User talk:Tim Starling/Archive 4

Hi. I've banned this account, yet I can still edit with it. I suspect your new code is confused by the fact that it looks like an IP address? 64.175.249.214 (Evercat) 20:08, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I tried blocking these people:

Angela -- block worked
1Angela -- block worked
1.Angela -- block worked
1.2.3.4 (Angela) -- failed
1.1 (test) -- block worked

Angela 21:30, Sep 16, 2003 (UTC)

FWIW, I've just changed SpecialUserlogin to disallow creating a username that includes an IP address as well as those that are one in their entirety. Still should have better checks though... --Brion 21:57, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

From deletion log:

1:50, 17 Sep 2003, Tim Starling blocked 64.175.249.214 (Hephaestos) (contribs) (unblock) (Michael)

Oooh, that's nice. :-) -- Cyan 02:16, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Since the larger picture of the Houston Skyline should work now, I reverted the image to the older one. WhisperToMe 22:16, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Less than ideal deletion[edit]

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump for comments on the Presidential trivia deletion.(this was the original comment) Don't read any heat into my posts on this, by the way. You just happened to do something which caused me to post over in the village pump something which was going to end up there anyway, but as a link to copyright discussion. I know the normal culture here is often to discourage short articles, but I'm concerned that deleting works in progress very quickly is countrary to the purpose of getting articles written. Even a blank page deserves a day or two to evolve before it gets deleted, if there's a sign that someone is doing something with it.JamesDay 04:04, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the admin-ness! :) Dysprosia 08:03, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Yes, changing my User ID to my real name (John Kenney), would be fine. john 18:37, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Tim, could you do an article on Genyornis (whatever that is) so that the link on the History of Australia page leads somewhere? Cheers Adam

Tim, thanks so much for awarding the admin status! I am already enjoying being able to do simple page deletions when necessary. Best wishes, Jwrosenzweig 04:18, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the name change. How will the admin thing work? john 06:05, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Please, name change request: user:H. Jonat to user:H.J., requested by HJ by email. Thanks. Martin 10:34, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I have received a request by e-mail from User:Robert Taylor who says he wants his account deleted. He hasn't actually made any edits under the account, but it does show up on the list of registered users. Is this something you could do? I have listed his talk page on VfD. Thanks. Angela 22:21, Sep 18, 2003 (UTC)

Done and done. -- Tim Starling 06:19, Sep 19, 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for deleting the account, and for reverting my user page last night. Angela 06:57, Sep 19, 2003 (UTC)

Cheers. :) Martin 13:58, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Tim, please visit the White Australia Policy talk page and read my comment. Tell me if you agree or not. Cheers, Dr Adam Carr

Tim, two things: (1) I have taken the liberty of incorporating the not-very-helpful biographical piece on Robert Burke into your piece on the Burke and Wills expedition. I think the Burke piece should now be deleted, but I don't have the authority to do that. (2) Tannin and I have agreed (after some debate!) on a division of the History of Australia page. Have a look and see what you think. Cheers Dr Adam Carr 05:04, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I did lots of good work with all my names. Pizza Puzzle

Please take a look at Talk:Australia to see the ongoing "discussion" over the formatting of the article. --Jiang 23:12, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

That thing?! Bloody hell. Thanks for the fix. -- Cyan 06:48, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

seems to work now. LirQ

Bubble trouble[edit]

How about pointing the bubble link to the "post a comment" (section=new) page instead of the whole talk page? This may be more newbie friendly and eliminates edit conflicts.—Eloquence 17:49, Sep 26, 2003 (UTC)

I don't know... it's not very flexible. It breaks down when there are more than two people involved, since you can't read the other people's comments before you make your own. Plus it doesn't allow people to specify edit summaries, in the majority of cases. Currently I'm leaning towards Angela's idea of linking to an ordinary action=edit page. -- Tim Starling 11:00, Sep 27, 2003 (UTC)

You can easily read the discussion by clicking "View discussion". The subject automatically becomes the edit summary.—Eloquence 11:40, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I think this is partly about personal preference. I never use the 'post a comment' feature and I'm not sure I would like being forced to use it by having the link go straight to this. A lot of the time you add something to a talk page, it is a continuation of something already there, so the post a comment isn't really suitable, and I wouldn't want to click the bubble, then click view discussion, then click edit. That doesn't make things any quicker than the current way of clicking on the user name first. Angela 15:07, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Australia maps[edit]

Hi, thanks for creating those maps of Australia with state borders *. We're using them on the German Wikipedia. Unfortunately the colors don't match the ones we usually use for such maps (compare Mae Hong Son). Can you provide a template without anti-aliasing that we can recolor with the floodfill tool (compare Mexico template)? --Head 10:36, Oct 3, 2003 (UTC) (Please reply to De:Benutzer Diskussion:Head)

Thanks for your help, but I decided to do it from scratch. I found a nice public domain map and created this template. The advantage is that you can simply recolor it, and the anti-aliasing is done when you resize it to 20%. Canberra wasn't on the map so I had to draw it myself. Can you please check if its position/shape is correct? Sample map for Queensland is here. --Head 14:54, Oct 3, 2003 (UTC)

Ahh, so many server-related problems, so little ability to distinguish between them...
Thanks. Martin 13:22, 5 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Tim

Yes I think I should drop the "Dr" which looks a bit pompous when repeated all the time.
I have contributed Robert Helpmann and John Monash - where are our other Australianists?
What is wrong with the photo upload (in words of one syllable please)

Adam 01:41, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Tim thanks for that. But the 4 tilde name thing doesn't seem to work now. Adam 04:35, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC) (Adam)

What exactly does it do when you try it? Was the above signature generated with ~~~~? -- Tim Starling 04:39, Oct 6, 2003 (UTC)

It is working now, thanx. Adam 04:40, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Incidentally, can I change the article-timing thing so that it gives times in AEST rather than GMT? Adam

There is this nice page I know.[edit]

I note that you have yet to weigh in on the new version of the Wikipedia:Cleanup or on its talkpage. User:Stevertigo has done a huge amount of work on it (almost as much as myself), and the concept is shifting somewhat radically. As I sincerely and deeply believe it will eventually become a reality (I am very patient about things, and if I am right, I can't but succeed in anything I endeavour to make a reality ("The long view")), and hence it is fundamentally merely a question of what form the new page will take. That could use some non-sceptical input. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 06:40, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Tim, thanks for your comments. I guess you are right. I should probably stick to subjects I know about and other people don't, rather than get involved in trying to rewrite big politically-loaded subjects like Hitler and Afghanistan. But if people want Wikipedia ever to be taken seriously as an encyclopaedia, there will have to be a grappling at some point with the issues of quality control and political bias. I did a random sample of 25 articles recently and I would say only three or four of them were of publishable quality. Half of them were either stubs or sub-literate junk. All the "big issue" articles I have looked at are full of political assumptions of various kinds (most commonly anti-Americanism). Adam 09:58, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I'm about to leave for home so I'll be out of touch for an hour or so, hope the upload fix goes well. :) --Brion 02:03, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Tim, Why did you remove the Libyan flag from the Libya article? You left a very unhelpful message in the comment also: "Oops -- Tim Starling...". Please leave me a message explaining your motives. Until then, I restored the flag.

Tjdw 15:58, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Tim, I read your mention of cached HTML pages for anonymous users in User:Rameez. In which case you'll be knowing what the real issue is in the discussion "Google links to Wikipedia articles" in Wikipedia:Village_pump. Can you resolve that discussion. thanks. Jay 17:36, 8 Oct 2003 (UTC)

What's going on? en2 just disappeared and then you and Hephaestos started making strange multiple edits. Angela 03:26, Oct 9, 2003 (UTC)

Actually I think the multiple edits were probably a browser glitch on my end. - Hephaestos 03:31, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Just seemed strange that you both did the same thing four times at the same time as each other. Angela 03:33, Oct 9, 2003 (UTC)

I don't know what's going on. I certainly didn't click save four times. Wikipedia was going very slowly for a while there, but I assumed it was something to do with the search index. That thing with en2 thing is interesting -- maybe someone's playing around with the DNS settings in preparation for turning larousse back on. Or maybe I'm just being wildly optimistic. -- Tim Starling 03:49, Oct 9, 2003 (UTC)

I've changed en2 to a redirect to en (particularly as it's redundant at the moment). I ran a REPAIR TABLE on the searchindex which may have slowed down some things that were otherwise giving errors. --Brion 03:53, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

You said on Berlios at 2.26 "Jason was blissfully unaware there was a problem" yet I had e-mailed him at 23.53. Perhaps this is because it was outside normal working hours in American time. Would it be helpful to also have people's home e-mail address as the list only includes his work e-mail? I'm also surprised it took over two hours before anyone tried to phone him. I feel guilty for going to sleep now! Angela 05:49, Oct 10, 2003 (UTC)

Tim: I have now completed my work on the Prime Ministers of Australia series. I have turned all the stubs into articles, written several articles from scratch, and edited, either lightly or heavily, the existing articles on the recent PMs. I cut a lot of extraneous political commentary from John Howard: I didn't look to see who I have offended. I would welcome your comments on the whole series. Adam 16:48, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

pump message[edit]

Answer at User talk:Maveric149#Cache refreshing. So Mr Developer, where is that global cache update? What? The server can't handle it? I guess I'll have to continue updating the cache of pages that anons are likely to see (while simultaneously making formatting corrections). ;-) --mav

Sorry for being short. Oct 9 at 19:00 would work fine. --mav

Image deletion[edit]

Thank you for the explanation at sourceforge. Keeping a list of images awaiting deletion is no problem, so I agree a special script isn't necessary. Angela 01:59, Oct 12, 2003 (UTC)

Attributing Edits[edit]

Hi, The very reason I wanted to change the attributes is defeated if you make a very public log like that:-) I just wanted to claim the new page I created for myself without unduly publicising my IP address. I understand that a log is required, but can it not be for reference only by the user and the developers?Why should it be for public viewing? Is there any possibility of doing something about this? KRS 03:45, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Thanks, its better. But ideally it would be nice if there was no record, is that too much to ask for? I think it is very important to have a standard policy on this because it reflects the standard pattern of many (innocent) newcomers. First you think its better to contribute anonymously without creating a user ID. Then you find to your dismay that the IP addresses figure prominently and actually creating a user account is the best way at anonymity. Then you have a dilemma whether to own a page which you started or not, and what it is worth risking... and so on.

Is it possible to pick out an IP address range where the last part keep changing- when using a dial-up connection? I have some minor edits of that too, though its not too important. Just for curiosityKRS 04:56, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Sysop bans[edit]

I think there is some confusion over the ban of Anthere. It was Jimbo that blocked the User:Mediator account yesterday, not Ed. And a log of unbanning in this instance wasn't entirely necessary either as the conversation between Anthere and Martin on the User:Mediator page clearly stated that it was Anthere who unblocked it the first time and that it was Anthere currently holding the account, which I can only assume Jimbo did not read. Angela 06:46, Oct 16, 2003 (UTC)

As a precision, the french in particular did not know the loggued-in banning option was possible, because I also avoided telling them so. I fear very much that possibility on a wiki where there is no godking. I think it is just as bad here, when people are banned without due process and due motive. Anthère

As for telling a person that they are about to be blocked: it's a nice idea, and it may well make its way into official policy if someone pushes it. But I'm very pessimistic about the ability of policy to change people's behaviour. Inevitably someone will decide that the policy wasn't meant to apply to their particular case. The current power structure provides no good way to punish someone for going against policy -- only flagrant vandalism will get a person banned. Calls for desysopping have never got off the ground.

nod. What I (with others) practiced a couple of time, was to revert systematically a change that was made not in accord with policy. I explain : some users use swear words or sneaky personal attacks or vicious hints to the other one ability to think, when editing an article (to remove what the opponent wrote); they put these words in comment box, so that stays there forever, very visible in the page history. I think that deep deep wrong, toward people and potentially for wikipedia external images. I am not very fond of swear words in talk pages, but ...well... some need them to relieve pressure. When someone pollute the comment box, even to make a good edit, I sometimes revert the change, just to make a point I disagree with their management of the comment box. If several users do that to the offendor, well, it has impact :-) much more than just stating in policy it would be best to avoid repeted uses of these kind of attacks. Other options are to list these people in the problematic list. Of course, some do not care, but so do. Aoineko and I both list each other from time to time in that list :-) Anyway, these are just two examples to show displeasure.

My scheme is not a minimum number of sysops to "press the nuclear bomb button". Instead it effectively gives every sysop veto power. Hence it would be harder to ban someone on en: than on fr:. It would be easy to instantly block a vandal such as Michael, but I hope it would have been near-impossible to block RK. In this case, assuming you or Martin registered your support for Mediator, Jimbo probably wouldn't have been able to block it. I say "probably", because if I do this right, it will require quite a bit of time and technical expertise for even a developer to institute a block against the wishes of a sysop. -- Tim Starling 00:43, Oct 17, 2003 (UTC)

Ñod. if I understand well, as soon as one sysop (say) has registered he was against a blocking, the blocking would not occur or be cancelled ? Why not yes. That is good ihmo.

However, I think of a situation, say someone is problematic by may be handled. So 2 sysops think he should be blocked, and 1 disagree; so he is not. Some hours later, the guy blow it and is doing really bad things and *has* to be stopped. But if the veto is still valid, it is not possible. Could we think then that a veto should have a given time of validity ? not to say, that the veto expires, but rather than the whole blocking process expires. For example, at 12h, two block, so the user is blocked; at 13h, one make veto, The user is unblocked; at 14h, one block, the user stays unblocked thanks to the veto; at 16h one block, the user is blocked because the veto expired.

If the guy blows it, then someone can get in contact with you (eg by email, talk page) point you to the problems, and ask you to remove your support.

Not every sysop is always behind his computer...(even though it seems he is :-))

Better yet, don't give your support to people who are about to blow it! ry to be a good judge of character. :) Martin 22:36, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

That won't do it. Even if some are "questionable", I like to give them a chance. And I prefer to trust by default.

or did I misunderstood the scheme ? Anthère 12:01, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I couldn't find your proposal on sysop "vetos" or "vouching" on blocks. I've decided that I'm wholly in favour of the technical change you propose (feel free to move this comment there or wherever). To work really well, it'll need a few culture tweaks, but they can come later. Martin 22:36, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I didn't call it a "veto" before, I called it "registering support". The proposal, with rationale, is here.

Anthere has it exactly right. I certainly think vetos should expire, although I'm not sure what the time period should be. Originally I thought that we should record the times at which logged-in users view pages, and that the vetos should expire a short time (say 2 hours) after the last page view. By the time I made my mailing list post, I was thinking that it would be better if the expiry time was 24 hours, that way a single user could maintain a veto indefinitely rather than taking shifts. There are technical measures which could be used to circumvent a short expiry time, such as browsers which refresh pages on a regular basis.

As for Martin's idea of avoiding registering support for unstable users: it's a tricky situation, because you don't want someone to block an unstable user for some insignificant infringement, you only want the user to be blocked for something really big. Of course if it's something really really big (like a vandalbot), then a developer would override any veto and block the user. I said before that Jimbo probably wouldn't know how to do that, but Brion, Jason, myself, and probably Erik and Ed, would be able to do it. -- Tim Starling 00:19, Oct 18, 2003 (UTC)

A 2 hours support will be useless on international wikipedias. As a reminder, we are only 14 sysops on fr, only 4 or 5 showing up daily. A log keeping track of the banning/unbanning is essential, with a way to warn the sysops the log has registered activity (change in the past xx hours) as regard loggued-in ban.Anthère 07:51, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, perhaps we need a short expiry on en: and a long expiry on the other wikis. I don't know, there's so many competing factors. And there's so little precedent -- we don't know how the system will be used in practice.

There are other options, I guess -- such as allowing a near-unanimous vote to carry a ban. But that doesn't really work for fr: either. What's near-unanimous when you only have 10 users online? And if we allow non-sysops to vote, we'll have campaigning: that's a far cry from Jimbo's opinion that bans should be discussed privately. -- Tim Starling 08:20, Oct 19, 2003 (UTC)

On fr, we do not make a distinction between the fact a user is sysop or not sysop for decisions, whatever decision. We do not try to campaign to have more sysop. Usually, those willing to do housework, and feeling they have to wait to often for sysop to do the job for them, ask. That is all. There are plentyful trusted users who are not sysops in the least, but who are pillars anyway. Their opinion just have the same weight than a sysop opinion. On en, you ask people to be sysop, and it is a sign the guy is now trusted, while it was not before. It is a tiny implication that a non sysop is either very new, or not trusted entirely (unless he refused of course). On fr, it is not so. Some people have been there for more than a year, and are not sysops. We have no developer either;

As I also told Steve, we can't really have a distinction between banned and blocked, since we have no godking to declare banning. A blocked one is effectively banned. Blocking is usually discussed on the ml, or on wikipedia itself actually. So, that is public (not taking into account multiple discussions on icq or by private email between factions of course :-)). See ?

Hi Tim, I posted a name change request. Just leaving a note here, since changing a user's name seems to be your department. Thanks in advance. M123 00:32, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Tim, I noticed that you are also a developer and that you occasionally make changes to the Language.php file. The next time you mess with it could you please correct the name of the Albanian Wikipedia from Shqiptare to Shqip. thanks, Dori 16:31, Oct 18, 2003 (UTC)

I just fixed this, sorry I didn't get to it earlier! --Brion 07:42, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Re: your message on Talk:Anthere: What is this "scheme" for banning you are setting up -- and are you developing it mechanically without first developing the concept with the rest of the community? -戴&30505sv 17:55, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hi, Regarding changing attribute of an edit, there is a minor edit on Classical architecture which is not by me (and not likely by anyone else from that IP), but has been attributed to me. (There were one or two edits which got missed out, probably a slight mix up?)Not very important, but I thought you should know in case there is some software glitch. KRS 03:26, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Well it occurred to me that whatever it would be --it would be like a tool suite --with some degrees of operation that could be changed as needed. Season to taste, I suppose. Im a little concerned that the conversation went from Anthere's mistake/Jimbo's honest mistake in banning her --to bring up the safety and security issue of highjacked accounts as a premise for changing banning policy/banning means. And in defense of this, you say that it should be harder to ban a logged in user? Do I understand correctly? Is not a central concept of liberal sysopdom that it's a relatively harmless assortment of abilities? A sysop can't do "anything that cant be undone" according to Brion.

<rant>The line[...]

Oh dear, rant tags. What are rant tags for exactly? I don't really understand them. Do they make it okay to be disrespectful of the opinions of others?

between developer and sysop then is quite wide, and the idea you propose strikes me as something that blurs this line somewhat --in one of the most fundamental ways. I do not disagree with a particular sysop's ban of a particular user, like you said you do. This example you bring up strikes me as an unrelated one --not to dampen a renewed impetus toward busting away on Mediawiki --but I need to say (even if you know it perfectly well already) that the tool you create may not best match the problem you claim needs mending. According to about twelve other people onlist, that particular example was hardly a controversial case. Hasty, maybe --but others have been banned in a similar fashion --and a temporary ban might best be left to the discretion of sysops and the policy they need to follow. Twas Ed (If I remember) who was completely in the wrong to undo the ban -- contradicting Erik's (rather sound and reasonable and accountable) judgement. In fact the user in question has moderated their behaviour, and this is no doubt in part due to the community's demonstrated power to enforce its reasonable policies.</rant>

On a side note: <rant 2> Mediawiki as a news-source software --as if something like Indymedia were to use it etc.. The central modifications to MW to work best in that role would include having more degrees of page protection, degrees of user roles, and better facilities for banning. Things that you and others have been hacking away to make wikireality. It would seem that the tool you are creating could be designed with this other possible application in mind. </rant>--Thats my weeks' worth of telling a coder what to code... ;-) Thanks --戴&#30505sv 06:09, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Didn't you read my mailing list post? The whole reason I'm pushing this is because I think banning is irreversible, in some sense. I considered this point so important that I made it the subject line of the post: "destructive unilateral short term bans". I'll explain this point in more detail if you want me to.

The discussion didn't go from Jimbo's mistake to hijacked sysop accounts, exactly. The discussion on hijacked sysop accounts was a week prior, and if you check Wikipedia talk:Administrators, you'll see that I made a strong case for not desysopping inactive Wikipedians, on the basis that sysop actions are reversible. But you're quite right that I'm trying to blur the line between developers and sysops. I want developer power to be dispersed. On a personal level, this is because I've suddenly found myself in a position of administrative power, and I'm uncomfortable with it. However there are plenty of Wikipedians without that prejudice who also support the same general goal.

Developers are people who develop software. Sysops are trusted editors. I think it should be the trusted editors, not the programmers, who are in control of the editorial process.

IIRC it was Axel Boldt who unbanned RK, and I don't remember anyone chastising him for it. Community opinions on Erik's action were divided: Delirium, Abe, Vicki, myself, Axel and Ed were opposed. -- Tim Starling 07:28, Oct 19, 2003 (UTC)

Im more than grateful for your reply on this. It's late here, and I dont want to get into specifics tonight, but I do want to commend you on your bringing this topic forward, and for being frank and candid about your misgivings. One thought: Since developer accounts are a part of a user id, could there be a way to turn this off and on? In otherwords --allow an option for developers to log in as sysops only if they are going to be engaged in non-developer tasks, editing, discussions, etc. There could even be some public indication of which is the case.

This may help in situations where one such as yourself needs to recuse themself from action on a particular area --instead of taking Ed's approach and not hardly using Dev'er "powers" at all --having a switch to turn off and off might be enough of a psychologcial line to keep one's role clear in their own mind, per situation. I may not be putting it clearly, but maybe tomorrow or Monday we can continue this. Regards, 戴&30505sv 07:49, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I'm not going to shirk my responsibilities. There are administrative tasks which need doing, and I'm quite capable of doing them. My role is defined by one simple question: "how can I best help the people around me?" The answer to that includes creating sysops and changing names, as well as writing software. Look, I've let you in on some of my internal thought processes, but I still have plenty of good rationalisations to support what I'm doing. A monarchy, effectively ruled by developer-minions, is not my idea of an ideal system of government. I'm an Australian Democrats voter. Hooray for participatory democracy! BTW tomorrow is Monday, what are you talking about? ;) -- Tim Starling 08:51, Oct 19, 2003 (UTC)

(Maybe this all should be on meta.) Yes, (no shirking) but the question is delimiting a tech role and a community role. I remember turning down sysopdom because I thought it would 'interfere with my ability to roll up my sleeves and get into arguments and such' —which it did, but in a good way. Sysopdom isnt all that big a deal, but to a newbie it does seem that way -there is the perceptual issue to deal with. Im neither making conversation nor criticizing --Im being nosy in the hope that my questions might help sort out which issues belong on wikitech-l and which others belong on wikipedia-l or wikien-l. Thats how I see it. Again maybe this should be on meta --because what you're proposing (forgive me for not being all up to speed) seems like it has tendrilage into all kinds of different aspects: governance, developer limitations and protocols, banning policy, sysop roles, edit dispute protocols --yech. I dont disagree at all --In fact I support your ideas for the most part. Not to mention that your adding something for Wikimedia that may be perfectly useful for another application outside of Wikipedia. Like meta, or something. -戴&30505sv

I enjoy a good argument :) Adam 09:58, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Want to make a bet on how long it is before Adam is branded a "sick Nazi bastard"? --Zero 10:53, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hi, After your comments on my page, I just thought I will check your user page. While I was trying to see a history/ diff following a link from your user page, it just reverted to some previous edit- its an image. Sorry, I haven't even seen the image, just clicked the usual place where the current/ difference would be, because some humourous comments were written as summary.I tried to revert it but there seems to be some server problem with Wikipedia. I don't want to try it again lest I do more damage. Sorry for the trouble. Maybe this mistake happens often- so I hope:-)KRS 10:06, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Atleast I seem to have done something good, though inadverdently:-)Interesting story! BTW, regarding IP addresses, the current state of affairs is perfectly alright. The more we discuss, the more ...:-)Thanks for your help, I could claim two pages. KRS 13:07, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Thank you, Tim, for compressing my photo. I wasn't aware that BMP was a problem.

Any chance you will post a photo of yourself? NuclearWinner 18:58, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Tim: I work in Richmond on Tuesdays and Fridays, and in St Kilda on Mondays Wednesdays and Thursdays. I can get to Carlton any evening (after 6) you care to suggest with a couple of days' notice. Adam 03:04, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I panic'd...[edit]

As soon as I closed the browser and started it again, everything is hunkey-dory. But berlios seems still to be down, which still worries me seriously, since the events which have to do with its maintainer... -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 03:20, Oct 22, 2003 (UTC)

No idea...Soliguy/Soilguy2 is the only person I have had a run-in with lately. The only other person who has vandalized my page, as far as I know, is one of Michael's incarnations. Adam Bishop 04:11, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Peer review request[edit]

If time allows, please consider adding your views on what User:TakuyaMurata is writing about the origins and nature of the Windows API, class (computer science), inheritance (computer science) and the related VfDs on Oct 21 and Oct 25. JamesDay 11:13, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Magic words[edit]

Hi Tim, can you explain brievly what is the purpose of MAG_MSG, MAG_SUBST and MAG_MSGNW?

Thanks. Looxix

Tim, you're right. The vote itself reminds me of the California recall vote -- should we "refactor"? If so, how should we do it? It's putting the cart before the horse, and tends to drive the dicussion towards concluding refactoring is fait accompli. I'm not sure how to even start to recharacterize the discussion. I'm also not confident enough people know about this very important proposal, since this is publicized only by one small entry in Wikipedia:Village Pump. Fuzheado 03:47, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I posted an alternative version for discussion, would appreciate your comments: Wikipedia:Remove personal attacks Fuzheado 08:32, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Tim, if I'm reading things correctly from a posting on Problem Users, you've confirmed that Antonio Martin created false user identities for VfD purposes. If this is true, can I ask what is being done about it? Thanks for your time, Jwrosenzweig 00:28, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

That actually relates to the answer of a question I posted on the pump. The discussion there should clear up any confusion I might have caused on the "Problem Users" page.Maximus Rex 00:37, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Tim, could you check the logs for where User:Wanwan is posting from? RickK 04:12, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

And have jerk RickK apologize to me after you see I'm not another person. -Wanwan 04:27, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hi Tim, I had a question about database queries; I know for a while admins were discouraged from running them, is this still in effect? If not I might try one in the next couple of days; are there off-peak hours I should utilize? (It should be a fairly straightforward one, almost verbatim from the boilerplate page.) - Hephaestos 06:38, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Yes I have a copy of the contact list. Thanks for the help! - Hephaestos 07:03, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Apparently they were only re-enabled by Brion by accident [1]. Angela 08:32, Oct 29, 2003 (UTC)

May have to re-email. I didn't have an email registered in my preferences until just now. Fuzheado 07:47, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

No there aren't but I edited last year -Wanwan

Could you please update your Princess Toadstool log 1 segment? Thanks.

Okay, but note that it may well contain edits from you. I've come to the conclusion that AOL decides which proxy to send requests to on each request, on the basis of URL. That log probably contained all edits to VFD from AOL users, during that timespan. -- Tim Starling 10:57, Oct 31, 2003 (UTC)

Oh dear, I am sorry. I had a very fraught afternoon and forgot all about it. I hope you didn't hang round too long. Adam

Meta-reply[edit]

Hi Tim,

I am currently on Holiday. I tried to reply to your proposal on Meta but every time I am in an internetcaffee meta seems not to work. I hope I get next week a chance to look at your Idea. Thanks :-) Fantasy 16:57, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Tim, no offence taken. Once again I am sorry for my no-show. It is true that I was intermittently editing, but I was also doing several other things, such as trying to meet a deadline at The Australian for my employer and to find several lost letters, and the meeting slipped my mind. Adam 03:19, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Tim, merci beaucoup pour les changements ! Papotine 19:32, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Medical Wikipedia[edit]

Hi. I'm a Wikipedian whose father is a doctor. When I explained to him what Wikipedia was, he replied that it sounded like exactly what the medical community needs - a centralized, living center for medical information that would be written by and for physicians. I was wondering about how a sister project to Wikipedia for physicians along the lines of Wikiquotes and Wikibooks could be set up, and since I didn't know where to ask I figured a developer might by a good start. Thanks, leave a reply on the Talk Page of my namespace. --Alex S 00:21, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Hi. There seems to be some trouble on the #wikipedia IRC channel. I think you may have unintentially instructed your irc client to disregard all messages sent by me. I hope this issue will be resolved and I wish you the best. Sorry for the trouble. Alexandros 00:46, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Medical Wikipedia Followup[edit]

What/where is Wikipedia-1? Also, with regards to funding, my father owns a small business and would be happy to donate server space towards a Medical Wikipedia, and publicize it to colleagues. --Alex S 01:35, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Image database reply on meta[edit]

Hi Tim,

I finally managed to write some comments on your proposal on meta. But: I am not 100% sure, if I really understood the proposal. Please have a look at my reply and correct where I am wrong. Thanks :-) Fantasy 19:34, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Tim, I would like to go on with this image-thing. You wrote, that you are thinking about doing something on this. Is there a way, I can help you? I was developer for some years. Your proposal sounds quite good (if I understood it right). Let me know what I can do :-) Fantasy 18:50, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

it.wikipedia.org Admin[edit]

Hi Tim,

I requested on Brion's Todo-List Admin status for two people (me and Frieda) for it.wikipedia.org two weeks ago. I know, Brion is realllly busy (probably his new Notebook takes away even more time ;-) so I don't dare to ask him. Maybe you know how an Admin can be set up? At the moment there is no Admin in the italian Wikipedia and therefore I think it would be nice to support the person who wants to look after that server. I was also Software developer for some years. Is there an easy way that I could do small things to help Brion (and you, and all developers!)? Thanks :-) Fantasy 21:12, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Problem solved, Brion send me the email. Thank you anyway, and many more thanks to Brion ;-) Fantasy 22:15, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Any remaining use for User:Tim Starling/Test, User:Tim Starling/Test2 and User:Tim Starling/Test4? If not, you might consider deleting them :-) Andre Engels 01:17, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)

You read my mind. -- Tim Starling 01:18, Nov 8, 2003 (UTC)

Hi,

Alexandros is being accused of taking other peoples' comments abouth im off of Wikipedia:problem users. You might want to take a look :-(

-- Pakaran 02:36, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Ok sorry. Maybe that should be made clear, before he gets flamed to a crisp? -- Pakaran 02:45, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Images Database[edit]

Hi Tim,

I tried to create examples at meta:WikiImages.org#Examples_(to_understand_the_proposal), to see if I understood your proposal. Can you tell me, If I got it right? Thanks :-) Fantasy 17:06, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Believe me, I am bending over, let me have it. But maybe we finns need a mailinlist....[edit]

Hey. Do you know how to ...

Re: My user name change: You tha man! Thanks. Christopher Mahan 23:38, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Testing.

e-mail question[edit]

Hi Tim, I don't want to appear impatient, but did you receive the e-mail that I sent you some days ago? -- Baldhur 07:34, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, Tim! There is no hurry. I just wanted to make sure, that you received my e-mail. -- Baldhur 09:52, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

response[edit]

Just kidding! :)

Organic chemicals[edit]

Is there a template for organic chemicals? Someone should revive WikiProject Chemistry starting with your inorganic table template. Daniel Quinlan 04:26, Nov 15, 2003 (UTC)

I was content to leave well enough alone, and told Angela that I would not add anymore until the matter was settled. I did as agreed; her deletions are a breach of truce, so I fully intend to add back everything that is being deleted. I will not bow to the control freaks at VfD. ☮ Eclecticology 07:02, 2003 Nov 17 (UTC)

Word to the wise.[edit]

Check this! out. Wow. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 05:36, Nov 19, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks[edit]

Ta. Morwen 07:38, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I just set up a wiki on my PC. Could you do me a favour and give it a quick test? I don't want to bandy the URL about until it's completely secure though, can I email you? Mintguy

Thanks Tim. Mintguy

Welcome back, Tim. Tannin

Many thanks, Tim, for letting me know re admin -- Dieter Simon 01:07, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Your test worked, and has now been deleted. Future tests should be done in the Wikipedia:Sandbox, as testing material in articles will be removed. Please see the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing here. Thanks. Dysprosia 08:40, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Read the source of this page :) I was just being cute. (It seems, every time I attempt subtle humour I fail miserably!) Dysprosia 08:46, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hi, I replied to your DoS comment over at Wikipedia talk:MediaWiki custom messages, I may not reply back for a little while since I'm now walking back to my room (where my IRC client is running, by the way). -- Pakaran 03:24, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hanno[edit]

Dear Tim, i was rearranging the several Hanno entities in the pedia (includes an elephant several persons and a Japanese town...) when i noticed a link to your test 1. I dont know if this is similar to Daniel Quinlan's redirect pages, but anyway Hanno shouldnt not be a redirect to Hannu or vice versa. Just to let you know, cheers, Muriel Victoria 12:59, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The MediaWiki namespace is your best invention so far. Ted Nelson would be so proud! Er, if you travelled back in time to 1965 and showed it to him when he was first writing about transclusion. Without telling him which year you're from. Seriously, though, it's a very neat feature.—Eloquence 23:03, Dec 12, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for Trade war over genetically modified food history ;-) PomPom

MediaWiki custom messages[edit]

Hey Tim could you reply here about the effect of having many custom messages. Thanks, Dori | Talk 20:20, Dec 13, 2003 (UTC)

Tim, any idea why your block of 65.110.6.34 has a date of 31 December 2004? RickK 00:22, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It isn't a problem, it just stays at the top of the list of blocked users. :-) RickK 00:29, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for your mail. I'm not decided yet, what to do now. I will contact you in January. Anyway: Merry Christmas -- Caius2ga 23:54, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Request from HappyDog

Hi Tim - Is your page at User:Tim Starling/Test1 still necessary? It is often one of the only two pages linking to what are otherwise non-existent pages, (the other being User:Daniel Quinlan/redirects6f). As Daniel's is the one used for updates could you remove yours, unless there is another reason for it being there. Similarly if you have other pages for of a similar nature. Thanks. HappyDog 23:33, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC) (Leave message on my user page if this requires a response).

Thanks for the quick reply. If it's no longer required for anything, then deleting it would tidy things up a bit. Cheers! HappyDog 22:54, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I was wondering how much longer the voting would last. Are there any guidelines I should read first? --Raul654 08:27, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks Tim! I'll be in touch... -- BCorr ¤ Брайен 16:52, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yes I am. What on earth is going on? Angela .

Tim, what happened to you last night? Why didn't you answer my questions? You scared us... - Mark 23:59, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It's a takeover bot. I think it was J-DoeAWAY. Basically it kicked everyone and stole their nicknames, now #wikipedia is inhabited by bots. I don't think I can do anything more about it, I'm going to bed. -- Tim Starling 17:40, Jan 2, 2004 (UTC)

I didn't see it kick anybody at all. And I certainly wasn't a 'bot', and neither were Jeronim or Angela. From what we saw of it, you just started opping and deopping everyone in the channel, then added a few random bans (which I removed since they apparently banned half of Germany) and you then opped anybody who spoke. It flooded my screen with several entire screens of green text, and you didn't stop when asked. I assumed MS Chat had crashed on your computer, so I kicked & blocked you. In our private query window, you did not answer questions from me that would identify you, such as "What was my old Wikipedia username, and who changed it?", since you yourself changed it to "Mark" from "Mark Ryan" less than a week ago. You told me to phone you, first saying "Angela has the number" which had just been said in the channel, which told me that whoever was imposting you had another nickname in the channel. You then unusually provided me with a link to a white pages listing which was apparently for your parents in New South Wales. Why you didn't just tell me the number straight out I don't know. It got weirder from there, with you failing to refute outrageous claims I made about you that the 'real' Tim Starling would know were false. You were on the channel #freenode, which I didn't think you frequented, and you were using functions of IRC and Freenode which you are not very familiar with. Considering that you have developer status on Wikipedia, it is a high concern when it appears your computer's security has been compromised. So I hope you appreciate the way we reacted to this situation. - Mark 00:31, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Alright then, we'll sort this out later. -- Tim Starling 02:17, Jan 3, 2004 (UTC)

Tim, it seems that it was your attempts to work out if it was really me, which made me suspect it was not you. What a giant cock-up on my part. - Mark 04:20, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Aahhhh as the smoke clears, what happened became clear. J-DoeAWAY is a heavily automated nickname, which explains why you were repeatedly opping it- because it was giving a different form of 'thanks' every time. And that's why you were doing it to me & angela... to see if we were genuine. You attempts to ban that nickname would have succeeded if you had kick-banned the nickname, rather than just banning it. - Mark 04:55, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your support. -- Tim Starling 13:00, Jan 3, 2004 (UTC)

Hi Tim, hope you're feeling better today. -- Angela

Well, anxiety and confusion were giving way to detachment and betrayal, I'm not sure if you call that better or worse. There is trust in online communities, but it hangs by such a fine thread. Any one of you could have confirmed my identity with so little effort. I was doing my best to help you guys, as always, and look what I get for it. -- Tim Starling 13:00, Jan 3, 2004 (UTC)

What you got for it? This whole story made me stay awake until 6:30 a.m. in order to convince Mark that this all is a misunderstanding and that neither your computer was hacked nor you became mentally insane. And the alarm clock was set to 8:30 a.m. since I've had a date this morning. -- JeLuF 23:09, Jan 3, 2004 (UTC)

I didn't know that, thank you very much. -- Tim Starling 09:12, Jan 4, 2004 (UTC)