User talk:D6

TLAs

Wouldn't it make sense to put Category:TLAs into Template:TLA? Marnanel 17:05, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It sure would, but that template isn't really used much, so I added it directly to the pages. -- User:Docu

Years

What on earth do we need year categories for? Would this mean World War II would get categories 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, and 1945? I don't get it. Everyking 19:35, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oh, I see, it's for things like such in such year in sports, science, etc? Well, I suggest that not be extended infinitely into years for which we have no such articles to categorize. Everyking 19:36, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's been suggested and discussed at Category talk:Years. The categories should be for events specific to a year (see Template:Yearcat). -- User:Docu

Wanted to thank you for adding the "riot" articles to the year categories. I never knew such things existed. --Duemellon 01:56, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

And more thanks. I've been trying to get some of the pages I've worked on into categories, so more folks may see them - and here you are, doing such a nice job on this! Wonderful job! --avnative 04:38, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

exagerated categories

Why not make a "Male" and "Female" category btw.... User:Cyprus2k1

As in Category:Male ? -- User:Docu

i think that its exagerated... - --Cyprus2k1 12:43, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yup, adding two more categories to each and every biographical article sounds a bit... bizarre. In many cases there are already three or even more categories. After adding another two (births and deaths) the whole categories line becomes too crowded. I'm afraid that your concept might only lead to greater mess. [[User:Halibutt|Halibu tt]] 00:00, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

Lyndon B. Johnson had nine categories before .. I doubt the two additions really make it worse. Many biographies don't have any categories at all.

I won't add Category:Male BTW -- User:Docu

How about Category:April 1 Births. Honestly, can you hold off running this bot until consensus is developed? I think there's enough controversy on these categories that you ought to. Cool Hand Luke 18:34, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I would like to point out that these categories violate both of the criteria on whether a category should be created at Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes. Snowspinner 20:10, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

checking for disambig pages

You might want to have the bot check if a page is a disambiguation page before adding a category to it. For example Bob Carr. [[User:Bkonrad|older≠wiser]] 12:51, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

They will show up in a subsequent update of Wikipedia:People_by_year/Reports/Sortkeytest (I had spotted Bob Carr BTW. -- User:Docu

Before adding more useless year categories, you may at least want to determine if they are correct, for example in the case of Kim Deal. Such verification might slow you down a bit too, so I wouldn't have hundreds of edits to wade through on my watchlist. Everyking 13:06, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I will run a variation of Wikipedia:People_by_year#With_categories to check the plausibility of the information by Wikipedia. -- User:Docu

Birth/death categories

You might want to check that the birth/death categories you're inserting aren't already present in an article, and that you're assigning it to the right year for the right name. Dwight D. Eisenhower already had the relevant categories, and Harman and Ising assigned one person's years of birth and death to both of the subjects of the article. (I've fixed both.) -Sean Curtin 06:31, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. It looks like there is a bug in this bot. See for example [1] where two death categories have automatically been added using different lists and giving conflicting sorting. -- Solipsist 18:46, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's a known problem. If the sort key is different, the bot adds another category. It will be fairly easy to find them once an updated dump of categories is available (i.e. tomorrow, or the day afterwards). -- User:Docu

Approval

I was just wondering if you can give me a link to where this bot got approval to run, and for what, exactly. Snowspinner 20:04, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

Accuracy

I don't particularly care for these categories, but they're even worse if incorrect. John F. Burns was just marked as having a died in 2003. He had a byline yesterday, and he's very much alive. He's not listed in Deaths in 2003. What is the source of this bot's information?--Jkiang 20:21, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's my manual input that was incorrect. Thank you for pointing it out (and fixing it). - User:Docu

Suspended

I've suspended this bot. The category addition is clearly controversial, and, though the bot was approved, the original request said nothing about category addition. I've opened up discussion at Wikipedia talk:Bots. Please go explain what you intend to use this bot for, and get it reapproved, and I'll lift the block. Snowspinner 20:40, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

It was approved for running pywikipediabot (which includes the category.py package). The year categories have been discussed and kept. Thus, please unblock the bot. -- User:Docu

Although the pywikipediabot contains the categories package, it also contains other things, and not all pybots are used for all purposes. I think the categories are a terrible idea, obviously, and that, regardless of the deletion debate, they violate policy. That said, my real concern here is that the bot was given approval purely because there were no objections, and there was no particular discussion of what the bot is going to do, and now it's generating controversy. I'd like to at least wait a week and see what kinds of objections arise to a request for bot status that specifies exactly what you intend to do with the bot. I promise not to object myself, and if there's no one else but me and Netoholic that minds, I'll unblock it. Snowspinner 21:46, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)