User talk:Connel MacKenzie/archive-2006-01

If you are here at the top of the page, you are lost. Go here instead.

Gerard Foley 03:02, 1 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Welcome back Connel. Things have been quite busy lately and I have probably missed lots of rubbish entries - so I was wondering if you could regenerate you todo lists sometime. Cheers Jeff SemperBlotto 08:21, 19 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. I'm waiting for an updated backup/XML dump. Can't give you any new information on that until I have one, really. The Gutenberg "most wanted" lists are probably a good thing to keep you busy until then. I'd recommend going easy on patrolling the 2,000 most recent anonymous edits...that is a path to wiki-burnout.

Has the quality of anonymous edits really deteriorated that much in the last month? The mini-patrol I started earlier looked pretty bad. OTOH, the changes to Wiktionary:Community Portal that Dangherous and Gmcfoley did were fantastic. If they keep it up, they may find themselves nominated for garbage patrol.

In all my time offline, I did not get very far parsing in Webster's dictionary. I intend to auto-populate entries from the Gutenberg ranking that exist in Webster's, but that is still some time in the future. And coincidentally, now that my cable modem is happy again, work is suddenly getting {sigh} busy. Perhaps I should run the 'bot to undo the Ncik vandalism first, since that one is ready to go.

I certainly won't spend as much direct time on Wiktionary this year, as I did last. Automated tasks (now that I know what the format is, and what the likely pitfals are) are going to be my MO this year I hope. Gradually, I'll make my rules stricter for the /todo3 list especially.

I was going to revisit the /todo3 list, wasn't I? Ooops. The last time I tightened the rules, I got all 17,000 of the NanshuBot edits mixed in. Perhaps if I split non-ASCII words off to a /todo4 list? Perhaps this Friday/Saturday, I can look at that again.

I'm rambling. I must need sleep. Talk more later! --Connel MacKenzie T C 09:19, 19 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

With respect to {{wiktionarybiglangs}}, shouldn't the interwiki links be in alphabetical order? That is, bg: de: fr: gl: io: it: nl: pl: fi:. --Eddi 03:10, 21 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Sorry, just realised that Jon Harald had already fixed it. --Eddi 03:15, 21 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Um, I don't think so - they were added in order that they reached 10,000 entries. Now that there are more than a small handful, I guess alphabetizing them does make some sense though. --Connel MacKenzie T C 04:16, 21 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for your comments. I thought it might be related to size – the template name even indicates it – but I'm not that familiar with Wiktionary so I couldn't quite figure it out. --Eddi 07:56, 22 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

I chose "biglangs" because I was in a naming slump when I chose it and did not know of any nameing scheme that fit. At the time, I thought I'd be able to include {{wiktionarybiglangs}} on all major pages, so language-hopping would be easier, at least for the one's we have defined as interwiki links. For all the major pages, the mediwiki software uses the English page name...other language Wiktionaries are supposed to move them to the proper name leaving the redirect. But nl: in particular, does not like to cooperate and deletes those redirects.

Unfortunately, someone has since changed the format or our wikitionarybiglangs to spell out the explicit page name of the main page on each destination language Wiktionary, so the original intended purpose of {{wiktionarybiglangs}} is perhaps lost now. --Connel MacKenzie T C 08:08, 22 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Hi Connel, do you have a link to the bug? Gerard Foley 08:18, 22 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Took a minute to dig it up, but yes I found it. http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4713 --Connel MacKenzie T C 08:26, 22 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, I added it to Wiktionary:Announcements Gerard Foley 08:55, 22 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

I really don't see any point in making this special abbreviation page just for the 1913 Webster form. Without the period it is a very common abbreviation in etymmologies. The use of the period in those circumstances in that volume seems to be more a matter of their punctuation stylistics than a part of the abbreviation. Eclecticology 09:21, 23 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

What then, am I to do about your ignorance? Did you ask the community you represent before taking action in support of a vandal?

I did ask about abbreviations with periods. April/May of last year, if memory serves me correctly. The issue came up because of converted Webster entries that used that format (unlikely in any normal formal writing) and had the terms Wiki-linked. That's why entries such as OHG. are not treated as regular namespace entries. OHG should be an entry for the abbreviation for Old High German, OHG. should be the internal flag for Webster's 1913 conversion entries that need followup work.

Is that a likely mistake to be repeated with each person learning python? You tell me. You seem to believe you are omniscient. --Connel MacKenzie T C 09:34, 23 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Those are some very interesting "userboxes."

Please consider creating a user account and logging in.

For programming languages, do you intend to follow the Babel templates level ranking scheme? Will people's user pages turn into resumés? --Connel MacKenzie T C 08:05, 23 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

I will get a user account for the future. These were all taken from wikipedia but were missing from Wiktionary. I assumed being sister wikimedia sites they were appropriate here. Delete them if you disagree.

Actually, I like them. --Connel MacKenzie T C 18:10, 23 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

WOW you were fast! I saw it's first edit in Recent changes and thought "Ohhhh..... fuck! What do I do?" but you got it quick! Gerard Foley 03:40, 24 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Hehe. CDVF all the way! --Connel MacKenzie T C 03:42, 24 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

CDVF ? Gerard Foley 04:07, 24 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

w:WP:CDVF, but be sure to change "#en.wikipedia" to "#en.wiktionary" on the "IRC settings" tab and the rest is magic. --Connel MacKenzie T C 04:16, 24 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Please check your javascript, Connel. There are still problems with it as your latest edit to are shows. Confer User_talk:Ncik#javascript doing stuff I hadn't expected which was a reponse to User_talk:Polyglot:maid and User_talk:Polyglot#en- templates. Ncik 22:10, 24 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for noticing and correcting that. Among thousands of entries, I can, myself, occasionally make a mistake. The tool worked exactly as it was meant to; all entries modified by it are forced to preview. I obviously missed that change, masked by the bunch of other changes. Looking at Special:logs, it seems I may have been distracted by the Exi---nt vandal that was active at that time.

As to your conversation with Polyglot, using any tool has an associated learning curve. I haven't devised a lightweight javascript parser that segments the portions for separate analysis and correction yet. Are you offering to try implementing something like that?

As to the "en-" prefix, that is one case where having the prefix really makes the error stand out (for quicker correction, much like are.) In fact, any time you see the whole series of the template options listed like that, and saved, it means someone using the javascript overlooked the change (select one, delete the others.) A quick search indicates that you seem to have already caught all three errors, out of the thousands that have been entered cleanly using the javascript code.

--Connel MacKenzie T C 06:41, 25 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Hi Connel. I'm currently going through the BP archives, and I saw you using this term a dozen times. By its name I can imagine what it is, some monthly storage done by Wikimedia probably, but I was wondering how you get it. Is it an admin-only thing?

BTW, I think we badly need a solution for our English verb templates, I'm counting 5 different series of them. Confusing for newcomers! Cheers. Vildricianus 12:41, 26 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

http://download.wikimedia.org/ is open for redistribution to everyone that honors the GFDL. AFAIK, absolutely anyone can simply download a copy for their own use. http://download.wikimedia.org/wiktionary/en/ has older XML dumps. Besides downloading my own copies and pestering Brion on IRC, I have had no involvement with them.

The template issue has come to a head indeed. My issue is the concerted effort on the part of one individual who has dramatically skewed the balance in his own favor by undermining other people's work. At the same time, the same individual is crying foul whenever an entry of his is touched. So far, the main bureaucrat of Wiktionary has supported the one individual's abuse without exception.

Templates are intended to make things simpler, not harder. To have a single loose cannon changing the layout, changine the guidelines and changing policy pages with no go ahead from the community (nor even discussion) is simply wrong. The addition of his multiple flavors of templates that already exist and have significant community support has not helped simplify anything.

Out of curiosity, I count three separate sets. en-infl* vs. en-verb* vs. conj-*. What two series am I missing? --Connel MacKenzie T C 17:47, 26 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the links. There's also en-conj-reg/irreg and regverb/irregverb, both of which have now few inclusions (according to What links here at least), but which are still there. I've been able to follow the situation a bit, despite my newbiehood; count me among the ones who are eager to find a constructive solution. Vildricianus 18:40, 26 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. Enjoy the XML download. --Connel MacKenzie T C 18:49, 26 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Me again. I've got a question about your frequency lists. I see there are several versions, of which I think this is the most recent one you have made? However, the recent ranking tags do not correspond to this list (see agreement, which is #689 while the list says it's near 500). Of course I understand that any Gutenberg search will give different results according to how you search, but now I was wondering on which list you based yourself to make the rankings, or do they simply still have to be updated? (Or did the 'bot mess up?) Cheers. — Vildricianus 22:48, 28 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

The 'bot updated words from the most recent refinement of the ranking. Specifically, it did not mangle case-sensitivity the way the previous runs did. I overlooked updating the Wiktionary:Frequency lists to correspond to them. Since the ranking has met some resistance, it might be worthwhile to 'bot remove them until the main ranking list is republished, and someone graphically inclined enhances the I experimented with. The one major complaint about the current format was the lack of relevance of the neighboring words. The other suggestion was that it should be changed to a sidebar style. Perhaps more like template:wikipedia for consistency?

Unfortunately, I had a critical hard drive die on me last night. Until I have that situation resolved, I won't be able to dedicate any time towards these tasks. --Connel MacKenzie T C 23:52, 28 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

(yet another edit war) - have a look at Special:Contributions/Dubaduba - I'm sure that they are very good, but they are all going to show up on your todolists. SemperBlotto 12:29, 29 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

For just this once, I think I shall not take the bait. That is, I'll pass. Since all those entries contain absolutely no ASCII characters in the headwords, they will be excluded from the majority of my cleanup lists.

Perhaps modifying his ancient greek template is in order? Adding {{nolanguage}} seems valid, as he obviously should not be skipping the language heading within the text of the entry. Templates (here on the English Wiktionary) must not act as headers (i.e. must not start with an "=".)

Did you want me to complain to him about not numbering "#" the meanings lines? So very much is formatted non-standard, you should have no trouble rallying assistance in the beer parlour.

--Connel MacKenzie T C 19:08, 29 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

I think, like you, that I am going to just forget about it - I shall only start wars about English language words. Cheers. SemperBlotto 19:49, 29 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Two other points: when they do show up on the /todo2 cleanup list, they'll all be grouped together. At that point in time, I may decide to use the replace.py 'bot to automatically clean them up. Since that is a month or two away, the contributor will likely have gotten bored an moved on by then (as is the sad, but typical case.) --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:54, 29 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Hrumph. Perhaps I should've spoken up. I didn't expect the backup to be done anytime soon. --Connel MacKenzie T C 06:34, 31 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Holy shit! I cannot believe the extended unicode ranges people are entering as headwords. PuTTY certainly cannot cope with these bizarre ranges. Are people picking these terms to work on, in spiteful reaction to the RFD that Brion put up a while ago? Unreal.

I had loosened my filter(s) a while back to pick up the stranger ones. But now I need to tighten them down even more. Big surprise: the majority of those entries are formatted very poorly. Each entry is a candidate for nearly all the cleanup/flagging checks. --Connel MacKenzie T C 07:35, 31 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

I've changed the output of my routines to url-encode non- characters. This seems to be what PuTTY needs to not have a cow when encountering odd characters. The benefit is that the URL references will now always work. The downside is that native speakers of whatever script can no longer just read the link. I have no evidence that these cleanup lists are used by anyone other than you and me. (Barring the occasional 1-5 word visit that is.) So as long as we tag all these entries, others should be able to pick them up on more "normal" cleanup areas.

The Greek stuff is just weird. I have started tagging entries as "nolanguage" when the edit box shows no language. But after saving, it appears there are language statements hidden in the various templates (wildly screwing up section edits, while prohibited by semi-formal policy.) This will need to go to the beer parlour, I think. --Connel MacKenzie T C 07:45, 5 February 2006 (UTC)Reply