User talk:Hethrir/Archive/2011

House Construction
Just a ping about the earlier request. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 09:26, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Finished :), I ran my current uk-us list, double spaces, and contractions. Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 19:41, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Needs rewikify also...  --Panic (discuss • contribs) 20:28, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Rewikifyed, after a few changes to the script. Do you want it to remove references also? Hethrir (discuss • contribs)
 * I think the number is very small, one or two, you can use it as a test to the script if you like if not I will take care of them later. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 01:38, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Removed citations, and did a few updates on the script to make it more efficient. Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 19:10, 1 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Note the last edit (OSB) detected as a reference and removed, could have been restructured during rewikification (turned into a wikilink) or even smarter offered as an option to the local operator (you) as a rewikification for the previous words. Less complex that what than it seems, it should only required an identification of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ as a wikipedia link to execute a removal with the Oriented strand board (OSB), as the primary option for substitution and as an alternative the last word or an offer for a range. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 19:14, 1 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Would you want it to do this with external links to other sites(not wikipedia/othe wikis) as well as inter-wiki links? Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 19:25, 1 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I prefer to keep relevant web links visible in the text (for portability of the content), I rarely use non-wiki links in my content. Besides Wikipedia and local references I do not see any other worthy wikifiable links. (But others may have a different opinion and taste). --Panic (discuss • contribs) 01:30, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Transwiki:Type conversion
Another page needing bot action, same requirements as before. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 13:36, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
 * After a quick fix to the bot, this is finished. Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 01:49, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 02:01, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Another great function to add
A fix for broken Wikipedia links. Often imports are dewikified because fixing them is extremely time consuming, but this permits a loss of usefulness of the text and cuts one of the connections that is of mutual benefit to the projects. If a bot is able to fix the broken links it would probably be of a great help and an incentive for people to request the import in place of doing sporadic copy paste even when using an attribution (I have a planed book project about the Templars and having that capability would be extremely useful). --Panic (discuss • contribs) 02:09, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
 * By fix you mean it would change red links to text, or link to the wikipedia page? Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 02:15, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Correct the link to the proper Wikipedia page. In the imported pages this function is easier to implement (since links will not have local pages in consideration and most of them will have a good target at Wikipedia). Fixing red links outside of the import page is harder, it would require examining if the page exist locally and if not then verify if the page exists at Wikipedia also a deeper examination of the link is necessary for instance the existence of a / will definitely indicate that the red link is local and intentional. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 02:49, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Something like this: User:Hethrir/TestPage, (ignore the fact that everything is lower case Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 22:17, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes but transparent to the reader (removing the "w:"), it seems that it didn't catch all, there are some red links there. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 22:22, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It is ignoring the ones with alternate text (like [ [ URL_to_Text | Text ] ]), but I will fix that soon. Right now it checks if the link exists locally, then checks Wikipedia if it can't find it, what do you want it to do if it can't find something on Wikipedia or Wikibooks? Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 22:37, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Remove the link leaving only the text should be ok... --Panic (discuss • contribs) 12:42, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Citation needed tags should also be removes. Wikibooks doesn't require adding citations. One other thing that would be interesting is dealing with references, in that regard I have no solution only the realization that wikipedia articles are sometimes too thick with references, most times if I'm using that content I remove most of them, only leaving resources that are available online (like pdf documents) adding something like (see [url description, author and date] ) at the end of the phrase that relates to the text. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 12:52, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * This script is near finish, except for the references thing, which I am still going to do, but haven't yet started. It took a little while due to a few frustrations (I thought about re-writing the framework in c++), but I can have it edit any pages you want. Here is the result:


 * Polished: TestPage Original: Transwiki:Barter. Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 23:50, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok I will see about requesting some trasnwikis so we can then test it. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 00:20, 13 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok, request placed at Requests for import for the import. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 14:50, 15 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Done, the page is at Transwiki:High Middle Ages. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 16:17, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Do the same also for the When It Hits the Fan/Start a fire page, txs... --Panic (discuss • contribs) 18:38, 16 October 2011 (UTC)


 * In When It Hits the Fan/Start a fire the template was removed, possible bot error.  --Panic (discuss • contribs) 19:28, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Fixing, apparently what checks for citations is removing that as well, I'm fixing it now. Thank you for notifying me :) Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 20:12, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok, I ran it on the Transwiki:High Middle Ages page, I'm checking it for errors. Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 21:41, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Do you want it to remove the [edit]s in the article? Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 22:29, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The edit comment (HethrirBot: Dewikifying) seems off, Re-wikifying or Fixing wiki links seems a better description. What do you mean by removing edits ? Adding __NOEDIT_ ?  --Panic (discuss • contribs) 23:30, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixing comment, nevermind about the [edit]s I thought it was something else. Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 00:27, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Transwiki:Space colonization If you can re-wikify it, prefer hyphenation, remove dual spaces, prefer English-US, etc... Thanks. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 00:49, 21 October 2011 (UTC) And do the same to the Colonizing Outer Space project. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 00:50, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I have done re-wikifying, and double space fixing, but I still have to find or make a database of US-UK english. Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 15:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Although, I made it check with my current list of spelling differences, and it didn't find any. Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 16:00, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Another project to do your magic. House Construction (Did you contact Darklama regarding a change of vote for closing the bot flag issue ? ) --Panic (discuss • contribs) 22:29, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Another idea, can you create and give access for edit to others (by sticking a note there) a page with pages that the boot will continuously monitor, the requesting editor for that monitoring and the preferences that the editor selected for those pages. This would be useful for you and to avoid confusions, it can even be extended in an automated way within the bot at a later time. This would best be set on the bot page, since people will look there first and at a later time in case you decide to stop running the bot, enable others to continue the operation using the same account. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 22:34, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you mean, can I release the source for the bot so others can run it as well? Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 23:46, 24 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Not particularly now, but in a future when you are unable to continue to do it for the community. I read above that you would be interested in porting it to C++ you could start an open source project for that. Even as a project for Wikiversity. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 00:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * That's fine, although I have yet to start the c++ project, although I still want to do it, and if I do start it I will release the source on GitHub or something like that. Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 20:36, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Bot Problems
User_talk:PicoVerse

Bot shouldn't edit user space (unless requested). --Panic (discuss • contribs) 01:14, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your help, I am changing it now :) Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 12:28, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Thoughts
Adding spaces in a heading is fairly pointless and shouldn't be done; while the bot lacks a flag it clutters up recent changes.

Additionally, I don't understand why you've been creating orphaned redirects to pages with the redirect using lowercase first letters of a subpage (such as Japanese/kana/lessons/hiragana/lesson 3 to Japanese/Kana/Lessons/Hiragana/Lesson 3); convention is normally to capitalize, but sometimes book authors use lowercase. I can see maybe the reverse if they were using lowercase since it's less common, but it's still not necessary. – Adrignola discuss 19:58, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Edit conflict - I think this should be stopped. The redirects are orphaned and therefore speedy deletable. This should be for community agreement because at the moment we are seeing RC flooded and hundreds of pages needing re-review for a cosmetic change that is of no value QU TalkQu 20:01, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Stopping both scripts, thank you for stopping it. Sorry for flooding the RC, I didn't think it would cause this much trouble. I am stopping the scripts, should I undo the changes? Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 20:17, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
 * You may wish to discuss a bot flag at WB:RFP. We could at the least add the reviewer flag if the edits appear to be good.  While the spaces in the headings or adding spaces after the * in a list are just too insignificant, some of the changes, like Image -> File, and fixing links with underscores or that had an unnecessary pipe, or replacing HTML entities were decent enough.  But we should first go over what the bot could do and what it actually should do.  You've caught us by surprise here. – Adrignola discuss 20:32, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I very much would support giving this bot the bot flag. I normally choose to see bot activity in RC when I patrol anyhow, so it's not as if this would be hidden.  But it sure would be nice to be able to hide these edits from RC.  The flooding there makes it almost impossible to patrol for vandalism.  I view granting the bot flag and agreeing on the bot's activities as two separate things.  Granting the flag is not the same thing as agreeing with its edits, no?  --Jomegat (discuss • contribs) 23:49, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The bot flag would represent approval from the community, rather than tacit approval by allowing it to run unblocked. Template:Bot shows the various statuses a bot could have and you'll notice I set it so that there needs to be a request for permissions on file for any bot tagged as explicitly approved. – Adrignola discuss 00:30, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Understood. I was just laying out my argument to the community ahead of time as a hint that Hethrir might ought to consider requesting the flag. ;-) --Jomegat (discuss • contribs) 01:10, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I am applying for the bot flag, and I have also made a list of things I can do, feel free to request work on a specific area :-) Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 17:04, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Extension
Can the bot be made to remove the irritating two spaces after a period ? --Panic (discuss • contribs) 21:31, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I hope you're not serious. Really.  (I put two spaces between those two sentences there.  Count how many you see in the result.) – Adrignola discuss 22:28, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Although this is something I could fix if it didn't :-) Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 00:01, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not a zealot but it kinda of irks me, mostly because of the lack of consistency and as editor I read a lot of the text in edit mode. I had never noticed this issue before getting active on Wikibooks and I notice that the practice on Wikibooks is escalating. The article I added was the first one I saw that reflected all the reasons I think are valid to avoid doing so (but it is generally accepted as a bad practice). I never use two spaces and never did, I could agree that it makes the period more distinguishable but the function of the period is already safeguarded by itself and the capitalization of the next letter, so even that is a bad excuse.
 * Can you explain me the advantage of the two spaces for you Adrignola ?
 * In any case if we are focusing in writing books to be printed we should fallow the rules of typography. I don't have any problem in talk posts as you elucidated but consider that not all content is accessed in that way, and if the bot could address that issue I would gladly request the use of it in some of the pages I work. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 00:39, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * PS: One other cool thing would be a spelling check to convert English-UK to English-US. In my works I have adopted a convention to use English-US, again mostly for consistency (as well as a preference for hyphenation). The bot would also be great to remove contractions, I try to avoid them but most of the time I forget about it. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 01:01, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I can do all those things, I'll begin to work on them now :) Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 01:11, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I have finished the contractions script, would you like me to start on the books you list as authoring in you User page. Here is a list of contractions that my bot looks for, do you have any you don't want it to fix: User:Hethrir/Contractions? Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 00:53, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * You can then try it on the Video Game Design book, low activity and simpler layout.
 * Do not use the Check for dead links to external websites (unless it does not alter the text, a good change would be to post a report in the relevant talk page), also do no change links to footnotes (footnotes don't work well in print). Try a few pages at a time as not to make a great impact on the logs and to be easily corrected if something goes wrong. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 07:51, 6 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Panic, I learned to type on an actual typewriter (the middle school was not exactly flush), so the standard at the time was to do two spaces after a period. Can't change my ways now. – Adrignola discuss 04:19, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Me too, but strangely not the two spaces, we also used mechanical typewriters (can't remember the model), probably language defaults are not the same, for instance each new paragraph would have a dual space indent. I was only pointing that it is not something that should fall under simple discretion, if people can prevent the practice the better and a bot could help fix it (as it is doing the other stuff). --Panic (discuss • contribs) 07:51, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Two spaces after a full stop (or period, if you prefer) is standard. I always do it and I really hope we're not going to have a bot fix such things.  Panic, why are you asking for contractions and UK English to be removed?  That's entirely up to the authors of the book and contractions, especially on the Internet, are perfectly fine.  OK, I realise that you are now removing contractions in books that Panic has authored but what about all the other editors in those books?  I don't see what benefit this bot is having for Wikibooks.--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 12:06, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Two spaces aren't standard (see for instance the Wikipedia article about it), or just read what we have said above about it. The English-US is adopted as a convention on most books I work, as is the use of the hyphenation (as a preference and what should be used not as a forced requirement) and the avoidance of contractions is just indisputable good writing practice (I agree with you than in talk pages and informal context they are fine). --Panic (discuss • contribs) 12:15, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * A Wikipedia article about double spacing is not proof that it is not standard. The English language has no authority governing what is considered to be correct usage of the language (unlike most other languages).  Again, it is up to the preference of the authors.  I accept that you are the principal author of the Video Games book so you can do as you please but this bot should be restricted to those books only if it is going to alter contractions or styles of English.  I have been a lecturer in English for many years (generally to students whose first language isn't English) and I have always told students to use contractions expect for the most formal of situations.  Do as you wish for books where you are the primary author or where you have sought approval of the other authors.--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 12:23, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Fixing contractions
Why is this box fixing contractions (eg. don't -> do not) in books? There is no policy about using full forms as opposed to contractions and if a book's authors wants to use contractions then that is fine. Please don't fix such "mistakes" unless the author of the book has requested it.--ЗAНИA talk 12:01, 6 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The bot run was requested Xania, by one of the book authors (me, see talk above). In any case contractions have no place in written form if not used expressly to replicate a voice conversation/dialog. I wouldn't advocate using the bot only for that purpose, but as part of other tasks I don't see it as an issue even if not requested by one of the authors but by anyone with lets say review rights that can be held responsible for monitoring the changes. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 12:06, 6 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Contractions have no place in written form? Maybe in a formal business letter or a thesis but in a book they certainly do.  You are free to request such changes to books where you are the primary author or books where you have sought the approval of other authors but this can not be used randomly on any book.  --ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 12:13, 6 October 2011 (UTC)


 * That was the point of the discussion and even the request for the attribution of the bot flag. We are in agreement, the bot should only be used by request.
 * Anyway can you please point me a good book that isn't attempting to replicate a dialog that uses contractions ? Or any article/paper/someone of authority that supports that view ? --Panic (discuss • contribs) 12:18, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I could ask you to do the same. It's all just about style like most other things in English.  There is no rule.  --ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 12:25, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It common practice, that creates the rule, in fact there are several types of contractions what the bot is focusing and we have been speaking is the use of informal contractions, by their own definition are to be only used in informal circumstances (no problem with it). Do a search on the web and see what most people agree with. In any simply looking to the phrase "Contractions are used sparingly in formal written English. The APA style guide prefers that contractions, including Latin abbreviations, not be used in scholarly papers, and recommends that the equivalent phrase in English be written out." at Contraction (grammar) resumes the practice well. In fact writing things out clearly permits better comprehension mostly the same rational behind using hyphenation. In any case being all things equal there was no reason for the reversal of the contractions you did, the validity would be null but not objectionable. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 12:46, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I reversed the contractions because, at that time, I didn't believe that they had been requested and because they didn't add anything to the books in question. I now see that they were requested so there is no problem there.  If someone was going around and changing US to UK English (or vice-versa) without consent then I would have done the same thing because such changes are not adding anything to the book.  One problem with "writing things out clearly" can be that it adds stress to a sentence where no stress is intended (saying "I can't play the guitar" is weaker than saying "I cannot play the guitar" and can imply that we are emphasising that you can't do it).  There is a difference between scholarly papers and a Wikibook and language styles are freer on the Internet than in printed material.  As I said before, what you do with YOUR (where you're primary editor) book is up to you.--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 13:04, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I have before converted some English-US to English_UK and vice versa without any extended consensus, based on what was more prominent on the work, I have not ever reverted any similar changes nor contested them, because as you said nothing was added or removed from the works, therefore I don't see reversing those types of changes a good practice. In the example you used the first person is used and I agree with you but rarely one sees books that format or even "me", "she" or "he", most that do are language books and I think that using this bot feature there is problematic because it would alter example phrases especially when reflecting common dialogs, or for instance works that uses lots of quotes can also be problematic, for instance in the P2P work I have included some quotes, special consideration must be used there. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 13:20, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, my example wasn't great and such differences are mainly reserved to spoken English. I certainly wouldn't allow this bot anywhere near a language book because students are generally always told to use contractions.  I have no issues provided that the editors of the books are in support of the changes.  Don't really care either way - I regularly use Americanisms like canceled and customize but would never think of writing encyclopedia, color or fetus (which I thought was a typo when I saw it recently in a Wikibook.  Do we really need a bot to do these tasks?  My browser underlines any typos automatically and will correct them if I set that option and a find-replace on a certain page is easy enough to do.
 * Yes the bot should only work on projects by request and edits must be monitored (no one has disagreed with that requirement). Not all works will be able to utilize all of the bot features (but my understanding is that they can be turned on or off as requested).
 * The great benefit of having the bot provide the features is that it permits to make works more consistent. I prefer English-US (I cringe overtime I see "colour" in English, I have come to have an instinctive dislike for the written French language due probably to have been forced to learn it) but often will edit Americanisms out of works that are predominantly English-UK, so I agree that to each its own, if no one objects with reason I also don't see an issue, so after all considerations we expressed we seem to be basically in agreement.
 * The bot can presumably be made to work the other way around, as to remove Americanisms and probably extended in other ways. I appreciate the work made by Hethrir and the effort to make it conform to our needs and requirements. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 01:46, 7 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The bot can be used change US English to UK English, I'm currently working on that right now, both contractions and the two spaces after periods, exclamation marks, and question marks are finished. Modifying and making bot scripts for wikibooks is helping me learn more python as well, and I enjoy bots :-) ~ Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 02:11, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Missing some contractions
It's and it's are escaping. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 12:46, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I forgot to add it's, thank you for telling me, although what page are you looking at? Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 13:03, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * How will this be implemented? It's can be an abbreviation for it is and it has.--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 13:05, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I have it ask me which to use, it's only semi-automated, but it's shown to be efficient. Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 13:11, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, no problem.--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 13:14, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Found and fixed the escaping it's Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 13:20, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Video Game Design/Process some escaped here :) --Panic (discuss • contribs) 14:06, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Fixed this also ~ Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 15:05, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

another minor tweak
See edit on [Video Game Design/Structure]. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 14:05, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixing now, thank you for showing me the errors ~ Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 14:22, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Alright, that should no longer happen :) ~ Hethrir (discuss • contribs) 14:26, 6 October 2011 (UTC)