User talk:Pigsonthewing/Archive 43

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Hi Andy. I've declined your request at {{infobox university}} for now. Feel free to reopen it when the code has been tested, though. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:24, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Hello again Andy, I am struggling with your answer, I can't seem to find how you get to peoples talk pages to copy in the text. So sorry but are you able to give some further information please?

Many thanks

Ali Pritchard — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ali Pritchard (talk • contribs) 10:33, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

First find their user page, then use the talk tab. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:48, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Please do not reinstate Admin removal categories for blocked user. We took it out of the administrative logs. All you accomplished was to erroneously add hem back to the logs (why?), and force a bot to undo your action. In the future, if you do not understand admin actions, please ask in the admin's talk page before removing or reinstating. Thank you. (Added: in case you are wondering, the logs is at CAT:UAA. We try to keep it short and manageable usually no more than one page when possible. Those are user names requiring attention and are usually left for a week or so to await user response/CHU action or blocking if warranted). -- Alexf^(talk) 13:29, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Why? Because - as I stated in my edit summary, which you should have read - no reason for the removal was given in your edit summary, which I did read. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:50, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Not to point to it too much but the original clean up had an edit summary, the one we use hundreds of times a month (literally), and it said: "Clean up category". The cleaned category has a comment that clearly says it should be removed when a decision is made or editor is blocked. No point in going further. The log is clean as of now. Thanks. -- Alexf^(talk) 14:20, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

As I said; no reason. Why it was being cleaned up was not explained in the edit summary. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:28, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Best cover ever!♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 18:01, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

think again, 'Blowers Fnaar, fnaar!! Martinevans123 (talk) 18:05, 5 August 2013 (UTC) p.s. yes, that really is "Paranoid" by Black Sabbath...

Right. I'm reporting you both to ANI. Bastards. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:44, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

People actually paid money for this one – iridescent 18:52, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Money, - "it's a gas", apparently. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:58, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

LOL, I knew you'd be overjoyed..♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 06:34, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

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This Month in GLAM – Volume III, Issue VII, July 2013 Headlines Australia and New Zealand report: No letup from Libraries Italy report: Libraries! Mexico report: Wiki Loves Monuments meeting in Mexico City; Volunteers of Puebla and Fotofestin gets in the contest Spain report: IPC Athletic World Championships UK report: Art Nouveau & Rosalind Franklin USA report: 20,000 high quality photographs for Art History enthusiasts Special story: An archive with many stories to tell Open Access report: Media Importer; File of the Day Wiki Loves Monuments report: Wiki Loves Monuments is coming Calendar: August's GLAM events Read this edition in full • Single-page To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

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• work=[[BBC Online]]|accessdate=10 August 2013}}</ref> at the [[University of Cambridge]].<ref><http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/meet_the_team/default.stm#spencer Meet the team]</ref> It was as a student that Kelly first became involved in broadcasting, initially at Radio

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I performed the edit you requested for infobox magazine, but I think you need to go back and request a change — even after I edited Scientific American, there's no indication that its infobox is at TFD. Nyttend (talk) 23:47, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you; that's bizarre, I can't see why it's not appearing. Caching issue, perhaps? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:57, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Don't think so, since the cache should get overridden when I edit the page. Are you seeing the notice, whether on that article or any others? Nyttend (talk) 23:58, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

No. Very odd. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:01, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm stumped. The code looks fine, I'll dome back to this in a few hours; must sleep, now. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:09, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Turns out that someone edited the template so that it was incapable of displaying the message in question! I've reverted the deletion, and the message now appears properly in transclusions. Nyttend (talk) 01:03, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

How daft; thanks for sorting this out. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:06, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Andy. Please see this post. Unless Ronhjones has any objection, I suggest you first withdraw the MfD (apparently the OP is allowed to do that as long as there haven't been any significant opinions posted, and there sure haven't) and then I'll speedy the page. Since it contains really old negative material, it certainly shouldn't be kept around indefinitely. Regards, Bishonen | talk 16:41, 11 August 2013 (UTC).

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Sorry for such a delay in getting back to you.

The dated headings used are those also used by vandal fighters to warn users. This makes it more likely for vandalism caught by BracketBot to be reverted by said vandal fighters. Also, by organising the messages into months, it ensures that a user page will not be unduly overloaded with headers.

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Hi Andy, hope all is going well with the eye.

I'm watching this article Bob Brozman and there's a chunk of text (with citation) that is constantly getting deleted then reinserted. Is there a means of flagging this up somehow, or is it simply a case of edit-revert-edit-revert until one or more of those involved gets bored?

simontcope 16:01, 14 August 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Slim cop (talk • contribs)

Thank you. Don't edit war; that can get you blocked. Try the dispute resolution procedures at WP:DR or ask for the page to be protected, at WP:RPP. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:05, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

On 15 August 2013, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Thomas Yeoman, which you recently nominated. The fact was ... that Thomas Yeoman was the first president of a group of non-military engineers in the English-speaking world? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Thomas Yeoman. You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Alex Shih^Talk 00:03, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

On the DirecTV satellite fleet article, Template:Dts is still causing issues with the table, even with the Tfm template being noincluded. Could you please try to see what is causing this? ANDROS¹³³⁷_TALK 17:05, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Fixed. Sorry about that. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:00, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Greetings! I have closed Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 July 13#Template:Infobox royalty. The result of the discussion was merge all into Template:Infobox royalty. Please proceed accordingly. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:41, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi Andy, I think something went wrong with your signature here so I thought I'd let you know. Bye.--Nero the second (talk) 20:49, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

On 20 August 2013, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Henry Hadley (died 1914), which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that the first British victim of World War I, Henry Hadley, was shot by a Prussian officer before the United Kingdom entered the war? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Henry Hadley (died 1914). You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

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My best wishes is with you, Get Well Soon Friend. Sou Boyy (talk) 17:54, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

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Did you mean to nominate the article instead of its talk page? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 17:13, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Fixed. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:16, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi Andy, I've had a go at polishing off the West Midlands list and I think all the blues links from the original version are now included. Are there any you think I've missed? The state of the table can be seen at User:Nev1/West Midlands I. Nev1 (talk) 12:33, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi Andy, any thoughts on this? Nev1 (talk) 22:36, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi Andy; hope everything's okay. Is your eye still giving you trouble? I had a chat with Richard N, and I've re-added the table format to Grade I listed buildings in the West Midlands, except that I've tidied it up and made sure as many links as possible are pointing to the right place. I know it's a bit of a trade-off to have things things doe quite hastily to be ready in time for Wiki Loves Monuments, but hopefully we'll et some better photos and some more editors out of it, so it'll be worth it in the long run. Happy to chat if there are any problems with the new format. All the best, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:45, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/RfC Reviewer permission. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:26, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I still support the changes and given how Lucia has a one-way interaction ban, I do not think additional comments are necessary. A lot of drama over a much needed change. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 02:40, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Quite. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:13, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps this has been resolved, but there are still notes on some pages suggesting it is an open issue, so I thought it couldn't hurt to leave a note. I am currently using various peerages to research family genealogy and then comparing that information with Wikipedia, and I have noticed significant inconsistencies among WP entries for individuals included in the peerages. (Although I am impressed by the amount of information that has been transferred from peerages to WP.) Is it possible to create a general template for use by all contributors for all who appear in peerages consistent with the way in which the peerages detail individuals and families? (Including both nobility and actual peers.) I noticed that there is discussion about using an infobox:persons that would include categories for those persons who are included in peerages, presumably leaving N/A categories blank based on the person's biography. (As would be true of any entry for an individual; esp. as most of us are not members of the peerage. :-).)

I do not contribute to WP often, but as I continue my research, I may have primary family research of historical significance regarding certain nobles and peers, and could add that to the WP entries for those individuals, as long as it falls within the guidelines and the the template ultimately used. (I am descended from the de Ros Barony, including some of the family members holding Arundel and Norfolk peerages in England/GB/UK; I am also descended from the German Schönborn princes.)

Obviously, some of the material relies on medieval historical sources, so it's going to be sketchy in spots, but it would help if we all could ensure it is as consistent as possible even when there are blank spots in the historical data.

Thanks for letting me share my thoughts, and if this is all redundant, I apologize. I did check to see if this issue was raised under "Talk" and did not see it.

I hope you feel better soon. I am disabled myself, and work in fits and starts, so you have both my sympathy and my empathy!

Best regards, Elizabeth Rose Erose001 (talk) 00:57, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

@Erose001: Thank you; I am recuperating from two lots of surgery for a detached retina, so should make a full recovery, after a third, cataract, operation. We are currently debating whether and how to merge some related templates for peers and members of the nobility. however, it will not be possible to only every use one template for such people, as some may be better known for their military or political service, or for some other career, which makes a topic-specific infobox more suitable. We also sometimes use one infobox as a "module" or "child" within another. If you have specific examples or problems, I'll be happy to assist. Alternatively, there's the Wikipedia:Help desk. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:32, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi Andy, thanks for the invitation. I have an audio file available at http://www.yronwode.com/catherine.html near the signature where it says "VOICE" but it needs conversion. Thanks. Catherineyronwode (talk) 07:59, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

@Catherineyronwode: Thank you. I am downloading that now and can easily convert it. Your page says "copyright © 1995-2009 catherine yronwode. All rights reserved". We can only use the file if it is under an open licence. Please can you confirm that CC-by-sa 3.0 applies; or state a suitable alternative? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:15, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

To be found at [1] NtheP (talk) 09:32, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:34, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

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Can you look at Robert F. Ensko, I see the accessdate and url parameter showing up in the reference section in the view mode. Is this something new? There is an accessdate supplied in the template, is it formatted incorrectly? When did this change occur? I noticed it months ago, but since I have been blocked from creating new articles, I just ignored it. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 13:51, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Those errors were enabled yesterday. In this case, |accessdate= is redundant, as there is no |url= and it never displayed. Simply remove |accessdate= from the affected citations. --  Gadget850 ^talk 14:05, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

@Gadget850: Thanks for jumping in. Couldn't a bot usefully do those replacements? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:53, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

I've been thinking on that. In most cases, that would be fine. But then there are cases where |url= was mis-entered, such as not including the pipe or equals. --  Gadget850 ^talk 15:06, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

@Gadget850: All easily tested for, presumably? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:10, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Hey, so about Lua for infoboxes. Can you give me an example of an infobox that would have a date param that a bot like Theo's Little Bot 25 could parse. That is, the date field is just a date and the output would be that date wrapped in a {{start date}} (as I understand it). Plus any extra conditions or considerations. If you give me an infobox to work with, I can run through all date fields and make a list of what's there to see what could or couldn't be done automatically. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 17:48, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

I maintain an incomplete list at User:Pigsonthewing/to-do#Date conversions. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:40, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I've seen that one, but there's not a lot of technical detail there. I thought may be you have a good example from those or anything else one would need to know? It sounds as simple as "take date from field, emit a span". Surely, there's more to it? Anyway, I'll check {{Infobox cycling team}}. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:54, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, there is more to it, but I don't understand what you're asking. Can you rephrase the question, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:09, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I assumed this is a continuation of the thought-train on that BRFA. Okay, so what I want to do is write a Lua module. I will then add it to {{Infobox cycling team}} and pass the module the |founded= field value. The module will then try to parse this as a date (and only date), and if successful emit appropriate metadata. Below's a list of all |founded= values from that template (feel free to delete it to not clog up your talk page). There are just 4 plain years that will get recognized, the rest are wrapped in {{start date}}s and/or have extra bits. My question is, what else do I need to consider here? For now, what are valid year values, and what is the html output needed here? It looks to be "<span class="bday dtstart published updated">YEAR</span>". —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:27, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Data trimmed, but a few examples retained. All these examples could be made machine parsable using Lua. But what of one of them said "some time around 1973" - that should not be parsed as "1973".

You also need to account for "August 2004", and at the potential for "27 August 2004", "August 27, 2004", and the same with ordinals and other punctuation. For anything other than a pure year the output is more complex; see  ()'s documentation and examples.

If Lua is used, it may be possible to reduce the emitted HTML classes, depending on the root microformat class in the template:

• vcard = bday
• vevent = dtstart
• both = both

(I'll need to refresh my memory on the other two and get back to you). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:50, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

The parser would not touch "some time around 1973" or that whole "by Eric..." because that's not a recognized date format and it wouldn't be told to look out for such text. I can add {{start date|1994}} easily enough, though the whole point is that it wouldn't be needed for default cases. In fact, using something like a {{start date}} should probably signify that the parser leaves this alone and that this page is overriding the defaults and emitting data manually. "August 2004", "27 August 2004" and "August 27, 2004" are simple enough. Is "2004-08-27" excluded at all or? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:09, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

So you're suggesting having the parser and retaining the template? Isn't that just going to confuse editors? In an instance of |date=1973, if an editor adds a text annotation, or a reference, say |date=1973<ref name=foo />, what used to emit machine-readable date metadata will no longer do so, and the editor will be none the wiser. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:16, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes! the template is the wrapper that hides the #invoke which calls the Lua code, so we always need both. Write a new template while you're testing and you can always upgrade the original template when you know the new one works.

@Hellknowz: I'm too tired to finish it tonight, but look at Module:Sandbox/RexxS/DateData and User:RexxS/DateDataTest - it's nowhere near finished, but the front end is done - it picks out numbers and words from an input string, so should be capable of recognising dates fairly intelligently as well as retaining a certain amount of extra clutter without falling over (although the word 'may' could be a nuisance!). Feel free to steal whatever you want. There's a piece of code to output a clean string in dmy or mdy format in Module:Wikidata that I finished today, so you may find that useful as well. Cheers, --RexxS (talk) 20:32, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

That would've probably helped 5 hours ago. :) Anyway, I am playing with Module:Sandbox/Hellknowz/Test and User:Hellknowz/Sandbox2. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:39, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I only meant keeping the {{start date}} template for exceptions, where the parser shouldn't do anything. Ideally, we'd be able to reduce these exception cases to minimum, which is why I was asking for examples. As for extra text in the field, it depends how much we're willing to parse/hard-code and how much good practice we are asking editors to observe. For example, the parser could strip all <ref> tags, which is a reasonable assumption. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:39, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

So what about |date=1973<ref>exact year uncertain</ref> or |date=1 March 1673<ref>Julian calendar</ref>? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:47, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

This is what I meant by good practice from editors, to not do these things. In the end, how likely are they and how much damage can they really do? All they need to do to fix it is use something like |date=<!--No metadata-->1 March 1673<ref>Julian calendar</ref>. Lua is really fast, so you can even make a list of tons of various rules and checks that will tag articles for review, like having "Gregorian" or "year"/"uncertain" mentioned. Realistically, there will always be a few errors (I'll make more lists of field values later for real-world samples), but it's a tiny trade-off for full customizable automation and no extra markup, in my opinion. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 21:00, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Experience shows (and I'm sure the evidence will too) that you cant expect "good practice" in such matters. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:04, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

I think that's way too pessimistic and most editors will follow practice. There is always someone opposing or ignoring something, but we shouldn't base the viability of the whole feature on a few editors. This is true for everything. I'm sure {{start date}} has seen equal misuse. I bet more editors have reverted additions of that template than there will ever be cases of well-ruled detection errors. Going through templates slowly and catching all catchable problems seems much more productive than halting the process because it will encounter a misuse or error at some point. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 21:23, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting "halting the process because it will encounter a misuse or error at some point". My experience, having considered this issue in the context of Wikipedia and elsewhere, over more than half a decade, is that the problem is insoluble without explicit markup. If you or anyone else can solve it, I'll be very happy. But also very surprised. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:31, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

I understand, and I am purposefully not grabbing a huge template. Let's take {{Infobox cycling team}} as an example. The 4 bare dates are there because an article was made without start date, an infobox was added without start date, a value was added without start date (which was even shown in comment), and start date was explicitly removed. That's almost 2% of pages, and these aren't exactly high traffic articles. I'm the last person to tell you about metadata deployment issues or editor opposition to this. But wouldn't you agree that current situation isn't exactly perfect either and I would also strongly argue it is worse than we can make it with a parser. It doesn't have to be everywhere and at once, but for cases like {{Infobox cycling team}} -- we can add a parser that will at this time return 100% valid result for 100% of pages. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 21:52, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

When you can, please take a look at Module talk:Sandbox/Hellknowz/Test/testcases and tell me if I'm missing any (basic) cases. You also mentioned above you need to look up the proper classes to emit (and that they might depend on the format?). —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 09:15, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Try:

• 1 May 1066
• 1 May 1733 (old style)
• 1 May 1733 (Russian)
• 1 May 1973 (uncertain)
• 1 May 1973 (location uncertain)
• 1 May 1973 (but later cancelled)
• 1 May 1973, 10.38am
• 10.38am, 1 May 1973
• 1 May 1973, 10:38:27
• 10:38:27, 1 May 1973
• 1 May 1973 (10.38am)
• 1-3 May 1973
• 1 May 1973 - 4 June 1973
• 1 May 1973 (scheduled), 4 June 1973 (actual)
• 1 May 1973 (UK), 4 June 1973 (USA)
• 1973 BC
• 1973 BC, Canada
• 1973 BCE
• 1973 BCE Widgets Limited

Will look up the classes later. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:00, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

The parser is very strict -- for now it won't match anything with extra text -- no parenthesis, labels, ranges (for now), locations, BC/BCE, times (for now), notes, comments, templates, etc. I'll add a few of those for testcases, but in the actual articles one would still use {{start date}}. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:25, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Picture caption

Understanding almost nothing of the above, my question is if a module could check for a date in a picture caption of an infobox, example {{infobox musical composition}} as used in Symphony No. 1 (Sibelius), and transform it (but into what kind of date)? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:34, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

In short, no. The module couldn't know if "1894" is a year or a number. Things like "16 May" could be something like "Only 16 may pass". Even if it's a full date, it couldn't know if "May 13, 1788" isn't a name of the painting, inside some quote, or something else. Context is important for arbitrary captions like this. A supervised bot/script could approach very few false positives with extensive rules and conditions for full dates, but it's constant work to maintain/run it and not really feasible for a module. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:05, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, I thought so but sometimes am surprised what can be done, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:20, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Metadata classes and output

Hey Andy, did you get a chance to look up the classes that datetime data should produce? From what I understand we are outputting hCalendar and vCard data. Of course, I would be able to specify this on a per-infobox basis and add others (that infobox would define). hCalendar reads 'dtstart' and 'dtend' and I'm not doing vCard for now. I have no idea what 'published' and 'updated' tags are for. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:13, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

@Hellknowz: Apologies for the belated response; see Wikipedia:WikiProject Microformats/classes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:50, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Would both start and end date be grouped like <span style="display:none">&#⁣160;(<span class="dtstart">2013-05-03</span><span class="dtend">2014-02-06</span>)</span>? Also why is there a non-breaking space and brackets in the hidden stuff -- is that part of the required markup? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:51, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

From a microformat PoV, the only significant thing are the spans and the classes and contents. I suspect that the brackets and nbsp were added in case someone has CSS disabled, and sees the "hidden" content. For that reason, there should be a space between the spans, too. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:20, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Another question - what are we supposed to do about articles with multiple dates, like different release dates for regions? If using {{start date}}, where would it go - first date, both, none? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:49, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

That depends on the context, and, where applicable, should be described in the infobox documentation. For instance, for a film or record release, it's the first date. If a building has a {{para|groundbreaking and |completed=, it's the latter. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:20, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Freeform date for templates

While this is second on my list, you might be more interested in having {{Start date}} and family being able to accept free-form dates/times in a single parameter. So like {{Start date|September 1, 2013}} would output both the original "September 1, 2013" visually and formatted "2013-09-01" metadata. So instead of {{Start date|1993|02|24|08|30}} one could just use {{Start date|08:30, February 24, 1993}}. This would work for date ranges as well (I see you requested ranges). It also verifies that the date/time is actually valid. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:46, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Trial deployment

Hey. I made a Module:Infobox date field metadata module, an {{Infobox date field metadata}} template and added it to the {{Infobox cycling championship}} infobox (~ 150 pages). I used that one because it includes a broad range of different values and formats, including ranges. Here's a quick parse of all values. For trial, I made a Category:Articles with automatically detected infobox date metadata tracking category (it's not populating though due to MW's way of ignoring updates of transcluded categories). —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:38, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I've never doubted that it would be possible to do what you have done. What remains, though, are all the difficult cases, which automatic parsing cannot solve, and the use of subtemplates, applied by humans, can. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:29, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

That's right, but they would only be needed for articles that can't have their dates processed automatically. I can easily make a category to track these pages for review. This way the effort of manually adding the sub-templates is directed to where it is required (ballpark <20% pages initially) as opposed to desired (all pages). —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:03, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Requiring editors to use templates in 20% of cases, but not the remainder, adds an unnecessary cognitive burden, and the issue of directing manual effort where required is already addressed adequately by the RfC-approved BOTREQ which you are currently blocking. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:49, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Directing editors to use these templates in the first place is the burden that I am trying to minimize. 20% is pretty pessimistic of me and a case like above has ~55/150 cases that need to be manually fixed once and then ~<5/150 cases that cannot be detected. I'm ballparking high numbers because I don't have large sample data from popular infoboxes to back it up at the moment (though neither do you). The BOTREQ was before Lua was available, so I cannot be blocking it as this option didn't exist and couldn't be considered. That's why I want to build a reasonable proof-of-concept and propose it properly. I know we disagree on quite a lot of this, but I hope you appreciate I'm actually talking to you and saying what I do in detail instead of avoiding you and just rushing it through. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:08, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes I do of course appreciate you discussing this with me and I trust that you appreciate my reciprocating in the same manner. I note that your proposal does not remove the supposed burden of "directing editors to use these templates in the first place", while at the same time increasing the burden of knowing when to do so, as I outlined in my previous comment. I think my six year experience of dealing with this issue also shows that I'm not rushing anything through. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:38, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

And that is a fair argument and view of my proposal. But I am viewing it differently. Yes, 100% of editors need to know about both methods. But for sub-templates they need to know not only that they need to do this, but also how and when to apply it. For my proposal, they only need to know how and when to apply it 20% of the time, the rest of 80% just need to enter a date. This alone is sufficient for me to consider it as better. Furthermore, my proposal also works for 80% of those who don't know they need to enter sub-templates for your method. But my main case point is that it is way better to have (extreme example) "6–8 August 2004" than "{{Start date|2004|08|06|df=yes}} – {{End date|2004|08|08|df=yes}}" -- it is simpler, easier, more readable, and still emits the same metadata. I'm not necessarily trying to convince you of my point of view, but that is the abridged version of it so you know where I stand. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:29, 4 September 2013 (UTC)