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Hello, I've been playing around with Template:Graphical timeline, trying to create a timline. I was wondering - is it possible to have a timeline that goes from the oldest timeperiod at the top to the most recent at the bottom? I've tried, and it seems to work except that the scale is missing. Is it possible? Thanks, --BelovedFreak 21:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I imagine that using negative values would produce the result you want. If not, can you be a bit more specific about what you are trying to do? Are you using geological time periods, for instance? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 23:14, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm trying to get a timeline to put in Timeline of Tanzanian history. At the moment, the dates I'm using are just between 1450 and 2010, although it would probably end up somewhat earlier. Not sure yet how early. These are my experiments. So far, I've been working from the one in Timeline of South African history, but I'd prefer the more recent history to be at the bottom to match the list in the article. As you can see in my sandbox, I managed to switch it over, but without the scale on the side. Hope I'm making sense. I tried going from the instructions at Template:Graphical timeline to start with, but I was getting a bit confused. --BelovedFreak 14:20, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

		What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar
		((cite doi)) (and ((cite jstor)) etc.) are incredible and will make (are making?) a huge difference to wikipedia, encouraging citations, improving citation quality and accuracy, and saving everyone a lot of typing. Profound thanks for your work (and to any collaborators I may have missed)! (Now to go fix my old jstor cites…) —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 08:21, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks (-: Glad you find them useful. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 12:49, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I want to translate it to Hebrew for the He Wikipedia, it is possible? Israel Krul (talk) 14:31, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Hello, this should be relatively straightforwards. Hopefully I'll be able to look at the code at the weekend and let you know what I will need. Thanks, Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 12:47, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

ok. Israel Krul (talk) 22:34, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

hi smith609, i'd love to know what you think about this idea. cheersSpencerk (talk) 21:02, 25 March 2010 (UTC) ((resolved))

Sorry for not calling you for so long. Until the start of Dec 2009 you were looking very busy with working and with WP on cites and other templates, so I didn't want to your load. Then I was ill, and am still not great. How do you like Canada now, and the ROM? What projects are you working now? --Philcha (talk) 12:41, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

The citation bot seems to be naively converting "cite web" to "Citation" without checking it is not a "vcite web". This has broken the citations on Major depressive disorder. See this edit. Please stop your bot until it is fixed. Colin°Colin 07:52, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the report. Best to avoid running the bot on pages using this new family of templates until the bot is fixed. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 13:21, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I didn't run the bot. Who runs it and how do we let them know it is broken for vcite? Colin°^Talk 13:49, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Probably the best thing to do is to leave a message at the talk page; the bot edit summaries detail who initiates the bot in each case. Hopefully I'll have the problem fixed in the next day or two. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:37, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

... and it should now be fixed. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 21:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi Smith, I reverted youHere because it looks like all you did was remove signatures. Did I mess up?--SKATER ^Speak. 18:01, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Blast, I forgot that I was using Google Chrome (which swallows anything in an HTML tag). You did the right thing, thank you! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:34, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:SnowballGeography.gif, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. FASTILY ^(TALK) 00:56, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Hello Martin: I created an article on Ernettia but perhaps this is an erroneous spelling of Ernietta. Even though I found references, perhaps those have errors, what is your opinion? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:28, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi Graeme, my suspicion would be that Ernettia is the typo; the three references listed in the article are the only ones in Google Scholar (c.f. 104 on Ernietta) and Scopus returns no hits. Ernettia is also listed as a species of Costa Rican plant (Study on growth forms of some species characteristic for the paramo of Costa Rica, 1996), although I suspect that this too may be a typo. I'd suggest that you merge your new article into Ernietta and note the spelling confusion on that page.

Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:35, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Hello, I would like to ask you for this:

• 1) Do not remove wikilinks.
• 2) Do not remove taxonomy explanations.
• 3) Do not merge existing articles species article with their genera.
• 4) Do not make redirects from specific names to generic names.

Thanks. For every of these points there are reasons and I can try to elucidate them in the future. --Snek01 (talk) 22:59, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

I thought I had given reasons for doing the opposite of what you suggest, so please do feel free to provide said elucidation when time permits. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 23:03, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, you probably followed guidelines of Wikiproject Palaeontology, that makes articles for fossil genera only, which is contradict with wikiproject animals and other wikiprojects and with guideline Wikipedia:Red link, that usually make articles for species. This is very huge inconsistence. A good example: Pilina and its two articles, or Mammoth and its species articles. Wikiproject Palaeontology should somehow define and de facto to limit its own rule, for example, that its only generic articles is applied only for "dinosaurs" and similar ones. --Snek01 (talk) 23:44, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

As I understand it, the rule goes "if there's not enough information to warrant a separate page for each species, don't create a separate page for each species". As palaeontological species are often defined on morphological minutae the differences are often much less noteworthy than in living organisms, hence the inappropriateness of using the same rules as in WP:animals. Thanks for looking into this, though. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 23:59, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Where is this guideline written? The idea may be good, but its application, especially on the wikipedia, that anybody can edit is very problematic. Minutae morphological differences are in fossil and in living species. There is never "warrant" for the species existence. And "Don't create separate page." does not mean "Create redirect.". There are enough things that have to be explained, to avoid further misunderstanding. Could you focus on solving this as a project member, please? I can only say, that for example fossil species gastropods are defined in the same way as extant gastropods. I am sure there is more examples like this, so explanation is necessary. Then you will not need to write "As I understand it like this", but EVERYBODY SHOULD UNDERSTAND IT IN THE SAME WAY. --Snek01 (talk) 06:57, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

• See Wikipedia:MERGE. I have copied these guidelines to WP:PALAEO for future clarity. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 13:00, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Good science and an instructive story! Thanks! --Philcha (talk) 23:24, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the citebot widget in the toolbox even tho I emptied my cache. What would it look like if it was there? Is it only present for certain pages? Jojalozzo 18:01, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I figured out that I'm using the vector skin, not monobook skin. After adding the script to vector.js the widget is showing up but the font size is wrong. Any advice on fixing that? Jojalozzo 18:21, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Martin

I'm disappointed that you changed the refs - IMO there's a guideline that if there's an established ref / citation style it should be respected or discuss at the article's Talk. In this case the item that concerned me was the insertion of page numbers in to main text - IMO this is just another distraction for readers, and less useful than e.g. wikilinks. As a result I've have to spent about 2 hours finding and restoring. I admit I was slow on the ball - RL was pulling on me. --Philcha (talk) 07:45, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

In the background perhaps we're both looking for a solution to another issue. At present in Mollusca and others I've wanted to cite chapters and even sections of books, but without duplicated the book details (title, ISBN, publisher, e.g.) - and Visionholder showed me a way to split citations so that the book details appear only once and the cites for chapters, sections, etc. are a list underneather each book - it's easier to show than explain, see User:Philcha/Sandbox/Reference_methods/List-defined_references. It does not depend on List-defined references or template like harvnb or sfn - I'd really avoid sfn, despite some neat things, because I've already found one situation sfn can't handle. --Philcha (talk) 07:45, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Your bot changed a ref in Merge Sort. It turned what looks like an under-specified journal article into a news item. It's guessing, and it shouldn't do that. And to what end? Furthermore, do not change Citation to Cite. There are defaults in place, and you should not be dictating other people's style. I'm also trying to report a bug, and I'm being pointed down a lengthy process where I will not go. Glrx (talk) 14:03, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Citation_bot_4 and for more details. And a bug is not important enough for you to be willing to report it, it does seem a little unfair to expect me to fix it. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:39, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't see it as unfair at all. It's your bot, and you want to tax me for what it did? Then turn it off and get out of the business. I didn't ask you to write it. I didn't set it up to turn journal articles into news stories. Glrx (talk) 15:03, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi! Is there a reason why the citation bot is changing transclusions of ((cite book)) to ((citation))? The template doesn't seem to me to be deprecated or anything. Jafeluv (talk) 10:01, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

See User:Citation bot/bugs. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:47, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

On Malay Archipelago did you mean ([edit=autoconfirmated] (indefinite) [move=sysop] (indefinite)))? Tbhotch^{Talk C.} 17:21, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I meant to restore the previous protection settings as set by Hesperian. I hope I didn't err? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:42, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Hello, I just discovered that "Citation bot" added an ISBN number to a reference on a page I made, Maritime Fur Trade. I hadn't heard of Citation bot before, but it led me to your talk page where I discovered ((Cite jstor)) and ((Cite doi)). They look really useful for editors who would rather focus on content instead of citation details and syntax. I wondered if it would be possible to make a similar template for books available from Google Books. I frequently find information via Google Books and type up "cite book" references, with the url parameter pointing to the Google Books entry. After seeing the Cite jstor template, my first thought was wondering whether a similar thing would work for Google Books--a template where one would merely enter the Google Books id code and a bot would come along and create a full reference. So, I thought I'd just ask--is it possible? Pfly (talk) 08:44, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for prompting me to look into this. Yes, it looks like this will be possible, as an API exists. I'll see if I can get this up and running by the weekend. Template name suggestions welcome – ((Cite google book))? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:41, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

How about just using ((cite book |gbook=lrOpy39-OhMC))? Then the bot can populate any of the missing info. There's no need to create another set of problems like cite doi. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:38, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

BTW, wrt crude ways of getting information out of Google Books, see the Google Books greasemonkey script I wrote, or the later version (much better, but also unnecessarily crippled) here by (I think) User:Ash. There are some issues with Google's information not always being reliable (e.g. authors' names being repeated as editors, sometimes even thrice or more, etc.) (Just noticed this thread accidentally.) Shreevatsa (talk) 17:32, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

(PS: Another tool, linked from here, is Reftag, also found as WP:RefToolbar. Just adding all these here so that it is easier to compare how these different tools parse information from Google Books.) Shreevatsa (talk) 15:54, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

I think the best solution is to use the Google Books API to expand citations of the format {cite blah| url = books.google.com/id}, for the use of those who prefer in-pagecode citations, whilst also supporting {cite google book|id} for those who prefer the citation clutter to be hosted on separate pages. This leaves the format to editor choice rather than imposing a single template on everyone, whilst making the functionality available to as many editors as possible. Citations containing google books urls are being expanded as of r148; the {cite google book} template will take a little more time to implement. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 15:33, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, since I have not been following the workings of your other templates closely: what do you mean by "Citations containing google books urls are being expanded"? Does it mean that if some existing Wikipedia page has a citation template that includes a Google Books URL but not (say) the name of the author, a bot will automatically add it to the page? If so, hope there will be a way of preventing this! (Sometimes, for example, when including a bibliography on an author's page, I may intentionally omit the redundant author name. More importantly, as I have said above, Google's metadata is often severely flawed, and automatically adding this information may lead to much mess.) Do you have examples of the kinds of changes made? Shreevatsa (talk) 17:30, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

See this example edit. The |author-mask= parameter is useful when the author should be obfuscated, as in bibliographies; it's useful to have their name in the citation for metadata purposes, even if this is not made visible to the reader. I already have some safeguards in place to catch flaws in the metadata (editors mistaken for authors etc); if uncaught problems arise then I can respond accordingly. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 17:36, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Great work, thanks for the effort. But why is it removing pg and dq parameters?! Please please stop it immediately! I often take great effort to link to a specific page and highlight a paragraph on the page (this is helpful to the readers who want to follow a reference, and linking to a page is even recommended on some Wikipedia page I can't find now). I'm sure many pages do so intentionally. Please don't remove them, I beg of you. :( Shreevatsa (talk) 17:40, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

The bot is still destroying links to pages: diff. Can some admin please help stop it for a while until this is discussed and fixed? Shreevatsa (talk) 17:51, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

I've stopped the bot whilst I modify this. Are there other parameters that add value to the link and thus should be retained? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 17:53, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Whew. Thank you very much, and sorry for panicking. As far as my experience goes, pg, dq and q are the only useful parameters (the last of these is useful for books in snippet view). Another idea is to have a list of useless parameters that can be removed. The problem is that it would grow somewhat large, and Google keeps changing their format, but it would avoid removing anything useful. I'm happy as long as pg,dq,q are kept.

Great; pg, dq and q (and of course id!) are all now retained, and it is straightforward to add to this list if necessary. Of course, removing such parameters as useragent=firefox and hl=en is still beneficial. Let me know if any further honing is necessary. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:08, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much for this prompt change. (And I have forgotten to mention: these bots are a brilliant idea!) Indeed, it is quite beneficial to remove the junk parameters — the usual ones are hl, ei, ots, sig, source, lr, as_brr, printsec, sa, oi, ct, useragent, client…, plus everything after the '#' (which you should check for, BTW; otherwise it may seem like an extension of the last parameter). Also, when both q and dq are present, they are redundant and it is good to retain only dq. I'd prefer the conservative approach of removing parameters known to be useless, rather than everything not known to be useful, but if we've accounted for all the parameters, then in practice they are the same. Shreevatsa (talk) 18:12, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Another bug: diff. Google's 'id' parameters may contain hyphens, the bot broke the link and declared it a dead link. (BTW — scroll down to the references section — why does ^{[dead link]} appear inside brackets before the link? This is a bug in the citation template, presumably.) Shreevatsa (talk) 18:18, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Now that Vetustovermis is considered a nectocarididid, should I redraw it as a swimmer?--Mr Fink (talk) 05:09, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. Do you have access to the Supplementary information, which contains further details of the reinterpretation of the animal? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:04, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Now I do... Thank you!--Mr Fink (talk) 14:28, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi, did you notice the bug I mentioned above where (as in this diff) the bot removes hyphens in parameters and then declares them dead links? Is this fixed?

Yes, this was fixed when reported. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 10:54, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Also, see the before/after links in this diff. The results are not identical; it appears that Google pays attention to the "vq" parameter as well. Could you add that to your list of parameters to be retained (I think vq > dq > q, meaning that when you have one you can drop the succeeding ones), or better yet, only remove tags with an identified function known to be useless? I know most articles probably haven't chosen their links very carefully, but still, that the bot should "first do no harm" seems like an important principle to me. Shreevatsa (talk) 07:44, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I've added this parameter to the "Keep" list and will presently switch the behaviour so that only "useless" parameters are removed, with "unknown" parameters being logged so that I can assess their function. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 10:54, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you very much. You and your bots are amazing! Shreevatsa (talk) 14:06, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations for your excellent work in the articles about the nudibranchs. As you have been working on Sacoglossa, I found a strange sentence (not written by you) that needs to be rephrased. I made a suggestion on Talk:Sacoglossa. If you're thinking along the same line as I do about the meaning of this sentence, you can change it in the article. Cheers. JoJan (talk) 09:05, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the encouragement! I'll try to expand on this information when I next get the opportunity. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 16:09, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

You are using a probably old or deprecated system of references, that has to be updated each time with a bot. It is very easy now to use the right method : just click on "Cite" on top of the page and then you'll see a dropdown menu with "Templates". Choose the correct one, and that's all. Cheers. JoJan (talk) 15:45, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

It's easier still to use a bot. Thanks for the tip though. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 15:47, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Also thanks for your constructive edits at the various mollusc articles (-: Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 15:50, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I filed a bug report five days ago regarding this edit and it hasn't even been acknowledged. While I do not know how to search for similar edits, I'd assume the same damaging edit would of been done on any patent citation using the same format. The example I've given has since been corrected manually, but what of ones that were not? Juventas (talk) 06:45, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I currently don't have internet access at home but will fix this asap. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:53, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

This was fixed in ~r161. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:34, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Hello Martin! The Stenothecoida with its Stenothecoides and Cambridium and the Stenothecidae with its Stenotheca, Mellopegma, Eurkapegma, Anabarella and Watsonella, are absolutely different groups of the Cambrian organisms which are even not similar against each other. It is simply they have similar names. Stenothecoida (Stenothecoides) are middle Cambrian problematic bivalve organisms. Stenothecidae (Stenotheca, Watsonella, …) have, without doubts, univalved shell.

Parkhaev study (more 15 years!) the Cambrian gastropods SSF (it is his specialization) not on another's articles, pictures and photos, he study real specimens, his assumptions are based on factual material. And among modern specialists on Cambrian mollusks SSF is almost nobody considers it as Monoplacophorans.

Stenothecoides, Stenothecoida photos:

• (see fig 8) http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1666/0022-3360%282006%2980%5B1087:SSFFTU%5D2.0.CO%3B2
• (see plate 2, figs 13-15) [1] or http://gsabulletin.gsapubs.org/cgi/reprint/75/3/171.pdf

Stenotheca, Mellopegma, Anabarella and Watsonella, Stenothecidae photos

• (see page 293) http://macroevolution.narod.ru/22parkhaev.pdf

Be more attentive. :-) Aleksey (Alnagov (talk) 22:21, 9 June 2010 (UTC))

Hmm, I did wonder, but I found another site synonymizing them so I got lazy... Thanks for catching my error! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:34, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

This also happened to me. Always pleased to help! Aleksey (Alnagov (talk) 22:44, 9 June 2010 (UTC))

Martin is taking a short wikibreak and will be back on Wikipedia early in July. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 17:48, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

IIRC you were at one time thinking of a thesis on Nectocaris. You might find Paleontology in the News, by a retired professor of paleo.

I also see you're still working on labour-saving citation techniques. I'd be grateful if you coud look at Wikipedia talk:Citation templates#Need to standardise citations --Philcha (talk) 12:47, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Why is the bot adding a template to ((cite journal)) citations, authorsep, which is not documented in the cite journal documentation? Jc3s5h (talk) 00:04, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Jack is referring to this edit. Clearly some bug is at work here. Copying to User:Citation bot/bugs. LeadSongDog come howl! 01:41, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

No problem, but I just had my Sandbox updated by the Citation bot. Do you really want to get into that? No reply needed, I can live with it either way, but I thought that you'd like to know. TomS TDotO (talk) 18:11, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi, one of the pages I watch had this edit by your bot. The url changes don't bother me much, but the final change from 'citation' to 'cite journal' and the addition of 'ref=harv' and the rest seems dubious. Does it seem valid to you? Also, I'm assuming that [Pu173] is meant to identify the editor using your bot. There doesn't seem to be a user by that name. Is there any way to validate the user before allowing them to run the bot? Thanks, Celestra (talk) 19:40, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I hope you will forgive me re-directing you to User:Citation_bot#Changing_citation_to_cite_journal_.2F_cite_book_.2F_etc and User:Citation_bot#Reading_the_edit_summaries for the answers to your questions. Let me know if you need more information. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 20:13, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

There is nothing to forgive; directing someone to concise answers is not the same as telling them to RTFM. Those sections answered most of my questions and since the edit was server initiated the remaining oddness is clearly not vandalism. Thanks, Celestra (talk) 21:38, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi,

I have found edits from Citation bot 1 ([Pu174]Misc citation tidying), which literally makes nothing visible on the page. This is an example. Here, the bot has simply eliminated a carriage return from a citation in the script of the page, but with no apparent influence on the page itself.
I think these edits could be avoided, because they clog the page history, with no utility to the page itself, not even cosmetic. And, cosmetic edits have to applied cautiously, according to wikipedia bot policy. What do you think about that?--GianniG46 (talk) 13:38, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, that's odd. I've rolled back the active version to r173 until I work out why the bot's decided to do this. Thanks for alerting me! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 13:52, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

 Fixed in r177. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:37, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Martin. We got Kimberella to GA in 2008 so it's about time for an update. As far as I can see you've done a fine job on new/updated content - and you're an expert, while I'm just an enthusiatic amateur. But I think a serious copyedit is needed, to make the phrasing more suitable for the proverbial bright 14-old year and to removed duplication, of which there's a lot. Would you like me to start the copyedit? --Philcha (talk) 16:49, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea; I've a lot of irons in the fire at the moment but will be happy to look over your edits every now and then. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 15:08, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Again I find cosmetic operations on the script of the page, with no effect on the page itself, as in this example. The bot has only modified 3 references, and in all cases has changed the expression "books.google.com/books?" to "books.google.com/?", with no effects, neither on the functionality nor on the visual appearance of the references on the page.

Anyway, the problem is not your bot, it is more general. At this point, most of the page histories I see contain more bot traffic than normal editing, and for me is difficult to discover who has written what. What can be done to overcome this? --GianniG46 (talk) 01:01, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Followed your instructions on how to add Citation bot to my toolbox. It created User:Maile66/modern.js Cleared my browser cache. That was yesterday. Even today after having shut down and booted back up, I don't see anything different on my toolbox. Is it necessary to create the .css page also? If so, what text do I enter before I Save the new .css page? I must be missing a step. Please advise. Maile66 (talk) 19:43, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I used cite doi in Golden jackal#Evolution (it's reference 15). It's done just what was needed, but now the reference has an Edit link for editing the template generated. I've not seen this before. Should I leave it like this, or is there something more I should do? Thanks for a great tool. --Stfg (talk) 09:41, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I LOVE your template:

Template:Horizontal timeline

It is 20 times easier to use then the complex timeline extension.

My problem is, I am trying to add your template to a wikia, and it will not work.

First I got two errors:

<div style="float:left;overflow:visible;width:Expression error: Unrecognised punctuation character "["%;">  

Please delete the line increment=. It's preventing the template from working.

I started to use old version of the templates to see if that would work.

I deleted the: %; when the error continued to show up, I then deleted the entire line, with the abs template[2] (which I had created from an earlier version of template:abs).

The expression error then disappeared.

but this line:

Please delete the line increment=. It's preventing the template from working.

continues to show up. I am not sure what I am supposed to delete. Any suggestions? It would be great if you could fix this, or tell me how to fix this.

Here is an example of the template not working on the wikia:

http://dead-rising.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Test

All the templates are the same name....some are earlier versions.

I was going to message Habbit too, but since you are the creator, you probably know better than anyone thanks in advance! 15:53, 26 July 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Burtthompson (talk • contribs)

Hi,

I'm afraid I'm not going to have time to look into this until I return from fieldwork in September. Sorry about that! If you still need help at that point, let me know. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 20:00, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

		What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar
		This barnstar is awarded to Smith609 for his incredible horizontal graph templates. Wow! What a simple solution to a complex problem. Thank you! Burtthompson (talk) 15:56, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Martin. In a 2008 edit, I think you cite "Sereno et al, 1998" on the weak correlation between stratigraphic age and cladistic rank. Do you have a more specific reference for this? I'm interested in the details: whether this means that stratigraphic correlation with age in years is poor, or that the age of a fossil is an unreliable clue as to the age at which speciation separated it's ancestor from it's nearest relative, because smaller fossils are easier to find, or etc. I found a Paul C Sereno online, who published three articles in 1998. I wasn't able to find the content online, however. If you have the exact citation, I could narrow my search and avoid looking up or paying for the wrong article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Davidrei (talk • contribs) 16:46, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Are you using at least that version? After the bot was revised as so reported by Google, I found the bot still editing Google Books URLs to redirect URLs, and again I edited to the correct URLs. The problem and the fix are reported at [3] and r179 is described at [4], both as accessed today. But if r179 was already in use, then I'll just live with what's happening and maybe correct its trail in articles I watch. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 05:00, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

The fix I implemented had a bug that's been fixed in r181; sorry about that. Incidentally, is the presence or absence of the /books a personal preference, or is there a more fundamental reason to retain it? I've done some testing and don't see any performance implications for the redirection. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 20:15, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

For any website, except for redirections that are explicitly temporary, one must assume the possibility that the website owner will speed up site performance and/or cut storage space and/or bandwidth demand that it pays for by deleting old redirects that presumably no one needs any more. Therefore, a link to a URL that is a redirect has a higher risk of becoming a dead link after a while. This is supported by the system by which an explicitly permanent redirect informs a visitor's browser to edit its bookmark accordingly and the editing is automatic. All that is in addition to the Wikipedia policy that internal links should not link to redirects (granted that the links edited by the bot are not those). Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:25, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

A fixed a few problems in your toolbox script. Hope you don't mind. Especially the encoding issue can be problematic. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:20, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you!! I greatly appreciate it. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:54, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Can it be enabled on vector please? Rjwilmsi 15:55, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

And I thought it was just me! Yes please! LeadSongDog come howl! 16:25, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

This is on my to-do list, although it may involve a lot of work as I am not sure how easy it is to modify the new vector interface. (i.e. it will be a while before I can do anything!) Somebody familiar with the interface may find it trivial to adapt the script and would be warmly invited to do so! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 13:59, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

In the myskin list at the end of the script I just added || skin == "vector" which works fine. Rjwilmsi 14:18, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh! I was thinking of a different script.  Done! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:22, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Is it true that you have bitchin' template making skills? Abyssal (talk) 02:59, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

I have created a number of complex templates, so know my way around the system reasonably well... did you need help with something? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 16:22, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Sources_again. LeadSongDog come howl! 05:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC) (Using ((Please see)))

Hello. Is it possible to stop the bot from editing WP:AWB/Sandbox? It recently edited the page. Bot edits to a sandbox can be disruptive. Thanks. McLerristarr / Mclay1 09:58, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The bot is exclusion compliant so I've added ((bots|deny=Citation bot)) to prevent further edits. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:13, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. McLerristarr / Mclay1 14:24, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I invoked the bot on the sandbox for testing purposes, so I've removed the bots deny from the sandbox again. AWB sandbox is shared you know. Rjwilmsi 19:13, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I haven't come across 'Citation bot 1' before so I have a couple of questions. I know they're fairly elementary but I'd like to understand a bit more about how it works.

• Is the Bot 'summoned' (maybe there's a more technical term...) or is it automatic? Meaning, does it browse through Wikipedia and just automatically find things to fix or does an editor have to run it on articles?

  The bot can be summoned but also runs periodically through all articles using citation templates (visiting them once every few months). Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 20:57, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

• What do the comments mean at this Article's Edits Difference? Bot Comments Is the Bot's purpose to make citations within individual articles consistent? It's not trying to, in effect, state that the use of 'citation' over 'citeweb'/'citebook'/etc. is it?
  

  Yes, the bot is just making individual articles internally consistent. It respects editor choice on whether to use "citation" or "cite x". Hope that helps. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 20:57, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 17:55, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your answers, makes sense now, just wanted to make sure. Shearonink (talk) 22:42, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Your reference tool disappeared from the left panel (I use old wiki markup). Could it be related to your latest corrections? Materialscientist (talk) 23:53, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

It certainly could. I've now fixed it, sorry about the inconvenience and thanks for pointing it out! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:18, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Why did you delete the subject section in the extinction event page? It appeared to fit nicely in the article.... Please reply in the discusion section of 'extinction event' page. Morbas (talk) 04:00, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

98.148.24.98 (talk) 04:52, 14 September 2010 (UTC) Table always does it. All are ICS dates, save one...A deeper pattern exists that shows repetion in sets of three, each set in alternate offset by +/-7Ma. The rest of the article text is supported by the three references shown. I am surprised you did not notice the discussion section where this was presented for almost a month with little comments, except a reference request by a retiring contributor. No time line theory here...98.148.24.98 (talk) 04:52, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Please refer to this page Nevada Barr. I ran the citation bot from here Toolserver Yes, it inserted ISBN numbers on the Nevada Barr page. However, the numbers it inserted aren't even close to the ones on amazon.com, neither the 10-digit nor the 13-digit one. As an example, look at the 2010 novel Burn . The Amazon ISBN are 031261456X and 978-0312614560. Can you explain the discrepancy? Maile66 (talk) 21:34, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

For Burn it's picked up the ISBN of the Audio CD version (Amazon). Probably the bot should try to get the hardback, else the paperback. Rjwilmsi 15:11, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Then perhaps the bot needs to be adjusted, since all the other ISBNs it created for that page are other than what they should be. Maile66 (talk) 17:36, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi Martin,

I have one small question which you may know the answer to. Often, after an article has been switched to the new automatic taxobox, it appears in Category:Taxoboxes with an invalid color, even though it doesn't belong there. For instance, Louisella was there this morning, even though the taxobox appeared correctly. In such cases, a null edit is all that's required to remove the category. I assume it's all to do with the mechanisms of template transclusion. Does it only happen if the automated taxonomy is updated after the article was edited? Is there any way of avoiding it? It's not a big problem at the moment, but if there's a simple (automatic) solution, that would be great. If the automatic taxoboxes ever get rolled out by bots, then this could become an issue, so it's probably worth considering it now. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:25, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing this; I'm not overly familiar with the mechanics of the category system but the most likely explanation is that a user (probably me!) created the automatic taxobox before the back-end templates were in place, so that for a couple of minutes the taxobox didn't have a colour. Presumably the category was assigned during this time and not updated when the back-end templates were created.

This will be less of a problem when a bot request is approved, because back-end templates can be created much more quickly (i.e. whilst still previewing the switch to an auto-taxobox, so not causing any categorization). If a bot ever rolls out the automatic taxoboxes, it will always create the back-end templates first, thereby removing the window where the taxobox displays without a colour.

In the meantime I'll try to watch out for this in my own edits!

Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 13:06, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Over the last 24 hours or so I've intermittently had this error running the citation bot: "Getting login details ... done. Connecting to MYSQL database ... !!! * Database server login failed. This is probably a temporary problem with the server and will hopefully be fixed soon. The server returned: "User 'verisimilus' has exceeded the 'max_user_connections' resource (current value: 15)" Error message generated by /res/mysql_connect.php". Rjwilmsi 12:33, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I hope that this is now resolved; I've modified a script that was getting stuck and made a few other tweaks to the code. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:03, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Seems fine now, thanks. BTW, is RefTool now dead? Rjwilmsi 17:18, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I've not had the time to get it up to scratch; it's largely redundant now that citation bot can handle endnote references and doi/pmid expansion is so prevalent. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 17:22, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I tried to add the widget, but I see that the code is already in my User:Wtmitchell/vector.js. I've cleared my cache and reloaded pages, but I don't see a relevant link in the Toolbox section. Help appreciated.

Separately, I'd appreciate a glance at Talk:Gulf War#Reversion and Citation bot and corrections there if I got something wrong. Thanks. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:00, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Your fix was the business, thank you. Not clear why the widget isn't displaying (beneath the toolbox section); are you sure that you are using the vector skin? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 12:48, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I'm using vector. No big deal -- I've got plenty of other things to do. Cheers. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:44, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi Martin,

Your automatic taxoboxes seem no longer to be italicising the names of species, either in the header of the taxobox or (presumably as a consequence) in the article title. See, for instance, Amanita muscaria or Stauroteuthis syrtensis. Genera appear to be unaffected (cf. Stauroteuthis). --Stemonitis (talk) 16:16, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up — sorry that I didn't spot it earlier. Now resolved. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 02:10, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks – that looks hunky dory. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:02, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Is it possible to use the citation bot on Wikipedias in other languages? I am thinking of the portuguese one in particular. Thanks in advance, GoEThe (talk) 11:39, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

See User talk:Citation bot/Archive 1#Use in other wikis. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:43, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

i installed your bot but dont quite understand how to use it. Kyrgyzstani parliamentary election, 2010 has some bare refs that need to be filled, i entered at the bot page, but it says "no changes required and no edits made" Could you help me out in using it?

thanks. Lihaas (talk) 07:12, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

For that you want REFLINKS, I've done it for you. Rjwilmsi 12:47, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, but i dont quite understand. I click on the left hadn "Reference formatting" when ont eh wikipedia articel that needs it and it still says the same message.Lihaas (talk) 00:41, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi! I added User:Smith609/toolbox.js to my vector.js page and it seems to have worked, except ... the font is about 2–3 times larger than normal. Can I adjust the font in any way? Thank you, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 16:36, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Opinion about original research pasted from Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard

Simple arithmetic and tabulation is not usually considered original research. Make sure that you are not slanting the data in any way to make a point. Expect that scientists will be pernickety about details and presentation. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:14, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Morbas (talk) 22:34, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Smith, are you home. I cannot find where the dispute is posted in Wiki. And, see my home page for the new extinction event section. I will post this in the section just to force the issue. I consider this a stalled process....Morbas (talk) 21:37, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The data you present is slanted to make a point. There is still no consensus on the Talk:Extinction event discussion page to include your paragraph. Please do not play "edit-wars" to get your own way; rather, establish consensus. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:14, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The data is 417M years. It is you that play "edit-wars" by the first deletion (without due respect) and not looking at the discussion...one posted almost 30 days in advance. I have provide discussion paragraghs that you have not bothered to engage in. I have posted the paragraph in the original research issue section, and one consesus supports having the chart in the section as well, and indicates a fair discussion. Since the issue has not been registered, then your comments for the 'dispute resolver' are what...intimidating tactics, ehh?Morbas (talk) 23:24, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

((Nature)) was an unambiguous misrepresentation of policy. Sorry. Magog the Ogre (talk) 00:39, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

So...explain the extra E to me....I'm not quite understanding yet. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 05:35, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

See m:Help:Magic_words#Page_names_and_related_info. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 00:05, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Right, that makes sense. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 06:18, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks; I am busy with the WP:TCG and a bit of homework today, but I'll be sure and try it out sometime in the next few days. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:12, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to remove some of the automatic taxoboxes you added to algae articles. The underlying articles have some issues that need edited, but, in addition, you changed the wikipedia-used higher level taxonomy on the green algae, and, in the coralline red algae, you removed the subfamilies. Also, the taxonomies are said to come from algaebase, but don't agree with algaebase. I will fix them when I get some time. --Kleopatra (talk) 17:35, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead. Could you clarify whether the problem is with the automatic taxoboxes, or with the taxonomy that they contain? Cheers, Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 17:53, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

The big problem is they were added without consensus or discussion with algae editors. Can you just start a discussion at wikiproject algae, or somewhere else, like on the article talk page, or link to the discussion that was held, before you do the algae boxes? You also didn't use the existing higher level taxonomies for other algae automatic taxoboxes, maybe only one. Can you use the existing taxonomies if you don't discuss with the community first? --Kleopatra (talk) 18:02, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

It hadn't been my intention to modify what was displayed; sorry that this has happened. I don't recall doing any more than a couple of algal articles; perhaps you could include a couple of links so that I can understand what has happened? Cheers, Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:10, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

For algae articles, if you make more automatic taxoboxes, can you use the existing taxonomy for each taxon? For example, start at the division and get its taxonomy from the division page and move down, rather than using the taxonomy listed no the genus page.

In addition, you had a bot that created articles on algae that were deleted. Could you undelete some of those into my user space for me to edit and move into article space? I could make lists, and you could post all of the text from the bot into my user space, or into WikiProject Algae user space?

--Kleopatra (talk) 17:32, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for taking this on: yes, I'd be happy to move things over, a few at a time. And the parent of each taxonomic unit is extracted from the taxobox displayed on the article's page – the genus's taxobox is only used to determine its immediate parent. Hope that makes sense. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 17:49, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

NB I've moved a couple across; you can see them at Special:PrefixIndex/Wikipedia:WikiProject Algae/Articles/. Once the pages have been updated / corrected / approved, they can just be moved back into article space. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 17:54, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that works well. I'll do these, then post lists when I get groups I can create all at once (like with same source). See Adamsiella for starters. --Kleopatra (talk) 18:26, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Looks good; I've made a couple of formatting changes. For future reference it's better to move the pages directly to article space, rather than copying text and deleting the source article. This preserves the article's edit history (and is less work for you and for admins). Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:40, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I see. I'll do that for the future ones.

I also need a template that shows the data were originally extracted by a bot, even if I am checking everything as I go. The existing anybot article template was red-linked. --Kleopatra (talk) 19:02, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Where will this template be displayed? Given that the history of the page identifies the bot as the original editor, and the classification is referenced to Algaebase, what do you see the template as accomplishing? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:29, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I suppose that is sufficient. I was still thinking of the edit history from creating the article, rather than the move edit history which includes the bot edits. --Kleopatra (talk) 05:38, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Splendid stuff. Glad that works for you. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 05:52, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

((resolved))

		The Template Barnstar
		You ought to take a break and reward yourself to some ice cream or something-- you've done a marvelous job with the templating for the insanely complex ((taxobox)) et cetera as we find glitches in the ((automatic taxobox)) implementation of it. I've really enjoyed working with you on it so far. (Don't spend too long eating that ice cream, we'll need you again SOON! Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 06:50, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Bless you. Thanks! (-: Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 13:09, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Template:Endref has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Auntof6 (talk) 04:37, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Now moved to User:Smith609/Endref. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 05:13, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

((resolved))

Hello, I understand you are busy actually creating templates but if you find the time...

I made my first graphic timeline using your Template:Graphical timeline although my usage may not be exactly what it was built for. This timeline is intended for a high traffic, information dense article describing multiple overlapping events and I would appreciate any suggestions for improving it's accuracy, functionality and appearance.

For now it is in my sandbox at User:Veriss1/sandbox for comments but I plan to move it the actual article, 2010 Copiapó mining accident, tomorrow. I look forward to your comments. Cheers, Veriss (talk) 07:49, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi, looks very smart indeed! I'm glad that you found the template useful. I think that you've done a great job, and I'm afraid I can't really think of any way to improve on what you've done. Best, Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:10, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to look at the chart to make sure it was satisfactory. Is there a way to suppress the negative signs on the vertical axis if I had the chart show the days from 00 to -90 (zero at the top)? I haven't thought that approach all the way through yet and it may be a bit tricky. My thinking is that may help the reader by making it in chronological order from the top down and would make it visually more compatible with the ToC it is displayed next to. Thanks again, Veriss (talk) 20:24, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

This'd be possible and potentially quite straightforward; if I had more time I could experiment and find a way but I'm afraid I won't be able to help you out there at the moment. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 17:47, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Additionally, another editor made critical comments about our use of the Template:Graphical timeline on the article's talk page concerning CSS rendering and accessibility complete with an overwhelming illustration of his own. Unhelpfully, he failed to offer suggestions. I don't have the technical expertise to evaluate his criticisms or determine alternative courses and I don't think the active co-editors for that article do either. Hopefully you can contribute some insight. Kind regards, Veriss (talk) 00:46, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Can't really comment here. Perhaps the yukky <timeline> template or an image would be adequate, since the data are unlikely to need modification now? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 17:47, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi Martin! I just found this tool - it's great! However, I tried it on my own papers (e.g. "E - A Brainiac Theorem Prover"), and it seems to break if Google Scholar has a link to a PDF or PS file in the right half of the top line of the record. See below for what happens:

 <ref name=Schulz2002>((Citation
  | title = [PDF] from psu.edu
  | url = http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.149.6255
  | year = 2002
  | author = Schulz, S.
  | journal = AI Communications
  | pages = 111–126
  | volume = 15
  | issue = 2
  | accessdate = 2010-11-04
 ))</ref>
 

Bye, --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:54, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Can you check out the Lithothallus article you created and verify its accuracy? The reference in the article is not about algae, and the genus is not listed anywhere on the web, or in my limited access to JSTOR, just in the en.wiki article. Maybe I'm missing something, or the spelling is wrong? Thanks. --Kleopatra (talk) 06:01, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

OK. --Kleopatra (talk) 06:17, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Hello. You have a new message at ErikHaugen's talk page. Message added 07:06, 5 November 2010 (UTC).

Martin, thank you for your work on these templates! ErikHaugen (talk) 07:06, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Can you please tell me how to convert the bare urls on Alexander McQueen (brand) without having to through them one by one?Reqluce (talk) 22:48, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

With this edit, it seems the section headings (eg. Species or Binomial name) have a white background again. thanks, ErikHaugen (talk) 21:00, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi Smith609...I am the grandson of Albie Bennett who was the last speaker of the Mbarbaram people. I would love to know where you got the information from? I have alot more information to contribute to this entry. Would love to get in contact with you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.158.31.18 (talk) 11:11, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I'm not quite sure what information you are talking about? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 12:43, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Recently (last few days) I've noticed that he citation bot fails to run against certain pages, examples are Ecology and Bird. The call appears to time out, though it works fine on the vast majority of pages. Any ideas? Thanks Rjwilmsi 19:18, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to bother you, but unless I'm mistaken and I've been very unlucky with the DOIs I've been referencing, the cite doi template isn't working properly, because the citation bot is not managing to complete the citation. I've tried a range of journals, both old and recent and checking Special:Contributions/Citation_bot_2 it looks as if only cite pmids are being filled in. (Typical that these things happen when you go away for a few days!). Thanks in advance. SmartSE (talk) 00:21, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

The automatic taxobox has crashed on a number of major articles.[5] I have started adding it back manually, and I posted at AN/I to ask for help. No matter where I post at automatic taxobox discussions it seems to be the wrong place, so maybe others who are doing these automatic taxoboxes are watching your talk page and will see this and figure out how to fix this quickly! --Kleopatra (talk) 08:02, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

They seem to be fully broken right now. ErikHaugen (talk) 08:24, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Martin, this is pretty serious. The taxoboxes aren't just broken, the entire page has issues: the reflist template is broken, etc, etc. On all ~700-odd pages that use it. In the future, would you please try to test a few pages after making changes to these templates and at least be prepared to roll back your changes within a few minutes if you completely break them? Thanks, ErikHaugen (talk) 08:57, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Hello Smith609,

I'm trying to get User:Smith609/RefTool to work for me but no luck. I'm using Modern skin and have purged the cache. I see the Convert refs button but when I try to use it, I just get a blank page at the toolserver. What am I doing wrong? Cheers,
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 23:01, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Template:Range map has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Mhiji (talk) 01:01, 14 December 2010 (UTC) ((resolved))

Please don't unnecessarily amend other people's talk page comments, as you did here. It means wading through trivial changes to see what the real change is (and I'm still at a loss to work out what your real change was in this case). Most (if not all) of your changes seem to be replacing "-" (hyphen) with "–" (en-dash) - note that since WP:HYPHEN and WP:DASH are part of WP:MOS, they apply to articles, not talk pages, for which WP:TPG is the general rule. Some of these hyphens were in signatures: WP:TPO permits certain talk page edits, including signature amendment "If a signature violates the guidelines for signatures, or is an attempt to fake a signature", which don't apply here. Thanks. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:13, 2 January 2011 (UTC) ((resolved))

Hi, could you have a look at Odontogriphus? I believe there is some issue with your change to the "automatic taxobox". If you look at the references, there are loads of errors, however this is being caused by another template exceeding some expansion limits. If you revert this back to taxobox, the error goes away. WP is very quirky with its limits, which can cause lots of troubles. I also posted a query at WP:VPT. 134.253.26.10 (talk) 17:03, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Can you point me to a specific error in the references? I don't notice any. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 17:06, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

It's now been fixed by reverting back to "taxobox" from "automatic taxobox". See the WP:VPT thread. Thank you! 134.253.26.10 (talk) 17:22, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Automatic taxobox problem

Hi, do you know what is the matter with Template:Taxonomy/Possible stem-group mollusca (currently displaying "Taxonomy not available for [[Template loop detected: Template:Don't edit this line]]; please create it (or edit manually)")? This might also be related to the problems with Odontogriphus, which I fixed by removing the automatic taxobox. Ucucha 18:17, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I only now see you've already been pointed to this problem. Note that a similar error appears at Template:Taxonomy/Spiralia. Ucucha 18:21, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

See this resolution for Spiralia. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Ucucha 19:04, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Any idea why we have so many taxonomy templates in Category:Template loop warnings? Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 05:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC) ((resolved))

Template:)( has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 05:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC) ((resolved))

This is frustrating to have to recheck when someone has already pointed out the problem. Please correct the problem articles in the category, such as Mammal. A high traffic article with a fixed taxobox to correct, once again, a template problem

Any time you change code in these automatic taxoboxes and someone points out a problem, please just look at the articles. --Kleopatra (talk) 18:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

It sounds like I've missed something. Which problem are you referring to? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The problem at Mammal, not Mamma, the revision before I removed the automatic taxobox. --Kleopatra (talk) 18:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Are you able to recommend a way that I could spot these errors? The only way that I can see is by checking every page in Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Automatic taxobox after every edit. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:16, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I spot the errors by going to the article page. That's how I've spotted every error. You don't even look at articles after you've edited the templates? I went to Category:Template loop warnings, after the post about the problem, and I clicked on the article links in that page and saw the big red text in the article taxoboxes. --Kleopatra (talk) 18:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I look at articles. But I'm sure that you can understand that it is impossible to look at every article on Wikipedia after every edit. As I'm sure you know, it takes a while for categories to update; I went through the majority of pages in the category this morning and cleared them. Rather than assume the worst of other editors, why not make a positive contribution and help to fix the errors that you find, instead? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

You make a lot of errors in major articles, and you don't appear to be fixing them in a timely fashion. I don't know how to fix the templates errors. I've pointed this out many times. I've also pointed out problems with templates that have been created and they've been ignored.

Why not make the time to check what you do? You make so many edits to the automatic taxobox template, changing multiple articles all over wikipedia, and it's not possible for someone to know what to fix in the multiple edits you've made. Maybe if it was possible to easily correct your mistaskes you would have caught the error in the first place? Why not take some time and make fewer edits and beta test your edits before you go live with them?

I'm not being patronizing, by the way, I'm incredibly annoyed.

I'll just post and get help through the community boards next time. --Kleopatra (talk) 18:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

"why not make a positive contribution and help to fix the errors that you find" – Kleopatra does do this: [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] and countless others. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for not checking this before I posted. Thanks, Kleopatra, for all that you're doing, and for reporting bugs. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:52, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

((resolved))

I posted a comment at WP:TFA and WP:FA about this problem. [13] --Kleopatra (talk) ((resolved))

This edit made no sense whatsoever. Renata (talk) 01:58, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Looking further, it seems all of its changes today should be reverted. Renata (talk) 02:03, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Eek. I'm not around today but have had time to roll back the bot code to r223, the last working version; and to pause the automated bot account (by way of a temporary block that I'll undo when fixed). Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 08:33, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

((resolved))

Hi, Martin. I've just seen Octopus origins, which says Caron and you have found about 90 new specimens and these indicate that Nectocaris is near the base of the cephalopod family tree – and you're credited as the lead author in the article in Nature. Well done! --Philcha (talk) 10:50, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Not that anyone really believes it... (-:

Next target... our old friend Odontogriphus! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 20:39, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Out of the frying pan into the fire, since Odontogriphus is involved with the Halwaxiid controversy, especially Wiwaxia. --Philcha (talk) 10:22, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Would we also want to include Bowengriphus, too?--Mr Fink (talk) 13:35, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

((resolved))

A report at Talk:Evolutionary history of life#Edits by 96.227.161.79 has raised an issue concerning how ((ma)) appears in the printable version of an article. The problem is that an ugly link to toolserver.org appears after each of the many occurrences of ma. I thought it best to ask about this at WP:VPT#Ugly link in printable version which you might want to see. Thanks. Johnuniq (talk) 03:18, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Update: This edit by Gadget850 has resolved the issue. Johnuniq (talk) 07:30, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

((resolved))

Is this OK? -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 16:19, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Great! Thank you! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:47, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

((resolved))

Howdy. I suspect this edit recent edit to Template:Taxobox/core isn't working as intended. Firstly Category:Taxoboxes with an invalid color is empty, despite the amusing parameter being passed from Buxus sempervirens for example. Secondly the missing page Template:Test_for_hashrgb(211,211,164) is being transcluded in nearly 120,000 articles – that is to say that after parsing, the Taxobox template results in the text ((Template:Test_for_hashrgb(211,211,164))). Definately a brace too many (or few) in there somewhere. Other colours show up also – see the table below.

+---------------+------------------------------------------+----------+
| trl_namespace | trl_title                                | count(*) |
+---------------+------------------------------------------+----------+
|            10 | Test_for_hashrgb(211,211,164)            |   118929 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashrgb(144,238,144)            |    41350 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashrgb(173,216,230)            |     7414 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashlightgrey                   |      857 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashrgb(173,238,63)             |      471 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashviolet                      |      425 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashlightgreen                  |      369 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashrgb(211,211,211)            |      333 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashrgb(238,130,238)            |      274 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashrgb(240,230,140)            |      215 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashrgb(243,224,224)            |      163 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashkhaki                       |      125 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashrgb(255,200,160)            |       90 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashrgb(230,230,250)            |       86 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashlightblue                   |       79 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashdarkgrey                    |       45 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashrgb(250,240,230)            |       42 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashgreenyellow                 |       19 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashpink                        |       14 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashgreen                       |        4 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashlimegreen                   |        3 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashtransparent                 |        3 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashyellow                      |        3 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashlightgray                   |        2 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashrgb(224,_208,_176)          |        2 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashblue                        |        2 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashlite_red                    |        2 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashbright_pink                 |        2 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashorange                      |        2 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashred                         |        2 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashlavender                    |        2 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashwhite                       |        2 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashBright_green                |        1 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashDarkgrey                    |        1 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashlightgreen_or_a_lime_yellow |        1 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashTan                         |        1 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashViolet                      |        1 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashneon_purple                 |        1 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashdarkgray                    |        1 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashpale                        |        1 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashscarlet                     |        1 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashpangit_ka                   |        1 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashviolet_(purple,blue)        |        1 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashlight_gray                  |        1 |
|            10 | Test_for_hashlight_grey                  |        1 |
+---------------+------------------------------------------+----------+

This was the intended behaviour; I only had to catch templates beginning with a hash sign (see Template talk:Taxobox). Given that no more are showing up, I'll assume that I've got all of them, and that the check is now redundant; I'll remove it. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:00, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Ta. Is it of any use for me to list the pages using odd colours for you while I've got the information to hand? – TB (talk) 22:18, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

A list of such pages in mainspace couldn't hurt, if it's easily generated. Thanks! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:26, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

• Bright_green → Bacillus_anthracis
• Darkgrey → Clostridium_perfringens
• Tan → Toxolophosaurus
• Violet → Apple_chlorotic_leafspot_virus
• blue → Transmissible_gastroenteritis_coronavirus – Passionfruit_woodiness_virus
• bright_pink → Giardia – Mycobacterium_vaccae
• darkgray → Thermoproteaceae
• green → Measles – Mud_turtle – Enterococcus_faecium – Commelina_mosaic_virus
• lavender → Vampyrellidae – Retaria
• light_gray → Yersinia_pestis
• light_grey → Haemophilus_influenzae
• lightgray → Dehalococcoides – Corynebacterium_granulosum
• lightgreen_or_a_lime_yellow → Buxus_sempervirens
• limegreen → Life – Neomura – Organism
• lite_red → Mumps_virus – Rubulavirus
• neon_purple → Vibrio_cholerae
• orange → Candida_dubliniensis – Clostridium_tetani
• pale → Balsam_poplar
• pangit_ka → Pseudomonas_aeruginosa
• red → Lassa_fever – Bordetella_parapertussis
• rgb(224 – _208 – _176) → Codonosigidae – Eukaryote
• scarlet → Nocardia
• transparent → Paramecia – Template:Taxobox/sandbox – Marseillevirus
• violet_(purple – blue) → Cucumber_mosaic_virus
• white → Clostridium_botulinum – Hammerhead_ribozyme
• yellow → Zucchini_yellow_mosaic_virus – Tradescantia_mosaic_virus – Clover_yellow_vein_virus

– TB (talk) 22:31, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

((resolved)) Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 23:41, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

The bot is transcluding, indirectly, User:Taxobot/children/template into article space. There should be no links from article space to user space. Should be an easy fix if you fix the parent template. Gigs (talk) 20:46, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure that the bot's not doing this... I'll stop it at once if you can point me to an example! I've done a couple of test transclusions manually, which will be resolved as soon as a bot request is passed. Feel free to hurry that process along if you wish. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:08, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

((resolved))

Hi, I was interested in working on the article Antifeminism. However, it's been blocked from editing. The notice says that the block was supposed to expire on September 5, 2010. Do you know if it might be unblocked any time soon? Thanks. --Aronoel (talk) 19:09, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

Please correct the current errors in the automatic taxobox. It is not ready to be rolled out. There are over 100 articles in the category of broken taxobox templates right now. There are major articles, such as Bird, a beautiful FA, that has a big red error message in its taxobox.

And don't get angry at me for pointing this out. I'm tired of seeing it, correcting the errors, and pointing them out. I can't correct these now because I don't have my equipment. --Kleopatra (talk) 05:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC) ((resolved))

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. It's not really about you, but the taxoboxes. --Kleopatra (talk) 05:59, 28 January 2011 (UTC) ((resolved))

Dear Smith609, In April 2010 you were editing the article Sponge spicule, when a letter "S" appeared at the end of the section Sponge spicule#Interaction with light. I wondered if you had another sentence to add which was lost during editing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.28.201.43 (talk) 16:57, 11 January 2011 (UTC) ((resolved))

Why is Taxobot duplicating authority information which is already present (e.g. [14])? This means that in many cases unlinked authorities are replacing linked ones in the taxobox - clearly not an improvement. mgiganteus1 (talk) 05:31, 12 January 2011 (UTC) ((resolved))

Hello, Smith609. You have new messages at Taxobot 7's talk page.
Message added by c y m r u . l a s s ^{(talk me, stalk me)} at 17:00, 12 January 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((Talkback)) or ((Tb)) template.

And another --- c y m r u . l a s s ^{(talk me, stalk me)} 03:23, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

Template:Redundant taxobox has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. — This, that, and the other (talk) 06:42, 15 January 2011 (UTC) ((resolved))

Template:Reflist/editprotected has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. — This, that, and the other (talk) 07:05, 15 January 2011 (UTC) ((resolved))

Can you check the references for Form classification? I think you may have meant the two Bengtson refs to be the same, but I'm not sure. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:49, 3 February 2011 (UTC)  Done - thanks for the heads up. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:49, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

I'm working on a series of articles about the Ediacarian fauna for the German Wikipedia. For some fossils it's really hard to find appropriate literature. I saw that you used McCalls publication "The Vendian (Ediacaran) in the geological record: Enigmas in geology's prelude to the Cambrian explosion" (Earth-Science Reviews 77: 1-229) as a reference. Do you still have access to this article? Best wishes --Sven Jähnichen (talk) 15:32, 7 February 2011 (UTC) ((resolved))

The following is produced by ((period span|pragian)): 410.8 million years ago to 407.6 million years ago (I see " 411.2 million years ago million years ago to 407 ± 2.8 million years ago"). The duplication of "million years ago" doesn't occur for other periods I've tried (even those that have alternatives in the code), nor if you use the alternative ((period span|praghian)) which produces different wrong output: 410.8 million years ago to 407.6 million years ago. I looked at the template code and tried moving a comment, in the vain hope that that might help. Over to you! Peter coxhead (talk) 16:11, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Managed to fix both errors: "praghian" wasn't in ((Next period)); "pragian" wasn't in ((Period start error)). Peter coxhead (talk) 18:26, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Glad you got it fixed! Thanks, Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:56, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

The error checking in ((period span)) isn't really strong enough; neither of the errors generated an error message (the bug with "Pragian" had been present in Devonian for some time). Something for you to think about some time! The whole set of templates is very good though; I've only just realized how useful they are. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:43, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

Template:T^32 has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. — This, that, and the other (talk) 07:14, 25 February 2011 (UTC) ((resolved))

This is by someone we had some heated discussed with. Google also looks interesting. --Philcha (talk) 19:13, 21 January 2011 (UTC) ((resolved))

Seems Template:Long fossil range has problems and was not rendering right resulting in a mess on including pages. I've removed it pending repairs (or whatever) from:

• Canadian Shield
• Cyclomedusa
• Amoebozoa
• Archaeplastida
• Ediacaria
• Red algae

Check it out and revert my changes when fixed. Vsmith (talk) 02:40, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Looks okay at the moment? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 00:06, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

Is this page on your watchlist? I've never seen a response to any of the bugs I've posted there. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:21, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Ah! It wasn't. I'll take a look at those over the weekend, if I get the chance! You're free to poke around in the source code and suggest changes if that's easier. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 20:25, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Heh, I knew there was something fishy about it all...glad you're watching it now-- it seemed out of character for you to just ignore bug reports like that! I'm fairly busy with coursework, so aside from my templating that I do in order to escape coding temporarily, don't expect me to do too much between now and the end of this semester. But thanks for sharing the link-- that'll help for sure. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:36, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

((resolved))

Hi, I reverted your recent update to that template because it seemed to be going to a whole different website than it was supposed to. I'm not sure how the cite patent template works, so if you could figure this out and re-update it when you have time, thank you! /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 21:54, 27 November 2010 (UTC) ((resolved))

Thanks for all you've done for WP:TOL! Have a blessed and safe Christmas! Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:28, 24 December 2010 (UTC) ((resolved))

I see that you'll be off WP over Xmas. Have a good one! --Philcha (talk) 22:56, 24 December 2010 (UTC) ((resolved))

When the bot redirects a cite pmid subpage to the corresponding cite doi subpage, as in Template:Cite pmid/17964350, could the bot also ensure that the PMID is set in the target DOI subpage? In this example I added it myself. Thanks Rjwilmsi 18:06, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

 Done. Sorry it took me so long to get around to this! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 23:19, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

Hi Smith609, noticed you're doing some updating of the auto taxobox parameters. You've also been removing the italic title code from many pages, is there a reason for this? By removing the code and the 'name' parameter it seems to be causing taxa names to be un-italicized in the article title completely. MMartyniuk (talk) 00:06, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

That's odd. Can you point me to a case where the article title is not italicized correctly by Template:Automatic taxobox, so that I can look into it? Thanks, Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 00:09, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

Hi, I've removed a section titled "Physical geologic driver" as mostly WP:OR and the creator (user:Morbas) has objected. He has started an rfc on talk:Extinction event. I noted that you had discussed this back in Sep-Oct, but Morbas deleted part of that w/out archiving. So, would you care to take a look again and perchance help clarify the situation (it'll be a blast:). Vsmith (talk) 15:23, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi Vsmith, glad to support you, but got so frustrated with the discussion last time that I don't think I can bear to put the page back on my Watchlist. Drop me a line here whenever you'd like some input. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 15:39, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks and I understand the frustration bit. Vsmith (talk) 22:19, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

We've got an inconsistency in the formatting for the parameters..."display parent" and display children" have no underscore, yet all the other parameters for the taxobox have an underscore. I think it's probably best we keep the underscore so as not to confuse editors. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:58, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Other parameters can now be spaced or underscored. (I find it much quicker to type without the underscore, an awkward little key to reach on my keyboard). Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:32, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

Technical question: Can a space be included in the name of a parameter and still have the parameter work? I've never seen this done in any wiki-template before, and so question whether it is technically possible. There are some characters that I know are disallowed in parameter names, and I've always understood that spaces were among them. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:00, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

It's working at the moment. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 23:05, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

Hello Smith609. I'm sure you have the answer to this: How do we add an image into an automatic taxobox? I'd like to add an image to the Sphenothallus article you started, but I'm perplexed by the template. Thanks! Mark Wilson44691 (talk) 01:51, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi Mark, the automatic taxobox works in the same way as the old taxobox: just add |image=filename.jpg. The Sphenothallus one looks a bit menacing because its fossil range template is so busy; just add the parameter before (or after) the authority line and you'll do well. Thanks in advance for the illustration! Best, Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 02:01, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

You're very quick, Martin. Thanks! I hope to take the image tomorrow. Cheers, Mark Wilson44691 (talk) 02:12, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

I'm sure you saw it, but you are now approved. Thanks for the thoughtful response, and all the hard work. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 02:53, 3 January 2011 (UTC) ((resolved))

In the Horneophyton article, you wrote "There was a thin central strand of vascular tissue, but this was not reinforced with spiral and reticulate thickenings" and "With vascular tissue but ...". On the other hand, based on Crane, Herendeen, & Friis (2004), I've written in the Polysporangiophyte article "[Horneophyton] did not have true vascular tissues". The difference may be based on different usages in the sources, but I wonder if we can agree on a consistent usage in paleobotanical articles? I'd like the articles leading off from Polysporangiophyte to have some consistency. "Vascular tissue" could be used only when there is clear evidence of xylem/tracheids (consistent with the Vascular tissue and Tracheid articles). On this basis, Horneophyton has "conducting tissue" but not vascular tissue; hence the placement in the cladogam in Crane et al. outside tracheophytes. What do you think? Peter coxhead (talk) 20:57, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Boy, it seems like a long time since I wrote that... "Conducting tissue" sounds like a good way to go, but without trawling the literature I couldn't be sure. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 21:02, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

Does Taxobot follow the ((bots|deny=all)) options because if it did then Template:Child taxa doc could be moved back to Template:Child taxa/doc. -- WOSlinker (talk) 22:02, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

What would this move accomplish? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:19, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

It would just mean that the actual docs are in the expected location. -- WOSlinker (talk) 18:39, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Also, do you need to make a Template:T^14? If you look at the WhatLinksHere, there are quite a few transclusions. -- WOSlinker (talk) 18:14, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the spot.  Done. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:19, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

Hi...Any idea why adding the following code to ((Taxobox))

((#if:(({divisio))}|((#if:(({unranked_divisio))}|[[Category:Articles employing both divisio and unranked_divisio]])) ))

caused every single taxobox on Wikipedia to show up in Category:Articles employing both divisio and unranked_divisio? Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:25, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

You forgot the pipes - correct code as follows:

((#if:(({divisio|))}|((#if:(({unranked_divisio|))}|[[Category:Articles employing both divisio and unranked_divisio]])) ))

Without the pipes, the software interprets (({divisio))} as "(({divisio))}", not "".

Martin (Smith609 – Talk)

((resolved))

Hi, don't forget the ((deprecated taxon)) template should be subst'd, otherwise it doesn't work correctly. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:41, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, that explains it. I couldn't see any documentation telling me why it was looking so odd... Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 13:29, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

You can leave those ichnogenera stubs if you'd like or you can delete 'em. If you delete them, though, expect them to stay gone permanently. We've had ten years for someone to come through and make them but apparently I'm the only one willing to put the work in on this sort of thing. Copy-pasting that basic stub outline would have saved me a lot of time when I started building them up. Creating every article individually is a hugely tedious process, and if I had to go through that ordeal it just wouldn't be worth the bother. I would have loved to have developed them into full articles, but complications arose and I'm done fighting you guys about them. If you leave the articles on valid taxa intact I'll get around to sprucing them up in a couple weeks when I'm not still fuming about the swarms of people trying to delete them. If you're not willing to wait and would prefer to delete them immediately, that's fine, but I'm not gonna revive 'em. Then we can wait another ten years and see then if someone's cared enough to expand Wikipedia's trace fossil coverage. Abyssal (talk) 02:28, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any need to move them, as far as I can tell you've already redirected the junior syns and such. If you want to, go ahead, but I think it would just be a waste of time. Abyssal (talk) 14:59, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

To avoid deletion, I suggest you give each stub 1-2 good and relevant citations. For example I created Dead Clade Walking with 1 citation, and it wasn't even inline. Now it has 3 inline citations. [Another article initially had 1 sentence and no citations, but 5 months I gave it citations from 3 sources, added decent text, and got it to DYK.

If your concerned about the deletion police (Martin is not one, but I know enough), develop the article in one of your sub-pages until you've added 1-2 inline citations, then move it to an artcile. --Philcha (talk) 13:27, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Smith609/Archives. You have new messages at Template talk:Taxonomy/Deltapodus.
You may remove this notice at any time by removing the ((newmessages)) template.

((resolved))

I love that endnote.js script of yours. Have you ever thought about making a Gadget proposal? --bender235 (talk) 10:55, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Great idea - thanks, and thank you for the feedback. Wikipedia:Gadget/proposals#Export_to_Endnote. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:03, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

BTW: I could use some help here, explaining people the advantage of having microformat producing citation templates. Your comment is appreciated. --bender235 (talk) 16:35, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

Please have a look at Template talk:Taxobox#proposal, as you're one of the people who it will affect the most. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:36, 4 February 2011 (UTC) ((resolved))

Do you happen to remember where you got the dates from for the article Siegenian which you created? I'm assuming that it wasn't from the reference, which seems to be only to support "widely used". (Unfortunately this isn't a journal I can access electronically through my institution.) I'm trying to expand the coverage of early land plants, and all the Chinese sources use "Seigenian". The only other source I can find [15] gives rather different dates. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:07, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Can't find a ref, I'm afraid; the referenced source just places it in the middle of the Lower Devonian. I must have got the numbers from somewhere; I wonder whether I equated it with the Pragian? It's possible that, given the abandoned nature of the stage, there are no up-to-date radiometric dates available; at least, a cursory glance didn't lead me across any. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 15:15, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I think you did equate it with the Pragian, which is reasonable because it can be sourced to the GeoWhen database [16]. But then the statement "the term overlaps with parts of the internationally recognised Pragian and Emsian epochs" is inconsistent. If there isn't a source for this latter statement, it should probably be removed. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:21, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

Hey, thanks! I'll extend my thanks to you as well for doing such a fine job with all this code! That sort of stuff will look great on your resumé!

I had really hoped to handle each taxobox individually and add things like authority, synonyms, and species, but right now getting them all cleaned up is the priority. And just thought I'd let you know-- the stegosaurian ichnotaxon you invented was rather close. I ended up finding the parent, and you weren't too far off.

Have a great day! Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:48, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm glad to be done with that...and I don't think I'll be adding synonyms/etc to them. Not soon, anyway. I'll let Abyssal worry about the rest of the cleanup, since he did introduce them in the first place.

Looks like the next line of work is going to be deciding what to do about the heirarchy misplacement of "unranked familia". I don't want to be the one to close that RfC, since there was such a big deal over it all. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 01:43, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

One more advantage of the automatic taxobox, not having to worry about such issues... think it's one I'll be staying well clear of, myself! You have my respect for keeping a cool head over the whole thing. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:48, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Heh, it would seem several disagree about what a "cool head" is, at least at the ANI. But thanks, anyway, and I definitely don't blame you for staying out of it, lol. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:34, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

With some trepidation (templates are a new-ish area for me), I've created the template ((Period span1)) (not a very imaginative name), which produces simpler output than your ((Period span)), and may thus sometimes be more useful in articles where the details of the time span for a geological period are of less importance. If you have time, you might like to check that I've set up the documentation, etc. correctly. You may or may not wish to add this to the set of templates you list at ((Period data)). Thanks again for all the work you did creating the infrastructure for these templates. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:26, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Nice work! I've moved it to the slightly more intuitive ((period span/brief)); I hope you don't mind. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:36, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

No, that's a good name, as it promotes the relationship with the fuller template. I've updated the documentation. Thinking about it more, ((Period span/brief)) should really not be used to show decimal places, because this level of accuracy without the errors which ((Period span)) outputs is misleading (as a former statistician I've sensitive about spurious accuracy!). I've put a note in the documentation about this, but I wonder if the template should be altered to over-ride positive rounding values. Or maybe this is too controlling. What do you think? Peter coxhead (talk) 17:37, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Probably worth keeping in case users ever want to use e.g. ((Period span/brief|Pliocene)), where the error margin is smaller than a decimal place. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 17:41, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

I didn't know that wasn't vandalism. Aallasdfa67usgd60 (talk) 00:58, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Not to worry! No damage done (-: Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 01:37, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

Hello, Smith609. You have new messages at Template talk:Citation/patent.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((Talkback)) or ((Tb)) template.

Please respond over there.

((resolved))

You might be to check this out. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:50, 16 February 2011 (UTC) ((resolved))

There were some small errors/omissions in ((Next period)), which I 'corrected' using [17]. However, this source puts the Gelasian in the Pliocene, whereas Pleistocene and Pliocene put it in the Pleistocene. This leads to inconsistencies in the ordering I put in and the dates. I'm not a geologist – what is correct?? Peter coxhead (talk) 18:17, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

This is the canonical source. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:46, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Strange that the GeoWhen page at [18] is wrong (I've e-mailed the contact given). I've been running (semi)automated checks on the 'period' templates against the data in GeoWhen. With a change for the Gelassian, I can now confirm that all named periods in the GeoWhen timeline agree in dates with the templates, with one exception: the start of the Late Cambrian/Piabian is given as 501 in GeoWhen but 499 in the templates, which for this date agree with the ISChart2009. But I notice that when GeoWhen and the ISChart2009 otherwise differ (e.g. the start of the Holocene) the templates follow GeoWhen. I shan't meddle with dates; it was the ordering of the periods which I was mainly checking. The principal problem was, I think, a duplicated block in ((Next period)), which I've commented out but not removed. Peter coxhead (talk) 23:03, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I see that the boundaries of the Pleistocene/Pliocene were changed in 2009 [19]. A really good argument for using the templates and not putting actual numbers in articles! Peter coxhead (talk) 08:33, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

May I ask what this is/ what it's used for, why it is in category space as opposed to another namespace, and why it should be exempt from the WP:CSD#C1 speedy deletion criteria for empty categories? Thanks. VegaDark (talk) 05:36, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

As the title suggests, it's a preload used so that non-existent categories display useful information. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:14, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

That didn't exactly answer my question. The page you link to is a disambiguation page, and none of the 3 links there adequately describe anything that that page could possibly be. What I was hoping for was an example of a series of actions someone would take, and a summary of the results of those actions without that page existing vs. what would happen now that you created it - i.e. what does this page actually do. I'm concerned because it's empty & it's categorized in red-linked categories, which are both no-nos for the category space except for particularly rare cases, and I'm not convinced that this is one of those rare cases. Additionally it's completely obscure what use this page might actually bring to the encyclopedia, and that should be apparent when someone stumbles upon a page like this. VegaDark (talk) 22:58, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

It seems you are ignoring me now that I've seen you have edited plenty since my last message. You haven't explained why it is necessary for non-existent categories to display something other than the default Wikipedia message when someone clicks on a redlink. Perhaps you will be more forthcoming if I bring this to CfD. VegaDark (talk) 04:21, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

It's a tool to help editors who create taxonomy templates, so that they can easily view children of taxa they create before a bot creates a more user-friendly interface. It's employed by Template:Taxonomy key. Please leave it alone. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 04:35, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

And I've found these categories helpful in maintaining taxonomy templates. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:44, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Could this be accomplished with an external tool (or gadget?) It seems unconventional at best to be utilizing a category for this purpose, and I'm uncertain if the way this is being used would fly with the wider community. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for now, but I'm not comfortable about retaining a purposely empty category that is purposely categorized in redlinks for any reason. VegaDark (talk) 04:48, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. If you can think of a more elegant way to do it, we'd love to hear it! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 05:20, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

Citation bot appears to be down? Is this expected? Thanks Rjwilmsi 13:10, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Hm. You can try replacing the string DOI_bot with citation-bot in the URL to use the last stable version, which is working okay, until I get this fixed. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:04, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

 Fixed & ((resolved))

Hi Smith609. I noticed an edit today by User:Citation bot 1 that didn't use an edit summary. I looked at the history and at least over the last 3500 edits, no summaries have been used with the bot edits. There seems to be a problem somewhere. Thanks for your attention. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 13:59, 15 March 2011 (UTC) ((resolved)) in r275. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 13:17, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Please could you cast your eye over Template talk:Taxobox#List sub-tempates. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:29, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

((resolved))

I was trying to remove two disambiguation links out of "Template:Plants graphical timeline". It was not so difficult to find the solutions for Wenlock and Pridoli, but correcting the template proofed a differend story. Summerized were all my attemps disasters, so at the end I did nothing (always stay on the safe side!). Could you, as builder of the template, be so kind to solve this issue? Night of the Big Wind _talk 18:53, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

((resolved)) Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 15:34, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I just discovered two templates that you created— ((Citation parameter legend)) and ((AuthorMask doc)). I recently created and have been implementing ((Citation Style documentation)) which would replace those templates. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:30, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Good luck with that!

- Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:45, 21 January 2012 (UTC) ((resolved))

Regarding your several edits like this one, the conversion from one perfectly acceptable template to another cannot be described as an "upgrade". This is (in my opinion) deceitful propaganda designed to promote a system which has serious shortcomings. Please be more honest in your edit summaries and avoid suggesting that your automatic taxoboxes are somehow the successor to the normal taxobox. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:59, 11 February 2012 (UTC) ((resolved))

First off, thank you very much for the creation of the ((Cite doi)) and related templates! Given that I use the same refs between pages quite often, I find it very handy. However, I was wondering if it would be possible to create a new automated template to replace ((IUCN)) and it's numerous relatives. I'm not sure how you could pull from the online IUCN Red List database, but having an auto-generated, centralized location for those citations would be nice for numerous species articles. I also asked the question about a "Cite isbn" template, but I'm not sure if you want to go there given the complexity. Anyway, I just figured I'd ask. – VisionHolder « talk » 07:34, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

And while I'm at it, would it be possible to create a bot that creates redirects for DOI refs that also have PMIDs, etc., and vice versa? I figure that will spare a lot of redundancy and inconsistency. (Alternatively, you can hold my hand and teach me how to write a bot. Lol! Sorry... too much to drink tonight.) – VisionHolder « talk » 09:09, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Bot already doing cite doi/pmid redirects that example. Rjwilmsi 10:55, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

See [20]. There are now two classes and several orders. The class Anthocerotopsida redirects to the division because the two groups are identical in composition with the exception of a single species of Leiosporoceros --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:46, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for this link. Is this the best classification to use in articles now? Sorry that I went ahead with these based on the WP taxonomy; I remembered you mentioning that we should hold back on boxes for the bryophytes but only realized that this extended beyond the mosses after I'd put a few ATs in place. No damage done though, I don't think! Best, Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 15:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it's by far the best. I've been waiting for some time to update the hornwort classification on Wikispecies, which I finally did this weekend. I decided to go ahead with updating the hornwort taxonomy on the en Wikipedia as well, and have done so. When I first began editing the hornwort page (2004-2005) there wasn't a consensus in the scientific community on the classification of hornworts (at most ranks) and the available classifications differed enormously above the rank of genus. There has now been a series of collaborative papers, as well as sufficient phylogenetic study and nomenclatorial changes published, that a reasonably stable hornwort classification now exists with strong cladistic support. The mosses are close, but there will be a lot more work involved in cleaning up our existing taxonomy for those (since there are around 10,000 species of moss as compared to <200 hornwort species). In contrast, the liverwort classification above the rank of family is likely to continue changing catastrophically over the current decade, since one of the orders has turned out to be grossly polyphyletic (with the type-bearing name in one of the smaller clades). --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:32, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

There's also a concern I have (I discussion on the auto-taxobox talk page) about whether a page like Leiosporoceros would benefit from automation of the taxobox, or whether this is a situation where it shouldn't be used. I'd appreciate comments there. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:34, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

It has come to my attention this change where you added ((Taxobox/taxon)) inside a hidden div with the note This template has to be "warmed up" before it can be used, for some reason. MediaWiki loads the templates the first time they are used, there's no need to "preload" them. What were you trying to achieve? What was the problem? Platonides (talk) 23:24, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I can't explain why, but if you don't "warm it up", then the template doesn't produce the correct output when it's used later in the template. You win cookies if you can work out what's going on... Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 15:07, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The templates I have been optimizing involve just a few subtemplates, and those took me months to streamline. I would expect the optimization of Template:Automatic_Taxobox to span over a full year. The following are some steps:

• Collect data about current performance (such as stats showing Automatic_Taxobox generates markup which is 121x times larger than {Taxobox}, etc.).
• Consider major features to delete/omit (When a person re-organizes a garage, they remove "50%" of the stuff as unneeded).
• Consider transforming Template:Automatic_Taxobox into a markup "wizard" which simply displays the markup needed to copy and run Template:Taxobox, rather than massively re-calculate the data every single time an article is formatted.

The optimization of an enormous, gargantuan set of templates should be feared as an immense, similarly huge, time-consuming effort. I am currently busy re-working the tiny templates, but I will try to offer some more specific suggestions in the coming months. -Wikid77 12:52, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good to me...if you find any that can be adjusted independently, please go ahead and suggest them...there's no good reason I can think of to delay the review of a performance adjustment.

I've actually been planning on sitting down over the summer and working on this as well, so perhaps I'll work alongside you and we can bounce ideas around. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:24, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

((Period end)) doesn't have a rounding parameter, unlike ((Period start)). It would be useful in cases where one wants to write something like "Late Silurian to Early Devonian (around ((mya|((Period start|Late Silurian|-1))| to ((mya|((Period end|Early Devonian|-1))))))". It looks as simple as adding (({2|5))} in the right place to the template, but I'll leave that to you... Peter coxhead (talk) 12:41, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

The complicated bit is the rounding of the errors in Template:Period start error; this'll involve some more involved coding so I'll have to think about the best way to do it. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:40, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Checking the data currently in ((Period start)) against this, if the template is to match the dates here, rather than those currently in the GeoWhen database, the following changes to the offically named time spans would be needed (I've put both the start date and the error, although the latter is missing for most changes):

• Late Mississippian|Serpukhovian = 328.3 +/- 1.6, currently 330.9 ± 0.2
• Late Pennsylvanian|Kasimovian = 307.2 +/- 1, currently 307 ± 0.1
• Gzhelian = 303.4 +/- 0.9, currently 303.7 ± 0.1
• Olenekian = 249.5 +/- ?, currently 251.2
• Middle Triassic|Anisian = 245.9 +/- ?, currently 247.2
• Late Triassic|Carnian = 228.7 +/- ?, currently 237
• Kimmeridgian = 155.6 +/- ?, currently 154.8 ± 1.0
• Hauterivian = 133.9 +/- ?, currently 132.6
• Turonian = 93.6 +/- 0.8, currently 93.9
• Coniacian = 88.6 +/- ?, currently 89.8 ± 0.3
• Middle Paleocene|Selandian = 61.1 +/- ?, currently 61.6
• Serravallian = 13.82 +/- ?, currently 13.82
• Holocene = 0.0117 +/- ?, currently 0.0117 ± 0.000099

The Cambrian would need quite a bit of sorting, because there are more names as well as different dates. I guess the problem is that there may be other 'synonyms' in the template which start at the same date which might also need changing. If you would (a) like the changes made and (b) don't have time to do it yourself, please let me know and I'll have a go. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:47, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Smith609. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 40#Help with citation cleanup (templates).
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((Talkback)) or ((Tb)) template.

They all seem to say "This citation will be automatically completed in the next few minutes. blah blah blah" ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 05:05, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

See Template talk:Cite doi#broken. LeadSongDog come howl! 07:42, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi Martin, I just spotted this template after seeing it used in SA-500D. I just wondered if you knew about this app which completes google books references? I just wondered whether it would be possible to add a |page= field to the template and then get a bot to feed in to the app and make a template? Thanks SmartSE (talk) 23:29, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

This might be workable, although I think that there might have been problems when I tried this in the past ... is page the only thing that might vary between references (not ISBN, for instance?) Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 03:00, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Citation bot 2 edited Template:Cite doi/10.1038.2Fnature09201. It had been correct as:

Srivastava, M.; Simakov, O.; Chapman, J.; Fahey, B.; Gauthier, M. E. A.; Mitros, T.; Richards, G. S.; Conaco, C.; Dacre, M. (2010). "The Amphimedon queenslandica genome and the evolution of animal complexity". Nature. 466 (7307): 720. doi:10.1038/nature09201. PMID 20686567.

But after the edit it became:

Stinchcomb, B. L.; Srivastava, M.; Simakov, O.; Chapman, J.; Fahey, B.; Gauthier, M. E. A.; Mitros, T.; Richards, G. S.; Conaco, C. (1966). "Missouri Upper Cambrian Monoplacophora Previously Considered Cephalopods". Journal of Paleontology. 40 (3): 647–650. doi:10.1038/nature09201. PMID 20686567.

... which is emphatically wrong... Evercat (talk) 12:21, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Gosh. It doesn't look like this is a one-off, either. I've stopped the bot until I can fix it. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 15:34, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I was going to ask for your assistance re user assistance bots. But having read your amazing advice about using an external editor to fix "unescaped entities", I think I may be able to help you. Please go to this page - it will present you with a typical citation bot edit shown as a diff, all ready for you to make further changes and then save the page. The page contains entities: García and variety—surface but they caused me absolutely no problems! I am very pleased with this technique. The only drawback is that if you try and save straight away, you will always get a "loss of session data" message - but another save will do the trick!

Notes

Test data derived from plasmonic metamaterials. If things look funny, revert my sb2 page to this state. This is the source code of my demo which is derived from coorphan.php (source code - description).

— RHaworth (talk · contribs) 16:25, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Looks great! I'd been trying to do this myself but got stuck when it came to edittokens. Where do you think it is best to go from here? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 02:58, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Your idea inspired me to integrate your suggestion into the WP interface; see User:Smith609/citations. Thanks! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 07:30, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I just wanted to follow up on your suggestion to add cite doi; I also replied briefly on the ProveIt talk page. This is filed as issue 105. Since you have some JavaScript background, you may be able to do the fix yourself than submit it on the issue page. I wrote instructions at NewCiteType.

Thanks. Superm401 - Talk 23:44, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I just want to leave a note of thank you for your work with the automated taxoboxes. They have really helped make Wikipedia more streamlined and consistent! Petter Bøckman (talk) 07:52, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Just to let you know that I added a retouched version of your fantastic Cooksonia pertoni image to Polysporangiophytes to illustrate the Evolution section. I didn't want the possible gametophyte – too POV in the context of the discussion – and I blurred the background a bit to try to make the plant stand out. When you have time you can produce similar nice pictures of other early land plants!! Peter coxhead (talk) 12:14, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Super, thanks! If you're interested, I've just made a version of this directly through the 3d software that I used. File:Cooksonia_pertoni_without_thallus.png. In another lifetime, perhaps more plants will follow! (-: Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:30, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Grrr... If I'd known you were doing it, I would have used your new one; the shadows were rather unrealistic on the earlier ones, they're much better on this one. I'll have to look into the software you use; I can only do rather stylized 2d drawings. (Btw, I've been reading the Bryce article; it's very convincing but adds yet more evidence undermining existing classifications...) Peter coxhead (talk) 23:04, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, it was only your revision that brought it to mind - as it happens I've had cause to use the software for a different project so I've learned a few tricks with lighting. Let me know if there's anything that you think needs tweaking with it.

The software, by the way, is Blender: it's got a quirky UI that takes a bit of getting used to, but once you learn the ropes it's remarkably powerful and relatively quick to work.

Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 01:45, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I downloaded the Mac OS version, but a quick look convinced me that the UI is indeed quirky. Next winter perhaps... Peter coxhead (talk) 11:52, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I am sure that you are aware that there is no strong consensus yet to switch to your automated taxoboxes. In that context, I think it is wrong to manually change taxoboxes one at a time with the sole intention of changing articles from one taxobox system to another. Changes to articles should be substantive, and should not be made to prove a point. It is clear enough from a few test cases that the automated taxoboxes are theoretically capable of reproducing most of the features of the manual system (and adding some new features). There are, however, serious issues with their implementation, not least their bewildering complexity. Please stop adding automatic taxoboxes to articles beyond the agreed test areas; they are not welcome. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:51, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Martin-- I noticed the taxobox at Maikhanellidae was added before the taxonomy was completed, causing an error to display on the article (which I just now cleared with a null edit). I noticed in the edit summary it says the edit was assisted by a citation bot-- not sure if that has anything to do with it, but if it does, you might want to verify the bot didn't cause that. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:06, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd be grateful if you wouldn't automate the taxoboxes for early (Silurian/Devonian) plants yet. As per Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Plants#Classifications_for_extant_versus_extinct_plants it's far from clear how to classify extinct plants. I'm currently working on articles in this area (a dozen or so to date), and will return to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Plants for some comments when I'm a bit clearer on the issues. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:35, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

At that time, won't it be easier to modify the taxoboxes if they are all using automatic taxoboxes? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 15:40, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

As Erik says, this is a strong argument for automating the taxoboxes – but there's no hurry. Automatic taxoboxes also accommodate unranked clades more satisfactorily.

I'll follow the discussion over at plants; meanwhile, I don't suppose that there are any disadvantages to using automatic taxoboxes on new fossil plant articles (of which I plan to create several soon)? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 02:43, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I think there are two different problems with taxoboxes for very early plants. The first is deciding on a suitable hierarchy of ranks/clades to be displayed. Changing these is, of course, much easier if the taxoboxes are automated. The second is deciding on the lowest level rank on which the automated taxobox is based. This is where I think there are real problems, since in many cases the only published formal classifications for extinct plants are not in accord with the latest research. Consider Hicklingia. If it is a 'zosterophyll', then there is a formally published hierarchy: Division Lycopodiophyta, Class Zosterophyllopsida, Order Zosterophyllales, Family Zosterophyllaceae, although this level of detail is not really consistent with Kenrick & Crane and more recent publications, which present the 'zosterophylls' as a strongly paraphyletic group. Actually the sources suggest that Hicklingia only has "affinities" with the 'zosterophylls'. The best that can be said is that it may be a basal 'lycophyte' – but 'lycophyte' in the cladistic sense of Kenrick & Crane (1997), Crane et al. (2004) and Cantino et al. (2007), not the rank-based approach of Cronquist et al. (1996). (The taxobox at Lycopodiophyta is a nice example of the problems of current classification. It cites both Cronquist et al. and Cantino & Donoghue as authorities for Lycopodiophyta, but their concepts are quite different; the system of Cantino et al. (2007) is a pure Phylocode system; its Lycopodiophyta is not a Division but a node-based clade.) Nothing lower than 'lycophyte' has any recent support as a group for Hicklingia. So how can its taxobox be automated? Peter coxhead (talk) 08:44, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Hicklingia example Temporal range: Middle Devonian PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Clade:	Polysporangiophytes
Clade:	Tracheophytes
Clade:	Lycophytes
Plesion:	†Zosterophylls (?)
Genus:	†Hicklingia Kidston & Lang (1923)[1]
Species
† H. edwardii Kidston & Lang (1923) † H. erecta Kräusel & Weyland (1929)

I'm not aware of any existing taxobox that cannot be exactly replicated by the "automatic" taxobox template. Here's what it would look like for Hicklingia, for example. Don't the same issues apply whichever template is used? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:21, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Maybe I don't properly understand how the automated taxoboxes pick up the hierarchy. Is it possible to display different hierarchies for extinct & extant taxa, even though they pass through the same node at some point? If we use good sources to place Hicklingia in the lycophytes (under whatever formal or informal clade-based name), then in the context of these problematic fossils, it's useful to show the polysporangiophyte - tracheophyte - lycophyte hierarchy; there aren't currently any lower level ranks anyway, and if Hicklingia isn't a lycophyte it is at least a tracheophyte. But an extant genus, like Isoetes, shouldn't have these clade-based names in the taxobox, although it does belong to the lycophytes, whatever rank is given to them, since there's a perfectly good set of ranks and there's a consensus to avoid too many levels in taxoboxes.

The other issue is consensus. I could create a hierarchy of clade-based names for use in automated taxoboxes (indeed I have one in my user space), and then attach extinct genera to this hierarchy. But this does return to an issue which User:Kleopatra raised, however tactlessly, namely that whoever edits the hierarchy used in automated taxoboxes may be imposing a classification on other editors for which there is no consensus. If I create a manual taxobox in an article, then I can be held responsible via the article history and others can react accordingly. But (subject to my possible misunderstanding of how automated taxoboxes work) if I edit the hierarchy they use, ranks/clades/whatever may show up in articles where editors would not agree and where there is no consensus. Or have I misunderstood? Peter coxhead (talk) 16:08, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Better documentation is certainly a pressing need at the automatic taxobox.

It sounds like what you want to do is display some taxa (e.g. tracheophytes) in extinct taxoboxes, but not extant taxoboxes. In most cases this can be done by using a parameter, |display parents=, in each individual taxobox. This controls how many "minor" ranks (e.g. clades) above the subject taxon are displayed. This approach goes some way to addressing the problem of accountability. If this doesn't suit, then there's a slightly more complicated solution that I can discuss; I won't go into it now as it might take a bit of explaining and isn't as elegant. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 16:21, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

NB. I've tried to clarify Template:Automatic_taxobox#How_is_the_taxonomy_generated.3F. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 16:28, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, which is useful. Returning to the main issue, the section I've just added to the article on the polysporangiophytes, Polysporangiophyte#Taxonomy, may explain why I wouldn't, for example, put Tarella in the formal rank Zosterophyllopsida, as you have, but would prefer to use informal "unranked-" categories. I incline to the view that, for the present at least, extinct and extant plants need different classifications. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:08, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

So are you saying that you would prefer to refer to "Zosterophyllopsida" as "clade Zosterophyllopsida" rather than "Class Zosterophyllopsida"? This is easily done by modifying Template:Taxonomy/Zosterophyllopsida so that |rank = reads "clade" instead of "classis". Or would you prefer a listing as "Clade: Zosterophylls" under "Stem-group: Lycopopodiphyta"? However I do wonder whether this would be following convention, or whether it would be bordering on original research; I'm not sure how the literature currently refers to zosterophylls. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 13:20, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Very good questions to which I don't know the answer. It's not OR, but as with all taxonomies there is an issue of NPOV. I've said something about this in replying to you at Template_talk:Automatic_taxobox#Question_marks_in_automatic_taxoboxes, but the taxonomy of early land plants is currently very confused in the literature. Roughly I think the situation is that sources before Kenrick & Crane's 1997 papers use Banks' three categories of rhyniophytes, zosterophylls and trimerophytes (under various formal names/ranks), but with increasing caveats. Sources post K&C tend to use clade-based names or just informal names based e.g. on Banks' categories or K&C's clades but with even stronger reservations. Then there's Cantino et al.'s full Phylocode system. You can pick one classification as opposed to another, but nothing that I can find has anything like consensus support, so whatever is done raises POV issues. In the body of articles, I've felt that perhaps the best approach at present is to use the informal names which the literature uses, e.g. "zosterophyll" rather than Zosterophyllopsida. Even if there were a consensus on the phylogeny, which there isn't, there's no consensus on ranks. Zosterophylls s.l. will be found under the the names Zosterophyllophyta (either a subdivision or a division), Zosterophyllophytina (subdivision) and Zosterophyllopsida (class), the higher ranks forcing the lycophytes upwards or (worse) falling outside the lycophytes. (I can source every one of these usages.) I'm happy with the the use of Zosterophyllopsida / Lycopodiophyta for now, but it's not a consensus classification.

The difficulty is that it's hard to write articles about these plants without some organizing principles and impossible to construct taxoboxes, so we can't just leave it to sort itself out at some point in the future. Sorry to go on about this, but as you can doubtless tell, it bugs me! Peter coxhead (talk) 17:15, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Just to add that I am now converting taxoboxes for early polysporangiophytes to the automatic version, having (I think!) mastered the art of creating 'parallel' taxonomic hierarchies. For these extinct plants, I'm using the taxonomies current among paleobotanists, which are, as noted previously, not consistent with those used by botanists working on extant groups only. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:19, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Martin: I've now gone through all the articles I could find on early polysporangiophytes and converted the taxoboxes to automatic ones. I feel I (more-or-less!) understand them now. For your information, since you created articles in this area and also taxonomic hierarchies in the automatic taxobox system, the taxonomy I've used is at User:Peter coxhead/Embryophyte_classification#Classification_for_early_polysporangiophytes.
One issue that I noticed, and which bothered me until I grasped the workaround, is that I have to save changes to a Template:Taxonomy page at least twice and sometimes three times before all the error messages go away and before the page displays as per the edit. Odd...
(On a personal note, as a former research supervisor, I'm not sure I should be encouraging a PhD student to spend as much time on Wikipedia as you do!!) Peter coxhead (talk) 16:35, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Smith609. You have new messages at Template talk:Cite doi.
Message added 08:21, 10 March 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((Talkback)) or ((Tb)) template.

This is for when you have some free time. There's no rush - enjoy your WikiBreak! — Mr. Stradivarius (drop me a line) 08:21, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

p.s. I couldn't link the section properly, so here's the diff instead. All the best. — Mr. Stradivarius (drop me a line) 08:26, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Forgive me for reporting this here, but I'm really not sure how to report it on Google. Citation bot made this edit. When I click on the DOI, I get the following error: "The DOI you requested -- maghis.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/doi/10.1093/maghis/12.4.34 -- cannot be found in the Handle System." I have no idea how this works, but I reverted the edit and figured I'd notify you about it.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:17, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Smith609/Archives. You have new messages at WP:Templates for discussion/Log/2011 March 13#Template:Child taxa/Life.
You may remove this notice at any time by removing the ((newmessages)) template.

I do believe I've managed to crash Taxobot again... You're welcome! Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 01:59, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia_talk:Bots/Requests_for_approval#Bot_flag_request, please make sure all your active/approved bot accounts get flagged with a bot flag. The easiest way is probably by editing Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Approved and setting "needs flag" for the appropriate accounts. Thanks. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:55, 13 March 2011 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ABots%2FRequests_for_approval%2FApproved&action=historysubmit&diff=418985275&oldid=418283818

Hey there Smith609, thank you for your contributions. I am a bot, alerting you that non-free files are not allowed in user or talk space. I removed some files I found on User:Smith609/Cite/doc. In the future, please refrain from adding fair-use files to your user-space drafts or your talk page.

• See a log of files removed today here.

• Shut off the bot here.

• Report errors here.

Thank you, -- DASHBot (talk) 05:09, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello. Two years ago, you wrote that "Current evidence completely discredits the concept of an expanding Earth;" Do you know some reliable source saying the same? Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 21:09, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Martin. I'm afraid your replacing the previous taxobox at Phoronid with a new one doesn't work. The previous one was simple but worked. The current one:

• Shows a message "Scientific classification [ e ]", in which "[ e ]" links to Template:Taxonomy/Phoronida.
• Shows another message "Taxonomy not available for fish; please create it". Fish? And what's this about? What are the benefits of the new one? Who's expected to populated it and how much work is required? What's wrong with the old one?

Phoronids are tricky - as I said to Aleksey, "How can such a small phylum cause such confusion?" There are 10-12 species depending on who's counting, and possibly 25 types of distinct larvae, implying that there at least 13 adult species unaccounted for. I'd keep the taxobox for this phylum simple. --Philcha (talk) 12:48, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Where is this link to "fish"? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 13:00, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Seems it's been fixed in the last hour - somewhere in the infrastructure, I guess, as Phoronid hasn't been changed since 26 February 2011. Murphy's alive and well. --Philcha (talk) 13:56, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

There's no good lead / taxobox image - the 2 usable pics at Commons are needed lower down (anatomy and actinotroch larva). Do you know of any way of getting one without bureaucracy? --Philcha (talk) 13:56, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello Martin and Philcha! I can draw images of phoronid, its larvaes, anatomy... But only in a week. Aleksey (Alnagov (talk) 15:40, 17 March 2011 (UTC))

Hi, Aleksey. There's a good anatomy image at File:Phoronida.gif. File:Phoronid ASlotwinski.jpg is a nice photo of an actinotroch larva, but perhaps a diagram would be better - without labels or lines, so I can add these using ((Annotated image)). That would fill the space in that part of the "Reproduction" paragraph, so I don't think there would be space for an image of the Phoronis ovalis larvae metamorphosing into an adult. --Philcha (talk) 17:18, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I've just found FIST for finding images you can use within WP's rules, I've put it in my Toolbox. And it got me a nice one for the taxobox of Phoronid, next to the lead - File:Nur03506.jpg --Philcha (talk) 17:18, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Smith609/Archives. You have new messages at WP:Templates for discussion/Log/2011 March 13#Template:Child taxa/Life.
You may remove this notice at any time by removing the ((newmessages)) template.

Thanks for uploading File:Wikify.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of "file" pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. ww2censor (talk) 17:52, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm writing a letter to the ADS team to see what's our querying limit. Could you check the details on your bot to see if I got them right? Any other feedback is welcome too. (Feel free to edit the page it you want.) Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:58, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 02:10, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

This bug is causing problems with ((cite doi)); see Template talk:Cite doi#Errors in auto-creation. It's not your bot's fault, but perhaps the bot can help find a workaround for it by applying edits like this one. Ucucha 22:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Martin, see my thread on WP:ANI and the citation bot's talk page. The new bibcode lookup is causing some quite serious problems and quite a lot of the bot's recent edits require reversion. The block request is no slight on you, I'm sure the bot will be back to its normal excellent service soon, I just want to prevent any more errors in the meantime. Thanks Rjwilmsi 12:12, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Are you talking about the errors produced by Citation Bot 1, which uses the latest version of the script? I'm not running this bot at the moment, until I've had time to stabilize it. But please feel free to block if it necessary. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 12:58, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, though at the time of requesting the temporary block I hadn't realised that the user-invoked citation bot and Citation Bot 1 ran different versions. So, as concluded on ANI, there's no need for a block. I believe I've already reverted all of the bad edits by Citation Bot 1. Thanks Rjwilmsi 20:38, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

And thank you for today's round of improvements to the bot. Rjwilmsi 20:50, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome: and I really appreciate you cleaning up after the bot, I appreciate that it must be frustrating to do that! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 23:32, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I solved my previous problems, but now I have a new one. Template:Italic title does not appear to italicize the title for the article: Guillaume Tell (Grétry). Could the diacritic in the parenthetic expression be a problem? There aren't any similar examples of this problem that I have been able to find. --Robert.Allen (talk) 04:18, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Sounds plausible: you're probably better asking at Template talk:Italic title, where there are likely to be people more familiar with the template than I am! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 04:22, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I saw your name in the History and that you were editing, so I left it here, thinking you might be familiar with it. But good suggestion. I'll move it there. Thanks! --Robert.Allen (talk) 04:47, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Template:Cite google book has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. RL0919 (talk) 12:15, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi, As discussed here does your bot check for malware on the external sites? They say it does, but I am not sure. Anyway, just an idea and if you address it there it will be best. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 14:37, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Citation bot doesn't do this. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 20:12, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Template:D15n has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Magioladitis (talk) 08:32, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Template:D18o has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Magioladitis (talk) 08:34, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Template:Comma before year has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. — This, that, and the other (talk) 10:06, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm using ((Graphical timeline)) and have followed the instructions to increase the capacity.

• My attempt didn't work
• I now see that I'm not alone, and resort has been previously made to a spreadsheet.
• What did we do wrong, please? Thanks.

--Trevj (talk) 11:14, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I've spoken to the guys who maintain the Astrophysics Data System, and they gave us the clearance to query their database as fast as we wanted. However, they would like us to give them the bots' signature so their severs can recognize them. I gave them mine for Bibcode Bot but it would be a good idea to get those of Citation bot and DOI bot as well. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:01, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

...shouldn't edit conflict, overwriting other changes :( Not sure what the best solution would be? Refused to edit automatically, probably. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 08:31, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Smith609. Long ago, we worked on Cambrian substrate revolution - AFAIK you had the idea, I did some of the development, and I got a DYK for it. Looking again, I think it could easily be improved to a GA. Two questions:

• Can you update the paleontology? Or give me leads to source I can access?
• Who nominates - you, me or as a team? --Philcha (talk) 00:12, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Template:Taxonomy/Heterokonta has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 14:02, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Template:Taxonomy/Trimerophytina has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 14:04, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Template:Cite gni has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 05:47, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi, not sure if you're around at present, but if so, please see "Technical query" at Template_talk:Speciesbox#Use_with_hybrids. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:00, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

The URL used to manually activate the bot no longer works, because the toolserver user account has expired. URL: http://toolserver.org/~verisimilus/Bot/DOI_bot/ --Srleffler (talk) 02:21, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Right for me too.--Stone (talk) 07:05, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Requesting renewal now. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 15:54, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! You can see how many of us rely on it. Awickert (talk) 16:16, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Hey Martin, has anyone mentioned your toolserver acct expired? BTW, thanks for all the cites:-) LeadSongDog come howl! 02:40, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi, it seems citation expander won't work because your previous account expired. Anyway to solve this?--Tærkast (Discuss) 15:13, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Account renewed until Oct 31st. Hopefully I won't miss the reminder messages then! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 13:57, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Still the same message.--Stone (talk) 18:13, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi, cant seem to find instruction anywhere to get your bot to expand an isbn. I've added the bot as a widget and it seems to set itself upon the article but no changes are made. Ive been editing Burkitt lymphoma, adding a ref to the immunohistochemistry section. Any help would be appreciated. Cheers. Mattopaedia ^{Say G'Day!} 02:13, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

A limited number of ISBN searches can be executed by the bot per day, which might be the problem. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 16:18, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Since you're the creator of ((Cite pmc)), I'm bringing this straight to you. I suspect it's a change at the bot level that's needed, but I assume you'll have a better idea than I will on that. :)

A few minutes ago, I tried the following: <ref>((Cite pmc|3021856))</ref>. In the reference list, however, it showed up as a redirect: PMC 3021856
Citation will be completed automatically in a few minutes.Jump the queue or expand by handSmith609/Archives/. – RobinHood70 ^talk 22:26, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a double-redirect. For now you can fix it by changing the PMID page to point to the accompanying "Cite Doi" template. You are right that a bot should be able to do this in future. One day I'll have time to make it do so! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 16:22, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I remember noticing that it was. If nobody else has done so, I'll go fix it now. – RobinHood70 ^talk 21:43, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Smith609, I'm just about to remove your transcluded Template:Citation parameter legend from the Template:Citation/doc page and will probably earn your cusses in the process. I'd like to explain why. It seems to me that half the benefit of having a common citation template is being lost in the attempt to maintain 4 different sets of documentation - the number of discrepancies and inaccuracies is horrendous. I've cleaned up some of the book section following the style of the periodical section but as long as there are 4 different explanations, errors will return. I've put a highly simplified version at the beginning for newcomers - but think it best to have a unified set of parameters, but mainly leaving the sets of examples alone. If there are mistakes I'm happy to try and correct them. Chris55 (talk) 13:28, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

The timeline in Cenozoic is absurdly stretched out. I do not know how to correct this but I see that you commented on Template talk:Cenozoic graphical timeline, so maybe you do? Dudley Miles (talk) 20:32, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I recently began using the ((cite doi)) system and your bot. Much of this was at these two articles:

• Egyptian Vulture^oldid
• White-rumped Vulture^oldid

The usages were removed by dropping in ((cite journal)) and having your bot re-flesh them, which lost a lot of detail, such as links. See:

• diff && diff and
• User talk:Shyamal#Egyptian Vulture && White-rumped Vulture

110.139.190.67 (talk) 05:42, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

		The Template Barnstar
		((cite pmid)) and it's related templates is possibly the best thing to happen to the universe since sliced bread bread. Awesome job! WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 23:19, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Hey there, Martin Glad to see you again! I'm actually working on a couple projects. The one I'm stuck on could probably use your help-- it's the User:Bob the Wikipedian/Birdbox. It's got a problem with frequent line breaks. If you can help sort it out, that'd be awesome; I've been stuck on that for a few months now and hadn't gotten around to asking anyone for help yet. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:37, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

You've fixed the formerly buggy test case! Thanks! And a very interesting solution, I might add. Probably a good idea to include the question marks like that instead of omitting the line. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:11, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 21:46, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Any ideas how to suppress math? If I enter a hyphen in one of those parameters, it gets interpreted as subtraction. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:20, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

((User:Bob the Wikipedian/Birdbox
|pop1=Bare-fronted Hoodwink
|data1=((User:Bob the Wikipedian/Birdbox/population|unit=in|length=5-10))
))

Well I fixed the range issue.... Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 23:52, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Great. I see there's a new error; I'll have a look at that now. Here is the documentation page, where I've included the sample box that this template's being designed around per Shyalmal's request; my goal is for it to display that correctly at a minimum. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:28, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Found out ((convert)) is a fairly heavy template, and is even heavier when used on a range. I'm sure there's a better way to do it, but I can't see it being transcluded as a parameter of any templates, so it works for me. Thanks for your assistance! Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:40, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for uploading File:Ausia2.jpg. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright and licensing status. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously. It may be deleted soon, unless we can verify that it has an acceptable license status and a verifiable source. Please add this information by editing the image description page. You may refer to the image use policy to learn what files you can or cannot upload on Wikipedia. The page on copyright tags may help you to find the correct tag to use for your file. If the file is already gone, you can still make a request for undeletion and ask for a chance to fix the problem.

Please also check any other files you may have uploaded to make sure they are correctly tagged. Here is a list of your uploads.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thanks again for your cooperation. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 15:17, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Could you send me a copy of the PDF about the Kimmeridge ammonite egg sac you used as a reference in Aulacostephanus. My email is saint_abyssal at yahoo. It would really help me alot! Thanks. Abyssal (talk) 23:39, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Check your inbox. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 13:38, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

THANKS <3 Abyssal (talk) 19:33, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Template:All time 200px has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. — This, that, and the other (talk) 02:50, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

New Orleans Wikimedia Hackathon
Hi, Smith609/Archives. I'd like to invite you to come to the New Orleans Hackathon 2011. It's an opportunity for MediaWiki developers and Wikimedia operations engineers to come together to work on advancing Wikimedia's tools and infrastructure, focusing on Wikimedia Labs (starting with the dev-ops virtualization cluster), and to train and to squash bugs. The theme of this event: "the infrastructure of innovation". We're going to improve and discuss the Wikimedia Labs projects infrastructure and other stuff that makes it easier for anyone to supercharge Wikimedia with awesomeness. We're going to work on our gadgets/extensions/tools support, authorization/authentication strategy, dev-ops virtualization, and general training and hacking. It's mostly going to be dev sprints and bugsmashing, with some discussion and workshops. The event is open to anyone who wants to come and contribute, and is an opportunity to spend time with senior MediaWiki developers & ops engineers, write beautiful code, and learn about the latest developments. If you can make it to New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, 14-16 October 2011, we'd love to have you. Please add your name to the attendees list. Thanks! Sumanah (talk) 20:23, 24 August 2011 (UTC) (Volunteer Development Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation)

Sumanah (talk) 21:29, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

When I try to use this Convert Refs button (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Smith609/reftool.js), the button sends me to a blank page:

The blank page is http://toolserver.org/~verisimilus/Scholar/Refs.php

I just added this button, since the citation bot pages recommended it. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:16, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, I think that it was too buggy so I disabled it. Sorry. Perhaps you could update this wherever you found the details? Thanks. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 17:51, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Greetings. I was wondering if you would be willing to unleash Citation bot against the articles in WikiProject United States? I think most of the articles are good to go but I would like for the bot to take care of any problems it can. I have asked some other bots to do runs through as well. Please let me know if you have any questions or need me to do anything. --Kumioko (talk)

If they are in a category, that will be easy. If not, I will need a list of the names of the articles to be scanned. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 16:31, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Is there a way to look up who activated the bot for a specific edit? This concerns an ANI thread regarding Leandrod (talk · contribs). N419BH 05:44, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Recently, manually-activated edits contain the given username in the edit summary (if there are enough available characters). Note that it is not impossible to supply a false username. In previous revisions this function was broken. What is the edit in question? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 15:55, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

What's the regex you use to clean those googlebooks url with Citation Bot? I'd like to implement it in User:CitationCleanerBot. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:49, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Feel free to check out the source code; if you can't find it I'll try to dig it out when I've more time. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 15:38, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I could probably decipher that over the course of a few weeks. What I really need to know is what "parts" of the URL I need to throw out. E.g. in [21], the bot changed

• http://books.google.com/books?id=190DAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA288&dq=Cyclopaedia+of+American+Biography+Oliver+Hazard+Perry&hl=en&ei=oaCeTIjVHsOdnwe37ty6DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

to

• http://books.google.com/books?id=190DAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA288&dq=Cyclopaedia+of+American+Biography+Oliver+Hazard+Perry#v=onepage&q&f=false

So basically I can throw out &hl, &ei, &sa, &oi, &ct, &resnum, &ved, &source, &ots, &sig, &sqi, and possibly more... It's the "possibly more" that I'm curious about, so I'm wondering if you had a comprehensive list of stuff to keep/throw out. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:10, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually I found your list (in DOItools.php, function google_book_expansion). I'll be able to implement this rather easily. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:30, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Great! (-: Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:03, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Found "&cad=" which also seems useless. I can't find anything on this one, nor do I see any difference in output. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:18, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

BTW, "&ct=" is not safe to remove. Compare

• http://books.google.com/books?id=HxANIW36CfIC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=%22harmonic+dualism%22+Oettingen&ct=result#PPA23,M1

with

• http://books.google.com/books?id=HxANIW36CfIC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=%22harmonic+dualism%22+Oettingen

Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:28, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

However it seems you can remove it if there's no #PPA... after, though. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:50, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

It's what comes after the # that counts. cf.:

• http://books.google.com/books?id=HxANIW36CfIC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=%22harmonic+dualism%22+Oettingen&ct=result#PPA23,M1
• http://books.google.com/books?id=HxANIW36CfIC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=%22harmonic+dualism%22+Oettingen#PPA23,M1

It took me a while to figure this out when implementing citation bot. Are you sure that you're not reinventing the wheel here? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:21, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmmmm... I think this was due me clicking the url in the diff window. It changes the # to a %23 if you click the url in the diff, but not if you click it in reading/editing mode. Weird. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:22, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps you could offer a suggestion at Wikipedia_talk:Ambassadors#Student_activity_notifications where your name was brought up? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 18:49, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Per this, I blocked the bot for a while - apparently it's malfunctioning. Just thought I'd let you know. m.o.p 23:37, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Anwar al-Awlaki was edited by Citation_bot and in this change it inserted a bunch of |unused_data= parameters. What is this unused_data parameter for, and where is it documented? —Anomalocaris (talk) 05:16, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

It is data that is within the citation template but not used. Please replace the parameter with the correct one (e.g. |accessdate=), or delete it. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:02, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Smith609. You have new messages at DamianZaremba's talk page.
Message added 01:12, 2 October 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((Talkback)) or ((Tb)) template.

- Damian Zaremba ^{(talk • contribs)} 01:12, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I used the citation bot on the Romanian language Wikipedia and an administrator told me to ask for approval, otherwise I will be blocked. I did it at ro:Wikipedia:Robot/Cereri de aprobare. Perhaps it is a better idea that you introduce yourself the bot on that wiki. I don't know much about bots and I think you can solve whatever problems may appear or update the bot in the future. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:48, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I'd be delighted for you to use the bot at the Romanian wiki, and wish you luck getting approval from their bureaucrats! I am hoping to press ahead with international language support in the next few months, so do keep in touch. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 15:34, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Smith609. I've worked for some time on User:Philcha/Essays/Advice for new Wikipedia editors. I'm to approach the subject from the viewpoint of a new editor possibly seeing WP for the first time - in other words I think it must be one easy step at a time, starting from the new editor's starting position. I take WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR seriously, but am trying to make the whole process easier for the new editor. So I: use an informal style; emphasise techniques and tools that help new editors' work to be productive and pleasant; give the basis of the main policies and how to get advice about them; but not overload new editors with loads of details on policies, etc. I hope the essay will be worth publishing in main space, and even get a link for from the main "Welcome". Could you please comment at User talk:Philcha/Essays/Advice for new Wikipedia editors. --Philcha (talk) 21:16, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Hey, this is sort of a random question. Do you have any recommendations for getting brachiopods identified? The interpretive canter I work for has a number of specimens labeled as "Three Forks Formation, Cardwell, Montana" that have very well preserved brachipods and occasional bivalves which I think would be useful to WP and good additions to the centers collections. Thanks for any advice. --Kevmin § 01:28, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

My first stop would be to check out a nearby natural history museum: many of these offer fossil identification clinics. Otherwise, if you can arrange access to a university library, I would see what material they have available. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 16:21, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Im actually the collections manager at the local Natural history museum, but Devonian marine life is a bit beyond my expertise (Eocene upland taxa). I have checked google scholar but not found any relevant papers on the Three Forks formation. --Kevmin § 18:55, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Hello Martin, You may remember I am active in WikiProject Gastropods. In that project we are using Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005 as our standard taxonomy. The B&R taxonomy claims to cover fossil gastropods as well as extant ones, but I think most paleontologists are still using the taxons that are set out in the Treatise instead of those in the B&R paper. Do you have any suggestions for what might be the best way to handle these conflicting systems? For example, I see we currently have two articles, one on Pleurotomarioidea and one on Pleurotomariacea. It does not seem quite right for us to insist that B&R takes preference, but if not, then what? Thanks for any suggestions you might have, Invertzoo (talk) 14:35, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Template:For loop 6 has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. — This, that, and the other (talk) 09:40, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

I see you have been adding external links to the Virtual Museum of Canada to a number of Burgess Shale articles. Firstly, you should be aware that external links should be placed after References (WP:GTL). Secondly, you appear to have created a number of short articles with no incoming links; I have tagged a few, but I am sure there are others. "Building the web" is one of Wikipedia's core principles, so please help by linking to these articles from related articles. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:01, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Template:Don't edit this line authority has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Bulwersator (talk) 09:07, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

In this edit, with the explanation "trim", you changed (({1))} to ((1x|(({1))))} in ((Species list/core)). I can't see that it makes any difference (I've tried a version in my user space). What am I missing? Just curious! Peter coxhead (talk) 12:35, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

If you use the format {Species list/core | [Note the space here] text}, then using {1} will preserve the whitespace; using {1x|1={1} } will trim the whitespace. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 17:08, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Hello Smith609. I have been working with a copy of taxobot on basque wikipedia, but the results are not very good. Could it be possible to use it in the Basque Wikipedia without having to re-upload it to a server? -Theklan (talk) 15:18, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

You'd have to spell out exactly what the problem was for me to be able to help. The bot has to be run from a server (or home machine with PHP installed) somewhere. Let me know what I can do to assist. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 16:41, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that it made this. But, for example, our "refresh" button here points to your bot but, of course, it makes the changes on en:wp and not on eu:wp. Maybe it would be possible to run it on eu:wp so it can refresh all the child taxa we have made, that are more than nowadays on en:wp. -Theklan (talk) 05:28, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

I have updated the dead links in the doc of this template. --Cameta (talk) 16:15, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear Martin,

At the time you kindly agreed to make Citation bot run at the Hebrew Wikipedia as well, if I see to it that it gets an approval. To be on the safe side, I took it to the local Village Pump. Everyone agreed and the discussion is now archived. To fill in a formal request for a bot flag I'd need to know the bot's username and the software it is using. Does it currently work anywhere else than the English Wikipedia? Thanks, ליאור • Lior (talk) 08:47, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Palaeontology for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 19:50, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Template:Authority of has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Bulwersator (talk) 22:58, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for uploading File:Charnia.png. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, please add a link to the page from which it was taken, together with a brief restatement of the website's terms of use of its content. If the original copyright holder is a party unaffiliated with the website, that author should also be credited. Please add this information by editing the image description page.

If the necessary information is not added within the next days, the image will be deleted. If the file is already gone, you can still make a request for undeletion and ask for a chance to fix the problem.

Please refer to the image use policy to learn what images you can or cannot upload on Wikipedia. Please also check any other files you have uploaded to make sure they are correctly tagged. Here is a list of your uploads. If you have any questions or are in need of assistance please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Magog the Ogre (talk) 06:57, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Martin, hope you're having a great year so far. I am going through and deleting erroneously created Child taxa templates...are the ones that have two slashes after "Child taxa" errors? I checked a few of them, and the ones I checked were all from July, so I'm inclined to think so. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:56, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Almost certainly. In a couple of weeks I hope to have time for a little coding, so I'll start catching up with the backlog of things waiting for me! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 10:58, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Great; I'll see if I can figure out how to do a deli-batch on those. That should be a fun project for the day. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:09, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I've added a rule to the MediaWiki:Titleblacklist that ought to cover most of the erroneous titles; you think that'll work? Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:45, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

could you fix the template loop in this one? thank you. Frietjes (talk) 21:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Hello, Smith609/Archives. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((You've got mail)) or ((ygm)) template.

UOJComm (talk) 23:34, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi, and thanks for the useful User:Smith609/toolbox.js. It seems to have a bug, in that the links it provides are currently of the form http://stats.grok.se/en/201212/ArticleName rather than (as would be correct for this month) http://stats.grok.se/en/201201/ArticleName. Is this fixable? Regards,  Sandstein  18:54, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer. There's now a function to see the last 30 days' history so I've linked to this instead. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 20:05, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, that's great! While you're at it, a very minor annoyance: In my Firefox browser (in the default Vector skin) the links provided ("Traffic stats", "Edit history stats", "Page watchers") are in a larger font than the other contents of the sidebar. This may be due to different CSS classes that apply to the content produced by your tool (class="pBody" rather than class="body", as far as I can tell...)  Sandstein  20:34, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

My apologies for the non-personalized note; I've got several people to contact here. We're looking for administrators who would be willing to be interviewed by students as a part of Wikipedia's WP:United States Education Program. Dr. Jonathan Obar is teaching the course, and it's a study in how Wikipedia is governed and how administrators are selected. If you're not interested, you may either ignore this invitation or remove your name from the list of admins we've contacted. Thanks, Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:03, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

refsByName.js doesn't work on Chrome or Firefox. Do you know what it would take to update it to work with current browsers and the current MediaWiki version? —danhash (talk) 21:24, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Smith609. The Citation Bot seems to have stopped working. When I attempt to use it, I get a message 403 - user account expired. If you could look into this, it would be great. Thanks. --Dianna (talk) 00:47, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

And I as well. Hope you're back soon and can look into the expired Toolserver account. Miss the tool! Geoff ^{Who, me?} 22:05, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Ditto. B.Rossow · talk 15:03, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Yet another ditto. Rcsprinter (yak) 17:05, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Same here! Wingman4l7 (talk) 00:07, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry about the interruption — My home laptop needs repair so I missed the "account renewal window". All is back running thanks to the kind guys at the Toolserver! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 01:31, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks for fixing it! Wingman4l7 (talk) 02:11, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

It seems to be having problems again...I've left a note on the bot talk page. Thanks for all your work. ~Adjwilley (talk) 20:42, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi Smith609. I've been asked to contact you on behalf of the Simple English Wikipedia to ask whether it would be possible to write up a version of Citation bot for our project. I noticed on toolserver that you'd written you accept such request, does that still stand? I realise you're probably busy with real life, and there's no reason for any hurry. I've watchlisted your talk page in anticipation of your response. Thank you, Osiris (talk) 00:47, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Dear Smith609, (your name was posted HERE by another admin).

My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, were it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.

So a few things about the interviews:

• Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
• Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
• All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
• All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
• The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.

Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead.

If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.

Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) 17:58, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Dear Smith609, (your name was posted HERE by another admin).

My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, were it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.

So a few things about the interviews:

• Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
• Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
• All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
• All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
• The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.

Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead.

If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.

Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) 17:58, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

		The Bio-star
		Thank you for creating the new Hyolithellus article, and for improving Wikipedia's coverage of Biology-related topics. Northamerica1000(talk) 12:18, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Hello! Wilhelmina Will has given you some cookies. Cookies promote WikiLove and hopefully these have made your day better. Happy munching! Spread the goodness of cookies by adding ((subst:plate)) to someone's talk page, or eat these cookies on the giver's talk page with ((subst:munchplate)).

Wilhelmina Will (talk) 10:37, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Would it be possible to add a noedit option to the cite pmid template? Decstop (talk) 22:35, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Done. Please update the documentation! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:37, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Done. Thanks. Decstop (talk) 01:48, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

We were trying to import your system of taxobox templates to Catalan Wikipedia, but as you can see, we have problems in the article ca:Traquimedusa. Can you see what is wrong? Thanks. 88.19.141.168 (talk) 00:46, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Martin, if you're around, please see User_talk:Bob_the_Wikipedian#Introduction_to_the_automated_taxobox_system. Thanks. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:40, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Template:COinS has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. -— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:30, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Template:Citation metadata has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. -— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:30, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Template:Citation parameter legend has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. -— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:45, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I am cleaning out citation templates. Looks like you have created a few that I don't see an immediate purpose for:

• Template:Cite conference/citation

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:04, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

The web address http://wikidashboard.parc.com/wiki is no longer.

New address is: https://wikidashboard.appspot.com/enwiki/wiki

Bgwhite (talk) 22:41, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

 – Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:02, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi there, Smith609. I believe you might be interested in this discussion: Talk:Motion capture#Merge from Optical motion tracking. Cheers, Waldir ^talk 13:04, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Hello, Smith609. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 46#Citation Bot cleanup.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((Talkback)) or ((Tb)) template.

Apparently the citation bot is not operational, in either mode. Could you please check? I know some other wiki scripts were crippled by the recent update. Regards. Materialscientist (talk) 04:05, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Is it better now? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:01, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Since I posted this, I could use the bot on some articles and not on others (like Tanka people - sort of timeout, the process starts and never ends). This could be caused my multiple reasons, and I will add something if I get a hint. Regards. Materialscientist (talk) 00:37, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

This problem is becoming regular, that is, when I try to use the bot in manual mode (via gadgets, "citations" button, to preview te output) on an article like African military systems (1800–1900), the page hangs up to timeout. If I stop the process then the page edit "locks", i.e. have to reload the page for editing it. Materialscientist (talk) 04:56, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

The cenozoic graphical timeline has a serious problem. The messinian salinity crisis is not clickable. I think it has something to do with nudge-up=-1. 204.191.162.48 (talk) 04:47, 20 March 2012 (UTC)  Fixed. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 20:33, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

If you have time, please see User talk:Peter coxhead#The old taxobox template? where I was asked about porting the taxobox template to the Norwegian WP. You may be able to help better than I can. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:40, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Wishing Smith609/Archives/ a very happy birthday on behalf of the Birthday Committee! Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{Let's talk}_{about my edits?} 22:09, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Check the edit history of Template:Cite pmc/1691546, continuously creating double redirect or simply breaking the redirect in the most recent case. 174.56.57.138 (talk) 03:07, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Greetings, I was just wondering what I would need to do to unleash Citation bot on the articles within WikiProject United States. Is there a special way to do that? --Kumioko (talk) 20:17, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Are they all in a certain category? If so, there's a way to do that – although I think that the public interface is broken at the moment. Let me know the category name and I'll loose the bot. If not, I can code something if you give me a plain-text list of the article names. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 21:56, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes but the only categories that list all of the WPUS articles are the Quality/Importance categories. You would need to switch from the talk pages to the actual article and then remove the duplicates. If thats not possible I might be able to think of a better way. BTW you could also remove all the non article stuff like templates and categories unless you see a reason to scan through those as well. --Kumioko (talk) 23:04, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

What on earth is going on here? There are edits removing the whole content of pages and leaving nothing but fragments of code [22], giving the following edit summary: "Touching page to update categories. ** THIS EDIT SHOULD PROBABLY BE REVERTED ** as page content will only be changed if there was an edit conflict." This has happened on several pages which have all been turned into identical gobbledegook. Paul B (talk) 16:25, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

• Smith609, I previously asked you to disable this task until you obtained approval for it. So, since your bot is malfunctioning AND performing tasks without approval, I have blocked it until you obtain approval for this task or confirm that it has been disabled. –xeno^talk 16:48, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I thought that this was fixed. I'll investigate. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:31, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Hello Smith609. We are working on the Joint attention article as part of the Wikipedia Canada Education Program. We are hoping that this Bot will be able to edit our citations for us. I have tried to start the Bot and I got the following results:

Activated by LianneAnna Expanding 'Joint attention'; will commit edits. Revision #418 [00:00:00] Processing page 'Joint attention' — edit—history

- switch to cite id format is supported.
* Looking for bare references... 
* Tidying reference tags... 
  - No duplicate references to combine.
  - No duplicate references to combine.
** No changes required.
# # # 

End of output

  # # #

I am not sure what these results mean and I cannot find any changes in our references. I am unfamiliar with Bots and I was hoping you would be able to advise me on how to correct any errors I made. LianneAnna (talk) 05:14, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

If you want to get the benefits of citation bot, you need to use citation templates such as ((citation)) (or alternatively, ((cite journal))((cite book))). For example, instead of writing

<ref>Striano, T., & Stahl, D. (2005). Sensitivity to triadic attention in early infancy. Developmental Science, 8(4), 333-343.</ref><nowiki></code> :write ::<code><nowiki><ref>((citation |last1=Striano |first1=T. |last2=Stahl |first2=D. |year=2005 |title=Sensitivity to triadic attention in early infancy |journal=[[Developmental Science]] |volume=8 |issue=4 |pages=333-343))</ref>

which will give

Striano, T.; Stahl, D. (2005), "Sensitivity to triadic attention in early infancy", Developmental Science, 8 (4): 333–343

The next time you run the bot, the citation will be updated to something like

<ref>((citation |last1=Striano |first1=T. |last2=Stahl |first2=D. |year=2005 |title=Sensitivity to triadic attention in early infancy |journal=[[Developmental Science]] |volume=8 |issue=4 |pages=333–343 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-7687.2005.00421.x |pmid=15985067))</ref>

which will give

Striano, T.; Stahl, D. (2005), "Sensitivity to triadic attention in early infancy", Developmental Science, 8 (4): 333–343, doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2005.00421.x, PMID 15985067

I hope that helps. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 07:11, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Tweaked above.LeadSongDog come howl! 13:42, 21 March 2012 (UTC)