User talk:Rick Block/Archive2011

Wikipedia's 10th anniversary celebration in Boulder

Howdy, Rick. Can you come to Boulder's event for the 10th anniversary celebration of Wikipedia? Any ideas for what we might want to do? Perhaps you could talk about being an admin, etc? Know anyone else we should especially invite or engage? ★NealMcB★ (talk) 23:02, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd rather talk about bots. Being an admin is really not very interesting and I don't actually use the tools much (most active vandals on pages I watch are already blocked by the time I get around to looking into what they've been doing). -- Rick Block (talk) 02:20, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Sounds great! I figure you might get some admin questions anyway, but I'd love to know more about bots. Thanks! ★NealMcB★ (talk) 04:13, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm doing a 5 minute live interview on KGNU on Friday morning, sometime between 8:00 and 8:30. I'd love it if you could join us - would you be willing? They might be able to add you in by phone also. ★NealMcB★ (talk) 02:34, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Great job on the interview, and on your "bot" presentation for our event. Thanks again!! ★NealMcB★ (talk) 05:00, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

List of administrators: Active users split up into 4 instead of previous 3 sections

Hi Rick, in order that a TOC gets automatically shown in WP:List of administrators, I have divided the subpages of WP:List of administrators/Active now into 4 subpages:

• WP:List of administrators/A-D
• WP:List of administrators/E-K
• WP:List of administrators/L-Q
• WP:List of administrators/R-Z

instead of the previous 3 subpages:

• WP:List of administrators/A-F
• WP:List of administrators/G-O
• WP:List of administrators/P-Z

In order for that to work, I guess the bot has to be adapted as well. Maybe my changes were a bit too bold. If that's the case feel free to undo my changes in this area and go back to the previous 3 subpages.--Berny68 (talk) 06:00, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes - to accommodate this the bot will definitely need to be adapted. I'm not sure what problem you're fixing. For example, this version of WP:LA has a TOC (because there are more than 3 first level headings). What, exactly, are you trying to accomplish? -- Rick Block (talk) 07:04, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I just wanted LA/Active to have a TOC too, which was not there in this LA/Active revision yet. In addition I think it's faster to find a specific username with 4 instead of 3 subsections and each subpage loads faster as well. There might still be room for improvement in my split up of the subpages - currently they are not so evenly split.--Berny68 (talk) 07:33, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

In addition I'm wondering about the current split-up groups based on activity:

• Active are defined as the one who have made more than 30 edits in the last 2 months
• Semi-active are defined as the one who have made fewer than 30 edits in the last 2 months
• Inactive are defined as the one who have not edited in at least 3 months

This seems like there's not really a gap between Active and Semi-active (I hope the exact 30 case is attributed to one of those two cases, even though the definition suggests otherwise). However there is definitely a gap between Semi-active and Inactive. How about creating another group i.e. Hardly-active that fills this gap?--Berny68 (talk) 07:45, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

If adding a TOC for LA/Active is primarily what you're after, adding "__TOC__" seems like a far simpler solution. I've been thinking about adding an "A B C D E ..." "master" TOC to each of the active admin lists as well which might help when looking up a particular admin.

The activity categories are mutually exclusive but each admin must end up in one of them. The code is effectively:

  contribs = getcontribs(admin)
  if inactive(contribs) then
    consider this admin inactive
  else if semiactive(contribs) then
    consider this admin semi-active
  else
    consider this admin active
  fi

I'd suggest we rearrange it back to the 3 groupings, add "__TOC__" to LA/Active, and add the "master" TOC to make it easier to find specific admins. Sound like a plan? -- Rick Block (talk) 15:50, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, the TOC suggestions sound good to me. The active/semi-active/inactive makes sense when starting with inactive towards active which is just the opposite direction from the way it's written in the article. I guess the semi-active active should include in its definition something like "admin had less than 30 edits in the last 2 months but still some edits within the last 3 months". It should also be made clear into which group the exactly 30 in last 2 months case would fall - active or semi-active?--Berny68 (talk) 22:09, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I have changed LA/Active back to the original 3-way split now. Could you delete my no longer used 4-way split-up sub-pages then (see list above)? Thank you. I wonder what the single <noinclude> without an end-tag is doing there? Either it should be end-tagged or removed. Can you sort this out too?

I saw that your Rick Bot daily updates the LA page directy to update date and number of active users. I'm a bit afraid that any changes on this page might mess up things for your bot. Wouldn't it be better to include the changes rather indirectly via a template as is done with the total number of admins {{NUMBEROFADMINS}}: 851? This would also make this data easily available for other pages. It might also be useful to calculate and report the number of semi-active and inactive users there.--Berny68 (talk) 07:22, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I've restored the LA/Active page to a 3-way split (with a TOC) and deleted the 4-way subpages. I don't exactly remember, but I think the point of the noinclude tags was so the numbering in LA/Active didn't restart with each letter. This doesn't seem to be the case now (which could be due to a change in the wiki software). Looking at the generated HTML the list for each letter is treated as a separate list, i.e. when included in LA/Active

  # name 
  # name
  <noinclude>
  == next letter ==
  </noinclude>
  # name
  # name

is not treated the same as

  # name 
  # name
  # name
  # name

but rather

  # name 
  # name

  # name
  # name

Given this, it's not obvious to me there's any point at all in noincluding the headers.

NUMBEROFADMINS is not actually a template, it's a built-in variable supported by the software (see magic words). I could certainly create a template for the active etc. counts, although since the WP:LA page rarely changes replacing the number in the text is not a big deal. user:NoSeptember keeps historical admin data (see User:NoSeptember/The NoSeptember Admin Project) - I think he parses the bot's edit summaries of WP:LA for the counts. I'm not opposed to keeping the counts in template, but it doesn't seem particularly necessary.

I've updated the description of the various activity categories at WP:LA and created a fancier TOC for WP:LA. -- Rick Block (talk) 21:23, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Commons bot request

Hi Rick. I'm wondering if there is a Commons task that Rick Bot might be able to do. I know it keeps WP:LA up to date. Could it do the same thing with a similar list of Commons OTRS members? As you can see from the link, there is a usergroup there. If it can do that, there is an additional data point that would be particularly helpful on Commons: languages. This seems easy enough to gather from userpages, as both babel templates and userpages use the same coding, e.g., en, en-N, or en-3, always followed by }}, ]], or |. Of course, I've never programmed anything before, so I may be way off. As an alternative, if volunteers created and maintained a bot-readable list correlating users with language codes, could the bot incorporate that data into a list similar to WP:LA?--Chaser (talk) 06:25, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

So you're suggesting creating a new page listing the OTRS members and their language proficiency? The main point of what the bot does for WP:LA is the activity checking (it looks up the contribs of each admin and separates them into active/semi-active/inactive categories). Would you want something like this as well for the OTRS members (based on activity at commons?) - in addition to the language proficiency? It would actually be fairly easy to create a sortable table of OTRS members including their last contrib (at commons) and language information (from their commons user page) - vaguely like the lists at WP:HOPEFUL (which the bot maintains). At this point the bot only has permission to edit at en: - probably not a big deal to get commons: permission, but it would require going through commons:Commons:Bots/Requests. From a cursory glance at commons:Commons:Bots, there aren't any commons bots that do anything even remotely like this (and commons:Commons:List of administrators, which is the commons equivalent of WP:LA, seems to be manually maintained).

I have fairly limited availability, but this seems like something I could attempt to do (might take a few weeks). The first step would be to manually create a sample page that looks like what you want the bot to create/maintain. Let me know how interested you are in doing this. A faster approach might be to try to get an existing commons bot-op to create it. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:00, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

WP:HOPEFUL was my idea! We compiled this list in my userspace and then I got a job in Italy, and did not edit consistently for eight months. I forgot about it. I'm glad the idea is still around.

Anyway, this was also an off-the-cuff idea I got I saw someone looking for a Polish-speaking OTRS member. Anyway, let me direct a few Commons people to this thread and see if they think such a list would be useful before you start any work on it. If we do this, I'd be glad to do the mock-up and whatever else a non-programmer can do to get it started. Cheers.--Chaser (talk) 04:19, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, I started a thread on this, but all the people discussing it did so on Commons. There is support there to proceed. Do you want me to do a mockup and then you tell me whether it's possible? Or how do you want to proceed? commons:User:Chaser/OTRS_members is a first draft. It would also be useful if editors could add language info themselves for those that do not make it machine-readable on their userpages. I could see just checking where someone is most active to take an educated guess at native language, for example. Would we need a separate section for editors to maintain that, or would it be better if editors did the language coding to begin with? There are about 350 of these, so I could probably get a couple of people to help me if the bot can sort them by activity level afterwards. I'm just not sure what is easily programmable.--Chaser (talk) 04:38, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

If you can just have your bot do the activity level once, I can take care of the language information. The first step would be a big help and you could just dump the results on en.wiki without the necessity of a bot flag for Commons.--Chaser (talk) 20:41, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

TenWiki

Let me introduce myself: I was the guy who asked all the dumb questions. I loved that presentation you made today, I'm really grateful I got a chance to meet a real-life admin! Many thanks for presenting, I never would've though of using subpages as slides. And it was really in-depth. Anyway, happy WP anniversary! —Preceding signed comment added by Nicky Nouse (talk • contribs • wikia) 01:39, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm the one who was handing out the trading card coupons and asked the silly question about Jimbo changing his username. I have dark hair and glasses. Is that descriptive enough? —Preceding signed comment added by Nicky Nouse (talk • contribs • wikia) 05:36, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I remember you. I just didn't remember what you said about yourself (I assume student someplace, just not sure if it's CU). -- Rick Block (talk) 17:13, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Delcomment

Template:Delcomment has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. — This, that, and the other (talk) 06:57, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Category intersection

Totally out of the blue request here and maybe I should be asking Sam W, but is there any news on WP:CATI? I've been hoping for a long time to hear more, but seems dead over there. What could I do to help? What happened to our dream of the semantic web? :) Donama (talk) 05:56, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I haven't heard anything about it in several years, although I've been considerably less active in the category arena than I once was. Semantic MediaWiki exists, but it seems unlikely Wikipedia will convert to it. For one-time or casual use maybe the best bet would be to try to get someone to write a m:toolserver tool. -- Rick Block (talk) 06:33, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi Rick, Donama. I too, have not been very active in the category area -- and not all that active in Wikipedia. I got to the point where I could see why things were the way they were, what was wrong, what could be done to fix things, and why they probably wouldn't happen. The reasons why are mostly technical and cultural. It would be a big technical push to make it happen as we envisioned, and probably require a significant increase in server load. Culturally, it would require a major change in the way that people think about categorization and the recategoriation of millions of pages. I thought of a way to move to the new categorization paradigm slowly, and experimented in trying to create it as alternate approach to categorization that would co-exist with the current system. This was quickly shot down by the masses. The developers are unlikely to create something that would provoke major resistance and hostility by the masses. Wikipedia culture has become much more conservative in the last few years. I think I have become fairly cynical about Wikipedia's capacity for instituting creative changes. Luckily, what Wikipedia is, isn't all that bad, so I'm not all that unhappy about it remaining as it is. The end result though, is that I no longer have the energy to push for the adoption of any new ideas. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 01:36, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Interesting points, Sam. Thanks for the response. Well I think everyone understands that Wikipedia must have its limits. And like any organisation, the speed of institutional change will be inversely proportional to the degree of democracy * population. Donama (talk)

Admins

It was very nice to meet you in Boulder last Saturday. It seems like 766 active administrators should be more than enough for the English-language Wikipedia. Are you sure w:en needs any more?

I've had very few disputes with other editors. The most notable was a conflict with a group of editors promoting the List of sovereign states as the only legitimate list of countries on Wikipedia. While I had no issues with the list, I did object to sovereignty as the only measure of what constituted a country. This Eurocentric notion of sovereignty includes such world powers as Vatican City, San Marino, Monaco, and Liechtenstein, but dismisses such countries as Puerto Rico, French Polynesia, Guam, and Greenland. I attempted what I considered to be a legitimate work-around, but I was blocked for 24 hours by Philip Baird Shearer for a "disruptive contribution". I believe I have learned from this incident. Yours aye,  Buaidh  17:09, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

There's a continual need since admins (like other users) drift away - see Wikipedia:List of administrators/Inactive or User:NoSeptember/admin graphs (NoSeptember's graphs have not been updated in a while). The "active" count is based on editing, not admin activities, so overstates the number of users actively engaged in administrative work. For example, I personally count as an "active" admin but hardly ever do any "admin work" (closing AFDs, dealing with copyvios, etc.). The list of backlogs seems more or less under control at the moment, so I think there's no urgent need for additional help. The question is really whether this is something you both a) have any interest in, and b) would be willing to spend some of your Wikipedia time on. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:53, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Printing articles

Rick, what is the best way to print out a Wikipedia article? User:WAlanDavis / (talk) 04:12, 25 January 2011 (UTC) Oops, nevermind. I just found the answer at the bottom of a long list of stuff on the left. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WAlanDavis (talk • contribs) 04:18, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Current dispute at Monty Hall problem

I find myself utterly perplexed by this current dispute, which has now escalated to the Arbitration Committee(!). Would it be possible for you to give me a short summary of what is currently being disputed? NW (Talk) 15:13, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Short summary - it's an NPOV dispute.

Less short summary - the problem typically asks about the case where the player picks, say, door 1 and the host opens, say, door 3 and asks (in this case) if it's better to switch to door 2.

There are a large number of mostly popular sources presenting "simple solutions" that, for example, enumerate the possibilities given the player has picked door 1 and conclude if you pick door 1 and don't switch you have a 1/3 chance of winning the car, but if you pick door 1 and do switch (to either door 2 or door 3, whichever door the host doesn't open) you have a 2/3 chance of winning the car.

There are a large number of other, mostly mathematical, sources that treat the problem as a conditional probability problem and evaluate the probability of winning by switching given that the player has picked door 1 and the host has opened door 3, arriving at the same answer but explicitly using the (usual) assumption that if the player initially picks the door hiding the car then the host chooses which door to open completely randomly (uniformly).

There are yet other sources that say the "simple solutions" aren't really addressing the problem, but that these solutions are addressing a slightly different problem where (for example) the player must decide whether to switch before seeing which door the host opens. These sources typically show the difference between these solutions by varying the problem slightly and having the host pick unevenly between the two doors - for example, the host always opens door 3 if he can without revealing the car. In this "uneven host" variant, the simple solutions still say if you pick door 1 and switch you'll win 2/3 of the time (and this is true), but if you pick door 1 and see the host open door 3 the conditional probability of winning is only 1/2 (it's 1 if you see the host open door 2).

If you think about 300 shows where the player initially picked door 1, the difference is whether you're talking about the "average" probability of winning by switching for all 300 of these players (which is 2/3, so we'd expect 2/3 of 300, or 200, players to win by switching), or the specific conditional probability for only the subset of these 300 who see the host open door 3. With the usual assumptions, we'd expect 150 players to see the host open door 3 and 2/3 (i.e. 100) of these win by switching and another 150 players see the host open door 2 (and 100 of these win by switching as well). In the uneven host variant 200 of the 300 players would see the host open door 3 and only 1/2 (i.e. 100) of these players win by switching, but 100 would see the host open door 2 and all (also 100) of these players would win by switching. The point these sources are making is that the "simple solutions" are not telling you the probability of winning by switching if you've seen the host open door 3, but rather the "unconditional" probability of winning by switching (knowing only that the host will open a door showing a goat - but not knowing which door the host has opened).

What the dispute is about is the relative weight to give each of these groups of sources, and more specifically whether what the third group of sources says is mathematically accurate and should be treated as a mainstream POV (or even simple mathematical fact) in the article or whether it should be treated as a minority (or even fringe) POV. What the arbcom case is about is the behavior of at least one of the editors who favors minority/fringe treatment of this third set of sources. -- Rick Block (talk) 21:52, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Fascinating. I have only ever evaluated the game on the first two methods; I had not ever even heard of the third before, though it appears to make sense at first glance. In fact, all of these seem to be perfectly reasonable depending on how you view the problem, but that shouldn't be an issue for us. Ideally, one would just take the five major Monty Hall papers or textbooks (by citation count, perhaps?), see how they address the problem, and model our article after them. Do those textbooks not exist? NW (Talk) 22:20, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

The solution approach used by the third group of sources is the same as the second (conditional probability) - the only difference is these sources then additionally distinguish what problem the conditional probability addresses from the problem they say the simple solutions address (which boils down to whether the player decides before or after seeing which door the host opens). Any time a discussion like this has started on the talk page (or during mediation), at least some editors have insisted on arguing about what the third group of sources say (a few editors intensely dislike these sources and essentially argue these sources are wrong) - which immediately shifts the conversation from a reasonable conversation about weight, to (IMO) an unreasonable conversation about the mathematics behind the solutions and the legitimacy of various sources. There are hundreds and hundreds of sources (maybe more than a thousand). AFAIK, most probability textbooks solve the problem using conditional probability and sometimes also provide a simple unconditional solution. Most math papers solve the problem conditionally. Many non-math papers (psychology in particular) include a "simple" (unconditional) solution. Nearly all popular sources present unconditional solutions. A not insignificant number of sources point out the difference between simple and conditional, and some of these explicitly criticize the "simple" solutions saying these solutions address the wrong problem. Although how these stack up, weight-wise, and what to say in the article should be the discussion, we can essentially never stay focused on this.

The specific issue is exemplified by the version of the article as of the last FARC [1]. In the "Solution" section, this version includes what is essentially vos Savant's unconditional solution, followed by a paragraph clarifying what this solution says ("The reasoning above ..."), followed by a paragraph introducing a conditional solution ("A subtly different question is ..."). These two paragraphs (and other similar content) essentially present as undisputed "fact" what some editors consider to be "critical POV" that they have been arguing for years should be removed from the article. The counter argument form other editors is that what these paragraphs say is indeed undisputed mathematical fact (directly supported by the third group of sources). The question is how to resolve this in an NPOV manner. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:07, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

You might be interested in an attempt at synthesis which is slowly developing at [Citizendium] and at [Statprob]. Almost every introductory text in statistics and probability uses the Monty Hall problem to illustrate the calculus and formal language of probability theory. The focus is on getting the student familiar with the standard definitions and theorems. It's about learning a certain set of tools, not about MHP itself. Many texts are in my opinion pretty poor. They are dogmatic, do not explain why a certain route is taken. The popular texts are about getting the newcomer's mind around the paradox: why is it 1/3, 2/3 instead of 50:50. There is a scarcity of texts which combine sound mathematics and logic, and real insight.

Probability theory grew out of the attempt to ground a calculus of uncertainty on logic and mathematics. Historical choices were made as to what are axioms, what are theorems: which concepts are prior, which concepts are derived. These choices create a mind-set, they bias the way in which problems are seen and solved. Students spend a year learning the language. Once learnt, they cannot talk in ordinary language any more. The standard textbooks are written by teachers of these students who are possibly stuck at the same level themselves. In the MHP case, an experienced probabilist can write a few sentences which for the layperson are a convincing total solution to MHP (also take account of the specific door numbers), and for the fellow professional are too. The argument uses mathematical insight, it replaces manipulations of formulas or numbers with ideas. For the student of probability or statistics, it is a useful exercise to convert the prose into formal mathematics.

Since MHP is not treated in the mathematical literature at all from this point of view, and since wikipedia does not allow "own research", there is no option but to write new reliable sources and hope that wikipedia can catch up in about ten years or so. Richard Gill (talk) 08:42, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

If you'd like a different response, please ask on my talk page. Glkanter (talk) 01:53, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

See also [2]. This prepublication is based entirely on what I learnt from fellow editors at the MHP page. Richard Gill (talk) 09:33, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

MHP – Barbeau (2000): Rick, please one more question. So, in his papers, Barbeau didn't "explicitly" presuppose an unbiased host (choosing the door randomly if both conceal goats)? – Or did you just "conclude" that? Please can you tell me? Regards, Gerhardvalentin (talk) 23:08, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're asking. Here's the link to Barbeau's book [3]. Search for "Monty Hall" (although what he says has already been fully quoted on the talk page). He says what the standard analysis is based on (which includes host chooses randomly). He then says a player has a 2/3 probability of initially selecting a goat, and with a policy of always switching this is the probability of winning the car. This solution does not explicitly say anything about a player who's picked door 1 and has seen the host open door 3. I'm not "concluding" anything. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:09, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Barbeau writes down the usual full conditions but only gives a short simple solution which (of course!) only uses the "random car" assumption. I have the impression that he's just not very interested in MHP. And he's not a probabilist or a statistician so the niceties of conditional probabilities are alien to him, too. Richard Gill (talk) 00:25, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Monty Hall problem opened

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Monty Hall problem/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Monty Hall problem/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, (X! · talk)  · @143  ·  02:26, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Active admins

The count of active admins has plummeted over the past few days [4]. Has there been a change in the bot? — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:10, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I think something must be broken; Michael Hardy certainly has 30 edits in the last 30 days, but he has disappeared from the list [5]. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:16, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

No change in the bot, but it indeed doesn't seem to be working correctly. I'll look into it. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:06, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

The xml output from the api apparently changed format recently. I've implemented a fix and rerun the bot. Thanks very much for letting me know about this. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:26, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Timeline for evidence in Monty Hall case

Please see Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Monty Hall problem/Evidence#Timeline for Evidence, Proposed Decision. On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Dougweller (talk) 16:45, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

pardon me for butting in

Hi Rick. You may remember me from such articles as Monty Hall problem.[6] I am writing to confess that I have put words in your mouth.[7] Please feel free to slap me with a trout if I have overstepped. ~ Ningauble (talk) 21:36, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

The MHP on the one hand versus conditional probability theory

Rick, please be strong and help to discern and to keep apart those two quite "different pairs of shoes". The lemma MHP should show all that interesting and iridescent "historical" background, also. But please help readers to get the paradox and to conquer that "paradox", and help them, in showing that "conditional probability" is able to even come to terms with actually absurdest presuppositions. Would be fine if you could do that for the readers. Thank you. Kind regards, Gerhardvalentin (talk) 22:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Nomination of 1313 Mockingbird Lane for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article 1313 Mockingbird Lane 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/1313 Mockingbird Lane 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. Soundvisions1 (talk) 14:35, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Glkanter

Just to let you know, since you seemed to be the main target for his ire, Glkanter finally went so ott that he is currently blocked and his userpage has been CSD G10 deleted. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:47, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I appreciate you letting me know. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:57, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

WBFAN

As to your question - while I co-edited and worked those 2 articles to FA status I was not listed as a co-nom on those 2 articles. I reverted my edit there [8] - and changed back to 6 from 8 FAs here [9]. Somewhat of a confusing process - having worked those articles at the time - thanks for the clarification...Modernist (talk) 04:31, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Monty Hall problem closed

An arbitration case regarding Monty Hall problem has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following is a summary of the sanctions that were enacted:

• Standard discretionary sanctions are enacted for all articles related to Monty Hall problem (broadly interpreted)
• Glkanter is banned from Wikipedia for one year, and is further subject to an indefinite topic ban on subjects related to the Monty Hall Problem.
• Nijdam is topic banned from the subject of the Monty Hall problem for a period of one year.
• Rick Block is restricted to 1RR on the Monty Hall article for a period of one year.

For the Arbitration Committee, NW (Talk) 00:49, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Discuss this

User:Rick Block/DraftRFC

I note that this draft page has been dormant for over a year. Please blank or delete it until you are ready to post the RFCU.   Will Beback  talk  23:45, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

It was the draft for Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Glkanter (which was filed). I've deleted it. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:17, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

MHP FAR

I have nominated Monty Hall problem for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Tijfo098 (talk) 22:56, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

WP:WBFSN

Are you willing to have Rick Bot do WP:WBFSN?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 22:16, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Sure. Are you willing populate by-year lists like wp:FA2009? Not to be snotty about this, but bots don't happen magically. Adding sounds, given by-year lists, would be trivial. Figuring out how to parse the featured sound log files to determine who the nominator is and writing the code to generate the by-year lists is not so trivial. How about if you do the 2007 list by hand and tell me exactly how to figure out who to credit. Then we can write some code and run it against the 2008 logs and see how it works. Let me know when you have the 2007 list done and we'll talk. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:10, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I am very new to WP:FS. In fact, I created my first sound files in the last month. I have 5 quick FS and was wondering where I rank. I will talk to the people over there and see what they want to do. Some of them may be watching this discussion.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:41, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I've compiled the 2007 list at Wikipedia:Featured sounds promoted in 2007. Basically, the bot would look for Promoted blah.ogg (blah.ogg would go under the Sound column), then it'd look for Nominate and Support then take the user name of the nominator and use that under the Nominator column. At the moment Featured sounds isn't going to go live on the Main Page (the code's being worked out) so that is there as a placeholder. Would this be feasible? Regards, —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 6:40pm • 08:40, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this would be feasible if every nominator always includes "nominate and support" in their nomination statement. Thinking about this some more, is the nomination all we want to credit? For featured articles the nominator often has a fair amount of work to do (to address whatever issues any reviewer raises) and because of this is at least typically one of the main contributing editors of the article. Sounds seems more like wp:featured pictures, where we might want the main "credit" to go to uploader. I've been working on Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured picture contributions for a while (somewhat stalled of late - but I intend to get back to it). This sort of approach is more effort - the draft list of picture contributors includes uploader, creator, and nominator (determining all of these is difficult to do in an automated fashion). Should we bring this up at Wikipedia talk:Featured sound candidates? -- Rick Block (talk) 17:20, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

We are not as interested in creator, IMO. However, you have a point in distinguishing between nominator and uploader. Above I said I have 5 FS. Those are ones where I was the nominator and uploader of the final version. I have 7 where I was just the nominator. I understand why both counts have their merits.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:15, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

P.S. Are you suggesting both a WP:WBFSN and WP:WBFSU?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:22, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

No - I'm suggesting a single page like WP:WBFPC with multiple sortable columns. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:46, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

that one looks good, but the column based on icons is not sorting on that page though.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:06, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I can change the 07 list to include uploader (if they're not the creator, or the creator's not a Wikipedian) and creator (will be left blank unless they're a Wikipedian), it shouldn't be much trouble. 2010-11, however, will be a pain to draw up. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 4:41pm • 06:41, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

How is this one coming?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 19:10, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

No progress yet. Real life intrudes. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:46, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Las Meninas

Hi Rick. I hope this edit [10] was in error, I added Modernist after a discussion between himself and yourself on his talk. Modernist was a primarary edior on the page, but I thoughtlessly omitted him in the nom statement back in the day. I'd like to see him get credit there, if thats ok. Thanks and best. Ceoil 10:09, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

The bot recreates WP:WBFAN from the by-year lists (from scratch) each time it runs. To add another nom, you have to edit the by-year list like this. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:55, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Colorado Wiknic

All Wikipedians are cordially invited to the Colorado celebration of the 2011 Great American Wiknic on June 25. We will meet Saturday afternoon from 3:00 to 5:00 at the D Note, 7519 Grandview Avenue in Arvada. Please e-mail Jacques Delaguerre at Special:EmailUser/Jaxdelaguerre if you plan to attend. Be there or be square! –  Buaidh  01:17, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

WP:LOA/I

Quick question: if an admin hadn't edited in three months, but had made a logged action, would they still be listed at WP:LOA/I? –xeno^talk 13:33, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes. I have thought about changing the bot so that it queries for logged actions, but have never gotten around to it. I suspect there are a fair number of admins who edit but rarely use the tools. You're asking about the other direction which I think would be very rare. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:19, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree it is very rare, though I can think one example where the admin stopped editing yet continued to use the tools. FYI my question was related to this proposal. –xeno^talk 17:23, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

FYI it wasn't as rare we we might have though; i.e. User:Orphaned image deletion bot only deletes, doesn't edit. –xeno^talk 23:13, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes - admin bots that only do admin actions show up as inactive. Again, this is not something I've worried about. I assume if the desysop based on inactivity proposal goes through whoever is doing the desysop'ing will be looking at both editing and logged actions. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:13, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Not necessarily a safe assumption [11]... Would you be willing to add the requisite code to look at logged actions as well? –xeno^talk 14:16, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

← Further to [12], have you had a chance to work on updating the bot to also consider logged actions when determining inactivity? –xeno^talk 15:12, 10 August 2011 (UTC) Somewhat less important would be getting rid of the peculiar block of whitespace [13].

List of admins

Someone edited Wikipedia:List of administrators, and now the count of active admins has jumped to over 1,500. I don't know why people decide to edit these sorts of things without checking with the bot operator, they must not realize the pages aren't manually editable. If I undo the changes, will the bot recover automatically tomorrow? — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:43, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

I didn't know it was automated, but whatever you decide to do is fine. I did it because usually alphabetical listings are separated from numbered ones. –BuickCenturyDriver 14:06, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Active admin count

The count of active admins has plummeted recently. If you have a spare moment sometime, could you double-check that everything is right? — Carl (CBM · talk) 10:47, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Could you clarify? Other than the hiccup in July [14], it seems fairly consistent. –xeno^talk 13:43, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

The count has been fairly steadily dropping (from 770 about a month ago to the current 736). Looking at the bot's edits today, [15], [16], [17], the following have dropped to semi-active status:

Ginkgo100 (talk · contribs · logs)

Jni (talk · contribs · logs)

Nikki311 (talk · contribs · logs)

PeterSymonds (talk · contribs · logs)

Reedy (talk · contribs · logs)

UtherSRG (talk · contribs · logs)

Youngamerican (talk · contribs · logs)

and the following have moved from semi-active to active

NicholasTurnbull (talk · contribs · logs)

Proteus (talk · contribs · logs)

TomStar81 (talk · contribs · logs)

Checking their contribs, these all look correct. The bot changed the active count from 740 to 736 [18], which looks like the right difference (-7 +3). -- Rick Block (talk) 15:09, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:59, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:WBFAN

I think something went wrong with Rick Bot here; it seems to have decided that all former FAs have been re-promoted, among other things. Ucucha (talk) 12:42, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

It's internet connection was a little flakey yesterday. It seems to have recovered. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:30, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List of administrators/Inactive

Your code for Wikipedia:List of administrators/Inactive still includes a blank line for every new year even when in those years no admin became inactive. On thing I would personally like to see on that list as well would be a section of those who just became active again unless that is a major undertaking. Thanks. Agathoclea (talk) 09:59, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Tomorrow's update won't (shouldn't) have any blank lines. The list is regenerated (from scratch) every day, so providing an indication of those who have just become active again would be difficult. I'm also not sure I know exactly what you mean about a section of those who have just become active again. How long would they appear in this list? One day? You can more or less do this manually by diffing successive versions of the page. For example, here, AntiAbuseBot and Pigman clearly went from inactive to something else, and here SCEhardt, Camembert, and Mikaey did as well. Would this address your need? -- Rick Block (talk) 19:38, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Please remove me from the WBFAN list

Thanks! Sasata (talk) 20:42, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, OK. Mind if I ask why? -- Rick Block (talk) 02:42, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Prefer to keep "star collection" private. Sasata (talk) 03:03, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Work on Bots/Status?

Greetings. I am reading through the old Bot Policy archives and came across a mention that you might update Rick Bot to keep the Wikipedia:Bots/Status page up-to-date (this was back in 2008). I'm just wondering if anything ever became of that. I am doing an academic project on Wikipedia bots and their creators/operators, and I've been working with the Wikipedia:Bots/Status page, though I know it's not completely correct anymore. Just thought I'd say hello and see if you have any info on lists of bots, or would like to chat in general about Wikipedia bots and your work in that area. Thanks in advance...UOJComm (talk) 21:41, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I never updated the bot to keep the bot status page up to date. As far as I know, all active bots have to be approved by the Bot Approvals Group and should be listed at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Approved (or in one of the archives). We can certainly chat if you want (here or by email - whatever you'd prefer). -- Rick Block (talk) 02:52, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks a ton for the information. I would definitely like to talk more with you about bots in the form of an interview, if you'd be willing. This project is for my dissertation research and has been approved by the Wikimedia Research Committee (please see the project description [[19]].) I am totally flexible in terms of communicating over talk pages, via email, Skype, IM, or whatever you prefer, and I'll be conducting interviews over the next 3 months, so I'm also flexible in terms of when (if we do a synchronous method). When you get a chance, let me know what works best for you, and thank you in advance for your help! UOJComm (talk) 19:34, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Bot mistakes on WP:WBFTN

Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured topic nominations has a mistake right in the first star (the link is broken due to [[[)... and all stars are rusted, despite most topics being active. And your bot won't allow manual fixing! Can you do anything? igordebraga ≠ 14:38, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll look into it. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:18, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Should be fixed. Let me know if notice any further problems. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:23, 17 December 2011 (UTC)