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Revision as of 00:07, 5 October 2011

Bot delinking Acre

I reinstated this wikilink at Palace of Whitehall, with the needs of the project's international readership in mind, but the 'bot countermanded me. I think that acre should be linked wherever it appears, but I'm only concerned with being reverted at this page just now. I have a very vague recollection that 'bots weren't supposed to revert real editors, but I may be wrong on this. --Old Moonraker (talk) 09:55, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

• Whilst I might be inclined to agree with you that a link to this rather 'parochial' unit may be desirable as a word that is not universally well known, the fact that the bot inserts {{convert}} template, which gives other alternative measurements (e.g. hectares or sq km) means that it is unlikely to be misunderstood as something else. Linking would appear to be superfluous. --Ohconfucius 10:03, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry you got reverted. Some mass fixes of technical issues are one-off, or very rare and are therefore unlikely to do that. Tackling units of measure is a janitorial job that has to go on all the time so it's unfortunately more likely. I think the consensus is that a link is less necessary in the presence of a conversion than without. That doesn't mean a link shouldn't be present at all. Just so we're clear, can you confirm that you want 'acre' to be linked always, with and without conversions? Lightmouse (talk) 10:08, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt response. Yes, my point was that it's sufficiently obscure to merit a link, and no, it's silly if I'm advocating an exception for just one page. On reflection I'm suggesting that acre should keep its link on all pages. --Old Moonraker (talk) 10:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the word 'acre' is obscure. It's actually a fairly common word in English texts. However, I definitely think it's difficult for metric readers to visualise in the absence of a conversion. That's why I think 'acre' should always have a conversion. We know from web statistics that low-added-value links don't get clicks. A link to 'acre' in that article is one of the lowest value links it has. I'm fairly sure it won't get clicked. However, I've updated the article to give acre a link. I'll have a think about what to do next with the bot based on your welcome feedback. Lightmouse (talk) 10:53, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion.

Hello,

An article you have helped edit, Confirmation and overclaiming of aerial victories during World War II (which was formerly entitled "Confirmation and overclaiming of aerial victories") has been proposed for deletion.

Georgejdorner (talk) 17:29, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Russian battleship Sevastopol (1895) again at Featured article candidacies

Hey Lightmouse, I see you were a reviewer at one of Sevastopol's many reviews. As it's last FAC was closed due to low participation, I"d like you to come and review it for it's current FAC, in order to get a better picture of its current situation. Thanks, Buggie111 (talk) 02:17, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Dynamic conversion deemed bug.

I question the benefit of using {{convert}} to do dynamic conversion of (e.g.) km to miles (as you have done in various articles), especially where the equvialent has already been provided. Such conversions need to be done only once, not every time an article is generated. And if an editor feels a "round" number is appropriate then you should not be unilaterally replacing it without prior discussion. – J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:38, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for contacting me. I welcome feedback. Just on the technical side of things, can you clarify what you mean by:

• "conversions need to be done only once, not every time an article is generated"

? Lightmouse (talk) 22:43, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree, and I don't think there is support for rolling out {{convert}} on articles that have already been manually converted, and I don't think Lightbot has approval to do this, and this is a deceptive edit summary. Hesperian 23:36, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

It's generally known that template conversions are more reliable than manual conversions. But many editors, possibly including yourselves are unaware of just how frequent the errors are. For example, at least two of the four articles reverted by user:Johnson contained errors that were fixed by the template. The general error rate isn't as high as that but they're significant. Humans just aren't as good at arithmetic as computers. Arithmetic errors are almost undetectable by human editors. I've seen some that have been there for years. There are also many format defects and inconsistencies.

I note the comment: "conversions need to be done only once, not every time an article is generated". Is that the source of your unhappiness with templates? Lightmouse (talk) 00:03, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

My watchlist is full of these diffs, as far as I can tell you're simply doing a mass rollout of the {{convert}} template under a deceptive edit summary. I'm blocking. Hesperian 00:06, 5 October 2011 (UTC)