Bots noticeboard |
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This is a message board for coordinating and discussing bot-related issues on Wikipedia (also including other programs interacting with the MediaWiki software). Although this page is frequented mainly by bot owners, any user is welcome to leave a message or join the discussion here. If you want to report an issue or bug with a specific bot, follow the steps outlined in WP:BOTISSUE first. This not the place for requests for bot approvals or requesting that tasks be done by a bot. General questions about the MediaWiki software (such as the use of templates, etc.) should be asked at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). |
Bot-related archives (v·t·) |
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PearBOT 5 starting up again
I just wanted to say that PearBOT 5 has started adding short descriptions to biographies again! The only reason it was away was me not having the time to manage it last spring and me just not bothering to start it up since. I would however suspect there will be some questions about the bot this time around as well so I thought it would be good to inform you all of this. If there are any issues write anything at User:PearBOT/Biography short descriptions/stop page and the bot will stop immediately. Don't hesitate to use it; it's faster for me to clean up any issues if I have to look through fewer edits. --Trialpears (talk) 17:51, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
- Forgot to mention but all edits will come from User:PearBOT II (contribs). --Trialpears (talk) 17:52, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
- You may need to update the bot as the guidance has been updated since your first run, and short descriptions for biographical articles are now normally recommended to include dates - see WP:SDDATES. Also, the
bots=PearBOT 5
parameter should probably be omitted unless you intend to use it yourself. The parameter isn't used by any other bot, doesn't add any information that can't be deduced from the page history, and just adds clutter to the wikicode. MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:26, 21 March 2021 (UTC) - ShortDescBot is able to handle biographies as well, and I was planning to start on that after it has completed its organism runs. There's no reason both couldn't operate, though. As ShortDescBot looks at categories and infoboxes as well as leads, it may be able to sweep up some of the articles that PearBOT 5 skips. I'm essentially aiming at 100% coverage of target articles. MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:37, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
- Nice to hear that ShortDescBot is doing well! There shouldn't be any interference so I don't think both running would be an issue. The bot parameter has made it slightly easier to pick up some rare issues, but I wouldn't be fussed if it was gone either. My thought was that it would be mildly useful and the cost very low. With regards to dates I could easily extract it from infoboxes (omitting it if not available). This would however be a significant addition so I don't know what bag thinks on the matter. I've paused the bot until this is cleared up. --Trialpears (talk) 18:50, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
- I would imagine that BAG will be OK with amending the bot to add dates as WP:SDDATES does have consensus, and bots ought to follow that. Of course, it's always good to double-check. MichaelMaggs (talk) 19:12, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
- Wasn't thinking about consensus but possibly an extra trial or something. Just want to be on the safe side. --Trialpears (talk) 19:21, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
- I would imagine that BAG will be OK with amending the bot to add dates as WP:SDDATES does have consensus, and bots ought to follow that. Of course, it's always good to double-check. MichaelMaggs (talk) 19:12, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
- Nice to hear that ShortDescBot is doing well! There shouldn't be any interference so I don't think both running would be an issue. The bot parameter has made it slightly easier to pick up some rare issues, but I wouldn't be fussed if it was gone either. My thought was that it would be mildly useful and the cost very low. With regards to dates I could easily extract it from infoboxes (omitting it if not available). This would however be a significant addition so I don't know what bag thinks on the matter. I've paused the bot until this is cleared up. --Trialpears (talk) 18:50, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
- You may need to update the bot as the guidance has been updated since your first run, and short descriptions for biographical articles are now normally recommended to include dates - see WP:SDDATES. Also, the
- I've implemented the date detection and removed the bot parameter now. I've thouroughly checked a bit over 100 articles and generated description and it works great. When I start running the plan is to double check it for the first few hundred edits and then let it run without manual checking except if problems are found/reported.
- @TheSandDoctor and Primefac:, as the BAG members commenting on the original BRFA, do you have any objections to me resuming with these changes? --Trialpears (talk) 23:04, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
- @Trialpears: I don't have any objections to this. I imagine that there shouldn't be any issues with it and approve unless Primefac objects. --TheSandDoctor Talk 23:38, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
- No objections from me. Primefac (talk) 17:52, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
- Great! I just pushed the run button! --Trialpears (talk) 18:02, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
- No objections from me. Primefac (talk) 17:52, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
- @Trialpears: I don't have any objections to this. I imagine that there shouldn't be any issues with it and approve unless Primefac objects. --TheSandDoctor Talk 23:38, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
Second run
Update: The original run have finished, but like alluded to in the original requests there is room for more! With a couple of regex changes and not anymore ignoring politicians (just not adding the years in office) I can get approximately 100k more descriptions. It worked just as well as the bot previously has on the 300 descriptions I've checked. My plan, if the BAG doesn't object, is to post a note about this at WT:WPSHORTDESC, wait a few days , and if no problems have arisen run it for a few hours fully supervised just like I did when the dates were new and when it has reached over 500 consecutive good edits I let it lose for the rest. It's possible I can find enough improvements after this to do a "PearBOT II 5 3.0" as well but that would probably have a significantly smaller scope in terms of numbers of edits. I also plan on extending this for dead people (perhaps 150k edits) with significant changes to the list generation and date generation. It would be great how I should act with these extensions as well. --Trialpears (talk) 19:40, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
- The bot is now running again. --Trialpears (talk) 20:26, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
Monkbot 18 (2)
Approval for Monkbot/task 18 was suspended 3 February 2021. There was an RFC started 10 February 2021 and closed by MJL 5 April 2021.
The question to be answered by the RFC was:
- Should non-hyphenated parameters be fully removed from the CS1/2 family of templates?
There were three answer options provided of which the closer chose an Option B close with some severe caveats. The B option reads:
- Option B ("status quo"): Non-hyphenated parameters are formally deprecated, but should not be immediately removed. Deprecation can be bundled into genfixes or performed along with other non-cosmetic changes, but (ignoring a possible Cosmetic Bot Day) should not be done on its own by a bot.
It is not clear to me what the severe caveats
(or extra caveats
or extra steps
) are but, the 'just-what-is-deprecated' question is the topic for another discussion, elsewhere.
This discussion is about Monkbot/task 18. Closer created a separate section for Monkbot 18 in the close summary. What I want to know is:
- can Monkbot/task 18 come out of suspension?
- if no, then this conversation is at an end and I will retire task 18
- if yes, what specific constraints apply?
—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:57, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
- In short, the answer to your question is "no".
- The result of the RFC was Option B, which was "deprecated but not specifically removed" (wrt the parameters). This means that Task 18, which is designed to "specifically remove" those parameters, is still suspended. However, for a bot/task such as Citation Bot which does other changes along with the parameter changes, that is acceptable. I would liken this to NicoV's bot, which bundles cosmetic changes along with non-cosmetic changes so that they can both be performed. Primefac (talk) 15:04, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
- You write that as if you believe that the only thing that Monkbot/task 18 does is replace (not remove) nonhyphenated parameters. What about those other subtasks?
- —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:25, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
- Only thing, no. Primary thing, and the main reason for the task? Yes. Removal of deprecated parameters can reasonably be looked at as a necessary cleanup task, but from my read of things the remainder are even more cosmetic. Am I misreading that? I'm also happy to wait for input from the other BAG members. Primefac (talk) 16:34, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
- Yes, I think that you are misreading that. Monkbot/task 18 is and has always been a cosmetic bot task. Certainly replacement of nonhyphenated parameters appears to be the task's 'primary' purpose simply because of the ubiquity of
|accessdate=
. At the BRFA I mentioned the CBD RFA as inspiration for task 18. At the CBD RFA I wrote:- Editors often complain about citation templates and how they interfere with reading the wikitext of an article. When cs1|2 templates are used inline, there isn't much that can be done to improve the wikitext reading experience. One can convert to list defined referencing but that is the sort of thing that requires local consensus. But, one thing that can be done and is cosmetic, is to remove empty parameters that serve no other purpose than to occupy space (no empty parameters in cs1|2 templates have meaning). I can imagine a Monkbot task that does nothing but remove empty and ignored parameters. cs1|2 is moving to standardize on hyphenated multiword parameter names so replacing the all-run-together forms of parameter names would be a nice adjunct to empty-parameter removal.
- The CBD RFC pointed me to WP:COSMETICBOT which has:
- Consensus for a bot to make any particular cosmetic change must be formalized in an approved request for approval.
- From that I recognized that a cosmetic bot task was possible. It was then a simple thing to recognize that were a bot to be approved to make cosmetic fixes, it makes sense to do as many cosmetic fixes as possible in a single edit.
- So yeah, I was thinking about nonhyphenated parameter replacement, not as the primary reason but as one part of the whole.
- —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:17, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
- The RFC close says:
Monkbot 18 should not be run solely to replace the discouraged non-hyphenated parameters.
If the bot can be programmed to ensure that it makes at least one of the other changes listed in its BRFA, in addition to item 5, fixing unhyphenated parameters, that should comply with the RFC close (courtesy ping to MJL in case I am misreading the close).There may be other quasi-cosmetic tasks that it could perform, like deleting redundant(striking; the bot already does this) – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:25, 6 April 2021 (UTC)|ref=harv
parameters, which removes a hidden category.- Removal/replacement of non-hyphenated parameters should not be a part of Task 18, should it proceed, based on the outcome of that RFC. As far as continuing the task, I would like to get input from other BAG member(s) about the issue. Primefac (talk) 17:31, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
- Removal of
|ref=harv
is one of the items listed at User:Monkbot/task 18: cosmetic cs1 template cleanup § delete non-contributing parameters. - —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:52, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
- @Trappist the monk and Primefac: Jonesey95 is right that it would comply with my close, but only because such an outcome wasn't discussed too heavily. I suspect if that was attempted, we would probably just wind up back where we started though (with people upset about watchlist cluttering). Therefore, I would not suggest running Monkbot 18 like that. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 17:58, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
- The RFC close says:
- Yes, I think that you are misreading that. Monkbot/task 18 is and has always been a cosmetic bot task. Certainly replacement of nonhyphenated parameters appears to be the task's 'primary' purpose simply because of the ubiquity of
- Only thing, no. Primary thing, and the main reason for the task? Yes. Removal of deprecated parameters can reasonably be looked at as a necessary cleanup task, but from my read of things the remainder are even more cosmetic. Am I misreading that? I'm also happy to wait for input from the other BAG members. Primefac (talk) 16:34, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
- Do I have it right? Citation bot is allowed to make changes like this one, where it hypenates dozens of parameters ... just because it changed
year=
todate=
in just one spot? -- Mikeblas (talk) 15:29, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
- My reading of the close is that editors' main concerns were with volume of edits and watchlist spam. The close suggests entering CBD; whilst it would be up to Trappist to enter task 18 into that or not, due to the volume of task 18 edits I doubt it would be productive in terms of achieving the goals of the task (CBD, being limited to one day, cannot really result in enough edits to make it worthwhile). So the changes should probably be bundled with something more substantive (ie, a difference in visible or HTML output). A possible option may be to include the changes into AWB genfixes. The ideal option is probably for a technical change to the MediaWiki software that may hide (particular?) bot edits from watchlists, by default and in a more simple way, and that may change the consensus on cosmetic tasks. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:35, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
- To avoid writing the bot in the first place, I did add
|accessdate=
and some others to Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Rename template parameters. But, that lead to Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 32 § Citation parameter renaming so those changes were ultimately reverted. It seems doubtful to me that AWB genfixes is a solution for any but|origyear=
→|orig-date=
which is used in only 8300-ish articles. - —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:52, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
- Actually, that RFC gives some precedent for adding it to the AWB genfixes. Primefac (talk) 18:23, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
- I added a few parameter renaming lines to the AWB genfixes (for relatively rare parameters, avoiding the ubiquitous
|accessdate=
), but I was reverted by an editor who does not appear to agree with the my interpretation of the RFC closure, or with Primefac's above. I have no interest in edit warring, and I don't use AWB, but other editors may want to engage there. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:09, 7 April 2021 (UTC)- @Jonesey95 and Nikkimaria: The general intent of the close was for it to be added AWB genfixes and for Monkbot 18 (assuming it can't do anything non-cosmetic - except on CPD) to be shelved. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 17:48, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
- I added a few parameter renaming lines to the AWB genfixes (for relatively rare parameters, avoiding the ubiquitous
- Actually, that RFC gives some precedent for adding it to the AWB genfixes. Primefac (talk) 18:23, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
- To avoid writing the bot in the first place, I did add
- The closure of the RfC has been disputed and I strongly suggest any action regarding Monkbot not be taken until such time that situation has been resolved. Thanks, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:37, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- Can anybody explain to me why other bots doing similar tasks (User:Citation bot, for example) were not equally suspended? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:45, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- Citation bot makes non-cosmetic edits. Izno (talk) 16:47, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- That edit was entirely cosmetic, and the parameters are not deprecated, so should not have happened. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:49, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- Which edits where? Izno (talk) 17:59, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- RandomCanadian, to report a bug in Citation bot's behavior, your best bet is to use the giant link at the top of User talk:Citation bot. There is no need to complain here or at WP:AN unless you have done that first and are unsatisfied with the response. Editors who watch that page will be able to respond to your report better than editors at this venue or at AN. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:07, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY. Anyway leaving a brief notice here certainly is not a bad idea cause this is clearly a related issue. Already reported at the other places. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:49, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- I see you a NOTBUREAU and raise you a WP:Consensus, the first step of which is talking to the bot operator of interest. You don't get to skip steps unless you have a good faith belief that the person you trying to communicate with is here in bad faith. Izno (talk) 20:45, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY. Anyway leaving a brief notice here certainly is not a bad idea cause this is clearly a related issue. Already reported at the other places. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:49, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- RandomCanadian, to report a bug in Citation bot's behavior, your best bet is to use the giant link at the top of User talk:Citation bot. There is no need to complain here or at WP:AN unless you have done that first and are unsatisfied with the response. Editors who watch that page will be able to respond to your report better than editors at this venue or at AN. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:07, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- Which edits where? Izno (talk) 17:59, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- That edit was entirely cosmetic, and the parameters are not deprecated, so should not have happened. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:49, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- Citation bot makes non-cosmetic edits. Izno (talk) 16:47, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- Can anybody explain to me why other bots doing similar tasks (User:Citation bot, for example) were not equally suspended? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:45, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- Indeed, the best way to deal with a WP:BOTISSUE is to follow WP:BOTISSUE. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:49, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
Clearing bot watchlists
- The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Hello Bot operators,
The following table shows bot accounts that have a very high count of watchlist entries in the database (c.f. phab:T258098).
Bot | WL-Count | Operator(s) | Last bot edit | Notes/Resolution | sysadmin note |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
ClueBot NG | 3664794 | User:Cobi User:Rich Smith User:DamianZaremba |
2021 | Operator OK'd removal | Done |
SmackBot | 1048014 | User:Rich Farmbrough | 2011 | Operator reports this has been cleared. — xaosflux Talk 23:48, 13 April 2021 (UTC) | Done |
SineBot | 595420 | User:slakr | 2021 | DEVS: Please clear per discussion below. — xaosflux Talk 15:53, 18 April 2021 (UTC) | Done |
COIBot | 464596 | User:Beetstra | 2021 | Done | |
HostBot | 437022 | User:Jtmorgan | 2021 | Please clear the bot's watchlist J-Mo 21:22, 17 April 2021 (UTC) | Done |
RjwilmsiBot | 398358 | User:Rjwilmsi | 2016 | Operator OK'd | Done |
XLinkBot | 372374 | User:Versageek User:Beetstra |
2021 | Done | |
Polbot | 332758 | User:Quadell | 2009 | Feel free to clear this bot's watchlist. – Quadell (talk) 18:54, 7 April 2021 (UTC) | Done |
AvicBot | 313928 | User:Avicennasis | 2020 | Done | |
ClueBot | 292196 | User:Cobi | 2010 | (Dev action will be required) | Done |
RussBot | 285662 | User:R'n'B | 2021 | Please clear the bot's watchlist. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:18, 7 April 2021 (UTC) | Done |
LaraBot | 233820 | User:MZMcBride | 2014 | Please clear this bot's watchlist. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:33, 13 April 2021 (UTC) | Done |
ClueBot III | 225346 | User:Cobi | 2021 | Cleared | Done |
Citation bot | 220294 | User:Smith609 | 2021 | DEVS: Please clear per discussion below. — xaosflux Talk 15:53, 18 April 2021 (UTC) | Done |
For your bots please review if they require a large watchlist. If your bot requires a large watchlist, please indicate in the notes above. For each entry the recommended actions are to:
- Clear the current watchlist -
you may do this yourself by using Special:EditWatchlist/clear when logged in as your bot Change the account preference to not automatically add created/edited pages to your bot's watchlist going forward.- Should not be needed due to phab:T258108
For operators that do not respond, a developer may take one or both of these actions on your bot's account - so please let us know if you have a operational need for the large watchlist entries so that other technical solutions can be explored. Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 14:51, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
- Note that all bots stopped auto-watching pages starting in January 7, following phab:T258108. If your bot needs to watch pages, you must explicitly set the 'watch' option when editing via the API.
- @Xaosflux @Rich Smith It would probably be better to let the DBAs clear these watchlists. If everyone uses Special:EditWatchlist/clear at the same time, the job queue is going to pile up quickly and we might end up in a situation like phab:T270481#6701379 again. Clearing watchlists is normally very safe, but we're talking many millions of DELETEs here... so if you haven't attempted to clear your watchlist yet, let the sysadmins do it for you. Thanks! — MusikAnimal talk 16:14, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
- Citation bot no longer goes back and keeps {{cite pmid}} properly formatted - because it no longer exists. So, the need for a watchlist is gone years ago. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:37, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
- I'm clearing the watchlist of RjwilmsiBot (it's not retired, just real life gets in the way...). Thanks Rjwilmsi 17:17, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
- A follow-up that there have been no unusual spikes in DELETEs thus far, as far as I can tell, and I see RjwilmsiBot's watchlist has successfully been cleared without issue. With that I'm going to guess most of the above bots probably won't have any issues either, but I still have a bit of concern about ClueBot NG and SmackBot, specifically, given there are 1+ million affected rows. We made one tiny but impactful performance improvement to the ClearUserWatchlistJob a while back that is likely helping here, but the DBAs were vocal that any large spikes in DELETEs can cause database lag which is what I was trying to avoid. — MusikAnimal talk 20:05, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
- I'm clearing the watchlist of RjwilmsiBot (it's not retired, just real life gets in the way...). Thanks Rjwilmsi 17:17, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
- User:Rich_Smith. Hi sysadmin here. We really shouldn't remove millions of rows in one request. I cleared mine by directly deleting in the database with small batches and I can do yours if I have your permission. Ladsgroupoverleg 20:48, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
I noted that COIBot still had all the options enabled, and that for XLinkBot the addition of new pages it creates (which are many of the user talkpages it edits) was still enabled. --Dirk Beetstra T C 04:50, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
- @Beetstra: it's fine to turn those off, but the notes above show that the 'default watch' is now ignored for bot pages created in the api unless the request explicitly requests to also watch so future creations shouldn't be an issue either way. — xaosflux Talk 13:44, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
- I, not seeing this, needed to change the enabled options for my bot using BotPasswords and as such thought to check the watchlist while I was logged in and realised that there was several thousand pages on the watchlist which had been added through talk page creation. I've cleared it and disabled the bot from adding pages to its watchlist when it creates them. Although my bot is a very small part of the overall large amount, hopefully its helped. Dreamy Jazz talk to me | my contributions 20:19, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
- @Dreamy Jazz: thanks for the help! — xaosflux Talk 21:52, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
- It's been 10 days, for the non-responsive bot operators, think it's time to let the devs clear their lists; that would be for outstanding bots: SineBot, HostBot, and Citation bot; by operators: @Slakr, Jtmorgan, and Smith609:. Last call for objections! — xaosflux Talk 09:33, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
- Smith609 should be emailed, since he doesn't check Wikipedia all that often. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:04, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
- While that sounds fine, as his bot is currently making active edits he is somewhat expected to be responsive to operator queries on his talk page..... — xaosflux Talk 22:49, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
- Especially since the change to WP:BOTPOL last year on the point. Izno (talk) 23:16, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
- Although enforcement of that rule is lax and there is, for example, an operator of an active bot who has made no edits in over a year and explicitly says to use email for bot issues on their userpage. * Pppery * it has begun... 23:19, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
- Oh, there's another one? Smith609 is the one I was thinking when I suggested that addition to the amendment. :^) Izno (talk) 00:28, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
- I was talking about DumbBOT, operated by Tizio. But my main point was about general lax enforcement using that example as an extreme case, not one specific bot. * Pppery * it has begun... 01:16, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
- @Pppery: the bot policy explicitly calls out that external communications are allowed but are not a replacement for on-wiki communications - and we are about to enforce that by taking an ignore response to this discussion as not having objection to it. — xaosflux Talk 01:09, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
- Oh, there's another one? Smith609 is the one I was thinking when I suggested that addition to the amendment. :^) Izno (talk) 00:28, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
- Although enforcement of that rule is lax and there is, for example, an operator of an active bot who has made no edits in over a year and explicitly says to use email for bot issues on their userpage. * Pppery * it has begun... 23:19, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
- Especially since the change to WP:BOTPOL last year on the point. Izno (talk) 23:16, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
- While that sounds fine, as his bot is currently making active edits he is somewhat expected to be responsive to operator queries on his talk page..... — xaosflux Talk 22:49, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
- @Xaosflux: sorry for the delay. Please have the devs clear HostBot's watchlist (I get a timeout when I try to do it myself). Thanks, J-Mo 21:24, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
- Smith609 should be emailed, since he doesn't check Wikipedia all that often. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:04, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
Centralising bot talk pages (v2)
Following up from Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive_14#Centralising_discussion. I think this continues to be a problem, and various threads posted at one of the many bot-related talk pages would be better suited here. Most recently Wikipedia_talk:Bots#Critique_of_my_bot's_architecture.
Proposing keeping Wikipedia talk:Bot policy and the talk of this noticeboard where it is, but redirecting all the following to here (the bots noticeboard):
- Wikipedia talk:Bots
- Wikipedia talk:Bot Approvals Group
- Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval
- Wikipedia talk:Bot requests
ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:59, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
- Support. That would make a lot more sense. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 15:30, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
- Support Makes sense, last time this was brought up I realized I didn't watch several of them and I suspect others who may be interested/could assist don't see all relevant discussions because of the forking. --Trialpears (talk) 23:31, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
- Support Centralizing would be good. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:40, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
- WT:BAG. That (by policy) is where RFBAGs happen so it's not as easy as adding a redirect and some rcats. If that page is redirected, where should the noms be transcluded? Is it better to leave the page alone? — Wug·a·po·des 07:20, 29 April 2021 (UTC) Partly done with the exception of
BOTN is fine for that.Also I noticed you redirected the pages, but did you archive the discussions first? Because that needs to be done. (Edit:Now archived). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:52, 29 April 2021 (UTC)- No need to transclude them IMO, can just link to them from the usual venues. They only happen like once a year anyway. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:58, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
- Dunno, RFXs are transcluded on the central page. We might not have them frequently (and I could probably argue that they could/should be un-transcluded as soon as the RfBAG is closed) but it's nice to have a place to quickly read through the request without needing to go to another page. Primefac (talk) 14:11, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:BAG/Status tweak
Out of curiosity, would it be reasonable for AnomieBOT to recognize {{BotOnHold}} for open BRFAs? There are a few open that are waiting on something, and I feel like placing the On Hold tag doesn't really do anything visually for this table (which I would think would be the primary reason for using it). Primefac (talk) 13:04, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
- This would be great. I put it on PearBOT 10 believing it would be recognized, apparently not. --Trialpears (talk) 13:06, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
- AnomieBOT could recognize it, sure. The question is what should that do to the table? Consider it in the same way as {{BotTrial}}/{{BotTrialComplete}}/{{BotExtendedTrial}} to affect the "status" column? What color should it use (current colors are revoked or denied, withdrawn, expired, approved or trial complete, in trial or operator needed, open (with no trial etc), and unknown, inconsistent, or BAG needed). Maybe light gray? Anomie⚔ 13:59, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
- Maybe match the colour of , so pink-ish? Not strictly opposed to light gray either. Primefac (talk) 14:13, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
- Personally I lean towards grey because it tends to have a connotation of "you don't need to do anything here", while pink might suggest that there is something to do. Anomie⚔ 16:53, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
- If something other than pink is used, it'd be nice if On hold is adjusted to match. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:05, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
- File:Image-Symbol_wait_old.svg exists, and would fit nicely if the change is made. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 17:11, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
- {{BotOnHold}} updated - feel free to revert if undesired. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 11:19, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
- For the record, just since I was confused, PR is using {{on hold}} above, not {{BotOnHold}}. Primefac (talk) 11:49, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
- Must've forgotten the Bot prefix. Honestly I suck at remembering the names of those templates. On the BRFA I just copy the code from {{BAG Tools}} embedded in the edit source. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:52, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
- For the record, just since I was confused, PR is using {{on hold}} above, not {{BotOnHold}}. Primefac (talk) 11:49, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
- {{BotOnHold}} updated - feel free to revert if undesired. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 11:19, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
- File:Image-Symbol_wait_old.svg exists, and would fit nicely if the change is made. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 17:11, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
- If something other than pink is used, it'd be nice if On hold is adjusted to match. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:05, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
- Personally I lean towards grey because it tends to have a connotation of "you don't need to do anything here", while pink might suggest that there is something to do. Anomie⚔ 16:53, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
- Maybe match the colour of , so pink-ish? Not strictly opposed to light gray either. Primefac (talk) 14:13, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
- Ok, I went ahead and added this. Used the light grey color for the moment; it's easy to change if consensus decides it should be changed. For the record, the last of {{BotTrial}}/{{BotTrialComplete}}/{{BotExtendedTrial}}/{{BotOnHold}} in the BRFA "wins". Which means to take a BRFA off hold, you'd either need to deactivate the {{BotOnHold}} tag or add a new trial tag below the hold tag (or close the BRFA, of course). Also, since there's no specific section for "on hold", the bot will leave it in whichever section of open, in trial, or trial complete the BRFA would be in otherwise. If we do want to add an "on hold" section, note that I'll need to update the bot's code to handle the new layout. Anomie⚔ 17:50, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
- Looking good! Seeing it like this I have to say the gray was a good choice imo. --Trialpears (talk) 19:53, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
Cyberbot I broken
Cyberbot I (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
Note history at Spring Championship of Online Poker - repeatedly (every minute) trying to add the AFD template. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 16:21, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
- I disabled the task in Special:Diff/1021047155, which didn't work. Also, the previous time Cyberbot I malfunctioned was only two months ago. * Pppery * it has begun... 16:31, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
- It's my own AFD, but maybe somebody can just close it and then re-open it? For the approximately zero other editors with the article on their watchlist this is annoying, but I'm not sure it's so bad to justify blocking the bot. Also @Cyberpower678:. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 16:33, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
- Izno has page-blocked the bot, per discussion on Discord. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 16:46, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
- 力, something unique is happening on that page preventing the bot from seeing it’s own restoration of the template. However when I revert the page back to the revision just prior to its improper removal, the bot sees it again. It’s a very interesting glitch, but I can dive into it right now. I’m leaving the bot unblocked for now as the reversion seems to have made the glitch disappear. —CYBERPOWER (Around) 17:47, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
- Izno has page-blocked the bot, per discussion on Discord. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 16:46, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
- It's my own AFD, but maybe somebody can just close it and then re-open it? For the approximately zero other editors with the article on their watchlist this is annoying, but I'm not sure it's so bad to justify blocking the bot. Also @Cyberpower678:. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 16:33, 2 May 2021 (UTC)