User talk:Sean Fennel

Welcome

welcome! TedErnst | talk 14:18, 1 Mar 2006 (EST)

Gidday, Sean! Noticed you wondering about real names - just when I'd decided that I'd revert to my simple email and zeal.com abbreviation!
Anyway, I didn't even know about wikis till "early '04" so you may be ahead of me in many respects. What do you think of the (rather inconsistent) use of CamelCase here? Probably quite unnecessary and it strikes me as odd, but I guess the prime movers here are used to it (from what I've seen of their other activities), so I'm not rocking the boat. Enjoy! robinp 00:02, 2 Mar 2006 (EST)

Yeah, most everybody here is used to UseMod. I'm used to MediaWiki. That's to be expeced, I guess. Sean Fennel 03:58, 3 Mar 2006 (EST)

You saw this? Naming Conventions TedErnst | talk 11:53, 3 Mar 2006 (EST)

your sig

since this place isn't using the User namespace (except for talk), you might want to modify your sig to avoid the redirect. Excellent explanation of patrolling recent changes. I'll have to try that! TedErnst | talk 12:26, 3 Mar 2006 (EST)

Thanks. Glad you don't mind that I customized it like that. Joey Day at HRWiki taught me how to customize it with a template, so that every time you tewak it, every single instance of it will be simultaneously changed to reflect that. Wikipedia figured out people were doing that and so in version 1.6 of MediaWiki it forces the adition of the Subst: parameter to all sigs that are templates, thereby making using them pointless (which is what they wanted to do to reduce server load).

I didn't realize you were using a template. I just modified mine in my preferences. I actually don't want my old sigs changing if I decide to change them going forward. That seems too weird. :-) I don't mind if that's the way you do it. TedErnst | talk 12:44, 3 Mar 2006 (EST)

I'm not using one. I figured I didn;t need one here since I'm pretty well satisfied with what I've got and I don't think I'll be changing it any time in the forseeable future. —User:Sean Fennel@ 12:49, 3 Mar 2006 (EST)

re: images

Thanks for the tips. I actually did that so I'd have various sizes available to me on other websites, without having to learn their markup for re-sizing the display. Too many wikis! :-) TedErnst | talk 12:33, 3 Mar 2006 (EST)

RC patrol

Patrol recent changes - feel free to change the name to something more recognizable to yourself and other familiar with this function. TedErnst | talk 13:58, 7 Mar 2006 (EST)

Done!

I'm sure we'll be upgraded at some point. It seems John Stanton is hosting a ton of media wikis so will have to dig in to do them all at once at some point. Is it worth pushing for? TedErnst | talk 18:06, 11 Apr 2006 (EDT)

This is copied from mediawiki.org:

IMPORTANT: Running a 1.3 or 1.4 wiki and don't want to jump to 1.5 yet? Be sure to upgrade to 1.3.17 or 1.4.11, also released today. Versions prior to 1.3.16 and 1.4.10 have a serious data corruption bug which is triggered by a spambot known to operate in the wild.

Note that they're on 1.4.15 currently. 1.4.13 added protection against WMF vulnerability attacks, and 1.4.15 renders more accurately in the IE7 beta. Oh, and 1.6 also introduces CAPTCHA support. You could do it before, but it took a lot more work in 1.5 than before. So in summary, Yeah, it's worth pushing for. —User:Sean Fennel@ 20:35, 11 Apr 2006 (EDT)

Okay, I put in a plug here. TedErnst | talk 00:12, 12 Apr 2006 (EDT)

Thing is John is the administrator for many, many wiki, fyi. :-) MarkDilley

Yeah, and maybe getthem all done slowly. Upgrading from, say, 1.5.X to the latest 1.6 is a bit of a process, but as long as you don't have too much custom code in it (This Might Be A Wiki has so much that the usually simple upgrade from 1.4.10 to 1.4.11 screwed up quite a bit), then upgrading from, say, 1.5.6 to 1.5.8 is such a breeze that it probably won't even be noticed by most users. —User:Sean Fennel@ 11:11, 12 Apr 2006 (EDT)

Yea I have found lots of unknown engines to be UseMod, I am not sure John, who did the work of converting the 1000 wiki in SwitchWiki to an excell spreadsheet with 12 data fields, was very familiar with UseMod. MarkDilley

monobook.js

How did it turn out? TedErnst | talk 17:33, 18 Apr 2006 (EDT)

It didn't. More due to, what I finally figured out was a dependence on pieces of code that you don't have to explicitly state on Wikipedia, but you do everywhere else. I fixed it elsewhere, so I guess I oght to move it here. —User:Sean Fennel@ 03:10, 23 Apr 2006 (EDT)

Just tried making te tabs at the top of pages round (which is only 3 lines of CSS) and &mdsah; nothing. Must not be enabled. Oh well. Whatever. —User:Sean Fennel@ 03:16, 23 Apr 2006 (EDT)

Maybe it'll come online after John's upgrade of MediaWiki. TedErnst | talk 00:09, 8 May 2006 (EDT)

After playing around with the wiki on my PC, I've discovered it's a database setting. It's turned on by default (at least in 1.6), so it must be purposely turned off.

I assume you are talking about the $wgUseSiteCss (Use the site's Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)) and/or $wgUseSiteJs - (Use the site's Javascript page) we are using the default settings which are both on as far as I can tell. These settings affect MediaWiki:Monobook.css and MediaWiki:Monobook.js. I know that MediaWiki:Monobook.css is active because that is how I changed the linking attributes to remove the underlining John 13:48, 28 May 2006 (EDT)

I had to check, but it's $wgAllowUserJs and $wgAllowUserCss. —User:Sean Fennel@

Those two are turned off by default John 14:36, 28 May 2006 (EDT)

Are there security issues involved in turning it on? I think that functionality could be really helpful here and totally admit that I don't know all of the ramifications. TedErnst | talk 17:05, 28 May 2006 (EDT)

There are security issues especially with Monobook.js, less with Monobook.CSS but we should talk about it together before we make a decision John 18:30, 28 May 2006 (EDT)

Like I said, my db knowledge is strictly 1.6. —User:Sean Fennel@ 15:32, 31 May 2006 (EDT)

We're using 1.6 now, aren't we? TedErnst | talk 15:48, 31 May 2006 (EDT)

We are on version 1.6.5 now. I had hoped that we could talk about turning this stuff on in our weekly conference call but we had limited participation this week :-) John 16:04, 31 May 2006 (EDT)

Sorry, it didn't occur to me we'd still be on for the holiday so I didn't send my regrets. I'll put it on the agenda for next week. TedErnst | talk 16:40, 31 May 2006 (EDT)

Image linking

Ah, I see you already figured this out and fixed it for 2kom.org Wiki. How do you get that actual path? Is this bot work we're seeing or manual? TedErnst | talk 02:00, 4 July 2006 (EDT)

Still me. I get the path of the actual image by viewing the image page and copying the url of the link directly under it from the right click menu. Not a bot yet. For the Pywikibot I'd have to write a custom script for it, and as I'm not a programmer I can't do that. What I will use is the Auto Wiki Browser which means I'll still be doing it manually, but it'll still be a lot faster than doing it without. —User:Sean Fennel@ 15:51, 4 July 2006 (EDT)

How will a new person adding their logo for the first time do what you're doing now? TedErnst | talk 15:51, 6 July 2006 (EDT)

Geez, it never occured to me that this might cause a bit of instruction creep. I suppose we could put the instructions on the template itself encased in noinclude tags, and then just keep an eye on Recentchanges for pages to fix it on. I suppose I could start substituting the template and when I'm done revert it (the template) back to the other way, and then catch new pages and apply it manually. Anybody else have any ideas as to how it could be even partially automated without any instruction creep (barring I learn python so I can program the bot as any instructions beyond simple find and replace have to be scripted in python)? —User:Sean Fennel@ 16:05, 6 July 2006 (EDT)

Very awesome what you're doing --Raymond King | talk 01:09, 13 July 2006 (EDT)

Thanks — I guess it's what I'm best at: [1] —User:Sean Fennel@ 23:04, 23 July 2006 (EDT)

Sean, I see you're doing a lot of great work with the image linking and I think it really adds a lot -- Thanks!. I'm afraid it might wear you out, however. We've hired some people in the past to do repetitive work, do you think that would make sense here? --Raymond King | talk 03:05, 2 August 2006 (EDT)

Possibly, but I think it might make more sense to get somebody to write a script to do it for the pywikipedia bot so I could just use that. As for that edit summary: I am in Texas, though I guess "overseas" depends on your point of view. — User:Sean Fennel@ 23:34, 2 August 2006 (EDT)

You are just way too cool! (oh, and sorry for the late reply, I didn't notice yours in time) --Raymond King | talk 02:33, 30 August 2006 (EDT)

How does the bot work? I'm intriqued! TedErnst | talk 11:40, 30 August 2006 (EDT)

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Using_the_python_wikipediabot and http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pywikipedia_bot_on_non-wikimedia_projects. If we want to avoid a RecentChanges flood every time I use it, it could be granted bot access which means it's edits are hidden in RecentChanges. Clicking "Show bots" and "Hide bots" on the top of Special:Recentchanges toggles them on and off. — User:Sean Fennel@ 11:57, 30 August 2006 (EDT)

I think I made the bot a bot. TedErnst | talk 12:15, 31 August 2006 (EDT)

Cool! I am really diggin how recent changes patrol works! And it will be nice when all the bot edits are recent patrolled! Great work guys! MarkDilley

You did. — User:Sean Fennel@ 23:43, 31 August 2006 (EDT)

Hi

Someone said you would know the answer to my question in WikiIndex talk:Community talk under the subject, "How are you doing hotlinking in mediawiki". ZealPalace 09:51, 9 September 2006 (EDT)

[URL_to_be_linked_to hard_link_to_exact_url_of_image] The exact URL of an image can be found by right-clicking it and selecting "Properties". It's listed as "Location" in SeaMonkey and "Address (URL)" in IE7. I don't know about Firefox though, as I don't have it. — User:Sean Fennel@ 14:29, 9 September 2006 (EDT)

You also have to have "$wgAllowExternalImages" set to true. — User:Sean Fennel@ 22:25, 9 September 2006 (EDT)

visual wiki index

Hi Sean, please would you have a look on this: Proposal:Visual WikiIndex --Peu 17:17, 24 October 2006 (EDT)

work for your bot

Is it possible to your bot (I really don't know how bots work) to categorize all wiki pages that use the Image:NoLogo.png with a hardlink to the category:UnknownWikiLogo? --Peu | talk 15:05, 29 October 2006 (EST);

I think if I have it change the hard link to the particular image back to a wiki link, I should be able to input the list of pages that like to the image (or possibly the backlinks) as the pages to be catrgorized, and then just have it change all the image links back. I'll give it a try. — User:Sean Fennel@ 19:45, 29 October 2006 (EST)

Sorry, maybe I don't understand: My intention was to have a auto-index of all wiki pages that don't have assigned a logo to it, I did it by hand for all wikis with names starting with a number or the Letter A. Then I remembered your bot (?). The pages I speak from all have included as wiki_logo the URL http://www.wikiindex.com/images/e/e6/NoLogo.png. And I wanted to have them all categorizes into the category:UnknownWikiLogo, if they aren't already categorized this way. --Peu | talk 03:28, 30 October 2006 (EST)

Don't worry, iIn my own convoluted way that's exactly what I'm doing. — User:Sean Fennel@ 04:07, 30 October 2006 (EST)

Thank's it seems to be done. --Peu | talk 17:10, 30 October 2006 (EST)

hard linking logo size

Is it documented anywhere how the size works? example. Can you learn me? ;-) TedErnst | talk 13:06, 3 November 2006 (EST)

[[Image:NetBSD_logo.png|150px]] — User:Sean Fennel@ 01:02, 6 November 2006 (EST)

I meant when using the full url, like this: http://www.wikiindex.com/images/thumb/1/14/NetBSD_logo.png/150px-NetBSD_logo.png. It looks like the size is somehow in that url. How is that done? TedErnst | talk 01:07, 6 November 2006 (EST)

I've just been doing that and then right-clicking and taking the URL from the properties dialog. The small version isn't actually created by ImageMagick and placed in the /images directory until that's done, as far as I know. — User:Sean Fennel@ 01:11, 6 November 2006 (EST)

Ah, I see. I'll give it a try. Thanks! Didn't work. Can you take a look at Theme Park Insider for me? TedErnst | talk 09:25, 6 November 2006 (EST)

Done! — User:Sean Fennel@ 15:17, 6 November 2006 (EST)

How did you do it? I'd like to learn so I can do these myself and not have to refer them to you every time. TedErnst | talk 16:16, 6 November 2006 (EST)

This ought to show you how. — User:Sean Fennel@ 02:23, 7 November 2006 (EST)

Hey, what do you know? The Media: pseudo namespace totally avoids the image page altogether. That's a handy discovery. I always thought before that it did the same thing as putting a colon before the Image: namespace. Neat! — User:Sean Fennel@ 02:27, 7 November 2006 (EST)

Thanks! Got it now. TedErnst | talk 13:12, 7 November 2006 (EST)

name vs real name

I've been to sites where they asked you to log in with your name. Most people used their name. No discussion of "real name" was needed. That's why we changed it here, to "name" instead of real name. Maybe my logic doesn't work because there are too many mediawiki sites that don't require realnames. I dunno. TedErnst | talk 02:13, 20 November 2006 (EST)

I suppose it might be clearer if there wasn't a separate place to put in your real name, which, by the way, is really only useful for GFDL wikis, and then only if they're going to eventually be published like de, fr, and en Wikipedias.

When we made those changes in the field names, I didn't have enough brain power to figure out which field meant what. We could eliminate one, if that would make things clearer. TedErnst | talk 10:26, 20 November 2006 (EST)

That would probably be good. I'd vote for the "Real name" one. — User:Sean Fennel@ 16:28, 20 November 2006 (EST)

yes, that's me

TedErnst | talk 09:04, 22 January 2007 (PST)

Great Job of Spam Killing

Thanks for such a great job on the latest spam attack! They have been hitting us pretty steady now for over a week, just have to keep after them, thanks again! John 22:59, 21 August 2007 (EDT)

You're quite welcome. — User:Sean Fennel@ 01:01, 22 August 2007 (EDT)

very simple but effective Anti SPAM plugin

hi sean,

You might consider installing this simple but effective anti-spam plugin[2]

--Robert Buzink 17:25, 24 August 2007 (EDT) [3]

For the amount we get, I don't know that it's necessary. (knock on wood) — User:Sean Fennel@ 22:44, 24 August 2007 (EDT)

Delete this please

This is spam. --Icewedge 12:41, 26 August 2007 (EDT)

Just logged in expressly to do that when I got your message. — User:Sean Fennel@ 17:31, 26 August 2007 (EDT)

Re: Thanks

A pleasure. Obviously, running my own site, I know what a pain these wiki-spam-bots can be. However, since installing reCAPTCHA (for MediaWiki 1.8 or newer) I have had no problems (so far...). Filling in a CAPTCHA is a small price to pay in order to maintain the integrity of a site.

All the best, Spud Gun/ Carl McBride 05:03, 31 August 2007 (EDT)

After a week, I'm starting to think a CAPTCHA might just be called for here. — User:Sean Fennel@ 13:34, 1 September 2007 (EDT)

Agree, reCaptcha is now implement, check it out and let me know if you find any problems. John 13:58, 1 September 2007 (EDT)

What do you think about external wikiindex entry points?

Hi Sean,

please have a look on Proposal:WikiIndex Pages on indexed Wikis --Wolf | talk 07:03, 3 October 2007 (EDT)

your SeanBot

look at this: http://wikiindex.org/index.php?title=CooCooWakka&diff=next&oldid=47244 looking on my computer, your bot replaces chinese with garbage. Regards --Wolf | talk 04:48, 10 October 2007 (EDT)

That diff would seem to show that it was actually an anonymous edit which did that. — User:Sean Fennel@ 02:06, 15 October 2007 (EDT)

Oh, sorry, sorry! The diff layout had confused me fully. Best regards --Wolf | talk 02:54, 15 October 2007 (EDT)

Sysop-tag

Hi Sean,

There's a new template:sysop that can be used to tag users, which are currently active sysops. I think this will be good, because only sysops have the right to bluck/unblock and if someone feels blocked he needs help. --Wolf | talk 06:44, 13 October 2007 (EDT)

Hi Sean (Bus #108)

Could you please chain our wiki (TourBusStop) into the MediaWiki-Tour 108? And mayby can you help finding a number of the planned International Civil Rights Tour. Best regards so far --Wolf | talk 17:27, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

Since I can't read German, do you mind submitting your request over here on Meatball Wiki? — User:Sean Fennel@ 01:09, 19 April 2008 (EDT)

Done. Our TourBusStop page is now in English, thanks for helping. Greetings from Germany --Wolf | talk 05:31, 19 April 2008 (EDT)

Evil spammer needs a block

I see you deleted a load of spam and blocked spammers. You overlooked User:JerryP and User talk:JerryP. Sorry. I was trying to help when I reverted spam. Proxima Centauri 05:06, 10 September 2008 (EDT)

I probably let him go on purpose. No real need to block an account that isn't being used. — User:Sean Fennel@ 18:08, 10 December 2008 (EST)

Pages needing deletion

• Catersolar, spammy article, not about a Wiki, has also spammed Wikipedia.[4]
• Midland TX Web Design by GZM Web, obvious spam, not a Wiki.
• Graphtech Systems, not a Wiki.
• Amfit, not a Wiki.
• Andazification, not a Wiki.
• Myfwb, not a Wiki.

Icewedge 01:15, 20 September 2008 (EDT)

Might I add Db streams, Skyview systems, Support.com, andWi.ki? :-) --MarvelZuvembie 14:24, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

That last one should probably stay even though it's essentially been abandoned. — User:Sean Fennel@ 18:09, 10 December 2008 (EST)

Encyclopedia Dramatica

I tried to update the size for Encyclopedia Dramatica, but I can't as that's one of the sites flagged by the spam filter. The article is currently using the deprecated version of Template:Tl. I presume this is something that only an admin can fix. Thanks. --MarvelZuvembie 14:21, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

Addition of a wikiFactor?

Dear Sean Fennel,

I have just started the page Proposal:wikiFactor, and it would be wonderful if you would take a look. All the best -- Carl McBride (talk) 05:51, 4 March 2009 (EST)

ping

I've responded to your message on my user talk page. --DavidCary 05:47, 21 June 2009 (EDT)

Can you communicate with the person we discussed at what is now User_talk:DavidCary#right_to_vanish? Sean, could you email this person and recommend trying some other, friendlier wiki -- perhaps some dedicated to topics she is interested in or dedicated to the city she lives in, wherever that might be? Perhaps we have a chance to prevent a news reporter from tarring all wiki with the same brush. --DavidCary 17:35, 18 July 2009 (EDT)

Dispute Resolution

Hey Sean, wanted to see if you were interested in dispute resolution, my suggestion is here ~~ MarkDilley

About that "dispute resolution"...

Hi. Sorry to bug you but we need 3 sysops to get the following articles unprotected. There is basically no one that wants them protected, as far as I can tell. We are not really sure of the purpose of this but, only that you are supposed to decide when we get to move them back out <shrug>. (Notice the statement at the top of these pages):

Talk:A_Storehouse_of_Knowledge#Vote_for_re-insertion

Talk:RationalWikiWiki#Vote_for_re-insertion

New status?

Question about New status at Category talk:New. --EarthFurst 19:47, 24 October 2009 (EDT)

Your thoughts on upgrade and logo

Hi Sean, can you check out, contribute if you want - WikiIndex:Admin_Notes#October_2010_Upgrade_Thoughts - best, MarkDilley

category merge suggestion: LGBT and Queer

Suggestion at Category talk:Sexuality. Hope you will post a reply there. (Telling you because you edited LGBT Info.) --EarthFurst 01:24, 19 November 2010 (PST)

Upgrade and logo stuff - open to all

Please check out WikiIndex:NewLogoDecision and WikiIndex:Spring 2011 Upgrade Path, Best, MarkDilley