User talk:Connel MacKenzie/archive-2007-8

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Latest WOTD

Just so you know, I have added the first 10 words for August, but not the remainder yet. They should be in by this weekend. It would go faster, but these days I want to double-check candidates against a couple of major dictionaries for correctness, completion, and copyvio before I set up the WOTD templates. We've had a few problems in the past the bad nominations (that failed CFI between the time of selection and the day they would have gone up) or due to poor definitions (which had to be rewritten). --EncycloPetey 03:27, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Ya know, if ya wanna call me a dick, you've got company. But those messages about "a few problems" on your talk page were a direct result of you asking people to try to add extra eyeballs to the various nominations.

Now, if there were a mechanism for voting them into place or something (my ideas on that topic flopped, as you well know,) then maybe you wouldn't be so upset when people do what you ask them to.

OK, I'm grumpy. I think I shall head to bed early. None of the preceding came out humorously, but should have. And I'm too tired to rewrite it, at the moment. Rest, assured that your WOTDs remain the single most popular aspect of Wiktionary. --Connel MacKenzie 03:48, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

No, it wasn't that. After you found the problem, I figured out what happened, and it was wholly an error on my part. I had put an entry into the wrong date, and when I moved it to the intended date one bit didn't get edited. A silly error on my part, and one that looked more serious than it was. I am truly grateful that you were smarter than the rest of us, and able to find/fix it.

While I may find you grumpy and a bit of a curmudgeon at times, I know that anyone seriously, intelligently, and passionately involved here wil come off that way to someone. I also expect that I come off that way sometimes myself, and don't fault you for any of it. If I think it's excessive or unwarranted, I'll always try to politely say so rather than resort to any sort of name-calling or back-biting. I may argue vehemently about issues, but that's separate from the personalities involved. --EncycloPetey 23:53, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

ʻuku move

Hey there. I was wondering why you moved ʻuku back to 'uku. Are there guidelines against using the actual okina that say to use an apostrophe instead? (I didn't see a Wiktionary:About Hawaiian page) This doesn't seem to be the practice with diacritics in other language, so I don't see why something than ʻ (U+02BB) should be used for Hawaiian. Mike Dillon 05:34, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Using the okina in the title makes lookups all but impossible. The convention here is to use the plain character in the entry title, using the typography character within the content of the entry. --Connel MacKenzie 08:44, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... There are a lot of things that make lookups impossible for most people users of English Wiktionary without copying/pasting. Besides, the redirect makes it possible. It would be one thing if the okina was considered "typography" in Hawaiian, but it's considered a letter (I realize I called it a "diacritic", but that was incorrect). Where is the line drawn between when a substitute character should be used and when the real character should be used? Mike Dillon 14:45, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in. For Hawaiian entries, I really do feel that the ʻokina should be used. In Ancient Greek, for instance, we use accents in entry titles - from my point of view, polytonic is extremely difficult to look up. As the ʻokina is considered a letter and not a mere diacritic, I think it needs to be in there. (And apologies about an Wiktionary:About Hawaiian page not existing; I've been procrastinating on it.) Medellia 14:51, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh no. I think I did it backwards. Looking at Hawai'i, I'm now utterly confused. In my tests just now, the okina does seem to work correctly in searches and redlinks/bluelinks. That is, for en-us keyboard layouts, (AKA "keyboard challenged" users) there is supposed to be a redirect at the %27 title, not the other way around. I agree that a WT:AHI page would help clarify this. --Connel MacKenzie 16:51, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Hrm. So far the only thing that breaks as a result of the okina is #vandalism-en-wt. But even then, not too badly as the subsequent line is URL encoded. --Connel MacKenzie 03:56, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Connel, could you please explain what breaks in these processes? –I’ve never understood properly… † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 10:45, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Stop stalking. Did you not notice I was giving you "space" at the request of your protectors/partners? Perhaps that was a mistake. Have you used this coordinated time productively?

IRC channels are not "processes." Extended character set encoding is tricky in most computing environments; that's why 7-bit ASCII is prevalent and will remain so for a very long time. I have not tracked down exactly why that is not encoded properly, there. Nor am I particularly inclined to do so. --Connel MacKenzie 11:02, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I’m pretty clueless about this technical stuff (that’s evident from my calling IRC channels (?) “processes”). As you seem to understand quite a lot of it, I thought that you might be able to enlighten me. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 11:16, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Why did you just edit this section heading? Don't.

You are capable of entering on your keyboard characters I did not know existed; yet your technical knowledge is lacking? Glad my comments above helped you learn about IRC.

Please leave me alone; go do your happy misspellings stuff, or something.

--Connel MacKenzie 11:39, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

• Because it looks better and because it’s the way section titles are written in our entries.
• I have a normal black QWERTY keyboard (almost identical to this one, to be precise); I add the many characters I write using the edit tools, and for those which aren’t included therein, by copying & pasting characters elsewhence (particular from my user page, where I maintain a list of useful symbols). I did not, until now, know what Internet Relay Chat was (I’d read it referred to by others on Wiktionary a few times before, though I’d never investigated what it meant); I’ll read the Wikipedia article soon.
• *Sigh* — I s’pose it’ll be a long time before you start taking me seriously…
• † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 12:07, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Grease Pit

We've got a problem with WOTD described in the Wiktionary:Grease pit#Main page oddity. It seems the date isn't being updated for some reason. --EncycloPetey 03:55, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Brain-numbing typo fixed. (Brain-numbing, in terms of finding it.) --Connel MacKenzie 05:19, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! --EncycloPetey 07:59, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

addstructure operating even when not enabled?

Hi Connel. I just looked in using Internet Explorer and noticed that pages are getting rearranged. At least Etymology sections. I checked my Connel preferences and everything was turned off. I disabled JavaScript and the rearranging stopped. Turned it back on and it came back. Explorer debugging is useless so I can't be sure but it really looks like addstructure.js is running even when turned of in the prefs and that as expected it doesn't work in Explorer anyway. — Hippietrail 13:21, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Good morning. Are you sure that wasn't your User:Hippietrail/monobook.js et al., doing that? I didn't see FF-specific code in there particularly, I just didn't test your JS using IE yet. FWIW, I'm not seeing either one "work" quite right yet, in FF (which means it is a good thing they are marked "Experimental" after all. Have a safe trip, talk to you soon. Thanks for your JS, and for nagging me to get it forked and added as a WT:PREF on IRC. --Connel MacKenzie 13:51, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

You're probably right. I'll check now since I'm not sleeping. There is no FF-specific or IE-specific code but since the two browsers treat whitespace differently it's bound not to work on IE. From memory the major thing is when accessing childNodes or nextSibling or previousSibling, FF will take you to a textnode that contains just a linefeed whereas IE will pretend it doesn't exist. But of course there are other differences. More in a sec. Chatting do Dutch girl on messenger... — Hippietrail 16:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

One week’s absence

I’ll be away from my computer for a week and shall probably have no internet access during that time. I ask that you not take advantage of this to take actions that I would normally give an argument against (such as nominating things for deletion). If you honour this request, then I would return such a favour to you in future. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 12:34, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Is there some reason you are still ignoring Special:Emailuser/Doremítzwr messages? Is there some reason you did not extend the same courtesy when I've been offline, instead redoubling your insults, lies and general back-stabbing? --Connel MacKenzie 14:42, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Connel, Do you have evidence to support your person attack-sounding accusations of "lying" and "back-stabbing" against Raifʻhār Doremítzwr? In all the discussion I've been following in which both of you have contributed, I've seen many accusations of this sort but have yet to see any evidence that supports the claims. Thryduulf 15:27, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I wouldn't have said it otherwise. You see no evidence of attacks or back-stabbing? Oh my. That's quite some cool-aid. Since you have alluded to the "lies" thing before, I suppose I can dig up some links; he routinely misquotes policies and practices, applying them inappropriately. For example (not sure where I saw this) he recently lied about policy, saying that all alternate spellings are considered equal on en.wiktionary. [Nothing is farther from the truth; this subtle lie conveys the opposite of what en.wiktionary does. The "Alternative spellings" heading in and of itself says nothing about the different spellings, therefore we avoid the very rare variants, supplement the "alt spellings" heading with usage notes, definition line qualifiers, explanations on target pages and italicized notes within that section. This is not something he merely "forgot;" he's been embroiled in heated debates on the topic (caused by his on distruptive entries.)]

Ya know, that's a lot of energy for one "little" lie. As I said, it is his routine behavior. Any one little lie can possibly be forgiven, if he were to be responsive to corrections (but he isn't.) Collectively, it is clear to me, his lies are methodical and mendacious.

--Connel MacKenzie 15:57, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

It is quite a leap to conclude that expressing such a point of view is lying. Many contributors debated about the best heading to use for what we now call "Alternative spellings", specifically because several wanted to ensure we not imply priority for any particular spelling. It would be much more conducive to cooperation if Connel could assume good faith. Rod (A. Smith) 03:21, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

See [1], [2], and [3] for examples. Rod (A. Smith) 03:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

It is irrational to think that because an item has been discussed a lot, consensus was never reached. Yes, archived discussions express different opinions, back as far as 2004. But the RFDs and RFVs that User:Doremítzwr has been involved in (from the very start) have all touched on the issue, with many people giving him (from the start) the same friendly reminders, which he ignores, all along. He's never listened, instead, insisting that his misinterpretation is the only possible interpretation. Hence, "lying." Apparently, the old adage, that if he repeats a lie often enough, it gradually will become accepted. Granted, he has slightly altered his focus as he goes along, from "Latinate" English to obsolete English, to bizarre prefix-suffix combinations/original research, now to Latin itself as English. But always mislabeled, always under an English heading, always against consensus (lately, it seems as though all other sysops have just tired of his nonsense without blocking him) and always with obscure, or unhelpful citations, to make it at least "look" legitimate.

I'm sorry; I should not have AGF when he was new. That was a mistake, and I do apologize for it. Had he been blocked then, we all would have had a lot less grief. --Connel MacKenzie 04:23, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Lying is a little strong, as it requires that Doremítzwr knows otherwise. I'm sure he believes as strongly in his views as you do in yours. The truth is that consensus is diffucult to identify if even individual contributors don't have any way to measure what constitutes a substandard spelling, other than subjectively or by submitting terms to inferior tests such as Google hits. We still don't have a policy on even misspellings, and I'm sure CFI lets through some of the latter. I've been thinking that sources such as Usenet, which are not subject to review by editors, although they should count towards citations (as the community consensus, although I know you personally disagree), should at the very least not count towards proof of any particular spelling. An alternate way to look at it is to say that it carries as much weight as an audio source. That is to say, three coincidentally strange spellings on Usenet should not legitimize an alternative to an existing pronunciation and term. DAVilla 08:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I just now finally took the time to read through the friendly reminders. Thanks for pointing that out, Connel. From that discussion, it does seem that Doremítzwr promotes a minority opinion, but I think that promotion really is well intended, despite the tenor of some defensive comments. I optimistically hope Doremítzwr and you can harmonize. Rod (A. Smith) 17:26, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Right, Hippietrail and Richardb. I don't fully agree with their view, but yes, I remember reading that at one time. DAVilla 08:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Know-how of checkuser nominees

In your nominations for checkuser, you always mention an understanding of the technical aspects. How much technical knowledge is it necessary for a checkuser to have? Are there explanations of the features on Meta that might hint at this? DAVilla 06:43, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I always mention that, as a self-reminder of Angela's comments (on meta: or on a mailing list - I forget which, now) that went on at length, about the misunderstanding the Wikipedia community had regarding CheckUsers initially. Her main point was that an effective CU is not someone overly concerned with disclosure issues (it actually is hard to make that blatant a mistake,) rather, someone of a distinctly technical background.

It used to be, that you should understand CIDR notation, and know how to do a 'whois'. Those minor hurdles remain, but amplified over time. Now, I'd say one needs to be able to do CIDR notation in their sleep, recognize large ISPs by IP range, understand things like forwarding, open proxies, the basics of WMF's internal addressing scheme, routing vs. non-routing addresses and WMF's https: scheme. Timeliness of an accurate CU indication is sometimes important, but hardly ever so critical that you can't ask a question on the closed mailing list about a particular IP. While support and guidance for new CUs has improved, so has the complexity of the tools available.

I'm afraid I cannot give a more complete answer. But then, I'm not sure if I'm reading into your question too much or too little... --Connel MacKenzie 07:22, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

So perhaps e-mail is a better medium? --Connel MacKenzie 07:23, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

No, that's a perfect answer. Could you let me know if there are any admins, like Robert Ullmann possibly and other than SB, who you have approached recently about becoming checkusers who have denied the request? I'm thinking mostly of active users, Paul G and Dvortygirl being probably the oldest of that bunch. I don't really know the rest, even newer admins like Celestianpower who don't comment here much. DAVilla 08:18, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The main consideration beyond requirements is their likelihood to pass...which is why SB was so obvious. No, I don't send out mass-mailings soliciting CUs - I approach the problem very sequentially. Stephen G. Brown was next on my list to ask, but I haven't checked the old (original) nominations list; furthermore I'm not convinced he has the technical inclination. Because of that, EncycloPetey was probably going to be my next nomination (but this is the first time I am mentioning it.) Mike uses a backslash in his signature, so I won't nominate him (but otherwise a good choice with excellent technical knowledge.) Robert is a good choice, not likely to meet too many objections (but alas, probably likely to get one or two opposes just for AF, which may throw everything off for the "+25 minimum" thing.) Also, the fact the Robert Ullmann is a relatively "new" admin himself makes nominating him tricky. I hadn't considered Celestianpower, as you say, mainly because he stays completely removed from policy discussions. Also, his adminship elsewhere might be viewed as power-grabbing; his focus here is minimal (which could be both good and bad for him.)

I think SB's suggestion of soliciting Wikibooks CUs over here has more benefits than I thought originally. While they are generally viewed as outsiders here, that can only reinforce the sense of neutrality, which when viewed from non-CUs, is apparently tremendously important. I don't think the average CU holds similar opinions...the "secrecy" of CheckUser activities is contrary to most CU's desire for openness (e.g. me) but is constrained rather only by the meta policies (which in turn are constrained by German privacy law.)

Anyhow, looking a little further down the list at en.wikt avid sysop contributors with obvious technical requirements, I think Rodasmith, Versageek and Williamsayers79 would be good nominations. Also, A-cai has very clear neutrality and has an enormous number of really good contributions.

You, I won't nominate due to your inexplicable support of someone I see as a vandal, hiding that request for other sysop support, off instead at Wiktionary:Point of view pushing. Ugh! Creating another page to watch. Luckily for you, anyone can make a nomination. But I'd probably oppose your nomination because I see that action (splitting WT:VIP) as harmful, overall, to the project.

Now, if you'd like to contact some (or all) of the people above, or otherwise get the ball rolling, feel free. Any potential candidate obviously should read the entries meta CU policy before giving you the go-ahead for a nomination. But keep in mind that for everyone listed above, this is the first mention they are likely to have seen, about their own possible nominations.

--Connel MacKenzie 16:31, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

You're right, I'm too nice to be a CU. ;-) I was hoping to nominate a lot of users so that it wouldn't be a strain on anyone. I agree that Stephen and A-cai should be asked, but I had doubted if they would accept. Rodasmith was already on my short list, along with Widsith and BD2412, who you didn't mention, and who again may not accept. You have now added Versageek to my list. Edit: Mike has turned it down before, a while back. Yes, Robert Ullmann is relatively new, but not much newer than the others named, and he definitely has the know-how. I think you're the one who put up the most objection to AutoFormat, but if you would support him then I will ask to nominate him. I would also like for you to consider SB's suggestion. DAVilla 01:01, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

You joke, (yes, it is a little funy) but it is true; I don't have confidence that you'd act on clear evidence, and certainly never on merely (strongly) suggestive evidence. I have the vague notion that both Widsith and BD2412 previously turned it down...so there is as much hope of them accepting as SB or HT. BD2412 has too many other responsibilities as it is...so I don't think I'd support his nomination. Bah, I probably would, anyway. I dunno.

One other thing I forgot to mention: the closed CheckUser IRC channel is more helpful than the mailing list (much, much, much faster response time than the mailing list.) (Again, closed for the same reasons as the mailing list: no accidental public divulging of IP or other personal information, but quiet most of the time.) Familiarity with IRC is an enormous boon for new (or would-be) CheckUsers. So, someone who at least knows how to /join #wiktionary and say "hi" occasionally, has a dramatically better chance. --Connel MacKenzie 04:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

By the way, when I created Wiktionary:Point of view pushing I had moved Wiktionary:Vandalism in progress there and back again, which had the effect of automatically adding it to everyone's watchlist. Also, the naming was your suggestion. If you don't fully agree with having that as a separate page, I do feel strongly that it's important to distinguish between vandals, who are people with the intention of destroying the project, and those whose vision of the project does not align with the rest of the community. The latter group can destroy the project if they are not kept in check, which is why we do not allow that kind of behavior. But they do not have the explicit intention of doing so, and they should not be called vandals. Brya, for instance, has a lot more knowledge of botony than I could ever hope to obtain, so if I can convince her to make positive contributions, then that can only be good for the project. Yes, she's hanging on a thread, but I don't consider it a waste of my time. DAVilla 08:30, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm ready, but I have decided to wait and hear from you on the Wikibooks CheckUsers before making any nominations. DAVilla 22:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Please don't suggest that you need to clear your nominations with me. You do not. You've just asked reasonable, technical questions on the topic. While I understand you'd like to group the nominations together, I think the wording above could be misconstrued. I don't see the point in waiting for WB nominees. (Yes, I recognize three of the four names from the mailing list/irc, but I don't know that any of them have made enough contribs here to be considered for sysop, anytime soon. While it is possible to be a checkuser without being a sysop, it would be rather pointless.) --Connel MacKenzie 23:20, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh I'm not getting your approval, I'm just asking for opinions, and my support of Robert Ullmann, despite your hesitation, is testimony to that. On this, I just want to put them all together in one vote, so that people don't have to click edit and support each time for the four or five on my list, in addition to the ones from WB. And that's in addition to separate votes for a bureaucrat that I'm nominating and two or more admins. DAVilla 02:01, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

You're gonna make me hate approval voting, by the time you're done. Is the point of combining them, to make archiving the page harder? Or to prevent people from linking their nomination from their user page? Or to cloud the edit history of the vote sub-page? Or to bait divisive comments, so the spread contagiously from one nominees vote to another? Or is it just to freak people out with a higher probability of edit conflicts? To vote support on some, oppose on others, you'd have to edit the whole thing, right?

Hmmm. OK, lemme AGF here.

Well, I suppose none of those are insurmountable. But still, an approval vote is likely to throw people off. --Connel MacKenzie 02:20, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Technically, it wouldn't be approval voting. But besides your objection, Robert made a point on my talk that I hadn't considered. By the way, presumably UncleG would be one of your nominations? DAVilla 13:27, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Restarting UncleG's vote is a fine idea. I think it's a fair assumption to say he still accepts. --Connel MacKenzie 15:43, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Probably, but he hasn't made any contributions here in the past two months. Maybe he's on vacation like Kelly Martin? DAVilla 11:57, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

• Funny...checking his not-so-Recentcontributions, I ended up on their project page, where once again, Wikipedia is experiencing a mass-exodus of sane users. The alleged cause? Coddling every last troll, implicitly doubting all sysops, and not blocking vandals. In essence, their AGF policy is killing the remnants of good sysops there.
• Wikipedia might survive as a general encyclopedia if they ditch/rewrite AGF, and instead implement a "No living persons," a "no bands or songs," a "no pokemon," a "no commercial product," a "no trademark company" and perhaps a "no bullshit" criteria. Since that won't happen, our sister project seems doomed to become a useless collection of trivia.
• --Connel MacKenzie 15:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Bureaucratic fine print

Could you comment here? Thanks! DAVilla 16:09, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

OK. --Connel MacKenzie 16:22, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

part of comment missing?

I think part of your first comment in this edit (your reply to Rod on the Spaces before punctuation discussion) has gone AWOL. I've added an unsigned template, but you might want to replace that with the remainder of what you intended to say. Thryduulf 22:12, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow, thank you. Indeed, I started typing a response there, then discarded it, then edited again to reply to Ruakh. I must've goofed somewhere along the way. --Connel MacKenzie 22:15, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Besides which, your response was coherent! --Connel MacKenzie 22:27, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

damnit

There are some (minor) issues I have with it: first, is it especially common in the southern US? It seems to come from people all over. Second, is there a policy about pronunciations of misspellings? Damnit sounds like /dæmnɪt/ it my head (which is why I assume people don't spell it that way). Does damnit (like bulemic, definate, or comming) really have an attested pronunciation? I'm not too fussed about either of these things to tell the truth; it's marked as a misspelling and that's the most important thing. StradivariusTV 04:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

(to Connel) Uh.. do people who say /dæmnɪt/ also say /dæmn/ -- i.e. pronounce the n in damn? I don't see how /m.n/ could exist without assimilating to /m.m/. Cynewulf 05:55, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I usually hear the "n" pronounced in damn, yes. Less often, as a homophone of dam. But since I don't know IPA very well (really, barely at all now) I don't understand the significance of the "." symbol you used in there. --Connel MacKenzie 06:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

"." marks a syllable break. I've never heard anybody pronounce damn as two syllables "dam-n", and pronouncing "mn" at the end of a single syllable is even more mind-boggling to me. I've heard it in Russian "mnoj", so it's possible for a human to make that sound, but in English? Can you give a reference showing this pronunciation? I can't find any -- only /dæm/. Cynewulf 06:32, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm having trouble finding a reference for it, too. I've requested it from Neskaya and Dvortygirl...we'll see who provides the alternate audio pronunciation for damn first. For someone who thinks they may never have heard it...think of the black-and-white Westerns they used to run on TV..."those damned Injuns!" would be a typical phrase with the voiced "n." I don't see how it would be possibly to break the "n" into a separate syllable and still have it sound right. I don't know of any other combination of "mn" in English that would be at all comparable. It is odd. --Connel MacKenzie 06:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

A quick scan of Wiktionary words shows a lot with the "mn" combination...column, condemn, limner, but none with the voiced "n" (without a syllable break) like the forms of "damn" have. --Connel MacKenzie 06:59, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

• So far, only 1 out of nine people claim to have even heard the voiced "n" in damn, so perhaps it is much rarer than I though, or I don't understand IPA terminology well enough to know what I'm talking about. I honestly think it is the former, but have no reason to doubt the latter.  :-)
• Practicing trying to reproduce the w:The Andy Griffith Show-ish pronunciation is proving to be quite difficult. I have enough self doubt about my own pronunciation of it, to not record audio for it. Plus, I don't want to dig around and find my microphone. --Connel MacKenzie 15:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Conspiracy theory

A few Wikipedians are trying to figure out Wikitionary procedures. In particular, we're seeking a review/verification of the definitions of "conspiracy theory". It's been posted at Wiktionary:Requests for verification#conspiracy theory. Is that correct? Will Beback 23:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Hollow are the Ori was banned here when he was banned by the Wikipedia ArbCom. (Cross-project vandalism, trolling, etc.) It looks like I made a mistake, giving a matching block instead of indef. Ruakh is a fairly new sysop here, so his error of assuming good faith of a troll is understandable. The conspiracy theory nonsense can either get zapped now, or wait one month to fail RFV (in which case it can't be reentered for a much longer time, without meeting an automatic rollback.) Thanks for the heads-up. --Connel MacKenzie 00:43, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Username block of User:LOZ: OOT

Hi there. I'm w:en:User:Alison, an admin from the English Wikipedia. I've received a few irate messages from the above user who's complaining of being "unrightfully blocked [on English Wiktionary] for abusing multiple accounts". Right now, the block log shows a username block, so I'm guessing that's a softblock and he can still create a new account. He's got the mistaken impression that he's been blocked as a sock. As the rules here are prolly different to en.wp, can you maybe elaborate on your username block rationale as he seems okay on WP (I know WP:U backwards over there :) ) and he claims it to represent "an abbreviation of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" [4] ? If you could let me know, that would be great! Thanks - Ali-oops 07:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Userlogin&type=signup page says pretty clearly not to use punctuation; colons in usernames are particularly problematic on Wiktionary where so many core functions are indirect. An all uppercase username / acronym is pretty much guaranteed to be a point of confusion. The similarity to LOLZ implies it is just another leet variant of the same. But thanks for identifying "Legend of Zelda"...I had no idea it was intended as promotional spam.

Investigating further the corresponding Wikipedia account, I see "Wictionary" as a heading and as a link. Furthermore, it seems to be an account to abuse userboxes and focus only on gaming nonsense. (Gamer slang is generally discouraged here, but not completely prohibited if it has entered the English language in general use, particularly outside internet contexts.)

Thanks for the heads-up on this account. The Wikilawyering on your talk page seems a little inexplicable. The complaints about e-mail messages being deleted are bizarre; I have not received an e-mail messages from this person yet. (I apologize for being offline for nine consecutive hours; once a week, I try to sleep...about once every other month I succeed.) Because this is not Wikipedia, blocked users cannot post messages to their own talk page...therefore I have my public-public e-mail address on my user page and user talk page here!

For someone to make the comments he did on your userpage implies extensive encounters in the past...not just simple assumptions of bad faith on his part. I see User:Joey Felder has been created by bypassing the block using the https proxy (or was it an open proxy?) I'll ask other CUs to look into this, since he seems to think this is something personal. (Sigh...successful wikilawyering.) "Joey Felder" remains unblocked at this point in time...that is an acceptable username; the fact that it was created by bypassing blocks is a major concern, though. --Connel MacKenzie 15:14, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Allow me to make a case on my defense from the banhammer. I shouldn't be blocked for two good reasons: 1) I didn't even know that the username policies were set in such a way, so how is a ban for unintentional disruption necessary? 2) If evading a block that has been implemented to stop me from editing due to username policies I can't even find on this entire website is worth indefinitely blocking me and banning me from using Wictionary, then Wictionary considers all of its policies to be set in stone, and should never be treated with occasional exception. Even when the intentions of a previously blocked user are to assist and that user's previous accounts were blocked A. unjustly for sockpuppetry and B. for an inappropriate username. Any form of block evasion should apparently be treated with extreme prejudice. I had absolutely no clue punctuation was not allowed in a user name, and the policy on usernames can't even be found, and the sysops here expect users to immediately have prior knowledge of Wictionary Policies and Guidelines.

And then they think that whoever doesn't understand them is a highly disruptive and uncivil user, accusations that ultimately come from someone who has accused the blocked user of using "bad faith". I don't know if it's exactly the same way here, but blocks/bans are implemented to prevent disruption to pages, incivility, and abusive sockpuppetry (yes, including evasion of blocks, but I didn't understand policy and you automatically assumed that I am a fanatic here to make pointless entries and abuse editing priveledges). Policy shouldn't be SET IN STONE and followed with absolutely NO EXCEPTION. Shouldn't I be an exception to this? Can you brush the fact that I started a new account to help Wictionary off, because I am not a destructive user now, and I wasn't one in the first place.

Oh, and FYI, I didn' have previous contact with you. In fact, I was extremely angry that I got blockked. What I assumed was that you saw a user who was using the same IP address as a sockpuppeteer, and wanted to prevent the sockpuppeteer from returning, hense the block for User:Zelda ocarina, one of two previous accounts I've made. If that is your assumtion, I'll have you know that my IP address is shared. 24.70.95.203. Joey Felder 18:53, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

This is interesting, thanks for giving yourself away. That IP you gave was indeed used by you for childish vandalism [5][6], and, quite coincidentally I'm sure, usernames with "Connel" in them [7][8], as well as one, The menace of Wictionary, that used the same idiosyncratic spelling of Wiktionary you used above. That last one was, quite justifiably, blocked for abusing multiple accounts. Your cries of injustice ring false. In fact, now I've discovered it looks like your Wikipedia account is a reincarnation of the banned user User:Connell66, and you've been using your IPs for vandalism and trolling over there, too. I'm blocking them all for trolling. Dmcdevit·t 19:24, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. I just came back over here to point out that he'd been proxying. Oh well, looks like another vandal account - sorry for all the fuss and drama, guys - Ali-oops 20:52, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

• You "assumed...it had been blocked for previous vandalism..." Why would you assume your IP was used for vandalism previously? Classic...one for the archives, methinks. --Connel MacKenzie 21:01, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Algrif

Hi. Thanks for the vote of confidence. It is much appreciated. -- Algrif 16:59, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

No prob...but really, that is neither here nor there. I guess people do notice WT:WL, after all...which overall is probably a bad thing. Keep up the good work. --Connel MacKenzie 17:19, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Pure chance that I looked. But you are right, it is possibly too accessible. -- Algrif 18:01, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Block of "Hollow are the Ori"

I'm not entirely confortable with the indefinite block of this user - and I'm on the opposite side, PoV-wise, of his misconduct. It seems strange for activities on wikipedia to lead to a block on wiktionary, especially as his behaviour regarding "conspiracy theory" here has been very reasonable, especially given his previous conduct on wikipedia. Might I suggest that you reconsider this?

Feel free to reply here, I'll now have your talkpage on my watchlist. SamBC 20:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

• I have been meaning to block him myself. He is a committed troll with an almost zero signal-to-noise ratio and is of no use to the project at all. SemperBlotto 21:54, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't know, from recent activity on wikipedia I'd've agreed, but his recent constructive and cooperative behaviour on conspiracy theory makes me think he might be turning a corner. And surely some specific behaviour on this project is needed for a block, especially a permanent one. SamBC 22:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I came here to notify Connel that I'd unblocked this editor, and now I see this discussion … so, I'm guess I'm notifying all of you now. All of this user's edits since his year-long-block expired have been at conspiracy theory and Talk:conspiracy theory, except for one edit to the Wiktionary:Requests for verification#conspiracy theory. This suggests that a block is not strictly necessary to protect Wiktionary; he's not going on a big POV-pushing rampage or anything. Further, while his original edits to conspiracy theory were not really consistent with how Wiktionary works, he's responded well in the talk-page discussion, and has toned down his edits significantly. Should this change, fine, we can re-block him; but for right now this seems like overkill. —Ruakh_TALK 23:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Reblocked for the e-mail. User is clearly not here to help. Successful wikilawyering with a new sysop is likely to have negative ramifications for a promising new sysop, but no significant change for the user. --Connel MacKenzie 23:16, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Having dealt with this vandal on Wikipedia, I heartily endorse Connel's block. bd2412 T 01:55, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Whitelist not working?

The whitelist doesn't seem to be working 100%; when I visit recent changes, some edits do get marked (right now, I see marked edits by 62.177.137.37, Algrif, and AutoFormat), but others do not; for example, edits by Saltmarsh are not getting marked. Looking at the code, it seems fine; whiteList is definitely being set to include ",Saltmarsh,", which is what's being tested for, yes? (I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.6 on WinXP, if it's relevant — some weird bug in the JS implementation rather than in the script itself. Nothin in the documentation looks suggestive, though.) Do you have any thoughts? —Ruakh_TALK 17:34, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes. After editing the JS, always Ctrl-Sh-R the page after the new version is saved, to force the JS cache to reload. --Connel MacKenzie 19:37, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I do that, and it can't be the issue here anyway, as Saltmarsh has been listed there for quite a while now. —Ruakh_TALK 19:49, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. Missed some semicolons. this help? --Connel MacKenzie 20:01, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

No, that didn't help; thanks, though. (JavaScript infers a semicolon when it reaches the end of a line, provided one is possible. It's a ridiculous misfeature, but in this case it helped.) This is weird … I copied the function to my own little test-file and performed alert(wiktWhiteListed('Saltmarsh'));, which alerted true; but when I go to recent changes, I still get (mark?) instead of (marked) next to Saltmarsh's edits. Very odd. —Ruakh_TALK 21:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but I've seen some odd behavior without the semicolons, when combined with //comments. *shrug*. --Connel MacKenzie 21:57, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm having trouble finding edits by Saltmarsh that are not already marked. Where do you see his/her edits? --Connel MacKenzie 21:55, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think there's another but for page titles with two "/" in them. Checking... --Connel MacKenzie 22:03, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh! That would account for it, then. (Votes subpages were where I was noticing it.) Thanks! :-) —Ruakh_TALK 22:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I haven't looked at that in a long time. The devs have been gradually adding useful tags to things to make parsing easier...so I just took advantage of the one I saw just now. Seems to be working better now. --Connel MacKenzie 23:02, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Wiktionary:IRC/Logs

I tried using <pre> and </pre> to format the IRC log from the first day of #wiktionary-gfdl with the entire Checkuser conversation, and it didn't work. Any suggestions for that? --Neskaya ^talk 21:00, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Sheesh. Offhand, no. I like the one-blank-line format you used, but that is probably a pain to do, right? Also, I thought the logs would use comparison-date format, e.g. 2007-08-19 instead of mm.dd.yyyy. Also, wikilink expansion on the log pages will be implicit, so the log will need to /ignore linkyW. It might be worthwhile to have the logging done on toolserver, with a nightly pagefromfile.py (from pywikipediabot) or other automated formatting stuff (maybe in Perl? bash? Dunno.) Logs should be posted near (or maybe 10 minutes after) midnight UTC. We could get fancy with append.py at some point in the future, and have it update hourly (or less) when there is more than a KB of new conversation.

Perhaps I should check out what other IRC logging tools are available already. It might be better off as an automated toolserver page.

--Connel MacKenzie 21:20, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

goal-seeking behavior

Hi. I see you are patrolling at the moment. Can you check this new entry, please? -- Algrif 16:01, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Psychology terminology? Hmmm. --Connel MacKenzie 16:07, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Whatever. Contributor should try to wikify and describe. Assumuing it is a "correct" entry in the first place. It could open the door to hundreds of XYZ behaviour entries. -- Algrif 16:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'm on my second cup of coffee. Sum-of-parts, undeniably. Going, going, gone. --Connel MacKenzie 16:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Coordinate terms

Thanks for applying this and related sensible changes. I don't mind but also don't push for "====Coordinate terms====" to be used, but if that heading is undesirable, it should probably be removed from WT:ELE#Further semantic relations, don't you think? Rod (A. Smith) 17:41, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. Yes, it probably should be removed. --Connel MacKenzie 17:44, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

resumé#Noun

I will discuss this on the page. Please, give a reason for your reverts. The same goes for ta#Interjection Thecurran 02:18, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Header question

If you at some point have time may I ask you to drop an advice here please. It would help me to know how to edit next pages. Best regards Rhanyeia 09:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I've replied there. --Connel MacKenzie 14:56, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. :) My reply is also there. Best regards Rhanyeia 08:34, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

There is one more question there. Thank you very much. :) Rhanyeia 08:48, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Am I going to be blocked?

I'm confused. I've incensed someone. I tried to fix it. I want to know how I contravened the rules and how to avoid it. I don't want to be blocked but I'll abide by the admins' decision(s). Do blocks come in one severity: Never come back!? Do they perhaps have a range like one week, one month, no new articles, exclusions to only discussion pages, etc.?

You've shown me a better place for the discussion I'm alluding to, but I still want to stay away for a while until things cool down. I want to know how to make peaceful overtures that will actually fix the toes I trod on. I just learned the internet term, troll. I don't want to be one. I also don't want to be a doormat. I want to find a way to invite opinions from others in my 2-person dialogues to get a perspective of how this community feels about the issue without wasting the time of admins like I am now.

I think I've taken a lot of rhetorical questions, sarcasm, and aizuchi-like expressions of politeness and tranquility in a literal fashion. Similarly I think my literal words have been taken as having abrasive undertones I did not intend. With the typed word, the facial and vocal expressions to infer a non-literal interpretation are absent. I ultimately angered someone unintentionally, took their angry response as a peaceful, permissive one, added insult to injury by continuing in the same vein, and was surprised when it all blew up in my face. I want to avoid repeating this.

I guess I just want help. I'm not asking you to personally reply, but if you could tell me how to do a policy search for these items, that would also be helpful. Thank you for all your time and consideration (TYFAYTAC?) :-). Thecurran 07:02, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

To answer your question ("Am I going to be blocked?") well, maybe, but probably not. I admit that your actions have been confusing, making it difficult to AGF. If you are blocked, I suspect it will be of very short duration (15 min, 1 hour) with subsequent blocks of incrementally increasing duration. "Content spammers" like the /w/index.php vandalism is where immediate long-term blocks are used, as those invariably come from open proxies or semi-open proxies. That isn't you.

Regarding the content dispute: the toes you've trod on have all been indirect. I'll try to explain it in parts:

1. color/colour is the longest flame-war on en.wiktionary.org, still not 100% resolved...the slightest mention of it still upsets most long-term contributors.
2. Regional tags (and all aspects of how we deal with them) is the by-product of #1.
3. Regional spellings vs. 'regional differences in use' is inextricable from #1 & #2.
4. Regional origins vs. regional spellings is inextricable from #1, #2 & #3.
5. It is painful to rehash the same topic over again. We have now gotten close to an acceptable scheme, overall. Each time a newbie (British, American or Australian) jumps in head-first, their misconceptions first have to be addressed. Doing so is time-consuming and taxing. For some reason, all newcomers that have entered the "regional" debate have assumed that every Wiktionarian is completely ignorant of regional differences. The newbie's assumtion of bad faith (that we have never discussed it, nor considered it before) is offensive, to say the least. This always sets the tone poorly.
6. Additionally, particularly virulent vandals have, on occasion, taken up the "US vs. UK" banner as a topic for actual vandalism to entries. This history makes edits like yours (removal of tags) seem downright nefarious.

Now, I see your comment above, that you'd like to help. I'd like you to be able to help, too. The first thing you may want to consider, is that newcomers (to Wiktionary) build reputations by making numerous good edits. It is also healthy to consider that addition or removal of regional tags is likely to offend people on either side of the pond (erm, either pond, I guess) despite technical accuracy and good intentions. It is almost daily that I erroneously nominate a UK-ism on RFV (having never heard the term before.) Because I have a good rapport with some of the most prolific UK contributors, that rarely results in misinterpretation.

The other activity I saw you do that seemed harmful, was the plastering of numerous talk pages with the same comment. In general, when there is a gross conceptual error, such conversations are much better dealt with on WT:TR, WT:BP or one of the other centralized discussion areas. Blazing ahead with numerous separate conversations (talk pages) is seen as counter-productive; the root issue isn't being dealt with when the conversation can't even be found.

Now, as I hinted at above, the regional tags are overloaded with several different meanings; regional origin, regional differences in use, regional equivalents and regional spellings. While this isn't optimal, it is the compromise-du-jour. This makes the edits you've been making seem to be actual POV pushing...as you apparently have little or no knowledge of the previous discussions.

I suggest you re-frame your US/UK contributions as "usage notes" supplements. If you say on a talk page "Hey, anyone mind if I add this usage note? Hrunk is used in the US, NZ and AU, but Herunk is the British spelling." you might find that people aren't as upset as you think they are. Also, starting on one talk page, and waiting for feedback, is better than repeating the same thing on numerous talk pages. The key to treading lightly in this particular debate, is that you give people enough time to respond to one, before moving on to the next one. You'll find that the answers you get on the first debate will often give good direction, on how to acceptably address the others.

The formal policy on color/colour does not exist (at least, not in the detail you are looking for.) This is because there is no single panacea that addresses all concerns. For discussions on the topic, you might wish to read the "JackLumber" sections above on this talk page, or use Google to search for "site:en.wiktionary.org color colour". Since you obviously are interested in formalizing policies, your help summarizing existing practices to formulate exact policies will (eventually) be appreciated...even if such efforts are militantly resisted at first. But I strongly suggest you make several dozen edits (sequentially) as described above, first. Otherwise a policy proposal will likely fall on deaf ears. That is, you can't coherently summarize existing practices into a formal policy, if you don't know what they are. And you can't read up on non-existent policies.

--Connel MacKenzie 15:47, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

What does AGF mean? I've looked it up on Wiktionary and in the deletion page, but nothing's there. The Wikipedia page does not seem to fit into your context. Does it mean something like make a decision?

I'm sorry about being ignorant of the past discussions. I'm used to seeing the relevant discussions on the article's discussion page in Wikipedia and so many Wiktionary articles have no discussion pages. At first, I read that as meaning that on whatever particular page I was looking at, if there was no discussion page, it hadn't been discussed and nobody had differed in opinion with any stage of the construction history. Not seeing what lied beneath, I thought it was important to spark discussions. I wish I understood how the BP, TR, etc. could be more important than discussion pages. I do shift work and live in a different time zone from most editors. I should consider other people's time in waiting for a response. Thecurran 00:15, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

AGF means "assume good faith". (I've now added it to Wiktionary:Glossary, which is where frequently-used Wiktionarian terminology is defined.) —Ruakh_TALK 01:11, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Most Wiktionary discussions are centralized. TR and BP are more important when dealing with patterns of terms - otherwise you are just duplicating the same conversation many, many times. Anything that affects more than a half dozen pages is probably good to discuss somewhere before charging ahead. The comment on the other user talk page "ZOMG RACISM" was probably the best summary; blitzing large volumes of anything is often a bad idea. Yes, most of us here are familiar with 3166. But it has little relevance to most of what we do here, as those are useless country codes, not language codes (see ISO-639.) I am hopeful that you've found our complete ccTLD listings and understand why they aren't at the capitalized versions. The {{see}} links at the top of the page, are indeed missing, but I expect that to be fixed by the DidYouMean extension. --Connel MacKenzie 01:36, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Voting talk pages

It seems there is more commonly discussion on voting talk pages now (not counting nominations). Should we automatically link to the talk page from all new policy votes? We should probably do it at least if the page exists, since it's pertinent discussion. Also, per the problem of getting back to Wiktionary talk:Votes from these pages, could we prefix all new votes with Wiktionary:Vote/ so that it gets back to a different page, and then redirect Wiktionary talk:Vote to Wiktionary:Votes? (Is that unclear?) DAVilla 22:00, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Erm, yes that is unclear. You want line two of all votes to be something like this?

<noinclude>:''Return to [[Wiktionary:Votes]] or [[Wiktionary talk:Votes]]''</noinclude>

or somethin'? Or have the "subpages" links in there too? (On line two of every vote?) --Connel MacKenzie 22:09, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The first point is to add another discussion link, possibly as simple as:

=== Comments ===
:* See also '''[[{{TALKPAGENAME}}]]'''

or as complex as:

* Discussion:
{{#ifexist:{{TALKPAGENAME}}|*: [[Image:Wikt rei-artur3.svg|20px]] '''[[{{TALKPAGENAME}}]]'''}}

The other point is to modify the title of a page. Right now, if I start a new page "blah", it comes up as Wiktionary:Votes/2007-08/blah. That gets into trouble when you go to the talk page, because the talk page can lead you back to Wiktionary talk:Votes with a large STOP! message on it. I'd like to change the title to Wiktionary:Vote/2007-08/blah and then redirect Wiktionary talk:Vote to Wiktionary:Votes to avoid stumbling on that page. DAVilla 22:25, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for confusing me. Where is it singular, and where is it plural? Any singular "vote" pages must be redirected to their plural equivalent, and the source of the error corrected. Was that what you are talking about? --Connel MacKenzie 22:34, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

No, I'm talking about deliberately making the votes not be subpages of Wiktionary:Votes. Go to Wiktionary talk:Votes/2007-06/Level of basic headings and click on the < link immediately under the page title and you'll see the problem I'm talking about. If the voting pages were subpages of another page, then that wouldn't happen. One way to do it is to use the singular instead of the plural. (Another way is to simply not use slashes in the title.) DAVilla 02:04, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh. Oooh. I'm sorry, but right now I think that is a horrible idea. I think I will sleep on it though. Choosing between all these different kluges is...just wrong, ya know? Maybe the one-week lead-in time for each policy vote is exacerbating the problem. (Well, obviously, it is.) I do not like the "singular" idea, at all, but it is hard to quantify why. Perhaps others will chime in here. --Connel MacKenzie 02:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

As long as we're talking about kludges, don't forget we could use JS to twiddle the links. --Connel MacKenzie 02:17, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh good, Javascript. I like that idea much better. Now, per the first point? DAVilla 03:34, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I really don't see the problem. I mean, I see what you're describing, but don't see how it's a problem. The message isn't intended for people who get to that page the way you're describing, but I don't see that it's harmful or confusing to them. —Ruakh_TALK 02:26, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you...well said. OTOH, having them not be sub-pages obviously would be confusing. --Connel MacKenzie 02:30, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

• for the first point, I think defaulting the redlink into the ===Comments=== section is just peachy. That is a good idea. Including it (especially conditionally) in "Discussions" would be bad, IMHO. That's not the sort of thing that should be encouraged, especially once the vote is started, is it? --Connel MacKenzie 03:43, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Your role as checkuser

Per this tragedy of a heated argument, it would be nice to know how active you intend to remain as a "most trusted user". DAVilla 03:33, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I've been arguing with him on IRC. I think his position is very irrational. --Connel MacKenzie 03:44, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I really regret not having asked him his opinion beforehand as well. I didn't realize he had so much history on the wiki projects. Live and learn, I guess. DAVilla 05:09, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

CheatBot and plurals

Hello Connel, I'm I correct in assuming that there is little point in creating plural entries by hand for the forseable future since this will be handled by the CheatBot? I always use {{en-noun}} when creating new entries for main articles and always add it where necessary and this makes LOTS of red links! --Williamsayers79 11:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Some people like to manually type in the various inflected forms. I have no objection to them doing so; in general it is good practice for doing basic entries. After each XML dump, yes, TheCheatBot will fill in the ones it can. There are many (comparatives, superlatives) it misses though.

About four days ago, the system I use to run TheCheatBot from had a hard-drive failure. I notices that I haven't backed that particular system up in several months. So for now, the automated transwikis have stopped, and TheCheatBot will probably not be able to run after tomorrow's XML dump. But assuming I am still a Wiktionarian one month from now, TheCheatBot will pick up where it left off. No, nothing ominous intended. Just that I'm still surprised (once again) at how debilitating one disk crash can be. Who knows, I could be hit by a bus tomorrow.

The biggest problem TheCheatBot has, (or rather, I have, running it,) is weeding out invalid and incorrect en-noun uses. That usually causes a day or two of delay. So yes, users manually entering them all is kindof a wasted effort; the idea is to let the automation help out where it can. But by no means is theCheat the only user allowed to enter them. I.e. if there is a WOTD coming up, you might want to enter redlinks there preemptively, so that the WOTD looks nice. --Connel MacKenzie 13:55, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

System recovery went well. See User:TheCheatBot/2007-08-29. --Connel MacKenzie 00:01, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Irregular plurals

Conversation moved to Category talk:English nouns with irregular plurals#Potential for automatic categorization. Rod (A. Smith) 18:29, 30 August 2007 (UTC)