the same proxy server at the same time with the same kind of browser. -- Tim Starling 02:59, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

I doubt it. I'm using freeserve. She says she is in Germany. I don't think freeserve operates there. My IP is the one at 46 - I wasn't logged in. I also edited at 48 and 57 but she replied at 50. As for the browser I'm using IE. Whatever this girl has done, she didn't create a sockpuppet. I on the other hand did. I am Hot! 03:03, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I am User:I am sexy using SSL proxy. I sent you email, please read it and tell me sorry and recognize your mistake. I never had sock puppets. read our written expression, we use different language. I couldn't be User:I am Hot! - she's another girl, perhaps User:Secretlondon or User:Lir or someone I never knew. I'll not post again until my ban expires, but I feel insulted by your accussations. You say you're developer, so you must be programmer. I use Firefox and Mozilla, never IE as she does. You must have some way to check this, please don't accuse me of sockpuppetry without real proof. Please tell me sorry and post a sorry notice on village pump or quickpolls. es ist nicht angemessen, schande, schmach! it's humiliation to say I use sock puppet. please fix your mistake. Respekt, 141.76.1.121 04:06, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I misread the logs. See my comment on Wikipedia:Quickpolls. -- Tim Starling 04:40, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

Devilish Mind Control[edit]

"Please note: clicking the [rev] links below is an offence punishable by Devilish wrath." made me click 'rev' instead of the version to view version history... o-: <goes to pray> +sj + 16:09, 2004 Apr 8 (UTC)

problems on Dutch irc channel for Recent Changes[edit]

Hey Tim,

We found ou that on irc://irc.freenode.net/nlrc.wikipedia some changes are missing. Par example http://nl.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Provincie_Groningen&oldid=255246 didn't pass by and also http://nl.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Elvis_Presley&oldid=255273 Maybe you can help. Thanks Roepers 19:17, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This is a known bug. -- Tim Starling 09:37, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

Chikchis: page lost[edit]

Since you are a developer, please help to restore the content of Chukchis page that disappeared during the move to Chukchis (people).

I strongly suspect the this happened because of the software bug: I think the leading space in the new name was not trimmed (I guess so because of the leading underscore in the redirect in Chukchis page). Mikkalai 19:47, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Done -- Tim Starling 05:17, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

(spam) I see today you blocked user:Jimbo-Wales. Could you review the recent changes to wikipedia:blocking policy#usernames, which would formally support such blocks, to see if they are to your taste? Thanks. Martin 03:34, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Pipe links in template parameters[edit]

Named parametrization is super cool! I also like the idea of using templates as variables, as it will make insertion of defaults easy. One issue I noticed is that piped links in parameters do not seem to be possible as they are interpreted as parameter separators. Would it be possible to parse |s inside double square brackets, perhaps by filtering them through a regex first?--Eloquence * 10:23, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

Hi Tim; apparently Michael has created "Hephaestos" accounts on es: and it: as well. Would it be in my best interest to create my own account on every single language, or is there an easier way? - Hephaestos|§ 01:44, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

OK, I've renamed the accounts on es and it and created an account for you on 145 wikis. Don't forget to customize your preferences! -- Tim Starling 00:36, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

--- Tim, I just created a new user account for myself on http://test.wikipedia.org per your request. Why did you want me to do that? Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help. --karlwick 18:02, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC) (Karl Wick of Wikibooks)

Because you need to have an account on test to get steward access. -- Tim Starling 00:22, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

Hi, two problems that I'll probably forget to ask you on IRC, so I'm writing them here instead. Neither I nor Anthere are able to delete simple:block. We just get a blank page. Secondly, stewards are unable to make sysops using user IDs. #4@fa for example gives the error User rights for "#4@fa" could not be set. (Did you enter the name correctly?). Thanks. :) Angela . 18:10, Apr 14, 2004 (UTC)

Done and fixed. -- Tim Starling 00:22, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

Hello Tim

Martin and I have been discussion at Wikipedia:Username and Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Everyone_using_a_username_which_is_against_policy what to do about problematic user names. A major concern Martin and I share is the need to do something about the presence of some of these names in edit summaries. Also, a user block seems inappropriate -- a password change may be better for reasons discussed on those pages. Implementing either solution at a minimum would call for some SQL. Since you created the "everyone using a username..." page, and since you may well end up being the one doing some of the work, perhaps you could weigh in with your opinion.

Thanks

UninvitedCompany 15:51, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Apology[edit]

I'm sorry if I messed up all the context at Wikipedia:Newcomers' help desk. I was just trying to avoid scaring off the noobs with your clever sarcasm. :) moink 04:01, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I usually have no problems with wry comments. It's just that I don't like newbies to be the target when they first show up. Feel free to pick on me as much as you like :). I'm sorry if I offended you. moink 04:04, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hmm, we seem to have simultaneously commented on each others' talk pages. Don't worry, I'm not offended, and your apology is accepted. Consider everything I wrote to have an implicit smiley. -- Tim Starling 04:07, Apr 16, 2004 (UTC)

All's well. moink 04:14, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Reddi problems[edit]

Help, Reddi is causing trouble again! See Luminiferous aether and Trouton-Noble experiment (be sure to check the history, since he keeps reverting). —Steven G. Johnson 20:29, Apr 16, 2004 (UTC)

Diffs[edit]

Thank you for putting the code on test :)

I found two places where the diff seemed broken, but after playing in the sandbox, I don't see why. One of them had the edit summary

and showed hieroglyphics overlapping the user name in the diff, but this was on the Wikihiero page [1], and it didn't happen in the sandbox, so I guess that is an unrelated problem. I also found one diff that wouldn't load at all [2] but when I used the same edit summary ({{subst:test}}, {{msg:test}}, {{test}}) again, it didn't cause a problem, so hopefully these two things are not related to my changes.

Thanks for your help with it. It's great to see it working so soon. Angela . 08:14, Apr 17, 2004 (UTC)

Image issue[edit]

Tim, I hate to bother you with this, but I've got something here that's left me scratching my head in confusion. I was compiling pictures of wikipedia users, and when I put them in a thumbnailed form, one of them broke. Here it is, with different levels of markup:

The first two seem to render fine, but the last one (with the thumbnail switch) causes it to die. What's going on? →Raul654 05:34, Apr 20, 2004 (UTC)

A really boring request[edit]

Please transfer the edits for this IP at sep11 to the sep11 account which confirms it made this request [3]. Thanks!

Message[edit]

First off, no request or quid pro quo was ever offered or expressed. It is wrong and there has been no evidence to substantiate it. Eitherway, I suggest you just stop feeding the troll (Wik) and let him have his opinon rather than having a pointless protracted argument. No one here knows the truth regardless and probably never will. GrazingshipIV 21:38, Apr 25, 2004 (UTC)

Blocking[edit]

I have no way to tell if somebody is an AOL proxy or not. I block based on whether the person deserves to be blocked.
You really need to tell me what number you're talking about. If it's the last block I did, the person came on my Talk page and made threats against me. How are we supposed to handle that? RickK 00:20, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Script request[edit]

Hi, Just wondering if it would be a bigie to add the What links here automatically (or perhaps with a user option) to the end of a pages in a one, two, three format. Reasonning: Since "Search" is deactivated. It's hard to know where other pages that could linkup are or what they are called. would greatly improove the editing of connectivity among pages and out-browsing or back-browsing of topics..

Also I need your help on a new project Quickwik

Problems blocking[edit]

I've been told to come to you by RickK. Twice in the last couple of weeks I've tried blocking someone for vandalism and the block hasn't worked: it's appeared in the block log but not in the list of blocked ips. The latest attempt was this evening on User:192.195.64.72: if you compare their edits to my entry in the block log they carried on regardless of what I tried to do... Do you happen to have any idea of what's happening here? -- Graham :) | Talk 02:58, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll try that next time. -- Graham :) | Talk 03:14, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Ahemn cough*someone was right*cough GrazingshipIV 09:05, May 7, 2004 (UTC)

Secret voting procedures[edit]

I am very concerned about the open voting proposal for the election. Secret elections are considered a basic democratic right. Recently the Association of Members' Advocates had a secret election, it was a bit rudimentary, but it really was not that difficult. That is usually why one has an elections committee to supervise the secrecy of the election, if it is open then no one has to supervise the provisions for the closed ballot being validated. I saw your suggestion on Meta that it was not that difficult to set up a secret ballot system. I think this is really important. — © Alex756 03:14, 8 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Swish-E[edit]

Another possible search solution for your project might be Swish-E. It includes a search library, support for HTML and is supposed to be really fast. And it's open source.--Eloquence * 20:48, May 8, 2004 (UTC)

image on ifd[edit]

Your image, Image:Geyser exploding 2 small.jpg, is on Wikipedia:Images for deletion. It has been obsoleted by Image:Geyser exploding 2 large.jpg. Grendelkhan 00:47, 2004 May 12 (UTC)

New feature[edit]

You can now paste an IP address into the search box and click "go", and it will take you to the contributions page. -- Tim Starling 03:26, Apr 29, 2004 (UTC)

The bug's still there. Will Eloquence's solution help ? Jay 12:36, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Why are you writing in italics?
Yes, it should already be in HEAD. -- Tim Starling 07:43, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

Italics because I was quoting an old discussion. What is 'HEAD' ? Jay 13:56, 12 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

HEAD is the current development version of MediaWiki. The feature will be in the next release. -- Tim Starling 00:26, May 17, 2004 (UTC)

Hi Tim. In case you hadn't noticed it, there is a sugegstion for changing the format of the changing attributions page at Wikipedia talk:Changing attribution for an edit#Table format. Angela . 21:50, May 16, 2004 (UTC)

Language file[edit]

Hi Tim, could you update LanguageSw.php (found on http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locales_for_the_Wikipedia_Software) for me please? Else, could you tell me how I can change the interface entries for the Swahili Wikipedia? Marcoscramer 15:02, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Why did you ban me from the IRC?[edit]

why did you i was only joking, i'm sure you could take a joke.--Plato 02:23, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

You were flooding. You want to get back in? -- Tim Starling 02:28, May 18, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, 8 vs 2 in support of keeping the ban. -- Tim Starling 02:36, May 18, 2004 (UTC)

I do want to get back in but i'll find a way around the ban.....Comrade Nick

Ban evasion is a bannable offense. - Fennec 03:40, May 18, 2004 (UTC)

I will take a break from the Irc, however I question the reasons you banned me in the first place.--Comrade Nick 04:11, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

You were banned because you pasted the following into the channel:

<Comrade_Nick_> ANARCHY IN WIKIPEDIA
<Comrade_Nick_> Right ! NOW ! ha ha ha ha ha
<Comrade_Nick_> I am a vandal
<Comrade_Nick_> I am an vandal
<Comrade_Nick_> Don't know what I want but
<Comrade_Nick_> I know how to get it
<Comrade_Nick_> I wanna destroy the sysops cos I
<Comrade_Nick_> I wanna BE anarchy !
<Comrade_Nick_> No dogs body
<Comrade_Nick_> Anarchy for wikipedia, it's coming sometime and maybe
<Comrade_Nick_> I give a wrong time stop and edit peacfully
<Comrade_Nick_> your future dream is well-written articles cos I
<Comrade_Nick_> I wanna BE anarchy !
<Comrade_Nick_> In Village pump
<Comrade_Nick_> How Many ways to get what you want
>chanserv< op #wikipedia
*+* Mode change "+o TimStarling" on channel #wikipedia by ChanServ
<ElBenevolente> be quiet Nick
<Comrade_Nick_> I use the best I use the rest
<Comrade_Nick_> I use the enemy I use anarchy cos I
<Comrade_Nick_> I wanna BE anarchy !
*?* Cannot find Comrade_Nick on irc
<Comrade_Nick_> THE ONLY WAY TO BE !
<Comrade_Nick_> Is this Michael
<anthony> nick try #flood
<Comrade_Nick_> Or is this Enfourcer
*<* Comrade_Nick_ has been kicked off channel #wikipedia by TimStarling (TimStarling)

This constitutes a flood, and a particularly annoying one at that. Then we held a poll, and 8 out of 10 people (not including me) voted for banning. No doubt their decision was influenced by your annoying behaviour throughout the last couple of days. -- Tim Starling 04:22, May 18, 2004 (UTC)

That constitutes Censorship, if you could check this lyrics page you could see that i was doing a parody not advocating vandalism [4]. i told you ahead of time that was doing a song you knew it would be leagthy kind of odd that you would censor me.--Comrade Nick 02:42, 19 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Makesysop page is missing[edit]

Hi Tim. Do you know why bureaucrats do not have a wikt:pl:Specjalna:Makesysop page on the Polish Wiktionary? I made myself a bureaucrat via test, but when going to wikt:pl:Specjalna:Makesysop got this error:

Oprogramowanie MediaWiki nie rozpoznaje takiej specjalnej strony. Wróć do strony: Strona główna.

which I'm guessing means "You have requested a special page that is not recognized by the wiki. Return to Main Page."

Angela . 23:06, May 18, 2004 (UTC)

This should be fixed now -- Tim Starling 01:46, May 19, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you :) Angela . 06:24, May 19, 2004 (UTC)

Spammer URL[edit]

There is an anonymous spammer who repeatedly tries to insert links to www.torimoy.net, which is just a link farm for adult sites. As it is not a bot there is no need to hurry, but warning on talk nor blocking has stopped the spammer yet. If it's not too much work adding that URL to the bad URL list might be helpful. andy 21:41, 28 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Range blocking[edit]

Hi Tim, do you happen to know why range blocking has been disabled? It no longer works on English, Korean, Latin, Simple or Meta (I'm guessing it applies to the rest of the wikis as well). It was raised at Wikipedia:Village pump#Range block. Angela . 18:42, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Mystery of the missing revert[edit]

Tim, I have found something rather odd that I wondered if you, as a developer, might be able to address. Some time between 20:50 and 20:55, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC), I made a revert to checks and balances, to remove a link to distrust, an article by EntmootsOfTrolls that has been reinstated by his suspected reincarnation, JRR Trollkien. This edit was subsequently reverted by Kim Bruning.

Now, I have no problem with Kim doing that; if he wants to vouch for the content in that way, I can live with it staying. However, for some reason my edit no longer shows up in the page history, or in my user contributions, although it did before. I made a similar revert with the same edit summary to legal code during this same window of time. JRR Trollkien reverted that himself, and the history is still intact there. Anyway, I don't know that this missing edit is a critical issue, but I wanted to bring it to someone's attention. --Michael Snow 16:00, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

message redirects broken[edit]

Please see Wikipedia:Village_pump#message_redirects_don.27t_work. - UtherSRG 16:56, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Template namespace initialisation script[edit]

Hi Tim, I undertand you are the author of the "Template namespace initialisation script". Can you run it on the [Italian Wikipedia? We have the same namespaces: MediaWiki and Template. Thanks. Snowdog 00:31, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Hi Snowdog. I was going through them in reverse alphabetical order until I discovered a caching problem which required me to do en first. I've already done zh-oc. Currently it's busy converting the text on en, but after that's finished, Italian shouldn't be too far off. There aren't many large wikis between oc and it. -- Tim Starling 01:03, Jun 4, 2004 (UTC)

Tim, the script has messed up my watchlist egregiously - all the pages I have edited (600+) are showing up, and any edits made by users between my last check and the script entry will be masked out. Is there a way that I can tell the watchlist report generator to ignore your script and show only the most recent real edit of each page? Thanks...
Jorge Stolfi 04:13, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Oops, sorry I see that you answered the question alredy in the village pump. 8-(
Jorge Stolfi 05:06, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

A small begging[edit]

Is there any way you can check if User:Plato has been using either the IP 63.230.159.235 or 219.88.160.45 in the past few days? The first IP is the IP of User:Editing Saddam Hussein, which appears to be a sockpuppet of Plato's. (It was used mostly to edit war on Saddam Hussein, but it also was used to vote against me on RfA. It's obviously a sockpuppet account, and admits as much on its user page. The vote came as Plato was talking to me in IRC about how he was getting his "comrades" to vote against me, and so appeared suspicious in the extreme. The second IP, 219.88.160.45, was used on the ViP page for Editing Saddam Hussein to accuse Editing Saddam Hussein of being Wik. Shortly after, [[User:R%edckK]] (Who is not RickK) made the same accusation. R%edckK was designed to impersonate RickK, down to copying his userpage to try to evade detection. The account was also used to support Plato's nomination for admin status, thus neatly tying the whole mess together. If you could check up on this, it would be really helpful in trying to sort out this vandalism, and to figure out exactly who/what we're dealing with. Snowspinner 06:00, Jun 4, 2004 (UTC)

TNIS[edit]

I notice the TNIS (I've already forgotten what it stands for) is all over the place of late. Is there any way to prevent it from modifying talk pages, which seems rather a waste. My watch list is already hard enough to watch when it's changing hundreds of articles at a time - it becomes even worse when it's going after talk pages, too. 07:49, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

If you weren't already planning to do so, I think it would help if you also moved the MediaWiki talk pages to the template namespace (e.g. MediaWiki talk:Uspresidents). --Jia ng 21:00, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Password-Change[edit]

Servus Tim, pleas kann you Fix this Problems? You was the last in the sektion "Requests for name change".

Request_for_password-change

Ahoi DMS 217.232.80.136

Danke DMS 217.232.80.136 14:47, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

An observation[edit]

Looking at your most recent edits, it reads like a goldmine for potential vandals. It's a good thing they're all protected. →Raul654 08:24, Jun 11, 2004 (UTC)

Oops![edit]

Your recent edit to MediaWiki:Loginreqtext contains a flaw: the opening brace is not paired. I would have fixed it myself, nosy interfering Pom that I am, but obviously it's protected :-) --Phil | Talk 08:29, Jun 11, 2004 (UTC)

EasyTimeline[edit]

Hi Tim, I saw you edited the script and commented gif section out: quote: "(you want run yet another command line utility on render?)" Answer, no, this is not for Wikipedia. The script can be used in a non MediaWiki context (e.g. perl+Windows, where Ploticus does not render to PNG), in fact that is how I test it. I'll publish a new version soon. If you don't mind I'll uncomment those lines, they do no harm here and I like to keep one version for simplicity sake. OK? Cheers, Erik Zachte 01:23, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Mostly I just didn't want to download another command-line utility when I was testing it. Perhaps other Windows users will feel the same way. If you only want to keep one version, you could always add the image format as an option to EasyTimeline.pl. Will you be backporting my shell escaping changes? -- Tim Starling 04:20, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)

Why would they feel the same? PNG is much smaller. All utils are in one zip on my site. So they can forget about it instantly. Of course I will be careful to keep your other changes. Erik Zachte 08:48, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Search question[edit]

Hi Tim,

I'd like to try testing the Atomz Express Search on Test Wikipedia; it's free for sites with less than 500 pages, and they say they don't put strain on the servers while indexing (usually takes less than a minute, anyway). See [5] and [6] on the mailing list for why I want to do this.

Please let me know if there are any problems with trying this out -- probably nothing will come of it, since a full-scale Atomz solution would cost $$$$, but I'd just like put it through its paces and see how it interacts with the wiki pages.

If you think it's okay to test it out, firstly, how many pages are there on Test? NUMBEROFARTICLES returns -1.... If there are more than 500, are there directories that could/should be excluded from the index? (http://test.wikipedia.org/w/ for instance?)

Then could you alter the the robots.txt file on Test to allow the Atomz index bot, like so?

User-agent: Atomz/1.0
Disallow:

I'm happy to discuss here, Test or wherever you like (inc. email or IM); if there's someone else I should be talking to instead, just say so. Thanks for all you do, Catherine | talk 01:33, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Test seems to have a copy of all the pages from the English Wikipedia with titles starting with B, about 19,000 in all. See [7]. Perhaps a better choice would be one of the smaller language wikipedias. However, every Wikimedia wiki has at least 770 pages in its MediaWiki namespace, so you'd have to leave that out somehow.

I'm skeptical of the ability of any ordinary crawling bot to be able to index our pages sufficiently quickly. There's a limit to how fast we can serve HTML, and hence a minimum time any bot could possibly spider the site. If the bot downloaded one page per second, it would take at least 8 days to download everything. If it doesn't preferentially download pages which were recently changed, how is it going to be more up-to-date than Google, which spiders the site continuously? -- Tim Starling 04:52, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)

These are the questions I'm trying to answer. :) If it DOES take too long or slow down our server, it's worthless. I was hoping to use Test so it wouldn't be bogging down anyone's live project, but if there's a small language that's not being actively used, perhaps that would be best. I can filter out non-article namespaces using Atomz' various masks, I believe (though that might be a little trickier in a language I can't read!).

Atomz supports incremental searches -- you can tell it to search this section today, and that section tomorrow, etc, in a rolling fashion. Perhaps it wouldn't be as up to date as Google, but as documented on the Wikipedia:External search engines page, Google has its problems -- for me the main frustration is not getting the exact page name searched for as the 1st (or even top ten) result half the time. I don't understand why that happens within the Wikipedia site, when it's usually pretty dang precise for general web searches.

I don't THINK this is ultimately going to be the answer, but I thought if I could do some basic testing without disturbing anyone, for free, it might be worth having a definitive no, or a possible maybe. (The other promising possibility I've seen lately is the Google Search Appliance, but I can't research that one directly...)

Are there other plans afoot for improving our search capability? If so, I'll just let this slide.... I know getting 1.3 up and running has rightfully taken priority (and I'm very impressed with all the new capabilities and content/design division!). I just think as Wikipedia continues to grow so rapidly, having a reliable integrated search is going to become really critical. Thanks for your time.... Catherine | talk 06:08, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

All the *.wikipedia.org sites use the same hardware, including test. You can't slow down one of them without slowing down the whole site. Hashar has suggested that you could instead test it on his test installation, twenkill.net/wiki. Getting search enabled is in my opinion a fairly simple task, it's just a matter of creating a separate search server, that is, a database server containing only the searchindex tables. This is a kind of application-level splitting. I think it could be done within a week if there was actually someone interested in doing it. -- Tim Starling 07:00, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)

By "someone interested" do you mean a developer having the time/ability to get it set up? Or do you think there is no community interest -- that most feel the status quo is acceptable? (Should we discuss on Village Pump?) Is there a money issue -- would it require new hardware? Is there a programming issue -- would we need to redesign the search to work with new capabilities (categories, etc.)? I'd like to see us move forward with this, and I know I'm not the only one. Thanks again, Catherine | talk 02:37, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject Melbourne[edit]

Hi, Tim. Seeing as you've listed yourself at Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Australia as being from Melbourne, why don't you drop by the WikiProject Melbourne and help add something to the Wikipedia about our city?

Be sure to visit the Project talk page, and if you are interested, you can become a member.

Here are some WikiProject Melbourne articles which attract a high number of "page hits" but are only rated as Stub Class, or otherwise need additonal citations or attention:
Suburbs:	Derrimut, South Wharf, Menzies Creek, Save Our State (Australia)
Landmarks:	101 Collins Street, 120 Collins Street, Bourke Place, Hamer Hall, Melbourne Mint
Events:	Melbourne International Festival of Brass, Melbourne Underground Film Festival, Great Bookie Robbery, Extreme weather events in Melbourne
Transport:	All of the stations on the Puffing Billy Railway need expanding or merging to the main article, especially the request stops which are just tin sheds
Sporting Clubs:	Caroline Springs George Cross FC
Streets:	Little Bourke Street, Hardware Lane, Hosier Lane
People:	Alannah Hill, Meek (street artist), Vexta
Institutions:	Eltham High School, Glen Eira Town Hall, Boxing Day Test
Venues:
Miscellaneous:	Collins St., 5 pm, Yarra Valley, Coops Shot Tower, Melbourne Talk Radio, Melbourne University Publishing, The Herald and Weekly Times,
Edit or discuss this list.

TPK 13:51, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC) (My talk page is at User talk:Hypernovean).

People are using my template feature to spam my own user talk page. What horror have I unleashed?! -- Tim Starling 14:53, Jun 16, 2004 (UTC)

User talk:Tim Starling/Test[edit]

Is that you testing anonymously? Or can it be deleted right away? andy 14:45, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

That's me testing anonymously. -- Tim Starling 14:53, Jun 16, 2004 (UTC)

Dashes[edit]

I was just reading back through Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dashes, and I noticed that at some point you implemented a feature to substitute en and em dashes for -- and ---, in LaTeX style. Then you turned it off because of problems with links and table formatting.

I just thought I'd say a word of encouragement for you to consider re-adding this or a similar feature if at all possible (e.g. make sure the pattern doesn't match |-- to fix tables, and disable substitution within links). Those of us who care about typography are currently forced to sprinkle — and – everywhere, to the detriment of readability.

—Steven G. Johnson 04:39, Jun 17, 2004 (UTC)

PS. I was also amused to discover that those trollish users who opposed anything but hyphens include none other than User:Wik, of recent notoriety.

Please allow me to add my support to this idea. I'm slightly uncertain about what the problem was with |-- since I don't recall using such a construct in a Wikitable---maybe I ought to re-read the instructions :-) --Phil | Talk 09:02, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)

Markup Editing on MY PAGE! NO![edit]

As requested on my page, please do not edit my page without permission. Its annoying. Very annoying.

THANK YOU

Reply is on User:JediMaster16 -- Tim Starling 07:16, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)

Your user page had a style of template inclusion on it which was causing link table corruption. This type of "pic of the day" inclusion was used on many user pages. In order to allow for proper cache clearing, we changed the system to use a redirect on Template:Pic of the day. I changed 20 user pages containing "pic of the day" inclusions, to use the corrected syntax. I wasn't going to check for anti-wiki warnings on each user page before I did so. -- Tim Starling 01:41, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)

You might have explained this to me first, instead of coming in and changing my code for no apparent reason. Next time, use my Talk page.

Barnstar free zone[edit]

Hi, Tim. I love the concept of the barnstar free zone and have now appropriated the image for my own user page :) Thanks a lot! — Lady Lysine Ikinsile 05:44, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)

Deleting Users / password forgotten[edit]

Hi Tim, two questions:

A user requested his password changed as he had forgotten it and the email seems to be wrong. Where is the right page to put this request?
Another user requested deletion of his account. I could not find on the policy page any mentioning if it is possible / how it is done.

Thanks for helping :-) Fantasy 08:27, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for solving this problems! :-) Fantasy 07:42, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Namespace problem on ko wiktionary[edit]

Hi, Tim,

since a week there is a technical problem on ko wiktionary. The global namespace "Wiktionary" which I have translated into suitable name in Korean doesn't function anymore. All lexical indices which have this Korean namespace couldn't be accessible (see e.g. this page). Ko Wikipedia has had the same problem, but it is now solved. Angela indicated renaming in database may be required. Would you check up on this matter. Thanks. --11:16, 24 Jun 2004아흔(A-heun)

Need support on an undelete. Talk:Nazism/Seperate-National Socialism I would like your support to undelete this and restore as a proper standing article. Some content was moved to the Nazism article and has been made a redirect. The Nazi article is too long. *National Socialism* was not created by either Mussolini nor Hitler and the history of its development needs to have a seperate article upon it. Please see Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion.WHEELER 18:29, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I don't know what you're talking about, the article hasn't been deleted. By the way, you can make links using [[double square brackets]]. -- Tim Starling 01:50, Jun 25, 2004 (UTC)

Parametrization[edit]

Hi Tim,
while I was preparing a central template for a whole bunch of municiplaities I noticed some bugs in the parametrization feature.
A named parameter like DISTRICT = [[Grevenmacher (district)|Grevenmacher]] does not work, as the separating pipe is interpreted as a separator for the parameters.
A link in the template like Capital: [[{{{CAPITAL}}}]]] gets displayed as an edit link, even it refers to an existing article.
Inserting an image path by a parameter like in [[Image:{{{IMAGE_PATH}}}|center|Map of {{{MUNICIPALITY}}}]] fails completely.
User:Eloquence told me that you are in charge of that parametrization feature. So can you help us in that? Thanks. -- Ralf

See [8] -- Tim Starling 15:37, Jun 27, 2004 (UTC)

Hi Tim, thank you for providing that link. Thought it was less helpful as I hoped to be. Without following the discussions between the developers too closely, I can hardly guess the meaning and the context of that particular thread. -- Ralf

Error on Johnleemk[edit]

Hi Tim,

I must have inadvertently checked the wrong box--when I checked over the steps of making User:Johnleemk a sysop, he came up +Bureaucrat as well in the log. Could you remove that tag from the user please? Sorry. Humbly, Cecropia | Talk 23:09, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Hi Tim,

Some time ago you coded an extension to add wiki markup for dashes, but removed it again because it broke the wiki table markup. Do you happen to have the code still lying around somewhere? Can you point me to it? Thanks, Tannin 16:19, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Missing pages on ko Wiktionary[edit]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for your attentions. I've thought that the problem has something to do with namespace. As you referred to missing pages, it seems to be another difficulty. After starting ko wiktionary, I've edited nearly 30 new pages. All are basic elements like help page, general informations about wiki, and 14 so-called Korean aphabetical indices, whose value is not so little. All these are evaporated... Before I beginn to reedit, I want to know whether it's really a matter of missing pages. --10:47, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC) 아흔(A-heun)

Namespace[edit]

Hi Tim,

I thank you for kindely help. I am glad all are there. I've almost of them put into the english namespace Wiktionary. There is still odd thing on the main page. The Help of navigation has the same namespace of ko wikipedia (i.e. 위키백과) that I can not change, although there is already Help-page with namespace "Wiktionary:도움말". Also a link "위키백과란" at the bottom of the main page (right from Content is available under GNU Free Documentation License) is transmitted from ko wikipedia, therefore it doesn't go with wiktionary. Would you look after, if there is a way to solve these problems. --11:01, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC) 아흔(A-heun)

Pages blocked from editing[edit]

Hi Tim. Seems like none of those with direct database access noticed when a problem with editing Template:Opentask first showed up on Village Pump (no wonder with that crowded page), but apparently it is still not possible to edit it - see here. Can you maybe take a look what's going on there. Wikipedia:Community portal seems to be affected as well. It only gives timeouts when trying to save the edit. andy 22:34, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Spell checker[edit]

The guys over at [9] have added a spell checker to their MediaWiki install. I asked them if they could backport it, and they seem willing but are unsure how hard it would be since we've gone to 1.3, and since we're using UTF-8 on some sites. Here's the thread on their mailing list: [10]. What do you think, would it be useful even if it's turned off by default and not used on Wikipedia? Could you post to either their mailing list, or to our mediawiki mailing list to get other developers opinions? Their main guy/developer seems to be [11]. Thank you, Dori | Talk 01:14, Jul 6, 2004 (UTC)

The Sockpuppets[edit]

I'd be interested in knowing if any of those are Lir, Plato, or some other known vandal. Particularly Lir or Plato, though. Thanks very much. :) Snowspinner 03:51, Jul 6, 2004 (UTC)

Golden Dreams is apparently a Michael account, these accounts had the same user password:

Sex
Sinan
This is Hephaestos, not Michael
64.175.249.214 (Hephaestos)
With love, Hephaestos
Hephaestos' Wikipedia account
Hephaestos' IP
Crackpot
Hephaestos (aka: Chicken Shit)
Serious Democrats
Sex1
Golden Dreams

The rest of the passwords were distinct. I'll have a look at the IP addresses if I have time. -- Tim Starling 04:03, Jul 6, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Blocking policy[edit]

Tim, if people on IRC are unhappy with the proposed clarification to the blocking policy (note - it's not an addition or subtraction, it merely states explicitly what is already stated implicitly), could you please direct them to the thread on Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy? -- ChrisO 16:12, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

German Wikibooks[edit]

Hello Tim,

I’m from the German Wikibooks project. Some people and I are trying to bring the project forward. At the moment the German Wikbooks is using the Domain http://wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks_portal. I think that this could lead to problems in future because more than 20 languages are using the same namespace. Therefore my question is: Is it possible to create a subdomain for the German Wikibooks (e.g. de.wikibooks.org)? Erik wrote me that you have written a script for the Wiktionary in order to reduce the effort. Is it possible to use it for the Wikibooks? I think as longer we wait to install a subdomain as more difficult it will be to move the articles from the common Wikibooks to own German Wikibooks. I guess that this can’t be made automatically and it will cause much work. Therefore we shouldn’t wait too long. -- Daniel B 11:57, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

OK, I'm working on it. -- Tim Starling 01:09, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)

Fast Diff Method[edit]

In m:Talk:What we use the money for, you said:

I have an idea for a fast diff method which should require less than a day of development time, including debugging. If you're a programmer looking to help out and this sounds like fun, contact me and I'll tell you about it.

OK, so tell me about it :-) --Phil | Talk 15:00, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)

Template:Stub[edit]

In Template talk:Stub you said that the Sunday macro would make a mess. What would the implications be of manually adjusting the category name in the template? If this was done once every 3-5 days, would it be a big performance problem or cause other problems? I'm looking for a way to auto-split the category until a better solution is agreed on or written. --ssd 16:03, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Ko wiktionary[edit]

Hi, Tim. I am really sorry to ask you again since the namespace on ko wiktionary. Almost articles with namespace [[Wiktionary:]] have been missed. I do not know where, how, what... You could prove it on special page Allpages. What more curious is, all articles with namespace [[Wiktionary:]] have been linked into en wiktionary! --15:29, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC) 아흔(A-heun)

This is fixed now. -- Tim Starling 11:50, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)

hey tim[edit]

I responded to your post on Talk:Ben Folds Five. It's all good.

RTL WIkiSource[edit]

Hi. Thanks for your info on Village Pump, and for the effort you recently put into setting up language domains for WikiSource.

I don't know a great deal about the technical side of all this, but I've tried to read a great deal about it over the past few days, and come to the following conclusions. I want to share those conclusions with you, someone who really knows how things work (both on the tech side and in general), and I hope you'll be able to tell me if I've understood things correctly.

1. I've come to the conclusion that RTL languages (e.g. Hebrew and Arabic) only work correctly in domains specifically set up for them, such as the Hebrew and Arabic Wikipedias. But they won't format correctly on a WikiSource without such language-specific domains. Is that correct?

2. The user interface in WS also remains in English (and oriented LTR) currently in all languages for the same reason: it is all a one-language domain. (I'm pretty sure that is right.)

Do you think I am right about the above?

If I'm mistaken then is it possible for a Hebrew WS be set up under the current system another way and remain within the current framework? (And yet for the text to format correctly RTL?)
And if so (i.e. there is no alternative option) then I guess I really am interested in setting up he.wikisource.org. (I've read the stuff Angela suggested on "How to start a new Wikipedia." It seems to me that an interface for he.wikisource can be created fairly easily from he.wikipedia by simply changing the name where it appears from Wikipedia [ויקיפדיה] to WikiSource [ויקיסורס] and replacing the Wikepedia Logo with the WS one.Dovi 03:46, Jul 25, 2004 (UTC)

Reply on User talk:Dovi -- Tim Starling 06:53, Jul 25, 2004 (UTC)

Hi, and thanks for your help on this so far. I explained the technical reasons that require a separate Hebrew domain on WikiSource's Scriptorium (by the way, if you look at the German talk, you'll see someone also wants one in German). There is really no other way to do it.

Then, since you recommended Brion as the ultimate expert on multilingualisation, I left a message on his meta page requesting help for creating a working stub in the he.wikisource.org domain. But from what I understand, his backlog is, shall we say, rather daunting! I don't know how much language-specific expertise is necessary for setting up a Main Page stub in the domain, but if it could be done for he.wikibooks.org using the same stub as he.wikipedia or he.wikibooks (but with the WikiSource logo) by you or someone else, without bothering Brion, that would be great.Dovi 05:35, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry to bother you again (re: stub mainpage for he.wikisource.org), but what would you recommend in terms of simply checking that this is indeed in the pipeline? After my above note I found the button to put it into a queue on "meta" for new domains (which was I guess the proper way to do it) but since Thursday I don't think anything has happened.Dovi 06:19, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks very much! I set up a stub mainpage, and I'll try to fully figure out the interwiki links tomorrow when I have a few more minutes. Thanks again!Dovi 18:15, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)

Big Favor[edit]

Hey, I was wondering if you could do me a big favor. About two months ago there was a huge stretch of vandalism that consisted of blanking pages and replacing them with insults directed at me, with similarly offensive edit summaries. This happened on a huge number of articles, and, quite honestly, I'm just plain tired of stumbling across them when I look through a page history. He used a lot of IPs, and I'm sure I don't have all of them here, but here's what I've found at a quick glance. The edits in question should be pretty glaringly obvious. [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]. If there's any way you could delete the edits themselves so I don't have to keep seeing this crap every time I view a page history on any of these pages, I'd be eternally grateful... Snowspinner 03:45, Jul 30, 2004 (UTC)

Don't say anything. -- Tim Starling 12:06, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)

A possible sockpuppet[edit]

I wanna see if "King Lear" is a sockpuppet of "Lir". King Lear's only posts were in this page: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Lir/Evidence WhisperToMe 06:03, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't really say based on what I have now. It's better if you ask within a week. -- Tim Starling 10:57, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)

Domain problem (Wiki does not exist)[edit]

Hi, you said to contact you if there was a problem, and like most new things - there seems to be a bug. Last night I created a stub mainpage, and this morning I tried to return to it figure out the interwiki links. But at he.wikisource.org I was disappointed to find the old message that "Wiki does not exist".

As far as the interwiki links go, may I suggest the following: They should be like in the other projects: :en: :fr: :he: in order to make it as easy as possible to link to translations from one language to another. This would facilitate working together with the current wikisource format as well as a single project as well. The only thing is that you then need some sort of "neutral" code for the main wikisource.org which is currently full of texts. (How about :ws: ?) Dovi 03:22, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)

The "Wiki does not exist" bug seems to have disappeared, so don't worry about it. Thanks anyways, and also for getting the mainpage up and running, which was the main thing for now.Dovi 07:53, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC)

Checking out[edit]

Hello! It was suggested that I contact you regarding my fervent wish to have my user history deleted.

There has been a discussion on the VfD page about the inclusion of an article about a branch of child pornography that almost sounds as if it's defending the act. The article comes complete with a scan of a child porn magazine and links to close to a dozen porn sites.

I don't object to the inclusion of controversial articles per se, but this crosses the line. I even edited the article by removing the pictures and links, but keeping the text. I was accused of "unilateral censorship."

It's been a pleasure to have contributed to the project. I've made a lot of friends here. But, I don't wish to be involved in a project that promotes articles such as this and which has persons defending its inclusion and crying "censorship" over any protest.

Please contact me via my personal e-mail at morningstar106.9@earthlink.net to confirm deletion of my talk and user pages. Much obliged. - Lucky 6.9 07:08, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hi Tim. I got this same message and have sent Lucky 6.9 an email about it. Angela . 22:50, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)

Lojban language file[edit]

Could you check the Lojban file which I posted to Wikipedia-l a bit over a week ago? I'd like to know if there's anything else essential that needs to be translated, or if I included some code that shouldn't be there. I'd like to have it installed soon (even if not everything is translated) and capitalization turned off, so that there won't be a whole lot of links to fix and articles to move. -phma 01:22, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Why? I added it to the language list, since there was a consensus in favour, but why should I spend my time supporting it? -- Tim Starling 15:25, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)

Who's the right person to ask? I don't know enough about the MediaWiki code. -phma 03:04, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)