User talk:Qbugbot/Archive 1

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Archive 1

A page you started (Automeris louisiana) has been reviewed!

Thanks for creating Automeris louisiana, Qbugbot!

Wikipedia editor Nick Moyes just reviewed your page, and wrote this note for you:

Ive taken out the mention of other species via their common names - hyperlinking to other taxa was a bit [o]f a sloppy error to make as far as I can see.

To reply, leave a comment on Nick Moyes's talk page.

Learn more about page curation.

Nick Moyes (talk) 22:20, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the edits, @Nick Moyes:. I've fixed those two common names (removed io and moved buck moths down to their genus), and I'm going to exclude common names that contain "or" for species because it sounds odd and is inaccurate a fair amount of the time. I also changed a several of the upper level common names, so hopefully they won't seem so weird. Qbugbot (talk) 00:19, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Ah - that's amazing, Bob. I'd genuinely not realised this was one of the new bot-created articles - very impressive in itself! I was just randomly WP:NPP-ing new pages, and assumed this was a human editor who'd cocked up with somewhat over-enthusiastic/incompetent hyperlinking. I'm actually pretty pleased I didn't know you weren't a hominid. You'll have seen my earlier concerns over the use of common names on the Village Pump for Qbugbot, plus my offer to help with any checking. I would remain concerned if common group names were being hyperlinked in a way that frequently linked to other individual taxa. My recommendation would be to to stick to linking only to scientific names or high-level group names like 'moth', 'beetle' where there's absolutely no chance of mislinking.Nick Moyes (talk)
  • So, I've just gone off and randomly checked a few entries in Category:Articles created by Qbugbot and found Dichelonyx truncata. I'm quite please that common names there aren't hyperlinked (though it probably wouldn't have done any harm) but is there any reason why May beetle or junebug has mixed capitalisation? In this instance the use of 'or' does work, but I can't remember what WP:MOSCAPS says about capitalising months - but I'd imagine we shouldn't have one of each style?
  • Abdastartus (bug) seems to have an overly-large number of references. From the UK I can't seem to be able to view the actual online article for Schuh (2006) on WorldCat. But I found an abstract here, which I've now added. Am I overlooking a link to view the actual article at WorldCat? If not, then at the very least I'd ask for every citation to contain a blank '|url =' field, and would hope all key articles will have been checked and had any online links pre-inserted.
  • American Insects: A Handbook of the Insects of America North of Mexico Any reason you can't link to https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DKzAmSDdLtsC& ?
  • Melanophila atropurpurea - I have left a comment on its talk page about linking to the wrong level of English name.
  • Mangora passiva - nothing in this article (apart from the references) tells the user this creature is actually a spider. I'd prefer: "Mangora passiva is a species of orb weaver in a family of spiders known as the Araneidae."
Hoping some of this feedback might be of assistance. Nick Moyes (talk) 02:26, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I think that the Io moth shouldn't be part of a higher-level common name, and I've fixed that in Qbugbot.
  • Part of the problem with buck moths is that they are more of a genus rather than a single species. There are 14 species of moths with a common name that includes "buckmoth" or "buck moth" in the genus Hemileuca (although one is a new species without a scientific name). Only one species officially has the common name "buck moth" without a modifier, but having a Wikipedia article "Buck moth" for that species without referring to the other buck moths seems a little odd. The genus also contains sheep moths, just to confuse the issue. However, while linking to "buck moth" should not have gone to a species page, it was still going to the wrong genus. In other words, both bad links are a result of a poor common name for the subfamily, which has been corrected.
  • The term "May beetle or junebug" definitely looks weird, but there is some convention to it. Since a junebug is really a beetle rather than a bug, it is treated as a single word, which is not a proper noun. Since a May beetle is really a beetle, it is two words and May is capitalized. By the same token, mayflies are not really flies, so they are one word and not capitalized. March flies are flies, so they are two words, etc.
  • I have been reducing the number of general references and trying to add more references specific to the subfamily, genus and species levels. I include a few extra references for genus and higher ranks. Thanks for letting me know about the Shuh 2006 article. I've added the DOI for that, which should be as good as a link and theoretically will never be changed.
  • I've just added the Google Books link for American Insects -- thanks!
  • I'll look into situations like Melanophila atropurpurea. I hesitate to link to just part of a common name, because that can backfire. The secondary common name (speciesname, the commonname, is an xxxx in the family familyname) usually is not the same rank as the family (or secondary rank) name. In some cases, it's better to use a family common name ("ant", for example) instead of something of a higher rank such as the order ("hymenopteran" or "wasps, bees, and sawflies"). I'll study this. The common names are inconsistent and inexact, but it's worth something to have them in the article.
  • It doesn't seem like it, but adding something like "spider" to an article like Mangora passiva is a not a simple problem, if it has to work across all arthropods. It's definitely worth looking at, though, and should be possible.
Thank you for the comments and ideas -- they are very helpful! Bob Webster (Qbugbot) (talk) 04:01, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
One other note: The reason stonefly was not a link in Isoperla richardsoni was because the full common name is "green-winged stonefly", and, to quote an old IBM manual, "the results are unpredictable" when the bot links to partial common names (such as rhinoceros beetle). About a quarter of the common names have pertinent wikilinks. Bob Webster (Qbugbot) (talk) 04:49, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks you, Bob. I appreciate the complexities of some of these issues, even if not how to solve them! I am, or course, only trying to be constructively critical now so as to help iron out any issues before wider roll out. One other thought - have you considered categorising each batch of bot-created articles in sub-categories after each upgrade to the programme? Reviewers could have a time period to check and report back on just that sub-batch before you then merge them all back into one master category. As you create more articles, it will get harder to determine at which stage in the process they had been created. I found this list a useful route in. So, another way would be to post dates of updates to the bot's operation, listing how each version has been modified and the no. of articles created in that run. Then, all folk like me would need to do is look for articles before or after any given date to check just those.
Regading references, do please check for online versions for all publications now, before you roll out - especially the main ones. If you need help with that, why not post a list of every one of them (or just those used more than, say, 10 times) and invite the relevant WikiProjects to help update them for you? All you'd then need to do would be a quick check that each had been done correctly before adding the url to the bot itself? Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 08:49, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I've been keeping a chronological list of bot-created pages here. I'll see if I can find a good way to add URLs or DOIs to the references that don't have them. Right now, there are 1,700 without URL, DOI, or ISBN. It is much better to have the URL or DOI, but it's not too difficult for a reader to Google the title and get the link. Bob Webster (Qbugbot) (talk) 14:41, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Trichodesma

Trichodesma pulchella has an incorrect taxobox, attaching it to a plant genus. William Avery (talk) 20:35, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll fix that. Bob Webster (talk) 20:57, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, that was done by the bot and not manually. I also made that mistake today manually. Bob Webster (talk) 21:00, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Digger-cuckoo bee typo

There seems to have been a problem with "digger-cuckoo bee" misspelt as "digger-cuckpp bee". Not sure if I caught them all, or this might recur. I have corrected:

William Avery (talk) 08:14, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
Thank you for pointing that out! I found one other occurrence, and corrected it in the database. You're right, it would have recurred several more times. Bob Webster (Qbugbot) (talk) 15:01, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Missing final character from some common names

I notice the final character sometimes gets dropped from common names, but I can find the correct value on BugGuide. I corrected as follows:

William Avery (talk) 08:14, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
Thanks again for the information. I made an error dropping the "s" incorrectly sometimes when converting the common name from plural to singular. There were five other pages with this mistake, and quite a few more would have been created.
I really appreciate your help!
Bob Webster (Qbugbot) (talk) 15:09, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Drosophila ≠ vinegar fly

Your bot is creating Drosophila stubs using the common name vinegar fly. This term is not the consensus term. Where are you drawing the data from? Abductive (reasoning) 04:52, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

The data comes from several places. "Vinegar fly" probably came from ITIS, but I didn't keep track. The common names came from several sources, and there are other places that list vinegar fly as a common name for Drosophilidae. It does look like "fruit fly" is more commonly used, especially recently. "Fruit fly" is used for both Drosophilidae and Tephritidae, as is "small fruit fly", which is rarely used in scientific literature. I'll read some more about it and probably change to "fruit fly". Bob Webster (talk) 07:04, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
To answer your question a little more precisely, there is a list of the data sources at User:Qbugbot/info. Bob Webster (talk) 07:07, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
You can put "fruit fly or vinegar fly" but please don't hyperlink vinegar fly. That leads to Drosophila melanogaster but even if that were changed, the hyperlink gives "vinegar fly" an imprimatur of legitimacy that it doesn't deserve. Abductive (reasoning) 17:42, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Zookeys / Cladistics journal fix

See [1]. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:28, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, that's fixed in the database now. I didn't find any other pages online with these mistakes -- please let me know if you see any. Bob Webster (talk) 04:32, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
@Edibobb: Is there a way that the database can be opened up/reviewed? Because I'm fixing a lot of such errors after the fact, and it would be nice to review things before the edits are made. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:11, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
Another one [2]. And another one [3].Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:14, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
Thanks! Bob Webster (talk) 15:37, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
@Edibobb: is the database available for review somewhere? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:55, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
Here's a copy. It's a tab-separated file. Let me know if you have any questions. (You'll probably notice that I didn't spend a lot of time on the data design.) I would definitely appreciate any corrections, improvements, etc. in the content. Bob Webster (talk) 19:21, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
(Somehow I missed your first request for the database, or you would have had it a couple of days ago.) Bob Webster (talk) 19:24, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
I'm currently making a series of improvement to the database. Can I delete duplicate entries, or would that cause you some headaches?Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:27, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
Most of the duplicate entries have different taxon fields. If the taxon fields are the same it's no problem to delete duplicates. Bob Webster (talk) 23:17, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
(I realize I deserve the lecture that redundant data causes data inconsistency. I was lazy.) Bob Webster (talk) 23:22, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
OK, just checking. You could also combine the taxon field as " - synonym of Chironomus plumosus"... but I'll leave it as is for now. I've added a few new fields (hdl/hdlaccess/pmid/pmc) to faciliate linking. I'd say I'm about 75% done with cleanup. I'll have a summary of changes when I post the new file. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:21, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
I appreciate the help! Leaving multiple taxa in the same field would cause a pretty big performance hit, the way things are organized. I suppose that's not extremely important, though, since the bot spends most of its time waiting for the 10 second edit limit to roll around. Bob Webster (talk) 03:24, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

chimney bee ?

Please explain.Xx236 (talk) 06:58, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

It refers to the turrets or "chimneys" around the holes in the ground for their nests. Bob Webster (talk) 14:42, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
Thank you, but I believe that Chimney bee would be useful.
Bristle fly ?Xx236 (talk) 11:38, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Reference error

Hi, there appears to be a problem with the reference xcit1 on articles created by the BOT. The |url= parameter has a second "url=" which breaks the cite. See Xenodusa as an example of problem. Keith D (talk) 10:59, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

I've got that fixed now. Thank you! Bob Webster (talk) 16:48, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Underlinking

FYI, the stubs created by Qbugbot have been mass tagged by JCW-CleanerBot with {{Underlinked}} (e.g. [4]). Kaldari (talk) 18:20, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Database update

Here's an update, I'm not done, but it's a massive update that cleans up a crap ton of errors, and adds a lot of information, with new fields.

I've added and re-ordered several fields, but tried to keep the same format (tab delimited text file) and things should be self-explanatory. If you could re-code the bot to update old citations based on the new info, that would be great.

Also, I added/normalized a lot of ISSN infos, but it would be best if the bot simply omitted those from citations, since it's mostly clutter and ISSNs should really only be added when the journal is unclear (e.g. some obscure out of print Czech journal). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:58, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

That sounds outstanding! I know it's a LOT of work. However, it looks like the download link is for the original file, unless I did something wrong. Bob Webster (talk) 15:24, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
You're right, that's the old file. I'll re-upload. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:31, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
That one should work. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:40, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks again for the help. I hope to do an editing run with the bot to make fixes and updates to the articles it created. I should be able to update most or all of these references then Bob Webster (talk) 03:32, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
I'll keep updating the database with new links and new corrections/updates, I'll send you updated files whenever I have something substantial. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:26, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Spider articles

I notice that in the spider articles the bot creates you don't add "Category:Spiders described in YEAR", although I assume this can be automated. It would be helpful if the bot could do this. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:03, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

The bot is finished creating articles for now. I plan to request bot authorization to scan all the articles to make fixes and updates after waiting a little while for suggestions and criticism. I think those categories could be added then. The bot doesn't add any of the yearly categories at the moment. Is there a list of the categories somewhere that should be supported in addition to spiders?
I don't think there's a single list at present, but maybe there will be when the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Request for comment: categorizing by year of formal description has concluded. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:31, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
On a separate matter, I thought I'd mention that it would be pretty easy for the bot to go through and create taxonomy templates using just about any available taxa database, if that would be beneficial. It might make it easier for people to use automatic taxobox, but I don't know enough about it to know whether it's a good idea. Bob Webster (talk) 03:27, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
There is a copyright issue, that's currently being discussed at Wikidata: most taxonomic databases are covered by copyright. This is generally held not to prevent using separate items of information, if referenced, but the entire organization and arrangement of data is covered by the copyright attached to the database. So it's doubtful if we should do this, even if it were appropriate. If it were, it would work for some groups (e.g. spiders, where there's really only one taxonomic database), but not for others, where opinions differ and the classifications encoded in the databases differ, or are consistent within a taxonomic group but not between taxonomic groups. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:31, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
From as far as I know World Register of Marine Species and Encyclopedia of Life are covered by our policy because they have Creative Commons logo. BugGuide have no copyrights but does have something mentioned on its terms of use page. ITIS and GBIF have none, but Catalogue of Life does. Either way, read my comment below regarding why its problematic (and its not copyrights).--Biografer (talk) 18:47, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Synonymous spider articles

Mecaphesa celer seems to be the same thing as Misumenops celer. To be honest I'm surprised there haven't been more such collisions. William Avery (talk) 18:32, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

I've run across a few collisions like that, and I'd guess we'll find a few more. It looks like this one should be under Mecaphesa rather than Misumenops. Thanks!
Another source of duplicate content is with genus disambiguation links that don't agree (such as Acinaces (beetle) and Acinaces (insect)). I've accumulated list of about 1700 disambiguation links for genera that are either in use or could be used. I may organize the list and post it on a talk page if it looks like people can use it, assuming there's not already an official list. Bob Webster (talk) 19:37, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
Only the World Spider Catalog should be used as a source of spider names. It's the recognized authoritative database, and using only one database as a source ensures that synonyms don't get their own articles. Merging names from multiple taxonomic database is always problematic. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:08, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
I believe the new bot articles are in sync with the World Spider Catalog now. The taxa listings will be changed to reflect the World Spider Catalog.
I noticed the Amphinectidae was moved to Desidae in WSC, but I'm a little hesitant to make that change here because I'm liable to really mess things up. I'll leave it to someone a bit more knowledgeable.
Yes, I saw this too. It's quite a major task to fix all the articles; it's on my to-do list. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:03, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
Moreover, folks, the bot mass produces articles which contain primary sources. Such sources already exist in a taxon identifier in various articles such as in this one: Mecaphesa celer. What's the point of duplicating Catalogue of Life, GBIF, ITIS and BugGuide (considering that they are not reliable) and using them as citations while journals are being sent into further reading section? Adding to it, the completely bizarre data sources x = x and so on, which don't help our readers. Taxon identifiers do help editors and readers, and is considered to be ideal in my opinion. This however is a no-no.--Biografer (talk) 18:31, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
The reason I use more than one reference for the taxa is because they're not always the same. There would be no point otherwise. A reader can see when some of the data sources are missing, or when they're all in agreement. It is incorrect to remove them all, claiming they're unreliable. For example, Tree of Life project states "The Catalogue of Life is the most comprehensive and authoritative global index of species currently available." It also includes the other references in a list of taxonomic resources.
The x = x you find bizarre and useless is an efficient way to see which data sources include which taxa. This is valuable to me as a reader, especially in cases where there is no single, authoritive, up-to-date catalog available. It highlights (by absence of data sources) questionable taxa from questionable sources, such as Joel Hallan's Biology Catalog, referenced more than 2,000 times in en.Wikipedia.org.
There have been dozens recommendations, many conflicting, on the configuration, content, and placement of references by the bot. The bot used to put the primary journal sources under references, but when a page was unreviewed for having a general reference that was not directly used in the text, I moved them to "further reading".
That's ironic, because now you are removing the references that were used directly in the text. For example, in Carabus finitimus the distribution range of North America came directly from ITIS, but you removed the ITIS reference as unreliable. The other references, before you deleted them, indicated that Carabus finitimus was included in their catalog. Now the reader has no idea where it came from. Bob Webster (talk) 05:11, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
If you look at this version of Cyclocosmia, the refs given for the placement in the family Ctenizidae aren't consistent. Only the World Spider Catalog appears to have been updated to the new and well-supported placement in Halonoproctidae. I'm surprised that the bot didn't check that the sources are consistent. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:14, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
That article was created on May 2. World Spider Catalog was updated with the new family on May 9. Bugguide was apparently updated today. Bob Webster (talk) 20:02, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
Ah, right, sorry; I didn't notice that. There have been so many changes in the families of spiders in the last two years. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:00, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
Even so, it's a good point. With spiders I'm currently giving World Spider Catalog preference, but in other areas it's a pretty arbitrary selection of ancestry in the prose when the references are in disagreement. I should add a sentence clarifying this. Bob Webster (talk) 15:57, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
@Edibobb: The reader knows exactly where it came from. Every taxonbar will direct him to the same thing. iNaturalist have a map, BugGuide lists the states that it is found in, ITIS lists it as continental USA (better distribution description) and North America, EoL directs our readers straight to iNaturalist and ITIS articles if they want too. Why create citation overkills? as for moving them to further reading section.. Really? This section reserved for books and journals. You can add them to external links section, but again, if they are mentioned in taxonbar why bother?--Biografer (talk) 22:38, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Biografer

Biografer has been removing your references to new articles, writing in edit summaries "Those refs are not reliable" (e.g., [5], [6], [7], among others), in addition to removing the category Category:Articles created by Qbugbot. I don't know why they think this/are doing this, but I figured you'd want a heads up that this is happening to your articles. Umimmak (talk) 06:21, 15 May 2018 (UTC) Addendum: I now see Biografer has commented above in this talk page so this is probably redundant.... 06:25, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen that and responded to Biografer's post. Hopefully those edits be reverted, but I don't think I should be the one to get involved in an undo contest. There are hundreds of thousands of Wikipedia articles using these references in addition to those made by Qbugbot, so Biografer will be busy if he's going to eradicate all of them.
I had not noticed the category is being removed, too. It's not a big a deal, but it's clearly counterproductive. I put that in because it was requested as a way to keep track of the bot-created articles. It's almost funny that someone would go through the trouble to remove it.
Thanks for the information. Bob Webster (talk) 15:48, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
No need to revert, they are maybe reliable, but why creating a duplicate of them? They are already in Taxonbar. Anybody who wonts to verify it, will need to just click on the taxon. Am I not getting something? Not to mention, the bot is creating citation overkill.--Biografer (talk) 22:15, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
The Taxonbar isn't a reference and by removing the references you're creating unreferenced articles. The inline citations allow people to know what text in the article corresponds to what sources. Removing the footnotes makes it harder for someone to know what was used for a taxon's distribution or taxonomic placement or whatever. And there's no reason to remove the Category:Articles created by Qbugbot as it helps keep track of the articles. Umimmak (talk) 22:35, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
@Umimmak: And by keeping them we are telling our users that its OK to use a third party unreable source as a reference. At least remove taxonbar then since its purpose is redundant. For example here. We have one sentence with four references, yes four! Why do we need four external link references???? We as Wikipedians should use journals and books for it not a third party collection of might-be-reliable sources. Maybe you want to add Biolib.cz and Zipcode Zoo to taxonbar too, as another collection of same junk that GBIF and EoL uses?--Biografer (talk) 22:56, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
I don't know what you mean about it being "unreadable" but if it's what was used to write an article, it should be referenced. The taxonbar isn't redundant; it links to a variety of taxonomic databases which may or may not have been used as references within the article. If you want to improve an article, find better references and use them to expand the article; don't remove the references to what was actually used. Umimmak (talk) 22:57, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
@Umimmak: That is exactly what I did with them. Isn't further reading section is a substitute for such a thing?--Biografer (talk) 23:04, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
What do you mean that's what you did? The examples I provided above (e.g., Carabus maeander) just have you removing the inline citations and the category making the articles unreferenced and leaving it unclear what was actually used for the information therein. Umimmak (talk) 23:07, 15 May 2018 (UTC):
@Umimmak: This is what I tried to do: Carabus maeander. I think all this journals cover more ground then all of the GBIF and other shit-sites that provide bare bones to out readers (that is the core reason why I removed them in the first place).--Biografer (talk) 00:40, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
Well, now you've gone and added additional references which meet your standards -- well after you removed the others. Do you plan to go back and add refs to all the other articles you've made citationless? It should also be noted that one of the references you added (Obydov 2010) says something different from the article where it is cited w.r.t. subspecies. Blindly changing or removing references is not helpful when it interferes with text-source WP:INTEGRITY. Umimmak (talk) 01:33, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

@Biografer: This bot and its operation were discussed in detail in February and March in the Village Pump, and a consensus was reached for its current status, including the content of the articles. The use of those references you've been deleting was reached by consensus in the Tree of Life. Suggestions and constructive criticism are welcome. Wholesale deletion of the references in articles is not so helpful. Bob Webster (talk) 01:13, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Fine, then I will replace this crap with something better. I wasn't invited for the discussion when you had that consensus thingy deciding to give it a go. :(--Biografer (talk) 01:26, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
Did you even attempt to start a discussion / gain consensus before making changes en masse like removing the Qbugbot category or making articles citationless? Umimmak (talk) 01:36, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
@Umimmak: And I need to assume it will be a looooooooooong process... I'm not blindly changing references, I change them for a reason. And yes, I will add citations to the ones which became citationless. :) Peace? And where exactly do I do this proposition of this change?--Biografer (talk) 02:14, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
Seeing as it's Bob Webster's bot I suppose here works, at least to start. And if you have such a problem about using EoL or whatever as references, then perhaps the Tree of Life wikiproject as mentioned/linked above. Umimmak (talk) 02:30, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
@Umimmak: OK. Lets talk here and see where it will go, but the more I will indulge into answering the less chances neither of us will accomplish anything. Its a loose-loose for both parties. PS: I already fixed Nebria gregaria, Agonum harrisii and Agonum lutulentum. One ref all it takes to prove to the reader what he is reading about. One, single ref! We don't need 4 refs for 2 sentences do we?--Biografer (talk) 03:36, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

@Biografer:Good! Constructive help is good. The reason there were four references for two lines is so people could know that the taxon is listed in all four references, lending some credibility (or lack of it, if it is not found in some references). There are many taxa with questionable backgrounds. I also understand the argument that these are not all necessary. Either way, it is necessary in Wikipedia for information to be backed up with references, so it is a Wikipedia requirement to leave or add enough references so that all the information in the article is supported.

Regarding Nebria gregaria, it's definitely an improvement to narrow down the distribution range as you did. It might be a good idea to make it clear that the Aleutian Islands are part of Alaska, and Alaska is part of the United States, rather than three separate places. Nebria gregaria is endemic to the Aleutian Islands but is also found along the south coast of Alaska, down the panhandle toward Ketchikan. While there have been questionable occurrence records in British Columbia, it is found exclusively or almost so along the Aleutians and south Alaskan coast. It might also be worth it to mention that Nebria gregaria cannot fly, which is a little uncommon for beetles. Another improvement would be to add a photo or two. There are a some available under Creative Commons license on Bold Systems and a few other places on the internet. I think it's interesting that these beetles prefer cold, rocky areas, and are found on beaches as well as in the mountains but not in the grasslands as you might expect. Fischer von Waldheim described this species in 1820 when Russia owned Alaska. He made a lot of other discoveries there, including insects, mammals, and other animals. That must be an interesting story.

I think it will help these pages immensely to add information like this, if you have the time and inclination. That should be much more significant and rewarding than debating the number of references. Bob Webster (talk) 04:27, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

FWIW, I agree that Encyclopedia of Life isn't a reliable source for taxonomy (and isn't included in the Tree of Life sources list), but I haven't seen Qbugbot using EoL. Kaldari (talk) 17:34, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
@Kaldari: It has. See e.g. Euclea incisa. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 04:52, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Uncollapsed references

Any chance the bot could collapse the reference templates it uses? It's not such a big deal when it's one or two references, but when there's for example half a dozen refs and another half a dozen "further reading" cite templates written in one-parameter-one-line style, you get stuff like Euclea incisa, where everything above the References section, taxobox and blank lines included, takes up a mere eleven lines, whereas everything from "==References==" downwards up to and including the taxonbar takes up 97(!) lines. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 04:51, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Line space isn't an issue, and it makes the reference much, much easier to review and edit. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:32, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Shining leaf chafers

First off, I love your bot! Such a great idea. I did notice that a lot of stubs were created linking to shining leaf chafer which was a redirect at the time to Anomala binotata. I've since changed the redirect to Rutelinae because another user objected to it being to a disambig page due to all the incoming links. Do you know of a quick way to fix this? Mvolz (talk) 07:26, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

I think the problem is that "shining leaf chafer" is used as a common name for this species AND for members of the subfamily in general. I put in a sentence explaining this that will hopefully clarify, and left the link pointing to the subfamily (and bypassed the redirect). The name "Shining Leaf Chafer" is no longer commonly used for the species. I think it would be confusing to make a disambiguation page for the common name, or to mention it in the subfamily page. That's just my opinion, though.
I also changed the links to "shining leaf chafer" to bypass the redirect and go directly to Rutelinae, so if anybody wants to change the redirect to a different target it won't affect all the other pages.
Bob Webster (talk) 15:45, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Too much "further reading"

Hi Bob, thanks for Qbugbot! It's great to have more articles about arthropods. My main critique: most Qbugbot pages have a long list of "Further reading" that often doesn't contain any mention of the article subject, or if it does, it might only be as an inclusion in an inventory list ("list of taxa X of location Y"). The reading may only pertain to other species within the parent taxon (e.g. a few journal articles on other Trechinae spp. for Bembidion scudderi). I have only come across a few cases where the further reading entries were actually helpful or "further" reading. More often than not it is actively unhelpful as it leads the reader to believe there is a plethora of information about what is usually an obscure taxon, which then leads them on a wild goose chase for non-existent information.

I looked into some of the past discussion around this bot and this issue was raised a few times by different people. You did mention it had been tweaked some for improvements, but I am seeing issues on the later-created articles too. Is there any way to systematically get the further reading removed, especially from the species pages? Perhaps all further reading added by Qbugbot that doesn't explicitly include the article name in the reference title? Thanks, Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 19:20, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the input! I agree. My original thought with all the further reading references was to make it easier for people to add to the article, but now I tend to agree that it's more of a distraction than a benefit.

I'm planning a new "round" with qBugBot, which includes making some improvements to pages created by the bot. I should be able to remove the general "further reading" items, although I am partial to Le Conte's 1861 piece. (I'm mostly joking. Maybe that could be reserved for subfamily and above.) I also think it would be good to remove Encyclopedia of Life references. I'm thinking about dumping the entire "Further reading" section for species, but would hate to do that if someone else has added to it.

Some other items in my "fix list":
  • Clean up some of the common names.
  • Improve distribution range wording for spiders.
  • Add links, doi, and isbn to some references.
  • Insert and update IUCN status in infoboxes where necessary.
  • Change or add categories to some articles.
I also would like to make some pages to replace "recursive redirect" pages, such as about 600 genera in Tachinidae (Formosia, for example), and new pages for some of the bugs with decent photos in commons.
I was hoping to start this fall on these, but now it looks like it will be January before I get to it. Please let me know if you have any other suggestions.
Bob Webster (talk) 20:33, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
Woohoo! Many thanks. Looking forward to updates and will keep an eye out for other potential improvements. —Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 20:43, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Dolichopodainae

Hello - I am a fan of bot generated pages, but I have come across another example of why they must be labelled as 'stubs' and then 'curated' if possible. Yesterday, I transferred most of the contents of this page to tribe Hadenoecini (in another subfamily) ... some authorities placed this in its own subfamily, but I am not sure how it ended up in the Dolichopodainae: which contains a single European/Asian genus.Roy Bateman (talk) 07:41, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for taking care of that. It ended up in Dolichopodinae because of old data -- in Hubble (1978) Dolichopodinae was made up of the tribes Dolichopodini (European genus Dolichopoda) and Hadenoecini (North American genera Hadenoecus and Euhadenoecus). To make matters worse, I omitted the genus Dolichopoda from Dolichopodinae. I'll try to check the other Orthoptera subfamilies and tribes against Orthoptera Species File. Thanks again! Bob Webster (talk) 21:47, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Underlinked template

Hello. I've been poking away at fixing the (giant) list of articles flagged with the {{Underlinked}} template (Category:All articles with too few wikilinks). I ran across Campodea barnardi, thought it was very well-linked, and removed the underlinked template. I started working my way though other Campodea articles before I realized that these articles were created by a bot, that AWB was used to assign the template, and that in spite of my good intentions I might have screwed up your cool project.

Can you tell me why you assigned the {{Underlinked}} template? What links did you think were missing? I'll undo my work if need be. I can see that there are thousands of Qbugbot articles with this template, so manually editing them is an insane proposition.

Thanks!

Jenniferz (talk) 00:08, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Jenniferz, Qbugbot did not add the template. Another bot did. — Ganeshk (talk) 02:17, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
Hi,
There is abolutely nothing wrong with your work. I am happy to see those underlinked tags removed. They come from the bot AWB.
The default settings of AWB cause the underlinked tag to be added to most stub articles that use a Speciesbox template. This is because the links inside the Speciesbox are not considered by AWB when determining whether an article is above the link threshold. I believe this should be fixed, because AWB will not flag an article, identical in appearance, that uses a Taxobox template instead of a Speciesbox. I left a bug report on the AWB page, and they made a change, but AWB still leaves the underlinked tags on stub articles that use Speciesbox (and Automatic Taxobox). So, whenever anybody uses AWB to make an unrelated change to one of the qBugbot stub articles, it will likely leave behind an underlinked tag. If they fix this problem, I can remove the thousands of underlink tags using the qBugbot. Until then, it's pretty much a waste of time because AWB will replace the underlinked tags removed by qBugbot.
The articles made by qBugbot are open for editing, and I appreciate and encourage any improvement you and others can make. Thank you! There's no way you're likely to screw up the project.
Bob Webster (talk) 06:30, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

[[Category:Arthropods]]

"in the family of beetles known as"

I would like to suggest that "in the family of beetles known as x" is excessively wordy and informal, and should be changed to something like "in the beetle family x". WolfmanSF (talk) 09:43, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

I agree. I made that change in the bot. Thanks for the input! Bob Webster (talk) 17:29, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Journal of the Kentucky Academy of Sciences

A lot of references have 'Journal of the Kentucky Academy of Sciences'. It should be 'Journal of the Kentucky Academy of Science' (no s). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:26, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll fix that in future pages and tentatively in the existing ones. Bob Webster (talk) 17:31, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

NRC 43253 and others

See [8]. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:49, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

These have been corrected. Bob Webster (talk) 22:57, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Please don't use BugGuide as a reference

BugGuide is a user-generated, tertiary source that is geographically biased (only North America), lacks discreet publication dates, and may be prone to other errors. As such, it is not a reliable source, and should largely not be used for taxonomic information: the information in BugGuide pages can almost always be found in more reliable sources: use them instead. --Animalparty! (talk) 20:47, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I have stopped using Bugguide.net as a general reference for taxonomic information, as has been done in the past. I think using a Bugguide info page on a specific organism should be OK, because (1) the info pages in Bugguide are not user-generated -- only approved editors who are generally experts (and often prominent experts) are allowed to create or modify these pages, (2) the info pages are generally supported by adequate citations, (3) the info pages include dates of creation and last update, as well as the name of the creator and any subsequent contributors.
In a related topic, ITIS and Bugguide are both geographically biased. Since GBIF and Catalogue of Life don't support minor ranks, some of the pages created by qbugbot for Subfamily, Tribe, etc., are missing members outside North America. I plan to remedy this with qbugbot (after a few other runs) for those taxa with reliable "speciesfile.org" sites: (Aphidomorpha, Blattodea, Chrysididae, Coleorrhyncha, Coreoidea, Dermaptera, Embioptera, Grylloblattodea, Lygaeoidea, Mantodea, Mantophasmatodea, orthoptera, Phasmida, Plecoptera, Psocodea, Sternorrhyncha, and Zoraptera). Others will be handled on a case-by-case basis. Bob Webster (Qbugbot) (talk) 04:35, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
@Qbugbot and Edibobb:, see WP:BOTACC, last paragraph. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:27, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that out. I'll avoid that in the future. Bob Webster (talk) 17:45, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Ampersands in authorities' name lists

I've edited a bunch of pages like this for Hyperepia jugifera. In those, an authority was listed in the form "Barnes and Lindsey, 1922" and I've changed it to "Barnes & Lindsey, 1922", substituting an ampersand ("&") for the word "and". The ampersand is standard in that use. To me it mostly makes it hard to make semi-automated edits linking their names. I hope that helps in future runs of Qbugbot. Keep up the good work. SchreiberBike | ⌨  02:57, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the information! I'll make sure that's changed in qbugbot. Bob Webster (talk) 03:48, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Qbugbot 3

Qbugbot 3 is an operation of the Qbugbot to scan and upgrade pages previously made by the bot. The Qbugbot 3 Request for Approval has a detailed description.

Qbugbot 3 has finished

  • 16,154 pages were updated.
  • 1,973 pages were examined but not updated, because of previous page edits or because an update would not have changed the page.
  • No significant problems were encountered.

Bob Webster (talk) 21:48, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Questionable creation

This template was created with what appears to be an incorrect value for |parent=. I could be wrong. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:15, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing that out! I linked to a missing subfamily template. I've fixed that, and I'll check the others and figure out how to catch it in the future. Bob Webster (talk) 05:17, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

image requests?

I noticed the bot's fired up again. Good to see. I do have a note though: many of the new articles lack images, which is understandable, but they should have |needs-image=yes added to the {{WikiProject Arthropods}} or other template so that one can be found for them. I thought this was done in earlier runs, but maybe I'm misremembering. --Nessie (📥) 22:31, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I'll add that back in. I think it's a good idea, and it used to be there in the past. If I remember right, someone requested that it be removed, so I did. Bob Webster (talk) 23:28, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Fossil taxa

As a note, Wikiproject:Palaeontology guidelines are that individual fossil species in a fossil genus should be redirected to the genus article and discussed there. E.G. Palaeovespa. Qbugbot just recreated an article for Eotapinoma gracilis which had been correctly redirected to Eotapinoma beforehand.--Kevmin § 22:45, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the information -- I didn't realize that. I'll correct the ones I've done and stop this in the future. Unless I hear differently, I'll remove links to self-redirects in the fossil genus articles. Bob Webster (talk) 23:25, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks a bunch and keep up the awesome work!--Kevmin § 06:04, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Malfunctioning

@Edibobb: please take a look at

The bot replaced working redirects with redirects to red links. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 07:18, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I'll fix these and check the logs for other cases of the same thing. This occurs when the bot creates a monotypic article above the genus level, when the genus article does not exist. These pages are supposed to redirect to the genus article, and that's what they do. However, I neglected to make sure the genus article exists. In cases like this, I'll add the genus article, if possible, and redirect to it. If it's not possible to make a genus stub, I'll remove the link in the parent to the self-redirect. Bob Webster (talk) 18:54, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

ZooKeys DOI / PMID issue on 1118 pages

Hi, there is a reference issue on some 1118 pages that I've come across as part of some journal citation data checking. Taking Trichordestra_rugosa as one of the examples, there is a reference to ZooKeys / Lafontaine / 2015 including PMID 26692790, and also ZooKeys / Lafontaine / 2010 with the same PMID again. The PMID (and its corresponding PMC) are for the 2015 paper / doi:10.3897/zookeys.527.6151. On that article it was your bot's August 2019 edit that introduced the issue. I assume, but haven't checked, that the other 1117 articles with this problem are also from your bot's edits as by name they appear to be butterfly/insect articles. Would you be able to go through and edit again to remove the incorrect PMID and PMC from the 2010 cite (the 2010 cite does nto appear to be in pubmed at all), or should I go ahead and bulk correct these myself? Thanks Rjwilmsi 12:50, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that! I can fix the existing articles with the bot, and I'll make the correction for future articles immediately. (It may take a little while to get through the bot approval process to correct the existing articles.) Bob Webster (talk) 19:02, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Flies wp

This project is new, but WikiProject Diptera is a thing. I think they’d appreciate including {{WikiProject Diptera}} on the relevant talk pages. Otherwise, keep up the good work. --Nessie (📥) 14:29, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll use that project template on future diptera articles, and I can add it to existing qBugbot articles with the bot. (It may take a little while to get through the bot approval process for the existing articles.) Bob Webster (talk) 19:13, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
Talk page tagging approval is typically a lot quicker, since there's been dozens of bots approved for that, and everyone sort of knows what should and shouldn't be done with tagging runs (Wikipedia:Talk_page_layout#Lead_(bannerspace) #9). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:04, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Qbugbot 4

Qbugbot 4 will replace the redirect pages used in arthropod self-redirect links with new Wikipedia articles. The Qbugbot 4 Request for Approval has a detailed description.

Pages containing self-redirect links

Modifications made in Qbugbot 4 trial run

Complete!

The Qbugbot 4 task is complete, and manual review is in progress. No major problems. Bob Webster (talk) 01:04, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

GBIF sourced articles and statements of monotypy

Treatia and Cryptoseius have multiple described species, contrary to "There is one described species in Cryptoseius, C. khayyami". GBIF lists only one species in these genera, but GBIF is not necessarily complete. I think you had used some phrasing that didn't imply a comprehensive list of species in a genus when you were creating articles referencing ITIS or Bugguide (which are also not necessarily complete).

GBIF isn't reliable for complete lists of species in a genus. I'm a little concerned about it's reliability in general when it is the only source given for a Qbugbot taxon article. GBIF has previously included misspelled taxon names scraped from Wikipedia. GBIF aggregates data from other sources with little quality control (it has previously included misspelled taxon names scraped from Wikipedia). I don't think I've raised my concerns about GBIF with you before, but I was under the impression you wouldn't be using GBIF as the sole source for an article ("I don't plan to add articles for all entries in GBIF.").

Taxon self redirects are awful, and I fully support turning them into articles in principle. However, I'm not sure that GBIF alone is a source of sufficient quality to support an article. Plantdrew (talk) 03:31, 5 February 2020 (UTC) 

I

GBIF is really screwing up Morinda angustifolia. Not sure how plant species in Morinda L. ended up with Morinda Emelyanov, 1972 as the parent. Plantdrew (talk) 04:01, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Those are good points. I'll scan the bot articles for cases of GBIF only, and change the wording in those with single species. I'll also check for additional species. I currently have limited internet access for a few weeks, but I'll take care of it as soon as possible.
There are two problems. I did change the wording for monotypic genera, but it wasn't a good idea and I'll change it back. Second, GBIF has added a lot of sources lately and some are less than reliable. I agree that the articles with GBIF as the sole source should be limited or skipped altogether. Bob Webster (talk) 10:36, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Hyperlinks to "0"

Please note [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], and [14]. I'm not sure if those were placeholders in a data file that never got replaced or just a value inserted by the code in the absence of data. Either way, you should change your code to avoid that. These are just the ones I ran into while looking at Archaeognatha, so I don't know if there are similar problems in other entries. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:15, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. I've just requested approval for a bot run that will remove these links. I made an error updating some common names in the database, and that ended up as the invalid links. Thanks again! Bob Webster (talk) 20:40, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Regarding a rather confused book reference

Sorry I didn't notify you about this earlier Bob, but I was hoping you might have been informed by now! I guess that hasn't happened, so I'll just report it myself. Back in September or so last year, Qbugbot went around making this rather confused book reference in some leaf beetle pages (e.g. in this revision):

What's confused about it exactly is that the book "Host Plants of Leaf Beetle Species Occurring in the United States and Canada" seems to have been combined with an unrelated ZooKeys article ("How many genera and species of Galerucinae s. str. do we know? Updated statistics (Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae)") by accident. I would have fixed this myself, but I don't know how widespread this mistake has been made. And it may be better for the bot to fix it anyway possibly? Monster Iestyn (talk) 04:01, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for the slow reply. It looks like there are 200-250 occurrences of that mistake in three leaf beetle families, so it will be a more efficient to use the bot. I plan to submit a request for bot authorization within a week or two that will include this. Thanks for pointing it out! Bob Webster (talk) 03:10, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
I've just requested approval for a bot run that will remove these references. I thought that would be better since it doesn't seem to be available online, and is in the "further reading" rather than references. (There turned out to be 1100 occurrences rather than the 250 I found with a Google search.) Thanks again, Bob Webster (talk) 20:44, 14 March 2020 (UTC).
Thanks, no worries about the delay, almost forgot about the issue again myself. That said, last year or so I think I did manage to get a hold of a PDF of the Host Pants book somehow somewhere, but I can't remember where I got it from anymore (and it probably is legally iffy anyway most likely). Monster Iestyn (talk) 21:38, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Moved a worm from fly categories--now, sources?

There's an article, Nereis sandersi; Qbugbot had something to do with its creation, I think. I found it in Category:Flies and a stub category for the Tachinidae family of flies. Since this creature is not a fly, nor even an insect, but an annelid worm, I moved it to the appropriate categories. The matter that remains, though, which I'm not prepared to deal with, is that one of the two References and both of the "Further Reading" items listed are about those Tachinidae flies. Incidentally, in case you're wondering, I found this while doing a big project. There are several hundred articles created by Qbugbot about species of flies in the family Tachinidae. Most of them had been in the Category Flies; I've been moving them to the category for the family Tachinidae, and as appropriate, adding them to a category for monotypic genera (as I write this, I've gotten through the letter O in the list). Uporządnicki (talk) 17:18, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I've removed those references. There was a bug in the bug bot that caused the incorrect references and category, that has since been fixed. Please let me know if you run across any other weirdities. All those articles were created during a run to replace self-redirect arthropod pages with the appropriate stub articles. I don't anticipate creating any more Tachinidae species stubs, but if I do I'll use that category instead of Diptera. Thanks again! Bob Webster (talk) 18:21, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

What is entroph?

This user appears to behind the most common spelling mistake on Wikipedia, being "entroph". Perhaps it does mean something, but I was unable to find out what. In use it could be an abbreviation for "Entrophospora" or an error for entropy, and neither is applicable. So what should this word be? "dipluran" is a possibility. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:07, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Might this not be a little hyperbole? I'm sure that someone with nothing better to do could find a more common spelling mistake--assuming this "entroph" is a spelling mistake. But I did manage to find things elsewhere. There are a number of things on line that say that a common name for dipluran family Japigidae is "Earwig-like entrophs." And a common name for the dipluran family Campodeidae is "Slender entrophs." Uporządnicki (talk) 15:31, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
Oops. I copied that from Bugguide.net, but I don't see it used anywhere else except on sites that probably did the same thing. I think "earwig-like entroph" should be changed to "forcepstail". I can do that next time I make a run of qBugbot. Bob Webster (talk) 16:57, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
You'll find rather more under entotrophi, entotrophy, and entotroph.Uporządnicki (talk) 17:28, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for responding. Perhaps it was hyperbole, but see the first entry in Wikipedia:Typo_Team/moss#Likely_misspellings_by_frequency_(a-m). We are trying to correct all the common spelling mistakes. I can also make this change using AWB. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:33, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
Well, I'll be! Who'd 'a thunk it? I sure never imagined! Graeme Bartlett, I think I owe you a drink. Uporządnicki (talk) 01:08, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
Maybe I'll get partial credit for consistency? If it's convenient, using AWB might be faster. I'm not sure when the next qBugbot run will be. It's been taking weeks or months to get through the bot approval process, which takes some of the fun out of it. Bob Webster (talk) 00:01, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
I ran AWB and it only took several minutes. so now we need a definition for "forcepstail" for Wikitionary, and possibly a redirect to an article so the link can be blue. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:43, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for taking care of that! I added a mention of "forcepstail" to the articles Japygidae and Phyllocycla. It was already in Aphylla. I'm not sure what the proper construction and linking are for redirects and disambig pages, but a disambig page could be something like this:
Forcepstail may refer to:
  • Japygidae, a family of two-pronged bristletails.
  • Aphylla, genus of dragonflies commonly known as greater forcepstails.
  • Phyllocycla, genus of dragonflies commonly known as lesser forcepstails.
A rough definition is:
  • 1. "Forcepstail" is a common name for Diplura (Two-pronged bristletails) in the families Evalljapygidae, Parajapygidae, and especially Japygidae.
  • 2. "Forcepstail" is a common name for dragonflies in the genera Phyllocycla (lesser forcepstails) and Aphylla (greater forcepstails).
Bob Webster (talk) 15:41, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for that. I have expanded the redirect to a disambiguation, and added wikt:forecepstail for this. It also looks like Wikitionary is missing some insect families. But that would be outside Qbugbot's job. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:00, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
Sorry should have been wikt:forcepstail Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:02, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Wrongly matched authors for synonyms

@Edibobb Looking at this, the bot seems to have alphabetised the synonyms, but at least in this case, the authors were written in the order as in the source, neglecting the performed reordering of the synonyms. Is it possible that there are more instances of this bug? 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 12:51, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Oh no. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 18:22, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
With the assumption that Edibobb is busy with other things, I'm working on a bot to fix this, and hope to bring it to trial this week. — The Earwig (talk) 08:52, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Thanks! I'll be otherwise occupied for a while. Let me know if you don't get to it and I can fix these later in the summer. Bob Webster (talk) 15:31, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Well, "this week" turned into six... such is life. I've filed the BRFA here. — The Earwig (talk) 03:44, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Talk:Strashila

Hello again, any reason Qbugbot did not add {{WikiProject Diptera}}? 1234 kb of .rar files (is this dangerous?) 22:41, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Ah, I see now that the tags on other pages were placed by AnomieBOT. @Anomie, any comments from you then? 1234 kb of .rar files (is this dangerous?) 23:02, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
Qbugbot would now put {{WikiProject Diptera}} on that page, in addition to the paleo template. I would guess that I didn't know about the diptera project when the page was created. Bob Webster (talk) 23:28, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Anasimyia grisescens ( wiki as lejops)

Seems that Anasimyia is the generally accepted genus for this species and think that this article name should be changed accordingly. Skevington has it as Anasimyia. I think that in the article Lejops, grisescens is listed as a species in that genus. Sorry to say I am not up to speed on all the consequences to a name change might be or how to fix them without creating more problems. Thanks in advance for looking in to this. Styrphid Fox (talk) 13:58, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I'll take care of it. I guess the thing to do will be put all the Lejops species except Lejops vittatus into the other genera. Bob Webster (talk) 17:15, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Use of greyed-out superscript for inline refs in "List of X species" articles

Hey – I've noticed that on the "List of X species" articles created by Qbugbot, instead of inline references it creates greyed-out superscript letters, which it places next to entries like this:

* Alluaudomyia abdominalis Wirth & Delfinado, 1964 c g

My concern with this is that these letters might be semantically meaningless for a user using a screenreader, who would have to wait to read to the bottom of the list to see what these letters meant. The <small/> tags don't make text small on mobile, either; I've just finished editing List of Cubaris species to convert these superscript letters to inline references and the html small tags to {{small}}.

(I'm also not sure why Qbugbot wouldn't just use inline references to begin with – if the concern is having a reference section that's three foot thick with "a b c d [...] aaa aab aac", then I'm sure someone's come up with a solution somewhere.)

I'm not sure if these articles are older ones, and if so and things have changed, then please ignore me; however, if not, I felt I needed to bring it up. Thank you for all the hard work your bot has done to create articles on Wikipedia; it's valuable work to have articles to work on at all.—Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 11:31, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments! Those are no longer being added to the articles, and I've been removing them when articles are edited. They're not as relevant now as they were when they were originally created. Bob Webster (talk) 15:51, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
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