Cyberpower678 might be on a little R&R break from Wikipedia, as they are not responding. Meanwhile, his bots seem to not be functioning as they should. I know the admin stats have not updated for a while. And apparently other tasks are stalled out. Please see User talk:cyberpower678 and its recent archives. Is there an alternate admin who can get things back up and running? If not, I guess we just wait it out. — Maile (talk) 01:16, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard

(copied from moved-to header)The bot policy asks for this to be handled, with some notifications, over at WP:BOTN, so moved there. Once done if a crat doesn't handle it there, the removal request can be placed here. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:38, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Hello. Per Wikipedia:Bot policy#Activity requirements, we're supposed to be de-flagging bots that haven't been active in two years. xaosflux has this helpful query showing about 150 bots that meet the criteria currently. I dug up a query after noticing that LaraBot still has a bot flag even though that bot hasn't edited since 2014. Can someone please do the necessary notifications and de-flaggings for these inactive bots?

For LaraBot and BernsteinBot, you can just go ahead and remove the bot flags immediately. --MZMcBride (talk) 07:09, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

The criteria also needs that the listed operator has also had no logged actions or edits for two years. The query is based only on bot activity, not operator, so most of the 150 in the result do not meet the criteria for removal. I checked about 20 and all of them had active operators. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 08:02, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Oh, that's stupid. Why would operator activity make a difference? I think account activity requirements are a bit daft in general, but keeping bot flags on inactive bots because their operators are still around is particularly puzzling. We should change the policy. --MZMcBride (talk) 09:09, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

I keep a bot account that I use for one-offs and it's simply easier to flip the bit once and keep it flipped than request it possibly multiple times for arbitrary runs. Anyway, I'm starting a policy discussion shortly on the topic of inactivity that targets what I think are low-hanging fruit in the report. Izno (talk) 09:19, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Nobody is suggesting de-flagging your bot. There's a clear and substantial difference between a bot such as IznoBot that last edited in September 2021 and a bot such as Stwalkerbot that last edited in June 2010. We both know this. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 09:29, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Just a note for the record that Izno's discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Bot policy § Bot and operator inactivity - blocks. Primefac (talk) 13:07, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

@MZMcBride: Why would operator activity make a difference? If the operator is around, and there's an issue with the bot account, an active bot operator can take action.

This doesn't mean every other bot should keep its flag, it's just that by policy, automatic flag removal is unwarranted. Stwalkerbot is a bot that's both inactive and by the admission of its operator, unlikely to resume. That makes it a good candidate for a flag removal IMO. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:01, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 16#Inactive bots - February 2022 was the last go around. The report of interest is User:MajavahBot/Bot status report. Izno (talk) 08:24, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Below are the inactive ones by the definition (TAP bot is a couple days from now). Izno (talk) 08:38, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

• Moved from WP:BN. Will send the operator notices. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:38, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Operator notices sent to the 5 operators listed above. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:41, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

• As there has been no response form the operators, these bots have been deauthorized and deflagged. Should the operator want to use them again, they will need to request it at WP:BRFA. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:46, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

  I noticed that BG19bot and Makecat-bot are now showing up on Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/1–1000 - see this edit. Is there a way to resolve this? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 05:46, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

  @GoingBatty: I have added them to Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/Unflagged bots, which will remove them from the list in the next edit. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 12:03, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

  @ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ Thank you! I also added Lonjers french region rename bot to the list, as it's now in the top 10,000. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 14:09, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Feel free to remove User:Snotbot's bot flag. I haven't used it in 10 years, and I'm unlikely to use it anytime soon. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 08:11, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

I thought that this kind of behaviour surely happened in the 2000’s. 85.98.16.196 (talk) 17:20, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Compromised? Not that I am aware of. Did something not within its remit (usually through either bad regex or otherwise bad programming)? Absolutely. It's been a few years since anything really major, but even in the last 5 years we've had bots get blocked (temporarily) for "going rogue". Primefac (talk) 19:13, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

What do you think was the most devastating damage they caused? (In terms of amount of time to fix it)--85.98.16.196 (talk) 12:14, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I'll be honest, I'm not entirely comfortable with this line of questioning. Is there a reason you are asking these sorts of questions instead of just looking through the BOTN archives? Primefac (talk) 12:21, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Catching up on some housekeeping, when I created DYK-Tools-Bot, I used a naming convention that's out of character (for no good reason) with all the other DYK bots (DYKHousekeepingBot, DYKUpdateBot, etc). Are there any issues with me doing a rename to bring this in line (i.e. DYK-Tools-Bot -> DYKToolsBot)? -- RoySmith (talk) 18:25, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

There's no real issue beyond those already listed in WP:RENAME. Make sure an account redirect exists after the rename. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:30, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

SelvasivagurunathanmBOT (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) which looks like a BOT from TAWIKI. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 20:06, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Aren't edits to one's own userspace WP:BOTEXEMPT? Might consider unblocking. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:33, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

That's correct. OTOH, I see on the talk page the "bot" replied that they're fine with the block as it will stop them from accidentally editing enwiki with the bot account. Anomie⚔ 02:34, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

User:SelvasivagurunathanmBOT history says that it was deleted G5: "creation by a blocked or banned user". Is there some additional history? –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:34, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Nothing I see, the one revision was just an external link to ta:Special:Homepage (but in Tamil). Anomie⚔ 02:34, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Trizek (WMF) (Talk) 21:24, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Nirmaljoshi requested the create stubs on Japanese dams here on this noticeboard and it was suggested that they refrain from creating stubs but instead create a list article. As to my count, on the 1 March they created 19 articles within less than 3 hours. I believe all were on Japanese dams. Maybe someone could explain what the conclusion of the last discussion was? There was no formal closure at the time. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 20:19, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

- @Paradise Chronicle:This issue was already discussed. Refer here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive_17#Dams_articles . Best regards! nirmal (talk) 01:31, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

@Nirmaljoshi, yes, Paradise referenced that discussion, which said you should create lists, not separate articles. Izno (talk) 01:46, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

@Izno:No. As mentioned above, there was no conclusion. nirmal (talk) 02:15, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

@Nirmaljoshi, if that discussion did not reach a conclusion, then that means you don't create articles. Izno (talk) 02:16, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

@Izno From where are you concluding that? Any reference? nirmal (talk) 02:23, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

WP:MASSCREATION. Izno (talk) 02:25, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

In the linked discussion, several comments from experienced editors supported the creation of a list of dams and not a stub for each dam. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 14:37, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Hello. I've been meaning to ask this since quite a few weeks. There are two bots set up to archive WP:BOTREQ, and currently the settings for these bots have different archive page number. Why are there two bots? WT:BOTREQ redirects here. —usernamekiran (talk) 18:27, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

While I'm not sure on any specific reason for 2 archiving bots, they don't actually have different archive page numbers set up - ClueBot III will figure out via some other means which index it should be archiving at, which is advised by numberstart, but it still functions fine. The bots appear to take turns archiving the page recently (LSB3 1 2, CB 1 2). In terms of history, it appears the order goes a little like this: +MiszaBot (2007), MiszaBot -> ClueBot (2008), +OCA (2015), OCA -> LSB3 (2016). I'd imagine its safe to remove either. Aidan9382 _(talk) 18:50, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

I was thinking that we need a bot to protect the featured article from new editors due to the vandalism that happens almost everyday. Much of the time we end up having to protect it anyways so I was thinking a bot would be a good idea for protection the article it would either semi or extended protect the article (bot owner can decide what protection is best) it would not fully protect the article or remove/change existing protections and a admin could opt a article out of auto protection if there is a reason it should not be auto protected Qwv (talk) 10:36, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Protect Today's Featured Article on the Main Page. Anomie⚔ 11:57, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

@Qwv, as you can see in that link, there was a trial for pending changes protection bot for FAs but a second trial has not occurred. You will have to hunt down why. Izno (talk) 20:49, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

A training tool within the framework of Wikipedia:Education creates discussions on Talk pages on behalf of student editors, and publishes a comment on the TP with a sig that is not the userid of the editor running the tool. I'm trying to determine if this is compliant with all relevant P&G, in particular WP:SIG, and perhaps, WP:Bot policy. This tool is an edit-assist tool that operates at human speed, so I'm not clear whether it is covered under bot policy, but my reading of the first sentence, especially the last part of it, implies that it may be. The most relevant section I can find there, is § Bots directed to edit by other users, and these tool-assisted edits are disclosure-compliant, because the user's id is inluded in the edit summary. The problem is that the talk-page sig clashes with the userid in the summary, and contains a different sig. I don't actually see anything in bot policy that prohibits this, so maybe this situation is bot-compliant. However, this is the first time I've run into such an issue, and I am not used to reading or interpreting bot policy, or even whether this situation is covered by it, as the training tool lacks many of the features of a bot. If it is relevant, your feedback would be appreciated at this discussion. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 23:49, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Some bots do imitate other users' signatures for the purposes of leaving messages, like the DYK (example) and GAN notifications. As long as it's done with consent I don't really see an issue. Legoktm (talk) 16:37, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

"Sent on behalf of <User>" is always an option. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:14, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

AnomieBOT, for example, does it both ways in different tasks. When TemplateSubster is substing something like {{Welcomesmall}} it will inject a generic signature for the user it thinks added the template so it doesn't seem like the bot is welcoming people. When CHUUClerk is auto-closing requests handled by opted-in renamers, it will use the user's the signature from the opt-in page with an "(autosigned by AnomieBOT)" note appended. Anomie⚔ 12:34, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

@Mathglot Simply stated, the example in that other discussion isn't really a "bot issue", as it isn't being done by bots at all. There are certainly legitimate cases where a bot may place some sort of signature of another user, but it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone reviewing it and they wouldn't look like those ones. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:15, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

HBC AIV helperbot5 (talk · contribs) Appears to have stopped after Toolforge was under scheduled downtime, however it doesn't appear to have resumed maintaining AIV and UAA. Its last edit prior to the downtime was here. Bot's creator doesn't seem to be around anymore as they haven't edited in 7 months and haven't responded to their most recent non-automated talk page post. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:51, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

The bot seems to have started up again. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:00, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Apologies for the downtime, I have restarted the process. While I am not currently editing, I am still watching the bots and available by email if required. — JamesR (talk) 23:12, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Ah alright. Thanks for letting me know James! ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 23:28, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

It appears that Mathbot is not updating the AfD open discussion list since 3 April. I've left a note for the bot maintainer, Oleg Alexandrov, but it seems he's been inactive since 14 November last year. Would anyone know if responsibility for the bot was passed on to or shared with anyone who's currently active? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:55, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

I went ahead and sent them an email, to help increase the chances of a response from the bot operator. Also I think Toolforge has been down for maintenance twice this week. I wonder if that is related. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:00, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Some new setting on the toolserver had broken it. I made it work again. Thanks for letting me know. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:20, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, much appreciated! Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 02:25, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Yapperbot (talk · contribs) is still running, but seems to have dropped some of its tasks. For instance, it hasn't sent out a WP:FRS message since the run of 00:30, 6 March 2023 (UTC) - it normally does this hourly. The botop, Naypta (talk · contribs), hasn't eedited in almost a year. Does anybody know what's happening? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:21, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

No (although this is not the first time Yapperbot has broken without explanation), but I've sent Naypta an email alerting them of this thread. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 14:13, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

I think Naypta responds to email even if they are not active here, like Tizio. —usernamekiran (talk) 16:56, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

And only the botop can do anything about that - we're not going to block the bot for not doing a task, and would only block it if there was an issue that needed the op and they were unresponsive. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:14, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not asking for a block. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:30, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Resolved

FRS messages seem to be running normally again. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:12, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

MediaWiki message delivery 01:21, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I was encouraged to post here on the grounds that I have been creating a lot of articles and might need to seek approval to continue in that vein. To be clear, I edit without any automation or assistance, and I'm not aware of any concerns about the actual quality of the articles; but on some interpretations of WP:MASSCREATE's vague 25–50 criterion, I am mass creating articles (though not systematically) – I've created 50 articles this week, for example. Of course I don't want the sheer volume of articles to become disruptive in any way. But I'm not entirely sure how I would go about getting approval to create more articles. The vast majority have been and would continue to be articles about South African legislators – would the best path be to check in with others at the WikiProject? Or to apply at WP:BRFA? If the latter, how? Jlalbion (talk) 10:51, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for coming here. To be clear, so long as the broader community is convinced that you are not using a large language model to assist in the creation of your articles I don't believe you are engaged in mass creation and won't need to seek approval beyond this, although talking to the South African wikiproject might be a good idea generally, as they might have some useful guidance.

Personally, I found your explanation convincing, but I also think that allowing the broader community to review will be useful, both in this case and to help the community work out how we can identify the use of large language models and dismiss false positives from tools such as ZeroGPT. BilledMammal (talk) 11:00, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

While WP:MASSCREATE is still part of bot policy, since the recent RFC it may be good to (also) seek input at one of the Village pumps. In particular, a proposal for BRFA to "approve" human actions that might appear bot-like was rejected there, so it's probably best to take questions like this to the wider community. Anomie⚔ 11:44, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

On that topic, I've just proposed moving MASSCREATE out of BOTPOL at WP:VPP. Anomie⚔ 12:21, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

My hesitation about posting in WP:PROPOSE was that I don't really have a "concrete, actionable proposal" – I just want to keep writing articles, probably about South African politicians, for an indefinite period and at a rate proportional to my free time and interest level! But I'm new to the sausage-making side of Wikipedia so maybe I'm just overthinking. Jlalbion (talk) 12:40, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

I just want to keep writing articles, probably about South African politicians, for an indefinite period and at a rate proportional to my free time and interest level! It seems that everyone is convinced by your explanation about how you aren't using ChatGPT; given that, I would suggest you are free to continue writing articles like you are currently doing without further bureaucracy - they are high quality, so thank you for creating them. BilledMammal (talk) 13:53, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, that's nice to hear! I'll try to keep an eye on policy developments but feel free to ping me if anything else comes to mind. I can understand how the rise of LLMs = need for caution. Jlalbion (talk) 14:26, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Example articles: Munyadziwa Netshimbupfe, Arrie van Rensburg

These are multiple paragraph, start class articles, well-cited, have infoboxes, and you have autopatrol. These look like quality articles to me. Assuming all your articles look like this, I'd be a bit surprised if folks objected to the creation of these. If they were 1-2 sentence stubs, then you might receive some pushback, but in my opinion, these should be OK. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:06, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. The irony is that I was just granted autopatrol last week after a reviewer suggested it would reduce the burden on the patrol queue – but I would be super happy to lose the autopatrol if others would feel reassured by an additional check on my page creations. Jlalbion (talk) 12:45, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

• Your articles look fine to me. I think its quite impressive that one can write quality articles at the rate you do. We need more editors like you. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:25, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you. Jlalbion (talk) 08:28, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

@Jlalbion: Congratulations on your new articles! You may also wish to add talk pages to your articles, as I have done for Talk:Munyadziwa Netshimbupfe. (I used the Rater tool to do this, but doing it manually or via copy/paste is fine too.) Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 14:11, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

I always put that off! Thanks for the reminder. I don't think I'm competent to use a script but I'll take some time now to do some copy-pasting. Jlalbion (talk) 16:48, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

How would I get User:GreenC bot the new sboverride userright? c.f. T36928 recently closed resolved. -- GreenC 20:12, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Oh, that's a neat user right. User:AAlertBot could use it since it occasionally encounters urls users used that it cannot report and has to trim the report. I spent way too long fixing it when I first encountered this because I assumed bots would surely be exempt from this. I doubt there's any process yet for granting the right though. —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 21:06, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

You'd probably need to lobby for the permission to be added to an existing user group such as "bot", or for the creation of a new user group such as "sboverride". Any preference? –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:18, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Probably should just get added to bot user group. Izno (talk) 21:27, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

The bot user group is "trusted" enough to have sboverride added to it imho — this is proposed at T313107 — TheresNoTime (talk • she/her) 21:28, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

I guess the question is if there is a case when it would be desirable to block a bot's edit due to the blacklist? —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 21:30, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

IIRC (and I may not), if I try to fix a typo in a section that contains a blacklisted URL, I can't save the edit, even if I am not editing near the URL. If that workflow still exists, it is frustrating. If bots can add blacklisted URLs but regular editors are then unable to edit the sections that contain those URLs, that would be undesirable IMO. If I am misdescribing or misremembering the workflow, or if I am misunderstanding this conversation, let me know in a nice way and I will strike this comment. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:43, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

[...] the link filtering is based on what links existed before the edit vs. what links exist after (exist meaning interpreted as an external link by the software). Do you have any evidence that an edit that did not try to add a link was prevent by this extension? See the code - this part makes it so that if the page already existed, the links that are checked are only those that were added in the current end. --DannyS712 (talk) 00:18, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
— m:Requests for comment/Allow sysops to override the spam blacklist

So, it looks like you don't recall correctly. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:52, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for that; that's twice today that you have set me straight. Maybe I'm thinking of trying to revert vandalism, section blanking, or other undesirable edits and being stopped because I would be restoring a blacklisted link. I can't think of a situation where a bot would put a human editor in such a situation, so we're probably OK. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:02, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

I guess the question is if there is a case when it would be desirable to block a bot's edit due to the blacklist? AnomieBOT's rescuing of orphaned references. It would probably be better if the bot didn't reinsert blacklisted links, but continue to complain on its talk page for humans to do a proper removal. Anomie⚔ 01:27, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

You could probably theoretical construct such a bot. But in general, I think whatever bots are doing, if it's an approved task, overrides those concerns.

I wouldn't let an AWB user overide the blacklist, but an AWB bot should be able to plow through. IMO. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:19, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Why don't we just create a dedicated sboverride group instead of speculating about whether there is some bot that might be harmed by having the right? * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 15:24, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

I could theoretically create a bot that has already existed for 14 years? Anomie⚔ 17:19, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Follow-up: bots were finally granted the sboverride right today in gerrit:923728 * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:52, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

On March 2, I offered feedback on how to improve the proposed CircularRedirectsBot (talk · contribs) bot in this thread, but it has received no attention from anyone else since then. There are a few other WP:BRFA threads that have not been updated in a long time; for example, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/WegweiserBot is marked as "in trial", but has not been updated since January 8. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 11:09, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

@LaundryPizza03: For requests that have been open for more than a month, would it be helpful to the BAG and/or the bot ops to add {{BotOnHold}} if we're waiting on the operator, or adding {{BAGAssistanceNeeded}} if we're waiting for the BAG? GoingBatty (talk) 14:13, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps in some cases, especially with a proposal awaiting approval for a second trial. In this case of CircularRedirectsBot, I seek to draw attention to the developer of the proposed bot to comment on and implement a proposed fix for a bug that happened during the last trial, and then a BAG to approve a new trial. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 01:43, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

@GoingBatty: It seems that the bot's owner, Magnus Manske (talk · contribs), hasn't been very active lately, with only 4 edits thus far this year. Now what? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 02:42, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

@LaundryPizza03: Now we hope the bot op responds to your message. GoingBatty (talk) 03:27, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

I note that User:MalnadachBot's operator has been indefinitely blocked, as of today, and so too has the bot (apparently for some sort of checkuser business, with them having secretly been an LTA).

MalnadachBot has the highest editcount of any account on Wikipedia, and currently runs a good number of tasks, so what the heck are we going to do about that? Is there a fallback set up for this? jp×g 01:29, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm pretty good with AWB and regex so I can recreate a couple of the tasks the bot was doing. I just started a new job so it might be a day or two until I can submit something. Dr vulpes ^{(💬 • 📝)} 03:07, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

There is a huge pile of Linter errors waiting to be fixed at User:MalnadachBot/Signature submissions. Some will be easier to fix than others. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:08, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm also willing to take over tasks as necessary. — Qwerfjkltalk 10:32, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

According to its page only two tasks were active, and even most of the past tasks were on the general topic of fixing linting errors. We already have other linter error fixing bots, such as Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Legobot 41, created in part due to past concern over the way MalnadachBot was performing the task. The one other active task was for blanking IP talk pages of IPs not active in 5 years. Anomie⚔ 11:19, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Has anyone ever seriously considered having the linter skip pages whose title matches /\/Archive/? User:MalnadachBot has already rendered permanently unusable Wikipedia's functionality to search old discussions by date last modified, since they've all been modified within the past year, all by User:MalnadachBot, so I suppose the damage is already done, and I'm probably just being an old busted grouch who thinks that old webpages should look old and busted, but it seems like an awful lot of work for very little benefit apart from emptying maintenance categories that don't seem necessary in the first place. Folly Mox (talk) 15:35, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I'd support restrictions on pages that are eligible for lint error fixes. Pages in article space are the only pages that have a critical need for these errors to be fixed. Active (non-archived, non-historical) policy/guideline type pages in WP space are probably a high priority too. Beyond that, the benefit of fixing these lint errors by editing each page is outweighed by the annoyance and damage it causes to watchlists, page histories, automated notification systems, search functionality, and a host of other areas. The problem with filtering pages by /\/Archive/ is that it the filter would still allow a lot of inappropriate pages to be modified, like every XfD that has ever taken place in the history of WP (which are never "archived" in a way that changes their page title). I think that rather than trying to come up with a way to exclude pages that shouldn't be "de-linted" (if that's a term), we should come up with a way to generate the list of pages that should be de-linted. Fixing this problem by editing each page is an inefficient and unsustainable solution. Imagine 10 years from now, when WP has a 200 million pages, and the <span> tag gets deprecated. Are we going to make 200 million edits to address that problem? Or would we come up with a more rational way to solve the problem? —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 18:23, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

@Scottywong, I feel this has been discussed ad nauseam. There has not been consensus to restrict the task despite the previous discussions on it. — Qwerfjkltalk 19:30, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Just expressing my opinion and support for Folly Mox's statement. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 19:42, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Actually, I completely disagree. Most of the de-linting is preparing for a potential breakage in the far future. If that breakage ever happens, we'd like to have the number of pages that break as low as possible. The frequently edited pages will be relatively easy to fix, but we shouldn't let everything else break just because people rarely look at it. If something in the future causes many historical versions of talk pages to break (like the changes requiring closing tags like </font> did to my RfA) then fixing the archives to be readable is a good thing to do, and should be done systematically (page by page, not signature by signature, but that's a different discussion). —Kusma (talk) 22:28, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

My experience with software and technology mleads me to disagree with ScottyWong on the need for and the scope of these fixes. I just spent several years fixing minor problems at work that had been allowed to become big problems. I also rebuilt stuff that was built with no expectation of future needs. When some obscure browser breaks on a page in the future (in 2 years? 10 years?) it'll be a big deal. Let's take care of stuff now, including all of our pages. Beyond that, I support whatever the technical people think is the best way. (And yes, that bot sure has been irritating but then so's road repair).

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 23:16, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

I am undecided on this issue, but I find your analogy about road repair being inconvenient but necessary, and your point about how uncommon browsers could be the first affected, to be thought-provoking. Thanks for this comment. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:11, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

I guess my perspective is "road repair is annoying, and so is driving on bumpy roads". One's not better than the other: they're just differently worse. I said in my first comment that the damage is already done, so fixing lint errors in signatures might as well continue apace, and may the devs someday bless us with a search that returns the most recent edit by a non-bot editor. Folly Mox (talk) 00:26, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Those of us who are opposed to the concept (like me) would say "so what?" or "let's cross this bridge when we get to it, not years in the future". And I am a technical person. The road repair analogy doesn't work because it requires that everyone agree the roads are broken - I don't, and consider the entire concept of lint errors to be busywork arbitrarily imposed on us by developer fiat. The fact that no one noticed that MalandachBot had stopped editing for over a month is telling. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 01:51, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Who is "no one"? A lot of us did notice. Also, this discussion about should we be fixing lint is a bit pointless, we just had an RfC and the consensus was to continue fixing lint errors. And it wasn't the first discussion either that ended like that. Gonnym (talk) 15:13, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

@Pppery, The fact that no one noticed that MalandachBot had stopped editing for over a month is telling. - that the bot is unintrusive and its edits are at worst harmless? — Qwerfjkltalk 15:35, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

I noticed that Malnadachbot and Legobot stopped editing on the day that each of them stopped editing. They did an excellent job of fixing millions of bot-fixable errors, making it so that human-fixable errors, or more complex bot-fixable patterns, were easier to pick out from the noise. Without their editing, it is a lot more challenging to find pages that need actual human judgment to fix. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:55, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

It is my understanding that Legobot went through every page with a Linter error and fixed all of the ones that met its strict criteria, primary among which is leaving zero remaining Linter errors after its edits. This left many pages with errors that bots can fix, but which also have errors that bots can't fix. As a result, this means that there are zero bots currently fixing Linter errors on en.WP (Legobot has not edited since March 2023). Any potential bot operators who are looking to work on Linter errors, including Scottywong, who offered to set up just such a bot (I'll volunteer to take over the tasks if no one else wants to.), are welcome at WT:Linter. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:28, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Damn... I felt sad when this news came. Since we lost MalnadachBot I might as well be taking over the two bots that fix lint - this and Legobot 41. Sorry for not working on task 1 of my bot but it's because I'm really busy IRL. Hopefully I should start up this task within the next day or so; I don't wanna mark task 1 as "completed", as it still has some use. Sheep (talk • he/him) 02:47, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

I'll spend some time reviving Legobot 41 later this month or next. I had some vague plans about enabling human assistance for the cases where it can fix like 90% of things but not all. I do think the overly strict criteria (only editing pages where it can leave it linter-clean) and tagging each edit with a distinct tag that editors can hide is the way to go in the future to make these changes as minimally disruptive as possible. Legoktm (talk) 23:01, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Just letting everyone know that I put in a BRFA for MalnadachBot's other active task blanking inactive talkpages of inactive IP addresses. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/VulpesBot Dr vulpes ^{(💬 • 📝)} 02:30, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

If I understand this, outdated character codes recently caused problems on da.wikipedia for several hours:

• phabricator:Exception: "Malformed UTF-8 characters" in Parser\MagicWordArray (via LqtVIew)

This would argue for keeping things tidied up

P.S., those who understand the technical aspects of this, feel free to jump in and correct me.

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 03:47, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

phab:T337700. I was following along with that on the wikitech-l mailing list. I think it was a bug in an old database conversion script, and not HTML linting in this particular case. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:57, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for setting me straight, November Linguae! --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 04:00, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

@Dr vulpes (talk · contribs), please, please don't erased sharedIP tags when clearing old IP pages. Some of these pages are actually inactive because they're schools with long blocks; when those expire, all hell is going to break out until they're blocked again. The ShareIP tags help admins in making blocking decisions. I went to a lot of effort to add these to probably several thousand vandalism-prone IPs 10 years ago.

Also, any spam related information remains relevant since we track the long-term addition of spam links. These would be pages with spam warning templates, Template:LinkSummary and/or Template:LinkSummaryLive. Thousands of edits have been made by Wikiproject Spam editors to document this on IP pages.

Thanks, --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 03:56, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up @A. B., I'll go back and make sure that's addressed before moving forward with the trial. Dr vulpes ^{(💬 • 📝)} 04:27, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure where to bring this up, but the Internet Archive bot recently made an edit to the article on the Roman Republic which did seemingly nothing but add archive URLs for live sites, expanding the size of the article by over six thousand characters. Is this actually okay? This cruft negatively affects editing (I use syntax highlighting regardless) and does not seem to offer any meaningful improvement to the articles given all the links are still live. Ifly6 (talk) 14:51, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

This is not a bot issue. It's an edit manually made by Billjones94. Take it up with them. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 14:53, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Essentially, what Pppery said. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:53, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Would not that edit text be generated by the bot (responding to a human request)? Or am I misunderstanding how this IA bot management console works? Ifly6 (talk) 14:56, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

You are understanding how the tool works correctly. The current consensus is that that feature is only done when operated manually by a human on one page at a time, and that it's sometimes useful and sometimes not. You evidently think that it isn't in that case, which is a content dispute with the human who chose to operate it there, not the bot. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 15:20, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

I went to the linked article, saw that someone had undone your reversion, which I agree with, although I usually don't bother unless a lot of cruft (>10k) has been added, and I restored your reversion. Dhtwiki (talk) 03:06, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. If you could copy your edit remarks onto Talk:Roman Republic I would appreciate it, since it would centralise any further discussion (if there really has to be any). Ifly6 (talk) 03:15, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

How aggressively archive links should be added to citation templates is an open question, I think. I've seen people edit war over it before and I get the impression that folks are divided on the issue. Strictly speaking, they are not necessary for live links, because Wikipedia:Link rot#Automatic archiving says that Links added by editors to the English Wikipedia mainspace are automatically saved to Wayback Machine within about 24 hours. So the actual archiving is done automatically, and the archive links can be added at any time after. Pressing the button in the IA Bot Management Console doesn't actually do any new archiving. On the other hand, Visual Editor users can't even see the extra code generated by these archive links, probably leading some folks to think that adding these archive URLs is harmless. When in doubt, follow WP:BRD I guess. cc UndercoverClassicist. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:19, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Re the argument that sometimes the text changes underneath the link, it's not a wholly baseless argument. However, I think it laughably weak when it comes to Jstor, Google Books, and other like services: these are services that (almost certainly) aren't going anywhere and, even if archived, are of little value due to pages and paywalls. Ifly6 (talk) 04:28, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Jstor URLs in a {{cite journal}} should definitely not have archives added by semi-automatic tools: we usually cite an article, and archiving JSTOR's page about that article is pointless. —Kusma (talk) 07:18, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Yeah I'd be in favour of guidance against adding archives to journal or book links. I think the larger issue here is actually that it's too common to define the entire citation in the running prose, rather than using list-defined references inside {{reflist}} or using short citations combined with refbegin and refend in a ==Sources== subheading. If the citations are defined in their own area, no amount of cruft makes editing the prose any more difficult. Folly Mox (talk) 20:12, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

I also would be very much in favour of guidance trending against archival links added to Jstor and Google Books. The arguments for archival are largely non-existent: the chance of link rot is extremely small for these services, you cannot verify against any changes, there should be no changes anyway. At that point it is just cruft. Ifly6 (talk) 03:08, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Link rot on Google Books is significant. It's an unstable service, for Wikipedia purposes. Wayback links are not the answer either as they often don't correctly capture the pages. This is a really big problem that has been building for years, there are over a million GB links on Enwiki alone, and no maintaining them. Requires special code for GB peculiarities. -- GreenC 04:01, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of that, but shouldn't the citation information be sufficient even if the gbooks link rots? Folly Mox (talk) 04:04, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes. URLs to books are entirely a convenience function and not generally necessary if we have a full citation. Izno (talk) 17:59, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

I also wasn't aware of this. It doesn't seem to me on first glance as if there would be any way at all of solving this issue though. The material that we would want to use (ie material that does not fail WP:AGEMATTERS) is almost certainly in copyright so Google Books won't have too much of it anyway. What sort of special code are you discussing? Are the Google Books links changing in an unpredictable manner rather than just disappearing? Ifly6 (talk) 04:21, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Well a number of things can happen: it can simply vanish, change IDs with no redirect, the ID works but goes to a different book, the book still works but the page number link no longer works. There are some other things I forget. Scraping GB is hard because it's not always consistent, easy to make mistakes. Like you scrape one day and it does one thing, the next day it does something else. -- GreenC 04:35, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Hmm, those are some major problems. Is there any solution? Or is it just Snafu? Do you think URLs should just be removed from book citations if they are so susceptible to not working and regardless un-archivable? Ifly6 (talk) 04:39, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Well, there are two main scenarios: 1. a link to a book's default home page; or, 2) a link to a book page number/search result. In the first case if the links is "hard dead" ie. 404 or otherwise non-existent, something should be done. In case 2), if there is no usable content for verification purposes and the book has no ability to search inside then something should be done. What to do? Either delete the URL entirely, or replace it with a different service provider. -- GreenC 04:46, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Just to make it clear, I've replied on the talk page for the article, but I'm basically happy with where we've ended up. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 06:30, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Further steps?

I'm making this section to possibly discuss further steps? It feels like there are a number of different solutions etc put forward here:

1. Stop putting in archive links for printed sources that shouldn't change under them or are otherwise paywalled (making the archives useless)
2. Have some bot or something change the template for Jstor to extract the stable ID and put it in the {{cite journal}} |jstor= field
3. Remove Google Books URLs because they are not stable

Do tell me if you think I've mischaracterised some positions so far. Do people here think some, any, or all of these ought to be done?

I think we ought to do all of them. The first two seem like clear improvements that a bot could do (clean up and shorten templates with no loss of amenity); the last seems like a loss of amenity which is minimal when searching by ISBN should still pull up the right book. Ifly6 (talk) 17:07, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

• Support 1 and 2, oppose 3. The convenience of usually being able to click on a Google Books URL and read the cited source outweighs, in my mind, the inconvenience of occasionally finding that it doesn't work. However, when those links no longer work, they should of course be tagged as dead links just like any other URL. I'm not sure if this is something a bot could do; I'd suspect probably not at this stage? UndercoverClassicist (talk) 17:13, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Notified: Help talk:Citation Style 1. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:12, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

• Support 2, Oppose 1 and 3. I don't see the point of having the JSTOR link in the URL when |jstor= exists, I feel the same about Worldcat links when |oclc= exists. However if I remember the last thread about Worldcat links roughly sided with keeping them. Although archived links to paywalled sources might seem redundant they sometimes contain useful information on replacing the non-archived URL if it becomes dead. The fact that Google Book links sometimes change is a reason to replace them with a current URL rather than removing them. They can be far to helpful to consider removing them on mass. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:25, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support 2, oppose 3 like Undercover Classicist, unsure about 1. (How do we identify the sources that should not have archive links?) —Kusma (talk) 18:34, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
• I don't think this is the right place to be having this discussion. It is not a critical issue to discuss the changes of interest. Either the talk page of IABot or VPM would be better. Izno (talk) 18:35, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
• Some suggestions: For #1 a Phab ticket request for IABot not to archive Google Books. I think it already has this feature but you can also request such links be removed from the IABot database. For #2 a feature request for Citation bot, is the right bot for cite journal - it might already do it. For #3 the situation is not so bad to remove them all. -- GreenC 20:37, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

  I'm pretty sure anything reliant on Citoid (which I think includes Citation bot) will produce a |jstor= (or PMID, OCLC, SCID, DOI or whatever) if one is available. The trick is getting IABot to ignore archiving for any template containing one of those link rot resistant stable identifier parameters. Folly Mox (talk) 03:10, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  I'm wrong. Citation bot calls Zotero translators directly without going through Citoid. It also starts with the stable identifier, but I haven't checked to see if it generates others if there are multiple for the same resource. Folly Mox (talk) 03:22, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  Going down memory lane, I've found two cases where it seems Citation bot does and doesn't do Jstor URL to parameter exclusion. In this 2020 edit, Citation bot removed URLs and put in only links. But in this 2021 edit it kept both. It feels like the 2020 behaviour would be preferred. Ifly6 (talk) 04:11, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

You are looking for this RFC to explain the difference in behavior. Izno (talk) 04:37, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Confirmed that "keep the Jstor URL and add Jstor parameter" behaviour is current. Ifly6 (talk) 04:21, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

• 1 & 2 sound good. I'll add to Undercover Classicist's objection to 3 with an example. I recently found an article citing multiple books without pages numbers. When I clicked the Google Books link, I found that the page numbers were preserved in the URL and was able to add the pages into the visible citation text. If a bot had scrubbed those links, it would have been implausible to verify from entire books. Rjjiii (talk) 02:11, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  This happens frighteningly often. Folly Mox (talk) 03:06, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  To expound, copypasting a direct page gbooks link into an automated reference generator (like the Visual Editor, ReFill, etc.) will in every case never produce a page number parameter, and editors seem to assume that the direct link suffices as substitute. Folly Mox (talk) 03:12, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  This seems like a rather reasonable reason to keep the Google Books links around. Edit re Folly Mox: it seems extremely dubious for editors to be using tiny snippets of a book they cannot see; it would make it very likely that something is taken wildly out of context while also making it difficult to verify. This isn't the forum for that topic but it seems a bad thing. Ifly6 (talk) 04:05, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  You should see the number of gbooks cites where the direct page link is followed by the exact search query the editor used to find the information. There are definitely cases of people not reading the full context before using a source to support a claim. Not best practice. Folly Mox (talk) 04:31, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

• Since the addition of archive links is not limited to a particular source and is performed by people making massive additions without evidence of their otherwise curating an article, I would be looking to do things such as changing the WP:LINKROT article, which is often used as justification by such editors, to discourage such massive additions or encouraging, even forcing, editors using bots to limit the addition of links to only those citations where the original links have died. Dhtwiki (talk) 05:36, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  Would something like Do not use automated tools to populate archive links for live websites. Only add archive URLs for print or paywalled sources when a compelling need can be demonstrated. be worthwhile to add to that document? Ifly6 (talk) 06:35, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  You could change the docs, but this has proven so controversial that making this change without consensus will only lead to conflict at some future date. And getting IABot to change this feature will also prove extremely difficult, without the threat of removing the bot's permissions on Enwiki, which would probably take a Village Pump RfC, and every time this has come up in the past there are too many who want this feature. -- GreenC 14:28, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  I would expect that an RfC would be necessary, and I wouldn't do much without one. I don't remember seeing one that expressly addresses this issue ever since I've had most of the Village Pump pages on my watchlist, only discussions here. Can you point to one in particular? Dhtwiki (talk) 22:42, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Tagging Billjones94, who should be notified of this conversation. Ifly6 (talk) 06:29, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Is there any bot that can be used to plug in and modify a given example of a piped internal link across pages, such as those that might have changed or need redirecting due to a page move, split or other change that affects page navigation? Iskandar323 (talk) 08:48, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure what exactly you have in mind, but such a bot seems like it would be relatively easy to code. That said, WP:NOTBROKEN also applies. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:35, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Some page/subject splits can result in many misdirected page links, but it might be a tool thing. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:35, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Do you have a specific example? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:25, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

There are 78,874 sports biographies, listed at User:BilledMammal/Sports articles probably lacking SIGCOV, that a Quarry query suggests lack significant coverage as required by WP:SPORTSCRIT #5. I want to use the add_text script to add the template Template:No significant coverage (sports) to these articles in line with a recent suggestion at VPR, but given the scale of change I believed it best to seek approval here first.

I am also not certain if this would require approval through WP:BRFA? BilledMammal (talk) 17:48, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I would support the principle, but think it should go through BRFA. I also looked at the first entry on the list, A. F. S. Talyarkhan, and it seems like at least one of the three books cited should provide SIGCOV. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:56, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree that this task should go through BRFA due to the scale. Izno (talk) 18:50, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Same with A. J. Christoff - ref 6 looks like SIGCOV to me. The idea is valid but the listmaking process needs some improvement. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:01, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Because of the way that the refs at A. F. S. Talyarkhan are formatted the query I constructed won't be able to exclude them - although since I am parsing the text as part of placing the tag I should be able to identify and exclude them. I'll consider how to do that as I write the bot, before I apply at WP:BRFA.

A. J. Christoff should have been excluded; I see where my error was and I've fixed the query now. I should have an updated list in a couple of hours. BilledMammal (talk) 18:07, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Another thing to consider is whether the article has another tag that amounts to the same thing. For example Carlos Fumo has {{BLP sources}} reporting the exact same lack of SIGCOV sources so {{no significant coverage (sports)}} would be redundant. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:14, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Come to think of it, I didn't even check if it was already tagged with this template. I don't think there are many other templates beyond the BLP ones that this would be redundant with, because SPORTSCRIT creates an absolute requirement for sourcing that other templates don't address, but I'll keep that in mind. BilledMammal (talk) 18:17, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Making use of {{Multiple issues}} would probably be a good idea (placing the template inside {{Multiple issuewsw}} when it's already present, and adding the multiple issues template if there are x number of maintenance templates already present. — Qwerfjkltalk 10:41, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I think a BRFA would be necessary for this scale of auto-tagging. I'd also want to see that the criteria for selecting articles (or the actual list) were vetted beforehand at WP:VPR, particularly given the errors already found above. Anomie⚔ 11:37, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

There's a proposal at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States#Undo hijacking of WikiProjects Louisiana and New Orleans to restore previous Talk page banners, so as not to use WikiProject US's banner. Currently, if either banner {{WikiProject Louisiana}} or {{WikiProject New Orleans}} is put on an article Talk page, a bot (User:AnomieBOT) soon replaces it by the United States banner. The proposal is also to stop that bot. I opened the discussion there, and hope to achieve consensus there for the proposal. Will that suffice to get approval (here?) for the change to the bot? --Doncram (talk,contribs) 05:46, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Doncram, those banners are simply subst-only wrappers of {{WikiProject United States}}, the bot only substs it because it is told to; all you need is consensus to update the template, which the bot operator will likely have no part in. Primefac (talk) 06:27, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! That answers my question fully. --Doncram (talk,contribs) 06:32, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

See also WP:BOTISSUE. When/if there's an issue with a bot, contact the bot op first. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:24, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Primefac is correct. Specifically, if the template is removed from Category:Wikipedia templates to be automatically substituted (i.e. {{Subst only|auto=yes}} is removed from its doc block), AnomieBOT's TemplateSubster task will no longer subst it. Anomie⚔ 11:40, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

I came across this article Graham Barrow because my bot skipped editing it as there is {{nobots}} template in "playing career" section. I am not sure by who or why this template has been placed on the article in discussion. Any ideas? —usernamekiran (talk) 14:42, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

{{nobots}} is automatically placed by {{Copyvio}}, which appeared on the article in question in this edit and got substituted here. Aidan9382 _(talk) 14:44, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

There's the massive copyvio notice... Not sure how you've missed that. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:55, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Was probably reading only the history and not the actual article. Sometimes I too forget to look at the actual article and only check the history. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:54, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, that would make sense. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:36, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Yup, thats what happened. —usernamekiran (talk) 12:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

A large chunk of the request moves page ended up in a 'notes and references collapses' see Wikipedia:Requested_moves#July_12,_2023—blindlynx 14:38, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

@Blindlynx. Looks fixed now. Are you still seeing the issue? My guess is someone forgot a {{Collapse bottom}} or {{Abot}} somewhere on one of the transcluded pages, and that this is not bot related. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:09, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

looks like, thanks. What would be the appropriate noticeboard for this? it seemed like a bot issue because the rm on the talk page had the appropriate tag i thought it might be the bot cutting it off kinda thing? idk —blindlynx 21:31, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

WP:VPT is a good starting point for technical questions/help. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:36, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

thanks —blindlynx 14:15, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Hello bot operators,

Wikipedia:Bot activity monitor now supports notifying you by email of broken bot tasks. On the configurations page, you can use the |email= param in the {{/task}} invocation, to specify either your username or an email address. The page editnotice will show the detailed instructions.

As before, you can also choose to be notified via your talk page (via the |notify= option).

BRFA: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SDZeroBot 9.1 (in trial) – SD0001 (talk) 15:28, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Sandbox history, blatant 3RR violation. Keeps reverting my edits. There is no exception for bots breaking 3RR. 묰묰묰묰묰묰 (talk) 15:56, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Well, you are forcing it to by constantly removing the header. I don't think there is a legitimate reason for edit warring the header out, either. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:15, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, it's also a little wild that someone who has had an account for twenty minutes is reporting a bot for edit warring. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:18, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

I've block as a VOA. I was just going to remove this section until I saw JJE and B replied. No need to archive, right? OK to remove? --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:19, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Works for me (the removal) Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:23, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Over the years, I've written about bots in the Signpost. I've usually covered bots I was involved with, since I know more about those than most other bots, but I'd be interested in either) a writing about other bots b) having other bot operators write about their bots. These could take place in the form of guides (here's how you can use my bot, or how my bot could help you), or a historical coverage. For example what this could look like, see

• 2009-02-23/Article Alerts – Announcing the launch of WP:AALERTS
• 2019-03-31/In focus – Announcing the launch of WP:CITEWATCH
• 2022-08-01/Tips and tricks – How to make the most out of User:Citation bot
• 2023-07-17/Tips and tricks – How to make the most out WP:AALERTS, WP:RECOG, and WP:CLEANUPLISTINGS
• 2023-08-01/In focus – A historical retrospective about the WP:JCW compilation
• 2023-08-01/Tips and tricks – An overview of various citation tools

Do you know of other bots that could get this sort of coverage? Or who'se bot operators/coders could write about them? Like a piece about User:ClueBot would be great I'm sure, but I can't write that one because I'm not familiar with its history. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:13, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

I noticed a couple of strange edits by InternetArchiveBot, whereby it is overwriting redirects left by moves, as shown in the following diffs.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alcaligenes_cupidus&diff=1169936469&oldid=1169930410
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alcaligenes_aestus&diff=1169936412&oldid=1169930226

I have logged a Phabricator task: T344102. I have logged here as it looks to me as though an eye should be kept on the bot's edits. William Avery (talk) 12:47, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Note that, per local policy, this bot would require local approval at WP:BRFA to operate here on enwiki. Anomie⚔ 11:31, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Is there a bot to detect incomplete or untranscluded WP:FAC nominations? For example, Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/List of Bath City F.C. seasons/archive1 and Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/List of Bath City F.C. managers/archive1. I commented on these because their articles were on my watchlist, so I noticed the addition of the {{featured article candidates}}. Perhaps I should have checked that it had been set up properly. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:42, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

I believe FACBot does this. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:18, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, I shall watch out for what it does overnight. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:24, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates#Bot_error_reports. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:21, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

User:HBC AIV helperbot5 isn't removing blocked editors from WP:AIV, but it's still editing WP:UAA and WP:AIV/TB2. It just removed the backlog notice after EvergreenFir manually removed some entries. – dudhhr ^talk_contribs^she_her 16:19, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

It's working again. – dudhhr ^talk_contribs^she_her 16:57, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 09:30, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I just soft-blocked a user for a Bot username and noticed that {{uw-botublock}} offers account renaming as a potential resolution but does not offer the notion of BRFA approval. Before I go ahead and change the template for what seems imo an obvious change, I'm checking in here to ask if there's any reason not to? Cabayi (talk) 09:24, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

I think the main reason there's no mention of BRFA is that the softblock is usually for account usernames that look like bots but are not associated by a bot owner account. the bot account, however didn't need to be blocked, since it is clear that it is an account owned by Darling. I don't think the block was justified, as that bot didn't start making automated edits yet. It is common to have a bot account created before BRFA, since limited testing is allowed before a BRFA page is created, testing may be required for the approval of the bot, and 'crats need to have a account to enable the bot flag after the BRFA is approved. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 09:39, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

I concur; this is a case of an unapproved bot, not a user with a bot name. The block template is for the latter, ideally the former should not be blocked until after at least one warning is given, which I believe is currently done via {{Unapproved bot account}}. Primefac (talk) 12:23, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, 0xDeadbeef & Primefac for that viewpoint. I have lifted the block. Back to the original question, could the template {{uw-botublock}} be improved? Cabayi (talk) 13:07, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Maybe? As I said in my reply above, I feel like that template is meant for accounts that are suffixed "-bot" without clearly being a bot account (or an attempt at one). A bot account that is simply unapproved shouldn't be blocked for having a bot-like name, but blocked for being unapproved (edit: see clarification by Anomie further down-thread). If anything, then, we should probably create that as a block template. Primefac (talk) 13:20, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

If someone really intended to make a bot account but created an account while logged out (assuming they do have an account) we can block them with the template, then they'd disclose account ownership and connect to their main account, where they'd probably either create a bot account the right way or get that block lifted by clearly disclosing the connection. Therefore, we might want to include "required to disclose bot account owner" as a bullet point.

If someone wants to make a bot account without having an existing account, then they'd need to make a new account or rename the bot account, which makes the template appropriate. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 13:29, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Simply being unapproved is not sufficient reason for a bot being blocked. Some bots don't even need formal approval, and there's also a narrow exception from BRFA for certain global bots. We already have {{uw-botblock}} to cover cases where a bot is operating without needed approval (either no approval or outside of the terms of its existing approval). Anomie⚔ 13:38, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that is a fair point, and a good clarification on my statement (which was meant to be more general). Primefac (talk) 14:16, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think the template itself is ok for its intended purpose. Perhaps the documentation could be improved to explicitly point out that it's intended for human users with a bot-like name in contrast with {{uw-botblock}} which is for actual bots editing without approval. Also perhaps Twinkle's description of the template could be improved, although I don't know how exactly that shows up in Twinkle as I don't use that tool. Anomie⚔ 13:27, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Discussion started at Twinkle's talk. Primefac (talk) 14:19, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Hey, I'm making 10 edits per minute to fix or remove invalid parameters on pages in the Category:Infoboxes with unknown parameters and its subcategories using AWB. I would like to point out that I review every edit before saving. Do you think I need a BRFA for this? – DreamRimmer (talk) 06:44, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

@Primefac, I apologize for bothering you with this ping. Could you please provide some suggestions? – DreamRimmer (talk) 14:01, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

My very short answer is "probably not".

10epm isn't that bad, and I have a feeling (based on experiences with my own bot) that a bot won't really do you much good; while there are ~50k pages that have invalid parameters, many of those infoboxes will only have a handful of invalid parameters, never mind the fact that they might not all be the same bad param (which is why my bot takes care of, incidentally). Bot runs are really only good if you're going to be editing hundreds of pages with very similar circumstances - for example, my bot would never catch something like Special:Diff/1183152060; that's something that would be better handled by a human user. Even a spelling/typo situation like Special:Diff/1183152431 would be difficult to predict unless there is a known case where someone did it a lot and you could just quickly go through and fix a bunch of them.

In other words, I don't see anything wrong with your edit rate, and the types of problems you want to fix are probably best dealt with manually anyway. If there is a huge group of pages with the same issue, though, let me know and I'll run my bot on it and save you some hassle. Primefac (talk) 14:12, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

I appreciate your helpful response. If I ever need assistance, I'll be sure to reach out to you. Regards! – DreamRimmer (talk) 14:33, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

"It depends" :D 10epm in a burst is no big deal, if you want to do it all day every day for weeks it is. What is the volume of pages you want to deal with? Keep in mind, that without a flag you are more likely to bother people who have watchlisted those pages or do recent changes patrolling. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:55, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

I plan to further reduce this epm rate. My goal is to process approximately 500-600 pages within a 24-hour period. – DreamRimmer (talk) 15:06, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

And yet... there are those who do that anyway. Primefac (talk) 15:06, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

.....yea.....— xaosflux ^Talk 18:56, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

• @DreamRimmer: epm, and watchlist cluttering are not the only things that needs consideration. If the number of affected pages is very large, then pressing "ctrl+S" is boring, and borderline waste of time (in case the operation is perfect). I don't know the total details of the task, but maybe Primefac's bot could do it? If not, and if the number of pages is large, then you should plan for all possibilities that might occur, and prepare the task for it. As you have already edited a lot of pages: if you are confident there would not be undesired edits, then I think you should file a BRfA. That would save the time, as well as cluttering of watchlists. —usernamekiran (talk) 16:04, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

  DreamRimmer, thanks for taking on these edits. I did a spot-check of your edits, and it looked like you were fixing just one parameter in each infobox, on multiple pages, and doing so correctly. I have done a bunch of this infobox cleanup, and the biggest concern if you want to do it well is deciding between removing a parameter entirely and converting the parameter name to something that is supported. To make this decision requires reading both the template's documentation and the template's code, since the documentation is not always complete. There are also rare occasions in which a parameter is actually supported by the template but the unknown parameter checking code is wrong. If in doubt, leave the page alone and come back to it after you have fixed all of the easy ones, or ask for help on the infobox's Template talk page. Also, periodically check Category:Articles using duplicate arguments in template calls to see if you have accidentally put an article or two in there. Feel free to ping me from a Template talk page or or drop a line on my User talk page if you have questions. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:24, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

  @Usernamekiran, sure, if there are any future tasks for me, I'll consider creating my own bot account. @Jonesey95, the removal of that one parameter was in response to a request at WP:AWB/T. Additionally, I've cleaned up these categories by removing unknown parameters and fixing some parameters that could have been changed. I also reviewed the template documentation before creating these regexes. If needed, I'll definitely contact you. I appreciate everyone who took the time to comment. – DreamRimmer (talk) 14:40, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

My relevant contribution history

Xqbot was speedily approved to resolve double redirects using m:redirect.py way back in December 2009.

I reported a problem to operator Xqt in April 2020, and again in June 2020 (and September 2020).

They responded by opening phab:T254839 which is currently "Open, In Progress, High" – it's been over three years, and still not resolved. Though it seems there was progress in September?

I just cleaned up twenty bad Xqbot edits caused by this bug (somebody mass-moved a whole lot of redirects)

not articles – well, the SUBJECTSPACE pages were articles, but their talk were {{R from avoided double redirect}}s to an {{R from remote talk page}}

I noticed that EmausBot was also working these double-redirects, without having the same problem with them (e.g., DIFF)

EmausBot was approved in December 2010 – to use the standard script redirect.py !

What puzzles me is why I can't recall ever seeing EmausBot make this error? Is that bot just incredibly lucky, or is it configured differently, in a way that avoids making bad edits like that? wbm1058 (talk) 20:37, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Bot operators operating on the Toolforge Grid Engine may need to read this thread and the pages linked from it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:17, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Moved to Wikipedia:Bot requests § Question

This bot continues to place bogus referenences and call them "fixes". Is it really not possible to make it stop doing so? I've used this Noticeboard before to report about a dozen cases. Most recently, I found edit , where the bot resurrected a reference from four years ago (before the pandemic) to cite something about sentiment towards Chinese Canadians because of the pandemic. The bot just guesses about how to replace references that have gone missing, and guesses wrong often enough that it is disruptive and damaging. -- Mikeblas (talk) 04:40, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

@Mikeblas, you're trending into WP:IDHT behavior. You need to drop the stick. Izno (talk) 04:43, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

I concur. Unless there is a solution, new issue, or other problem that has arisen since the previous discussion, this discussion is unlikely to produce a new outcome. Primefac (talk) 08:39, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Personally I'd say he's well past WP:IDHT by this point. I've said before and I'll say again, I'll consider useful feedback and suggestions but not continued complaints from this user that the bot is generically "disruptive and damaging". Regarding the specific edit raised here, it would make sense for the bot to not rescue VE's ":0"-style refs that are too old, which I'll arbitrarily define as "the reference was removed over a year ago". Anomie⚔ 15:02, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

What about the feedback isn't useful, precisely? Happy to help clarify, if you can tell me what you specifically need.

But for now, I'll try again: The bot is making edits that aren't helpful, like this one. It sometimes guesses well, and sometimes doesn't. When it doesn't, the result is an irrelevant and unverified reference. Solutions include: just don't do that anymore because it isn't reliable enough. Or, tighten up the criteria: don't take references from other articles at all; take references from other articles only when it's clear content has been copy-pasted and reused without the reference definition; don't take old deleted reference from the subject article ("over a year ago" might be good enough); don't restore references that aren't finely identified (":0" or "ReferenceA", for example) and likely to collide with other material. Or tag the "rescued" reference with {{verify-inline}} so that readers know the reference wasn't reviewed by a human and might not be useful. -- Mikeblas (talk) 20:31, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

As I am not the bot operator I will not necessarily comment on these proposals, but I will note that if you had started with this, we would be having an entirely different conversation right now. Something to think about for the future. Primefac (talk) 20:34, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

With the most sincerity possible, I don't understand what point I don't get. Why is this particular behaviour of this bot acceptable, and not worth remedy? Or are you just saying that I should go to the RFC process, as you previously suggested? -- Mikeblas (talk) 20:15, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

The bot is not perfect because humans are not perfect; the example you gave here (and in the previous discussion) is a result of GIGO. You want the bot to be perfect; no bot is perfect. You want the bot to stop running because it is not perfect. The BAG who have opined here and in the previous discussion reject that assertion as being unrealistic. Anomie has indicated a possibility for reducing the failure rate, but it will not "fix" what you call the problem, just make it "less bad". Primefac (talk) 20:32, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation! Thing is, I think you're over-stating my position. Sure, the bot isn't perfect. But it could be better, and that's all I'm asking. I'm not asking for the bot to stop working; I'm asking for the bot to stop doing this specific task (until it can be improved), or to do this task more reliably.

I have offered several suggestions at incremental improvements (both here and in the previous discussion in this noticeboard) so it's surprising to hear the feedback that I'm looking for perfection. -- Mikeblas (talk) 23:59, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

See WP:BOTISSUE. Specifically raise issues with Anomie Bot at User talk:AnomieBOT. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:44, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

The linked diff was to an edit made by Jut008, not by a bot. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:16, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Pretty clearly just a mislick given the subsequent diff, but yeah wrong venue. Folly Mox (talk) 05:25, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Not the wrong venue necessarily; while the bot operator is usually the first port of call, Mike has raised this concern before (see here) and is thus justified in posting here. Primefac (talk) 08:25, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

I shouldn't have opined without knowing the full context, so struck. I also rescued the references. Not sure what the solution is here though. I see people who rely on this task to rescue named refs when they remove the defined one but leave the remainder, which is certainly bad practice. I'm also not certain what behaviour of the Visual Editor will just allow people to insert empty undefined named references, possibly artifacts of copypastes, and also thought the number one community tech wishlist proposal last year was to stop naming them these meaningless index numbers. Folly Mox (talk) 15:14, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Sorry; this is the diff I wish to draw attention to. Above, I used {{diff}} instead of {{diff2}}. -- Mikeblas (talk) 20:17, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not a bot operator but I have written a lot of code and understand how difficult it is to cater for the million quirks encountered in the wild. Your major problem is that AnomieBOT is one of the most useful bots here. Making a fuss about a miracle provided by a volunteer is counterproductive. If you want the bot to be shut down, start a proposal at WP:VPR. In principle, this is the right noticeboard but it is not right for something as well known as AnomieBOT which a lot of editors rely on. If you have some examples of problems, you might assemble them in a sandbox with a brief explanation for what the original problem was (why did the bot activate?), and what the bot got wrong, and what it conceivably might have done instead. Then you could post here in a manner that you think would encourage cooperation to find fixes. Otherwise, bear in mind that disruption is disruption and can lead to sanctions even for an admin. Johnuniq (talk) 01:56, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

If you've written a lot of code, then you also know that you might implement ten features and only ship nine because that tenth feature just didn't work right. Sometimes, a developer has to realize that a feature is too hard implement to an acceptable quality bar, not worth the effort, has too much risk, or simply isn't ready just yet. I'm not suggesting shutting down the bot completely, and never have; I'm saying that this prolonged behaviour needs attention and that either the bot's performance should be improved or that specific task should be turned off. I think the task could be improved (and enumerated some ideas above) but others have said the problem is unavoidable so maybe the task does need to be abandoned completely.

This pattern isn't caused by any quirks. It's caused by an over-ambitious attempt to replace missing references without any ability to semantically anaylse the context of the replacement reference. In this most recent case, a reference to an overview encyclopedia article written in 2019 was used to anachronistically support a specific situational claim about something occurring a couple years later.

About a dozen other examples are at the previous discussion. There are more listed at User:Mikeblas/Robots Behaving Badly, and even more at UserTalk:AnomieBot archives. (Note that the BBB page includes issues with other bots, and issues with edits AnomieBOT made outside of the pattern I've identified here.) -- Mikeblas (talk) 03:07, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

I have general approval for implementing TfD discussions through removal or simple replacements using AWB per Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PearBOT II 11. The reason I phrased it that way is because I did not feel comfortable with all types of TfD implementation being done using a bot without oversight and felt like this was a reasonable limitation. In my work with the archive merger I've found a case that would be quite complex to do using AWB but simple to do with pywikibot which is combining several parameters from two templates into one. This is easy with pywikibots templatesWithParams() function but would require many complex regexs to do in AWB. How should I go about getting approval for this? --Trialpears (talk) 15:03, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Trialpears, presumably if it's beyond the scope of the old BRFA, you would need to submit a new one. — Qwerfjkltalk 07:10, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Aren't BRFAs for approving tasks rather than the code and programming languages that power them? A BAG member would know best, but that's my impression. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:20, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

You are correct; a task request is for a task. We ask for the language (and code) mainly so that it can be debugged during the trials, or if the bot is retired and someone else wants to use the same code to run a new bot. That being said, if the task is approved for AWB and the code is then changed for pywikibot (for example), something may break or cause unintended consequences and it might not be immediately obvious without formal review. I don't think any competent bot operator would fail to take the necessary precautions of small-scale and supervised trials before switching languages, but it would be "best practice" to at the very least discuss the matter on the BRFA itself to say something along the lines of this request, i.e. "I'm changing the language, is that okay?" (and if the request is made here, then have the BRFA updated to indicate a change of tool)

However, I would argue that a case that would be quite complex to do ... which is combining several parameters from two templates into one is not in the remit of Task 11, which is for General TfD implementation through removal or simple replacements, and I would encourage a specific BRFA for this task. Primefac (talk) 13:26, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

The redirect Wikipedia:SPECTRUM has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 December 20 § Wikipedia:SPECTRUM until a consensus is reached. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:17, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

If any BAG members could check out my comments at the bottom of this BRFA I would appreciate it. I tagged it with the usual template but something makes me think that it's not quite as effective as we like to think it is. Basically looking for a 2O on something. Thanks in advance. Primefac (talk) 13:39, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

@Primefac: I could go either way on that one. It's such a big task that having multiple bots approved for it might be useful, but on the other hand Cewbot's BRFA seems to include some extra functions and is already approved. Personally I might ask the two botops what they think as far as whether having both approved would be good or not. Anomie⚔ 13:57, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

e.g. I've got notifications, just an hour apart around "Wed, 06 Dec 2023 00:02:53 +0100" for following creation of user talk pages for username `Mnalis` that I use on (English and Croatian) wikipedia sites:

• https://id.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pembicaraan_Pengguna:Mnalis&oldid=prev&diff=24941964
• https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Discussioni_utente:Mnalis&oldid=prev&diff=136754188

I didn't ever create (to the best on my knowledge; I don't even speak the languages) accounts on it.wikipedia.org nor id.wikipedia.org; so I am quite puzzled why two different bots, in such a close temporal proximity, would create such user talk pages (with "welcome" messages if mechanical translator got it right?) and send me notification email to my e-mail address (which I use for English & Croatian wikipedias)? How would they even know my e-mail if I have not created account there?

Has anyone noticed that behaviour, and where should I inquire/report it if not here? (I'd like to avoid creating accounts on those it/id wikipedias just to comment on bot page). Thanks, Mnalis (talk) 02:03, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

I think this happens when someone copies an article that you created (or maybe just contributed to) over to another language's Wikipedia. Your username is listed in the history, and somehow you are credited with a contribution, even though it doesn't show in your contributions list on that Wikipedia. Their "welcome all new contributors" bot then leaves you a note. Someone else may have more details, but I'm pretty sure it's harmless. If you don't get a response here, the editors at WP:VPT will know. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:14, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Nope, that's about it. Izno (talk) 02:14, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

It looks like your premise above doesn't match the logs. For example, on idwiki, you have an account that was created the day before that message: w:id:special:redirect/logid/17332019. This can happen if you access any resource from that project (such as even following a link, getting some preview, etc) while you are logged in - your global account is automatically created. Then they have a welcomebot that goes off the new user log. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:02, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

See all your SUL attachments here: Special:CentralAuth/Mnalis. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:03, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

I defer to Xaosflux's explanation, since mine was just a guess, and I couldn't explain the lack of entries in Contributions. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:31, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, that seems indeed to be the case. Looking at my browser history, it seems I've opened one English wikipedia page, and then tried to see it in several random languages (too see if their names made more sense than English one). And that seems to have created half a dozen accounts on random language wikipedias, and triggered several bot-welcome messages. So, mystery solved (although, I do not see why an account should be auto-created if user is only doing read-only accesses? In fact, it seems like a privacy issue, that now anybody can see which language-wikipedia users visits, without any forewarning to the user [much less confirmation] that such read-only access is going to create account and publicly visible trail) Mnalis (talk) 02:07, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

@Mnalis that behavior has been debated for over 10 years (see phab:T21161). The CONS are sort of what you said, the PROS are that if you try to edit there you are less likely to accidently edit logged out and share your IP. This is especially useful for projects like wikidata and commonswiki. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:14, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

@Mnalis: Your account was created after WP:SUL went live (May 2008). This means that you automatically have accounts at several WMF wikis, you don't need to create any of them manually. As noted above, they are listed at Special:CentralAuth/Mnalis; the "attached on" column shows when they were created, and from this you can see that fifteen were created within half an hour of you registering, others at various subsequent dates. If any WMF wiki is not listed there, the simple action of visiting any page on that wiki will normally attach your account, and in some cases, the attachment will trigger a welcome bot. There is an open task somewhere to discourage, even forbid, such welcome bots. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:11, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

As an example, I visited ary: for the first time as a result of somebody's post on another page, as a result of which I became registered there (specifically, at 23:55, 24 December 2023 (UTC) or 00:55, 25 December 2023 Wiki time) and even though I made no edits at all, I was sent this user talk message about eight hours later, which is completely unintelligible to me. This has happened elsewhere too. --Redrose64 🦌 (talk) 01:03, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

There's unfortunately nothing enwiki can do to stop this. There is a proposed policy at meta:Welcoming policy that would prohibit welcoming users who have never edited, but it never got off the ground. I'm not sure what the process is for a global policy RFC, but maybe it's time for one? This is an endless source of confusion. I've even seen people wonder if their account was hacked because of this. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:28, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

So I was perusing the BRFAs today and realised that Template:BAG assistance needed doesn't really do anything. I mean, sure, it puts a nice orange "hey look at me" notice in Wikipedia:BAG/Status, but unless you're already on the BRFA page I don't really see how it has much use. On the other hand, {{Operator assistance needed}} actually drops a talk page note for the operator. Should we modify the BAG version to do something similar, either with a note here or (I suspect less desirable) on each BAG's talk page? I'm not sure we could get it quite the same as {{@Bureaucrats}} or {{@ArbCom}} but I suppose if we could get it to drop a ping that would be a little less intrusive. Primefac (talk) 13:43, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

IIRC the idea is that BAGgers actively working on approvals should be looking at Wikipedia:BAG/Status (or its transclusion) frequently enough to see that. But with most BAGgers not being all that active in working on approvals, 🤷. I don't see why we couldn't get it to work like {{@Bureaucrats}} or {{@ArbCom}} if we want, those templates seem very straightforward. The main thing would be remembering to update it when necessary. Anomie⚔ 14:02, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I think {{@BAG}} is probably the right version of that version of a template... Izno (talk) 17:35, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, but then we have two templates that are meant to say "hey BAG look at this"; the pings might as well be put in the original template since that's really what it was originally designed for (bringing notice to a post). Primefac (talk) 17:48, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Makes sense to include some {{hidden ping}}s to consenting BAGgers in {{BAG assistance needed}}. Count me in. – SD0001 (talk) 15:31, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

 Done. Anomie, I left you off the list for the moment as I only wanted to add those listed as "Active" on the member list. If you're okay with being on the ping list, I can add you in. Primefac (talk) 16:56, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! I can always add myself if I decide I want to be on there. Anomie⚔ 00:05, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

or is the normal state of things? I'm seeing requests standing for weeks on end without comment by a member of BAG. Is there a shortage of active BAG members? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:37, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Oh my. I've been taking a bit of a step back from Wikipedia duties recently due to real life getting in the way, and BRFA has been one of them. I think your assessment may be correct. Primefac (talk) 12:40, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

There is a very healthy-looking list at Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group#Member list but I suspect more than half of them are actually inactive now. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:44, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Note: in line with Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group#Activity requirements I have removed a bunch of inactive editors from the list of active members. Do you need a recruitment drive or do you have enough active members? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:38, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

I think the main thing we need are people to do day-to-day work at BRFA. A bunch of us seem to be around for pings and noticeboard/talk page stuff but aren't handling BRFAs otherwise. Anomie⚔ 16:16, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

If they were already inactive, it's not like you were changing the status quo. We've got a bus factor of about 2 right now, but when I and SD are unavailable the queue does tend to back up a bit. I think with Enterprisey being no longer an Arb their availability for BRFA might increase. Primefac (talk) 08:09, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

The following bots appear to be eligible to lose their rights due to inactivity per User:MajavahBot/Bot status report:

There's also Flow talk page manager, which hasn't edited since 2016 when mw:Extension:StructuredDiscussions was uninstalled, which IMO falls into the spirit of the inactivity policy and should be deflagged. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:49, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Once the operators have been notified we can start the one-week clock, but otherwise I do not see any issue with the above report. Primefac (talk) 19:09, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Possibly dumb question, but do we have a "your bot may be de-flagged" template message? Not seeing one in Category:Wikipedia bot-related templates. Primefac (talk) 13:29, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I always just hand crafted something when I've done this exercise before. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:09, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Does the notification requirement serve any purpose? By definition the operator is long-gone and not likely to respond to notifications. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:12, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Courtesy, plus they may have email notifications and come back to editing. Primefac (talk) 19:14, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Notices have now been left for the operators indicated above. Primefac (talk) 13:29, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Special:Contribs/YiFeiBot seems active? Legoktm (talk) 19:14, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Huh, missed that. Agreed that they should be struck from the above list, the others seem to agree with the linked bot report. Primefac (talk) 19:19, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Oops. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:24, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

You guys are free to unflag User:Bot24. It's unlikely I'll return to it. -24^Talk 20:13, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the update. Primefac (talk) 20:26, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

All bots listed above (other than YiFeiBot) have been de-flagged. Primefac (talk) 08:13, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

You missed Flow talk page manager. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:02, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Wasn't in the table :-p Primefac (talk) 07:23, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Nonstandard cases

Some crat should probably deflag BHGbot and MalnadachBot since their operators were sitebanned. There are five other bots (FlagBot, CmdrObot, Cydebot, ProteinBoxBot, KasparBot) that are indefinitely blocked and may warrant review. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:16, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Good shout. Done. Primefac (talk) 19:25, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Please add usernames to Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/Unflagged bots after deflagging :) Thanks to Redrose64 for adding the latest set. Legoktm (talk) 16:24, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Good to know. Learn something new every day! Primefac (talk) 19:27, 4 January 2024 (UTC)