User talk:Tim Starling

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

Voting[edit]

I was able to vote today, thanks! --In Defense of the Artist 23:26, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Tim[edit]

That was quick. Thanks. If I get a message saying User xxxx cannot be made an admin, should I assume that someone has already done them? It's happening for Roadrunner and Seglea. Bmills 15:35, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Reply on User talk:Bmills -- Tim Starling 15:45, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Thanks. I've sysoped Seglea. Bmills 15:50, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Looks like roadrunner accepted at the bottom of this. Bmills 15:53, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Oh, right, looks like he did that a couple of days ago. I missed it when I checked just then. -- Tim Starling 15:56, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Range Blocks: suffix/prefix[edit]

I looked at your article Range blocks and there seems to be some confusion over the use of the word "prefix": ITYM "suffix" in several places but I'm not confident enough of the terminology to fix it myself (recalling the fairly-well-known-to-everybody-except-me example of client/server inversion in X Windows). --Phil 13:20, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

OK, more understandable now, thanks. However in reference to your example at the end of the preamble: surely blocking 142.177.0.0/16 will block the exact range 142.177.0.0&mdash142.177.255.255? 142.178.0.0 shouldn't be affected, surely? --Phil 13:27, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Bureaucrat.[edit]

The Bureaucrat situation seems confused, but I guess you're still involved in that. I would very much like to be able to appoint sysops in Wikisource and Wiktionary. I've been quite involved in both since the day they started, and have come to see where there are needs in both. There do not appear to be any bureaucrats in either project at this time. Eclecticology 01:40, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I'm involved in it in that I'm against the whole concept and I don't want to encourage it. There's no sense in placing power into the hands of an unaccountable few. That's barely better than the previous situation. -- Tim Starling 15:16, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

If there's another practical way to create sysops on these projects I'm certainly flexible about it. Two of Angela's old nominees has agreed to thus act, and that's fine with me. Beyond that, because of the multilingual nature of Wikisource I would hope to encourage a few others to take on the role to deal with articles in their own language. The need at Wiktionary appears less immediate, but in either case a "bureaucrat" should be a person who is prepared to monitor the appropriate pages to see if any sysoping needs to be done. That's not happening on the smaller projects. The powers involved are really limited, and I'm sure that if anyone were abusing these powers you would soon hear about it. Eclecticology 09:39, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Alright, you're a bureaucrat on those two wikis. But this is temporary! -- Tim Starling 13:40, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Many thanks. -Ec
Sorry to keep bugging you on this. It seems to be working OK on Wikipedia (where the need to create sysops is not immediate). At Wikisource I keep getting, "The action you have requested can only be performed by sysops with "bureaucrat" status." Is this a software problem. Eclecticology 23:44, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Oops, I made you a bureaucrat on Wikibooks instead of Wikisource. Fixed now, I hope. -- Tim Starling 00:05, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Great it works, and I just created my first sysop (Shizhao). We all make these errors, and when I said above that it was working well in Wikipedia, I meant Wiktionary. blush
I now have two questions. 1) I have been looking at the possibility of an "Index:" namespace at Wiktionary where the list of pages in the Wikisource namespace has grown to 1278. The majority of these are for various interlanguage indexes which could possibly be separated. Are there any technical difficulties connected with or possibly resulting from such a decision? There would be no point to seeking editorial consensus if the idca won't work. [Ec]
In principle something like this could be done. It's technically easier to use pseudo-namespaces, but if the editors of Wiktionary decide it's better to have a separate namespace, then you can have a separate namespace. [TS]
Thanks I'll see if there is any consensus on this, and get back to you if there is. -Ec
2) Can you write in any language other than English. Since you are yourself a Wikisource sysop i am trying to develop a list of sysops' language abilities so that queries can be made to non-English speaking newbies when the occasion arises. Eclecticology 09:24, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)
No I can't, but you shouldn't consider me a Wikisource sysop anyway. I'm a developer, I have sysop powers on every wiki where I feel like giving myself sysop powers. But I don't compete with real sysops on the various wikis. I just use it for changing MediaWiki messages and the occasional emergency vandalism response. -- Tim Starling 06:31, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I saw your comments on the mailing list, and agree with most of what you said there about the relative roles of sysops and developers. Endless wrangling over rules and behaviour can be a drain on anybody's time. The skill that I've really been looking for is other language ability - the facts appear to leave you immune from that scheme. :-) There is one area where I think that occasional monitoring by developers could be helpful. That is on the "Bug reports" pages. Although non-developers should try to help here too there will always be a few questions that are beyond the understanding of non-techies, but may be dealt with simply by developers. Where the question leads to significant complications a mere short explanation of that fact would be very reassuring. Eclecticology 01:17, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You want to delete Death By Stereo, huh? Go head and I quit Wikipedia now. - Michael 01:28 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Protection request[edit]

Hi Tim - I saw you made a change here just recently, so perhaps you're still here... There's a bit of a change/revert war going on at Sealand, could you protect it? -- Kwekubo 00:36, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Dates[edit]

Some time back I was in a row over ISO date formats. I don't want to get back into that argument at this point. At the time I did not give much thought to BC dates, and considered that as just a matter of format change. I was just making links from Wikisource for Aristotle when I realized that his death year of 322 BC became -0321. I haven't looked back at the ISO standards for this, but this would seem to be a glitch arising from a failure to consider that the year zero never existed. Thanks for looking into this. Eclecticology 18:19, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

That's the ISO standard. I had to deliberately subtract one. From en:ISO 8601:
BC dates are offset by one in order to obtain zero-based dates, so -0487-09-11 is September 11 in the year 488 BC rather than 487 BC, as might be supposed. 0000-09-11 is September 11 in the year 1 BC.
It's to make it easier for computers to handle. You can work out what 10 years later than 5 BC is without too much trouble. -- Tim Starling 07:03, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

OK. I see your point, so I don't have much of an argument. For the most part it seems that only historians and astronomers have any use for BC dates, but that different solutions to this would suit the two groups. Historians don't have any problem with the missing year zero. Anyway, I'll let it drop until and unless I can find a good argument. Eclecticology 08:45, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A Troll's Defence[edit]

Hello Tim,

I can explain why I'm a troll in the eyes of Aioneko, Anthere and Shailaiud and some of their followers (because of the leader charisma  :-) )

  • 1 I give articles in a conflictual matter : religion
  • 2 When Anthere, Aioneko or Shai jump in an editing conflict, they don't focus on the job to do (What matters about this article ?) but they focus on the user. They understand an editing confict as Stuart Little /vs Smith instead of which points of view are deflagrating ? Are they able to give a unique consensual point of view or must we expose this dualism of point of view with their references and source ?

In Western and Southern Europe because of the proeminency of RC Church, the religious knowledge did not receive a wide range of diffusion excepted in German-speaking countries. The matter is that, each time is given the Tradition point of view (which seems to me mainly respectable) Stuart Little is able to give the scholar point of view on the 3 monotheisms. That's not a miracle : Stuart Little is quite collective name. I receive the help of friends who are scholars in various edu. organisations such as : ULB in Brussels, CNRS in South of France, UQAM in Canada, Jesuit theologat in Brussels, Tijania sufi, ITP in Paris, etc… So we can give an extent bibliographic material about our assertions, the most part covering the both sides of the Ocean.

Few of these assertions rise directly in the dominican exegesis which were quoted as anti-catholicism by an user whose trend is the Fundamentalist Catholic (Fraternite Saint Pie X). As RC Chuch mainstream in Europe is quite similar as Conservative Christians in USA, agnostic or atheist people are agnostic from or atheist from and not atheist in a general way ; so, the only neutral in religious matters, peculiarly in Christian subjects must be the conservative RC point of view as during the modernist crisis which occured in the last part of the 19 century. The only remaining result in Europeof the Vatican II Synod is the Mass in vernacular languages.

Also, each time I dare distinguih w:fr:Islam with w:fr:Islamisme or terrorism, my articles are understood as to cense Islam and each time I give a Dominican exegesis idea, it is evaluated as to damn RC Church. Conservative Christian are not decided to allow the expression of such points of vew to equilibrate their own and, because of their lack of knowledge of the matter the 1st idea which arises among the few sysops is to make an enquiry about Stuart Little and no enquiry at all about the status of art in the concerned matters.

The only arguments among my opponents are ad personam (among the supposed morality of the user). I'm used to answer such class of argument with Arthur Schopenhauer's s rhetoric stratagemas, which was unknown within them till the moment I gave his quotations. That was unbearable for may opponents. So I'm a Troll, indeed as I read the books they ignore.

Also, the users I'm working with in a good relationship level among wikipedia are used to spare their words in the discussion as they focus on the job to do; on the contrary sysops and their followers are loud speakers in the 'wikipedia prise de décisions. Maybe it should be useful to ask their opinion about my currents jobs to other users such as :

Sincerely, Stuart Little


The matter is that, each time is given the Tradition point of view (which seems to me mainly respectable) Stuart Little is able to give the scholar point of view on the 3 monotheisms. That's not a miracle : Stuart Little is quite collective name. I receive the help of friends who are scholars in various edu. organisations such as : ULB in Brussels, CNRS in South of France, UQAM in Canada, Jesuit theologat in Brussels, Tijania sufi, ITP in Paris, etc… So we can give an extent bibliographic material about our assertions, the most part covering the both sides of the Ocean.

I am glad Stuart, of what you wrote above. I thank you for your honesty. This is the first time you recognise publicly that you are indeed Mulot. This is something old contributors were convinced of, because of your focus, of your style and of your general behavior. This was something supported by the IP check done by Tim 2 months ago. I appreciate that you finally accept to recognise that Mulot and Stuart Little are only one.

I appreciate as well that you do not use both identities to self support yourself any more. As long as you do not try to self-support yourself during edit wars, I see no problem with your sock puppets as I already mentionned several times.

However, Mulot, you are generally disrupting the community, making us lose a lot of time, and causing pain to some contributors. However, we still do think you are valuable for your editing participation to religious articles, and me personally, for your irreverant but enlighted comments on community governance. Nevertheless, these past few days, you went too far; lying, in particular, is not acceptable.

Consequently, I would like that you refrain yourself from editing any meta pages on fr for this full week, and focus on the articles themselves. It would be appreciated as well that you stay polite and avoid personal attacks on the editors with whom you share articles.

I am sure we will find common ground to share the space all of us :-)

anthere


I don't recognize I'm Mulot and we never supported each other. As indicated on my discussion page, I recognize know Mulot. Which is different.

I think that your call to lynch and your lack of discretion with the netiquette disrupt the community more efficently that my few discussions.

With your inventions about my person, which are irrelevant with the purpose of the community, you went to far. I agree with the opinion of R : you're guilty of abuses.

Stuart Little 13:57, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

To choose the policy[edit]

I saw this on an arbitrator discussion page :

In particular, I would very much like to enable each wiki to choose its own power structure. At the moment I can't implement the power structure that the French people want for fr, because the English people don't want it on en. That clearly has to change. -- Tim Starling 04:10, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

On the French wiki, w:fr:Roby and I, we intend to push up such a discussion. I suspect (and Roby too, on basis on a private e-mail correspondance) that the various calls to Lynch upon me has close relationship with such a discussion. Unfortunately, the Roby's project is in French. Stuart Little 13:51, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Wiktionary namespace on nl.wiktionary.org[edit]

Hi Tim,

The Wiktionary namespace on nl.wiktionary.org doesn't work. Could you have a look at it? Also, how can I change the messages of the interface if they are not suitable for a dictionary? Polyglot 18:13, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Are you talking about this bug by any chance? [1]
And for interface messages, have you tried http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/MediaWiki:All_messages ? Hope it helps. Tomos 23:29, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Aromanian Uichipedia (ars.wiki)[edit]

Hi Tim! It's Ronline from ro.wiki requesting for a Wikipedia in the Aromanian language (called "Uichipedia" at http://ars.wikipedia.org). Would it be OK if you could set up the new Wikipedia in this language, because we got support from an Aromanian periodical appearing in all the Balkans ("Bana Armâneascâ", in about 10.000 copies). Also, one of the managers (Dumitru Piceava) is willing to collaborate and Danutz already has tens of articles in Aromanian stored on his computer. Please create it as soon as you can.

Useful links for you (the interface file, the logo and the main page have been set up by us at ro.wiki):

Thanks a lot and I hope you reply as soon as possible, Ronline 08:40, 26 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Ok - sorry. I thought I was being helpful. Secretlondon 03:58, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

New schemas?[edit]

Hi Tim,

I would like to help with the (eventual, planned) db schema upgrades, and the resulting query and documentation rewrites. Where is the latest discussion of these things going on? Who should I be talking to? Thank you, +sj+ 17:39, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

special letter in an username[edit]

Hi Tim,

and again I need your help. I was asking you allready two times in #wikipedia about the special character in usernames, and again we such a problem. This time, I don't know the excetly letter, because the user is not signing his messages with ~~~~. His useraccount ist 'grashüpfer' - maybe with the special letter on the end, maybe as first letter.

Could you please ask the mySQL user table about every username beginning with 'grash' (or something like this?)

Again, thank you very much for your help. -- MichaelDiederich 09:46, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Aehm, could you please check, if the second "Grashüpfer" on this list is allready blocked or can't login? Thanks again! -- MichaelDiederich 20:12, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedians/Wikimedians[edit]

Agree with your points on this. I've moved the pages and started a home page of sort for Wikimedians. Not a good idea to grab their pages and use them for pages about contributors to the projects. The groups are distinct and have different interests (for example, -pedians are licensors, -medians are licensees). Jamesday 17:44, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Can you or someone else fix the category problem on two skins?[edit]

Hi Tim, If I've got it right, the consensus was that categories would go at the bottom, not the top of pages, and this was indeed implemented on the default skin. But it's not yet implemented on Cologne Blue or Classic. Since I am a user of Classic, and feel rather pained when I see all those categories appearing up top, do you think you could move them, or delegate another sysop to do it? I would be very grateful. Yours truly, User:Opus33 (English Wikipedia).

Problems with the templates[edit]

hi tim, anthere did refer me to you: i will create 3 new dictionaries in wiki instead in my private home page (where one of this is now). i did begin this job in wiktionary in the language interlingue (it is not my favorite language; i will only help in this job). i did copy important parts of the german dictionary and translate this page and part of the other pages into interlingue. but the first word ("dictionary" in interlingue) will not work. i did not understand the very long explications about "templates" in the "wikipedia" and the other one in the "wiktionary". before i begin the same work with the both other languages (langue musicale universelle, solresol, and lingua sistemfrater, frater) i will understand what is the matter because i will not to have to remake a lot of wrong dictionary pages of course! --Oui 19:06, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Lir[edit]

User:Lir wants to know why her user page, account, talk page, histories, and contributions list have all been deleted. She put a lot of time and effort into improving the Wikipedia, and finds it offensive that this has occurred. 209.181.211.69

Your contributions list [3] and user page history [4] are still intact on en. There's no record of you having edited under that name on meta. Are there contributions on meta which have gone missing? -- Tim Starling 05:21, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Thank you Tim... Anthere 06:21, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

AOL[edit]

Hi Tim,

i have a problem again. We have a user (w:de:Benutzer:Mutter Erde) trolling and we had allready block him indifinte, but he is using AOL so we "autoblock" some ips of the aol proxy and some more AOL-users could not edit the wikipedia also.

Do you have a idea or a solution for this problem?

TIA! -- MichaelDiederich 15:47, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

No, there's nothing you can do, besides not blocking him. Blocking the username but not the IP wouldn't do us much good, he could just edit anonymously. We had this problem for over a year with Michael, and AOL never did anything despite lots of complaints.
Really the only solution is to block everyone from AOL by default, and then only let people who have confirmed their identity edit. We don't currently have such a feature in MediaWiki. -- Tim Starling 12:09, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Direct marketing preference feature suggestion[edit]

Hi Tim,

I was wondering how difficult it would be to add a preference to allow users to either positively opt-in, or negatively opt-out, of direct marketing (specifically, campaign messages, although this could conceivably be used for commercial advertising in Wiki's that wanted the option).

If this feature were available, the Edit page could have checkbox controls that would allow message senders to indicate whether a message was a campaign message. When clicking the Save button, if the user had indicated that they did not want such messages, the Save would be rejected, and the user would never see the message.

Message senders who sent campaign messages could be summarily blocked (or banned for repeated violations) if they did not use the checkbox control to indicate the nature of the message.

I think this feature would go a long ways towards giving Wiki users control over their user pages, and also to promote a sane and open environment for campaigning on Wikis.

My motivation for suggesting this feature is that the December 2004 Arbitration Committee Election campaign just started, and there is no easy way to know whether one is exceeding the spam threshold when posting endorsements or opposition to candidates on user pages.

A simple analysis would suggest that there must be some type of previous affiliation for messages not to be considered spam, but it quickly gets into shades of gray when contributors who have worked on a Wiki together in one capacity or another (no matter how remote) start posting such messages to each other. There is a spectrum from "thanks for your opinion" to "bemused" to "I have no clue who you are - why are you sending me this spam", and without this control feature, a user has no way of indicating in advance where they fall on this spectrum.

What do you think? Please let me know if there is a better place to post this feature request.

(I regret that I don't have experience on Linux/Unix or I would volunteer to implement this myself. I work on Windows video apps in C++ in my day job, at Adobe Systems, in San Jose, California.)

I have a user account on Wikipedia under David Vasquez, please feel free to reply on my user talk page in that space.

--DV 10:48, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

At this moment, I don't see this as a critical issue. The best that I know, all comments on user pages with respect to various wiki campaigns are extremely targeted and are not sent as random messages to typical wikipedia users.
I don't see this as a major concern at the moment.
However, in a future world its not unreasonable to imagine bots sending messages to users. If this case comes to that, then we will need to fix this. However, at the moment, I don't have any issues with the status quo. El Benevolete.

Special pages[edit]

Please Tim, is possible to refresh cached versions of the special pages without downloading the database? Willy 17:01, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)


WikiMonkeyBoy[edit]

Hello, I keep reading on Wikipedia that developers are a bit short handed, worked off their feet, etc. I've been a software developer for 25 years and I have recent experience of PHP. I worked for Boltblue.com for two years as a PHP and database developer (Oracle and MySQL). I worked on the guardian.co.uk website previously, and I've been mucking around with Perl and Java for years). If any help is needed I'd be happy to lend a hand as a WikiMonkeyBoy. I just don't know where to start, but I'd love to help. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:18, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Congratulations[edit]

Dear Tim, yours is the only name that occur to me as developer so, please accept my thanks and congratulations for you and the other developers for the new software. Its lovely and already allowed us in wiki.pt to resolve a few problems in categorization. Again, thanks for your efforts. Happy new year! Muriel (212.113.164.100 11:22, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC))

wanted to renew my request to become developer with CVS access[edit]

Hi Tim,

I guess, we will meet in Berlin.

Now, as my Enotif and Eauthent "patches" (no longer patches...) were merged into the CVS HEAD by Brion one week ago, I want to ask you (as already done on the Developers page) to apply, to become member of the developer team with CVS access.

I would prefer, that you mail me via one of my user pages. Thanks in advance. On Sourceforge, I am also known as Nyxos - as far as I know, the login username is necessary, too. I have once read something about this requirement and therefore I registered there.

Tom Gries ( aka Nyxos aka Wikinaut ) --Tom Gries [mail] 17:00, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Some thoughts about article validation[edit]

Hello Tim. On 21C3 in Berlin I talked a lot about a reviewed Wikipedia and I was given some information that there are several proposals out there and even a patch by Magnus Manske. So I went to Metawiki and edited some of the ideas and so I stumbled into Article validation (which would need some more structure) and your thoughts in Authority metric. In the meantime I had already enhanced and clarified Reviewed article version (and added my main concern that there are no branches as in CVS) and now I'm a bit unsure how to merge it with Article validation, since I first wanted to see the Test-Wiki with Magnus' patch in action (which is down) before I go on editing and clarifying the proposals. In the meantime I also have written down an idea which is somewhat related to your remark about the "Brownian moelcular movement" of wikipedia articles in Authority metric: Edit rules It is about an "algorithm" based article commit check system in MediaWiki similar to the current edit conflict to reduce unwanted edits (vandalism, flames on discussion pages, edit wars, stubs). I think this idea can much more easier be integrated in MediaWiki and will be accepted faster by the community than a review system (cause it is more wiki like) and will hopefully help to improve quality of content and of course it doesn't need a change to the database structure. I have talked a lot about this idea with other (mostly german) Wikipedians in Berlin and they found the idea rather good and the actual feedback on the page is also pleasant to me. I know you get lots of request of people wishing this and that, so my question is: Is this idea worth (out of the perspective of a developer) to investigate deeper? I would be glad to see your comment there in the article if you like/dislike it. Greetings, Arnomane 17:55, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Jimbo's page[edit]

Hey Tim,

When someone leaves Jimbo a message on his userpage, do you copy it somewhere else, or expect him to check the history of the page? I was tempted to copy it to his en:user talk so that it would still be somewhere. —Ben Brockert < 03:04, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Www.wikipedia.org portal (Catherine Munro's proposal)[edit]

Catherine has come up with a proposal for a greatly improved entry page to Wikipedia that has attracted a great deal of interest and support. What would it take to replace your original version with this one? Is the current level of support sufficient, or should we organise some kind of vote? GeorgeStepanek 22:12, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Just cheers[edit]

And my [useless, nontransferrable, extremely distant] support. +sj+ 10:26, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

With a generous kiss from me (if you thought of shaving). Anthere 11:42, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Database access for reporting[edit]

Howdy. I (en:user:Topbanana) am an admin on the en wikipedia with a penchant for janitorial work. In particular, I've been creating reports of easily identifiable and fixable things by running scripts against a downloaded copy of variables wikipedia databases (en:User:Topbanana/Reports). These reports have generally been quite well accepted and have (IMHO) helped improve the quality of the encyclopedia. However, due to lack of capacity on my PC, I'm really struggling to maintain the reports - the wikipedia are just too darned large.

I'd like to request an alternate facility to assist myself (and likely a few others doing similar tasks) with this task. Perhaps a read-only copy of the publically available tables could be placed on an old or test server and permission given to trusted wikipedians to run SQL queries against it ? While I myself would find direct MySQL access preferable, I appreciate that some variant of the special:asksql functionality would be simplest to implement and secure. I would stress that I've absolutely no desire to be able to modify data other than through normal manual editing of pages.

Many thanks for reading, I know you've a lot on your plate right now.

-- en:Topbanana 13:37, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Browse History[edit]

Hi Tim - has anyone implemented a "recently visited" browse history that I can use? I wanted a persistant frame, probably beneath the toolbox, with quick links to recently viewed pages. I'll write it myself, but I'm all for re-using stuff if someone else has done it. Thanks. --MHart 20:35, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)


Sir,[edit]

Dear Tim,

A Wiki ( http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hoofdpagina ) for the Dutch Chapter to be established of the Wikimedia Foundation Inc. has been set up on March, 23rd, 2005. The same day a logo had been uploaded and protected. The same day a request for logo had been posted under the section heading 'ready to switch'. With the highest regard for your busy schedule, we would like to ask you to please, say the magic word, please, switch your attention for a second from Guerilla UK spelling campaign to swithing the logo for us, please, Sir. Now that I do have your attention, something more serious. The Wiki I mentioned, http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hoofdpagina has {{SITENAME}}=Wikimedia. However, namespace 4 on that wiki is 'Wikipedia', and there is no Wikimedia namespace. I checked http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home and found it has as namespace 4 'Wikimedia'. Imho it would be natural to have a Wikimedia namespace on a Chapter Wiki. The difference is small linguistically, only one letter, for the organisation however, it is huge. Wiktionarian, Wikibookians, Wikinewsies can't bear it for a second to be confronted with a Wikipedia namespace page on the Chapter Wiki if that page is meant to encompass one thirty second of an inch about anything non-Wikipedia. So, please, Sir, could you please, please guide us through the process of obtaining a Wikimedia namespace on http://nl.wikimedia.org, Sir, please.

With the highest regards, Dedalus 20:33, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Done on both counts. It's only 5 minutes work, there's no need to go overboard. You just had to ask in the right place. Posting a request on a page that no-one ever reads is hardly the best way to get something done. -- Tim Starling 23:04, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Tim, thanks a lot. It is not always easy to figure out the right place to ask. There was a bit of humour in the above. Dedalus 12:09, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Uhm, I posted the thanks after I had seen the new logo. Now I went in a bit deeper. I blushing my cheeks red all over and behind my ears. We had a dozen articles on nl.wikimedia.org with names like Wikimedia:De_kroeg. They are now blanked or a redirect to themselves. Are these articles completely overboard, drowned and sunk or might there be a possibility to restore them? It is me to blame - In my ignorance I didn't tell you about the exitence of these articles ... Dedalus 12:23, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Lost pages are available at titles starting with "Recovered/Wikimedia:". -- Tim Starling
I found them all. It is a great relief. I owe you a beer. Thanks. Dedalus 15:18, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

SORBS DNSBL[edit]

If User:SORBS DNSBL is going to be appearing as an admin that is blocking accounts on the SORBS list, shouldn't there be something in place which prevents that account being created? There were problems with en:User:SORBS DNSBL, for example, and now I have this account on Meta. SORBS DNSBL 09:19, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Boardvote[edit]

Hi, Tim; you seems to fail to give me boardvote flag on Japanese Wikiquote perhaps because of version conflict. Please retry it in other way or give me it on Wikibooks, currently running on 1.4. Thank you for your cooperation. --Aphaia | Translate Election | ++ 04:44, 3 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Language sorting at the Wikipedia portal[edit]

Trilobite has invited you to participate in the discussion regarding how we should sort the languages at the main Wikipedia portal. Node is in favor of strictly using the ISO codes. Trilobite and I are in favor of the order I define at Talk:Www.wikipedia.org template, sans the Greek/Cyrillic clause in rule #1. Good luck wading through all the nested comments. :^) – Minh Nguyễn (talk, blog) 02:20, 23 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Shirley Bassey[edit]

Can you please let me know why I cannot add the "Shirley Bassey" article to the "People of Nigerian heritage" category? Every time I try, a message saying that it is under spam protection shows up. Thanks. 216.139.176.62 17:16, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

See Talk:Spam blacklist#petitiononline.com -- Tim Starling 01:59, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Is it a problem to have 500 instances of a template in a page?[edit]

Greetings. Over at a Wikipedia thread, we're creating a list of missing encyclopedia topics, and beside each article name is a list of links to Google, other encyclopedias, et cetera. But the Wikimarkup code is long and messy to deal with. A single line looks like this:

#[[F keys]] ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=F+keys wp] [http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awikipedia.org+F+keys gwp] [http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=F+keys g] | [http://www.britannica.com/search?query=F+keys eb] [http://www.bartleby.com/cgi-bin/texis/webinator/65search?query=F+keys co] [http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/search.aspx?q=F+keys en])

Which is output as:

  1. F keys (wp gwp g | eb co en)

Someone created a {{search}} template that would make the code much shorter and easier to handle. The line would instead simply look like this:

#[[F keys]] {{Search|F+keys}}

The trouble is, there would be 500 instances of this template per page (since there are 500 article titles listed on each page.) Would this be an unreasonable strain on the servers?

Thanks, Quadell (talk)

Problem with Search (go button) page at tr.wikipedia.org[edit]

I don't know if this is the right place to ask help for this, but for the last two weeks, we're having wiki codes on our search results page. Here's an example for searching the letter XYZ: http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96zel:Search?search=XVZ&go=Git

It writes:
Bu makalenin yazılmasını <a href=":X" class="new">siz başlatabilirsiniz</a>, ya da bu makalenin yazılması isteğini <a href="/wiki/Vikipedi:Makale istekleri">istenen makaleler listesine</a> ekleyebilirsiniz.

Where apposed to:
Bu makalenin yazılmasını [[ ''edit searched article'' | siz başlatabilirsiniz]] ya da bu makalenin yazılması isteğini [[Vikipedi:Makale istekleri | istenen makaleler listesine]] ekleyebilirsiniz.

This page is the source for the template: http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/MedyaViki:Nogomatch

Thanks, Citrat

I think I fixed it! Citrat

Database lock in ko:[edit]

After moving the ko servers to yaseo, we are facing the database locking problem. It is hard to edit any article in ko. Is there any news about it? -- ChongDae 00:12, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

unicode input[edit]

hi tim,

I'm having problem about the unicode input. First of all,my edit box uses roman instead of my unicode. Unlike other unicodes, their edit box have nicode input. Therefore, how do I change it from latin to unicode? My unicode is ttf true type file . Second of all, I tried to do the same with udmurt, using this command for unicode - div style="font-family: bugisA , bugisA is the file name of my unicode. The output is in my unicode, however, when I want it to be in latin (like I want an english phrase and thus should be in roman), turned out to be in unicode. How do I use both unicode and roman at the same time? I tried looking at the help pages, but they aren't helping: how ironic. If you could explain and give me the link of help page about this stuff, i'll be very glad. here's the link to download the unicode [5] Zaid 16.42 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Dear Tim, looks like the script is not working very well. therefore, I decided to change the wikipedia buginese from using my traditional code to the roman alphabet.Request has been sent to wikitech and I asked them to keep the font family. We migt be needing it in the future. Thank you Zaid 5.31 25 October 2005 (UTC)

noinclude[edit]

I included on Meta:Sandbox the text <noinclude> {{:Main Page}} </noinclude> However, the sandbox still appeared on Category:Main page. Is this feature no longer active, or did I miss something? Aliter 19:14, 30 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

unicode for timeline extension[edit]

Avar worked a bit with bug 3965 to check if it was possible to recompile ploticus for wikimedia machines, so that timeline could support unicode. As I understand he was able to do so, but lacks root privileges to install new executable and modified EasyTimeline.pl on the servers. What should I do now and who would be the best person to talk to, if you don't have time? matusz 18:03, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Tracker down[edit]

For your movie. Maybe you can consider an alternative location? Ftp of some kind?--Piotrus 23:44, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

New Language.php[edit]

Hi Tim, could you please implement LanguageHsb.php (Upper Sorbian) to the Wikimedia software? Greets --Dundak 20:39, 7 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Forwarding request for assistance with Cleanup script[edit]

Hi Tim,
I received a complaint on my talk page that was misdirected. Can you give these individuals some guidance concerning the Spam Cleanup script?
see User_talk:Jwalling#es:User:Spam_cleanup_script
Thanks --jwalling 20:40, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions to improve SpamBlacklist_body.php extension[edit]

Tim, I posted this suggestion on Talk:Spam blacklist. Please review for feasibility.

--jwalling 01:39, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Current PCRE pattern used for spammer domain blocking
/http://[a-z0-9_\-.]*(regexp1|regexp2|...|regexpn)/Si
Problem
Blocking with regex = logos\.com also blocks domain lexilogos\.com
Work-around: regex = www\.logos\.com
Limitation: Doesn't work for URLs http://logos\.com or http://xxx.logos\.com
Solution
change regex pattern [a-z0-9_\-.]* to ([a-z0-9_\-\.]*\.|)
as in:
/http://([a-z0-9_\-\.]*\.|)(regexp1|regexp2|...|regexpn)/Si
Application to Spam blacklist
By making the PCRE filter more specific, some previously blocked domains may be unblocked
Example: regexp = sexy-babe\.com would not block domain hot-sexy-babe\.com
Remedy: regexp = [a-z0-9_\-]*sexy-babe\.com would block both domains
Using [a-z0-9_\-]* allows each domain name on the blacklist to be broadened as needed,
as in: regexp = [a-z0-9_\-]*sexy-babe[a-z0-9_\-]*\.com
would block URL http://www.yadayada.999-sexy-babe-xxx\.com
Another suggestion to improve PCRE filter
/(http|https)://([a-z0-9_\-]*\.|)(regexp1|regexp2|...|regexpn)/Si
equivalent to:
/https*://([a-z0-9_\-]*\.|)(regexp1|regexp2|...|regexpn)/Si

--jwalling 03:07, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Third parameter parser[edit]

In this edit, you added a third parameter to the callback function called $parser. Numerous people (including myself) have reported that this parameter actually doesn't exist in most releases of 1.5. Are you sure it was pushed to public releases, as opposed to just the CVS? Ambush Commander 20:57, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Quite right, sorry about that. It's been backported now, for release in MediaWiki 1.5.8. The change was made last August in Parser.php version 1.487, the branch point was 1.486. -- Tim Starling 03:11, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Question regarding move and redirect[edit]

Is there is a way to override a redirection of a moved page? Robert Harrison 04:37, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Edit the redirect -- Tim Starling 09:18, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Best way to grab article content[edit]

Hi. I was following your work on the ParserFunctions and i love them. Now i was trying to implement a small hack, for creating multiple starting texts (sort of as templates for standardized articles where the user only has to fill in some spaces). This Multiple starting text hack is out of date and does not work in 1.6 anymore, names and locations are different. I got most of it to work, but one thing, how to properly pull data from an article (in this example MediaWiki:NewGame) into a variable so i can fill it into the text area on creation of a "blank" article. A short pointer would be very welcome. Thanks! --Simon Moon 07:00, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You can do it using Revision::newFromTitle(). Have a look at how Parser::fetchTemplate() in includes/Parser.php does it. Or a slightly simplified version:
$title = Title::makeTitle( NS_MEDIAWIKI, 'NewGame' );
$revision = Revision::newFromTitle( $title );
if ( $revision ) {
    $text = $revision->getText();
} else {
    $text = false;
}
-- Tim Starling 09:18, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks a lot, i knew there must bea good way to do it, without hacking the whole thing in pieces. --Simon Moon 13:00, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some problem[edit]

Hi Tim. Could you please review the problem posted on Talk:ParserFunctions#Help please. The local wiki parse the {{#if:}} incorectly. Thanks Borgx 08:12, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Email contact[edit]

As you are admin on meta, I would like to direct your attention to this. Thank you, M/ 21:19, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it could be a great idea. Thank you. --M/ 14:30, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

De-adminship because of violation of "administration ethics"[edit]

How do you think, if an administrator violates so-called "administration ethics", but does not violate any Wikipedia rule, may administration privileges be dropped? --Jaroslavleff 16:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Remove[edit]

Please. I ask you to remove my identity and personal details in Wikipedia of Portuguese language. Thank you very much. Vr22 23:59, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Organic compounds database[edit]

Is it posible to create script that will use the values for the parameters of OrganicBox_complete to insert them into a database? This database will allow a new type of search for organic compounds articles (or their "data_page"s - we could make searches based on say molecular weight value/range, occurence of a particular structural element in the formula, pharmacological properties, etc.) and can also have an educational purpose when used to create quizes with a different level of dificulty. Please post your replay on WikiProject_Chemicals. -- 68.13.143.39 06:02, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Linking, using an image[edit]

I just got totally stomped by MediaWiki. I only found the Navigational images page on this subject. But there is absolutley no way to easy and simple make a link on a picture. Is this right or am i just too stupid to find it? I mean this is one of the most basic first HTML commands, that cou can add a link to a picture. I have sevral pages where this functionality is needed, some of them do not support the solutions given on that page. Is there a work around, by editing some code, or is there any plan to add this into MediaWikis base at some point you are aware off? I mean something as simple as this should possible work, as it would make some logical sense: [[Navigational image|[[Image:tst.png]]]] If its not possible as is, could an extension possibly add this functionality? (In which case i would try to create that). Thanks a lot for your help in advance. --Simon Moon 22:54, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Stewards on IRC[edit]

Hi, I am posting this to the talk page of all stewards. I am user:Walter, steward. It came to the attention that it is for users who urgently need the assistance of a steward it is not always easy to find one. I am posting this to ask your help to try to improve our service to the community.

The best hope I believe for a user to find a steward is IRC I think. There is a channel for the stewards , #wikimedia-stewards but there very few stewards there mostly if any.

So my first request is that when you are online and have time to also open the channel #wikimedia-stewards That can easy and even automatically depending of your IRC-client. Two suggestions; Gaim, you can add IRC-channels and users between your MSN, Jabber and other contacts. Very easy to use. Or chatZilla, more a real IRC program.

You can also use a webbased solution. Can also be useful when you are not at home. The IRC gateway I have setup will do its work for this purpose. http://chat.wikizine.org.

Finaly; You have your real name, your wikimedia user name and some have a totally different IRC name. I have created a new column on Stewards#Active_stewards to fill in your IRC-nick , if you are on IRC offcource. I have already filled it in for some who I know.

This request is not personally direct to you but to all stewards in general. Not everybody needs to be in that IRC -channel. If you know the channel exists that is already a very good start. Greetings, --Walter 20:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A little help here[edit]

Hello, Tim. I have a problem. Johnny the Vandal has stolen my account on the English Wikipedia as I tried logging in. Someone has changed my password and I clicked on e-mail my password and it says my e-mail address got deleted from the prefrences section. Shouldn't I just report this to any administrator to do something about it? Is there an easier way? I contacted you since you are good at fixing accounts. Mike Garcia 19:44, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Problems with SpamBlacklist on third party sites[edit]

Tim - I understand its not your role to troubleshoot things with others install your extension, but could you at least point me in the right direction? Are there any forums / mailing lists where I can ask for troubleshooting advice?

For the life of me, I can't get the extension to work. I've posted my problem here and have also asked for guidance @ Talk:Spam blacklist. Thanks for your help, --Sam Odio 22:30, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Taiwanese/Hokkien Wikipedia and other projects[edit]

Dear Tim Starling,

I have an account in Taiwanese/Hokkien Wikipedia and I'm a sysop of Taiwanese Wikisource. Formerly we've used the code "zh-min-nan", but now we're in the ISO 639-3 list, using its code "nan". We want to have our code more formally and briefly and change it in to the new one, but we don't know how. Can you help us or tell us what to do? Thank you very much!

--Astroviolin 15:58, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

[edit]

Hello Tim. I want change the logo at n:pt: from this image, but the upload at pt.wn it's unabled. How I can solve this? --Slade 19:31, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]


[edit]

Hi Tim. Could you tell me how to get a new logo for the Māori wikipedia loaded? (mi:Image:Wiki.png). It is ready to switch. I put a request on Requests for logos but apparently that was the wrong place! Cheers Kahuroa 09:58, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your help is needed[edit]

Hi Tim, we need a logo switch at Zazaki Wikipedia. Can you help us? The new logo for the Zazaki WIkipedia has been uploaded and protected. See diq:Image:Wiki.png. It is ready to switch. Thank you, --Maviulke12 21:06, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thumb captions on French Wikinews[edit]

Hi Tim. I made a screenshot, that you can see at fr:User:Hégésippe Cormier/test or, better, at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/fr/9/96/Thumb-WN.PNG. But I didn't try to reboot my computer to see if it stays.

A few things: I see that for all captions on French Wikinews and only for French Wikinews (!), and if I try for example to have no link inside the caption (simple texts 'Carte de la Pologne' and 'Le cardinal Józef Glemp, primat de Pologne, dont la démission du siège archiépiscopal métropolitain de Varsovie avait conduit à la nomination de Mgr Stanisław Wielgus.' without any link to Wikipedia), captions borders stay... smiley Hégésippe | ±Θ± 02:30, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have found the problem, but without finding any exact explanation. I first tried to reboot, but there was no change. Then I have thought to look at this page without my user account, and there was no more problem.
That means the problem was in my n:fr:User:Hégésippe Cormier/monobook.css. And, indeed, there was a hack to get some rounded corners. This hack never made any problems, but the more simple was to delete this hack. Clin d'œil
and then no more problem... Hégésippe | ±Θ± 03:06, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Where is page content stored & speaking at an industry event[edit]

Tim,

Where does MediaWiki store page content information? Is it in the SQL database?

Also, are you interested in speaking at an industry seminar event later this year on Web 2.0 and using Wikis in enterprises?

Peter Campbell 02:45, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

steward[edit]

how do i do stewards like on here, e.g.

I tried the Special:Makesysop.php but it doesn't seem to work like it does here, why?? if someone could tell me how it works that would be great! --84.45.219.185 13:33, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Correction to Special page[edit]

I'm not sure who to send this to - it's way below your expertise level, I'm sure, but I assume you'll just farm it out appropriately:

On Meta:SpecialPage/Recent changes, about halfway down, there is a line that says: "Below are the last 50 changes in the last last 7 days, as of 18:24, 26 May 2007."

The word last is repeated before the 7... it's in there twice instead of once. Philippe 18:28, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed it on Meta with MediaWiki:Rcnote, but it still needs to be fixed in the software.--Patrick 20:07, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

committee question[edit]

It would be appreciated if you could take a look at the section of Danny's questions, entitled whistleblower policy. It contains a few negative statements which are not, in fact, questions. The first is a complaint from User:WiseWoman in which the entire content is a rant about women's rights and equality, not a bit about danny's candidacy. The second is a complaint from GerardM demanding the withdrawal of Danny's candidacy, which does not contain a single question or a single inquistitive statement. I have struck the latter, but was reverted and told "I do not have the right" so I am bringing it up here. I believe that having the committee maintain the integrity of the candidate's question sections is critical to ensuring a fair election:While candidates may sling mud at each other, it is entirely unfair for people qualified to give endorsements (i.e. excluding the board) to sling mud at them on their article. The segments in question should be moved to Danny's talk page. Also, I believe some sort of statement at the top of each candidate's question page should be made stating "This page is for actual questions to the candidates, not commentary on their platform"

Copying to the other members of the committee. Thank you for your attention and time.Swatjester 15:04, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Striking your vote[edit]

Tim Starling, it was my mistake that I used wrong account. I should use nein at id.wikipedia instead of id.wikibooks, where I only have a few edits. Thank you for your information. I've already voted with my other account. --Nein 10:58, 6 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please do me a favor[edit]

Sir, sorry to bother you. I made a request (See this) to check a Chinese Wikipedia vandal for some days, but there is still no answer to the issue. The server's records will be deleted and make checking user become impossible. Therefore, please help us as soon as possible. Thank you in advance! --百楽兎 03:44, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Help. Urgent.[edit]

Dear Tim Starling,

A group of users (friends) of Portuguese Wikipédia bring more illiberal policies regarding an non free wikipédia without a preoccupation with a environmental and social education.

This group of users (always the same) and some administrators propose and vote systematically to erase some pages with a total absence of knowledge about the subject, some of the articles with a high importance to the community. They have a chain of contacts to promote their vote and their contacts (friends) vote without common sense, reasoning, good judgment, brains or sagacity; They vote against the person and not against the article.

Less obvious for know, but perhaps as consequential over the long term, is a less participation of some users who TRY CONTRIBUTE to this projects with articles.

Because of this behavior from this group, I decide do not agree with their conduct and I write my point of view in there discussion pages (with total education) I have been blocked for suspicion of being a sock puppet after a checkuser. I know I am not a sockpuppet, so is impossible the checkuser be positive.

A several of times I and other users asked for a checkuser to my account, always reject for the “group of users”. But know, the “group of users” decide make the “checkuser”, it is strange and uncommon. After reject my checkuser proposal, after 2 days the ask a “checkuser”? They admit in their discussion pages, they make a checkuser and the checkuser was negative… Know is positive. Is impossible. I know that.

All I ask to wikimédia foundation is that an administrator check the merits of the block. Please, verify the checkuser. Send me the results by email, because is impossible this result.

I think these groups (with administrators) are trying making a fraud to eliminate my participation. Put yourself in my shoes and imagine the frustration.

– The other user

– Me

[http://pt.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:CheckUser/Pedidos_de_verifica%C3%A7%C3%A3o&oldid=7251137 – The checkuser rejected by “the group of users”]

– The same checkuser approved by “the group of users”

Sincerely,

Rui Resende

Portugal P.S. The checkuser was made by a proponent's friend, after a stranger message ask him to see the email. Attention, this after they reject the same checkuser request two days ago. Very strange.

P.P.S. Did I ever been Check'edUser? How many times? When? Who made the checkuser? Conclusions for the checkusers?

MY EMAIL: ratresende@gmail.com

Urgent[edit]

PLEASE BE RESPECTFUL AND HONEST WITH THE USERS OF WIKIPÉDIA

The Wikipédia can't cheat a honest man.


Dear Sirs,

Once again... (I'm wating your reply).

(...)

I have been block for suspicion of being a sock puppet after a check user. I know I am not a sock puppet, so is impossible the check user be positive.

Several of times, I and other users asked for a check user to my account to dissipate any suspicion about the issue (because they accuse-me to be a sock puppet). But our request was always reject for these (group) users.

However, know, the "group of users" decided to make a "check user". It is strange and uncommon, because 2 days ago they rejected my check user proposal.

In the past, they admit in their discussion pages, they make a me check user and the check user was inconclusive (this in half-words). Know the result is positive? Is impossible. I know that. I am not a "sock puppet".

All I ask to Wikimedia foundation is that an administrator check the merits of the block and to verify the check user. Send me the results by email, because is impossible this result.

I think these groups (with administrators) are trying making a fraud to eliminate my participation.

Put yourself in my shoes and imagine the frustration.

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usu%C3%A1rio:Rightsideclub – The other user

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usu%C3%A1rio:Rui_Resende – Me

http://pt.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:CheckUser/Pedidos_de_verifica%C3%A7%C3%A3o&oldid=7251137 – The check user rejected by "the group of users"

http://pt.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:CheckUser/Pedidos_de_verifica%C3%A7%C3%A3o&oldid=7309116 – The same check user approved by "the group of users".

Sincerely,

Rui Resende

The Static HTML Dumps[edit]

The static html dumps are unavailable for download at http://download.wikipedia.org/. Thanks for your help. --Mattwj2002 (wikipedia)

Donation extension?[edit]

Can you help me get in touch with someone who could share the extension for accepting donations, and documentation on how to install the extension? I would like to be able to accept donations on my wiki as well. That would be a lot better than having banners. I asked User:Cbrown1023 and he recommended that I should ask you. Tommy 19:42, 5 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

StringFunctions[edit]

Any word on bug 6455? We need those StringFunctions!—msh210 20:18, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

problem with static dumps[edit]

Please check Talk:Static_dumps for google crawling the whole static website due to a problem with robots.txt --Enric Naval 02:21, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

XFF project[edit]

Hi Tim. Is this still active? There's a request from September on the talk page awaiting an answer (Talk:XFF_project#Opera_Mini). Proto 08:50, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As I said on XFF project, email xff@wikimedia.org if you want something listed, I'm not going to check that talk page regularly. -- Tim Starling 03:48, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Request for checkuser -->JackyCheung@zhwikipedia[edit]

HI,TIM. Please check which IP did this user use most.This user is accused for damaging.I hope you can check it as soon as possible since the user is now being blocked by admins of chinese wikipedia.

--Jacky Jai 13:30, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please post requests for checkuser on Steward requests/Checkuser. Cbrown1023 talk 20:46, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Common limit to 20M[edit]

Hello, I'd like to upload on common the Djvu book of Balzac, les Contes drolatiques. But the limit is still 20M and the file is of 28M. I put it there if you are able to upload it : /Balzac_-_Contes_drolatiques.djvu. The author is Honoré de Balzac (1799 - 1850), date of the book is 1921. If I can do it by myself you may help me to know how. Thanks anyway Sapcal22 14:55, 26 October 2008 (UTC) Hello, it's done now. Happy to see my book on common. Thanks to all Sapcal22 21:46, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Problem with Time parser function[edit]

Hey there, I was browsing around looking for an answer to my #time parser function problem, and I noticed you had made some relevant edits in the past. I outlined my problem here having to do with 2 digit year returns. If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them, but if you don't know the answer that is cool; I just thought I would ask. Thanks! 24.236.101.233 10:04, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Confirmation of user rights[edit]

Hi,

Just letting you know that your user rights are up for confirmation this quarter; the discussion is currently taking place at Meta:Administrators/confirm.

Cheers,
Daniel (talk) 00:14, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Tim, just letting you know that the outcome was to remove the local rights in question, (mainly) on the basis that they're redundant to your global rights. Regards, Daniel (talk) 03:14, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rights[edit]

Hello,

Recently there was a discussion on the nl.wiki about your administrator rights, currently you still have local admin rights but your not active on the Wikipedia. (But as special moderator you don't have to be confirmed every year).

The question is now if you don't mind if we remove your rights voluntary, because you will not even notice the are gone. You are also a developer so you have the admin rights on all wikimedia projects. And a desysop will also make it possible to remove your right but it should be a waste of our and maybe your time.

I hope you will respond quickly, Abigor talk 17:21, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

index.php mystery[edit]

whatever you did, it now works again in both browsers and under both operating systems :-) thx and all the best, oscar 13:11, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

USER CHECK URGENT[edit]

sorry to bother you, but we have a big problem on the Breton Wikipedia with someone who I suspect to be a sock puppet and we have only one Bureaucrat (me) with no credentials to do an IP search. The suspected sock puppet is also running for sysop status. Could you please run an IP check and tell me if these accounts are soock puppets?

Thank you. Neal (Kaozeal) (sysop and bureaucrat on Breton Wikipedia) 08:41, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Steward requests/Checkuser. Cbrown1023 talk 16:24, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks[edit]

For being a voice of reason in the Italian Wikipedia issue. As it turned out, the number of editors involved in the blanking decision was much lower (~50) than those who had signed the verbal protest (~300). There was indeed a potential danger that an even smaller number of admins could have taken a more radical step—actual deletion—with less discussion. Have mörser, will travel 20:44, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Staff bit[edit]

Hello Tim,

Regarding "(show/hide) 00:13, 27 October 2011 Tim Starling (Talk | contribs | block) changed global group membership for User:Smazeland from (none) to Staff ‎ (Needs to edit some protected pages on meta)". I think it is better to give out temp admin for such a circumstance rather than one staff giving the biggest bit there is to another staff. Generally, the stewards have been asked by WMF to grant the staff bit. Staff should only give other people rights with the consent and knowledge of the community. In this case, given the reasoning, the sysop flag on meta would be more appropriate. Regards, fr33kman 23:20, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have undone your addition to the staff group. The proper way is for the foundation to have a steward give out the staff flag to a person. Please have Smazeland ask for temp admin on meta instead; staff would be more appropriate if long term, wide spread privileges are needed. Hope you understand. Best, fr33kman 02:05, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Staff and system administrators can grant rights necessary to get their work done. There is no requirement for community consensus or involvement. Just because stewards have been asked previously doesn't mean they will be asked in all cases. I granted staff rights instead of admin rights so that there was no confusion over his status. That has been a problem in the past: staff and sysadmins granted membership to groups usually assigned via normal community processes have been mistakenly assumed to be ordinary members of those groups. -- Tim Starling 22:16, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I made this edit today: <https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=XFF_project&diff=5506192&oldid=5465496>. If you could sanity-check the edit, that'd be appreciated. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:10, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Assistance for a good idea[edit]

Hi Tim, I am el:User:FocalPoint from el-wikipedia. I have an interesting idea and I would like your suggestion on whom / where to present it to for evaluation. The idea is as follows:

When we want to use a reference based on text from Wikisource, would it not make sense to have a way to get a ready-made {{template:Citation}} from the page of the text in question?

After all, this is what we already doing when accessing a file in commons: We are getting a "Use this file" option, which is giving us a ready-made syntax to use the file in a wiki. Why not do the same for any Wikisource text?

The same thing is done in OpenLibrary, check for example Aristotle's Constitution of Athens, at bottom right you get a "Wikipedia Citation" option, which gives the Citation text, ready made: {{Citation |publisher = Seeley |publication-place = London |author = |url = http://openlibrary.org/books/OL7141044M/Aristotle's_Constitution_of_Athens |title = Aristotle's Constitution of Athens |publication-date = 1891 }}.

Why shouldn't we have the same option in Wikisource? (reply here if you think that most relevant people will see it, but I will see your reply faster if you leave me a note at el:User Talk:FocalPoint). --FocalPoint (talk) 16:56, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Even tough we actually have the "Cite this page" link, it does not have a Citation style for Wikipedia! --FocalPoint (talk) 09:54, 28 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]