User talk:Mlaffs/Archives/2016/March

User:Debresser‎ has changed all the {{Complete}} templates on the "List of radio stations in [state]" pages to {{Complete list}} templates. This template, along with the other, does not have the day listed, just the month and year. If the day is added to either template, AnomieBOT (or Debresser) removes it.

The reason for the change that I was given by Debresser, is because the day messes up the categorization. I said the categorization code should fixed on a 100+ templates than changing template codes a couple million pages. I was give the standard "this way makes more sense" line.

So, since it is change is completely silly, I went through all of the "List of radio stations in [state]" pages and manually added the following in place of the Complete or Complete List templates: "This list is complete and up-to-date as of [Month] [Day], [Year]." The date added was the date listed before the template switch. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 12:27, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Good work around — I noticed the dates go away originally, but I hadn't realized that a bot was coming in behind to keep removing any I added back. Looks like {{Complete}} was actually renamed to {{Complete list}} a few years ago, so they've been sitting there as redirects. The recent change that appears to have caused the problem was the addition of the Articles containing potentially dated statements maintenance category a week ago, which hadn't been there before. That category structure only goes down to year and month, so I can see how day would bugger it up.

I've dropped a note on the talk page of the guy who added the maintenance category (not the same user you talked to), who's a very long-standing and reasonable editor, to see if he had any thoughts about how we get the level of specificity we had before while giving them the goal of being able to leverage the maintenance categories. I'm sure there's probably a pretty good reason why he wanted to activate those on this template. I'll let you know what he says. Mlaffs (talk) 13:40, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I noticed the switch yesterday and figured it was just someone tinkering templates. When the user and the BOT came in, I figured it was best to go template-less.

While reading your reply, I came up with a potential template idea. We could have a Complete template for radio (and TV if they use it) only. {{Complete radio}} (or Complete radioTV if it is used on TV stations) would be the name, and it would have the month, day and year. That way we have our own categorization, no manual workarounds necessary and everyone is happy. What do you think? - Neutralhomer • Talk • 14:13, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I suspect it'd get TfD'd pretty quickly, as a merge that duplicates an existing template. Let's see if Rich comes back with an idea for a fix first. Mlaffs (talk) 16:29, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I figured that might be going a little overboard, but figured it wouldn't hurt to throw it out there. :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:33, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Calton came through and readded all the templates back. He isn't supposed to be anywhere near my edits per an order from waaay back when, but looks like he forgot that.

I honestly don't have the patience for Debresser and Calton's bull this morning, so I'm going to leave it up to you. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 13:55, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Please be notified that the edits of Neutralhomer are disruptive. This is not a beautiful workaround, it is impediment of technically superior edits by an incompetent editor. He was been warned that repeating his behavior will lead to him being blocked.

As you correctly noticed, the full name of the {{Complete}} template is indeed {{Complete list}}, and as all (no exceptions) maintenance template, is takes and should take, only month and year. Day parameters are not accepted in maintenance templates. Debresser (talk) 16:11, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

First of all, I'm not sure what the piped link to a TV station in South Carolina is about, but whatever. Second of all, can we walk back the personal attack, please? I don't need it on my page, and you appear to have been around long enough to know better. And even if it weren't insulting and unnecessary, it's not even accurate. Neutralhomer is a long-standing, productive editor — both a content creator and a solid gnome. He also gets his back up from time to time, and reacts strongly when he feels a decision is the wrong one. Sometimes, that escalates into something more. I'm fairly confident that's what happened here.

I know that maintenance templates only take month and year. However, {{Complete list}} has been a maintenance template for all of a week. Prior to that, it had existed on the pages in question for years, providing a very specific point in time to which the lists were accurate. When the "potentially dated statements" category was added and it was turned into a maintenance template, that specificity broke the maintenance structure, and everything since has been what I would describe as a pretty blunt effort to get the template to work within the maintenance structure, rather than seeing if there was another solution that didn't break the template. And by blunt, I mean edits that remove the month and date and just leave the month, with an edit summary of "Remove too vague", which is the exact opposite of the effect of the edit. By blunt, I mean an edit that re-introduces errors in the list content itself, as did one that I had to revert this morning. That's why I had dropped by @Rich Farmbrough:'s page, to see if he had any thoughts on a solution. Last I knew, he was taking a look to see if he could come up with something.

In the meantime, yes, I thought Neutralhomer's replacement of the template with bare text was a good "workaround" — a short-term solution to the problem that ought to have been able to buy us some time while we figured out a permanent solution. Instead, all I'm seeing is drama, and it's just keeping all of us from getting real work done around here. Mlaffs (talk) 23:37, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

The template still supports the un-named parameter. Ideally invocations should have both, the text to show and the month to categorise by. I have added support that if the text is left out, it uses the month-to-categorise-by.

The easiest fix is to reinstate the full date (where needed). I would whip up a script to automate this, but I am currently not permitted to do this.   It is certainly less than or equal to the work involved in changing the template to text.

It is possible to have code to support allowing the full date in the date field, and indeed I added this - as a belt-and-braces. Until we have achieved clarity that this is not a clean up template, at least in the same way as most clean up templates, there is some resistance to this code.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:12, 23 December 2015 (UTC).

Thanks, Rich — I'll take a look at the template code to figure out how to use it, but that sounds like a resolution that should satisfy everyone, and I'm surprised not in the least that you were able to come up with it.  

It's only about 70 list pages that were affected by this, at least so far as the ones I work with regularly. Easy enough to handle that by hand without a script. Mlaffs (talk) 00:23, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I noticed Rich's edit to the template here and if no one has any objects (pinging Debresser), I can update the templates on the "List of radio stations in [State]" pages with the same layout. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 00:32, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I just tested it on Alabama, and it worked fine. Leave the updating to me, NH — my holiday gift before I go offline and do the family thing for the rest of the week.   Mlaffs (talk) 00:37, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

My left hand thanks you. :) It's been hurting all day where I had carpal tunnel surgery last year. Merry Christmas! :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 00:41, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Using Rich's coding tweak, I've restored the dates to all of the lists that I've interacted with enough to have reasonable certainty that the specificity is accurate. There are a few hundred others that could also be restored, but I'm not jumping on those this evening. Mlaffs (talk) 01:59, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Awesome! Hopefully this makes everyone happy and we don't have to address this again later on. :) Enjoy your Christmas break. Hopefully you have actual Christmas-type weather and not the 74F (around 23C) we have forecast down here. :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:56, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Just a note, to let all of you know that although I am very much unconvinced that this is a good idea, I will not actively oppose it either. Debresser (talk) 07:36, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Hello. Please delete User:Avocato/vector.css and User:Avocato/vector.js for me.--Avocato (talk) 01:55, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Done. Mlaffs (talk) 02:04, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Hey Mlaffs, could you correct this mess for me? Normally I would but I had carpal tunnel surgery on my right hand on Friday and I seriously overdid it today and I'm paying for it right now. Luckily, I can still type (sorta) with my left. :) Thanks in advance. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 04:49, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

 

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