User talk:The Doctor

It is currently Tuesday 30 April 2024.

• 2010-14: User talk:The Doctor/Archive (2010-14).
• 2015-19: User talk:The Doctor/Archive (2015-19).

Mike Brown

Sorry, I got halfway through typing this and hit a wall. The current Mike Brown, with numerous co-event appearances and several wins, is (in my opinion) clearly the primary topic for people searching for Mike Brown. You can argue whether or not Stephen Howe constitutes a primary topic, but as I was doing one, I thought I may as well do the other.--Launchballer 15:07, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

That's not right, for me. It should be the case that both Browns, Howes, etc. are treated equally. The Doctor 18:35, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

@Launchballer: I don't believe there is such a notion as "primary topic", and indeed that is what Disam pages are for. The fact we had two Mike Browns in the same series is irrelevant; your logic would imply that the likes of Chris Davies need to be re-done, and I don't think that's appropriate at all. The Doctor 10:21, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough, I'll change them back. I can't be bothered to sift through Category:Disambiguation pages, I'm in the throes of assessment season.

On a completely unrelated matter, are you an actual doctor, because I hit my head on a low ceiling yesterday morning, and I've since been dry heaving - both of which are symptoms of concussion.--Launchballer 11:21, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

No. It was just an awful Doctor Who reference when I made this account nearly 10 years ago. The Doctor 12:17, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

I have a horrible feeling I may have to go through that category anyway given that a random sample of disambiguation pages shows a complete lack of consistency. Possibly a job for a template?--Launchballer 14:21, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Really? A random sample for me shows a lot of consistency.... The Doctor 15:05, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Some contain full sentences (Steve Harris and Andrew Jackson), while some are bullet points (Mark Jones and Barry Smith) and others contain varying lengths of lede (Chris Davies and Debbie Jones).--Launchballer 16:00, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Joe Lycett

I do not agree with including Joe Lycett's 'real name' within his article here. It smacks of recentism, and we haven't included the real names of Lee Mack or Johnny Vegas or Paul Sinha here.--Launchballer 12:29, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

@Launchballer - to that I say "why not"? The Doctor 18:30, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not seeing anything in Countdown:About, and I will admit to being slightly biased due to my contempt for celebrity in general (I take the view that the Catsdown contestant articles should not contain any more detail than the Countdown contestant articles), however this Hugo Boss business strikes me as a prank for a show and would amount to a footnote in an encyclopedia entry, so it seems too trivial for us. Leave it for Wikipedia.--Launchballer 20:25, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Andy Hewitts

That's the second time I've been caught out today; first with William G. Stewart, which is not accessible, and second with the new editor JackH, who I initially thought was an occasional editor of UKGameshows.com, another site I edit, but now I'm not sure. Which Andy Hewitt, if either, is the new one?--Launchballer 18:05, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Sorted it all out, all the Andy Hewitt's are the same person, spoke to him earlier. JRTerrier24 19:05, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

@JRTerrier24: I was told as the program was going out that it was the S62 Hewitt, but if he’s said they’re the same person that sorts that out. The Doctor 19:18, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

@Launchballer: The category had a full stop and WGS’s page didn’t, hence the redirect as adding the infobox threw up a red link. The Doctor 19:18, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I meant I'd been caught out in that I forgot that .s don't seem to work in mainspace and so I managed to break it by moving William G Stewart to William G. Stewart - which I promptly moved back rather red-facedly.--Launchballer 19:20, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Series 1

Series 1 I had to restore from scratch using Google Cache after it was accidentally deleted, and it wasn't even the first page that's happened to. Like smashed glass on a duvet, people are still rolling over and wincing. There must be some way of preventing something like this happening; do we have a backup anywhere? And whose idea was it for us to not record deleted revisions?--Launchballer 13:32, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Mike Brown

Please be more careful when repairing page-move vandalism, as your deletion of Obselute took the page history of Mike Brown (debut episode 3328) with it. Don't worry, JohnnyCanuck deleted the page history of Rhys Benjamin when he deleted Rhys BenjamIn, and back when he had rights MartinS took out the history of Series 1 when he deleted Deleted Page, but still please be more careful.--Launchballer 19:13, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Mike Brown was fine anyway, wasn't it? Unlike Series 1, there was the up-to-date version of Mike Brown, I think? The Doctor 20:01, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

ZoomDown contestants

Where do they get the contestants for ZoomDown from? I assumed they were all from Apterous.--Launchballer 23:45, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Mostly from Apterous, but also some from a Facebook group. Paul put some feelers out in more or less everywhere. (Edit) They're chosen by Paul to try and generate close match-ups. The Doctor 23:48, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

COLIN XVI

You're unfamiliar with Show preview I take it.--Launchballer 00:07, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

No, I do use it, just overlooked it when I did preview. The Doctor 00:07, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Two things

I have updated Template:Recap project progress bar‎ so that the denominator will update whenever a new episode goes out (or, more precisely, when we create an article for it). Once I know how the numerator's been arrived at, I can update it further.

As for Template:Multiple eps, the reason it's no longer used is that no new recording dates are likely to be published any time soon, and it doesn't show up in Special:WhatLinksHere because it's designed to be substituted. However, at some point recording will resume, and I had planned to resume use of it later. Is the source code anywhere about, or would I need to recreate it nearer the time?--Launchballer 02:49, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

It’s not quite that simple. The denominator is Category:Episodes with round details, not the total ep count, and the numerator is that category − Category:Partial recaps and Category:Blank recaps, although at present there aren’t any. As for multiple eps, does Special:Undelete not work? And in the past it’s simply copied and pasted per episode, so I really don’t think much of that template quite frankly. The Doctor 03:55, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

I've updated the bar. Special:Undelete has never worked on this wiki; if you go to Special:Undelete/Template:Multiple eps, the word 'diff' for the diffs are black. I don't think this wiki keeps deleted revisions.--Launchballer 05:37, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

ZoomDown

Just a minor thing - I noticed in my game with Robbo in ZD3, our declarations of POSSET and SPOUTS are the wrong way round. Would you care to fix it? :) Brahag16

All done. The Doctor 13:22, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Apterous

I follow this wiki with a web tracker. Had I known it would fall over I would have followed that as well. Could you let me know as soon as Apterous itself comes back up again so I can track it?--Launchballer 17:51, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm going to pretend I actually understand any of this, and just say "yes, when Apto comes back I will leave a note for you". I have no idea what you mean about a web tracker. The Doctor 17:53, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

FollowThatPage, if you've heard of it.--Launchballer 17:58, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Userpage

I hope you don't mind, but I've protected your userpage. No-one else should be editing it anyway.--Launchballer 14:48, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk pages

I just blocked you for five minutes per my talk page request until 22:44, it should elapse of its own volition. Let me know if you can reply to this.--Launchballer 21:41, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Annoyingly, I wasn't looking at the wiki in that time...! Try again? The Doctor 22:17, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

I've blocked for ten minutes this time.--Launchballer 22:24, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Yep, have unblocked myself (since it doesn't remove admin privileges if blocked). Talk page didn't work, couldn't edit it. The Doctor 22:27, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

User:Anthony S

What do we think about User:Anthony S?--Launchballer 19:35, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm sure Charlie can override us anyway. Maybe I'm more generous than most, but I'm yeeting them, because if it looks like a Hancock and smells like a Hancock it probably is a Hancock. The Doctor 20:57, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia

What I'm asking will effectively out me, but what is your opinion of Wikipedia:User talk:Launchballer#Wiki Signup?--Launchballer 16:26, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

I think the only way forward is for someone to contact Charlie, quite honestly. The Doctor 00:48, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Black Takeover Day

I assume you're aware that in September 2021 an edition will air hosted by entirely black talent.--Launchballer 21:40, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

*facepalm* That's the kind of virtue signalling crap that Channel 4 do these days, I'm afraid. Unless it's a Catsdown edition. Can't really imagine Damian being too happy about not having Nick, Rachel, or Susie in their positions... The Doctor 23:04, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

More likely is that it'll be a special episode within a series, like how Episode S40 was within Series 71.--Launchballer 09:00, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Catsdown

Go ahead and move the Catsdown articles to "Episode CatsX". If we later decide to move it, the difficult bit's been done.--Launchballer 11:26, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Template:Octostats

As you may have worked out, what I was doing was trying to find an answer to the question posed at Talk:Elliott Mellor by adding Category:Octochamps to all uses of the template because, in my mind, all entries which showed up under '8' would have been those who'd got all eight of their heat conundrums correct (actually, the only entry which came up under 8 was Lew Schwarz, who got 8 out of 10, with Clive Freedman coming up under '-' and everyone else coming up under '<'). Unfortunately, I got lazy in undoing my edit, and hadn't reckoned on having made the next most recent edit, which I undid at the same time…--Launchballer 22:16, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Repeated Teatime Teasers

I believe repeated teatime teasers may become a regular occurrence and I think they deserve a standalone category. The search results for "Teatime Teasers" are clogged with "Category:Recaps with missing or incomplete Teatime Teasers", so I've preemptively emptied Special:WhatLinksHere/Teatime Teaser.--Launchballer 20:55, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough, I guess - but would also then think about repeated conundrums and returnees as categories as well. Arguably more important. The Doctor 21:12, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Link account

Hello! If you'd like to link this account from your apterous account, please visit https://www.apterous.org/user_wikiaccount.php. Charlie 17:35, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

An interesting decision to contact people that way. I'd have used MediaWiki:Sitenotice personally. For the record, I do have an account, so that I can view the public chat, but I don't have a subscription.--Launchballer 22:54, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Christmas Special

A long shot, but do you know if they have a spare Catsdown Christmas special I can expect this year? They filmed the 8 Out of 10 Cats special back in January.--Launchballer 22:54, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I think they’re filming a new one [1], but we’ll see if it’s a Christmas one nearer the time. The Doctor 15:39, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Cricket

Is this at all likely to trouble Countdown being broadcast? I must admit I don't know how long cricket matches run for.--Launchballer 15:16, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Right, as a big cricket fan... editions scheduled for 24-26 Feb, 12 Mar, 16 Mar, 18 Mar, 23 Mar, 26 Mar will be affected. As far as I'm aware most of those are already in the can, so presumably moved to Saturdays (or 12 Mar onwards, maybe moved earlier). The Doctor (talk | contribs) 21:11, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Yesterday

I reckon you made as many edits to this site yesterday (1024) as I've made in the last 375 days.--Launchballer 00:37, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Haha, yes - I didn't have a bot to do that so it was all manual. Didn't take too long, though. The Doctor (talk | contribs) 13:30, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Declan McGurk Hi Rhys, yeah I did put Declan in as a finalist,and was unaware that they had an extra filming day at the time. Spike.

Today's recap

I've got today's recap - civic holiday here FTW. JohnnyCanuck 12:47, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Ace. I still need to do the text version though...! The Doctor (talk | contribs) 13:09, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Yep, you're on your own for that one :) JohnnyCanuck 13:39, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Asked a couple of people who make recaps this, but figured I'd ask you too

Do you actually measure the conundrum times in quarter-seconds using a stopwatch, or do you just eyeball it? I really don't like being unreliable with any part of my recaps. JohnnyCanuck 23:17, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

ZoomDown is pure guesswork, Countdown itself is eyeballed, based on the lights + handle. .75 seconds = the light for the next second is just about to come on, .25 = a fraction past the light, .5 = about halfway, .00 = on the light. The Doctor (talk | contribs) 13:10, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Sourcing

Potentially showing my ignorance, but what was wrong with P*nkN*ws? They were listed as generally reliable at wikipedia:WP:RSP.--Launchballer 13:27, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Personal grievance. They printed slander about me in Dec 2019 and refused to withdraw it, even when I contacted the editor directly. He and I are no longer on speaking terms (blocked each other on social medias, etc). PN are not in IPSO, so I cannot complain that way either. The Doctor (talk | contribs) 13:31, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Guests

Where did you get the most recent information from?--Launchballer 03:18, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Somebody told me. The Doctor (talk | contribs) 09:10, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Episode 7652

Does Countdown give contestants copies of their episodes? I know when I appeared on London Tonight in September 2007 ITV sent me a DVD of my appearance.--Launchballer (talk) 01:00, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

They don’t, but I will lean on Stu for a result if we don’t get this broadcast at any point. The Doctor (talk | contribs) 12:59, 5 December 2021 (UTC)