User talk:Patrick Tufts/Jun 2005
From the Quicksilver Metaweb.
Pat? Something's gone weird on The Annotation Page - Sparky 02:10, 2004 Mar 24 (PST)
I'll take a look. Can you describe the problem? --Pat 14:49, 13 Apr 2004 (PDT)
Someone was editing the entire Annotations page in a text editor and not seeing (option-key) + (shift-key) + (-) as an emdash — or (option-key) + (;) as an elipses … so many of my authored entries went red at the time. - Sparky 16:09, 2004 Apr 13 (PDT)
Odder still - people are erasing vandalism which doesn't show up in the article's page history? What's up with that? Your talk page link on the page with you and your robot friend goes to the archived version. So you know. - Sparky 03:04, 2004 Apr 14 (PDT)
Thanks. I've updated the link on my user page to point here. --Pat 19:53, 14 Apr 2004 (PDT)
You're a prince among men Patrick! I'm checking with Kinokuniya Books everyday for my copy of the book; My Quicksilver annotations are going to be from my copious notes... heh ... - Sparky Bookstore has them in Tokyo! So maybe Monday! Yeah!
Wasn't sure we were seeing spam with the Chinese stuff. Tried to make something positive from it. - Sparky 19:08, 2004 Jun 10 (PDT) It was link spam - people trying to boost their Google rank. I didn't really want to delete your comment, but I also didn't want the discussion page to benefit the spammer's site ranking. My apologies. --Pat 20:16, 10 Jun 2004 (PDT)
I'm fairly cool with it. My only worry was that it was pertinent. I gather it wasn't... be well - Sparky 20:45, 2004 Jun 10 (PDT)
Are the changes implemented? Any timeframe? - Sparky
I'm having trouble getting the new Wikimedia code running. I've installed it on our test server but haven't yet managed to configure it properly. No estimate yet for when I'll have it working, sorry. --Pat 10:20, 18 Jun 2004 (PDT)
When it's ready is when we'll see it I gather. Thanks. Will it reflect the changes seen in Wikipedia? - Sparky
Some, and possibly all, of the new Wikipedia features are in the code. The Mediawiki release we're trying to bring up has improved page creation and editing features. I am not sure if the current Wikipedia page layout (white background with tabs) is in this codebase. --Pat 21:38, 21 Jun 2004 (PDT)
thanks for the update. - Sparky 03:13, 2004 Jun 22 (PDT)
Pat? User:Tew seems into odd things that I do not want to check out - it isn't like the Chinese merchant I was trying to get to participate in a less commercial manner - Sparky
Are these spambots eggdrops of some evil design? And they simply pump google stats? Seems pathetic. - Sparky 15:18, 2004 Jul 19 (PDT)
I think these are done by one or two individuals who have a block of links that they paste in by hand. I strongly suspect this is just to bump up the Google PageRank for the linked sites. Pathetic? Yep. Pat 17:31, 11 Aug 2004 (PDT)
Hi Patrick, I just removed a lod of spam links from this guy: 210.82.76.17. Seems like a ripe one for IP banning.... DaveSeidel 08:29, 10 Sep 2004 (PDT)
The user will be banned. Thank you! - Sparky 16:12, 2004 Sep 10 (PDT)
Pat? Armaced wrote:
Hi Stsparky,
What would you think about requiring a login to edit on the Metaweb. I appreciate that this community is so easy going that it will let you edit with only an IP address, but as a contributor I find it ironically inconvenient. Sometimes, just after I have made an edit or authored a new page, I will notice that I was not logged in, and now this page will not show up in the list of pages I have authored. Furthermore, it makes the history a little less obvious when a page is edited by an IP address. On the flip side, it is much easier to catch spambots by searching Recent Changes for modifications made by users identified only by their IP address, so I could go either way. Just wanted to see how you felt about this. Armaced 20:14, 4 Oct 2004 (PDT)
Any ideas? - Sparky 09:33, 2004 Oct 6 (PDT)
:: I'm for trying this as an experiment, but I don't know which MediaWiki variable (or worse, which MediaWiki code) I'd have to change to do this. --Pat 11:36, 11 Oct 2004 (PDT)
Thanks, we'll be patient. Rereading The Confusion - and about to do some articles. - Sparky 11:58, 2004 Oct 11 (PDT)
If you really want to implement the above function/restriction I can have a look at MediaWiki's code and produce the snippets needed. Only, what release do you have installed? Don't want to look in the wrong place... Valis 13:01, 11 Oct 2004 (PDT)
Valis, we're running an older version of MediaWiki. Our SVN repository is here - http://svn-public.appliedminds.com:8000/repos/metaweb/metaweb/ - and publically readable. You should be able to 'svn co http://svn-public.appliedminds.com:8000/repos/metaweb/metaweb/'. If you can help us switch to the current version, let me know. My PHP skills and MediaWiki skills are weak enough that I've been the bottleneck on us switching over to the current MediaWiki code (the current version has significant architectural differences from the version we're running). --Pat 11:00, 20 Oct 2004 (PDT)
Hm. I can't connect via web, subversion, or telnet, to that address. I probably won't be much help in coding... - Pronoiac 21:47, 3 Nov 2004 (PST)
About the Slashdot interview: The questions seem ill-informed; he's answered some of them in interviews or at signings. Should we, basically, have a FAQ about Stephenson? Should we trust that he'll answer the more novel questions? - Pronoiac 15:46, 11 Oct 2004 (PDT)
A FAQ is a fine idea. Sure, some of the questions have been asked before. Even on Slashdot, there are users who are new to Neal's books and who may not have read past interviews with him. If you want to take a stab at a FAQ, go for it! --Pat 11:03, 20 Oct 2004 (PDT)
The Baroque Cycle is complete - with The System of the World published, The Main Page should reflect all three books being available for commentary. - Sparky 17:50, 2004 Oct 29 (PDT)
We just were hit by two quasi-registered spammers. - Sparky 01:03, 2004 Dec 10 (PST)
Hi Patrick, this may seem to be a stupid question and you may also be the wrong person to ask that, but I don't know who else to ask or how else to find you, so here goes: How do I access some-one's Talk page, if they HAVEN'T explicitly linked it like you? It seems like there must be a simple way, but I just can't figure it out... so maybe that FAQ would be a good idea, after all. It is you the older guys (i.e. the guys, who know what they're doing), who have to put up with this sort of questions, so we the newbees can learn. Sorry! ;-) Greetings from rainy Berlin, Malte PS: feel free to blow torch me...
Go to the Recent Changes page to see if the person has been active recently. If not see if the person has authored any annotations and click on the Page history tab on top of the page and click on the user's name. - Best and welcome aboard! - Sparky 07:25, 2004 Dec 18 (PST)
Why, thank you Sparky!
One way to get to a user's talk page is to go to the url "www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Username" where Username is the name of the user. This form is parallel to the URL for the User's page, "...title=User:Username", so if you can get to a user's page, by changing "User:" to "User_talk:" you get to the talk page.
I realize this is awkward. There may be a way to do it from the menus, but this is the quick way I use. It works for users with IP addresses instead of accounts, too. --Pat 11:51, 30 Jan 2005 (PST)
There is a way to do this from menus. Go to the user's page and then click on the link "Discuss this page" - that takes you to their talk page. --Pat 11:52, 30 Jan 2005 (PST)
Pat? The ss?? articles - may I delete them? Should I? - Sparky 05:45, 2004 Dec 29 (PST)
If it's obviously junk (line noise, spam, or similar), go ahead and delete. If it's debatable, let me know and we can figure it out. --Pat 11:51, 30 Jan 2005 (PST)
Having troubles with my ISP - so I'll be very sporadic until it's stable - we're back in Santa Monic -Sparky 18:20, 2005 Feb 3 (PST)
Hi. Very newbie, but I was in Hannover for the first time again since reading the Cycle and took a few photos (Herrenhausen gardens, Leibnitz house) that might be of interest to other readers. I'm unable to find on the site the copyright status of photos that I took of paintings, carriages etc. in the museum there. Can't see anywhere else to ask. Any guidelines? -User:PaulDavis
Pat - is there anyway to block the spammers? Can you email their clients and let them know they are generating hostility and not good leads. - Sparky 18:48, 2005 Jun 7 (PDT)
I looked up one of the netblocks that the spam is coming from (80.58.x.x) and emailed the ISP that owns the block. They are looking into it, but I'm not holding my breath. --Pat 13:53, 21 Jul 2005 (PDT)