Moved from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Resolved

 – Actions have stopped, bot is unblocked. Categories can take a while to update, which is likely the root cause here. The file actually was deleted, so these actions were in scope - just stale. Local upload and protection, plus restoration and protection at commons have taken place to avoid issues with this specific placeholder image in the future. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:08, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

RonBot has been tagging a lot of pages with {{BrokenImage}} recently, with seemingly no broken images. I think this is due to the Commons file c:File:Blank.png being inadvertently deleted and promptly returned. It looks like it is used in a lot of infoboxes and the like. It looks like the bot is still tagging; I don't know why (maybe something not being updated instantly on our end?). Heaps of articles are now being tagged all the time. Could this require a shutdown? – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:05, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

I've shut down the bot pending an investigation and I've notified the bot's owner. Any administrator is welcome to overturn the block and unblock the bot without my prior approval; if it should be unblocked, unblock it. Just let me know that you did so and what was found as far as the issue goes (if any was found). ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:24, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Moved from ANI now that the block is in place, so that the bot related issues can be addressed. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:29, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for moving the discussion, Xaosflux. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:41, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

And thanks for the quick action @Oshwah:! I've asked for that image to be protected at commons while this is all figured out as well. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:42, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Perfect; good call on the protection request. Hopefully this issue can be resolved quickly and without too much difficulty in modifying any code or process in order to fix it... :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:53, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

@Oshwah: Task 12 takes it's data from Category:Articles with missing files - that NOW has only 67 entries. Running bot with supervision to ensure it removes the unwanted entries. Looks like it's removing 9 entries a minute - it will take a while to finish. I've not changed the code - if a page gets added to the category then it will add the banner, when not in the category it removes the banner. Bot runs every 12 hours. I assume the category is populated by the wiki software, as nothing is added to the pages to put it in the category. Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 04:27, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Oh, interesting... Thanks for responding with the in-depth explanation... :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 04:40, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Blank.png was deleted at 20:00, 19 March 2019 and restored at 22:20, 19 March 2019. No idea why category was still filled at 01:00 when task 12 starts. Sadly the Commons Delinker bot only waits 10 minutes after a deletion. I protected the image on commons as "Highly visible image", but it does not really stop deletions... Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 04:39, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

I've checked the log files - The category had 1452 entries when Task 12 started at 01:00. Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 04:47, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Task 12 has removed the banner from 682 pages. Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 05:01, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Maybe we should host such critical image locally, marking them as not to be moved to commons. Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 05:07, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

I've done so. — JJMC89 (T·C) 05:39, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

@Ronhjones and JJMC89: good idea for sure, I've also had commons admins protect this to avoid possible issues with phab:T30299 allowing a commons override in certain cases. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:03, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

User:Filedelinkerbot

Resolved

 – No further action needed on this one. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:01, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

The issue also affects User:Filedelinkerbot, which has been unlinking this file from articles and templates, causing all sorts of layout problems. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:33, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

@Finnusertop: I've rolled back 240 pages that the delinker bot removed the image Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 04:59, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

This appears to have stopped, would like @Krd: to verify though. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:55, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Filedelinkerbot has no backlog currently, so there shouldn't arise any more issues related to this file. --Krd 11:59, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is the correct place to ask, but do user scripts that make many edits, with limited intervention from a user require a BRFA? I am asking because I have written a user script that bypasses the redirect created by a page move, if instructed. Once a user tells the script to make edits, there is no human intervention. WP:BOTSCRIPT states:

The majority of user scripts are intended to merely improve or personalize the existing MediaWiki interface, or to simplify access to commonly used functions for editors. Scripts of this kind do not normally require BAG approval.

However, this does not explain what to do for scripts that make edits with limited intervention. --Danski454 (talk) 14:10, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

@Danski454: the volume and impact of changes matter more then the mechanism of the change. As this would not be run from a bot account but from a regular editor account the primary concern would be if the edit should be made under a bot account to avoid being disruptive. What type of frequency and volumes would you expect to be making assisted edits? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:29, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Running this from a bot account would hurt its usefulness as a script, at least for me. Regarding edit frequency and volumes, the script edits at a rate of 12 EPM, making an absolute maximum of 2,000 edits each time it is run, but it is unlikely that it would end up running that much, less than 100 edits each time is probably a closer estimate, with over 500 being very rare (as this requires many redirects, transclusions or links from templates). I would use this occasionally , mainly when moving a page away from an ambiguous title. --Danski454 (talk) 14:40, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

@Danski454: so the problem with throwing out 500 to 2000 edits is that you can flood watchlists and recent changes without the benefit of a bot flag. Think of this type of script use like people that use AWB. That being said having a "bot account" doesn't have to mean you need a server, advanced programming, etc - it can be as simple as having another logon that you load in another window to run the task. Noone would bat an eye if you ran this on 25 edits for example, of you ran it on 100 edits once every few months - it all becomes about volume and impact. A tangential issue to this is the general question if bypassing the types of redirects you would change in bulk (i.e. hundreds or thousands of updates) is something that is useful and strongly supported by most other editors; if it is then using a bot account also signals 'you don't need to worry about checking this' - if it isn't then it shouldn't be done at all. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:54, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Considering this, I think AWB may be better suited for the task, a it allows review and is less disruptive. --Danski454 (talk) 16:09, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Meanwhile, OneClickArchiver exists. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 16:25, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

@Danski454: please keep in mind my note above that it is about the impact of actions, not the mechanism that most matters. Editors are welcome to make constructive edits using whatever method they want (web, api, AWB, scripts, etc) - but the same guidelines apply as to volume and types of changes. Likewise, making thousands of high frequency, repeated edits can be disruptive regardless of the tool - but running that tool under a bot flagged account can alleviate some of that concern. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:14, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

@Danski454: I run a number of tasks that are written as scripts but run through my bot. See User:DannyS712 bot/tasks tasks 3, 4, and 11 for approved tasks running via scripts. --DannyS712 (talk) 19:17, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

I've created a Requests page for URL modifications related to link rot. Some bots/tools are generally approved for link rot work without going through BOTREQ for every domain change (currently WP:IABOT and WP:WAYBACKMEDIC). Obviously though any major scale change would need approval, for example modifying all of the NY Times links. URL changes are complex jobs requiring support for archive URLs (20+ archive providers not just archive.org), various templates and their parameters (CS1|2, {{webarchive}}, {{dead link}} etc), real-time detecting 404 and redirect status, etc.. and each request can have special conversion requirements.

URLREQ page does not replace BOTREQ, most requests will probably still arrive through BOTREQ, and elsewhere (talk pages, Village Pump etc), but it does help to keep these types of requests recorded on a single page so that the bot ops with the tools can better monitor scattered requests, not only on Enwiki but from other language wikis where the same URL changes would be applicable. Eventually a page like this on Meta for all projects might be created. -- GreenC 17:24, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

I don't know if anyone here will be affected by this, but there will be changes to Wikidata's database. If you know what this means, then this will affect you:

If you directly query the Labs database replicas for anything, then you need to update your code. The Wikidata development team will drop the wb_terms table from the database in favor of a new optimized schema on May 29th.

A new test system will be available on May 15th. You can read more on the mailing list. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:05, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

I have a question, because I'm a bit at a loss. I've recently been trying to create database reports that can help with wikignome tasks. Since I have absolutely no idea how to use toolforge for cron jobs, I've created the tasks as python code hosted on PAWS that I manually run each time to update the report. Below are the 3 tasks I've filed so far, and the result

• Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DannyS712 bot 28 - approved by Xaosflux (looks fine)
• Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DannyS712 bot 30 - speedy approved by Xaosflux (this is only for one page, that was created just for this purpose, and is low volume)
• Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DannyS712 bot 32 - denied by MusikAnimal (I'm going to close this task as  Denied. since I think we've concluded it needs automation.)

So, what is the view of BAG in general about manually triggered database reports? I don't want it to be where the task is either speedy approved or denied based on who reviews it first. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 05:01, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

I denied Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DannyS712 bot 32 because we came to the conclusion (mutually, I believe), that automation was needed, and moreover a lack of prior discussion about creating this report. You did not tell me about your other database report bots. I have reservations about those as well. No other report appears to be ran ad-hoc other than yours. As I said in the BRFA, I'm unaware of any strict rules, but I think we'd much prefer full automation for the official-looking WP:Database reports, which are meant to be reliably updated on a regular basis. If you were to go on a holiday to a tropical island, I doubt you'd want to be bothered with manually updating database reports :) Meanwhile consumers of these reports are quietly waiting your return. This is why we have bots.

I don't know how PAWS works but if you can make it set up a cron for those tasks, then that solves this issue. You have the Python code, so you're almost there... If you want I can give a quick run through of the steps you may need to get your bots on Toolforge. This would include some external learning resources. In the end, I think you'd be doing yourself a favour by letting your bots run independently of your sleep/holiday/real-life schedule :) — MusikAnimal ^talk 05:36, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: I've looked at toolforge, but I don't have the time to learn command-line syntax, etc. right now. Unfortunately, the conclusion was not mutual - I was agreeing that having it run automatically would be nice, but given that I am active almost every day I don't mind clicking a few buttons every few days to update the report. I agree that, in the end, I would be doing myself a favour, but in the middle (for now) I'd prefer a manual task over nothing. As for the official-looking database reports page, I note that many only run weekly, and 5 run even less frequently (4 of them only run once per month). Looking at the talk page, it seems that their isn't an official structure, but rather that it serves as a collection of individually maintained and updated (by bot) pages. --DannyS712 (talk) 05:43, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Right, but those slower intervals are because they don't need to be updated more often, or that the queries they use take a long time to finish, etc. I see now there is at least one other editor who apparently is not using automation. So it would seem there is a larger discussion in store, one where I might possibly be in the minority.

Overall, let me make it clear there are no inherent rules being broken, as far as I can tell. I did deny your BRFA under the false assumption that you were in agreeance. For that, I apologize. But I do think the notion of manual WP:Database reports needs broader discussion. Maybe MZMcBride has an opinion?

As for your bot tasks, DannyS712: If you could (a) put your code on GitHub (public repo), (b) give me access to your Toolforge tool account, then (c) I can probably take care of the rest, showing you everything I did.

Above all else, it's much preferred to seek support for a new database report at Wikipedia talk:Database reports (though I admit the orphan/links report is surely useful for someone other than just yourself :)

Thanks for starting this discussion, as it is clearly needed. I was unaware others had approved non-automatic WP:Database reports. — MusikAnimal ^talk 06:09, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: I'll try to figure out how to do step b, and once I do I'll let you know. Thanks for the offer to help! However, no that I've cleared up the miscommunication with task 32, would you be willing to reconsider your decision? --DannyS712 (talk) 06:16, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

@DannyS712: Well, for starters, I still haven't seen anyone show support for it... That's probably easy to get. But at any rate you have most things scratched off of the Toolforge list. I don't see an urgency to write to WP:Database reports when we can do this the proper way, and with a proper BRFA to go with it. The bot userspace is always an option too, at least in the meantime! :) — MusikAnimal ^talk 06:31, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: I first posted 2 weeks ago at Wikipedia talk:Database reports#New reports, and since then there has been some support and no opposition. Until I figure out toolforge (thanks for the help with that) can you take a look and reconsider? --DannyS712 (talk) 18:18, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

• @DannyS712: so as far as these go, once you publish something to WP:DBR - what ends up happening is other people rely on it, and rely on it being current. This is not along the lines of normal edits or bot tasks where we say that noone should even count on a future edit. Is it "right" - not sure, but it is what it is. You certainly should feel free to make all the reports you want, unless they are going to be "popular" and regularly maintained - putting them in your bot's userspace and just linking to a userspace index under the "Other reports" section on DBR may be best. For such reports, unless you are going to be updating them at some very high volume, you don't need BRFA's either. Is that guidance helpful? — xaosflux ^Talk 16:08, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

  Yes. I think I'll take MA up on their offer to help with toolforge - once its update automatically, it'll stay current. --DannyS712 (talk) 19:04, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

DannyS712, I wrote this for Kadane maybe it is of use. Any help let me know. --- GreenC 16:33, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Permanent link, in case the page gets archived. e^πi (talk | contribs) 05:00, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

In my experience, nobody really cares how a database report is being updated. For what it's worth, when I initially wrote these reports, I used this account ("MZMcBride") and there wasn't automation. I'm also not sure it needs to matter to a volunteer if users rely on a particular report. It's unreasonable to expect that a database report author needs to maintain the report, particularly when database report users will very often want the report updated indefinitely. That's a very long commitment! --MZMcBride (talk) 05:08, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave... –xeno^talk 18:26, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Per the bot policy activity requirements, the following bots will be deauthorized and deflagged in one week. These bots have not made an edit in 2 or more years, nor have their operator made an edit in 2 or more years.

Should an operator wish to maintain their bot's status, please place "keep" and your signature in the notes column above for your bot. Deauthorized bots will need to file a new BRFA should they wish to become reactivated in the future. Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 03:27, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Required user talk notices left. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:33, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Discuss

With no comments by the operators, the above accounts have had their bot flag removed. Primefac (talk) 20:22, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Okay, so before I go ahead and say something that either ends up causing more confusion, and/or making it seems like I'm the absolute authority in this case...

Background: I noticed at this BRFA that there was a question about keeping the absolute numerical numbering of bot tasks even though there are three different bots being numbered (i.e. "Task 13" is run as bot II's first task), and the above Task 38 might be run by bot III (even though it's the first bot run by that bot).

I suppose my question is, should we allow this sort of "absolute" numbering between different bots run by the same operator? Does it matter? As an arbitrary example, the following could be a set of task requests:

• GenericBot
• GenericBot 2
• GenericBot 3
• GenericBot II 4
• GenericBot 5
• GenericBot II 6

I genuinely don't have a position on this (and said so in this discussion), but as mentioned above I'd like to not give advice that's either contrary to what should be done and/or what people expect. Primefac (talk) 20:20, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

In my experience, each bot gets its own list of tasks. See User:BattyBot, for example. In the case that you linked, a single operator is proposing to run multiple bots (you might call these bots "siblings"). In that case, in order to preserve everyone's sanity, I would love to see a single User page for the set of bots, and a single list of tasks, even if different tasks are performed by different Bot-siblings. Just include a column in the table that shows which bot performs each task. In short, I think it would be the most sane option to do it as you have shown in the list above. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:55, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

There's a very small amount of past precedent: AnomieBOT, MusikBot, ClueBot and SoxBot restart their numbering when they go to "II", but Cyberbot doesn't. I suppose "It doesn't really matter" is a valid outcome of this discussion. Primefac (talk) 21:06, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: Does User:DannyS712 bot/tasks meet your needs? Its transcluded by all of my bots --DannyS712 (talk) 21:08, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, nicely. Sorry for not even looking before posting the above. Please check to ensure that the bot user name is correct for each task. I think task 38 might need adjustment, or at least a tentative mark of some sort, given the BRFA discussion. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:12, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: yes, the default is DannyS712 bot, and once any bot goes to trial I update it if that isn't right. I was going to use III for 40, but since that stalled i'll use it for 38. --DannyS712 (talk) 21:17, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

• Case by case is the way to go here. First, it is OK to "skip" task numbers (especially as some may not get approved) so having Bot,Bot 2, BotB 3, Bot 4, BotB 5 isn't a problem that some were "skipped". In general, it is a good idea to have the BRFA subpage name==the bot actual name - over very long periods of time we've seen bots be renamed, bots change operators, etc. None of this is a "big deal". Within an actual BRFA, the actual bot name of whatever it is should always be used. If someone has a suite of bot accounts, using a centralized page name (that is redirected from the other accounts) is also OK. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:23, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

SineBot's latest contribution is from 2019-04-30T06:38:33. See User talk:Slakr#SineBot down.

@Masumrezarock100: I'd say the issue is not urgent enough to require other users' assistance. As the bot's code sadly is not available to the public, other users can not help by running the bot in the meantime.

~ ToBeFree (talk) 16:44, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

@ToBeFree: Is there any alternate bot to sign comments? It's a pain now that those unsigned comments are not automatically signed. Teahouse suffers the most. Masum Reza^📞 16:49, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

{{Xsign}} makes it relatively easy compared to other templates, but I agree that SineBot is extremely useful. I miss it dearly. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 17:09, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

User:Anomie/unsignedhelper.js is great for unsigned comments. Primefac (talk) 12:40, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Resolved

 – SineBot is running again :) ~ ToBeFree (talk) 01:56, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Hi there, we currently have two blocked bots with pending unblock requests. To a lay admin, it's unclear whether these bots can be unblocked outright at this point, or if we should get the nod from BAG first, or at least from a bot-experienced admin. Can someone who is more qualified handle these?

• DiBabelYurikBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) - blocked for light testing on non-test pages (an honest mistake by trusted user), but still pending BAG approval

  This one is resolved. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:26, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

• Citation bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) - blocked for issues which have apparently been resolved, but still undergoing maintenance.

  I swapped the order of the listed bots just to make it clear which one is being discussed below. Primefac (talk) 01:05, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks in advance, ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 19:21, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Often for blocks of bots any admin can feel free to unblock when they believe the original problem won't reoccur when the block is lifted, see Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Blocks in temporary circumstances (second bullet). This can be as simple as the operator stating that they've disabled the offending code. On the other hand, if it was blocked as an unapproved bot there's usually no reason to unblock until BAG approves a trial as there's usually nothing the bot account is allowed to do that is prevented by the block.

BTW, if the operator is an admin, that may even implicitly allow the operator to do it themselves. Exactly how clear it has to be before that applies is arguable, safest is to only do so if the blocking admin explicitly said something like "feel free to unblock when that's fixed". Anomie⚔ 21:06, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

As far as Citation bot goes, it appears the block was for making inappropriate edits (that would have been inappropriate if made by a human editor as well) - assuming this is the situation, it needs to be resolved first. It appears there is still active discussion occurring about that point? — xaosflux ^Talk 22:08, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

You are incorrect, the complaint was that a very few links to copywrite infringling citeceerx references were added. That is long since fixed. The second complaint is that the bot does edits on its own without a human being getting credit. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 22:13, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

It is a minor complaint that doesn't cause any harm to the encyclopedia, but it is an annoyance. IMO that shouldn't be enough to maintain the block, but I'm pretty involved in the discussion, so I'm not keen to give the thumbs up myself. Someone else could though. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:53, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

@AManWithNoPlan: can you elaborate? That bot is operated by Smith609, who is responsible for any edit made under that account. Is there a complaint that it is making edits outside of its approval, or that the approval needs to be revisted? — xaosflux ^Talk 00:20, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

People are able to request that the bot edit a specific page, but the bot does not force users to reveal their identities. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:27, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

OK? Is there a specific BRFA task # where you expect this to be occuring? Tt looks like it is using an ancient (in wiki time) passed-on BRFA (Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DOI bot) - which doesn't seem to require that. As long as Smith609 is taking responsibility for the edits, this doesn't seem to be a specific violation of anything, is there more to this? — xaosflux ^Talk 00:41, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

The bot has been approved many different times as features were added. Always approved to run as a pure bot. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:42, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

@AManWithNoPlan: OK - so can you point to what task you think is malfunctioning? — xaosflux ^Talk 03:26, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

I take it that part of the contention is that some people want a feature request added - @Headbomb: I think you are one of the requesters of this? I'm not seeing how this is a showstopper. If Smith609 is allowing his bot to make "bad edits" then, sure it should be stopped (and putting a name of who they made the bad edit on behalf of isn't really fixing that core problem is it?). Smith609 could work on fixing that lots of ways, including by only allowing certain users to trigger the bot. Are there some examples of bad edits that the bot is making for reference here? — xaosflux ^Talk 03:49, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: I am indeed one of those that requested that. The reasons mostly being that when it was adding CiteSeerX links, this would have been useful to WP:TROUT users that didn't review the bot's edits. This would still be useful for trouting people that don't review the bot's edits, or to help users that try to use the bot, but there is no outstanding/egregiously problematic behaviour in terms of actual edits (at least as far as I can tell). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:56, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

I have several concerns about this bot relative to BOTPOL. First that its operator of record appears to be an absentee landlord: before the bot was blocked they had not edited any page related to the bot for several months (and ditto before that). There was a recent, contentious, RfC about the bot's behaviour in which they were pinged multiple times, but did not participate at all (despite editing elsewhere on the project). I have several times asked them (on their talk page and on the bot's talk page) to confirm whether they are in fact still the bot's operator, and to address WP:BOTACC, second para, and WP:BOTCOMM. There has been no response, beyond removing the question with the edit summary Archive aggressive comments. During the RFC the bot's proponents argued that since the bot was user activated it was not the bot that was responsible for the problematic edits (but it didn't identify the user activating the bot). Once the bot was blocked for, among other things, not identifying the activating user, the bot's operator suddenly chimed in claiming it was, in fact, the operator that was responsible for the edits (see also this thread at WT:BOTPOL). The net result seems to be that nobody takes responsibility for the edits.

Second that this bot relies on a 11 year old BRFA for a task to "Adds DOIs to citations provided using {{cite journal}}". But the bot has changed extensively in the decade since that BRFA and its maintainers now appear to operate on the assumption that it has de facto approval to do "anything at all that is related to citations" with no need for a new BRFA (in the above RFC they were asked several times for the BRFA that authorized mass-removal of valid citation template parameters, with the only response a suggestion that it was "grandfathered in" due to the bot's age, and besides, the bot's maintainers didn't think anyone ought to use those parameters in any case, nevermind CITEVAR). There are several concerns surrounding responsiveness to the community and only making uncontroversial edits. I think the bot's various tasks need to be analysed (documented), and which ones have actual authorisation sorted. Existing BRFAs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (last one in 2011).

As for the two direct reasons the bot was blocked… As I understand it the addition of the problematic links has been stopped and this reason for the block resolved. In fairness it should also be noted that just how problematic these links are (or are not) and how our various policies applies to that issue is not clear cut, and the bot's de facto maintainer has taken steps to get that question resolved through community discussion at Wikipedia talk:Copyrights#CiteSeerX copyrights and linking with no real conclusion (ie. the community has failed to provide the necessary guidance).

The second reason is the issue of not attributing edits to the user responsible for them, which has not been resolved. The bot now has some mitigating functionality that, when I looked at it, at least included a form field to voluntarily provide a user name that the bot would then insert into the edit summary (see https://tools.wmflabs.org/citations/). I've not paid close enough attention to tell whether this is the sum of the changes made to address this issue (I would hope the operator would answer that question). Usually this might have been "good enough" for practical purposes, but given the problems outlined above, the bot's mode of operation, and the potential for abuse (for example, during the RFC there were—alleged, not substantiated—claims that there was a dramatic uptick in removing the citation parameters in question, in an apparent effort to get them removed before the community could prohibit that behaviour: i.e. anonymous mass edit-warring using the bot), my conclusion is that in order to actually meet the requirement for attributing edits to the user making them, the bot must implement some form of actual authentication. It doesn't absolutely have to be OAuth, but it needs to be something that achieves the same effect. It should probably also not allow blocked or non-logged-in users to use the bot. But to be absolutely clear: I am here talking about potential for abuse, not any actual ongoing abuse (the bot is currently blocked, after all), and the requirements of BOTPOL.

PS. Apologies for the wall of text. I know some people dislike that, but if I could have written this shorter I would have. --Xover (talk) 14:29, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

some times it takes a lot of text. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:39, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out that the general community responce to my attempts at various times to start discussions has resulted in less than the sound of crickets. The whole citeceerx issue was never really resolved other than the bot stopping the addition since it is not a high value feature anyway. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:48, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

"There has been no response, beyond removing the question with the edit summary Archive aggressive comments". Sure, if you ignore the response, and the patently obvious evidence that Smith609 operates the bot. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:35, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Easy to miss a response when it's ten days later. Fewer such assumptions might not go amiss. ——SerialNumber54129 15:40, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

You appear to be confused. They have indeed edited, sporadically, in the interrim. As I wrote above. However the first diff you provide (which message was one of the ones included in the diff I provided) is a response to the blocking admin, not to my query, and addressed a completely unrelated issue. My query was a reply to that message and they have not provided any kind of response to that, much less actually addressed the query. The third party presuming to answer for the bot's operator (your second diff, message also included in my original diff) may well find the answer blindingly obvious, but I am not posessed of such powers of mind reading. By pure happenstance I am perfectly capable of interpreting various logs at Github, but that does not seem a reasonable requirement for resolving a question addressed to a bot's operator. Their ability to periodically click the one button it takes to merge a pull request on Github is also completely orthogonal to the question asked: do they, in fact, consider themselves the bot's operator—with the attendant responsibilities set out in BOTPOL—and can they address WP:BOTACC, second para, and WP:BOTCOMM. I do not feel that this is an unreasonable question to pose to a bot operator, and by implication of your argument it should not be a hard one to answer. And yet I have now literally waited months without an answer (the irony...). --Xover (talk) 16:34, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Citation bot (talk · contribs) is operated by Smith609 (talk · contribs), as it made evidently clear by the prominent {{bot}} template featured on its user page, as required per WP:BOTACCOUNT. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:14, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

That's a start. Let's get it to adhere to the rest of BOTPOL shall we. ——SerialNumber54129 17:35, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

What parts of BOTPOL do you feel the bot isn't adhering to? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:37, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

All the more remarkable then, that after I have asked three times, over three months, they have still not managed to affirm this, much less respond to the rest of my question. In fact, you may feel free to consider the repetiton here the fourth time, in the fourth month, that I have asked the question. --Xover (talk) 18:01, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

That you refuse to hear the answer to your question is your problem. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:22, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

You may want to take a look in the mirror when it comes to refusing to get the point. --Xover (talk) 06:14, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I could be wrong about this but my understanding was that user-initiated tools are not subject to bot policy. This came up when a well-known user-initiated tool by a well known and respected bot op was causing problems, and the operator was not responding to fix requests. A BAG member told me that it was outside the responsibility of the BAG group, they could not block it. Since this is similar to what happened with Citation bot, I'm thinking I was given bad information. Are Tools that edit Wikipedia (on behalf of a user and triggered through a web interface) subject to bot policy? -- GreenC 20:52, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

For tools like WP:TWINKLE or WP:AWB, the answer is usually no, unless there are WP:MEATBOT concerns. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:05, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

I mean tools like Citation bot and others like it, of which there are many, where the user initiates through a web interface and the bot edits on their behalf and the user (not the bot operator) is responsible for the edit -- this being the key difference from classic bots. -- GreenC 23:05, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

I am going to throw this out there. The bot is approved to edit any pages it wants to (as long as it does not have a no robots tag). In fact historically it did this and even did certain categories without being asked. So, the fact that we prioritize pages a human wants us to look at is a reduction in our authorized activities. I realize this is a highly technical interpretation of the rules, but some people want to follow the letter of the law, here you go. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:52, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

A quick reminder that I (like most people involved) actually have a day job, family, other volunteering, etc. Please everyone remember this during discussions, etc.. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:23, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Please see this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Citation_bot#The_current_block_is_not_well-founded_on_the_policy AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:03, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Username policy#Utility of reports by DatBot. This bot reports users at UAA for being possible sock puppets. 99% of the time they are not blatant violations of the username policy, which is absolutely the only thing UAA is for. I was under the impression that bot tasks all had to be approved so I'm curious as to whether this specific task was approved and if so, why?

When questioned about it the reply from the bot's maintainer was along the lines of "I think I might remember why I did this and since many of the users wind up blocked it's clearly working."[1] I think this ignores several pertinent facts:

• There is no evidence that the UAA reports are in any way what leads to eventual blocks, let alone global locks, of these accounts
• If you don't seem to know why you coded the bot to do certain things, when those things are challenged it seems reasonable to change the bot's behavior
• It's a blatant misuse of UAA to report socks there, it is in now way a forum for anything other than blatant violations of the username policy

I would therefore appreciate input in the discussion at WT:UPOL from BAG members about how to proceed here. I don't have anything against DatGuy and I'm sure his bots do lots of helpful things, but this particular thing does not seem helpful and just creates noise in an administrative area that regularly experiences backlogs. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:41, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: can you place a couple of Diff's here for edits you think this bot is making that you don't think have an approved BRFA? Then the operator can be called to identify if there is a BRFA task approved for them or not. If there is, but things have changed over time you can ask for a re-evaluation of the BRFA here as well. As this is all "back page" type stuff, I don't suggest blocking while this is sorted out. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:08, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

All the reports are like this: [2]. The creation of an account trips an edit filter and the bot reports it to UAA. Typically these accounts have no edits, which is something we normally discourage reporting at UAA unless it is something like hate speech or attacks on specific people, all the information it provides is "possible sockpuppet creation" which isn't in any way a username violation. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:37, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

As it happens, it appears that DeltaQuadBot is not making reports right now, so for the last few days all the action WP:UAA/B has been this bot making reports and admins removing them without blocking because literally none of them are based in any way on the username policy. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:21, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

For the record, the relevant BRFA is this one, as a takeover of this one. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:30, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

@Headbomb: is my reading of that that these UAA reports should only be getting triggered from filter 579? — xaosflux ^Talk 22:00, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

And if so, @Beeblebrox: can you think of a better place for "Possible sockpuppet account creations" to go (or do you think this is useless)? — xaosflux ^Talk 22:02, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Without context I don't know how anyone can evaluate these reports other than the maintainers of that specific edit filter. It doesn't mention who's sockpuppet the reported user might be, and it reports them before they've actually done anything so there's nothing to go on without running a (completely unjustifiable) checkuser on them. If there was some way to post these reports to pertinent pages at SPI so that people who actually knew what the context was could review them that would be something, but they serve no purpose at all at UAA. Looking at that BRFA, it seems it was going to provide context by linking to relevant SPI pages, but it doesn't do that in practice. But even if it did, this just doesn't belong at UAA, it belongs at SPI if ti belongs anywhere. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:26, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

• OK, so it seems this is "easy" to turn off (at User:DatBot/filters) - @DatGuy: looks like there is pushback on this one report job, do you have any issues with it being removed? (Perhaps one day a better filter can be made to feed that task). — xaosflux ^Talk 23:44, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Also, if anyone thinks these are useful, perhaps they can go somewhere else? (You don't need a new BRFA to just change the target page if it is something easy, esp if it would be something like DatBot/PossibleSocks or something). — xaosflux ^Talk 23:46, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

The bot is still making these reports. Bot op has been intermittently active but has not responded here. I don't want to see this bot blocked, it does do a lot of good work against vandals, but this is just not acceptable. Beeblebrox (talk) 14:29, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: I disabled that function by commenting out "579" from the line at User:DatBot/filters, at least pending engagement by the operator here for further discussion. I'm not sure how long it will take to go in to effect, but give it a at least a day to see if it helps? — xaosflux ^Talk 15:45, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Appreciate that, thanks. Hopefully that's the end of it. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:05, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks to Primefac for getting the ball rolling on this with the creation of Wikipedia:Bots/ArchiveBox. I spiffied it up a bit, and deployed it on all bot-related venues we have.

The functionalities are what you'd expect. The relevant section of the box automatically opens up, providing you with a search box specific to the venue you are at, with a general search box covering everything bot-related. Specifically, any pages that start with Wikipedia:Bot or Wikipedia talk:Bot, including things like Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Bibcode Bot.

Suggestions for improvements and general feedback welcomed, of course. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:22, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Looks nice! — xaosflux ^Talk 19:53, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

User:Italic title bot has no edits since 2013. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:11, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

@Magioladitis: (see also prior section) the current bot policy only forces removal if both the bot and operator are inactive. However if @~riley: isn't going to operate this anymore and asks, we certainly can mark it retired! — xaosflux ^Talk 17:13, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Soooo... anyone feel like working on redoing Wikipedia:Bots/Status? I think it would be handy to have an index of all bots, but it will be a lot of work. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:15, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

It might be the perfect job for a bot. Someone should make a bot request. --Izno (talk) 01:58, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Izno, someone should file a bot request to make bot requests, one to handle BRFAs, and another bot to write the bots. —CYBERPOWER (Around) 02:39, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

:) I mean, we already do have a bot which takes care of the WP:Bot requests table of contents, and this feels like a similar kind of request; a bot could keep track of recent changes for editing bots or something similar. An alternative implementation might be to request that bot ops, when they file their BRFA, to make a JSON representation or something of the tasks their bot is executing, which a bot could keep track of. --Izno (talk) 02:49, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Could have a standardized template that can be placed on bot user pages to indicate tasks. Galobtter (pingó mió) 08:33, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I went with Json as that's machine-readable, but that's another alternative. --Izno (talk) 13:14, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

@Galobtter: I've seen other projects do that, it it normally works pretty well as long as some exceptions are allowed for very complex bots with lots and lots of tasks - I don't think that solves a central database (table?) of bots ask though. Such a location could include every task summary and the status of each task (proposed/approved/completed/unapproved). — xaosflux ^Talk 13:31, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

We now have Category:Active Wikipedia bots. At some point we use categories to better work with these things. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:41, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Doesn't help for the "does someone have a bot that does x" or looking for what other bots might this new request conflict with type searches though. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:39, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

If we were to create a table of which bots do what, the category of approved BRFAs would be a good place to start - just create the first column based on that cat. Then, go through and mark whether it was a one-time-run or continuous. The latter group can then be further categorized/described. So yes, a lot of work. Primefac (talk) 16:03, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I made a start on something similar a while ago, taking all of the approved BRFAs and sorting them by bot. I should be able to post something within a few days.— DannyS712 (talk) 16:06, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I can certainly cleanup the list. How many years of no editing is considered ad "inactive"? I recall we had a rule on when to remove bot flag. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:03, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I think this is more for listing the tasks being performed by active bots (not necessarily listing just the bots). For example, Task 30 by my bot for dealing with deprecated/broken parameters in templates, or Task 2 which disables cats on draft pages. Primefac (talk) 17:06, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

User:DannyS712/sandbox10 is a list of all approved BRFAs, as of 14 May 2019. I'm organizing it by bot. Once that is done, separating the "active" bots from the "inactive" bots results in 2 lists: a list of tasks that are completed or still running, and a list of tasks that either were completed or have standing approval but are no longer being actively done by current bots. --DannyS712 (talk) 17:09, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

To get to the point where they need a new BRFA it is very lenient and we usually batch process them twice a year. The current policy require both the bot AND the operator (would be nice to have these on a table :D ) to be 100% inactive for 2 years to force retire a bot. Though if a bot only had one-off-tasks and they were all completed it would be feasible to mark them inactive and deflag them as well. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:11, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Xaosflux do you recall when was the last check for inactive bots? -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:42, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

May 2019. Primefac (talk) 18:46, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I found many inactive bots (more than 5 years with no edits) that their owners are active. I wonder if we should at least ask bot owners if they are OK to have the bot flag removed for security reasons. I took the liberty to ask User talk:Traveler100. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:52, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

xaosflux Can you please remove the flags from Traveler100's bots? I contacted them and they agree. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:41, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

@Magioladitis:  Done per the operator's request. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:51, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

I did that a maybe 2 years ago, its fine to check in with the inactive operators periodically - they can always re-BRFA, not likes its RfA! — xaosflux ^Talk 23:52, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Moved from WP:ANI

BOT: KolbertBot (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · fm · mms · npr · pm · pcr · rb · te)}

OP: Jon Kolbert (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · fm · mms · npr · pm · pcr · rb · te)}

I just noticed this on something on my watchhlist, and I suspect it's a problem everywhere now. While performing "Task #2 : Remove link referral data", the bot removes the referral information from the URLs. Which is fine for most normal URLs, but if the archive URL had referral data, it now doesn't work. Example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chinese_People%27s_Liberation_Army_Support_Base_in_Djibouti&curid=54667043&diff=904972637&oldid=903790483

Replaced archive-url=https://archive.today/20181206171026/https://thediplomat.com/2018/12/chinas-djibouti-base-a-one-year-update/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ebb%2006.12.18&utm_term=Editorial%20-%20Military%20-%20Early%20Bird%20Brief

with

archive-url=https://archive.today/20181206171026/https://thediplomat.com/2018/12/chinas-djibouti-base-a-one-year-update/

Well intentioned, I'm sure, but the new link does not work. Which rather defeats the whole point of having an archive-url to begin with.

Could we consider disabling this feature on "|archive-url" for the time being? Or somehow preventing it from mangling them?

PvOberstein (talk) 03:12, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

"archive.today" appears to be the only archive "service" that incorrectly uses the URL tracking parameters in this manner. (See for example https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://thediplomat.com/2018/12/chinas-djibouti-base-a-one-year-update/ or http://web.archive.org/web/20190626001057/https://thediplomat.com/2018/12/chinas-djibouti-base-a-one-year-update/ ) Have you notified the bot's operator? ST47 (talk) 03:46, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

@ST47: I believe I have now, thank you. PvOberstein (talk) 14:55, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't assume it is the only one (we use 20-some archive providers), or that it is "incorrect", just how archive.today does things. All the providers have features. -- GreenC 15:34, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

• Operator Jon Kolbert has been notified. @PvOberstein: are you seeing malfunctions at a high rate, such that blocking may be needed prior to giving the operator a chance to review? — xaosflux ^Talk 15:23, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: I've only seen it on few pages on my personal Watchlist (since I use archive.today a fair bit) such as in this example, but have yet to encounter it in the wild. I'll defer to more experienced hands as to whether it's a severe enough problem to necessitate blocking. PvOberstein (talk) 15:34, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

The problem is still ongoing diff. -- GreenC 15:42, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

• Jon and I discussed this before. He said in December 2018, "I have added the necessary adjustments" to avoid modifying archive URLs to 20-some archive providers. -- GreenC 15:27, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

• @PvOberstein: regarding "the new link does not work" - when I'm checking right now it also appears the old link doesn't work either - is it working for you? — xaosflux ^Talk 16:06, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

[3] works (for me). -- GreenC 16:08, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

• @Xaosflux: Still seems to work fine on my end. https://archive.fo/20181206171026/https://thediplomat.com/2018/12/chinas-djibouti-base-a-one-year-update/ takes me to archive.today's "No results" website, while clicking https://archive.today/20181206171026/https://thediplomat.com/2018/12/chinas-djibouti-base-a-one-year-update/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ebb%2006.12.18&utm_term=Editorial%20-%20Military%20-%20Early%20Bird%20Brief takes me to "China’s Djibouti Base: A One Year Update". I tested in Google Chrome, in both normal and Incognito mode. PvOberstein (talk) 16:12, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

• Wait what? From your example above, is the bot changing "archive.fo" links to "archive.today", if not what does that have to do with this? — xaosflux ^Talk 16:15, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

• archive.today is an alias to archive.fo etc.. they have multiple alias domains. -- GreenC 16:19, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

@GreenC: Hmmm, in your other example of old link to new link, both links are failing for me right now as well. Any chance there is an issue going on with this provider? — xaosflux ^Talk 16:10, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Provider is ok looks like something on your end. -- GreenC 16:18, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

• OK, so Cloudflare is being sucky, but yes confirmed this is causing "breaking" changes. Really, the archiving services should work better, but we can't control that, we can only control our changes - and the changes this bot are making are currently making the article worse for readers. Would like to give the operator a chance to reply before we apply heavy measures (blocking). — xaosflux ^Talk 16:26, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

  FYI: Additional research indicates cloudflare is working fine, this archive.today people are intentionally breaking dns when cloudflare dns is used to look them up, so archive.today is the one being sucky. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:35, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

  FYI: Nyttend blocked the bot. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:11, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

[edit conflict] Since it's been more than a day since Jon Kolbert last edited, and since the bot was still editing today, I've blocked it. Maybe the fix will be really simple, so I've told him basically "you may unblock this bot when you think it's fixed". The point of WP:NEVERUNBLOCK is to stop disruptive unblocking, and as applied to bots it's to prevent someone from unblocking his bot against opposition from the blocking admin and others (e.g. to prevent wheel wars). I just want him to address the bot's behavior before it makes any more edits, and that's why I'm fine with him unblocking at will. This will not be a disruptive self-unblock, and it's one of those rare cases where we can ignore the rules to make things work more smoothly. Of course, any other admin should feel free to unblock at will. Nyttend (talk) 23:17, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

• @Nyttend: As an aside: "the rules" on that point seem to already cover that, as Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Blocks in temporary circumstances states that certain types of blocks should be undone (even by an involved admin) when stated objective criteria are met. That may be the part of the "almost" in "almost never" at WP:NEVERUNBLOCK. That seems to also have been the determined consensus at Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy/Archive 18#Unblocking bot accounts. Anomie⚔ 12:33, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

• Thank you, Anomie; I'd never noticed that. I figured that unblocking your own bot was always inappropriate, unless you'd blocked it or you had a reasonable IAR justification like this one. Nyttend (talk) 22:06, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Another case from July 5. WaybackMedic has been finding and deleting broken archive.today links for months, I assumed it was user entry error, but now believe many are due to KolbertBot. There must be thousands given how many I found and the happenstance of two bots editing the same articles. -- GreenC 15:29, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Hello, As others have noted at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive309#User:RonBot, User:RonBot and its creator User:Ronhjones have not been active since the first week of April this year, although most of his bots are marked as Running. I am particularly interested in #11, which searched declined AfC submissions for biographies of women, and added newly declined drafts to Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Drafts once a week. I was able to use it to develop over a dozen declined drafts to acceptable articles about notable women, but without the bot, there is no way of identifying drafts relevant to the Women in Red project. Is it at all possible for someone else to operate the bot, or to check why it's not running automatically, even though it says it is? It would be very beneficial to have it active again. Thanks, RebeccaGreen (talk) 16:25, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Hello @RebeccaGreen:, only Ronhjones could can address issues with their bot. I sent them an email about this discussion as well. We are unable to make their bot make edits. If there is no response you can request someone else make a clone (copy) of that bot to do the same task at WP:BOTREQ. Thanks, — xaosflux ^Talk 16:35, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Hmm they seems to have disabled their email, so it never went. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:36, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your help, I'm glad to know what to do. I think I will have to request a clone, as it's been three months, and the email being disabled is not a hopeful sign. Cheers, RebeccaGreen (talk) 16:40, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

For the record here's the BRFA, which has the source code attached. Primefac (talk) 19:44, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

I just want to remark that having bots run for months and not being around is clearly against BOTPOL, but we have so many of those and generally nothing is done about until it goes wrong. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 20:11, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

We can have a bit of WP:IAR leeway in the case of correctly functioning bots that aren't causing issues. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:48, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Hellknowz, I will say if the bot is doing what it's supposed to, then don't try and break it by stopping it. We shouldn't bother to hunt down orphaned bots if they are still doing a good job at what they're supposed to be doing. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 23:13, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval § Midnight rollover

 – —⁠andrybak (talk) 09:24, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

I've been thinking of trying out Pywikibot on Wikipedia. Before writing any code and starting a BRFA, I would like to ask bot users about a possible bot task. Editors who live in timezones close to UTC±00:00, are likely to hit an unfortunate point, where an XfD page is created before midnight, but notifications are sent out after midnight. This leaves links which lead to empty (if pages are created by a bot, like Redirects for discussion pages by User:DumbBOT) or non-existent "next day" discussion pages. I've noticed once this issue in other editor's notifications, and got hit by it today. A possible algorithm could be:

1. for bot created pages, check if "next day" page has been created
2. if the page is not created or the only change is creation by the bot, the go to the next step
3. go through user (and sometimes WikiProject) talk pages from Special:WhatLinksHere
4. and try to substitute instances of "yyyy Month d" to previous date

Would a bot that fixes these issues be useful? —⁠andrybak (talk) 00:23, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

If the discussion pages is already not empty (new discussions were added between the actions of unfortunate user), the bot could also compare the link to both yesterday and today's section titles. But that's could be construed as violating WP:CONTEXTBOT. —⁠andrybak (talk) 11:03, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Greetings, At VPT I posted a notice here stating the bot has stopped updating "Popular pages" 12:08, 13 July 2019. Further investigation is needed to get the bot running again. Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 15:07, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

I've started a discussion at Template_talk:Bot#status=expired which I'd appreciate some input on. Apologies for cross-posting. --kingboyk (talk) 23:45, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

I added the following hatnote

to the WP:BOTREQ header. I've been here for 12+ years, and today I thought, hey, why don't we have a script request page like we do for bots? That seems odd that no one thought of that before?

And what do you know, there is one. So now the children will see it and be joyful, and their hearts will rejoice. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:27, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

As a follow up to the discussion that transpired at Template talk:Bot#status=expired. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:32, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi! This is a notice that I have nominated myself for the Bot Approvals Group. I would appreciate your input. Thanks! Enterprisey (talk!) 06:15, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Hello all, please see Wikipedia_talk:Bot_policy#Bots_triggered_by_multiple_users for a discussion on codifying expectations for bots triggered by others. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:57, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Bots Newsletter, August 2019

Greetings! Here is the 7th issue of the Bots Newsletter, a lot happened since last year's newsletter! You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list. Highlights for this newsletter include: ARBCOM Nothing of note happened. Just like we like it. BAG Several (1 + 12 = 13) users have been retired/resigned from the BAG due to inactivity, per our new activity requirements (discussion). BAG members are expected to be active on Wikipedia to have their finger on the pulse of the community. After two years without any bot-related activity (such as posting on bot-related pages, posting on a bot's talk page, or operating a bot), BAG members will be retired from BAG following a one-week notice. Retired members can re-apply for BAG membership as normal if they wish to rejoin the BAG. Two BAG members retired Madman (talk · contribs) retired. BU Rob13 (talk · contribs) vanished and retired. Three new BAG members have been voted in, welcome to the BAG! Primefac (talk · contribs) joined on 2018-12-12 (RfBAG). Primefac operates PrimeBOT (talk · contribs) which does a plethora of tasks. TheSandDoctor (talk · contribs) joined on 2019-01-21 (RfBAG). TheSandDoctor operates several bots including DeprecatedFixerBot (talk · contribs). Enterprisey (talk · contribs) joined on 2019-08-07 (RfBAG). Enterprisey operates EnterpriseyBot (talk · contribs), which does a plethora of tasks, RemindMeBot (talk · contribs) which posts reminders, and codes several scripts. We thank former members for their service and wish Madman a happy retirement. We note that Madman and BU Rob13 were not inactive and could resume their BAG positions if they so wished, should their retirements happens to be temporary. BOTDICT Two new entries feature in the bots dictionary Editor-hostile wikitext – describes wikitext structuring that is editor hostile, even if it renders correctly Spectrum of usefulness – describes how tasks are deemed useful or not BOTPOL Activity requirements: BAG members now have an activity requirement. The requirements are very light, one only needs to be involved in a bot-related area at some point within the last two years. For purpose of meeting these requirements, discussing a bot-related matter anywhere on Wikipedia counts, as does operating a bot (RFC). Copyvio flag: Bot accounts may be additionally marked by a bureaucrat upon BAG request as being in the "copyviobot" user group on Wikipedia. This flag allows using the API to add metadata to edits for use in the New pages feed (discussion). There is currently 1 bot using this functionality. Mass creation: The restriction on mass-creation (semi-automated or automated) was extended from articles, to all content-pages. There are subtleties, but content here broadly means whatever a reader could land on when browsing the mainspace in normal circumstances (e.g. Mainspace, Books, most Categories, Portals, ...). There is also a warning that WP:MEATBOT still applies in other areas (e.g. Redirects, Wikipedia namespace, Help, maintenance categories, ...) not explicitely covered by WP:MASSCREATION. BOTREQs and BRFAs As of writing, we have... 20 active BOTREQs, please help if you can! 14 open BRFAs and 1 BRFA in need of BAG attention (see live status). In 2018, 96 bot task were approved. An AWB search shows approximately 29 were withdrawn/expired, and 6 were denied. Since the start of 2019, 97 bot task were approved. Logs show 15 were withdrawn/expired, and 15 were denied. 10 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion). 5 other bots have been deflagged per operator requests or similar (see discussion). New things All bot-related discussion pages now have a centralized and searchable archive box (see discussion). Discussions are searchable per noticeboard, or globally. {{Bot}} now supports |status=expired (see discussion). This led to the deletion of Category:Indefinitely blocked Wikipedia bots as useless (see discussion). WP:BOTREQ now mentions WP:SCRIPTREQ and WP:AWBTASKS as alternatives to bot requests. The bot creation guide now mentions bot flags, and two new languages Awk and MATLAB. Other minor tweaks have been made. AAlertBot has received major code updates. In particular, WP:AALERTS will now report splits, mergers, and AFC submissions. Citation bot has received several updates (User talk:Citation bot/Archive 10/11/12/13/14/15/16/17). In particular, the bot stopped the automated removal of |publisher= from {{cite journal}}, and stopped the automated addition of CiteSeerX links, and now uses OAuth to authenticate those who make requests of the bot. Other discussions These are some of the discussions that happened / are still happening since the last Bots Newsletter. Many are stale, but some are still active. Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 12#Adminbots requests page Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 12#Double-redirect tagging (2019) Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 12#Long and Winding Road to Parsoid Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 13#Bot-like user scripts Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 13#WP:URLREQ Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 13#Wikipedia:Bots/Status Wikipedia talk:Bot Approvals Group#Minimum edits Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Minor update to WP:BOTISSUE Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Semi-automated Portal creation Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Clarification on "Bots operated by multiple users" Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Bots triggered by multiple users Wikipedia talk:Bots#How to use Special:ApiFeatureUsage See also the latest discussions at the bot noticeboard. Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 17:24, 7 August 2019 (UTC) (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Civil parish bot help (if someone can code a bot ready) for this would be appreciated, thanks. Crouch, Swale (talk) 11:06, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

I have tried to contact User:Legoktm regarding a request for User:Legobot found here on July 24. Talk page message to them on July 30 which was archived without a response here. Another ping today and note on their talk page here. Although I understand and appreciate that their is no compulsory requirement to edit, per WP:BOTCOMM I expect bot questions to be addressed promptly. This is especially true for a bot like Legobot that manages so many important processes. So, my question to this group is how to best manage this issue? « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 20:00, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks for posting @Gonzo fan2007: if I understand the need correctly: the GAN process would like to make a change, and wants to ensure it is coordinated with Legobot Task 33, yes? — xaosflux ^Talk 20:09, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Yep Xaosflux. In the past there has been a desire to split up topics in sub-topics (among other feature requests). If you look at WP:GAN real quick, you will see for example that the Social sciences and society topic has many sub-topics, whereas Sports and Recreation has none. However, Legobot manages this whole process, thus no changes can be made until Legobot is updated. The process for how WP:GAN works can be found at WP:GAN/I, specifically how to categorize the article when adding {{GAN}}. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 20:16, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
    • Thank you @Gonzo fan2007:. Talk notice and email notice sent to the operator. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:41, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
      • Thanks Xaosflux. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 21:45, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
        • Hasn't edited in 3 weeks and no (obviously) replies to this issue, is there a way someone else can make the desired changes to the script, outside of disabling the bot ? - FlightTime (open channel) 22:11, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
          • The bot can be turned off for just certain pages with {{bots|deny=Legobot}} - so if could be disabled on just certain GA pages. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:01, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
            • The technical item that I am requesting is a subtle change to how the bot responds to the user input when adding {{GAN}} to a talk page to nominate an article for GA status. As part of adding that template to the talk page, a user has to add the |subtopic= from the list of subtopics found on the documentation sub-page of {{GAN}}. Based on this human input, the bot lists the page at WP:GAN under the correct sub-topic. This helps reviewers focus their efforts on smaller categories of articles. However, the topic of Sports and Recreation (which spans a lot of articles from city parks to the Premier League) has gotten so large (75 articles right now) that it is difficult to focus on any smaller topics. So, what would need to be done for this request is a set of human edits to {{GAN}} (new sub-topic options) and WP:GAN (new sub-topic section headers and categorization of the existing nominations), which I am happy to do. However, I imagine Legobot probably will need to add these new sub-topics to its code to be able to properly respond to these new sub-topics. There are probably other human edits that will be needed as well ({{GA}} will also need to be edited to add the new sub-topics; new categories will need to be created, etc). I don't have the technical expertise to grasp how difficult these changes would be to the bot, but am willing and happy to make the human edits. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 23:22, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

I stopped responding a while back to all the GAN requests unfortunately. I'm basically keeping it alive in maintenance mode and accepting patches. I'm open to having someone else take it over entirely, but last time there was some issue in transferring the database, I don't really remember. Legoktm (talk) 21:56, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

@Legoktm: While you're alive, could you take a look at Wikipedia_talk:Dashboard#Bots_noticeboard_not_working? and Wikipedia_talk:Dashboard#Bot_section?. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:27, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the response Legoktm. Xaosflux, what's the best way to proceed? The WP:GAN process is pretty significant; ideally the bot that runs that page would have an owner that can make changes/updates/etc. Is there somewhere that we can post for any interested bot owners to take over this task? « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 14:42, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

@Gonzo fan2007: WP:BOTREQ is where you could ask for someone to take it over. As far as what to do until then - we could stop the bot on pages that you want to change that it will not be compatible with (see the nobots directive note above). Once a new bot takes over the process, this task could certainly be shut down and the operator seems to be fine with that approach. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:12, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Posted at Wikipedia:Bot requests#Operator to take over Legobot Task 33. There's no point in stopping the bot and making changes unless the bot code has been updated first. The bot would merely supersede any changes at its next edit. Thanks for the assistance Xaosflux. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 16:06, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

I just created this box you see on the right, similar to {{AFD help}}. It will automatically show on individual BRFA pages, but you can suppress it in your skin if you want (see the 'Hide this box' instructions in the corner of the box). The goal is mostly to make the BRFA pages more accessible to non-technical folks that might be asked to give opinions on certain bot tasks.

Tweaks/improvements welcome. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:26, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't necessarily disagree with this template being created, but I strongly disagree with it being included in {{newbot}} (seen in this previous version); for the vast (vast) majority of BRFAs it will be completely unnecessary (I think we've had one new bot in the last two months?). Primefac (talk) 18:47, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

The point is that everyone is welcomed to comment, including newbies, and we ought to make things as friendly as possible for everyone. Including the help box in BRFAs is of no detriment to anyone. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:17, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) In principle it's not a bad quick link reference, but I feel it's pointless for the BRFA audience in the depths of technical WP pages. That said, I wouldn't mind if it was added. It doesn't make anything worse even if the benefit is marginal in case someone that new comes around to comment. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 20:34, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

I like it. It also helps the old-timers who left and came back years later, to remember the details of how things work. ‑Scottywong| chat _ 03:24, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

This noticeboard shows up has having no threads when seen at Wikipedia:Dashboard. Wikipedia:Dashboard/Administrative noticeboards is updated by Legobot. The code for doing this is not within Legobot itself. Instead Legobot is run hourly from a crontab and the list of noticeboards to read from is listed in that file. The crontab still says to read from Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard which became a redirect when this noticeboard was moved to "Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard". Since nothing is changing at the redirect, the noticeboard appears to have nothing on it. We ran into the same problem when the Teahouse was moved, but the crontab was fixed then. I ran into the crontab (or a copy of it) by chance last summer when exploring how Wikidata was first populated by bots and how it is updated now. The editor involved was on vacation and I have now forgotten where I saw it and who the editor was. Can anyone here point me to someone to contact about this? StarryGrandma (talk) 16:27, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

User:ListeriaBot writes irregularly several times per month to Wikipedia:ORCID/Items_with_ORCID_identifiers, and that page is read ~ 5-15 times per day, every day. User:ListeriaBot is controlled by Magnus Manske (talk · contribs) who has not edited for 3 months.

Wikipedia:ORCID/Items with ORCID identifiers has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:ORCID/Items with ORCID identifiers. Please comment there. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:30, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Operator notice and email left. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:04, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

The page and the template that invokes ListeriaBot were created by Daniel Mietchen. --Magnus Manske (talk) 07:30, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

This bot appears to have been down for a few weeks and it's maintainer is mostly inactive. I for one found it very handy to have on-wiki records of UTRS appeals so that transparency is maintained for the appeals process. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:23, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: thanks for the note. There really isn't anything we can do about someone not running a bot; I'll try contacting the operator though. If it stays down you can request someone make a replacement bot at WP:BOTREQ. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:24, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, why don't we get another botoperator running the same code since all of it is published on github? I've noticed that this is a remarkably uncommon solution and guess there's some underlying reason. --Trialpears (talk) 20:44, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

@Trialpears: it is normally a fine solution, just most of the time noone wants to actually step up to be a bot operator for a continuously-running bot. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:32, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Bot operators/maintainers generally have to understand the language the bot's written in. In this case, that's PHP. Proper maintenance of this bot also would require adminship. That cuts down your potential candidates even further. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 22:55, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

I think both CBP and MagikAnimal are both conversant in PHP, but I do not know if they would have bandwidth given the other things on their plate. --Izno (talk) 15:57, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

If need be, I'm familiar with PHP, operating bots, and UTRS. SQL^{Query me!} 18:52, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Izno, I can 'run' it in place of another operator, but I won't be able to maintain it. You are right my plate is full right now. I'm hardly finding time to rewrite my RFPP task to conform to the new format the community wants. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 20:48, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Ah, so that task hasn't been completely forgotten about. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 01:13, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• Hi Guys. Everyone is right, I'm not able to maintain the bot right now. I'm unlikely to return to actively editing Wikipedia - ever. Life is full and Wikipedia isn't high on my list. The key problem here isn't getting the bot working - that's quite easy. The problem is that a troll has been submitting fake requests on behalf of real users. We were looking at requiring oAuth for registered account requests and still allow anonymous for IPs. However, neither DQ nor I have the time to do it. We reached out to a non-profit called 42 Silicon Valley in San Fransisco to see if they'd be willing to take over development and I don't know that status of that. Regarding the bot, something has to be done to prevent the troll from bothering users or submitting fake requests. If anyone has an idea, the code base is freely licensed and available on Github. If anyone needs me to approve their account on UTRS's WMFLabs account, I will do that for any administrator that is also identified to the WMF (because of privacy data). I miss you guys a whole lot, a lot of my negative emotions towards Wikipedia and all of you are long in the past, but I've also moved on with my life. Good luck, let me know how I can help.--v/r - TP 16:13, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

• @Beeblebrox: I apologize, I did not realize it was the master table that was down, I thought it was just the user talkpage issue. Had I known that, I would have fixed the issue ages ago. It's fixed now. That said, I have given @SQL: basic developer access so he can work on the user talkpage portion which is actively still broken. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 06:17, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Greetings, This morning I posted a notice here about bot not running. Because I have no idea how to get it re-started, wondering if someone here could help. Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 18:34, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

@JoeHebda: User:WP 1.0 bot is operated by User:Audiodude and User:Kelson - you can try their talk pages. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:25, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Hmm wait, you are talking about a problem off-wiki right? for https://tools.wmflabs.org/enwp10/cgi-bin/list2.fcgi? If so, it happens to be those same maintainers. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:28, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: - I did the group ping. It usually takes a long time (days or weeks) for a response. That's why I am asking for help here for a more immediate fix. Previously, I had asked for a bot Restart button & was told it may be years for that to happen. JoeHebda (talk) 20:15, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

@JoeHebda: Unfortunately us Wikipedia editors can not do anything about tools.wmflabs.org services. That service has a "issues" link to phab. You an try emailing the operators if they don't reply to their talk pages. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:19, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Bot operator here. I got the message to restart the tool yesterday morning my time and restarted it. Looks like it's working fine now. Sorry for any delays or inconvenience. audiodude (talk) 02:02, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

reFill 2 is a much-used tool for expanding bare references, however its creator/maintainer seems to have retired months ago, and bug reports seem to have gone unresolved for even longer. I know this tool is not a bot, but it was suggested that I inquire here. I was hoping to either recruit one or more editors to take over the tool's maintenance, or at least be referred to another talk page where I'd be likely to find said editors. Thanks.— TAnthony^Talk 16:10, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

@TAnthony: WP:VPT may be better. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:13, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

That's where I was referred here :/ — TAnthony^Talk 16:16, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

You can try wikitech-l — xaosflux ^Talk 16:38, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

TAnthony, User:Cyberpower678 was looking into the possibility of adopting it. -- GreenC 17:38, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

What is this about? News to me I'd been blocked, & I therefore launched no appeal. Johnbod (talk) 15:12, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

@Johnbod: will follow up at your talk, the "bot part" seems to be functioning correctly - but there may be a different issue. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:06, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Moved to Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 79 § Feedback request - bot to maintain CAT:UAA and similar categories

 – * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:46, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

To a degree I have raised this previously and somewhat poorly in September 2019 at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 154#BOT linking to archive.org possible copyrighted sources. And I learnt a real lots on open library and worldcat out of it and finding sources in books held on archive.org (search foobar site:archive.org). While bot url blue linking seemed to have ceased after that I have observed this has restarted. For example: [4]. This is actually really cool and really useful fantastic stuff. And I use IAbot regularly myself for Linkrot. My concerns revolve around the issues of book loans from Internet Archive and how this is being pointed to with a possible bias as opposed to worldcat where other sources can be located. ( The example I have above has isbn but that wouldn't be present pre-1980s? or so). In summary:

• At User:InternetArchiveBot IABot is described as 'an advanced bot designed to combat link rot, as well as fix inconsistencies in sources such as improper template usage, or invalid archives'. Blue linking arguably goes beyond the WP:LINKROT brief.
• I would be more comfortable if the BOT when blue linking also provided a worldcat (olcl=) link or perhaps an open library link (ol=) which gives library locations (worldcat) or also shows possible sellers (open library). I have done this for the example above.[5]

Thankyou.Djm-leighpark (talk) 22:57, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

The diff you linked shows that there was already an ISBN present. The ISBN links to Special:BookSources, which leads to all of the sources you list and many more. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:56, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

As I said there are cases where no isbn is present, or it may be the BOT operates only when an isbn is present? I support I could try and reverse engineer it or something but it is not reasonable for it to even try and I already mentioned about the isbn in this example. Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 02:31, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Seems to be GreenC bot doing this but it may be a called procedure. Is this authorised? Djm-leighpark (talk) 07:33, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

@Djm-leighpark: can you provide some diffs of recent edits that you are concerned with? — xaosflux ^Talk 12:16, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Recent diffs from my Watchlist:

• Diff:Blackrock Island (Mayo) Reminiscences and anticipations .. I'd already bluelinked but to start of book but not to the page and this additionally linked to page. (NB: Sometimes Page in document does not match page so might be a problem doing this. I'd already supplied ol and oclc as well here).
• Diff:Bob Dylan A Simple Twist Of Fate: Bob Dylan and the Making of Blood on the Tracks This one has registration ... ie needs a formal borrow as in copyright. Already had an isbn. This was the use case discussed a bit at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 154#BOT linking to archive.org possible copyrighted sources without too much of a conclusion. This may be the most questionable use case
• Diff:John Rennie the Elder The Lighthouse Stevensons.. Comment: this didn't have an isbn and no ol= (open library) nor oclc= (worldcat) identifiers added. (I might have done that myself if I was doing it manually). This linked both to page and work, i.e. added two urls.

These are typically useful, but I have the following concerns:

1. This functionality does not appear to be shown on the IABot or GreenC bot userpage, or if it may be obfuscated. Rather than 'correcting' a citation this is adding to it.
2. Just a concern in case this functionality has not been authorised. (Probably I don't know where to look).
3. Concern if any issues if pointing towards open library loans as opposed to leaving links for commerical buying/finding at worldcat. I may be alone on this. This is partly because this is as far a I know this is an openlibrary/Internet Archive funded initiative which is biased towards pointing at Internet Archive resources away from other resources. I may be alone on this.
4. Rather than just pointing URLs consideration should be made to also leaving the ol= identifier (and ideally oclc identifier as well). I may be alone on this.
5. I am concerned the page links may not work on some documents .... I thought I had an example but it was not an Internet Archive resource so there may not be an issue.

Thankyou.Djm-leighpark (talk) 13:52, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

The project has been in the news[6][7][8][9][10] etc. There is approval for adding the books per BRFA and RFC. GreenC and Cyberpower678 are disclosed paid editors of Internet Archive and collaborating on the project. The project is fully supported by the WMF who consider the Internet Archive one of their closest partners, both are non-profit organizations with overlap, we try to collaborate with non-profits vs commercial organizations. Brewster Kahle wants to scan every book cited on Wikipedia so that it can be linked to directly at the page number, this represents 10s of millions of dollars and years of effort, every few weeks they are sending a shipping container full of books to various countries for scanning. -- GreenC 14:34, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

• Thankyou for that information ... perhaps it would be useful to have a links to if from the bot user page ... perhaps it is already there and I've missed it (if it was on the Did you know I'd probably still miss it). On the positive side I am kind of leveraging some of the side effects of this into articles already. Again thankyou for the information.Djm-leighpark (talk) 14:57, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to IABot adding |url= links to cs1|2 citation templates as long as those that require registration are so marked. That appears to be happening. But, when |title= is wholly or partially wikilinked, adding a value to |url= causes URL–wikilink conflict errors. I think that I've discussed this issue with Editor Cyberpower678 though I can't find where I did that. My recollection of that conversation was that Editor Cyberpower678 was not interested in fixing that. I fully admit that I may be mistaken about this impression. It would be good to see it fixed because I grow weary of fixing these damned errors when they should not have been created in the first place.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:06, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't know about the history but IABot does not do this currently. -- GreenC 15:52, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Really? Here are a couple of today's IABot/GreenC bot edits that broke the cs1|2 templates:

German occupation of Norway 04:29, 14 November 2019 UTC

Program counter 07:20, 14 November 2019 UTC

If it isn't IABot then it must be GreenC bot that is breaking these templates.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:59, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Oh yes, that is a problem. Should be fixed now. It was skipping some instances and not others. -- GreenC 16:32, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Good. Thanks.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:34, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Trappist the monk, I’m not sure what I did to leave that impression, but I take bug reports seriously. —CYBERPOWER (Around) 03:13, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

@Djm-leighpark: maybe I didn't explain my ask well - sorry; can you provide some actual on-wiki revisions diff's of edits you think are problematic? An example of what I'm looking for would be this or this. Looking to see which account made exactly which edit that needs further review. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:12, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

• I've tweaked the examples above to show the Diff's better. I don't know there's anything technically wrong with any of them; just concerns as I now know a little better about whats going on. I must confess to being a total Luditte and stay away from the interactive editor ... However I can see cites getting longer and longer and getting more messily intertwined with the prose. WP:LDR solves it but sends interactive editors (mostly everyone but me) bananas. Havard's rubbish on web cites. But I wonder how well the BOT copes with WP:LDR and Havard and citations such as Rennie (1849) in John Rennie the Elder where there are many pages to link? Djm-leighpark (talk) 16:18, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Currently it doesn't. It only adds a link from a specific page mention. Most of the book citations at John Rennie the Elder would also be ignored because they don't use a {{cite book}} with an ISBN, as far as I know. Nemo 21:39, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Is it possible to flag GreenC bot so it's not blocked by edit filters? I'm working to replace a blacklisted domain with archive versions such as:

[http://example.com]

With:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20190901/http://example.com]

The domain was hijacked/usurped by spammers so the old archives have good content. The edit filter is blocking upload of diffs since it is part of the archive URL. -- GreenC 01:11, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

@GreenC: I think the issue is the spam blacklist, since I see only 3 filter hits since 2017 (2 last february, and 1 on a testing filter) DannyS712 (talk) 01:33, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

OK this is correct it says spam blacklist, I was thinking they were the same .. should I post over there? Not sure what the options are if the account can be flagged or remove the listing temporarily. -- GreenC 01:46, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

I used example.com above but the actual domain is blackwell-synergy.com -- GreenC 01:52, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

See phab:T36928 - despite being open and certainly could be useful, it has been ignored by developers for 5 years, maybe at the end of 2020 we can beg for it in the wishlist process again... — xaosflux ^Talk 02:06, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Xaosflux, ^ this. —CYBERPOWER (Around) 02:45, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: // or, I just spent a few minutes learning the basic code base of the extension and wrote a patch. Now we just need to convince people that it should be added DannyS712 (talk) 02:56, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

+1 that! — xaosflux ^Talk 03:12, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

I love how the sbl board only has "backlog" lol. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:13, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

@GreenC: Can a pattern for the URLs that should be allowed be added to MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist? Anomie⚔ 14:22, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Anomie, not really unless you want to blanket archive web.archive.org and other archiving services. But then, that would be open to abuse. You could tighten the regex but it would be absurdly long. The best case would be to let IABot and GreenC bot have a permission that can override the blacklist. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 14:34, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

@Cyberpower678: Doesn't seem that difficult to me, since archive.org encodes the archive date in the URL and archive.org is the archive site requested here. Let's say we want to allow only archive links before 2017, because the domain was hijacked in early 2017. Something like \bweb\.archive\.org/web/(?:19\d{2}|200\d|201[0-6])\d{10}/http://example\.com/ should do it. Anomie⚔ 14:47, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Anomie, What about the other domains that have been, or will be hijacked? This won't be, hasn't been the only case where the bots have been stopped because of the spam blacklist. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 14:51, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

On the other hand, what about the concerns raised on the task regarding situations where some editors can (accidentally) bypass the blacklist and others can't? Anomie⚔ 14:59, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

My thought was the right be given temporarily for specific jobs then removed when completed. Sort of a temporary privilege one can apply for. Adds overhead but shouldn't be a common request only if doing bot or other automated tasks specific to a blacklisted URL (not incidental). -- GreenC 15:37, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

@Anomie: we could make a group for it, and allow "sysop" to "add/remove", and allow "bot" to "addself/removeself" - sort of like how the 'flood' group is on other projects. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:48, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi, thanks everyone. I ended up converting to doi.org (or |doi=) and deleting the original URLs, after the run on 550 pages it was left with 14 pages that need an archive URL added, this is pretty good can finish the rest manually. Good to see Danny's patch submitted. -- GreenC 15:37, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. That was the recommended course of action indeed. (Such hijacks are one reason we need to get rid of all redundant publisher links as quickly as possible, replacing them with stable resources.) I see there are currently some links left to blackwell-synergy.com/toc/ and similar, but when you're done please note it at m:User:Praxidicae/DOI fix. Nemo 21:44, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

I was wondering whether there are any bots which make sure hatnotes stay at the top of a page, in case someone adds another template at the top of hatnotes, like a message box.--CaiusSPQR (talk) 21:09, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi. I have opened an RfC at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Redirect autopatrol#RfC on autopatrolling redirects that relates to bots. Watchers may be interested. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 01:38, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Greetings, Yesterday morning I pinged the enwp10 bot operators here, and with no response am wondering if anyone at Noticeboard is able to restart enwp10 bot at tools.wmflabs.org? Or is this a bigger problem than just the bot? Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 14:49, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

@JoeHebda: there is nothing we can do about this on-wiki. You can try also reporting it on phabricator, similar to the the ticket: phab:T207877. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:37, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

I got a stale file handle error on tool forge yesterday and had to restart PearBOT and last time that happened AnomieBOT has to restart some tasks as well. Perhaps it's related? ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 15:42, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

@Trialpears: there certainly could have been some hiccup there, but like you noticed the fixes have to be done by the tool owners the only thing we can do is ask them to look at their services. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:51, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Hello, enwp10 owner here. I've restarted the web tool and it seems to be working now. Thanks, and sorry for the delay. audiodude (talk) 20:52, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

(Pywikibot) A new pywikibot release 3.0.20200111 was deployed as gerrit Tag and at pypi. It also was marked as „stable“ release and in with a newly introduced „python2“ tag. The PAWS web shell depends on this „stable“ tag. The „python2“ tag indicates a Python 2 compatible stable version and should be used by Python 2 users.

Among others the changes includes:

• Python 3.8 can be used with Pywikibot now (Task 238637).
• Pywikibot support for Python 3.4 will be dropped; no further CI tests are performed (Task 239542).
• enum34-Library is required for Python 2 users. The Enum class is used for bot's login (Task 239533, Task 213287). Note: Python 2.7 support is to be dropped with pywikibot (phab:T213287).
• A new Family file for foundation wiki was added (Task 239542).
• API:filearchive access was implemented as APISite method filearchive (Task 230196, Gerrit:536620).
• A new Bot class ConfigParserBot was implemented. This allows bot options to be read via .ini file (Task 223778, Gerrit:511692).
• Important: sysopnames is not used anymore. Bot's user rights are taken into account directly but membership of a user group is no longer considered. sysopnames entries inside user-config.py should be deleted (Task 229293, Task 189126, Task 122705, Task 119335, Task 75545).

All changes are visible in the history file, e.g. here

Best  @xqt 12:41, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that toolforge will be dropping support for Python 2.7 soonish (see phab:T213287), and only found out when WugBot choked recently. If you run a bot that relies on Python 2.7 now would be a good time to start migrating, and depending on how active some maintainers are, we may see some bots breaking in the future. — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:37, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Or install in user space (if Python can do that). -- GreenC 22:53, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

(Section header updated) T213287 is not about Toolforge dropping Python 2.7 support; it is about Pywikibot dropping it. Python 2 is no longer supported, and the final 2.7 release is scheduled for April,[11] so Pywikibot is following suit. I imagine that Toolforge will still have Python 2.7 installed until the OS is upgraded to a version without it. — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:39, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

You imagine correctly, and according to wikitech:Help:Toolforge/Python the date is 2022, not so far away in the future. A temporary fix before then for PWB/Py2 bots would be to install the last Py2-supporting version of PWB in a local virtualenv. (On a side note, if you are a transition-lazy bot-maintainer, have a look at 2to3, the automatic Py2 to Py3 translator - it probably works way better than you expect.) Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 12:40, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

After collection usage statistics for pwb in phab:T242157 I do not expect a hasty change dropping Python 2. But probably new features will be Py3 only or additional libraries (like enum34) will be required to keep Py2 working with pywikibot framework. Anyway bot users are asked to migrate to Python 3, precisely 3.5+. There is a phab task for any help with py2to3 migration at phab:T242120; don't hesitiate to ask for any support there. Finally there is a gerrit "python2" tag which will always work with Python 2; but further development will stop at some future point for it.  @xqt 13:01, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Is there a bot (or a script) that can be set up to remove image files from sections headings? Images shouldn't really be added to article section headings per MOS:HEAD and MOS:ACCIM, and thanks to JJMC89 at User talk:JJMC89#Images in headings, I've now find a fairly fast way to search for such images, However, there seem to be quite a lot of articles (about a thousand) where this is a problem, including some which have quite a lot of sections with an image added to pretty much each section heading like this. The basic syntax for these files begins with either [[Image: or [[File:, but some articles may have Wikilinks in their headings as as well so just searching for ==[[ might yield some false positives. I'm also not clear on how a space between the heading syntax and the file syntax might effect a bot's search results (e.g. ==[[File: and == [[File:). Manually cleaning these up is a bit time consuming, but it can be done; I'm just wondering if there might be a faster way. I'm not sure whether HEAD and ACCIM would also apply to article talk pages; the rationale seems to be applicable, but talk pages don't really need to be article quality in terms of the MOS, etc.

In a similar vein to the above, I'm wondering if there's also a way for a bot/script to look for citations added to article section headings. Citations, however, would usually come after the heading itself; so, maybe searching for </ref>== could work to help track them down. Citations might require an human editor to follow up to see if there's a way for the citation to be used in the article. Perhaps having about track them down and adding them to a category page would be better than having a bot remove them outright. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:54, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

As far as I know we have no scripts or bots for either thing. A dedicated bot might be desirable, although you'd want to make sure there are no justified exceptions beforehand - maybe ask some of the editors who added such links or files? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 06:59, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

I've encountered citations in article headings, and usually move them to an introductory sentence in the section. But I have encountered a few, especially for lists, where this would be exceptionally awkward. Not impossible, awkward. DGG ( talk ) 18:05, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

re cites, something like Source: {{cite web...}} in the first or last line of the section is easy to automate. Regarding exceptions, if 95% should be converted, the other 5% should not stop the work. There can be flags like {{cbignore}} to tell bots not to convert those exceptions. If bot ops are required to manually check each one, it will never get done, and the damage is greater when 95% never get converted. I have no opinion about images in headings, though I think your example looks pretty cool and wouldn't be in a rush to change it because of a generic MOS guideline. Cites are more clear cut. But that is only IMO. -- GreenC 23:06, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I've got no opinion about whether this is desirable or not, but if it is done make sure to ignore links to files, i.e. [[:Image: or [[:File:. Thryduulf (talk) 20:49, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

ListeriaBot (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · fm · mms · npr · pm · pcr · rb · te)}

• Changing of section header to nonsense
• Removal of a comment tag meant to disable it
• Changing wiki-text italics to HTML tags

I did leave a message on the operator's page User talk:Magnus Manske#zzzother, but feel that the bot may need disabled until it's fixed instead. Jerod Lycett (talk) 19:23, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

• BRFA: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/ListeriaBot. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:31, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

• @Jerod Lycett: are you only seeing this issue on this one page, List of OBO Foundry ontologies - or is this a widespread issue? — xaosflux ^Talk 19:34, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

• I've blocked the bot, as I see the issue and couldn't find out a way to fix it otherwise. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 19:38, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

  @Jo-Jo Eumerus: was this issue occuring on multiple pages? If not a partial block of the one page could suffice while waiting for the operator. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:40, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

  (Non-botman comment) In the spirit of an fyi, you may be waiting sometime; the botop hasn't edited for ~5 months. ——SN54129 19:47, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

  @Serial Number 54129: they have globally, just not locally - hopefully will respond to pings and talk notice. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:56, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

  Indeed, but what is it they say about hope not paying bills...? :) ——SN54129 19:59, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

  Replying to xaos' comment, while I would normally agree that a partial block is what's necessary here since it's (currently) only one known page, I think we should look at that page first and see what might be causing the issue; if it's just something on the page, then remove it and make sure the botop knows. If it's a glitch with the bot itself, then it could pop up anywhere. Primefac (talk) 20:05, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

  I suspect it might be something at Wikidata, but I couldn't tell where to look from the page code. Regarding using partial blocks, they are a new concept and I am a little wary of using them in lieu of a regular block when I don't know the full extent of the problem. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 20:43, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

  Agree with you there Primefac prior to pblocks, I would have tried to just {{nobots}} the page, but I saw that the bot doesn't respect nobots. From much lower looks like this was just a case of the bot working out of scope because another editor confused it - if that becomes a regular issue having the bot improve its input validation would be a good fix bot-side. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:25, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

  @Xaosflux: I discovered this while doing WP:WCW work, so I don't know. That's why I originally brought it up to a BAG member, as I would not know where to begin the investigation other than just going through contribs and making a judgement. There is a supposed non-consensus of its use in mainspace for this purpose though: {{Wikidata list}}. Jerod Lycett (talk) 21:02, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

• I was under the impression that ListeriaBot was allowed only to edit outside of mainspace. Did I miss something? --Izno (talk) 21:10, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

  I believe you have the correct impression; the page in question was only created two weeks ago (14 Jan) by TiagoLubiana. After removal of the bot call by Diannaa, Tiago re-added the code, but as near as I can tell the bot has never updated the page properly. Primefac (talk) 21:50, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

  It is indeed not supposed to, but the only enforcement of this is an error message from {{Wikidata list }} (There is no consensus to use Template:Wikidata list in articles.) It seems to me like a more sensible option would implementing a partial block on mainspace edits. FYI List of OBO Foundry ontologies is the only current use in mainspace and previous ones have been removed semi-regularly, mainly by UnitedStatesian. ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 21:50, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

• Okay, so apparently it's a copy/paste issue from the template documentation. That being said, {{Wikidata list}} has no consensus to be used in the article space so I have removed it from the article and will be shortly removing the ability for it to be used in the mainspace altogether. As this seems to be the major issue, I've also unblocked the bot. Primefac (talk) 21:54, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
• Sorry about the trouble this caused. I saw there was no consensus in the warning, but I failed to appreciated that it meant that it should not be used, at least not yet. Maybe a different wording in the warning could make it clearer for less experienced editors to avoid these mishaps. TiagoLubiana (talk) 19:22, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

(Pywikibot) A new pywikibot release 3.0.20200206 was deployed as gerrit Tag and at pypi. It also was marked as „stable“ release and the „python2“ tag. The PAWS web shell depends on this „stable“ tag. The „python2“ tag indicates a Python 2 compatible stable version and should be used by Python 2 users.

Among others the changes includes:

• The Site method media_wikimessages() may return MediaWiki messages for foreign language codes.
• For ISBN related tasks the stdnum package is required. (Task 132919, Task 144288, Task 241141)
• The modules weblib and botirc were removed (Task 85001, Task 212632), also some outdated methods.

The following code cleanup changes are announced for the next release:

• Test Site should be invokend by Site('test', 'wikipedia') instead of the deprecated Site('test', 'test').
• MediaWiki versions prior to (LTS) 1.19 will no loner supported (Task 245350).
• The submodul „compat“, which was introduced to facilitate Pywikibot „compat“ to „core“ migration, will be deleted.
• For Python 2 the package ipaddress is mandatory (Task 243171); the submodule tools.ip will be deleted.
• Python 2.6 supporting backports.py will be deleted. (Task 244664)

All changes are visible in the history file, e.g. here

Best  @xqt 12:41, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

This morning, I stumbled upon

• Clément, Maxime (2015). Collaboration et automatisation dans le transfert deconnaissances: Perception des agents logiciels parles contributeurs de Wikipédia (PDF) (M.Sc. thesis) (in French). Québec, Canada: Université Laval.

It's a truly fascinating read if you're into bot history and social norms related to bots on Wikipedia. It mostly covers 2009–2014ish, and is in French, but the appendix also contains a copy of an English summary/prior research published in Computers in Human Behavior if you don't speak French. Those who have access to that journal can find it directly at

• Clément, Maxime; Guitton, Matthieu J. (2015). "Interacting with bots online: Users' reactions to actions of automated programs in Wikipedia". Computers in Human Behavior. 50: 66–75. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2015.03.078.

They get a couple of minor details wrong (for instance, they claim I'm an admin), but by far and large it's on the money. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:11, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Please see mw:New requirements for user signatures. One of the goals is to make it easier for bots/scripts/tools to recognize custom signatures (e.g., by requiring that they all contain a link). Please share information or examples over there. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:16, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Commented, but holy hell does that VE hot garbage make it impossible to make any sort of sensible comment or edit them after the fact. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:40, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Hey, don't blame VE for that. That's pure, unmitigated LiquidThreads Flow Structured Discussions --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 19:14, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

(Pywikibot) A new pywikibot release 3.0.20200206 was deployed as gerrit Tag and at pypi. It also was marked as „stable“ release and the „python2“ tag. The PAWS web shell depends on this „stable“ tag. The „python2“ tag indicates a Python 2 compatible stable version and should be used by Python 2 users.

Among others the changes includes:

• The Site method media_wikimessages() may return MediaWiki messages for foreign language codes.
• For ISBN related tasks the stdnum package is required. (Task 132919, Task 144288, Task 241141)
• The modules weblib and botirc were removed (Task 85001, Task 212632), also some outdated methods.

The following code cleanup changes are announced for the next release:

• Test Site should be invokend by Site('test', 'wikipedia') instead of the deprecated Site('test', 'test').
• MediaWiki versions prior to (LTS) 1.19 will no loner supported (Task 245350).
• The submodul „compat“, which was introduced to facilitate Pywikibot „compat“ to „core“ migration, will be deleted.
• For Python 2 the package ipaddress is mandatory (Task 243171); the submodule tools.ip will be deleted.
• Python 2.6 supporting backports.py will be deleted. (Task 244664)

All changes are visible in the history file, e.g. here

Best  @xqt 07:33, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Bot expirations?. Sdkb (talk) 08:25, 10 March 2020 (UTC) Sdkb (talk) 08:25, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I've said my piece at User talk:Mifter#This is ridiculous. Narky Blert (talk) 23:23, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

On the tea house I asked if there was a bot that could organize a wikiproject's backlog into an open tasks page. They directed me here. Can you help me? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaiser Kitkat (talk • contribs) 05:15, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't know of any such bot, but perhaps they can tell you at WP:BOTREQ? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:42, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

@Kaiser Kitkat: Try this external tool: find your WikiProject and then link to that page. --Izno (talk) 18:01, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

(Pywikibot) A new pywikibot release 3.0.20200226 was deployed as gerrit Tag and at pypi. It also was marked as „stable“ release and the „python2“ tag. The PAWS web shell depends on this „stable“ tag. The „python2“ tag indicates a Python 2 compatible stable version and should be used by Python 2 users.

Among others the changes includes:

• When executing a script all required external modules are checked.
• Data attributes of WikibaseEntity were refactored. (Task T233406)
• Disfunctional cgi_interface.py was deleted. (Task T248292, Task T248250, Task T193978)
• The compat submodul has been deleted. (Task T183085)
• Python 2.6 supporting backports.py has been deleted. (Task 244664)

The following code cleanup changes are announced for one of the next releases:

• Test Site should be invokend by Site('test', 'wikipedia') instead of the deprecated Site('test', 'test').
• MediaWiki versions prior to (LTS) 1.19 will no loner supported (Task 245350).
• For Python 2 the package ipaddress is mandatory (Task 243171); the submodule tools.ip will be deleted.
• Featured articles interwiki link related functions will be desupported.

All changes are visible in the history file, e.g. here

Best  @xqt 12:04, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Update (botop)

OK, I was just made aware of this discussion (I am running ListeriaBot).

• I just blocked namespace 0 editing on enwiki for the bot, as I have done for dewiki and frwiki on request before.
• Blocking accidental inclusion of non-free images in user namespace would take a bit longer. Maybe tomorrow.
• I didn't read most of the above. It seems like if someone had told me in the usual places what the issue is, it would have been resolved early and easy. Though I suspect the point of this discussion is not to prevent a handful of accidental edits, but to badmouth Wikidata. This makes me sad. --Magnus Manske (talk) 17:27, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

  As the person who opened this discussion I said nothing bad about Wikidata. In fact I said I wanted to find a way for this bot to continue operating. And I'm not sure how posting to both the bot's user talk and your user talk is not a "usual place". I get that it's not something you check regularly, but with respect that is a problem for us on enwiki. I get why it's a choice you've made and I'm not saying you're wrong to act that way, only that it is a problem for us as a wiki. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:32, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

@Magnus Manske: at lot of the above has a lot of frustration caused by a block that threw the baby out with the bathwater, and people who want to ignore policy because the bot does a lot of good. That said, I see nothing above that claim Wikidata is evil, so just ignore the general orneriness and focus on the actual issues. One the bot's logic gets updated, ask for the unblock, and things should get back to normal. I will point out that the bot's talk page is the proper place to raise issues about malfunctioning bots on Wikipedia, so if you don't monitor that page regularly, I suggest enabling email notifications when someone leaves you a message on User talk:ListeriaBot. Also feel free to review the recently updated WP:BOTCOMM, which makes explicit was was implicit before. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:39, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Update: I added a safeguard that should prevent ListeriaBot from using images that are "local" (not from Commons). Of course, I can't test it here, because the bot is blocked, and it's hard to find an actual example (the ones listed as links above turn out to be not applicable). --Magnus Manske (talk) 22:45, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you Magnus Manske for doing all of that. I have unblocked the bot, and if there are any small-scale tests you need to run feel free to do so. Primefac (talk) 22:58, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Test page suppressing the Flag of Japan, as per requirements. --Magnus Manske (talk) 10:49, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone who helped get this resolved. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 13:09, 21 April 2020 (UTC)