User talk:John of Reading/Archive 28

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Orphaned non-free image File:Mumbai City FC logo.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:Mumbai City FC logo.jpg. 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 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).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 17:26, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Mumbai City FC (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

To whom it may concern: My low-resolution upload, with a white background, was first overwritten by a high-resolution version with a blue background and then replaced, first by File:Mumbai City FC Official Club Crest (1).svg which I have tagged for deletion on Commons, and then by File:Mumbai City FC Official Club Crest.jpg - which has been tagged for downsampling and may have inadequate sourcing. If my upload gets deleted and turns out to be needed after all, it can be undeleted via WP:REFUND, asking the admin to restore the original version not the overwritten version. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:36, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

A Request

Hello mate, hope you doing well. I'm simply requesting you that if you upload and use the official crest of Minerva Academy FC, it will be wholesome and helpful; the club recently won Gothia Cup in Sweden, and is former India champion. Thanking you at the end for going through my appeal, regards :) Billjones94 (talk) 08:12, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

@Billjones94: OK, here are the steps I took to upload this logo as a non-free "fair use" image:

• I went to Minerva Academy FC and tried to follow the link to the official website. Firefox gave me a security warning, and I chose to heed the warning and not visit the website.
• I went to their Facebook page instead, clicked on the logo to see it as a separate image, and right-clicked in Firefox to save this image to my desktop with a random name.
• I opened the image in an image editor - I use GIMP; I cropped it to remove some of the white space, then scaled it to 160 pixels square - anything much larger than this, and a bot will come along later to downsize it again.
• I saved it as "Minerva Academy FC logo.jpg" with 85% lossy jpg compression. Again, this is to make Wikipedia's copy of the image useless for other purposes.
• Now at Wikipedia, not Wikimedia Commons, I went to Upload file on the "Contribute" side menu.
• On the first page, I clicked "Upload a non-free file"
• On the second page, at step one I selected the file. At step two the "descriptive name" is "Minerva Academy FC logo.jpg" and the "brief description" is "Logo of [[Minerva Academy FC]] from their Facebook page". At step three I chose the "Fair use" option. That expands the screen with more options...
• I filled in the article name again in the first box and selected the "This is a logo" option in the second box. That expands the screen again...
• The "source" is the Facebook URL from which I saved the image. I ticked the box for "This image will be shown as a primary means of visual identification" - ie it will be used at the top of the infobox. For "explain how the use of this file will be minimal" I tried "For use only in one article, saved at low resolution with lossy JPG compression to discourage re-use". I then clicked Tab ↹ to move away from that box, and by magic the "Upload" button lights up and can be clicked. The file is now uploaded!
• The final step is to edit Minerva Academy FC to add this image name to the infobox. I also chose to blank the image_size parameter so that the infobox code could select the default.

I hope this helps! -- John of Reading (talk) 16:45, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks a lot; You're awesome Billjones94 (talk) 17:44, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

@Billjones94: You'll see from the history of File:Minerva Academy FC logo.jpg that your attempt to replace my low-resolution image with a high-resolution image did not work, as a bot came along and reduced the quality of the image. Don't waste your time uploading high-resolution logo images, as this automatic downsampling will happen every time. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:30, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Absolutely! 😬 I now understand what the appropriate way to go, to get uploaded a proper logo here on! Thank you again though :) Billjones94 (talk) 08:00, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:KHL Medveščak Admiral logo.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:KHL Medveščak Admiral logo.jpg. 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 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).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 17:22, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

KHL Medveščak Zagreb (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

To whom it may concern: I uploaded this logo on 1 August 2023 in response to a request on my talk page. It was removed from the article on 6 September with the edit summary "Removed wrong logo". If my upload gets deleted and turns out to be needed after all, it can be undeleted via WP:REFUND. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:05, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Special:Diff/1174719924

Yes, it certainly was. XFDcloser seems to have been messed up by {{Pagelinks}} being nominated for merging. I'll leave a note at the TfD and WT:XFDC. CLYDE ^{TALK TO ME}/_{STUFF DONE} 07:07, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks much!

Hello,

I am so grateful for your help at this talk page. Really appreciate it. --Victor Trevor (talk) 14:48, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Apostrophe

May I ask: What is your reasoning for replacing: ’s → 's in Twitter quotes? As you did in List of vegans? RabbitFromMars (talk) 20:02, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

@RabbitFromMars: MOS:APOSTROPHE says that Wikipedia articles should use straight apostrophes, and MOS:CONFORM says that this applies even within quotations. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:33, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't know that. It's the other way round in the German language Wikipedia. RabbitFromMars (talk) 10:43, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

22- 11- 1963

John F Kennedy. Vandaag 22-11-2023. Wordt Premier Wilders in Nederland? 2001:1C05:328F:2F00:94DE:A8E2:35B5:133E (talk) 21:22, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't understand the point you are trying to make. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:36, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Kerala Super League logo.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:Kerala Super League logo.jpg. 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 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).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 18:14, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Kerala Super League (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

To whom it may concern: the logo has been replaced in the article by File:Super League Kerala.jpg on Commons. The new logo doesn't match the one currently displayed on the official website. If the logo I uploaded gets deleted and turns out to be useful after all, it can be retrieved via WP:REFUND. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:29, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

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Need assistance adding a pro-track Athlete for Trinidad please

Hi I represent a Professional Track and Field Athlete who recently retired from running for Trinidad, can you help by adding her to Wikipedia?

Thank you kindly for your consideration! Art M. SAManager (talk) 10:30, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@SAManager: No, sorry, I mostly stick to fixing spellings and grammar. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:21, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Grammar/writing/overlink check needed

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khan_Yunis

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas (dead external links - website)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war (map is constantly a day late on commons, "current extent" is wrong term)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khan_Yunis

map-article dates dont match either

93.138.252.191 (talk) 20:43, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

My spelling rules found one error to fix. That's all I'm going to do to them, since these are such volatile and contentious articles. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:14, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

~ ~ ~ Merry Christmas! ~ ~ ~

Hello John of Reading: Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice if it's occurring in your area of the world, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, --Dustfreeworld (talk) 11:14, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

@Dustfreeworld: Thank you! Best wishes to you and yours. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:52, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Kidderpore SC logo.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:Kidderpore SC logo.jpg. 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 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).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 18:26, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Kidderpore SC (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

To whom it may concern: the low-resolution JPG image that I uploaded was replaced by a high-resolution SVG image - which, of course, a bot has converted into a low-resolution image. If the file I uploaded gets deleted and later turns out to be useful, it can be retrieved at WP:REFUND. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:59, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Minerva Academy FC logo.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:Minerva Academy FC logo.jpg. 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 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).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 18:37, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Minerva Academy FC (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

To whom it may concern: the low-resolution JPG image that I uploaded was first overwritten by a high-resolution image, which was downsampled by a bot. It was then replaced by a high-resolution SVG image, which was also downsampled by a bot. I wonder how long it will be before another well-meaning editor decides to upload another high-resolution version? If the file I uploaded gets deleted and later turns out to be useful, it can be retrieved at WP:REFUND. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:06, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Nomination for merger of Template:User grieving

Template:User grieving has been nominated for merging with Template:User Grieving short. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:30, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Age verification and, just in case, thanks to everyone

In view of the current uncertainty over Wikipedia's future in the UK, I just like to note here that I am a UK editor who would be locked out of Wikipedia by any geographic ban. As you can probably guess from my writing style, user boxes and account creation date, I am over 18.

If such a ban takes place and you're visiting this page because I've stopped editing: thank you for checking up on me. I've enjoyed working here and have enjoyed most of my occasional interactions with other editors. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:36, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Welch

Thank you for catching that! I do a preview before closing an edit to make sure it is at least productive on those scripts and that one was just hiding and I missed dit. Red Director (talk) 14:05, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Essive-formal case

The article Essive-formal case has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

One reference citing one theorist makes this original research. Formal case has also been proposed for deletion.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Bearian (talk) 17:11, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis

Thank you so much for fixing "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" season 1,2 and 3. Season 4 also needs to be fixed. I'm sorry to ask but the same Bot also did the same thing to all the seasons of Gilligan's Island. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilligan%27s_Island_season_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilligan%27s_Island_season_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gilligan%27s_Island_season_3&action=edit&section=11 And all the "Leave It To Beaver" seasons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_It_to_Beaver_season_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_It_to_Beaver_season_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_It_to_Beaver_season_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_It_to_Beaver_season_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_It_to_Beaver_season_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_It_to_Beaver_season_6 Thank you so much for your help. Entercontainment (talk) 17:22, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

@Entercontainment: I see that Primefac (talk · contribs) is patiently working through the hundreds of articles affected by this issue. Be patient, and Primefac will fix these articles for you. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:32, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you so much. Entercontainment (talk) 17:39, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Happy Birthday!

@The Herald: Thank you! -- John of Reading (talk) 06:09, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Low background steel

Hi, thought this might be relevant. https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/12u7ve0/is_there_any_absolute_dating_methods_for_metal/ 91.190.161.160 (talk) 07:46, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Low-background steel (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

A blog doesn't count as a reliable published source. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:36, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Removing Template Assistance

Hi, I'm not an experienced editor here, though I did contribute significantly lately to the Zahran tribe page and would like you to review the authenticity of the template that reads "This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed." 144.86.34.230 (talk) 05:03, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Also, happy birthday! 144.86.34.230 (talk) 05:04, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Zahran tribe (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Thank you for the birthday wishes - that's a few weeks ago now.

Let's see. The tag was added in 2018 by Bradv (talk · contribs) when the article looked like this. Since then, yes, the article has changed substantially, and many new sources have been added. I'm going to remove the tag. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:48, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Deletion policy

Hello, what is the deletion policy? Gdfctjmm (talk) 19:48, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

@Gdfctjmm: You can read about Wikipedia's deletion policy at Wikipedia:Deletion policy. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:25, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Always precious

Ten years ago, you were found precious. That's what you are, always. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:37, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt: How the time flies! Thank you. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:25, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia edits

Good evening, I wanted to ask about a problem I'm having. In this account (MarianoMora23) I can move articles to the mainspace with no problem after barely making 10 edits. However in this SAME account (MarianoMora23) but in the SPANISH wikipedia I have more than 20 edits and still can't move from my sandbox to the mainspace. Any idea why? MarianoMora23 (talk) 03:46, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

@MarianoMora23: Each version of Wikipedia sets its own rules. At es:Ayuda:Cómo cambiar el nombre de una página, it says you have to be autoconfirmed to move a page; at es:Wikipedia:Autoconfirmados, it says you have to make 50 edits to be autoconfirmed - as opposed to only 10 at the English-language Wikipedia. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:45, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Direct uses of Template:Infobox

A decade(!) ago, you kindly created User:Pigsonthewing/Direct calls to Infobox. Please could you repeat that exercise (feel free to overwrite the original). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:32, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Doing... -- John of Reading (talk) 16:43, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing:  Done - pretty speedy now I have the uncompressed dump on an SSD drive. At the bottom of User:Pigsonthewing/Direct calls to Infobox there's a short list of articles using redirects to {{Infobox}}. There aren't many redirects, and they aren't used much, so I looked through them all manually. I fixed Federal College of Agriculture, Akure. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:17, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Very helpful. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:50, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

@ 2001:EE0:4A69:AE90:5455:6C41:CE0F:70BA (talk) 14:36, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines has an RfC

Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Gnomingstuff (talk) 18:14, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi John!

You like typofixing? I got tens of thousands of typos and I can't fix em all alone. Perhaps we can combine our forces? User:Polygnotus/typos. Polygnotus (talk) 16:21, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

@Polygnotus: Interesting. I'm finding typos by running regular expressions on a database dump; how are you creating your work list? What's your false positive rate?

I confess I'm so used to working with AWB and my 4000+ regular expressions that I'm unlikely to switch to a radically different method. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:47, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

I take a list of the most frequently used words, create typos with a Levenshtein distance of 1, and check which occur in the dump. Then I do a bunch of filtering and I check which exist in the live version of Wikipedia.

Which programming languages, if any, are you familiar with?

We could use a custom AWB module in C# or perhaps just use some custom Selenium-based tool (which would be pretty damn similar, not radically different). Or perhaps a JWB-like interface on wiki. Haven't really decided how to approach that yet.

I never really bothered to create stats of the amount of skips vs the amount of fixes but that is a good idea to have.

I use a lot of regex to avoid typos that shouldn't be fixed, see User:Polygnotus/typo.js.

I have at least 60.000 potential typos left to fix so it is probably worth it to create a decent tool for that.

Polygnotus (talk) 17:14, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

@Polygnotus: Languages? Assembler, BCPL, C, C++ - all unused for a decade, I'm afraid. But I've used regular expressions on a copy of User:Polygnotus/typos to extract the 3000+ article names and the alleged typos, and have begun an AWB run to detect those words in those articles. So far I've saved 23 edits and have skipped 25 other articles - not a bad hit rate, by my standards, so I'll press on with this over the next few days. "Gettig" is a surname; "protectin" is a kind of protein; Supremme de Luxe is a stage name; and so on. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:08, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeah that is 3489 typos and then we got 2800 here and 9300 there and 1200 here. When my Raspberry Pi is done I will have another ~60.000. The typos already have very similar regex ran on them as you saw in typo.js so much of the WONTFIX stuff has been filtered out already. Polygnotus (talk) 18:15, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

In an ideal world, AWB would accept lists in this format (christmas|chirstmas|My Christmas) as a list generator source. And AWB would contain code (very similar to typo.js) to not fix typos in certain situations. Do you know how we can get closer to that goal? WP:AWB lists some developers in the infobox. Polygnotus (talk) 18:44, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

AWB has two checkboxes at the top left of the "Find & Replace" configuration, which aim to cover the "certain situations". I run with those turned off, though, so that I do fix errors in quotations, references, foreign-language text and so on - with appropriate care and checking. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:50, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

I boldy created the WP:QUOTETYPO shortcut at some point and it hasn't been reverted yet. It doesn't really make sense to faithfully reproduce simple mistakes made by others when they are irrelevant and only distract imo. Your approach does affect the hitrate tho. Are there others who I should contact? I assume the 16789 typos above will keep you busy for a while but you know where to find me when you want more. Perhaps I should stick the lists in a subpage of WP:TYPO? I'll dive in the AWB code, thanks. Polygnotus (talk) 19:40, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Quotations is marked as an essay; the authoritative guide is at MOS:QUOTE. Fortunately they say the same thing! I do fix typos in quotations if I think they are "insignificant" or are likely to have been copying errors. See User:John of Reading/Typo fixing with AutoWikiBrowser#Editing quotes, book titles and such like.

If you post your links at Wikipedia talk:Typo Team you may attract more helpers. Oh, and are you aware of the Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss project? That's another attempt at co-ordinated checking using data-crunching techniques. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:14, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, redirect target improved. I combined typolist, typolist2 and typolist3 above (but not User:Polygnotus/typos, which you imported into AWB) into User:Polygnotus/Data/Typolist. If you want some, please delete them from the list so that its clear that they've been handled.

I added Moss and the (code behind the) AWB checkboxes to my todolist, thanks again! Polygnotus (talk) 04:30, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

@Polygnotus: I've restarted the list after telling AWB not to sort the pages alphabetically, so I'm now processing them in the same order as they were listed in User:Polygnotus/typos. This makes it easier for me, as the fixes for the same target word turn up together, and perhaps for you, since you can compare my contribution list with the list I'm working from.

Two of your "don't fix" tests aren't working correctly:

• In many cases the typo is embedded within a URL - example mmiller within Merle Miller
• In some cases the typo is embedded within a file name - example distribuion within Lesser blue-eared starling. I exclude those by peeking ahead for a known image suffix - (?![ \(\)\.\,\;\-\'\"\+\&\%\w\d]*\.(?i:(?:gif|jpe?g|ogg|ogv|pdf|png|svg|tiff?|webm))\b) - this regular expression isn't perfect, I know.

-- John of Reading (talk) 07:26, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

I make the lists with Java and then I use Javascript to actually make the edits. When I improved the url regex in Javascript I forgot to add it to the Java code as well. I had a bunch of ideas to improve my workflow so I am cooking up a fresh batch for you. Might take a while, even on a modern pc. Polygnotus (talk) 03:33, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Originally I used ((http|https)://)(www.)?[-a-z0-9@:%._\+~#?&//=]{2,256}\.[-a-z]{2,26}\b([-a-z0-9@:%._\+~#?&//=]*)for URLs but a lot of them escaped the wrath of the regex.

I am considering using something like:

\b((?:https?://|www\.)(?:\S+(?::\S*)?@)?(?:(?:[0-9]{1,3}\.){3}[0-9]{1,3}|(?:(?:[a-z\u00a1-\uffff0-9]-*)*[a-z\u00a1-\uffff0-9]+)(?:\.(?:[a-z\u00a1-\uffff0-9]-*)*[a-z\u00a1-\uffff0-9]+)*(?:\.(?:[a-z\u00a1-\uffff]{2,})))(?::\d{2,5})?(?:[/?#]\S*)?\b)

instead unless you have a better idea.

For files I used:

File:(.*?)(\\.|\\|)"

Image:(.*?)\\.

Category:(.*?)\\.

and I haven't really decided how to improve on that. Not all of them have file extensions. Perhaps Commons Special:MediaStatistics and the local one can be used?

My todolist is steadily growing. Polygnotus (talk) 03:41, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Are the URL regexes running with "ignore case" turned on? If not, the first URL regex fails to match the whole URL in the Merle Miller example because parts of it are uppercase.

The filename in the Lesser blue-eared starling has no File: prefix because it is being used as an infobox parameter. To exclude those, you'll either have to look backwards for range_map = or similar, or look forwards for .png or similar. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:01, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I use Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE and Pattern.UNICODE_CASE. I have added range_map to the list of disallowed parameters. I am currently trying to figure out whether Ollama can help identify typos better than a coinflip. Polygnotus (talk) 07:47, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

@Polygnotus: Thank you very much for preparing these lists; I've had an enjoyable couple of months working through them. If my record-keeping and arithmetic can be trusted, I've made about 4,500 corrections from your 11,700 candidates. I'd be happy to work on another list like this one, but not immediately: I feel I've neglected some of my other self-assigned tasks and would like to spend some time on those.

I ran into one more problem further down the list: by the time the data was saved in User:Polygnotus/Data/Typolist, any special characters in page names had got corrupted. For example 2014–15 Presbyterian Blue Hose men's basketball team should have been an ndash, and History of Åland should have been History of Åland. I managed to guess the intended article names in most cases. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:49, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

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Greetings of the season

~ ~ ~ Greetings of the season ~ ~ ~

Hello John of Reading: Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice if it's occurring in your area of the world, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, Spread the love; use {{subst:User:Dustfreeworld/Xmas3}} to send this message.

--Dustfreeworld (talk) 11:49, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

@Dustfreeworld: Thank you! -- John of Reading (talk) 17:11, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Redirect listed at Redirects for discussion

A redirect or redirects you have created has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 December 27 § "Musican" Redirects until a consensus is reached. User:Someone-123-321 (I contribute, Talk page so SineBot will shut up) 12:36, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Batch

Are you ready for another batch? Polygnotus (talk) 11:48, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

@Polygnotus: Not yet. Thanks to your previous work, I have so many new regular expressions to try out that it will be four to six months before I'm ready for another batch. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:50, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

You actually inspired me so I added the option to export the lists to AWB settings.xml format. example Polygnotus (talk) 11:59, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

That looks very efficient! -- John of Reading (talk) 12:01, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

If you are curious. Remember to back up your AWB settings.xml first! Polygnotus (talk) 13:20, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Thank you

Thanks for helping me. That Twinkle thing has been driving me nuts!! Rodney Baggins .talk. 16:56, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

John Sterett Gittings

Hi John of Reading. I noticed your edit summary at Wikipedia:Database reports/Unbelievable life spans re the Gittings family. I think John Sterett Gittings should be changed to a disambiguation page and redirects should be created for each of the John Sterett Gittingses, (e.g. John Sterett Gittings (born 1798)) and the relevant year of birth/death categories should be applied to each of the redirects (and current links to John Sterett Gittings should be updated appropriately). What do you think? DH85868993 (talk) 00:06, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

@DH85868993: That would work for me! I looked round the redirect and disambiguation help pages without seeing anything relevant. Let's ping GreenC (talk · contribs) before making any change, though. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:42, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

Honestly I was confused what to do in this situation. I agree with the solution it's good. -- GreenC 17:56, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

@GreenC: Let's see if I can do this correctly. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:02, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

Oh I just created the dab page and was going to ask what you thought. -- GreenC 18:04, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

Oh, yes, over to you then. No problem! -- John of Reading (talk) 18:07, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

Invariably I always get something wrong with dab pages. I notice User:DH85868993 has the dab "(born 1798)" whereas I used "(1798-1879)". Otherwise it would look like:

• John Sterett Gittings (born 1798) (1798-1879), Baltimore banker

Might use

• John Sterett Gittings (banker) (1798-1879), Baltimore banker

But his grandson of the same name is also a banker. So I settled on the full birth-death as the disambiguation.

• John Sterett Gittings (1798-1879), Baltimore banker

-- GreenC 18:36, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

@GreenC: I've created the three redirects that were red links on the new dab page, and, hopefully, have correctly fixed all the articles that linked there. I hope that's all we need to do for now? -- John of Reading (talk) 18:41, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

Looks OK, thanks. I'll work on updating the backlinks. -- GreenC 18:43, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

Oh you got that also, thanks much. -- GreenC 18:44, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

Great work, team! DH85868993 (talk) 20:41, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

Pakistan utility-bill sites

Feel free to ping me...I'm defaulting to prompt multi-week blocks for any IPs and insta-indef for any accounts spamming them (examples: User:John of Reading/Spam links). DMacks (talk) 08:56, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

@DMacks: Yes, this has been going on for too long. I wonder if we could add esco\w{0,5}bil{0,5}\.pk\b to the spam blacklist? That would block all domains containing "esco" then "bil" and ending with ".pk". I'd have to run a big scan first to see if there are false positives. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:04, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

I'd support that. Could feed it to XLinkBot first, to help track what's being caught. DMacks (talk) 09:16, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

I don't see any false matches in the most recent database dump. I scanned for \bhttps?://[^ ]*esco.{0,5}bil.{0.5}\.pk\b -- John of Reading (talk) 09:35, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Clever way to check! DMacks (talk) 10:05, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Several of the links have "epco" not "esco", so I did another scan for those. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:42, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

@DMacks: Special:Diff/1274292426. Yet another domain. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:24, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

@DMacks: An interesting development - these two edits spammed "pakbill.pk", one we've met already, and added links to two apparently genuine news items (Pakistan Observer, ARY News). Those talk about bill-checking via www.lesco.gov.pk, the official LESCO site. I expect the competing sites aren't too happy about that! Unfortunately www.lesco.gov.uk doesn't load for me in the UK. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:18, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Auto Archiving Again

I'm sorry, but my auto-archiving code is still not working. I changed the minthreadsleft to: minthreadsleft = 0 Can you please take a look at it and see what's wrong? Thank you. Talk:Aesthetic_Realism 98.109.41.177 (talk) 00:10, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

I've made yet another tweak to the archiving parameters, and will keep an eye on it. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:30, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

Thank you. It worked! Lore E. Mariano (talk) 23:06, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

"c.f."

Special:Search/insource:/c\. ?f\./ gives at least 697 results for me and (barring some exceptions I might not know about) should actually say "cf."; would that be something that you could fix (or at least add to some config that you are using for your unrelated corrections)? 1234qwer1234qwer4 02:24, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

@1234qwer1234qwer4: Yes, I'll put that on my to-do list. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:49, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

@1234qwer1234qwer4: In progress. I'm searching for both uppercase and lowercase "c" and lowercase "f". There are plenty of false positives:

• A few music articles use it as an abbreviation of cantus firmus (eg at Clavier-Übung III#Textual and musical plan)
• In many Roman history articles it means "son/daughter of Gaius" (eg Horatia gens)
• In dozens of biology articles it abbreviates the first two words of a three-part species name (eg Celeus flavescens)
• As part of "loc. st. c. f.", it can turn up in articles about Moldavia Moldova (qv Communes of Moldova#Notes)

-- John of Reading (talk) 17:52, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Happy Birthday!

@Randompersonediting: Thank you! -- John of Reading (talk) 06:16, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Happy Birthday!

@DaniloDaysOfOurLives: Thank you! Yes, the day went well. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:09, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Proposal

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Kelantan_FA

article has multiple grammar/styling errors and copypasting parts, try to fix please 93.143.100.30 (talk) 16:18, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

History of Kelantan FA (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I will read it through once the article history has stabilised. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:25, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Hell Norway

Hi, what’s the problem with one of my two edits? I mean the change to the highway allows people to not have to drive through Hell during their commute. This is factually correct. Anyone finding it humorous is doing so on their own.

Thanks! 2601:140:9200:C090:1448:A71:35A7:96CF (talk) 19:04, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Hell, Norway (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The article seems to attract edits that use the village name in ways that wouldn't seem natural in articles about other villages. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:49, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Copyeditor's Barnstar
	Thanks for the fixes on Theoretical Geography. I appreciate you cleaning up my mess. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 17:37, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

@GeogSage: And thank you for the barnstar! -- John of Reading (talk) 17:39, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

FYI

Hello, I recently fixed a bunch of this kind of word duplication that seems rather common; while I did not find any other examples, you might want to note this for the future (as I generally only do this kind of cleanup run once when I come across it and do not re-check later let alone regularly). 1234qwer1234qwer4 20:51, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

@1234qwer1234qwer4: Ah, that's a variation I hadn't thought of. Thank you - I'll add that to my ever-growing list. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:54, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Fresh

You want some fresh ones? Polygnotus (talk) 08:19, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

@Polygnotus: No, the list at User:Polygnotus/JOR will keep me busy for weeks. A few of the entries have turned out to be stale, already fixed by other editors, but they get skipped very quickly. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:21, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Ok ok. Making a todolist is easy, actually doing the work is hard. Polygnotus (talk) 08:53, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Yes indeed! -- John of Reading (talk) 08:54, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Merger discussion for Environmental impact of wind power

An article that you have been involved in editing—Environmental impact of wind power—has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Chidgk1 (talk) 05:17, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, but that's just one of the many articles where I only fixed a typo. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:31, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the AFD tip

Thanks for pointing out that the AFD was already included in the Template:ArticleHistory for Talk:The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise! I've never actually seen that was an option before - I guess the kind of articles I typically play with (with AFD and PROD histories) don't merit Article Histories! I'm amazed at how many people follow such an quiet obscure talk page. I only found myself here by accident, down the rabbit hole reading about Elliot Gould. I can only assume that User:Cirt alerted you after I pinged them. Nice to know that old users are never really gone. Nfitz (talk) 07:36, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

@Nfitz: Thank you for getting back to me. I happened to have the page watchlisted - I stumbled across the article a long while ago, and enjoyed the video so much I've kept it watchlisted as a reminder. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:10, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Berkhamsted

Hi. A page you have contributed to, Berkhamsted, has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:24, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

@Kudpung: Thank you, but my only involvement was to copyedit one phrase back in 2019. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:14, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Bling for you

	The Working Man's Barnstar
	Because I can always count on you to find and fix my duplicate words. You truly do make a difference. Rublamb (talk) 01:23, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

@Rublamb: Thank you! -- John of Reading (talk) 07:11, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Surplant

Just noticed this edit - funnily enough it is how I was taught to write the word, perhaps illustrating not just my age, but rather old-fashioned education. Personally, I prefer it because it retains its origins in French and Latin (over (fr:sur) something rooted (la:plantare), ie displacing) rather than the more ambiguous relation to the word supple (which indicates submissiveness rather than displacement). Nevertheless, certainly accept it is not common usage. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 03:04, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

@Goldsztajn: Sadly, even my Shorter Oxford English Dictionary doesn't list "surplant", which suggests it has never been regarded as a valid spelling. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:58, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

More of an OED person myself: "The form surplant probably arose by association with English formations in sur- prefix; the same form also appears occasionally from the end of the 19th cent." Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 10:10, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

@Goldsztajn: Touché! -- John of Reading (talk) 12:22, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Potential typo

Searching for insource:/ set of [A-Za-z]+ (a|we)re / seems to give a good amount of grammatical errors (though some are certainly false positives). Thought you might want to take a look at this. Thanks, 1234qwer1234qwer4 03:04, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

@1234qwer1234qwer4: Yes, that looks interesting. I've added it to my todo list. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:20, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Another search: insource:/Another [A-Za-z ]+, is /. I fixed some already. 1234qwer1234qwer4 02:19, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

@1234qwer1234qwer4: I've changed at least a hundred "set of ... were" phrases, but the more I look at them the less convinced I am. See English plurals#Singulars with collective meaning treated as plural. I'll leave this one for now. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:41, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

Yeah thanks, when I read my original comment after getting your ping I realised there might be some British English exceptions. 1234qwer1234qwer4 15:13, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

Economy of England

Hi there. Could you update the Economy of England page? The Food and drink section + Alcoholic beverages section could do with a revamp. Very outdated and looks like a list not a segment. ~2025-33120-55 (talk) 15:48, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

@~2025-33120-55: Although I was the last editor to improve the article, I only fixed one spelling error. I suggest you post your concern on the talk page, Talk:Economy of England. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:33, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

ArbCom 2025 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2025 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 1 December 2025. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2025 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:33, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

A question from another editor

I think I got left this message inadvertently by Tammyleigh morgan, but I couldn't see their request Lajmmoore (talk) 19:56, 18 December 2025 (UTC)

@Lajmmoore: Yes, that's an odd one - their only edit has been to post a question about my sandbox. No idea! -- John of Reading (talk) 20:10, 18 December 2025 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Anniversary John of Reading 🎉

Hey @John of Reading. Your wiki edit anniversary is today, marking 16 years of dedicated contributions to English Wikipedia. Your passion for sharing knowledge and your remarkable contributions have not only enriched the project, but also inspired countless others to contribute. Thank you for your amazing contributions. Wishing you many more wonderful years ahead in the Wiki journey and a wonderful, happy 2026 ahead. :) -❙❚❚❙❙ GnOeee ❚❙❚❙❙ ✉ 17:07, 27 December 2025 (UTC)

@Gnoeee: Thank you! -- John of Reading (talk) 17:16, 27 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the copyediting

Hi. Just wanted to thank you for fixing up typos on Politics of Mozambique! I did a lot of hefty expansions plus fixing plagiarism previously on the page, but unfortunately I am awful at catching typos no matter how many times I look at my own work (no idea why).

Thanks for the help! Urchincrawler (talk) 23:32, 23 February 2026 (UTC)