User talk:FaviFake: Difference between revisions

 

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*::::::You wrote “I cannot guarantee I’ll voluntarily refrain from partecipating in or starting discussions”. People are not saying that you should not start discussions or should not participate in them. Rather the opposite – starting a discussion about a change is often better than simply making the change. For example, in a widely used template. All they’re asking is that you slow down a bit.

*::::::You wrote “I cannot guarantee I’ll voluntarily refrain from partecipating in or starting discussions”. People are not saying that you should not start discussions or should not participate in them. Rather the opposite – starting a discussion about a change is often better than simply making the change. For example, in a widely used template. All they’re asking is that you slow down a bit.

*::::::For example, changing the icon of a template is usually not an important or even urgent change. If you start a discussion about such a change, it’s possible that few people respond, because most just don’t care. It may take some time before the discussion even gets going. Months, even years. That’s OK. Let it slide. Find something else to do. Maybe at some point someone will find the discussion and restart it. Or agree with what you wrote and just make the change. But if not, don’t try to push it. — [[User:Chrisahn|Chrisahn]] ([[User talk:Chrisahn|talk]]) 03:41, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

*::::::For example, changing the icon of a template is usually not an important or even urgent change. If you start a discussion about such a change, it’s possible that few people respond, because most just don’t care. It may take some time before the discussion even gets going. Months, even years. That’s OK. Let it slide. Find something else to do. Maybe at some point someone will find the discussion and restart it. Or agree with what you wrote and just make the change. But if not, don’t try to push it. — [[User:Chrisahn|Chrisahn]] ([[User talk:Chrisahn|talk]]) 03:41, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

*:::::::More generally: I think you said somewhere that you read most (all?) of our policies. That’s great, but there is a lot of implicit knowledge that is not written down in explicit policies. (They’d get at least ten times longer if we tried to do that.) For example, you suggested a change on [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Simplier version]], and when nobody responded in eight days, you went ahead and made the change. Most experienced editors probably would have waited much longer. Or posted another comment in that section to attract attention. You argued that the talk page is one of the most watched talk pages, and that’s correct, but eight days still isn’t enough time for such a highly visible change on a page like the MOS. How much time is enough? I don’t know. 🙂 Developing an intuitive understanding for such details that are not explicitly codified may easily take a couple of years. I’ve been around for almost twenty years, but I still don’t feel very knowledgeable, and I often defer to others in such matters. — [[User:Chrisahn|Chrisahn]] ([[User talk:Chrisahn|talk]]) 04:49, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

== Nieuwsbrief 146 Wikimedia Nederland ==

== Nieuwsbrief 146 Wikimedia Nederland ==

You need to figure out a way to fix it that doesn’t leave redlinked categories behind to be detected by the redlinked category report, and doesn’t require the creation of any backdated maintenance categories that don’t already exist. Redlinked categories aren’t a thing you can just leave sitting on pages with intentions to “getting around” to fixing at some unspecified point in the future — redlinked categories are forbidden per WP:REDNO, and templates aren’t allowed to cause the generation or transclusion of redlinked categories per WP:TEMPLATECAT, so any redlinked category is always a no-no. The onus is on you to figure out how to implement any desired template changes without causing any redlinked categories, not on other people to leave pages loitering in redlinked categories or recreate maintenance categories backdated well over 15 years. Bearcat (talk) 17:16, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bearcat Thanks. I know redlinked categories are forbidden; in fact I was asking what specific redlinked categories were created by that edit. Obviously it needed new categories for sorting by month, but those were created by AnomieBot a few minutes after the edit and stopped being redilinked. I’m thinking of creating a category for userspace merge proposals that will eventually be incorporated into the standard category once the proposals there have been cleaned up. FaviFake (talk) 17:22, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are about ten things listed on Special:WantedCategories that were being caused by those templates — there’s a mixture of backdated categories, a couple of oddball spelling errors that just needed correction (e.g. “Augusr”) because the correctly spelled category does exist, and an absolute nonsense Category:Articles proposed for merging from ‘ +mergeHelper nowMonthYear() +’ that I had to go to WP:VPT to get fixed because it was coming from a user’s js-settings page that I couldn’t edit. Because I work on redlinked category cleanup on a regular basis, I’m using a script that actually disappears cleaned-up categories right off the list instead of just striking them out, so I can’t provide an exact list of all of them anymore — but if you don’t have that script installed, you’ll still be able to see them in the report. Bearcat (talk) 17:29, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also, you proposed Category:Miscellany proposed for merging for deletion last week on the grounds of being unused, but then your template edits caused it to start becoming reused again, so that it also ended up as a non-empty redlink that I just had to undelete because there are several pages sitting in it. So that’s another thing you’re going to have to be careful to account for, because it kind of defeats your own purpose. Bearcat (talk) 17:37, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Bearcat Nope, it was this edit you made which caused Category:Miscellany proposed for merging to be used again. It was indeed completely unused.I could find these ten other redlinked categories:Articles currently being merged from 2019 (1 → 0 members)
Articles proposed for merging from ‘ +mergeHelper nowMonthYear() +’ (1 → 0 members)
Articles proposed for merging from 29 May 2025 (1 → 0 members)
Articles proposed for merging from Augusr 2021 (1 → 0 members)
Articles proposed for merging from February 2008 (1 → 0 members)
Articles proposed for merging from June 2008 (1 → 0 members)
Articles proposed for merging from May 2008 (1 → 0 members)
Articles proposed for merging from Month 20.. (1 → 0 members)
Articles proposed for merging from September 2008 (1 → 0 members)
Monthly clean-up category (Articles currently being merged) counter (30 → 20 members)I assume most of them were about to be created by AnomieBot.I’ll go ahead and create a single unified category for these user pages so that i can clean them up before allowing the User: namespace back into the official merge backlog. Since Category:Miscellany proposed for merging was already recreated by you, I’ve thrown everything into that one. FaviFake (talk) 21:31, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

FaviFake, where were all these changes discussed? Why do I see multiple edits to live templates such as Template:Merge, Template:Merge from and Template:Merge to, without complete prototyping in the sandbox pages? Why can I not find any relevant testcases for the merge templates? You need to read Wikipedia:Template sandbox and test cases, a page which you certainly know exists. Wikipedia is not your private plaything to mess about with as you see fit: please tell me why I should not block you straight away. —Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:11, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Redrose64, note that even when they did sandbox changes to Template:Afd-merge to, they accidentally and then deliberately introduced Linter errors into the live template, saying in the latter case: I’m sure that creates some linter errors though. There might be a better solution though. Pinging @Jonesey95 as they might be able to fix it. I recommend that this editor be blocked from editing Template space, at least. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:45, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Concur with that block suggestion. But I’m far too WP:INVOLVED here to be the admin issuing the block, even if I hadn’t pledged not to make this kind of block in my RfA. * Pppery * _{it has begun…} 16:36, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, although I’d suggest adding a restriction from WP space, as that seems a similar, perhaps even bigger, locus for their disruptive behavior. —Fortuna, imperatrix 16:54, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tough call. I generally enjoy working with FaviFake, and his work is certainly a net benefit to the project. He’s taking on tasks for which most others (including myself) don’t have the energy. But he needs to listen more to others, he invokes WP:BOLD too often, and he’s often sloppy. A block from template space wouldn’t come as a surprise, and I wouldn’t say it’s excessive. But we should make sure that we show a “path to redemption”. FaviFake has learned a lot since he started his editing spree (it’s not even been a year!), most of his work on templates and elsewhere has been useful, and it wouldn’t do Wikipedia any good to block him for an extended period. Admittedly, several users have tried explaining to FaviFake what he needs to do to avoid causing a mess, especially in templates. (And it’s annoying that I have to search this page’s history to find these messages, because FaviFake deletes everything from it that’s older than two days or so.) But I’m fairly sure he’ll be able to learn more, especially about how to be an active and dedicated editor who causes as little annoyance and breakage as possible. — Chrisahn (talk) 17:44, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@FaviFake: You should take the time to say at least a few words here. Wikipedia:Communication is required, and users who don’t take part in discussions like this are more likely to be blocked. Maybe you can avoid a block if you voluntarily abstain from editing templates for a while, let’s say half a year, or if you promise that you’ll only make template changes that are not invasive and clearly supported by consensus and test cases. Or whatever you think might work. (But of course, that’s just a suggestion, and in the end the community will decide whether you should be blocked or not.) — Chrisahn (talk) 17:55, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Alright, I’ll respond to each question individually, and explain each edit reverted by Redrose. Here we go.

Change 1: improve displayed example of <nowiki>{{{date}}}</nowiki>, (Special:Diff/1322721930)
This was discussed at length on this page. It was proposed here in § Template-protected edit request on 2 September 2025: Add example text for template page by @W.andrea. The majority of participants agreed it was beneficial and I mentioned the discussion in my edit summary.

Change 2: remove |reason= parameter (Special:Diff/1322720932)
This was also discussed here, in § Without reason and § margin. It was proposed by @Klbrain and @Gigako1981. The majority of participants agreed it was beneficial and I mentioned the discussion in my edit summary.

Change 3: simplify unused categorisation system (Special:Diff/1322721930)
This was a simple change. This is how i explained it in Special:Diff/1322720932the edit summary:

Removed categorisation into “Category:Miscellany proposed for merging”, as virtually all items in that category are simply drafts for merging to their mainspace articles but it wasn’t monitored, so 15y+ old proposals were still pending.

The benefit is obvious. A few (less than 10 in total, iirc) decade-old ongoing merge proposals would no longer be ignored.

Change 4: allow categorisation for merge proposals in user’s drafts (Special:Diff/1323269769 and Special:Diff/1323291791)
Another straightforward change. From my edit summaries:

Allow categorisation of article drafts in userspace. I’ve looked at the transclusions of this template there and it’s just a few uncontroversial ongoing merge proposals. […] Allow categorisation of user talk pages too, there were about 15 in total among all merge templates and most of them are genuine merge proposals, but the discussion was tagged instead of the article. These proposals shouldn’t be ignored…

Same benefit as Change 3, don’t know what else to add.

Change 5: improved displayed example (Special:Diff/1323290732/1323512598)
This was performed by @Chrisahn. It appears to be closely related to Change 1, plus some other minor changes. See the diffs for details.

Change 6: streamline categorisation of user draft proposals (Special:Diff/1323580443/1323621755)
Change 4 had sorted userpages by month, so these sorting categories stayed redlinked until AnomieBot created them. In some cases, users didn’t write the date correctly and so about 5 categories contained one page. Once that page was fixed, all 5 would be speedily deleted thanks to {{Monthly cleanup category}}.

While temporarily disabling the categorisation of these pages, Bearcat accidentally re-populated Category:Miscellany proposed for merging after it had been deleted as empty. After they said it was my job to implement any desired template changes without causing any redlinked categories, I dumped all of these unmonitored proposals into Category:Miscellany proposed for merging so that I could clean them up before allowing the User: namespace back into the official merge backlog. All of this is explained in more detailed above, in § Recent updates to this template

Change 7: Redrose64 reverted the edits back to Pppery‘s version.

There are a few reasons why:

• Firstly, I used the sandbox a lot. See for example Special:Diff/1322721697, Special:Diff/1322721579, Special:Diff/1322722447, Special:Diff/1322719448…
  • I also used the sandbox multiple times over many days for similar edits I made to {{Being merged/sandbox}}, see its history.
• What you describe isn’t mandated for all template edits by policies or guidelines, or even by common sense. of course a typo shouldn’t be fixed in the sandbox and checked in the testcases.
• None of my edits to these templates contained any Linter errors, or any other type of unintended consequence. So the sandbox testing I did wasn’t even needed!

There are indeed relevant testcases for the merge templates. I encourage you to look, for example, at the testcases for {{Being merged}} and their history. It was created by me and was only edited by me, even up until yesterday.

But the real answer to your question is mw:Extension:TemplateSandbox:

The TemplateSandbox extension adds the ability to preview a page using sandboxed versions of templates, allowing for testing before making the sandbox code live. It also works with Scribunto modules.

Proper testcase pages aren’t necessary for such easy edits if the examples are already in the /doc and there are no errors in the sandbox, (which, as I explained above, I’ve checked).

Hopefully, this should’ve changed your view on this. I neither messed with it nor treated it as my plaything. However, I agree with Chrisahn that I invoke WP:BOLD too often. If one looks at my editing history, they should see I’m starting many more discussions before actually implementing a change, while in the past I would’ve just published in immediately. I’ll keep trying to improve on this front.

While I was writing this, ahem, nice essay, Chrisahn suggested that I respond to these allegations. Of course, while new comments were coming in i was already writing it, but I wanted to add that I’ve been away all morning and didn’t have a chance to respond sooner. I hope this response is satisfactory 🙂 ㅤ FaviFake (talk) 18:05, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• User:FaviFake, have you read WP:LISTEN ? I see you are still editing templates whilst this discussion on your editing templates is ongoing [1] . As I’m personally not convinced at this point, a block would be the minimum I’d suggest. I, personally, would be much more cautious about template editing, but I don’t get any feeling from this discussion that this disruption will stop. Why shouldn’t you be blocked to prevent ongoing disruption? Widefox; talk 22:41, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  On the one hand, I agree and would advise FaviFake to be very careful when editing templates from now on. On the other hand, that edit merely created the lower-case variant {{er}} of the redirect {{ER}}. Unlikely to be disruptive. — Chrisahn (talk) 02:17, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Chrisahn, it’s an indication of not stopping and listening, rather than another example of disruption. Does any of the above give you the impression of listening, the consensus is clear, from LISTEN:

Believing that you have a valid point does not confer the right to act as though your point must be accepted by the community when you have been told otherwise. The community’s rejection of your idea is not because they didn’t hear you. Stop writing, listen, and consider what the others are telling you.

• I see writing, not stopping writing. I see continuing plowing on, despite. Widefox; talk 11:35, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I think we’re basically in agreement. You mentioned “disruption” twice in your comment, and that’s what I responded to. (Also, some readers may not really look at the link you provided, so I wanted to clarify that it’s not an example of disruption.) But I completely agree that FaviFake needs to listen more, and I also think it would be best if FaviFake simply stayed away from templates for a while. — Chrisahn (talk) 12:50, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, I have read it. I haven’t edited any template since RedRose’s comment. I agree my message was more focused on explaining my previous edits, as I was asked to, but it didn’t clarify what I plan to do from now on.The answer to your direct question would be because I believe I have done more good than harm to the project, if one is to look through all my contributions, especially in the Article, H:, and WP: namespaces. I’ll definitely take the advice above and avoid editing templates for a while. I was excited to start working on the decade-long backlog for draft mergers, but, since that’s clearly not gonna happen, I’ll focus on the merge backlog for articles. Or on editing articles in general.It will be hard for me to see something wrong or inefficient and do nothing about it, but I’ll try to remember that Wikipedia does not need me. Wikilinks will lead to dabs, templates will be inconsistent, articles will need to be merged, instructions will be repetitive, essays will remain outdated, yet the project will move on; I’ll strive to remain annoyed. FaviFake (talk) 16:07, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Is the answer to “Why shouldn’t you be blocked to prevent ongoing disruption?” …I’ll not edit templates “for a while”? That may prevent a block, but when the while is up, what will you do differently to now? I ask, as I see no acknowledgement that you recognise the disruption, which would be a first step, and then a second would be to specifically reassure those editors who’ve been mopping up after you that those things that you learnt won’t happen again. What did you learn? Widefox; talk 17:57, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I truly don’t know what I’ll do differently! Maybe I’ll have left Wikipedia by then, or decided to ignore non-mainspace pages. If I do still want to edit a template, well, I’ll quote what I’ve already written above: I agree with Chrisahn that I invoke WP:BOLD too often […] I’m starting many more discussions before actually implementing a change, […] I’ll keep trying to improve on this front. Especially when changes involve the creation of new categories or deletion of existing ones. However, many editors here enjoy reminding me that they also consider disruptive the creation of a discussion itself. At this time, I cannot guarantee I’ll voluntarily refrain from partecipating in or starting discussions regarding templates in the future. FaviFake (talk) 18:59, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  “they also consider disruptive the creation of a discussion itself” – That’s pretty rare. Nobody said something like that in this discussion. There are some kinds of behavior that are considered disruptive in discussions, e.g. WP:BLUDGEONING, but as far as I can tell, there’s no problem with your behavior in discussions. You’ve never been rude, always civil and focused on the issues at hand. I’d say go ahead and discuss! 🙂 Just be more careful when you’re editing content. Especially templates. Listen to what others are saying and think about it. Happy editing! — Chrisahn (talk) 07:57, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Yeah, I wasn’t referring to this discussion specifically. I don’t have time to find other examples, but these two are some of the most recent ones:

  Can you please stop this ridiculous crusade to change icons of every single template. Nobody but you seems to want it, it’s just causing needless strife.

  You’ve been making a very large number of proposed changes to templates lately for relatively insignificant changes. This comes across as extremely pushy and annoying.

  FaviFake (talk) 16:29, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I guess this is a bit subtle.

  You wrote “disruptive”. That’s a legal term here on the English Wikipedia. It basically means “behavior that warrants a block”. See WP:DISRUPTIVE. Vandalism and edit-warring are clearly “disruptive”. In context, the accusations “causing needless strife” and “extremely pushy and annoying” were probably slightly below “disruptive” in this sense.

  In general, starting a discussion is not disruptive. Rather the opposite. If you want to change something, start a discussion. That’s generally considered good behavior.

  I think the problem in the cases you mentioned was that you started lots of discussions in a short time, or posted links to discussions you started in several places, and some people found that annoying.

  You wrote “I cannot guarantee I’ll voluntarily refrain from partecipating in or starting discussions”. People are not saying that you should not start discussions or should not participate in them. Rather the opposite – starting a discussion about a change is often better than simply making the change. For example, in a widely used template. All they’re asking is that you slow down a bit.

  For example, changing the icon of a template is usually not an important or even urgent change. If you start a discussion about such a change, it’s possible that few people respond, because most just don’t care. It may take some time before the discussion even gets going. Months, even years. That’s OK. Let it slide. Find something else to do. Maybe at some point someone will find the discussion and restart it. Or agree with what you wrote and just make the change. But if not, don’t try to push it. — Chrisahn (talk) 03:41, 26 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  More generally: I think you said somewhere that you read most (all?) of our policies. That’s great, but there is a lot of implicit knowledge that is not written down in explicit policies. (They’d get at least ten times longer if we tried to do that.) For example, you suggested a change on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Simplier version, and when nobody responded in eight days, you went ahead and made the change. Most experienced editors probably would have waited much longer. Or posted another comment in that section to attract attention. You argued that the talk page is one of the most watched talk pages, and that’s correct, but eight days still isn’t enough time for such a highly visible change on a page like the MOS. How much time is enough? I don’t know. 🙂 Developing an intuitive understanding for such details that are not explicitly codified may easily take a couple of years. I’ve been around for almost twenty years, but I still don’t feel very knowledgeable, and I often defer to others in such matters. — Chrisahn (talk) 04:49, 26 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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