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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by BrownHairedGirl (talk | contribs) at 08:18, 8 May 2020 (→‎Serious AWB problems again: reply to Hmains). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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info

Wikipedia:Lists

Categories are a tool for browsing: they function as a table of contents, leading users to the articles on a specific subject. Categories are a means of classifying articles Categories are an index of a subject Categories are a database search: Many categories are in essence the intersection of two or more larger categories. Categories are an index of other categories: There are many categories that function simply as an index of other categories.

info 2

June 29

  • #REDIRECT [[xxx#xxx]]

toc: {{CatAutoTOC}}

{{see also|name}}


{{container}}

[[Category:Organizations based in Europe by dependent territory and subject|xxx]]

[[Category:Organizations by dependent territory and subject|xxx]]

[[Category:Organizations based in xxx| Subject]]




all included manmade:

  • {{Allincluded|this category name|this category content}}
  • {{Container cat}}


all included natural:

  • {{Allincluded|category name|this category content}}
  • {{Container cat}}


non-diffusing: this is to be paired with all included above

  • {{Non-diffusing subcategory|higher category name|higher category content}}
  • {{Container cat}}



nothing in MOS says to use the following:


TOC without numbers

  • {{Category TOC|numerals=no}}

Default sort

  • {{DEFAULTSORT:xxx}}

Container category

  • {{Container cat}}

Maintenance note

I maintain this page by deleting items after a week or two or more. Hmains (talk) 16:09, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

work

[[Category:Landforms of xxx Province]]

[[Category:Rivers of Argentina by province|xxx]]


{{Non-diffusing subcategory|(name of cat)|(1st part of cat name)}}

Monobook

You may wish to make use of a 'Dates' tab in edit mode that will help with unlinking unnecessary date links. Simply copy the entire contents of User:Bobblewik/monobook.js to your own monobook. Then follow the instructions in your monobook to clear the cache (i.e. press Ctrl-Shift-R in Firefox, or Ctrl-F5 in IE) before it will work. It also provides a 'Units' tab. If you know what you are doing, you can copy and modify the subfiles as you wish. I just thought you might be interested. Regards. bobblewik 20:03, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The reason it fails is because you refer to User:Hmains/monobook.js/dates.js and User:Hmains/monobook.js/unitformatter.js and these articles do not exist. You have two options:
Try again. I am happy to walk you through the process. So feel free to ask me again. bobblewik 12:03, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

etc

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Categories

for list filter:

January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December|Year|MCD|MCC|List of state leaders in

to create a 2 up

info

User:Magioladitis

how to use wild card in 'skip text contains/doesn't contain box'

\[\[Category\:National Register of Historic Places in [^\]]+ County, Arkansas\]\]


\[\[Category\:National Register of Historic Places in [^\]]+, Arkansas\]\]


Wikipedia:Categorization Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes Template:Americans WP:BLPCAT WP:LISTPEOPLE

  • 12 to 12 handled by find/replace table; not by module

public public

to fix

to avoid disambiguation pages use: |{{.*dis}}

etc. Plantations plantation

plantation house

Plantation complexes in the Southern United States

planter

sort

[1]

Autofill

  • to auto fill edit summary: "I haven't found a way to get autocomplete in IE at https with the current setup on Wikipedia's side. If http is acceptable to you then you can disable "Always use a secure connection when logged in" at Special:Preferences, log out, close IE, start IE again and log in at http://en.wikipedia.org. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:50, 31 August 2013 (UTC)"

it may also be necessary to force the WP address to be http: instead of https:

bot

Reviewer Right Granted

Hello. Your account has been granted the "reviewer" userright, allowing you to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged protection, is currently undergoing a two-month trial scheduled to end 15 August 2010.

Reviewers can review edits made by users who are not autoconfirmed to articles placed under pending changes. Pending changes is applied to only a small number of articles, similarly to how semi-protection is applied but in a more controlled way for the trial. The list of articles with pending changes awaiting review is located at Special:OldReviewedPages.

For the guideline on reviewing, see Wikipedia:Reviewing. Being granted reviewer rights doesn't change how you can edit articles even with pending changes. The general help page on pending changes can be found here, and the general policy for the trial can be found here.

If you do not want this userright, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. The Helpful One 17:59, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Autopatroller

Hi Hmains, just wanted to let you know that I have added the autopatrolled right to your account, as you have created numerous, valid articles. This feature should have little to no effect on your editing, and is simply intended to reduce the workload on new page patrollers. For more information on the patroller right, see Wikipedia:Autopatrolled. Feel free to leave me a message if you have any questions. Happy editing! — ξxplicit 21:36, 3 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]


etc

[[:MOS:BLOCKQUOTE]]

[[:MOS:CURLY]]

^ Typographical, or curly, quotation marks and apostrophes might be read more efficiently, and many think they look better. However, for practical reasons the straight versions are used on the English Wikipedia:

Consistency keeps searches predictable. Though most browsers do not distinguish between curly and straight marks, Internet Explorer still does (as of 2016), so that a search for Alzheimer's disease will fail to find Alzheimer’s disease and vice versa.

Straight quotation marks are easier to type reliably on most platforms.

MediaWiki's use of series of single quotes to create italics and boldface makes using these features complicated and error-prone for content that begins or ends with apostrophes.

Linking Dates (centuries, decades, years, months, days, etc)

Delink dates per WP:DATELINK, WP:YEARLINK and MOS:UNLINKYEARS

As always, the content of the linked-to article must provide substantive content to the linked-from article. The MOS decided most dates do not do this. Hmains (talk) 03:36, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

what links here

  • filter by name: (used where?)

calendar|day|week|month|year|decade|century|millennium|Showa|Shōwa|Meiji|Taisho|Taishō| in |Other events|(number)|(disambiguation)|Aught-|SO 8601|Timeline|acronyms|initialisms

  • skip: used in bot

{{Decadebox|{{Year dab|{{Year nav|{{Month header}}|{{Day}}|Category:Days of the year|{{Portal:Current events/Events by month}}|{{Portal:Current events/Month Inclusion|{{Months in the|Eastern Orthodox liturgical days|#REDIRECT|{{disambig}}|{{disambiguation}}|to disambiguation page|{{events by month links}}|month category|Month of the|The following events occurred in|{{Millenniumbox|{{Centurybox|This page indexes the individual|February 30|January 0|Calendars|title=September 11 attacks|numberdis|{{00sbox|{{.*dis}}-|{{GOCEinuse}}|{{In use}}|{{Under construction}}

  • filter: to skip article names with these words

s in |9 in |8 in |7 in |6 in |5 in |4 in |3 in |2 in |1 in |0 in |in Wales|calendar|day|week|month|year|decade|century|millennium|Showa|Shōwa|Meiji|Taisho|Taishō|Other events|(number)|(disambiguation)|Aught-|SO 8601|Timeline|acronyms|initialisms|September 11 attacks|Fons memorabilium universi|List of millennia

22 July 2024 can be used to avoid future delinking of dates. For example, 2012 → 2012 2010s → 2010s 21st century → 21st century Friday → Friday June → June (l, ldmy or lmdy also work) June 2012 → June 2012 (l, ldmy or lmdy also work) 29 June → 29 June (l or ldmy also work) June 29 → June 29 (lmdy also works) 29 June 2012 → 29 June 2012 June 29, 2012 → June 29, 2012 29 June 2012 → 29 June 2012 (l also works) June 29, 2012 → June 29, 2012

Web page has expired

I follow the directions in the message shown on the screen.

"Click on the Refresh button on the toolbar to reload the page. After refreshing, you might need to navigate to the specific webpage again, or re-enter information."

On my computer I have to remember that "refresh" looks like a circle with an arrow at the top, and it's the fourth of five icons to the right of the URL. I don't even know what the others are. Then a box pops up and I have to click on "retry".— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:04, 1 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Adminship

Since you are very active in the project, would you like to be an administrator? Do you need tools to move/delete pages for example? Are you active in WP space, involved in xFDs or something similar? -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:03, 23 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll second Magioladitis here. I think you'd do fantastic as an administrator. The choice is entirely yours, but just know that should you ever submit an RfA, you'll have my support. Kurtis (talk) 03:53, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Understandable. Do whatever you feel comfortable doing, it's not my place to pressure you.
But in the off chance that you ever change your mind, know that I would feel confident in entrusting you with the tools. =) Kurtis (talk) 04:05, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delinking

  • The delinking of dates was exhaustively discussed by WP prior to the current wording of WP:DATELINK and WP:YEARLINK and MOS:UNLINKDATES being agreed upon. Days, months, years, decades, centuries, etc were all included in the long discussion.

xxx

BrownHairedGirl

Mitch Ames

User:JimmyJoe87


"...{{nbsp}}

{{nbsp}}..."

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2019!

Hello Hmains, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2019.
Happy editing,
Meatsgains(talk) 01:40, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

Xmas

FWiW Bzuk (talk) 00:47, 25 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Season's Greetings

Hello Hmains: Enjoy the holiday season, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, Walk Like an Egyptian (talk) 06:13, 25 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings1}} to send this message

Delinking centuries

Hmains, please stop delinking centuries like 19th century as you did at Penmachno quarry and many other articles. None of the guidelines you quote apply to centuries, they are all specific to months and years. Thank you, The Mirror Cracked (talk) 23:33, 8 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Can you point me to the specific guideline which supports you removing the links to centuries, since the ones you are using in your edit summaries explicitly do not support it. I wen through the MOS talk page archives and could not find the discussion you reference. The Mirror Cracked (talk) 23:40, 8 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Please this up with the MOS dates talk page; maybe they can explain why they chose not to put such language in the MOS even while saying in old, old discussions that 'dates' means all manner and form of dates. Hmains (talk) 23:44, 8 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but you are the one making mass changes to articles without support in the guidelines, so the burden is on you to clarify your edits. You should revert your changes and seek a consensus on the MOS talk pages. Otherwise this looks a great deal like disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. Thank you, The Mirror Cracked (talk) 23:48, 8 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I will check further. Even though I have an approved BOT to perform all such delinking (see BOT section above), I am working manually to exercise more control over the changes. Also, be careful about reverts. Another editor was just banned for, among other things, making just such date reverts. Hmains (talk) 00:28, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Tony: can you show me where it says that? Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking#Chronological items says: "Month-and-day articles and year articles should not be linked unless the linked date or year has a significant connection to the subject of the linking article". As far as I can see it does not mention centuries and the section is actually not called "Chronological items" (despite the anchor) it is called "Linking month-and-day or year" which seems to very specifically limit the scope of that guideline to months and years, not other chronological items. If the intent is to include centuries, it would be useful to mention them and change the header. The Mirror Cracked (talk) 01:54, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I keep forgetting to raise this there. Doug Weller talk 21:33, 14 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Rivers per country

Hi, I see you've added country categories to a number of river articles, which are already categorised per the most relevant lower-level administrative unit. For example here, the river was already included in Category:Rivers of Balochistan (Pakistan), and Category:Rivers of Pakistan is a parent of that so I would have thought there was no need to add it individually. Or is there some reason to treat the "Rivers in X" categories as non-diffusing? – Uanfala (talk) 12:38, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Rivers of Pakistan is now marked as an 'all included' category. Yes, the reason is so there is one place that readers can to go to find ALL the rivers of a county in A/N order. This is very different from having to go through multiple lower level categories to find things. Different navigation avenues for users with different needs. Thanks Hmains (talk) 03:43, 11 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Rivers of Indonesia

Hi Hmains. I noticed you're adding Rivers of Indonesia category to the articles on rivers that are already categorized in its subcategories. I assume your aim is for readers to be able to find all the rivers under one category. However, my understanding is that, unlike e.g. German Wikipedia, we're striving to avoid the large parent categories as much as possible here, whenever the subcategories exist. The same scheme works with other countries as well, e.g. we don't add all rivers from Rivers of North Carolina cat to the parent Rivers of the United States. The same for other large countries.--Darwinek (talk) 19:33, 14 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Yes, that is my aim and it is allowed under the All Included section of the MOS and is done already with other countries, including various ones that I have not worked on. I don't know anything about other WP. Hmains (talk) 19:37, 14 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
WP:SUPERCAT is fairly clear that an article shouldn't be put in multiple levels of a category hierarchy, so I think your policy is at best unusual:
In Wikimedia Commons I worked on categorisation of Rivers of England (which had "Rivers of county X" subcategories and contained nothing referring to individual rivers); the solution there was to create a separate national category Rivers of England by name, so River Kennet was a subcategory of Rivers of Berkshire, Rivers of Wiltshire and Rivers of England by name, but not of Rivers of England. Dave.Dunford (talk) 11:58, 16 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your comments but on the specific suggestion of creating categories of the pattern Category:xxx by name does not seem to have any precedent in En:WP. I would be wary of personally starting. Thanks Hmains (talk) 03:10, 17 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hmains, your approach here is unusual. I think that before making any more mass recategorisations or marking any more categories as non-diffusing, you should get consensus for these changes. Suitable places include Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rivers and Wikipedia talk:Categorization. Thanks! – Uanfala (talk) 15:03, 17 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Good ideas all. Thanks Hmains (talk) 02:51, 18 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Happy New Year!


George Bellows, North River (1908), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. 		Best wishes for a healthy and prosperous 2020.
Thank you for your contributions toward making Wikipedia a better and more accurate place.
BoringHistoryGuy (talk) 13:03, 30 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Former populated places in Johnson County, Kansas

A tag has been placed on Category:Former populated places in Johnson County, Kansas requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Liz Read! Talk! 14:02, 2 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

2018 Kemerovo fire

Hi. I wanted to ask why you removed Category:Building and structure fires from 2018 Kemerovo fire in this edit? Debresser (talk) 17:57, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Because this article is in Category:Department store fires, a sub-sub category of Category:Building and structure fires, so leaving it also in Category:Building and structure fires would not match the WP:SUPERCAT requirements. Thanks Hmains (talk) 18:02, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Understood. Thanks. Debresser (talk) 01:56, 5 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wondering about Show Preview

I'm wondering if you use Show preview, and if so how you were satisfied with the result of your edit to Jefferson Memorial. If you look at the result (search for word 'evident') you'll notice the quote was sliced up into three sections. I wouldn't know why your change produced that result, but then, that's why the question: did you preview before publishing? Shenme (talk) 02:55, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I do previews but sometimes I miss things; likewise, I sometimes find problems with others' edits that I then fix. It looks like a lot of other editors also did not notice the problem, for whatever reason. Thanks Hmains (talk) 03:09, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Maine in the American Revolution has been nominated for renaming

Category:Maine in the American Revolution, which you created, has been nominated for renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. User:Namiba 15:00, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

CatAutoTOC

Hi Hmains

Hood to see you adding TOCs to categories, as in this edit[2] to Category:National Register of Historic Places in Indianapolis ... but please could you use {{CatAutoTOC}} rather than {{Category TOC}}?style="color:#663200;">BrownHairedGirl]] (talk) • (contribs) 11:18, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@BrownHairedGirl: I was wondering about that but when I saw the resulting non display categories I thought maybe either was ok. I will certainly change to CatAutoTOC. Should {{CatAutoTOC}} be added to all categories, regardless of current size? Thanks. Hmains (talk) 21:51, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Waterfalls of the Outer Hebrides

A tag has been placed on Category:Waterfalls of the Outer Hebrides requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Liz Read! Talk! 15:24, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Waterfalls of the Scottish Borders

A tag has been placed on Category:Waterfalls of the Scottish Borders requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Liz Read! Talk! 15:25, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Foreign-language mass media in the United States by state has been nominated for renaming

Category:Foreign-language mass media in the United States by state has been nominated for renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 08:26, 1 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

2020 coronavirus pandemic in New York

Hi, User:Hmains it has been suggested on Talk:2020 coronavirus pandemic in New York (state) that part of your contributions to pages relating to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in different counties in the state of New York should be deleted. If you would like to stop this please vote oppose to this suggestion on that talk page, thanks. User:Frontier Place (talk) 12:39, 2 May 2020 (UTC).[reply]

Sculpture

Sculpture is art for WP purposes, noty one of "the arts". I've reverted you. Johnbod (talk) 20:12, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NOOOOOO! Are you serious? Sculptures are objects anyway. You should not have done these without discussion. Raise it at the project by all means. They will probably have the patience to explain why you are wrong. I'm too busy reverting this wrong-headed changes. Johnbod (talk) 20:25, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Valleys of Newton County, Missouri has been nominated for merging

Category:Valleys of Newton County, Missouri has been nominated for merging. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Hog Farm (talk) 19:21, 6 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Serious AWB problems again

Hi Hmains

Earlier today, I spotted this edit[3] by you to a page which I created: Category:2020 coronavirus pandemic in Kuwait.

The edit summary caught my eye: →‎top: category refine, sort sequence.

Those subcats of Category:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic by country are all fairly simple, with a consistent set of 3 parent categories. So I couldn't think of what category refine, sort sequence was needed.

So I looked at the diff ... and found that what was actually done was simply to add {{CatAutoTOC}} ... which is nothing to do with what the edit summary describes. And your contribs list[4] shows that you did it to the whole set in Category:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic by country

Three issues with this:

  1. The persistent use of a wholly misleading edit summary is sneaky: see the first item in WP:SUMMARYNO. You were systematically misrepresenting the effects of your edits.
  2. In each case, you added the TOC above the header info, whereas the conventional placement of a TOC is below the lead on an article, or below the header on a category. On a category page, the TOC is conventionally placed at the bottom of the header because that is where it's most useful for jumping between pages
  3. None of the by-country subcats of Category:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic by country come anywhere close the threshold of 100 pages in which a TOC will be displayed. The biggest categories and US and UK, with 30 and 19 pages respectively. None of the others have more than 15 pages, and the vast majority have less than five. There is very little possibility of any of them growing to over 100 pages, so those edits were pointless

So I looked again at your contribs, and find that it is part of a huge series of many thousands of edits by you in recent days which used that bogus edit summary when you added {{CatAutoTOC}}. There are pages of them in your contribs over the last few days, all conducted at extraordinarily high speed. See e.g.

  • 15:51 to 16:01, 3 May 2020: [5] 500 edits in 10 minutes
  • 03:23 to 03:31 2 May 2020 [6]: 500 edits in 8 minutes.

So in addition to mislabelled, malformed, un-needed edits to huge numbers of pages, you are also running an unauthorised bot at unacceptable speeds.

That sneaky, malformed addition of {{CatAutoTOC}} to complete sets of categories which won't benefit from it is a pattern repeated across thousands of edit. You were being indiscriminate.

But it gets much worse. See for example that set of 500 edits made from 15:51 to 16:01 3 May 2020: [7].

All of those pages also have the above-mentioned problems of mislabelled, malformed, to huge numbers of pages, made by an unauthorised bot at unacceptable speeds. But they add an additional problem: in most cases they added a duplicate {{CatAutoTOC}}

From that set, see for example:

The result of the thousands of edits like that which you made is that if those categories expand beyond 100 pages, they will display two TOCs. That is an error, which needs to be fixed.

That's not the end of it, see for example:

  • This edit[12] to Category:1203 establishments by country. It didn't have a{{CatAutoTOC}}. But it is firmed solely from the category header template {{Estcatbycountry}}, If you wanted to add {{CatAutoTOC}} to all the "YYYY establishments by country" categories, that could have been done in one edit to {{Estcatbycountry}}. Instead you have made goodness knows how many edits, which impede maintenance by unncessarily increasing the amount of markup on the page.

You have made many thousands of these disruptive edits, which others will now have to cleanup.

If this was the first problem, then I would simply ask you to stop.

But in your case, it's an escalation and recurrence of a long-standing problem with your misuse of AWB. Those problems persisted for years, despite numerous warnings from multiple editors, which came to a head in long discussion on your talk in January 2019: see the thread For the last time.

That led to an ANI thread in February 2019 (see WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1002#Hmains, at which the community decided to revoke your AWB privileges for a minimum of 6 months.

On 29 Sept 2919, you made a request[13] at WP:PERM/AWB asking for your AWB access to be restored, in which you stated I have made some erroneous edits with AWB in the past and do not intend to repeat that again.

You did not actually note that your permission had been revoked per ANI, which was an unhelpful omission. That crucial info was added three hours later[14] by JJMC89.

Anyway, your request was approved[15] by Primefac on 9 November.

In January, I noted that you were making the same type of errors as you had made before:[16]. You replied three days later[17] with a glib shrug, which I thought was unhelpful and inadequate ... but I chose not to challenge further at that point.

It's hard to review whether other editors raised concerns with you since your AWB rights were restored, because you choose to simply remove threads from your talk page rather than archive them, especially when they are critical of you. (e.g. you removed[18] my 18 January complaint on 31 January, even though much older threads remain on your page). I don't have the time to trawl through the page history of your talk page, so I can't say whether there have been any other complaints since your AWB permission was restored.

But this latest mess is absolutely monumental in scale, and will take a huge amount of work to revert. It seems to me to be a clear breach of your undertaking in September I have made some erroneous edits with AWB in the past and do not intend to repeat that again.

As a result, I think it's time for you to stop using AWB entirely. The discussion at WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1002#Proposal:_Revoke_AWB_rights shows repeated concerns that you simply don't take enough care in your edits, and this latest saga is that same type problem pumped up by several orders of magnitude.

If necessary, I will take this to ANI and seek a perma-ban on your use of AWB. But I would prefer not to put you through that if it can be avoided, so I suggest that you may therefore want to make a request at WP:PERM/AWB for your rights to be removed permanently in view of your failure to keep your promise to avoid errors. That's only a suggestion intended to make life easier for you, and you are under no obligation to accept it ... but if you don't, then I will take this to ANI.

Pinging @EEng, Headbomb, and Ritchie333, who were part of the earlier discussions on this page; plus @Cygnis insignis, Serial Number 54129, Softlavender, Govindaharihari, and Fish and karate, who all commented at ANI; plus JJMC89 who closed the ANI discusison and Primefac who restored the user rights. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:10, 7 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'd support removal of AWB rights again, permanently this time. Regardless of the minor issues with sorting and where to add CatAutoTOC, it should have been painfully obvious to not go on AWB sprees to add it to every category under the sun. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:57, 7 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Pulled. Primefac (talk) 14:02, 7 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, @Primefac, and esp for leaving a link in to this in your edit summary[19].
@Hmains: I am truly sorry that it came to this, but it was needed. Your evident niceness and good intent doesn't make this sort of thing acceptable, and there has been ample warning. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:20, 7 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I too am sorry to see it's come to this again. Hmains, I know it's hard to feel it right now, but you will find other ways to contribute to the project. EEng 14:50, 7 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am sorry to have had this happen and apologize for the trouble it caused. I will say, however, that when I pinged someone here to find out whether CatAutoTO was meant to be added to every category, to be ready if the category grew in size, I received no answer; also, the documentation is not clear. I seemed like a good thing. I have no excuse for the mistakes, however. Thanks. Hmains (talk) 01:23, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Hmains, when I was reviewing this page to prepare this complaint, I spotted that I had missed the ping. Sorry about that, but such things happen, and lack of an answer is not a green light to go ahead.
Documentation often doesn't answer all possible questions, and if a question is unresolved, then the remedy is to ask elsewhere. In this case, a post at WP:CATP or the village pump would have gotten you an answer. It is never a good idea to make a huge number of changes without clarifying a key question which you have identified, and that sort of conduct is explicitly deprecated in WP:AWBRULES #3:

Do not make controversial edits with it. Seek consensus for changes that could be controversial at the appropriate venue; village pump, WikiProject, etc. "Being bold" is not a justification for mass editing lacking demonstrable consensus.

Since you had already had AWB access revoked for 6 months due to misuse, you should have been paying close attention to the rules.
As you say, you have no excuse for the other problems in this rampage:
  • running an unauthorised bot
  • using a bogus edit summary on tens of thousands of edits
  • not excluding pages which already had CatAutoTOC
  • adding CatAutoTOC to the wrong part of the page.
After your 6-month ban and all your previous warnings, you should have been taking very great care in use of AWB; but instead you were multiply WP:RECKLESS. So I hope that this revocation of your AWB access will be permanent.
If I sound grumpy, that is because I am grumpy about this. It took me several hours to analyse what had happened and document it here. It will now take about two days of my life to clean up the mess which you have made because you ignored multiple warnings to take more care and broke your own promise to avoid errors. That is not a good way to treat your colleagues in a collaborative project.
At the ANI discussion in Feb 2019 on your proposed AWB ban, I called for a permanent ban rather than just 6 months.[20] In hindsight, I wish that I had pushed more forcefully the points I made there. - --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:18, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cleaning up after the AWB spree: see User:BrownHairedGirl/Hmains cleanup

I have begun cleaning up after Hmains's AWB spree. I am documenting this at User:BrownHairedGirl/Hmains cleanup, and will link to that page in my edit summaries. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:45, 7 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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