See also: User talk:Topbanana/Archive_1, User talk:Topbanana/Archive_2, User talk:Topbanana/Archive 3

please can you return the article kingston hospital radio to my sandbox. i do not understand what you mean by redirects etc, and I find the wikipedia guidelines confusing and complicated. i work for the charity involved so am not sure how why i don't seem to be able to use our content. all i need is for someone to say do this, don't do this in relation to my article. if necessary i will move it to a special page. thanks.

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Scotland Map.png, 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. Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:51, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Scotland Map (Firth of Clyde Detail).png, 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. Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:52, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Topbanana. You have new messages at Staeiou's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Hey just wanted to drop a line in thanks for deleting the redirect on the page I moved. I'm stil having trouble understanding the deletion process but i'll get it sorted eventually! Thanks again - Pereirab04 (talk) 01:50, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that {{convert}}, when used to convert kg → lb, requires an extra rounding parameter when used in infoboxes for people, and probably also in many other cases. This is documented in {{Infobox sportsperson}}. I've fixed a few that happen to be on my watchlist, but no doubt a great many more will need fixing also.

More generally, the biggest problem with this template is that people use it without appreciating the need to get the rounding right. I suspect there are hundreds, maybe thousands of such errors out there - not a problem I have time to investigate and fix properly at the moment <shudder>.

--NSH001 (talk) 23:56, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ta for the heads-up. My corrections were to address broken entries such as 62 Kg^{[convert: unknown unit]} ( {{convert|62|Kg|lb}} ). My own inclination was to 62 kilograms (9 st 11 lb) ( {{convert|62|kg|stlb}} ), but I understand 62 kilograms (137 lb) ( {{convert|62|kg|lb|0}} ) to be the recommended use. - TB (talk) 08:02, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

) – SJ + 22:18, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

- - - - - - - - - - - - WikiProject Education in India - - - - - - - - - - - -
Hi, Topbanana, you are graciously extended an invitation to join the Indian Education ! The WikiProject Indian Education is an evolving and expanding WikiProject. We are a group of editors who are dedicated to creating, revising, and expanding articles, lists, categories and Wikiprojects, to do with anything related to Indian Education System(Schools,Colleges and Universities).
As you have shown an interest in article related to Education in India we thought you might like to take an interest in this growing WikiProject.Thank you for your contributions.
We look forward to welcoming you to the project!

naveenpf (talk) 11:32, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Topbanana! I hope you enjoy this cookie as an amicable greeting from a fellow Wikipedian, SwisterTwister talk 08:04, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yum! - TB (talk) 08:05, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The band Dr. Steel mentioned on the page about former Yugoslav band Heller is a Croatian heavy metal band, with no connection with the American musician to which Doctor Steel (band) redirects to. Ostalocutanje (talk) 11:31, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers. I've modified the red link to Dr. Steel (Croatian band) for now to (hopefully) avoid future confusion. - TB (talk) 13:22, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The tool you're using is resolving redlinks in a way that makes the content visible to readers incorrect. Hyphen and en-dash aren't equivalent—they have distinct meanings and in many cases your changes are going from right to wrong. If you think that the hyphenated-form target is correct, then please use a piped link so that the visible text remains the en-dash. In many cases, the hyphenated form is already just a redirect, so may as well pipe the actual page-target instead of switching to hyphenated. Otherwise you could create the en-dashed form as a redirect so that anyone looking for that (correct) name could find the right page. But the whole redlink problem requires some manual consideration, since this one is correct (the use of hyphen).DMacks (talk) 14:45, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Howdy DMacks. I'll put my hand up and say that I don't really understand the difference in meaning between nine different midline Unicode dashes (my fave being the "Coptic capital-letter dialect-p ni" whose name itself contains two other different types of midline dashes). What I do beleive is that, for the most part, "Trans-Kalahari Highway" is more useful to our average reader than "Trans﹘Kalahari Highway", regardless of which is the more correct. If someone wiser in the ways of punctuation that I has the time and inclination to rename articles and update links to them, I'll be delighted. - TB (talk) 15:08, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That one was a good fix. I have no idea what that character in Trans﹘Kalahari Highway is. But don't replace en dash with hyphen unless you know it's correct. Moving an article or redirect is often the better fix (but not always, so you have to know what you're doing!). Dicklyon (talk) 20:48, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have reverted and fixed a number of your en dash changes. Please do not do such things if you don't understand what you're doing. Fixing the redlink by breaking the text is a step backwards. Learn more at MOS:DASH. Dicklyon (talk) 20:46, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good job, Dicklyon, and thanks for fixing the muddled hyphens and en- dashes. You're quite right in your assessment that I don't know what I'm doing with regards to the assorted midline Unicode dashes - they're largely identical-looking punctuation marks to my slightly myopic eyes. I would however respectfully disagree that my changes are a "step backwards"; while a casual user of Wikipedia is unlikely to be confused by a slightly longer or shorter than correct dash, a red link might lead them to miss out on finding useful content. Consider perhaps that my changes are in fact a "step forwards", albeit a smaller one than achieved by our combined efforts. I'll continue marrying up links and titles, and you sort out the typographics and between us we'll improve the encyclopedia. - TB (talk) 21:30, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, just noticed this on DL's contribs list. Could I add my voice to his advice that en dashes should be preserved (and indeed introduced) where appropriate. I noticed one for an airport that did look like the right change to a hyphen, though. Any help you need, please ask. Tony (talk) 21:39, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thinking this through, the assumption driving my (assuredly unintentionally) contentious edits is that article titles are correct and that article text should be adjusted to match them where they were the intended target of a link. Of course, this isn't always a good assumption. Reading MOS:DASH, a rough and ready rule of thumb would be that an article title should be assumed 'incorrect' if:

• It contains any hyphens or
• It contains an en-dash that is not bounded by spaces (excepting the ‐ article itself of course) or
• It contains an em-dash that is bounded by a pair of either spaces or Arabic numerals

Ignoring the other midline dashes {Hyphen-minus (-), non-breaking hyphen (‑), figure dash (‒), small em dash (﹘), hyphen bullet (⁃), modifier letter minus sign (˗), and Coptic capital letter dialect-p ni (Ⲻ)}, do these rules seem correct to you dash-experts please? - TB (talk) 22:04, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, that sounds ridiculous. Why would a hyphen be assumed to be incorrect? Why would you think most en dashes would have spaces around them? Dicklyon (talk) 22:09, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dicklyon, I am not trying to sound ridiculous. I am however trying to solicit your constructive input. Perhaps rephrasing my question in more open terms would help. I understand that some article titles containing midline dashes are incorrect with regards to MOS:DASH, and therefore it is not wholly desirable to adjust the text of red links to match them. Is there any easy way to identify these titles? - TB (talk) 22:36, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is no automatic way; you have to understand and then decide what's right, as with most inconsistencies that you'd want to fix. One special case should be easy: if your text has an en dash, and you're thinking of fixing it to a hyphen because there's a redirect by that name, and that redirect goes to an article with an en dash, then it's a good bet that the consistent en dash in the text and in the article title are correct, and you just need a new redirect. I did some of those. Dicklyon (talk) 23:42, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How did you decide to make a new redirect here? Have you ever heard of someone with an en dash in their first name? Why make a redirect where it's wrong, but skip it where it would be right? Flipping a coin? Can you fix please? Dicklyon (talk) 04:15, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And here you put an em dash into a person's name! Wacky! Dicklyon (talk) 05:15, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here I undid 5 bad ones in a row on one article. Pairs of names of different person need an en dash (but two-part names like Lennard-Jones need a hyphen, so be careful). Dicklyon (talk) 05:46, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And here you stuck an em dash between two names! What possesses you to come up with these atrocities? Dicklyon (talk) 06:36, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Morning Dicklyon. In the first case above, the (incorrect? I've no idea) Karl–Heinz Thun was used in three places. Redirecting that title to the article Karl-Heinz Thun marries up all three redlinks with their intended target. This immediately aids readers in finding content; consider it a 'redirect from misspelling' if you will. This in no way precludes you or anyone else who cares about the length of their dashes from tidying things up. In the second case I again have no idea what is 'correct' by way of MOS:DASH and have therefore piped the original text of the red link. Other than the link now taking a reader to the correct article, there is no visual difference. I see you've since removed the piped text, turning this into a natural link - good job. In the third and fourth case, I've made the assumption that the writer of the five articles knew better than I what dashes to use in thier articles. I see you've gone ahead and renamed the five articles, making my changes to links redundant.

Dare I suggest that in each of these cases we've *both* improved matters in our own areas of concern? If my use of dashes is "wacky" or an "atrocity", then so is it wrong that a link be unecessarily red because of a typographic nicety. - TB (talk) 06:57, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have made a number of changes based on the two reports I'm listing below. Please rerun these reports.

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Uncatted stubs
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stubs catted via redirects

Thanks! Dawynn (talk) 11:26, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Done - TB (talk) 11:51, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi TB, I've left a reply to your message on my talk page -- Marek.69 ^talk 20:39, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

hey thanks for pointing me out to the tool as per ES. Will test it out later.--Cerejota ^{If you reply, please place a {{talkback}} in my talk page if I do not reply soon.} 21:04, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Topbanana. You have new messages at Katarighe's talk page.
Message added 22:54, 20 September 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.[reply]

Mohamed Aden Ighe (talk) 22:54, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Topbanana. You have new messages at RP459's talk page.
Message added 05:53, 21 September 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.[reply]

-- RP459 ^Talk/_{Contributions} 05:53, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the link! I actually don't speak Portuguese, I do speak Spanish though. But anyway, thanks for the link like I said. Lighthead ^þ 20:08, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome to use the tool in any language of course ;) You've added 'pt-3' (intermediate Portugese) to the babel tag on your userpage in 2007, hence my message. - TB (talk) 20:25, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Topbanana. You have new messages at Waldir's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Hi, I just found your note on my talk page. I'd be happy to help you, but I wonder if I can. My family is Brazilian on one side and American (USA) on the other. I've been living in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. on and off again since we moved here when I was in primary school, and while DC is truly a melting pot of people, still few speak Portuguese, and I never attended school to learn to read and write in my primary language-- so much was lost! The other problem is that other than editing the Wikipedia(s) and email, I am completely ignorant as to how to really use the internet. However, I'm happy to help in whatever capacity I can! Perhaps I can learn something new, who knows? :) --Leahtwosaints (talk) 01:08, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just wanted to say thank you again for the list of disability links - happily working down them and they are making a difference to the project ;)

as quick feedback, there's some strange results for things like Article/File links - all of the ogg links that the tool turned up were fine... also as a feature request, would it be possible to generate results without the transclusions? The majority of the Olympic results, for example, are all the same transcluded table processed repeatedly... will keep working thought the list :) Failedwizard (talk) 15:54, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Never a problem.

* Red file-namespace links reported (such as the ogg links you describe) are probably showing up because the target exists on commons, but not the English-language Wikipedia. The MediaWiki system's a bit clunky behind the scenes, I'm afraid.

* Determining if a red link arises from on article, a template transcluded by that article or indeed both is not easy I'm afraid. Easier to filter by hand in most cases.

Shout if and when you need the list regenerated. - TB (talk) 16:49, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, thank you very much... out of interest - you mentioned earlier that the code was more-or-less open source - where would I go to have a look at it? More as a case study in how wiki tools work than anything else... Failedwizard (talk) 12:53, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here you go - I really should pop it into SVN, but am a cowboy coder at heart ;) - TB (talk) 13:53, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The article James L. McPherson has been proposed for deletion because, under Wikipedia policy, all newly created biographies of living persons must have at least one reference to a reliable source that directly supports material in the article.

If you created the article, please don't be offended. Instead, consider improving the article. For help on inserting references, see Referencing for beginners, or ask at the help desk. Once you have provided at least one reliable source, you may remove the {{prod blp}} tag. Please do not remove the tag unless the article is sourced. If you cannot provide such a source within ten days, the article may be deleted, but you can request that it be undeleted when you are ready to add one. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:38, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Topbanana, would you mind if I copy User:Topbanana/RLRL SR Utility.js into my userspace and make some small tweaks? Thanks, Hard Boiled Eggs [talk] 11:04, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Of course you can. Let me know what you do with it, I'll be keen to incorporate any improvements. - TB (talk) 12:21, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, duplicated at User:HardBoiledEggs/RLRL SR Utility.js. I'll let you know if I come up with anything suitable for general consumption. Hard Boiled Eggs [talk] 13:30, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, I've noticed that you've sped up the red link tool to the point where it's usable in interactive speed. I was wondering if you'd be interested in improving Dab solver's red link suggestion. It currently does a reasonable job for a typically disambiguation pages, but due to speed constraints (avg<1s, max<15s), it can only search using prefixes in various fixed patterns. This fails with names and similar cases. — Dispenser 21:28, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. You need to valid your HTML and there's XSS attack in RLE (try entering " onclick="alert("Hi")). — Dispenser 21:28, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]